There were two other such teams, and two other dog-handlers with canine charges, but all of these had moved on with Big Jon Lamon to the mainly ruined church close by; for Garth had heard people talking, and that was what they had been calling it. And now that he thought about it, he recalled seeing pictures of an ivied, very peaceful looking place—a church, of course—that had looked just like the broken hulk in its overgrown grounds a rubble-heaped block away: pictures in a crumbling old volume in the Southern Refuge’s so-called library. The sole difference being that the one in the book had been complete and had featured a tall spike at the front, something called a steeple.
Garth and his curiosity, his almost unquenchable thirst for knowledge; he had read or at least skimmed through almost every volume the Southern Refuge had to offer…perhaps thirty? And what he’d read had always left him feeling trapped in the world of the refuge. However vast, that subterranean labyrinth, with its two and a half miles of workplaces and galleries, halls and “homes” (little more than one- or two-room caves in fact), still as a child Garth had been familiar with every inch of the veritable warren, roaming free after school hours at least until his Old Man finished his shift in the sorting bays, where the scavs dumped the often precious salvage retrieved from dead towns and hamlets “outside.”
But…that was then and this was now, and right now Garth must concentrate his mind on the present: on this (to him) incredibly huge concrete building they were about to enter.
First Garry Maxwell and his dogs, followed close behind by Ned Singer on one side and Garth on the other, with the remaining members of the squad bringing up the rear. Once inside this place—after the dogs had signaled the all clear, or perhaps not?—they would split up into three two-man teams, when Garth would remain paired with Singer. So perhaps it was as well that Maxwell would stay with them, under Singer’s direction.
The building, for all its size, had just two entrances—or rather, one entrance and one exit: both vastly gaping apertures with weed- and bramble-grown concrete ramps some ten feet wide. The nearest such opening still bore a metal sign swinging overhead on a thread of rusted iron which once was a screw. Most of the white paint had long since flaked from the sign’s centuried legend, whose embossed letters could still be seen to read:
MUNICIPAL CAR PARK
Mainly uneducated and dull-minded even by refuge standards, Ned Singer was muttering darkly to himself as he and Garth followed Maxwell and his dogs in under the sign:
“They used to leave their cars here?” Ned was puzzled. “Why so regimental, when they had a whole world of space? Why didn’t they leave them at home, at their houses? And look: there isn’t a single car in sight! Given facilities like these, didn’t they have sense enough to use them?”
Garth knew he shouldn’t say anything, but did anyway. “This place must have been for the use of people who drove into town. They would park their cars here before going to their places of work…or to carry out whatever tasks they were here for.”
“Really?” Singer sneered. “You know that for a fact then?”
“No, but it seems logical.”
“Then why are there no cars here? Or is that a part of your logic too, ’prentice?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact it is,” Garth answered. “It’s because the bombs fell at night, when the people were at home…”
Singer thought about that for a moment, then muttered, “You and your fucking ‘education!’ A schoolboy, eh? Well I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I attended classes!” He actually seemed proud of that fact.
“Ho lads!” Garry Maxwell yelled out loud to his dogs. “’Ere we goes! And you people back there—guns at the ready, if you please, but for fuck’s sake watch where you’re aimin’ ’em!”
Scowling across at Garth, Singer patted his ugly weapon and said, “The only education a man needed back at the refuge—or at any refuge for that matter—was how to load and fire one of these big fellows. That, and perhaps how to scav for good stuff among all the rubble. Those few things, and how to destroy fly-by-nights and blow them to fucking pieces, is all that was ever needed: the wisdom of my Old Man, who was a scav before me! And he was right. The only thing he got wrong: he thought he was invincible; he ignored his radiation badge’s warnings, went where invisible fires were burning still, till in the end they burned him, too…” Though he talked hard, Singer’s voice was somewhat hushed, growing quieter still as he finished up:
“On the day they buried him—buried my father’s body, and oh so deep—it was still making their radiation counters tick like a roomful of crazy clocks! The hard, heavy-handed old bastard…!”
They were a quarter of the way down the long hall, where on both sides the floor was divided into empty bays whose markings were here and there barely visible under layers of light debris and blown dust. The four members of the other teams paired off, climbing ramps to the higher levels. The place was ominously quiet now, a silence where even the softest footfall was clearly audible, while the snuffling of the dogs straining on their leashes came echoing back from the looming walls like the slobbering of primal beasts…
Behind them the pale dawn light from the entrance was gradually diminishing…ahead, their forward-leaning shadows were dimming with each step that took them deeper into the darkness. “Careful now,” said Ned Singer quietly. “Softly softly catchee monkey!”
“Monkey?” Garth whispered.
“Some old saying I got from my Old Man,” the other replied, yet more quietly. “Said he got it from his father.”
Now, almost halfway down the vast windowless gallery, with the narrow, yellow beams of their torches probing the deepening gloom, the grey, concrete bulk of another up ramp abruptly appeared and blocked the view ahead. In the same moment the hounds commenced to whine and skitter a little, no longer straining on their leashes; and as the team skirted the foot of the ramp and moved toward the utter darkness beyond it, so Maxwell’s charges halted and backed off stiff-legged. Then:
“Whoah, now!” Maxwell’s throaty, quavering warning sounded. “Take a look at my not-so-brave lads here, will you? Tails down, they don’t want to proceed; they’ve sniffed out somethin’ nasty just around this ramp on the dark side. See how they hang back? Oh, they enjoys to track the fly-by-nights, but they also knows when to quit and back off. Well, you may call ’em cowards if you like, but to my way o’ thinkin’ their behaviour says we are the ones that should be scared…and I bloody well am! So now you gents, if you’d care to take over from me and the dogs…” With which he quickly slipped back between Singer and Garth, letting the dogs whimper and whine where they huddled to his long legs.
“Fingers on triggers, but gently!” Singer growled, clipping his torch to the stock of his big weapon. Easing forward, Garth followed suit…but only a moment later somehow found himself in the lead position and first around the corner! Nerves jumping and scarcely breathing—if at all—he jerked his torch’s beam here, there, and everywhere, slicing criss-crossing light paths through the sentient darkness, paths far too fleeting in their passing for Garth to identify anything. But still his eyes were starting out, as he vainly attempted to penetrate the cobwebbed gloom of that awful corner, and his spine tingling as he sensed the almost physical weight of Ned Singer’s presence just a pace or two behind him.
But at last—in only a matter of seconds despite that each second felt like a minute—he began to make out certain shapes and outlines on the floor. A jumble of rubbish: old bedding and other stuff piled in a tangled white heap…and sudden motion! A rat went scurrying…and another! But Garth had squeezed his trigger one split second after seeing or sensing movement—or at least he’d tried to—only to find his action blocked! Like a frightened novice, and unaccustomed with his father’s weapon, he had neglected to release the safety catch! And now, silently cursing himself for an utter fool, he withdrew a trembling finger from the trigger guard, freed the safety catch, and finally…finally began to breathe again, albeit shakily.