Pickers 4: The Pick (2 page)

The bags of dirt hopped up, and there was a hollow thump that split a section off the tree stump. Blue-white light flickered through the crack, until the bags collapsed into the stump and smothered it.

Maxine swiped at the mud and moss she had picked up when she had taken cover. Putting a little swagger into her walk, she tried to look as if the dive had all been part of her plan. "The fuses are a little shorter on this batch." she said, when she got back to the wagons.

"No shit." Tony replied. "I'm pulling the string by throwing them from now on."

Georges was paler than usual, mouth still open from the shock of seeing the charge go off too early. Maxine pulled him around the corner of the wagon and kissed him, before he started stammering out questions about how she was. "Are the bikes charged?" she asked when their lips parted.

"They were at about ninety percent when I checked a few minutes ago."

"Okay. Let's go and see what the updated maps look like before we set off." Maxine dragged Georges back around the wagon, to the open door.

"You know we will probably throw that box of rusty guns away as soon as we get to the vault." Remy said, looking up from the map as Maxine and Georges entered.

"Only if there is absolutely no space for them. Please." Maxine's voice went up in pitch, just a little, as she tried to convince her father.

"We shall see." Remy tapped the map. "Your dead man's hut is not marked on the map. I suppose it's too small to have mattered."

Georges pulled a smaller map from his pocket, and unfolded it to check against the one on the table. He traced the dotted line of the path they were following, on both maps. "This evening, or tomorrow midday, at a push, and we should be there." He pointed to where the track entered the valley they were heading for. "It will take you another half day or so to catch up with us."

"Do you want us to scout down to where the vault is, once we get there?" Maxine asked.

"Not straight away. Scope out the valley and the town. If you can, get a view from somewhere up above the town. If you don't see evidence of Raiders, we will roll in as a pack and get into the vault quickly. The plans say there's enough space for us to hide even the wagons while we break in and decide what to take."

Georges folded his map and returned it to the pocket. "Well, if the bikes are charged, I think we're ready to go."

"Be careful out there. No need to go too fast, okay."

"Okay, Papa." Maxine gave her father a smile as she jumped out of the wagon ahead of Georges.

Georges was going too fast, cresting a rise as he raced ahead of Maxine. The road dropped away, and the bottom of the dip was a tangle of wrecked vehicles. He jammed on the brakes, and both wheels locked on air. The bike pitched forwards, and the front wheel skidded on the loose surface when it touched down.

There was no recovering from the coming tumble. Georges fought it for a moment, battling with the bike until he could put it down under him. The bike scraped the ground, sideways, gouging scars along it. Then the wheels caught and the bike flipped, throwing Georges ahead of it. He tumbled, scrubbing off speed, until he came to a halt, sitting up, little more than a metre from the wrecks.

Two motorcycles and an upside down buggy of some sort bounced around in Georges' vision. He closed his eyes tight, and when he opened them again, the view had settled down. There was a scrunching sound, and suddenly Maxine was by his side, grasping his shoulders. "Are you okay? Are you okay?"

Georges nodded. Their helmets bumped together as Maxine leant her head against his. She stood, and helped him up. Then she turned him around, to do a double check for damage. Satisfied, she pulled her helmet off and looked around. "I think we have found who killed our man in the hut." She pointed at the buggy. In the cab, sticking out of the mud that had washed over the roof, was a human skull and a jumble of bones. There was another jumble of bones scattered around the bikes, and shreds of clothing all about.

"And you said we wouldn't find out his story." Georges said as he dropped his helmet on the ground and moved closer to inspect the wreckage. He constructed a tale from the evidence it presented. "There's blood on the fuel tank of this bike, and no obvious body connected to it. He got into a fight with these two somewhere down the road, where he got that knife wound. Then he ran from them on his bike. When he realised he wasn't going to outrun them, he pulled over and waited for them, standing there with those revolvers. He killed them, but they still ran into his bike and wrecked it. With both bikes useless and the buggy rolled and impossible to get right again, he carried on on foot, until he found the hut. Where he laid down for a sleep and never woke up. What do you think? Does that sound right?"

There was no way to know the truth of the events that had transpired in this otherwise nondescript dip in the road. But Georges' reasoning was plausible. His determination to spin a narrative was endearing. "Sounds as good as any other tale. Now, let's get these moved."

The verge on either side was at least a metre tall. "I don't think we can get these out of here before the wagons arrive." Georges concluded.

