From the Fire V (8 page)

She turned her head
and took a sip of salty water from her gnawed straw, her eyes never leaving the
blackened spectacle of trucks streaming in the H4’s lights,
concrete-metal-tire-glass. 
And what if some of the men here are still
walking, Sophie?  What if you need to fight for fuel?

Then she would need
Silas, there at the end of all things.

She wanted to check
her own gun again, but she dared not take her hands off of the wheel.  The
corridor created by the trailers and welded plates to either side was getting
narrower, constricted as she edged out deeper into the open concrete valley,
the
Eye
.

Shapes flew by,
plastic bags and shadows.  Her senses were uncertain, amped and haunted and
conflicted.  Unbidden, she remembered a grim and claustrophobic book of elegies
Tom had once encouraged her to read, the Alighieri, the
Inferno
of
Virgil and Dante and his descent into the Iron City of Dis, the spiral
labyrinth of lovely Lucifer himself.

~

Here are the Heresiarchs ...

And much more than thou thinkest,

Laden are the tombs.

~

Farther in, coasting.  Ruins loomed at last upon the left.  The long
and roofed gas island for passenger cars had tilted and collapsed, a wildly
angled scarp of roofing, bent girders and melted plastic letters dripping and
frozen down the signs.  Bulky mounds of roofing showed where crushed cars and
SUVs lay beneath it.  Further to the right loomed a pile of molten tires,
ringed around with the bodies of dead pigeons and crumpled aluminum siding.

Farther into the Eye.

There’s nothing to help you here.  No fuel.  Hopeless.  Get out,
get —

There were three sledge-hammered vending machines beyond the end
of the gas island, their gaping glass-shrapnel faces open, their backs shoved
at precarious angles against a burned-out RV.  One was half-filled with
shattered bottles, the other two were completely emptied.

The headlights’ illumination rebounded back as she coasted
nearer. 
A reflection?  Was that a window?

Beyond the machines, shrouding by blowing obsidian dust and dunes
of wreckage, appeared the massive diner facility.  Its signs were blown apart,
its doors covered by plywood, its windows choked off behind splintered jumbles
of nail and lumber.  This registered with Sophie for a moment as an icy thrill,
battling with her insistence to find the fuel, to find her Lacie: 
… Did
someone have time to repair things?  To cover shattered windows? …
  And
then the thought was gone, suppressed and shunted, held down deep to drown away
in silence.

She drove by the last of the huge low building, its half-collapsed
lobby and blown-out ducting.  A wall of tires, all chained together, was piled
along the wall of its farther side.  There in the gaps were lodged sandbags,
feedbags, even mailbags and Fed Ex gurneys, steel carts piled high with
bricks. 
Movable walls.
  There were narrow gaps at intervals in the
not-quite-disarrayed vertical piles. 
View holes?  Gun ports?

Silas let in a rattling breath, as if had not been breathing for
many seconds.  He exhaled words:  “Soph get us out of here, get us out of here,
right now.”

She looked down again at the bobbing needle.  “I thought I was
your private.  Is this my decision?”

“You’re promoted to equal.  I say out now.  You decide.”

He’s certain we’re going to see someone.  Is there any other way? 
She eased her jaw, wetted her upper lip, pushed her tongue against
her teeth. 
No.
 
We need this.

“You know we need this,” she said, wanting to close her eyes.  The
last edge of the restaurant building hovered off to the left, away.  “We have
no choice.  Protect me, Silas.”

“All right, we look a little longer.”  He sighed. “Protect you to
the death.  Swear to God and all his demons,” he said to her.  “Damn them all.”

She thought she could see the farthest edge of the concrete
clearing up ahead, another wall of trailers.  Wanting to be as far away from
the ruined building as she could, she drifted the H4 to the right.

