“But don’t depend on them too much,” Will warned. “They’re not going to risk their own necks to help strangers. Stay alert. Especially at night.”
Sure, Alec thought, stay alert. We’ll be lucky if we can stay conscious.
“Well...” Russo clambered to his feet. Towering over the prostrate Alec he said, “Good luck. I hope you get through this okay and we can meet again under happier circumstances.”
When we do, we’ll be pointing guns at each other, Alec realized.
The first night wasn’t so bad. Before the Moon rose one of the men thought he saw someone prowling along the street and fired a burst of automatic rifle fire at him. Everyone roused, the sick and the well, but the alarm was over just that quickly. Once the Moon came up and it was fairly bright, the town became absolutely still.
At least, as far as Alec and his men could tell.
The next day it clouded over and by mid-morning began to rain. Alec lay in absolute misery on the floor of the Post Office next to the two trucks that had been trundled inside there. The rain dripped through the broken roof, adding rivulets of soaking water and a chilling, soggy air to the agonies that they all felt.
Ron Jameson was the strong one among them. He was on his feet, moving from building to building, truck to truck, man to man, carrying medicine and discipline and—most important of all—morale. He kept a constant eye on Ferret, as well, but the pinch-faced youth never tried to run out on them, never strayed far from the trucks and the other men. He watched them, eyes darting everywhere, in their miseries.
Hunched over Alec’s makeshift pallet as the rain drummed on the sagging roof and dripped through its shattered sections, Jameson said matter-of-factly:
“I wouldn’t depend on any farmers to warn us of raider bands. From what Russo’s people told me, most of them won’t bother to help us as long as the raiders leave them alone.”
Alec nodded weakly. “I guess that’s so.”
“And the way it’s raining, the raiders could march in here with a brass band and we wouldn’t see or hear a thing until they were right on top of us.”
“How many...” Alec had to take a breath, “...how many men are on their feet?”
“They’re starting to recover. We’ve got seven or eight who’re as good as new, almost.”
“Out of fifteen.”
“The worst is over. I think you got the biggest dose of all.”
Alec smiled wanly. “Good. I wouldn’t want anybody else... to go through this...” He had been vomiting aspirin and antibiotics all day. The cramps and diarrhea were not so bad now, but he was cold and utterly weak. Nothing stayed inside him.
“We’ll make it,” Jameson said, with a grim smile. “Once the Sun comes out again we’ll be okay.”
Alec translated, If we get through tonight we might have a chance.
Alec drifted to sleep. When he awoke, it was dark. Rain pelted the roof of the cab he lay in, but it seemed lighter now, diminishing. Cramps again. He pushed himself up to a sitting position and the nausea washed over him in waves. Dizzy, he grabbed for the truck door handle and half-fell, half-slid to the floor of the Post Office room.
It was wet. The drizzling rain coming through the roof felt almost good on his head and shoulders. Clutching at his midsection, Alec staggered out toward the back door. If any of the men noticed him, they gave no indication of it. He saw no one stir.
He was fumbling with the belt of his pants when the first explosion came.
It lifted him off his feet and slammed him into the muddy ground ten meters from where he’d been standing. The back wall of the Post Office was a sheet of flame and it collapsed in surrealistic slow motion, crumbling in on itself. Sparks and flaming debris soared upward.
Alec rolled over on his back in the ice-cold mud. Gunfire. Men yelling. The high-pitched whine of an electric generator revving up to top speed.
He rolled over onto his stomach, fumbling for his pistol, but couldn’t find it. Four men were running toward him. In the dancing light of the flames he saw that they were armed. Then a truck smashed its front end through a store window across the street. The running men turned to flame as the invisible laser beam hit them. Their clothing burst into fire and they jerked, screaming, hair and flesh ablaze. They fell and the ground bubbled where the invisible laser beam struck. The pencil line of boiling earth marched across the street to where Alec lay, close enough for him to hear the hellish hiss of it as he watched, paralyzed with fear.
Then the beam swung away. More explosions. Another truck started to pull free of a building that was collapsing, but the truck itself blew up, hurling pieces of men and machinery so high into the air that they were lost in shadow.
Alec couldn’t move. He lay there soaked in mud and his own excrement as bullets zinged by, kicking up puffs of mud close enough to splatter his face. One truck seemed to be the only one fighting, and running, cursing men backed away from it, firing as they fell back.
Then another truck trundled slowly around the Post Office building. A dozen raggedly-dressed men charged at it, trying to capture it intact. The laser caught them in the open and they instantly became gibbering torches. More men appeared on the rooftop of the building where the first truck stood, but they must have been Alec’s men, for they sprayed the street with automatic weapons’ fire.
Bullets spanged everywhere and Alec knew he was going to be killed. Then he felt a tug at his ankles. Turning his head, he saw Ferret, lips pulled back over his yellowed teeth, bent over double to drag him through the muddy street over to the side of a building and a modicum of safety. Ferret knelt beside Alec, wincing with every bullet that whizzed near, obviously terrified.
Before Alec could find the strength to say anything, he saw a third truck coming up from the other end of the street. Its laser was silent and a gang of armed men crouched on the mounting platform, behind the armored cab. More men walked stealthily behind it. They’ve captured that one, Alec realized, but they don’t know how to work the laser.
Jameson must have realized the same thing. Alec saw him standing erect alongside the first truck, pointing a straight unflinching arm toward the captured one. The laser generator shrilled and the captured truck was caught in its merciless beam. Men screamed and burned, tires burst and the truck slumped to a halt. Then the beam found the oxygen and hydrogen lines of the fuel cell and the truck fireballed, searing Alec and Ferret with its glaring heat.
Suddenly it all stopped. The truck burned sullenly, the Post Office was a twisted mass of smoking ruins. The shooting ceased. No more shouting. No more movement. The street was littered with bodies.
Christ! They wiped us out and I lay there like a turd.
Alec forced himself up to his hands and knees.
“Okay?” Ferret asked, his voice high with fear. “You okay? Okay?”
“Yes,” he said, still nearly breathless. “I’m all right.”
Two men jumped out from behind the corner of the building, guns levelled at them. Ferret threw his arms over his head and dived for the ground.
“Hey, it’s Alec!” Gianelli’s voice shouted.
“And that Ferret character.”
