Rourke assessed his surroundings—head left. He started that way. It was at least another block, maybe two. The B-complex shot would start working soon after he administered it—after he got to it.
The nausea was passing, the coldness subsiding; his
head ached and his muscles ached.
As he increased his stride, more explosions rocked the ground beneath him.
Glass, in windows on both sides of the street he loped into, shattered; fires erupted everywhere.
Another manhole cover sailed skyward on a column of flame and Rourke jumped away, the explosion ringing in his ears, debris falling like rain on him.
He rolled onto his back, protecting his face with his left forearm.
He had to run. He rolled onto his knees, then pushed himself up, starting forward, lurching into a ragged, long-strided run.
More gunfire behind him. He wheeled, almost losing his balance. He pumped a shot at hip level with the Detonics in his right fist, downing a Soviet soldier at the end of the block.
He turned and kept running.
He could see the house—white frame with green vines growing up the round columns on the front porch. Rourke could see the driveway; his bike would be in the garage at the end of it.
Still running, he glanced behind him. No one. Perhaps the Russians were getting out while they still could.
More explosions. Rourke glanced up, toward the rim of the valley; rock slides were everywhere, the very faces of the peaks changing, seeming to melt away.
Rourke turned up the driveway, running harder now, sweating. The garage door—ten yards, five . . . He stopped. It would be locked. He raised both pistols, firing the one in his right hand, then the one in his left. The garage-door lock shattered as he loped and lurched forward. He fell against the door.
Jamming the pistols into his belt, he wrenched the door handle, twisting it, shoving it up, letting the door slide out of sight.
The jet black Harley—he saw it. Rourke stumbled toward it. His gear looked untouched.
He snatched at the CAR-wrapped inside a blanket and a piece of ground cloth.
He ripped the covering away, then searched the musette bag slung on the handlebars, he found a thirty- round magazine, rammed it up the well, and eared back the bolt handle.
He let the bolt slide forward.
'Come on,' he rasped, staring out into the street. He could hear the sounds of more explosions; the gas lines were still going, of their own accord now.
Rourke slung the CAR-cross-body from his left shoulder, under his right arm.
He started searching the Lowe pack and found his medical kit, the injection kit inside it. Rourke opened that, taking the B-complex syringes and jabbing one into his left forearm.
He dropped to his knees, trying to even his breath.
Her jaw hurt where the man, John, had hit her. On her knees, on the window seat in the main room of the library overlooking the street and the post office beyond, she wrang a handkerchief in her hands, red hearts embroidered on it, a gift from her husband years ago.
There were fires all over the city; she was afraid of fire.
Everyone else was with someone, safe, ready to die. John was out there in the streets, somewhere. He wouldn't make it; she knew that. She had nursed for her husband often enough to know that in hib condition, he would be too weak (o travel far. She had never even told him the secret paths through the valley to reach beyond the mountains.
He would die alone; she would die alone.
She wondered what his last name was.
He hadn't hit her because he hated her. It was because he hadn't wanted to die with her.
'I hope you live, John,' she said, suddenly feeling a weight slip from her.
The manhole cover in the street outside rocketed skyward, the flame under it rising, spreading. The floor under her shook; the plate-glass window in front of her shattered.
She had one more injection—one she had saved in her desk drawer.
It would make her sleep. She gave it to herself, letting the needle fall from her hand, her hands bloody from the glass that had cut her as the window shattered around her.
There was a cool wind and as she closed her eyes, she could see her dead husband's stern face. He was scolding her for what she had tried to do, but there was love in his eyes. &#; · .
Rourke settled himself on the seat of the Harley, the motor purring under him, the tanks full, the Detonics stainless .s reloaded and holstered in the Alessi rig across his shoulders. He was slightly cold—the exhaustion, the drugs coursing through his veins. The collar of his Drown leather jacket was snapped up.
Under the jacket he carried the musette bag on his left side, spare magazines for the Detonics pistols and for the CAR-slung under his right arm.
On his right hip was the Python, Metalifed and Mag-Na-Ported; spare ammo for the big Colt was in the musette bag, too, in Safariland Speedloaders.