More ruins, more denied gasoline.  They drove past the
almost-intact diesel islands, the meadow-gold signs warning “CLEARAN —” and “—
NGAGE BRAKE HE —” and “— AIT FOR SIGNA —,” the drive-ups for the CAT scales, the
squarish wreck of a crumpled forklift on its side.

“We can do this,” she said.  Her voice sounded rattling, frail. 
Perhaps if she said it again, she could mean it.

“I’m covering you, Soph.”

Another long, rectangular building arose in darkness.
 There. 
That must be it.  Please.

Opposite the diesel islands, she could see brick walls and a slate
gray roof.  Downed gutters and tilted signage showed the way. 
Closer.

“That’s it.  That’s it!  Leave the engine on while you fuel,”
Silas was saying.  “God’s sake, you know how dangerous this is going to be even
if we’re alone.  No choice but to leave the engine on, never get it going
again.”  He was stuttering his words, slurring, trying to slow himself.  “Make,
you, you make one hundred and fifteen percent sure you ground yourself, you
hear me true.  No static electric, no?”

“I’ll make certain.  Just aim out the window and watch out for
me.”

“Like a hawk,” he continued, “damned hawk on vigil like the night
and mercy, none at all.  And Soph?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t smoke.  Clean the windows.”

She tittered a little, hysterically.

He’s trying to keep me from screaming.

“Can I carry my own gun, Silas?”

“While you fueling, engine on?  Hell no, Soph.  You got to trust
me, I cover you.”

“Okay.”

“Right, then.  Go.”

She edged the H4 around a pile of formless tires.  There were the
fuel bays, looming up as merged silhouettes of dark from out of the twilit
streamers, the dust devils of the darkening storm.  Conjoined, the damaged
hollows of the cavernous fuel bays formed the mockery of a sturdy and steadfast
building, tall and somehow askew.

The bays themselves looked like immense drive-in car washes,
greased brick hollows framed by scorched aluminum and crumbled brick.  They
were huge, big enough to drive any size of truck through.  Precarious dunes of
garbage were piled in the first and nearest bay, but the other four seemed
unobstructed.  Some of the hoses had been crushed or severed, some were on the
ground, their metal snouts jammed under a single manhole cover held down by an
anvil. 
An anvil?
  The other hoses, still racked and intact, did not
seem to be made of rubber.  They looked like weathered leather, almost
scintillant like snakeskin, like old-fashioned fire hoses which had been looped
out from the steam carriages parked in some turn-of-the-century museum.

These somehow sinister hoses looked coiled, waiting in infinite
patience for their prey.  They almost seemed alive.

Each bay had an aluminum side door, ribbed rectangles of armor. 
The trash bay was half-open.  Two were down, padlocked.  One was wide open. 
Above this last, a burnt and shredded remnant of an American flag whipped on
the wind, dangling from a fused girder and tire chain instead of from a
flagpole.

Sophie killed the lights.  She pulled the H4 into the open hollow,
this last bay in the line.  Once she was certain the wind was mostly becalmed
there in the Eye, she opened the driver’s door and got out.

She almost fell out of her open suit.  She zipped up, slowly,
knowing Silas was watching over her. 
No friction,
her mind was chanting
to itself. 
Engine has to stay on.  Get grounded.  No static electricity. 
She
wished she had secured her helmet, but it was too late for that.  She breathed
into her moistened rag.

She shifted her booted feet, and an aching tingle snaked up her adductor
muscles, further in up her thighs.  She stretched, arced back.  And then like an
idiot, she almost slammed her door shut out of habit.

You fool, this isn’t some shopping mall.
  She looked over her shoulder, left to right, listened.  Smelled
the garbage and the rot of human beings.  That generator sound, the pulse of a
beast beneath the wind, still echoed from what seemed very far away.

Wind, stench, and darkness.  The feel of the suit, she was slick, a
sweat of fear.  There was the only absence of people.  The aluminum rack of
gassing hoses was overhead, and warning signage.  There was nothing else.

