side of the moon. They were filled with pools of foul-smelling water, caked with leaves and garbage and the occasional rotting hulk of a half-submerged SUV. Other streets were blocked by buses and trucks and overturned cars, the burnt husks of military vehicles.
There were bones everywhere, scattered in the streets, rotting in the slimy gutters. Some were still dressed in rags, pushed up beneath the overhangs of standing buildings or huddled in cars that were perforated with bullet holes.
Carl was playing with the Geiger Counter. “Rad’s a little high…about fifty. Not too bad. Net yet.”
We passed a cathedral that was nothing but heaped stones spread out for nearly a city block. All that was left standing was the steeple and it was leaning hard. Neighborhoods of homes were reduced to kindling or blackened from raging fires long since burned out.
“Well,” Texas said, pulling off a cigarette, “this is lovely country. Looks like Berlin in ’45. But despite its scenic charm, I’m all for heading out. Getting a funny tickle at the base of my balls and I’m pretty sure it ain’t Carl’s middle finger.”
“Kiss my ass,” Carl said.
I giggled…a high, nervous, frantic sort of giggle. I couldn’t help myself. Something was very wrong here. Des Moines felt like a cemetery and the comparison was applicable…yet, I knew there was life out there in those blasted ruins. I could feel it watching us.
“He’s right,” Mickey said. “There’s something out there. I can feel it.”
“What are we after here, Nash? You got any idea what it is we’re looking for?” Carl wanted to know.
But I could only shake my head. “I’ll know it when I see it. Keep driving.”
Janie was sitting next to me, but she hadn’t said a word to me since I gave Marilynn to The Shape. I loved Janie. I would never pretend otherwise. But I was starting to get tired of her moody bullshit. I think we all were. It was getting to the point that her high blown ethics and morals were getting the best of her. Time was when we did what we had to do, she disapproved, but she moved on, let it go. Now she kept sinking into these deep blue funks and would refuse to even speak to anyone. It was immature and whiny. Like dealing with a bratty five-year old. I didn’t have the patience for it and I was pretty sure the others didn’t either.
“We need to start getting some gas here, Nash,” Mickey said. “We got about a quarter tank…but it won’t last long.”
Fuel was never a problem in the brave new world. If you had a running vehicle it was very easy to siphon all the gas you wanted from the armies of dead vehicles. Carl always carried his little siphon pump with him.
“All right, we better get that done. Let’s look for a parking lot or something, a car dealer.”
Mickey drove on, steering the Jeep through those devastated, war-torn streets. She was a good driver, steering us around heaped rubble and squeezing in-between wrecked cars. I watched the desolation around us, looking for anything that moved and saw nothing. Not even a stray dog drinking from a puddle. Street signs were missing, stoplights laying in the streets. Telephone poles had fallen right over and those that still stood were leaning badly, their lines strung like limp spaghetti.
“Here we go,” Mickey said.
She pulled into the parking lot of a huge white building that went on for about a city block. In huge blue plastic letters it said: CHEVROLET, HUMMER. There were lot after lot of cars, many of which were damaged or rusting, tires stripped away and windshields shattered. But many were untouched.
We piled out.
2
Inside, the dealership was dusty and messy, offices ransacked, computers shattered, file cabinets tipped over, their contents strewn about. We walked over a floor covered in papers, dealer’s brochures. The plate glass windows were either broken, entirely gone, or so dusty you couldn’t see out of them. It was dim in there, shadows everywhere. It would have been the perfect place to spring an ambush and I think we all knew it.
We went down into the garages and collected up a dozen plastic five-gallon gas cans. Carl had his siphon and we were ready to go. Mickey was there by my side. As was Carl and Texas. But I didn’t see Janie. Shit, I thought, there were only five of us for chrissake! It wasn’t like I had to be accountable for a hundred fucking survivors. Yet, Janie had slipped through my fingers.
And it probably wasn’t by accident.
The mechanic’s bays were huge. You could have parked twenty cars in there and had enough room for a couple trucks. Add to that the metal cages of automotive parts, the dusty red tool cribs, the cars parked on dead hydraulic jacks, and she could have been anywhere.
Immature, Nash, just like you thought. She’s got a size-D bug up her ass and she’s been feeding and mothering that fucker so that it’s now the size of a B-movie monster insect. Ain’t that sweet? Little Miss fucking Princess-Prom Queen-cheerleading-blue-eyed-blonde-haired-Nordic-uberbitch is pissed off at your lack of sympathy for all the shitballs and dirtbags in the world, so she just fucking wandered off and endangered you all.
Maybe she’s just pouting back in the showroom.
But maybe she walked away from it all.
In which case, somebody’s gotta go get her and that somebody might die a hard fucking death out in the ruins.
I was pissed. I was guilty. I was speechless. My mind was going a million miles a minute, exploding with star-shot, and I hated myself for making her feel so poorly and I hated her for standing up on her soapbox and espousing her old world, dead-and-fucking-gone bleeding heart values.
Jesus H. Christ, this was survival.
“Where’s Janie?” I said.
“Who cares?” Mickey said, giving me a molten look that said all that needed saying about how I no longer needed Janie, that she was expendable, that my dick was in finer hands now and would soon die and go to pussy heaven. Christ.
“I care,” I said.
Texas Slim came over with a calendar. He shoved it in my face. There was a naked redhead with her fine, pointy tits on display. They looked almost as good as Mickey’s.
“Look at this fine display,” he said to me, clucking his tongue. “Now therein lies the deepest pits of black sin and the voluptuous joys of carnal godhood.”
“Fuck are you talking about, dumbass?” Carl said to him.
“I’m saying, my small-minded friend, that this here sweet lick of cherry-red devil’s food is the sort of meal a man don’t need no spoon nor fork for. No sir, this is a feast best fit for bare hands and slavering mouths.”
“Janie’s gone,” I said, walking across the bay. “Find here. Right now, goddammit. Find her.”
I could almost feel Mickey rolling her eyes behind my back.
I didn’t give a shit. I had to find Janie. Beretta in hand, I went off looking for her and Mickey tagged along. Carl started searching the bays and Texas went out into the offices. We were all calling for her and I wasn’t too happy about that. I didn’t particularly relish the idea of making a lot of goddamn noise and drawing unfriendlies in. Because, believe me, they were out there, circling like vultures looking for some tasty red meat to pick at.
The dealership was huge. Unbelievably huge. Mickey and I started going through the showrooms, searching around the Corvettes and Aveos, Silverados and Hummer H3s.
“Janie!” I called. “Janie!”
My voice echoed out and died, affirming the dead and empty voluminous spaces around me. I could hear Texas in the distance doing the same. We were all split apart now. Armed, but split and that was just plain dangerous. I was starting to sweat. My stomach was filled with sharp nettles. Part of me was seriously pissed at Janie for putting us in this position and another part was just plain scared. For what if she hadn’t disappeared of her own free will?
What if she had been snatched?
Hell, while we circled around like chickens looking for feed, something might be peeling the flesh from her bones in some dark, webby place. I moved faster, looking, searching, calling out. Mickey did the same, but with a
