Kevin Anderson - Ill Wind

Heather put her hands on her hips, refusing to let him see her fear. “Connor, cut it out!” She grabbed at the shotgun, but he snatched it away, glaring at her.

The moon-faced woman fell to her knees on the porch. She kept staring at the motionless dog bleeding into the dust.

The gaunt woman reappeared, her eyes as wide as coins. She gripped the door frame but she didn’t move a muscle.

Connor spoke to Heather while keeping the shotgun trained on the women. “What’s your problem? We’ve been trudging around this state like scavengers, and these bitches are sitting fat and cushy on a year’s worth of food. It’s our turn! We deserve a bit of convenience for a change. I thought you wanted to get back at the people who stepped all over you your whole life.”

Heather’s words came out quieter than she intended. “These people never did anything to me.”

“Well then let’s get that Al Sysco you keep complaining about.” He dropped the barrel of the shotgun and pointed toward the ladies’ feet. “I can make him dance like in an old cowboy movie. Pow, pow, pow!”

“Right, I want to hike all the way back to Flagstaff just so I can make a pathetic little man squirm. Cool it, Connor, we’ve got better things to do.” She turned to the gaunt woman, the only one capable of doing anything at the moment. “Would you get us some water and some packaged food?” She hesitated. “Please?”

Connor pointed the shotgun at her moon-faced sister. “And don’t try anything!” Heather didn’t like the predatory look in Connor’s eyes. More and more of his real personality was unfolding before her eyes. With a chill she wondered what he might have done to the women if she wasn’t there.

Connor snorted at Heather. “Man, what made you turn boring all of a sudden?”

Minutes later the gaunt woman returned with the supplies. Heather’s heart raced and she tried to slow her breathing. She was afraid the woman might have gone for a rifle of her own, and then things would have gotten messy. But she carried only water and some boxed food. “Here… now please, leave us alone.”

Connor was about to retort, but Heather grabbed his arm and forced him to turn around. “Let’s go,” she said, and they set off back down the dirt driveway.

As they departed, Heather glanced back. The gaunt woman took her sister’s hand and pulled her to her feet. The two of them moved slowly forward to stand in shock over their dead dog.

“Hey, Spence—visitors!” The words echoed in the still air around the electromagnetic launcher on the slopes of Oscura Peak.

“Who is it?” Spencer asked with a sigh. Even with the isolation of the post-plague world, people still found ways to interrupt his work a dozen times a day. He swore that he would never be the person to bring back the telephone.

Gilbert Hertoya shrugged, his small, compact body silhouetted against the door of the tin-roofed accelerator. “Don’t know, but they’re riding down from the north.”

Spencer put down his wrench and wiped sweat from his forehead. His new beard itched like crazy in the stuffy heat. Pinholes of light punched through the metal siding, but no breeze came at all. Spencer could only stand to work inside the enclosure for half an hour at a time.

He left a jumble of wiring on the concrete floor. For the past few days it was the only work he could do that wouldn’t bring a squawk from his experimentalists. They kidded him and told him to keep away from the delicate refurbished equipment after the water-pump fiasco. Short no unskilled labor, Gilbert Hertoya had cheerfully put him to work laying down relay switches on the EM launcher facility. “If liberal arts students can handle it during the summer, I think you can manage,” Gilbert said.

Spencer emerged from the dim building into the brilliant desert sun; he held up a hand against the glare as he stared down the mountain slope. Gilbert stood on a pile of metal siding to get higher, pointing toward the north. “Looks like five of them.”

Spencer squinted. “All on horseback?”

“Yeah. And they’re not from Alamogordo unless they got lost coming back from Cloudcroft.”

“Too far south. Besides, they’d stick to the mountains if they were lost.” Spencer thought for a moment. “You know, Romero’s been getting some disturbing reports—martial law in Albuquerque, riots in El Paso, a lot of the Indian pueblos killing anyone who comes on their land. We’ve been lucky up here.”

Gilbert gingerly stepped down from the pile of rattling metal. “What should we do?”

“Send out the welcome wagon, what else?”

In the concrete blockhouse at the base of the railgun launcher, Spencer and Gilbert waited in the shade. The travelers arrowed straight for the facility—the five-mile launcher could be seen for miles around.

Spencer pushed back the drooping brim of his hat, arms folded as he watched the riders approach. The two in front wore Air Force uniforms, and he could see rifles packed behind their saddles. He had a sudden vision of the cavalry riding into town.

“What are they up to?” he muttered. Gilbert shaded his eyes and kept staring.

The broad-shouldered man in uniform looked young and big enough to be a football player. He called out when they were fifty yards away. “Yo! I’m Lieutenant Bobby Carron, looking for Dr. Lockwood. Can you tell me where to find him?”

Spencer squinted at the young man; the voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. Had they met before?

One of the three men in back leaned to the side and shouted, “Hey, Gilbert! That you, you old sand rat?”

Gilbert Hertoya broke into a grin. “Arnie!” He turned to Spencer and dropped his voice. “I used to work with him at Sandia. He’s okay.”

Arnie spread his arms. “They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Come on, let’s talk.” As the visitors kept approaching, Spencer saw a troubled look cross Arnie’s face. “You’re lucky you were down here when the plague hit, Gilbert. A lot of people died.”

Lieutenant Carron swung off his horse; Spencer racked his brain, trying to recall where he’d seen the man before. And then he remembered: the drive back from Livermore, the rental car breaking down out in the California desert. Spencer grinned and held out a hand. “I knew you looked familiar, Lieutenant. I’m Spencer Lockwood—you rescued me, just about a month ago, when I ran out of gas near Death Valley.”

Bobby held onto the horse’s reins and squinted at Spencer. A smile grew across his face. “You’re right. You know, I’d forgotten your name—and you didn’t have a beard then, did you?”

“No need to waste razors.”

Bobby laughed. “It didn’t occur to me that you’d be the same person I was supposed to find.” He introduced his group. Everyone seemed pleased except sour-faced Sergeant Morris. She stiffly shook Spencer’s hand without a trace of warmth.

Spencer said, “What can I do for you, now that you’ve come across half the state looking for me?”

“We heard you’ve been generating electricity down here,” Bobby said. “We came to get the full details.”

Spencer rolled his eyes. “Oh, boy. I was afraid this might happen.”

Bobby fumbled with the button on his uniform shirt. He pulled out a folded sheet of paper, smoothed it, then handed it to Spencer. He looked embarrassed. “We’re actually on an official mission, for what it’s worth. I’m representing General Bayclock from Kirtland.”

Spencer held onto the paper, but kept looking at Bobby. “I thought you said you were assigned to China Lake. What’s a Navy man doing in the middle of the desert?”

“That’s a long story. Here, this explains part of it.”