CHAPTER FIFTY THREE

“It’s a madhouse in there,” said Ted gulping water from the canteen as the Old Man held it up for him.

“How did you escape?”

“I …” He gulped again. “I died.”

He waved the Old Man away. He sat up and gave a singsong sigh of exhaustion. As though he had just done something harder than he’d expected it be.

Ted saw the Old Man’s look of confusion.

“Have you ever read The Count of Monte Cristo? No, of course you haven’t. No one’s read a book in forty years. Well, I gave myself a little cocktail that induced death-like symptoms. Later, when I came to, I was in the dead pile out beyond the Work. When it was night, I slipped away and started south. Thought I’d make it back to Albuquerque.” He started laughing and waved for the canteen when he began to cough again.

“I don’t think I’ll make it that far after all the rads I’ve absorbed in the last three days, but I’ll try. Maybe six, seven hundred. My thyroid should be pretty much nonexistent by now.”

I wonder how he knows so much. Electricity and medicine. He’s a man of many talents, and he doesn’t seem as old as me. Was he born after the bombs? What is his story of salvage?

You would say to me, Santiago, There is no more time for stories, my friend.

“You should turn around!” barked Ted. “You should turn around and never go near a place like that again. No one ever should.”

“I have to, Ted,” said the Old Man.

“And how do you know my name?”

“Your people are waiting for you south of here in the plains beyond the mountains. Near a hill shaped like a cone.”

“How? You and your tank?”

“It’s not important. But I have to go on, Ted. I don’t have much time. I’m going to leave all my water with you. It’s all I can do. And this poncho. It’ll keep the sun off you.”

“I can’t believe it,” said Ted laughing and coughing. “But who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?”

“Can you make it?” asked the Old Man.

Of course he can. He seems very resourceful. The world needs more Teds.

“Yes. I think I can. Help me to my feet. Please.”

Ted let out a great whoop of excitement once he was on his feet again.

“Feel great,” he said thumping his spindly chest.

The Old Man helped him put on the poncho and pulled the hood over his burned scalp. Then he hung the two canteens of water that remained across Ted’s chest.

“If there’s a way …” said Ted. “I don’t know who you are.”

“It’s not important, Ted.”

“Well, okay, but if there’s any other way to do what you’ve got to do, I’d advise you not to go there. This King Charlie’s some kinda nut. There’s ten thousand, maybe even tens of thousands of slaves dying inside the Work right now. As near as I can tell, he’s trying to burrow into some old military complex that I’m sure is dead anyways. At the same time, he’s got a slave-powered crowbar trying to pry the main doors open with brute force.”

“Who is this King Charlie?” asked the Old Man.

“I don’t know. They’d been watching ABQ. They knew we had technology. The night his men took our village, they put me on a fast horse and rode for days to get me there. They’re organized. Then someone told me to figure out a way to get into the complex.”

“But you never met him?”

“I don’t think so. I just heard rumors about him from the other slaves. Someone said he was an African mercenary who’d sailed across the ocean on a raft after the bombs and became a warlord down in Texas. There are people from all over down in the Work. Some didn’t even know where they were from. They have no idea what the old United States even looked like on a map. There are people in there from up north in the midwestern states and one guy who said he’d lived in the Florida Everglades. Spoke with a Russian accent. Which was strange. Whatever you do there, don’t waste your time on the slaves. I know that sounds cruel, and I’m not the kind of guy who would make that statement, but almost everyone in there is suffering from long-term exposure to radiation. That complex, that massive door they’re working on, it took a direct hit, if not more, from a nuclear weapon. Anyone who spends a day digging there is a walking corpse. How are you going to get those people out of there?”

“I don’t know. I guess there’s a collapsed secret entrance far enough away from Ground Zero for them to avoid a lot of the radiation. They’re going to use a weapon to open it.”

“What about you?”

The Old Man just stared at Ted.

“Well,” continued Ted when he understood what would happen to the Old Man. “If I can make it to ABQ, there are things I can do. But no, that little vacation was not good for my overall health. But this water, lots of water in fact, will help flush the radiation out of my system.”

The Old Man climbed back onto the tank. He lowered himself into the hatch. The fuel indicator was just under an eighth of a tank.

Is it enough?

It will have to be.

His hand found the ignition.

If it doesn’t start, then I will walk home with Ted. And we will live.

“Thank you, mister,” said Ted smiling, his glasses crooked and cracked.

There are still some good people left in this broken world.

If there are more … maybe things can be different. I hope you make it, Ted.

Maybe.

The Old Man held his hand over the ignition.

Please don’t start.

The Old Man pressed the ignition button.

The tank roared to life, belching gray smoke.

One last time, then.

He turned and looked south.

Gray skies. Gray grass. Shafts of weak silvery sunshine.

Someday something will grow here again.

Ahead, lightning zigzagged across the sky in unnatural patterns. Clouds boiled darkly and all about him, even over the whispering whine of the urgent turbine, the Old Man could hear the bugs. The locusts. Chattering manically in their click-speak.

A symphony that swallowed all other sound.

Swallowing the earth.

Swallowing him.