She turned and opened the passenger door, so that Silas could look
out with his guns.  He was lodged in an awkward position, but he had maneuvered
himself onto his side, so that he could lean up on his elbow and fire out
behind Sophie if he had to.  Indeed, the ARM assault rifle was near at hand and
the pistol was already in his grip, its barrel wavering in the air.

The mouth of the pistol was very nearly pointing at Sophie’s face.

“Good God, Silas,” she breathed.  She stepped back.

“Could have warned me you were opening my door,” he offered.

“You scared the crap out of me.”

“Sorry, captain.”  Of all things, he grinned.  He was doing a fine
job, keeping the razor edge of terror from his voice.  “Thought we were just
rolling my window down.  Just doing the best I can.  You’re improvising.”

“Tell me about it, captain.”  She kissed him on the forehead.  The
gun barrel lowered, he smiled a little longer.

She thought about taking off her gloves.  She began to, but Silas
shook his head.  She was not about to debate the relative risks of gloved and
gloveless static electricity buildup.  But she did reach in and pull out the
submachine gun by its grip, never touching the barrel.

“No.  Don’t you hold that.”  Silas’ eyes were wide.

“What if I need it?”

“Cord it.  Pocket it.”

She re-corded the gun and slotted it into her suit’s catchall
pocket, as carefully as she could.  Her hands were free.  She touched the H4’s
frame with all fingers, hoping to ground herself, not having any idea if it did
any good.

Can’t believe we’ve no choice but to keep the engine running. 
Turn it off regardless?  No, not unless he says so.  What if we never get it
running again?  What if …
  Her mind was a
wrecking ground of conflicting thoughts, arguments and calculations. 
But
you saw, you saw all the signs.  There might still be people alive out here. 
And what if you need to fight soon, Sophie?  What if you need to get out of
here right away?

She sighed. 
Enough of that.  Focus.  Do what you have to do,
and quickly.

Looking down into Silas’ eyes for reassurance, finding precious
little there but fear, concern, fragility, Sophie nodded.

“Let’s do this now.”

She surveyed the immense and girdered rack of seven hoses, their
stout tubes coiling up toward the bay’s arcing ceiling and lost to shadow. 
Some were blood scarlet, others brown.  Each had a different fuel grade and
some of these meant nothing to Sophie at all.  The largest hoses were so bulky
that each had a double-fisted grip clasp clamped onto its throat by steely
bolts.

All the way past Loveland, since the untouched gas station where
she had filled the duffel bags with supplies, she and Silas had talked about
the dangers of fueling at a pump with the engine running, many times. 
And
before, ever since we lost the barrels.

“Do this right,” she whispered to herself.  “Do what you’re told.”

She felt a surge of girlish guilt, remembering her long-ago father
hollering at her out the window the first time she had foolishly pulled the
Volkswagen up to a gas pump (
How long ago did he teach you to drive,
Sophie?  How many worlds ago?
) and she had almost gotten out without
turning the engine off. 
Are you insane? 
He had given her holy Hell.

Enough of this.  It’s dangerous.  Do it anyways.

Spreading out her fingers, moving quickly so that she could not
outthink herself any longer, Sophie grabbed one of the red hoses.

“Naw.”  Silas was watching over her from behind.  “Think that’s
diesel-two.”

And it was.  The next was Ethanol, the third was something-S15,
the fourth another grade she had not even heard of.  The last hose in the rack
had been hand-painted “SUB-RV” in letters of hasty white.  Normal unleaded
gasoline?  Would it fit in the H4’s filler neck?

Here goes nothing.

Clink.
  The nozzle slotted in. 
She primed the pump.  She heard the surge of air, the gurgle of pressurized
liquid tumbling down and in.  A normal fueling had just begun.  It worked.

It worked!

“Oh, thank you oh Lord’s mercy,” Silas was whispering.  She looked
over to him, careful not to touch the fueling hose.  He was blinking,
struggling to reposition himself so that he could both see her and watch the
opening of the bay.