“I can take care of myself. You want to help, go find something we can burn to keep warm.”
He gestured out into the deluge.
“Why not ask for steak and lobster while you’re at it?”
“I didn’t say it’d be easy. Look under the grandstand. It seems pretty much in one piece. It ought to stay dry under there, at least in spots.”
He nodded, staring at the rain and wondering why he wasn’t shivering.
“I think I’ve been cold all day.”
Her reply was mocking.
“That’s why they call it a nuclear winter, Marcus. Or did you think this was ‘normal’ weather for this part of the world?”
“I didn’t realize how much it had changed,” he murmured.
“Everything’s changed. Now those of us who are left have to find a way to change it back.” When he didn’t move but continued to stand and stare, she added a terse reminder. “Fire?”
“Oh. Right.”
He headed back out into the storm.
Once she was sure he was out of sight she began peeling down the top of her flight suit to completely expose the wound. The sight was not pretty, but she was up on all her shots and not too worried about infection. That confidence wouldn’t last if she left the shrapnel in place, though. A pouch on her service belt yielded gauze and hydrogen peroxide. Basic therapy, but it would have to do. The corner drugstore was closed.
Clenching her teeth, she used a small probe to dig out the bits of metal. She could only extract those she could see. Anything smaller or in too deep would just have to stay where it was for the time being. When she had the gash as clean as she thought she could manage she dosed a gauze pad with peroxide, gritted her teeth, and slapped it over the wound.
The rain would have drowned out any noise she wanted to make, and there were no machines about in any case. Still, she didn’t utter a sound. Because there
Blair Williams.
Nothing organic survived in the ruins of the long abandoned racetrack. No food, no fried chicken bones, not even a ketchup-stained hot dog wrapper. Such edible debris had long since been cleaned up by the planet’s other organic survivors: dogs and cats, buzzards and crows, pigeons and rats and the ubiquitous insects.
Wright came across discarded beer and soda cans from which any remaining liquid had long since been drained or evaporated. There was nothing left to tell that the oval facility had once played host to thousands of screaming, cheering, blissfully happy human beings. Now the place was being reclaimed by the land and by the elements.
Williams’ assumption had been correct. Where the overhanging roof remained intact, it was dry beneath. He set about the business of ripping up anything made of wood, from railings to posts. Another man would have needed a saw, or at least a sledge, to do the job.
Wright managed with his bare hands.
Williams’ shoulder was throbbing. Picking small shards of metal out of her flesh wasn’t the activity she would have chosen to begin a relaxing evening, but nothing vital had been cut and none of the wounds seemed to go deep. After letting the peroxide-soaked pad sit for a while, she pulled it off, tossed it aside, and dressed the wound as best she could with the limited materials she had available. She still wasn’t certain that she had removed every last fragment. There were likely to be microscopic particles still embedded in the muscle. But the arm rotated freely, she experienced no loss of strength, and that would have to do for now. When she got back to base, one of the doctors could take a closer look at the injury with better equipment.
Pulling up the flightsuit, she searched through her medical kit until she found a makeshift foil pack. From the patchy contents she selected a painkiller and an antibiotic—one pill each. She could have taken two, but given the difficulty of obtaining fresh supplies it was vital to ration such medication. Rainwater helped her to swallow both with ease.
She had just downed the second pill when an unannounced voice rose above the drum-tap of falling rain.
“What’ve you got there?”
There were three of them. Disheveled and indifferent to their appearance, worn down by a world that seemed bent on annihilating them, sullen of demeanor, they were one of thousands of such bands of independent-minded survivors whose only interest lay in the preservation of self. Such men (and sometimes women) banded and traveled together not out of love or family or friendship but for mutual support. The trio’s unexpected emergence from the storm was troubling; the fact that each of them was armed made it more so.
“Name’s Turnbull.” The speaker nodded toward the foil packet she was still holding. “Antibiotics? Painkillers? Narcotics? Not easy to come by the hard stuff these days.”
Williams studied each of them carefully; measuring, appraising, calculating the most rational response.
“I don’t have much, but you’re welcome to take what you need.”
One of the other men looked over at Turnbull.
“Hear that? We’re welcome to take what we need. And we gonna.” He squinted out at the sodden racetrack. “Be good to get out of the stinkin’ rain for a while.”
“We’ve been watching you,” another of the men said.
Williams could not keep from sneaking a glance in the direction of her service belt. The belt was where she had left it—but the holster was empty. Smiling, the third member of the group held up the Desert Eagle it had formerly contained.
“Looking for this? Nice gun.” He examined the huge pistol thoughtfully. “Kinda big for such a pretty lady.” His
