James Axler: Crater Lake

"If this one failed, we'd have us some serious problems," J.B. said. "Take some high-ex to shift it. Probably bring the whole roof down if'n we tried."

It was a bleak thought to take to sleep.

He awoke instantly, his body tense, then relaxed when he realized what had woken him. Krysty's fingers crept across his flat stomach, soft as the caress of a butterfly's wing as they reached the inside of his right thigh, then touched his penis, rousing him.

"Bitch nympho gaudy slut," he whispered, drawing his breath in sharply as her fingers closed and squeezed tightly, making him gasp.

"Not even as a joke, lover," she warned him, "or you'll be picking this up from the other side of the room." She tugged at his erection to heighten the warning, succeeding mainly in rousing him further.

Ryan reached across and laid the palm of his hand across her breasts, bringing his index finger and thumb together on the left nipple, feeling it immediately harden like a tiny, responsive animal. Krysty sighed with pleasure at the touch.

"Nice, lover. Keep the slow hand for a while, will you?"

"Sure. But if you're going t'pull my cock off, what would you find for pleasing?"

"From the satisfied look on Lori's face some mornings, I might ask old Doc Tanner for some sloppy seconds."

"He's fucking antique," Ryan protested, grinning in the semidarkness of the redoubt stores.

"Nothing wrong with some antique fucking, lover," she responded. "No substitute for experience, or hadn't you heard?"

"I heard, I heard."

As they busied themselves with the sexual mysteries of each other's body, Ryan and Krysty fell silent.

When she was ready for him, he lifted his hips so that she could guide him into her body. He gasped at the sensation as he slid deep into her waiting warmth, her arms locking around his neck, ankles pulling in the small of his back to deepen the lovemaking. She kissed him, with repeated, gentle brushes of her lips all around his neck and face. He lowered his face to hers, mouth open, tongue flicking against her teeth. Ryan could feel the delicate movements of her long, brilliant red hair, caressing his shoulders as he thrust into her.

The faster he moved, the faster and more urgently she rose to meet him, hips leaving the soft warm plastic of their bedding at each stroke.

"Now... now... now, now, now," she moaned, and he closed his eye, mouth open in a rictus of passion, driving in so hard that the girl cried out in shock at the way he filled her. He could feel the fluttering of her stomach muscles as her own climax rushed on her, and his body jerked and bucked with his own release.

The lights in the redoubt were day-sensor controlled. At about five, according to Ryan's luminous chron, they brightened, flooding the pallid stone walls and sharpening the ruled shadows.

Ryan rolled away from Krysty, wincing at the dried stickiness that joined them from their lovemaking. The light and the movement woke her, and she eased away from him, shading here eyes with her hand.

"Time to be up an' doing, lover," she whispered, looking around.

"Yeah. Go look for these guys who sent the radio message."

"You think it's for real? Could be a trap."

He rose, pulled his pants on over his boots, then checked his weapons as if by instinct. "Could be a trap, Krysty, sure. But if there was someone around who knew how to work the gateways..."

"You want to go home," she said quietly, keeping her voice down so that the others, a few yards away in different side rooms, wouldn't hear.

"Home? Where?.."

She stood up and buckled her belt, smiling at him. "Don't try and shit me, lover. You know where home is to you."

"Front Royal ville, up in the Shens? Yeah. I guess home is always the place where you were born and raised."

"You said you didn't care."

"Care about home? I was wrong. Been thinking 'bout it for a few days."

Krysty stamped her feet into her boots, making the stone floor ring. "That's better. Got cramp in my toes. Front Royal? You could go back and talk to your dear brother and his wife."

Ryan's left hand lifted, seemingly of its own accord. He touched the leather patch over his ruined eye, brushing down the scar that furrowed the skin of his cheek. "Yeah, lover. Talk to my brother about paying some debts 'tween us."

Finnegan came striding noisily up. He'd been on the last watch of the night. "Thought I heard some noise behind the door over there," he said, pointing to the broken entrance to the redoubt. "Then it fucked off and there wasn't a sound. But have you seen the room along by the other door?"

"Which one?"

"Got an ob-slit in the door and dozens of cases, all sealed tighter'n a cherry's love nest."

"We saw them last night. Figured we'd take us a good look this morning, 'fore we leave here."

Doc Tanner approached. "What might they be, my dear Ryan?" he asked. "I trust they are not some new and fearsome chemical poisons or some disseminators of hideous death."

"I'd settle for some small grens. Lost most of mine along the way," J.B. said.

"Knives," Jak said, licking his lips in eager anticipation. "Long, thin knives with edges that'll slit clean through a sec man's spine."

"Bloodthirsty little bastard, aren't you?" Krysty said. "I'd settle for some clean underwear and a flask of brandy."

"How 'bout you, Lori?" Ryan asked. "What would you like to find in those locked packing cases?"

The girl blushed. She shuffled a few steps to one side, reaching out to grip Doc Tanner by the hand. "Theophilus tells me all 'bout weddings in old days. I'd like there are weddings in the boxes."

Once again the arched bunker filled with the steam and aromas of the self-heats being opened. Ryan and the others stuck to more or less the same selections they'd taken the previous evening. Jak tried different combinations, gobbling some thimbleberries and smoked cod, following that up with some bottled water and topping off the meal with curried pickles.

Then he found an empty side chamber and noisily vomited up the whole mess. The others waited for him. There was a long silence, and finally Finn called out, "Hey, you all right, Whitey?"

"Sure, Fats. Sure. Just looking through this to see if anything was worth eating second time around." He waited for the yelps of revulsion. "But guess I'll open a coupla fresh cans."

When they finished eating, they packed up, each taking a couple of tins and a bottle of water. Ryan, heels ringing on the stone, led onward through the complex of rooms. Doc came second, arm around Lori, who was shivering again with the cold. She'd made a sort of cloak out of the plastic packing, and it rustled around her shoulders, J.B. followed, talking to Krysty about the relative stopping power of round-nose versus sharp-nose ammunition. At the back, Finn was using his fingers to ladle a sticky caramel goo out of an unlabeled tin. Krysty had warned him that it was probably either glue or a laxative.

"Don't give a fuck, long as it tastes good," was his reply.

Doc was singing quietly, his resonant voice echoing off the vaulted roof. It was a song that Ryan had never heard before. It sounded very old and mystical, not unlike the man himself.

"Western wind, when wilt thou blow,

That small rain down can rain?

Christ! If my love were in my arms,

And I in my bed again."

When he stopped, the concrete cavern seemed a lot I emptier.

It was Finnegan who found the racks of clothes. The part J of the vast redoubt where they walked held dozens of lateral chambers, most of them empty and stripped. This one had its door half shut, hiding one side. Finn pushed it open with the flat of his hand.