Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse - Gischler Victor (читать книги полностью .txt) 📗

Bill cleared his throat. “These are beautiful.” The.45-caliber Colt Peacemakers were handsomely made, well oiled, the finish a deep blue. He strapped them on, performed a couple of experimental quick-draws, a wide grin splitting his face.

“I hope these are to your liking,” Mortimer said. “Of course, I didn’t have time to consult you…”

“Oh, hell.” Bill looked mildly embarrassed. “You know I’m not going to let you run off into danger all by yourself.”

The backpacks also contained three.45 MAC-10 machine pistols with shoulder straps and extra magazines and two.45 automatics with shoulder holsters. He handed the weapons around, and they spent a few minutes strapping them on and getting the feel.

They continued to search the backpacks until they found food, and Mortimer was delighted to discover a pound of ground coffee and a small supply of cigars. When Armageddon paid them the twenty thousand, Mortimer would damn well lay in a supply of coffee, whatever the cost.

They ate, drank more water from the canteens.

“Okay,” Mortimer said. “Let’s get moving.”

The road was only another ten minutes’ march. They checked the map again and set off. They were armed, fed and headed to Atlanta.

In the time before chaos and destruction, one could streak down I-75 from Chattanooga to Atlanta in under two hours. Now the world was again an enormous place, and from Lookout Mountain, via the zigzag “safe” route Lars had outlined on the map, the forbidden city of Atlanta was a good week’s hard hike.

The fourth day, it began to rain and didn’t stop. They shivered in the bone-numbing cold. Staying dry was an impossible task. They tried to stay positive. Mortimer and his companions trudged on undaunted, spirits refusing to be dampened.

XL

“My spirits are fucking dampened,” Sheila said. “And I hate you.”

Mortimer wiped rain from his eyes with a dirty hand, left a smear of mud across his face. “Try to remember that nobody invited you.”

Even with the camouflage rain ponchos, they were all cold, soaked and miserable. Sheila especially had been vocal about her discomfort. They’d slogged the old, muddy Forestry Service road that roughly paralleled Highway 78 until they’d hit a little-known entrance into Stone Mountain Park. They lay under a dripping hedgerow and watched the Stone Mountain Inn through a pair of small binoculars.

“Maybe this is a bad idea,” Bill said.

“We’re already past today’s rendezvous time for our contact, and I’m not sleeping in the rain one more night.” Mortimer scanned the plantation-style hotel, broken windows, thick vines growing up the brick. “And it looks deserted to me.” They hadn’t seen a single person for two days, not even at a distance.

“I suppose I would like to dry out,” Bill admitted. “See the chimneys? Some of those rooms have fireplaces.”

“Somebody will see the smoke,” Sheila said.

Mortimer made one more quick scan with the binoculars. “It’ll be dark in an hour, hour and a half at most. Nobody will see the smoke then, and we’ll cover the windows.”

“I’m sold,” Bill said.

“Me too,” said Sheila, “and I want my own room away from you dickheads.”

Bill snorted. “I second that emotion.”

“You snore!”

“Okay, shut up,” Mortimer said. “We’ll take one last look and listen, then dart across the open area and hit that door fast.” The front door was off the hinges, only darkness beyond.

They dashed across the overgrown parking lot and into the door without incident. The place smelled old and mildewed, vines creeping into the open doorway. Debris, old cans, torn drapes, broken bits of furniture. Upstairs and away from the entrance, Mortimer lit a small kerosene lantern. Flashlights were easy to come by. Batteries weren’t.

The first half-dozen rooms they investigated were too demolished to occupy. In one room, they found a relatively undamaged queen-size mattress, which Mortimer and Bill carried to a nearby suite while Sheila held the lantern. Broken glass and crushed beer cans littered the fair-sized fireplace. They cleaned it out and built a fire of busted furniture. They had to search five more rooms before finding another serviceable mattress.

“I think two is enough,” Mortimer said. “Two can sleep while the third is on watch.”

“Right,” Bill said.

Sheila nodded. In spite of her earlier claims, she wanted to stay close to the group. They were far from friendly territory. Bill strung up a thin rope across the room, and they all changed into dry clothes, hanging the wet ones on the line.

They ate a cold meal of sausage and stale bread. They didn’t talk. Fatigue had sapped them of the will to socialize, and they’d heard all of one another’s conversation by now anyway.

Bill picked up the lantern, stretched, his joints popping. “I’ll scout the rest of the hotel, make sure we don’t have any surprise roommates. Then I’ll take first watch if that’s okay.”

“Sure,” Mortimer said. “Wake me when it’s time.”

When Bill left with the lantern, only the orange coals from the fire lit the room, making everything look like a vague monochrome dream. He sprawled on the mattress, weary.

He was almost asleep when he felt the mattress shift, Sheila’s warm body sliding in next to him. She wore only dry panties and a clean white T-shirt. She smelled like girl sweat and sausage.

“Is this okay?”

“Yeah.”

Her hand went to his crotch. “I can do things. If you want me to.”

Yes please. “You don’t have to.”

Her hand slid up to his chest, and she nestled her head into his armpit. “I’m scared.”

“Me too.”

“I mean all the time, even out in the forest with nobody around. I’m afraid something could happen. I don’t know what.”

“You don’t have to come with us,” Mortimer said. “We’ll give you some of the food. You could head back. Or wait here. The hotel seems safe enough.” Although he could not promise he’d be able to come back for her.

“No, that’s worse. I tried that at the firehouse. At least this is my choice. I can’t just be nowhere doing nothing, right? A person has to be about something. I’m more afraid of not being about something than I am of anything else. No, I’m going with you. I can help. You’ll see.”

Soon he felt her breathing become steady and deep. The rhythm of it put Mortimer to sleep too.

A gentle nudge on the shoulder woke him. Sheila still lay with an arm across his chest.

Bill squatted next to him, whispered, “Sorry to disturb…uh…whatever it was you were doing.” He spared a glance for Sheila. “Your watch.”

“Okay.”

Bill flopped onto the other mattress as Mortimer pulled on his shoes and strapped on the.45. He looked down at Sheila one last time, so innocent and adolescent in sleep. She was neither, and Mortimer needed to remember that. What am I going to do with you?

Sheila was right about one thing. You had to be about something. Mortimer had come down the mountain because he couldn’t hide in his cave any longer. He needed the world. Needed to see it, be part of it again. And it occurred to him he couldn’t hide atop Lookout Mountain either, drowning himself in Armageddon’s decadence, because eventually the world would come looking. Better to march out and meet it halfway.

The night passed without trouble. The next day, they climbed Stone Mountain.