Those who hadn’t gathered by the open door surrounded the motor home. A dozen or more stood in front, running their fingers silently over the hood and headlights, caressing and marveling. A few tears dribbled from damaged eyes.
There was nothing to be afraid of here, he decided. Only things that had once been men and women, creatures more deserving of pity than disgust. He wondered what had precipitated the dropping of the Big One on this reality line, prayed the people on his own line could avoid it. The Anarchis’s influence, Mouse had hinted. For the first time he began to really understand what was at stake in all this.
Alicia and Steven and Wendy concerned him more than history. The sooner he got them back and away from this place, the better for their health and sanity. Already the children might have suffered serious psychological damage.
The door closed with a click and Burnfingers rejoined them.
“You were able to understand them?” Mouse asked him.
“All language is a variant of some other. You just have to learn to listen close and pick out the significant parts.” He bent to point through the windshield. “Your woman and children were taken that way. They were not hard for these people to spot. Operative vehicles are as scarce here as clean drinking water. A mutant named Prake and his gang took them.”
“The Anarchis has allies everywhere,” Mouse murmured grimly.
“According to the locals, this Prake is one pretty tough sumbitch. When I told them we had to go after him, they tried to talk me out of it. Civilization may be dead here, but courtesy and humanity survive. There is hope yet for this line.”
“Which way?” was all Frank said.
“Keep going north, then there’s an avenue that angles northwest. Funny how certain things never die. Like street names. Like the Appian Way.” He gestured a second time. “Three quarters of a mile that way, then we turn up Grand. Go all the way to the end of it.”
“Got it.” Frank moved his foot from brake to accelerator. The sorrowful crowd of mutant humanity parted to make way for him. They moaned and gesticulated, trying to dissuade their visitors from going. Our sheer normalcy must be a relief to them, he mused.
Maybe the locals wouldn’t mess with this Prake, but he sure as hell intended to. “Did they actually see Alicia and the kids?”
Burnfingers nodded. “Around here an ordinary human being would attract more attention than this vehicle. They saw them, all right.”
Grand Avenue was a mass of broken, twisted concrete. It took them most of the day to negotiate the tormented pavement. The sun was setting by the time they drew near the section of the city that was dominated by Prake and his followers.
They’d also been slowed by a brief but violent attack by a roving band of unfriendly mutants. During the assault the motor home sustained one cracked window. Saving his precious ammunition, Burnfingers had climbed onto the roof and used Steven’s baseball bat to knock off the attackers one at a time.
When it was over and Burnfingers had rejoined them, Frank asked Mouse why she hadn’t simply sung their assailants away.
“Not everyone or everything responds in the same way to my singing,” she explained. “People, even altered people, are not rat-things or demons.”
“Different approach for different folks.” Burnfingers held a wet washcloth to a bruise over his left eye. The bloody bat lay near the side door. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. You’re not afraid of me, too, are you?”
“I fear anything I cannot understand,” Mouse replied, “because there is so little I do not. You are one of those incomprehensible encounters, Burnfingers Begay. You confuse me, therefore I am wary.”
“I confuse me, too.” He leaned forward. “Whup! Better slow down, Frank.”
“Why? What’s the matter?”
“You’ll see in a minute.”
He did. The cityscape remained unchanged but not the road. Directly ahead, it was submerged beneath a film of scum-laden liquid. No isolated puddle, the water extended between the buildings as far to north and west as they could see, forming a cinnabar mirror that threw back the light of the setting sun.
“I was right,” Burnfingers declared. “The lake has risen even more on this line than on ours. It has invaded the city. It may happen on our line, too, some day soon.” He put his washcloth aside. “This is the old lake coming back to reclaim its territory. Lake Bonneville. After the last Ice Age it covered all of Utah, reached into Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Now it is growing again.”
Frank strained. “Looks pretty shallow here.”
“The whole lake is shallow. Our town friends told me that Prake has himself a makeshift fort out this way, on one of the few high pieces of ground. Used to be a city park, long ago. Now it is an island. That is where we will find your family.”
Frank pressed his face to the window. “Water doesn’t look more than a few inches deep here. Maybe we should try and drive all the way and run over a few of ’em.”
“The depth may change, and there could be submerged potholes full of water. If this part of the city has been underwater for very long, the pavement might have begun to disintegrate. If we get stuck we might never get unstuck. I do not want to be afoot in this land.” Burnfingers looked to his right. “Lady singer, could you drive if you had to?”
Mouse regarded shift lever and pedals distastefully. “I don’t like machines, but under the circumstances all of us have to do that which we do not enjoy.”
“Damn right,” said Frank sharply. “I’ve done plenty for you. Now it’s your turn to help me, and if that means doing a little driving, you can damn well do it.”
She nodded, her reply even. “I guess I damn well can.” Both Burnfingers and Frank grinned. “But if I am to drive, what will you be doing?”
Frank’s grin subsided. “Yeah. What will we be doing?”
“Having a swim, I think, if the water does not get too deep.” Burnfingers gestured at the couch. “These mattresses should float long enough to take us where we want to go. You have a flashlight?”
“Should be several. The outfit that we rented from said this tank was completely stocked.”
Burnfingers regarded the back of the motor home speculatively. “Let us see what else we can find that might prove useful.”
A hundred yards from the motor home the water was barely knee-deep. The two men advanced silently, lying on their bellies on the makeshift raft. Burnfingers had wrapped the three mattresses they’d removed from the master bed in black plastic garbage bags. The plastic provided extra buoyancy while rendering the raft invisible against the dark water.
Frank kicked slowly and steadily, the way Burnfingers had instructed him, easing his feet gently into the water to minimize noise. Occasionally he would kick too hard or they’d coast above a shallow place and a foot would touch bottom.
Hugging the submerged foundations of those structures still standing, they paddled their way toward the firelight that marked the location of Prake’s island. Before long even this limited cover was denied them as they left the last of the buildings behind. Few remained standing by the old shoreline.
Though soaked to the skin, Frank found he wasn’t uncomfortable. The water was almost too warm. Nor was it as salty as he’d anticipated. The mineral content of the inland sea had been heavily diluted by its expansion.
Secured to the raft between Burnfingers and himself was another plastic bag. It held a surprise his resourceful companion had prepared for Prake and his gang. Each man carried knives and a flashlight. In addition, Burnfingers had the holster of his pistol slung across his shoulders.