"Maybe...." Maxine clasped one of the buggy's wheels, then lifted herself up until she was hanging from it. the vehicle hardly moved. She dropped down, found a piece of the frame that offered good leverage, and tried to lift the vehicle. It moved even less. "Maybe not."

"They can't be more than an hour or so behind us. I'll get on the radio and tell them we need the winch on one of the wagons to get this out of the way."

There was another chapter to add to the dead man's tale further along the road.

After the delay of moving all the wreckage, Georges and Maxine ran a closer point to the wagons, stopping to warn them of bad road conditions, rather than drawing symbols on the road.

Georges' bike was scratched and battered, but still ran fine. He didn't race ahead of Maxine any more, though. So they rolled into the blasted clearing side by side.

Oddly, it was the greenery that gave away the devastation that had been wrought. It was all light green, grown in the last few years, compared to the deep green of the woodland around it. Still, black, charred stumps and tumbled trunks could be seen poking through the foliage. In the middle of the rough circle of destruction were the rust brown, twisted remains of a buggy and a bike.

It could have been bones that crunched under the wheels of their bikes as they pulled to a halt beside the buggy remnants, they didn't check. "So, this is where it all started." Maxine said.

"Five vehicles, and at least five people. I've heard of Raider bands that small. Or they could have been scouting out a way into the Valley." Georges considered.

"This is.... I don't know, a year or two gone. But there's no sign that anyone's been this way to track them down." Maxine kicked the stand down and got off her bike to go and look at the buggy. "I just hope there aren't more of them out there who haven't killed each other."

They walked around the wrecks and checked the ground for further remnants, kicking over more rusty metal and finding a couple of possible bodies. None of them filled out the details in the story of all the dead Raiders, so Georges span a tale of fugitives from the big Raider camp in the next valley. After sneaking away, they had started fighting, first here, then further along, where the other wrecks had been. They would never know the true story, so this one would have to do.

The buggy and wagons arrived about ten minutes later. "You are not salvaging anything from any of this." Remy said, after pulling to a halt beside Maxine.

"I could find some. If I tried."

"And that is why we are moving right along. I do not want you two running too far ahead of us any more. Come back in and run point, rather than scouting so far ahead. That way, if you hit trouble we can charge in and help you."

"Okay, Papa. If you insist."

"Just a few more hours, and we'll stop for the day. You can get your thrills hunting something for us to eat."

Georges was talking to the women in the buggy. Maxine climbed aboard her bike and zipped it over. Pulling up on the opposite side of the buggy, she asked, "Is he telling you the tale of the dead Raiders? It's a good one."

"Maybe he can spin us it around the camp fire later." Sarah said.

"We'll run a little way ahead of you from now on, and check the corners. That sort of thing."

"Okay."

Maxine pulled on her helmet and smiled at Georges. "You'd best go and get your bike, because we're setting off right away."

"No movement in the town." Georges whispered down from the tree.

"Good to go." Maxine said into her radio.

"On our way." said the voice on the radio, too distorted to tell who it was.

"Do you want to get down from there? I can see the town perfectly well from down here."

"I thought I'd get a better perspective from up here." Georges started making his way down, trying to remember the hand holds he had used on the way up. He dropped the final metre or so. Slapping pine needles from his legs, he walked over to Maxine and the bikes. She took the compact binoculars from him, and studied the town through them.

There were few windows unbroken, and most of the doors had been smashed open. Surprisingly, the horde that had worked its way through all the buildings had set none on fire. The abandonment was older than the looting- here and there, creeping bushes had been ripped or trampled down to get into a house. Spotting movement, Maxine twitched the glasses a fraction of a degree and gently turned the focus ring.

A mountain goat, with big, curved and ridged horns, had sauntered around the corner of a house, and was studying its surroundings. Unconcerned, it gazed up and down the street it was on, then set to tugging straggly grass from a crack in what had been the pavement.

Handing the binoculars back, Maxine asked, "Did you spot a quick way down for us when you were up there? Does that path run all the way down to town?" She pointed at a wavering line, where the grass was slightly less dense than on either side of it, which led to another stand of trees.

"There is a path that comes out the other side of the trees. We should be able to join the two up."

"Okay then. As soon as they hit the edge of town, we head down to join them."

The buggy bounced and shook over ruts and rocks that the wagons just rolled over. The drainage gully running alongside the track had blocked up years before, and water had washed away the aggregate and sand that had made it smooth.

It didn't matter so much. The track bottomed out, and the stream had washed its way back to its old channel. The surface smoothed again, and the buggy accelerated up the slope. It got air for a moment as it crested the rise and hit the old road. Landing, it wiggled under braking, then twisted to point down the valley.

