“Damn sun is hot.”
Dan had given him a hat with a big brim and a flap of material on the back. His hands, though, were exposed, and all he could hope was that whatever it was that helped his wound heal so quickly made him resistant to sunburn, too.
More words…
“C’mon, Wellspring. Pop up. Let me see you.”
Had to be real, right? Couldn’t be a made-up Oz? Fall asleep during the disaster and wake up in a fantastical land. Follow the yellow brick road.
Any wizards there?
He drove, letting his thoughts drift to the movie. The red shoes and the hidden magic they contained. The flying monkeys. They had given him nightmares as a kid. Real nasty monkeys that could fly.
And the four of them on that hunt for Oz? Good buddies. Allied in their mission. Loyal, true.
Strong values there, he thought.
Watching out for each other.
Good stuff.
And though he was no singer-even on the most drunken of karaoke nights-Raine began, quietly…
“ ‘We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful-’ ”
As if in response, he heard a noise from behind. A sputtering cough from the engine.
“C’mon, wasn’t that bad. You’ve heard-”
The joke dying on his lips as his engine coughed again, now followed by a puff of smoke belched from the front.
And that one cough turned into more, until he felt the wheels halting, the drivetrain slipping. The engine clearly in trouble.
“Christ,” he said.
And he couldn’t do anything as the buggy jerked ahead a few more meters before the engine died and the vehicle rolled to a complete dead stop.
No manual. That was for sure. Not when you had a vehicle that had been cannibalized from a dozen other vehicles.
It was a massive Lego construction, with the only person who really knew how it all worked being the person who made it.
Raine bent over the engine.
The smoking had stopped, but the engine, when switched on, just produced more coughs.
Battery, he thought. They had to be using decades-old batteries, somehow their life prolonged. If he kept playing with the on/off switch, he’d be dead in the water.
Or the desert, as it were.
He had played with broken-down Humvees overseas. He knew the basics. But looking at this crazy quilt of belts and engine parts, with seemingly two carburetors and a handmade drivetrain-he was in way over his head.
He looked up.
Past midday.
He was losing time. And if sitting out here all day didn’t kill him, what the night brought certainly could.
He leaned closer. The drips from his brow fell like rain on the hot engine block.
He saw two rows of spark plugs. Again, they looked handmade.
No Delco plugs here. Refurbished, remade, whatever.
“Okay,” he said to himself. Another few drops of sweat. “Just take your time. It’s an automobile engine. How hard can it be to figure out how it works?”
First thing, he thought, find the fuel line.
Yeah, let’s begin with that.
Thankfully, the buggy did have a few tools in the back.
Nothing terribly useful except a tire iron, a screwdriver, and a chunky hammer better suited for driving two-inch nails into wood. But it was more than he thought he had.
Using the screwdriver, he was able to remove what appeared to be two fan belts. Did they both do the same thing? Why two? Then he saw the fuel line leading into the main engine, on its way up to the rows of handmade spark plugs.
If it was misfiring, it could be that the fuel line was clogged. Shouldn’t be too hard to get that off. Suck out some of the gas. Clear the line.
He wondered if this happened because the fuel they used wasn’t refined petroleum. That maybe it was some low-grade mixture, barely able to burn?
He also wondered if Dan knew that his trip to Wellspring itself could be a 50/50 proposition? Raine knew that staying at the settlement hadn’t been an option… so maybe facing death in the desert was the only way, as bad as it was.
He pushed that thought away.
“Stay focused,” he said.
He had worked on Humvees in the field, sure, but every engine was different. He reached down to the fuel line. It felt wet, slippery. A leak perhaps. Good. If he got that off, if that was the problem, he could get this thing going again.
For a moment he allowed no other possibilities, because this one at least gave him hope.
He heard a sound.
A voice.
Wasn’t me, was his first thought. I didn’t say anything. Not just now.
He looked up from his study of the engine. On the horizon, coming toward him and making a lot of noise, was something.
Wavy, blurry images of something. Noises like words.
Like words…
But clearly not.
He put down the screwdriver. Because he knew he might need both hands free.
Raine ran back to the buggy’s interior. First he picked up the handgun. Stuck it under his belt. Then the rifle. For now, he let the shotgun stay in the back.
Could just be other travelers, he thought, immediately realizing how stupidly optimistic that was-and how this was not a world to be optimistic in.
All he could do was stand there and watch what was in the distance come closer, slowly clarifying into recognizable shapes.
Raine thinking:
Bandits.
Thinking:
Oh fuck.
But as he stood by his buggy, the sun baking him, it only took minutes for him to see that the figures racing toward him weren’t bandits at all.
Fuck.
TWENTY-TWO
They had no vehicles.
Instead, they loped along, a great bunch of them, almost as if they could gallop. And as they did, they made sounds, grunts mostly, and barking noises. Every now and then Raine saw one tilt its head up and give out a howling shriek… seemingly to the blazing sun.
They were still too far away for him to make out details.
But though they had a basic human shape, he could see that their heads looked oversized, eyes way too big in deep-set skulls. Mouths constantly open, grunting. Their arms were extra long, nearly simian.
A line of mutants racing right at him.
Guns, he thought, do these things have guns? Could they shoot?
Because there had to be… how many? Ten… fifteen of them? They were now spreading apart, fanning out into what appeared to be a tactic for them.
But a tactic for what? What did they want-the buggy, this dead buggy? The weapons?
As they came closer, though-to where he could see their mouths more clearly-he realized it wasn’t his possessions they were after.
No. These mutants had moved along on the food chain.
Their interest would only be for the lone stranger stranded in the desert. A gift from above. For them to enjoy.
Raine licked his lips.
Not ever taking his eyes off the line of mutants racing toward him, he reached back inside the buggy without looking. He found one of the water bottles. Brought it to his lips. A big gulp of water. Another. Then, eyes away from the horde for a moment, he put the cap on.
If I survive, I’ll need water.
It registered in his head that he had thought if.
He brought the gun up.
Still out of range, all he could do was wait.
As he kept them in his sights, he knew there was no way he would have enough time to take them all out before they overwhelmed him. His guns just weren’t designed to take on this number of enemies at once.
And then he remembered.
The wingstick! He turned his back on the line of mutants, their sounds an animal braying that filled the air. He went to the back and picked up the stick.
He had barely practiced with it.
But, again, at the rate the mutants were running, even if he shot fast-even if he was amazingly accurate-there would be enough muties left alive to get to him.