blow to the head. Yup; I could just see the head wound through molting corpse hair.
“He’s been knocked on the head and thrown down the well,” I said, looking down at the corpse that bled its poisons into the water.
“The murdering bastards.”
“Yeah… but they murdered one of their own kind.”
“Hell, why on earth did they do that?”
“Think about it. How do they get rid of our kind?” I snapped off the flashlight and nodded to Zak to drop the metal cover back down. “They can hunt us down and kill us. But that takes time, energy and manpower. Or they can starve us by taking all the food they can find. What they can’t carry they destroy. But…” I nodded down at the well. “The subtle way is to poison the water supply.”
Michaela nodded. “They wrecked the main supply months ago. So now they’re poisoning the wells.”
“Damn right.” Ben looked as if he’d just bitten into something rotten. “The quick way is to kill one of their own kind and drop him into the water.”
“So they either finish us with cholera or typhoid… or they get lucky and infect us with the bug that’s swimming ’round in their own blood and we all turn Jumpy.” I shook my head. “They’re pushing us closer to extinction, guys.”
“So we check the wells first,” Zak said. “They can’t find every well and spring, can they?”
“Maybe not,” I agreed. “But they’ll find most in a year or so.” I tapped the metal hatch with the toe of my boot. “And I guess one adult corpse will crap out the drinking water for a good five years or more.”
“We could boil it.”
“ ’Course you could. But you’d have to boil every drop of water you used for drinking, cooking and washing.”
“We’d manage.” Zak sounded defiant. “
And you’d really want to drink something with chunks of rotting face and genitals floating in it?” I shrugged. “Be my guest.”
Michaela folded her arms, her face tense. “So that’s why you asked about the well at the cabins?”
“If our people drink water with one of those rot boys down the hole then they’re going to wind up sick, if not dead.”
Michaela started to walk back to the bikes. “How far away to the cabins?”
“About an hour’s ride.”
I threw the flashlight back to Ben. “Ride up there and warn them about the well.”
“There’s a chance it might still be all right. The place hadn’t been touched by hornets.”
“It might be sweet as a nut,” I agreed. “But the hornets could be getting cute. They might be content with dropping a corpse down the well and leaving it to do their dirty work.”
They started to walk back to the bikes but paused when they saw I’d squatted down by the fire.
Ben looked back. “Greg? You’re coming, too?”
“I’ll wait for you here.”
“Why? We’ll be staying at the cabins.”
I shook my head. “You can’t guarantee the water will be fresh. You’ve hardly any food. You’re low on ammunition.”
Ben looked bemused. “Yeah, I know… but what do you suggest?”
I shot him a smile that he must have read as crazed. “Well, old buddy, I’ve decided it’s high time we went back home to Sullivan.”
Forty-four
They were back within three hours. And when they saw I’d found one of their precious stores of gasoline-a niggardly thirty gallons stored in cans beneath a mound of motel debris-they were pissed-really pissed.
Tony roared up first on the Harley in a cloud of swirling dust. He glared at the fuel cans lined up against the remains of the motel wall. There was no, “Hey great to see you, buddy… glad you made it back alive.” Instead: “What the fuck are you doing, man? Michaela told me you’re going back to Sullivan.”
“That’s right?”
“So, you’re running out on us, huh? Going back to a nice soft bed
… man, you are a pile of shit, you know that?”
“I need to go back.”
“Yeah… need. You need to save your yellow neck.” Climbing off the bike, he rocked it back onto the stand. “And how the hell did you find that gas? That’s ours.”
“I followed my nose. Look.” I pointed at one of the Jerry cans. “It’s leaking. I could smell it twenty paces away.”
“What do you need all that gas for? There’s thirty gallons there.”
“Twenty-five now. You stored it in cans that leaked.”
“Hey, but we need that.”
“But I need it more.”
Tony’s hand went to the butt of his pistol. “There’s no way on earth we’re going to let you take what’s left of our gas so you can go running back to your soft, pussycat town.”
I looked at him. “ ‘What’s left of our gas’?” I repeated his exact words. “You mean this is all you’ve got?”
Tony looked uneasy, as if he’d let some secret slip. “Sure, we’ve got more gas. We’ve got a store up at the cabins.” He slapped the tank of the bike. “What do you think we run these on-morning mist?”
“How much gas? Ten gallons? Fifteen?”
“Enough, Valdiva.”
By this time the others had killed their motors and had climbed off the bikes. Ben looked puzzled. Michaela and Zak were angry. They immediately replayed the conversation I’d just had with Tony. Why did I need the gas? It wasn’t my gas. It was theirs. Why was I scuttling back to Sullivan like a whipped puppy?
Ben chipped in. “You’re crazy, Greg. You know what happened last time. They’ll lynch you if you go back there.”
Michaela shook her head. “You rat. After last night… I mean, I thought we had something together. Now you’re leaving?”
Tony spat. “He’s got a yellow streak up his back… this wide.” He held his hands apart.
Disgusted, Zak swept his hat from his head to strike it against his thigh. “Go back to Sullivan, homeboy. But don’t expect a lift from us. And don’t think you can take that gas, because we-”
“ ‘Because we need it,’ ” I mimicked. “I know.”
“So what are-”
“Just listen to me for one minute, OK?”
Grudgingly they looked at each other, then Zak nodded. Michaela still glowered.
“First answer some questions.”
Zak sounded suspicious. “What kind of questions?”
“How much gasoline do you have?”
Michaela shrugged. “With what you’ve found around fifty gallons.”
Tony added defiantly, “But we’ll find more.”
“OK. Where?”
“We’re good at finding supplies.”
“Yeah.” Zak nodded. “See for yourself. We’ve done all right so far.”
“How much ammo have you got left?”
They shrugged.
“OK, don’t give me an audit down to the last shotgun shell,” I said. “Give me an approximate figure.”
“OK, OK.” Michaela held up her hands. “We have around a hundred shotgun shells. Maybe three hundred rifle
