“If these things have been here for that long, I wouldn't be surprised. You think it's acid?”
“I don't know, but I bet he does.” She pointed to the skeleton on the ground. Its skin was yellow, preserved in the cold but sallowed by the years.
“Do you want to ask him?”
She picked a red notebook off of a nearby table.
“What is that?”
“A diary. It's in German, but—”
“But you can read it,” he finished.
“Yeah.”
“I knew that privileged upbringing of yours would come in handy.”
“Don't be an asshole. It might tell us something.”
“All right, bring it up. I want to show you something.”
When she had started exploring the basement, she thought he'd be a bit more respectful. There was a past here, a history. It meant something, and not just because The Carrion had claimed them.
She was about to go back up when she remembered one more thing. She picked it up off the ground and slung it over her shoulder, treading more carefully up the ramp. AJ grabbed her at the top and helped her over the final step.
“What is that, a coat?”
“You said you wanted to go all out.”
He held it out in front of him, looked at her uncertainly, then slipped one arm into a sleeve. She helped him with the other, getting the thing all of the way around his shoulders. Somehow, it seemed like it belonged.
“How do I look?”
“Significantly less prole-ish.”
“I don't know what that means.”
“Good. Now what did you want to show me?”
He walked back over to the supply bunker and grabbed one of the rifles off of the ground. “I want to teach you to shoot one of these.”
“Those things? You can't be serious.”
He looked at her, his eyes grim. “If we have any more trouble, we may have to use them. I don't know if I'd trust Gideon with one, but I'd trust you. Will you take it?”
“Do you know how old these are? You don't even know if they'll shoot.”
“They need to be cleaned, that's for sure. But there's some solvent back there, and I found some cloth. I'll need a screwdriver to remove the trigger guard, but I know you have one of those. It can be done.”
It took some time, but eventually, she agreed. They had nothing else to do until Dutch got back. And so, they sat outside in the dirt, AJ working feverishly to get the guns in shape. She caught him stealing glances at her, but she brushed it off, smiling to herself while they worked.
It took them half an hour to finish. When they were done, AJ went back inside and grabbed a few cans of food. She couldn't imagine eating anything that had been stuck in a can for more than half a century, but when he handed one to her, her stomach rumbled audibly. “Will they make us sick?”
“Not if the seals are intact. They've probably lost their Vitamin A and C, but they'll have the same calorie content as when they were packed.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
He opened one with a can opener from his key chain and took a swallow, then smacked his lips distastefully. “Mushy.”
They could only stomach two cans apiece, but it felt good to eat. Kate hadn't realized how hungry she had been.
When they were finished, he took the empty cans and set up a pyramid in the dirt. Then, he showed her everything about a Mauser Karabiner 98 that she could possibly need to know: how to reload, how to hold the butt against her shoulder, how to properly line up the iron sights. She'd shot plenty of pistols, but never a rifle.
When she stepped into place and fired for the first time, her shot went wide by a good two feet.
“Not bad,” he said.
The second shot was a little closer. The third shot was an utter failure, flying high and ricocheting off of a metal door behind the target. They both ducked, hearing the bullet whiz off somewhere into the sky. The fourth shot nicked the topmost can and sent it spiraling to the ground. AJ seemed impressed.
“Pretty good.”
“Pretty good yourself. I didn't know you had it in you to stay in one place and watch someone for more than five minutes.”
He smiled, but it was a painful smile. “I don't know when I started drifting, to tell you the truth. The obvious answer is when my wife left me, but I think it really started earlier, at least mentally.”
“You can't stay in one place.”
“I don't like to, no. Dutch and I have a good thing going in Puerto Aisén, but I don't know if it'll last.”
“You don't want to try settling down again? Starting a family?”
“I don't know. That kind of life… it always seems to happen to somebody else. I tried it once, and I wasn't very good at it.”
“You have to stop some time.”
He aimed his own rifle at the cans. “If it's just the same to you, I'd prefer not to stop today.”
“You know what I mean.”
He lowered the rifle. “I came back for you, didn't I?”
As she looked into his face, his eyes sparkled. She saw the man he could have been, then — the man untarnished by war, by divorce, by years of hard life in the third world. He could have been something else entirely. “Are you hitting on me ex-Security Chief Trenton?”
“No ma'am. I don't hit anything that doesn't hit back.” He raised the gun and fired, sending one of the remaining cans into the air. “Except for those cans, anyways.”
The next few shots were not as accurate, but he hit two more before the magazine expired.
“A little sloppy,” she observed.
“Dutch would have hit them all, but that's Dutch. Anyways, you're the one who needs some work.”
In spite of the terrible stress — maybe because of the terrible stress — she had a sudden devious impulse, and she took it. She leaned into him, putting her hand on his belt, letting her face slip close to his. When he tried to lean into her, she slipped the pistol out of his holster and stepped backwards. He chuckled.
Private lessons at the shooting range were a long ways behind her, but some things you never forget. And even if she couldn't fire a rifle to save her life, she damn well knew how to hold a handgun. She fired three rounds, hitting an overturned can with each shot.
AJ stared. “Huh.”
“We're not so different, Dutch and me. Maybe we'll have a little competition when he gets back.” It wasn't the time to mess with him, but she needed to laugh. Not to mention, Dutch might be more inclined to hurry if he heard the shots. Because the only thing in the back of her mind was how scared she still was, and how much she wanted to get the hell out of this place.
The shots did have an effect, but not on Dutch.
The figures in the hills took them to mean that the two men down at the whaling docks were quite a long ways from their friends. It was the only signal they needed to move in.
3
Dutch threw open the door to the machine shop and coughed, inhaling fumes of rust and old oil. Shafts of gray streamed in from high windows, colored by years of dust and disuse. He and Gideon had been about to give up when they'd found the place, but he had a feeling about it. As soon as he had seen the sliding garage door and the ramp leading out into the ocean, he had known there would be something inside.
When his eyes adjusted, he stopped dead in his tracks. In the middle of the warehouse, suspended perfectly on an elevated ramp, was a ship. It was no whale catcher, but a pre-war fish tugger with a glass bottom and a gasoline-powered motor. No lead acid battery either, but a full on pull-starter with a rope as thick as his thumb. His nautical history was next to nothing, but he would have guessed it was brand new for the time, and he would have been right. He was so surprised that he felt his mouth hanging open. He shut it.