Wagon one's rear set of wheels was levered up as it crossed the rise. Remy adjusted the balance of power, and the other four wheels drew it easily onto the road. Wagon two tackled the obstacle with similar ease. The three vehicles rolled, in a staggered line, toward the town.

The once tarmacked road was smoother than the tracks they had been on for the last few days, but they didn't pile on the speed. In the buggy, Sarah stood and cocked the machine gun over her seat. Lucas was in the captain's chair of wagon one, Fabien in wagon two's. Guns were slung over the backs of the passenger and driver seats in each wagon, and the passengers had their weapon of choice on their laps.

Tony had an assault rifle at the ready, pointing at the open gap in the front of the side window. He studied everything to the sides of the little convoy, whilst Veronique concentrated on the road ahead. They passed the first building, an old petrol station, the pumps demolished and the windows sad and blank where they had been smashed in.

The town appeared deserted as they approached, and Georges and Maxine, looking down from the woods above the town, had reported no movement. But they were close to an area known to be full of Raiders, and were on full alert, just in case.

The road narrowed as they entered the town proper, and the three vehicles moved in so they were in line, running down the middle of the old street.

"I see.... No, it was just a goat." Fabien said over the intercom. Tony saw it, too, as they passed a side street. A dark brown blur, heading away from them at speed.

They entered the town square- once white painted shops and restaurants around a carved stone cross. Heading to the left of the monument, the buggy turned sharply and headed down a street out of town again. The mountains were a green and grey wall at the end of the road they were on, towering above the cluster of buildings that were their destination.

It had been a small factory complex, constructed after the layout of so many French farms. The buildings formed three sides of a yard, the fourth side being a wall with a tall, arched double gate. One side of the wood plank gate was part open, where Raiders or other scavengers had forced it. The roof of the left side building had sagged and dropped tiles through to the insides.

Buildings thinned out again as they proceeded toward their destination. There was a short open space between the edge of town and the old factory. They sped up as they crossed it, then skidded to a halt before the gates.

Tony slotted the assault rifle into the space behind his seat. He checked the pistol holstered on his belt and grabbed a smaller machine gun. Jumping from the wagon, he sprinted to the gates.

There was just enough space to slide between the gates and get into the yard. Machine gun at the ready, Tony gave the weed strewn expanse a quick scan. No human had been through here in years, he decided. He hung the machine gun where he could reach it quickly, and turned to the gates.

The lower hanger of the open gate had rotted away, and the big wooden door sagged so that most of its bottom edge would scrape as he pushed it open. It was almost certainly too heavy for him to lift by himself. He looked for hand holds on the Z shaped bracing on the back of the door, because he was stubborn, and was going to try lifting it anyway.

With an extended crunch of tyres on loose surface, Georges and Maxine arrived. Both flushed from a rush downhill and through forest, they jumped from their rides and came over to help. The three of them lifted the gate just enough to be able to shuffle it open.

The second gate was held in place by a metal spike running down into a hole in the ground. Maxine tugged the spike up, and two of the hasps holding it to the gate came away. She removed it completely and tossed it aside. Unlike the other gate, this one still hung level and, apart from some complaints from the rust welded hinges, opened easily.

They hustled all the vehicles through the gates, then closed them again, leaving them as close as possible to their previous arrangement. From the outside, it would be hard to tell that anyone had come through the gates.

The larger, rear building butted up against cliff face, and had more than enough space for all the vehicles. The main doors had been left open by previous visitors so, after checking for obstructions, they just rolled the wagons inside.

The building was as tall as the two storey structures on its wings, but was open all the way to the roof. A lattice work of supports for a false roof, and trays for cabling, hung above them. The electric cable had been torn away where it came down the I beam pillars running down from the roof joists, but harder to reach lengths dangled down here and there. There were shallow puddles on the floor, their edges marking the seams where different sections of the poured concrete floor butted against each other. It smelt damp, with a less then pleasant undertone that told of animals using a corner as their toilet.

Everyone disembarked from their vehicles and looked around. It was almost a disappointment after the tense drive down the valley and through town. "So, what now?" Lucas asked.

Veronique was checking images on her tablet computer. Standing in the middle of the floor, she looked around to get her bearings, then walked to a section of the back wall. A chunk of render had fallen from high above. She picked up a piece, and scraped an X on the wall. She tapped it. "Someone needs to get a pick axe and start on breaking through here."