[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
THE TWO MOTORBIKES had been in a locked garage, behind the main street of a
small, dusty town in eastern Nevada. It wasn't on the highway map, and there
wasn't a single living soul there to tell them what it had once been called.
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ja...r%20-%20Earthblood%201%20-%20Ea
rthblood.html (111 of 226) [12/29/2004 10:47:32 PM]
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/James%20Axler%20-%20Earthblood%201%2
0-%20Earthblood.html
They found half a dozen dead, most of them looking as if they'd gone of
natural causes. Like starvation.
Pete and Mac were already beginning to get used to the sight of death and its
smell.
A dry, unique odour. A mix of sweet and sour. Mac said it reminded him of
brackish water standing in an abandoned root cellar.
The wind had been rising, early evening, as the two astronauts walked slowly
along the main drag, past a couple of stores with broken windows. A screen
door was blowing backward and forward at the Silver Garter Bar.
Pete trudged over and peered into the darkness. "Mess of broken bottles is
all," he shouted back to Mac.
In a porch they came across a small pile of single-sheet newspapers, dateless,
in large, smudged type, as if they'd been produced in a hurry, with a child's
printing outfit.
Mac unfolded the top one, aware of the strange, brittle feel to it, suggesting
it had been wet and dry a dozen times in the past few months.
Citizens! Panic is death. Martial law will be introduced in the next seven
days unless the foolish exodus of refugees from all centers of population
ceases.
Government scientists are nearing success in countering the scourge of
Earthblood, as the plant sickness is called. Once crops begin to grow again,
all will be well. So, stay home and keep calm. Trust the government like you
trust yourself. Relief food supplies will reach you any day now. Stay home and
stay calm.
"Guess it was the end of the line by the time they tried this," Mac said.
"Looks like they never even got to distribute these sheets."
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ja...r%20-%20Earthblood%201%20-%20Ea
rthblood.html (112 of 226) [12/29/2004 10:47:32 PM]
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/James%20Axler%20-%20Earthblood%201%2
0-%20Earthblood.html
"There's a stable down this alley." Pete led the way, while Mac dropped the
paper he'd been reading. It drifted from side to side on the street, finally
whirling away from the nameless township out into the pink-smeared desert
wasteland beyond.
He followed on, easing the padded straps on the heavy backpack. The only
consolation he could find was that it was getting slowly lighter as they
worked through the hi-concentrate packaged foods from the space center.
Page 59
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
The stable doors were wide open.
A horse's skull, picked bare, and four hooves were all that the stable held. A
few flies, lazy and winter ready, were wandering through the gristle and gray
bones on the head.
"Won't ride far on that." Mac laughed at his own joke, stopping as it echoed
away up among the empty loft and forbidding rafters.
The unidentified hamlet was far enough from any major center of population to
be safe from total looting. Even so, all the houses had been stripped of
anything remotely edible and the stores were bare shelved.
But there was a dirt road along the back of the few houses.
That's where the garages were.
And that's where they found the Kawasaki and the Norton. Greased and polished
and fueled up and ready to go.
THEY'D SEEN ONE odd thing.
On the powerful bikes they'd been able to make good time and distance, weaving
between the stalled and crashed cars and trucks, avoiding the dry-stick,
withered remnants of human beings along the highway.
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ja...r%20-%20Earthblood%201%20-%20Ea
rthblood.html (113 of 226) [12/29/2004 10:47:32 PM]
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/James%20Axler%20-%20Earthblood%201%2
0-%20Earthblood.html
Someone had shot at them from behind a camper van, near Little Rock, but they
were going too fast and were too far away.
Farther on, near the hamlet of Beulah, Arkansas, about a hundred miles west of
Memphis, there was a big poster offering recruitment to the United States
Marine
Corps.
But it had been defaced.
A quarter of the billboard had been covered in white paint. On it, in black,
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]