Specialties. Makes the little gun able to fire .38 Special, .22 rimfire, or .25 ACP. I’ve got more of those insert barrels for my Detonics, for my shotguns, et cetera.” Rourke pointed back up to the cabinet. “That gun is a Colt Official Police .38 Special five-inch—Metalifed with Pachmayr grips. Same frame essentially as a Python, so I had it reamed out to .357 to increase its versatility.” Then Rourke moved to his right to the long guns, racked one over the other. “That’s a standard AR-15, no scope. That’s a Mossberg 500ATP6P Parkerized riot shotgun. Safariland sling on it. That’s an original Armalite AR-7 .22 Long Rifle. Take it apart and it stows in the buttstock, even floats. Had enough?” Rourke turned, smiling at Rubenstein.
“How much—I mean it’s rude, John, I know that but how—”
“Every cent I could scrape together for the last six years, after the cost of the property itself. I gambled. I’m sorry I won, but it paid off I guess.” Rourke closed the case and walked toward the sofa in the center of the great room, then leaned down to a small box on the table, and looked inside. “Empty,” he muttered, and crossed the room.
He glanced over his shoulder, Rubenstein following him. Rourke smiled, saying, “You’re more curious than eager for that shower, aren’t you?” Rourke kept walking, up the three low stone steps and into the kitchen. There was a long counter with stools beside it, on the other side a six-burner range with a double oven, a double-door refrigerator, and more counter space. At the far left were two chest-type white freezers. “I’ve got a big meat locker back in the side of the utility area, maybe you saw it—this is for stuff that is most commonly used.” Rubenstein was next to him as Rourke opened one of the freezers, the entire left half of it was filled with aluminum-foil-wrapped packages. Rourke took a package from the freezer and turned over a roast, looked at it, then closed the freezer. He unwrapped the package on top of the freezer, extracted one of the small cigars he liked, rolled it between his fingers, smelled it, and put it to his mouth. He lit it with the Zippo.
“You’re kidding,” Rubenstein said, his voice sounding to Rourke as though the young man were shocked.
“What’s the matter? What’s so strange? All the comforts of home.” Rourke stopped, the lighter still burning in his hand as he stared over Rubenstein’s shoulder, past the counter to the small table on the side of the couch. There was a picture there—he couldn’t see it, but knew it—of Sarah and the children. “Almost all the comforts,” he said, his voice low. He snapped closed the cowling of the lighter and dropped the lighter in his pocket.
“How did you get this up here?”
“With the truck,” Rourke answered, as he went to the refrigerator, opened it, and took out an ice tray. He took a large glass beer mug from an overhead cabinet and filled it half with ice. He replaced the unused ice cubes, muttering, “Help yourself to anything you want,” then turned on a small black switch next to the sink. There was a rumble, a mechanical hum, then Rourke turned on the cold water faucet, the spigot sputtering a moment. “Air gets in the system,” Rourke remarked, then water spattered out, and Rourke walked away, leaving the water running.
He went to another cabinet, this time below the counter level, and extracted a half-gallon bottle of Seagram’s 7, twisted off the cap, breaking the stamp, and poured a good three inches in the beer mug over the ice, then closed the bottle and replaced it under the counter. He returned to the sink and added two inches of water to the glass, shut off the water, then turned off the pump switch.
“You’ve always got to remember to turn on the switches for the water—only thing different from ordinary plumbing—electrically operated pumps. I use several, so if one breaks down it won’t kill all my water at once.” Rourke started out of the kitchen and back down the steps into the great room. Rubenstein was behind him. “John, this can’t be real, I mean—” “It is, Paul,” Rourke said, turning. “It is. Go get cleaned up. Later I’ll fix us something to eat.” “How about steak and eggs?” Rubenstein asked laughing.
Rourke didn’t laugh. “Well, I’ll have to flash thaw it, but I guess so. Powdered eggs all right?” Rourke nursed his drink while Rubenstein showered. He got the steaks and set the microwave oven, then returned to the sofa. He was reading, not a book, but a catalogue of the books he had on the shelves along one wall of the great room— refreshing himself on the contents of his library—determining, now that it was his only library, if any gaps existed that critically needed filling. He put down the looseleaf binder and went to the bookshelves, rolled the ladder along their length and climbed up, selecting a book about projected climatalogical changes as the result of heat and temperature inversion. The red sunsets still worried him.
He heard Rubenstein behind him, turned and stepped down the ladder.
“All those books, John. What are these?” He stopped and pointed to a lower shelf.
“Just books I’ve written on weapons, survivalism, things like that. I’ve tried to have something of everything,” Rourke said, sipping his drink and studying the cover of the book as if by holding it an answer to the bizarre climate would somehow come to him osmotically. “I always viewed a library as the most essential thing for survival beyond food, water, shelter, weapons. What good would it do if we survived, Paul, if all the wisdom of the world were lost to us? I may be misquoting but I believe it was Einstein who said that regardless of what World War Three was fought with—and I’m just paraphrasing—World War Four would be fought with rocks and clubs. Simply it means that civilization—regardless of the physical reality of man—would end. It won’t here.” Rourke gestured broadly toward his books.
“Children’s books too?” Rubenstein asked, looking at the lowest shelf.
“For Annie and Michael, perhaps their children someday. Can’t teach them to read with these.” Rourke gestured at the higher shelves. “Most of those, children’s books were illustrated or written and illustrated by Sarah, anyway—a double purpose.” “Do you really think it’ll last that long?”
“The world or the aftermath of the War?” Rourke asked, turning away, not expecting an answer. He dropped the book on the coffee table, looked over his shoulder as he downed his drink, and said, “If the timer hits on the microwave, just push the off button. I’m taking a shower.” Rourke walked to the far side of the great room, past the waterfall, and up the three stone steps to the master bedroom. Curtains could be drawn to separate it from the rest of the retreat but he left them alone, going through his things to find a fresh change of clothes and dumping the contents of his pockets on top of the dresser. He went into the bathroom.
He shaved, brushed and flossed his teeth, then climbed into the shower, washing himself several times, washing his hair, and standing under the hot water. He then turned it to straight cold—from the underground spring the temperature was cold, very cold. Rourke, standing under the icy water, stared down at himself: a few cuts, a few bruises. He was intact, the last radiation reading on himself and his equipment showed normalcy. He inhaled, able to count his ribs a little more easily, and he noticed too that more of the hair on his chest had turned to gray. He turned his face up to the spray, his eyes closed, feeling the water hammering on him, then shut off the water and stepped out to dry himself, shivering a little, unused still to the temperature of the cavern—a year-round constant 68 degrees because of the natural temperature of the rock and the water. It was a relief not to put on combat boots and wear instead a pair of rubber thongs.
Rourke couldn’t see Rubenstein; he guessed the younger man was exploring. With his shirt tails out of his pants, his glass refilled and fresh cigar, Rourke walked toward the rear of the cavern, beyond the living quarters and shop area, past the waterfall. He stopped and smiled when he saw the look of bewilderment on Rubenstein’s
