Trader Redux Laurence James

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Ryan tilted the paper toward the fire, struggling to read the increasingly uneven
scrawl.
"Chunk about arguments with his wife. What should they do? The drugs are
working and he's losing it. 'Since Jim died two or three days ago, we knew the end
was closest and closer to them.' Not making proper sense. 'Darlene took the
sleepers and lay on H's lap like a princess from a fairy tale. Slipped asleep and we
kissed her and put her to bed. Stewart didn't want and we had to& ' Can't read the
next bit, either."
J.B. shook his head. "Far as I'm concerned, you don't need to read any more,
Ryan."
"Right at the end now. Looks like the poor bastard could hardly hold the pen."
Trader stood. "Got to take a leak," he said. "Back in a minute."
" 'Told her I loved her. Thanked her good days and days. Head feels like tumbling
slurry of& Lay together. I'm ahead. Behind. H is restless. Sick noises. Don't think
write more of any& '" Ryan looked at the Armorer. "That's it. Ends there."
"Yeah." J.B. sighed. "Yeah."
Chapter Seven
They had all agreed there was no point in placing a guard on watch during the
night.
The mere fact of the house standing empty and untouched for so many years was a
clear enough sign of how deserted these outer suburbs were.
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"Closer in we get, the more risk there'll be," Trader said. "Keep a good watch out
for those night people the old slut said she saw."
"What do you reckon?" J.B. asked, carefully checking the action on his scattergun.
"Ghouls. Some sort of ghouls. Kind used to feed on flesh. Muties. Something like
that," Trader said vaguely.
Ryan laughed. "Facts like those at your fingertips and you can't lose."
IT WAS A DULL, overcast day, with no sign of the sun lurking above the low
clouds. The wind was westerly, bringing the bitter taste of salt. It was a little
warmer than it had been, but the darker sky out over the ocean promised rain
before the morning was done.
They had been walking for only a few minutes, still sticking to their skirmish line,
when J.B., out at point, stopped and held up a hand.
"What?" Trader called, moving back into the shadows of a fallen wall.
"Check your rad counters."
Ryan glanced down at the tiny button in his lapel, seeing that it had changed color,
going from the safety of green, through yellow into deep orange, verging on
crimson.
"Hot spot," the Armorer called. "I can see some nuke damage ahead of us."
Ryan moved up from the rear, looking in front of them, where the street went
down a slope. The houses there showed increasing damage, roofs missing, all the
windows stove in by the shock waves of the missiles. And the area was devoid of
trees or shrubs.
"Crater?" Trader asked.
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"Yeah. Filled with water." J.B. wiped his glasses on his sleeve, cleaning off the
fine drizzle that had just started to fall.
"Best cut around it. North or south?" Trader looked at the other two.
"North," Ryan suggested.
"Why?"
"You can see where the main ruins are, jutting down there, where the land gets
more narrow."
Trader nodded. "Makes some sense. I'll go out front now."
THE DETOUR OF THE AREA of ancient but still lethal radiation took most of
the morning. There was the familiar ripple effect on the streets, where solid stone
had melted and turned to frozen, corrugated taffy.
Whole blocks of the pleasant frame houses had fallen away like paper, many of
those nearer to the impact zone of ground zero completely vaporized.
"Not surprised to find nobody around," Ryan said, checking his rad counter again.
"It's still up in the high yellow zone, and we're a good mile past the crater."
The rain had eased away again, and there was the hope of the clouds breaking
during the afternoon.
Trader had stopped to relieve himself again, going along a narrow alley by the
side of a ruined church.
"Never met a man piss so much as Trader does now," J. B. commented. "Never
used to. Did he?"
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"Comes with age." Ryan rubbed his hands together. "Come to all of us."
"If we live long enough."
"Trader's lived long enough. What was that?"
There had been a muffled yell, sounding only a couple of hundred yards away
from them, farther in, toward the center of the ville.
The noise wasn't repeated.
Trader came running, doing up his pants with his left hand, the Armalite gripped
in his right, almost like a prosthetic extension of himself.
"Hear that?"
Ryan nodded. "Man shouting. That direction." He pointed with his SIG-Sauer.
"We'll go take a look."
"Trader."
"What?" The man turned to face his one-eyed companion. "What's eating you
now, Ryan?"
"Why are we going in?"
"Look see."
"Why?"
"Never knew you ask that kind of question, Ryan." The older man was confused.
"I don't get it. Honest, I don't. There's a problem here?"
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