Black Harvest. James Axler

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      Chapter Three

      The ride in the wag was bumpy, but the vehicle made good time on the washed-out dirt roads and open fields that led back to the ville.

      Ryan had hoped to have the chance to talk with Moira or Eleander along the way, but the two women had been placed in the seats directly behind the driver and across the aisle from Sec chief Robards. No one was more disappointed with the seating arrangement than Doc, who had tried to take the seat next to Eleander, only to be politely told to move toward the back of the wag by one of the sec men.

      “Don’t tell me you’ve taken a shine to the woman,” Mildred said, as Doc made his way back to where the friends were sitting.

      For a moment Doc looked stuck for words. Finally, he said, “I find the lady attractive, yes. Any woman who ventured this far from her ville just to enjoy the pleasure of a naked swim in a cool river is…intriguing to say the least.”

      “Sure is curious,” Mildred acknowledged. “Maybe even a bit strange.”

      “Lots strange about ville,” Jak said through slightly clenched teeth.

      J.B. was just about to comment when the wag crested a rise and the ville suddenly appeared before them.

      It was a fair-sized ville in two distinct parts. On the edges were all manner of run-down and ramshackle dwellings, and several areas made up of tents. Ryan recognized a few of the structures as gaudy houses and canteens, and guessed that the rest were flophouses and shelters for the ville’s bottom-feeders. Past the outlying ghetto was a section of the ville that was fenced in by a wall of burned-out wags, piles of broken cinder blocks and bricks, and rusty and twisted steel girders. If there had once been a city on this spot, its remains had been pushed, pulled and dragged into a mile-long circle of eight-foot-high rubble. The front gate of the ville was a ten- or twelve-foot gap in the wall, which was closed off by a pair of thick wooden doors that swung freely on two massive hinged wooden posts. Most likely they served as telephone poles in pre-Dark days.

      A lookout in a crow’s nest set atop the pole on the right acknowledged the driver of the wag as it approached, and the doors swung open slowly to let the vehicle inside the ville.

      As the gap between the doors inched wider, Ryan studied the buildings inside the wall. Like the structures on the outside, most of the buildings inside looked slapped together, with a few looking as if they’d been made from the cargo containers. Windows had been cut into the sides of the big square boxes to make living quarters, while others had been fitted with pipes and exhausts that suggested to Ryan that the ville’s baron was more of a manufacturer than a trader. In the distance, toward the back of the ville, Ryan could make out large glass houses similar to the kind once used on pre-Dark farms. So, in addition to making items for trade, the ville grew its own food. That would explain the well-maintained wag and a well-armed and organized sec force.

      There were obviously things worth protecting inside the walls.

      The wag pulled up in front of a stack of square steel boxes, each set on top of another like bricks. The door to the wag opened and one of the sec men got out, followed by Eleander and Moira. Doc and the others got up to exit the wag along with the women, but Robards put up a hand to stop them. “They get off here,” he said. “You’re going somewhere else.”

      The friends sat down.

      Robards stepped off the wag and spoke with one of his sec men. When he was done, the sec man double-timed it down the road. Then the sec boss got back on the wag and it lurched forward as it slowly got back underway.

      Jak let out a slight groan of pain as the wag was jostled by a bump in the road, then quickly said, “Not hurt.”

      “Yeah, I bet,” Mildred responded.

      The wag pulled up in front of another series of stacked steel boxes and Robards turned and pointed to Jak. “This is where he gets off. There are people inside who can help him. They know he’s coming.”

      Jak got up from his seat.

      Mildred stood up as well.

      “Are you injured, too?” Robards asked Mildred.

      “No, but I’m СКАЧАТЬ