"Yeah. But I..."
"Donahue, shut up. You saw what happened."
"Yeah."
Spano lit a cigarette as the night became red and unreal, and the crimson notes of the bell filled the world to its brim with their shudders.
Nine crawling rats, dragging their legs behind them, Snapping at nothing, and wet, parlayed confusion and motion.
By morning he was into the place called Indiana and still following the road. He passed farmhouses which seemed in good repair. There could even be people living! in them. He longed to investigate, but he didn't dare stop. Then after an hour, it was all countryside again, and de generating.
The grasses grew shorter, shriveled, were gone. An occasional twisted tree clung to the bare earth. The radia tion level began to rise once more. The signs told him he was nearing Indianapolis, which he guessed was a big city that had received a bomb and was now gone away.
Nor was he mistaken.
He had to detour far to the south to get around it, backtracking to a place called Martinsville in order to cross over the White River. Then as he headed east once more, his radio crackled and came to life. There was a faint voice, repeating, "Unidentified vehicle, halt!" and he switched all the scanners to telescopic range. Far ahead, on a hilltop, he saw a standing man with binoculars and a walkie-talkie. He did not acknowledge receipt of the transmission, but kept driving.
He was hitting forty miles an hour along a halfway decent section of roadway, and he gradually increased his speed to fifty-five, though the protesting of his tires upon the cracked pavement was sufficient to awaken Greg.
Tanner stared ahead, ready for an attack, and the radio kept repeating the order, louder now as he neared the hill, and called upon him to acknowledge the message.
He touched the brake as he rounded a long curve, and he did not reply to Greg's "What's the matter?"
When he saw it there, blocking the way, ready to fire, he acted instantly.
The tank filled the road, and its big gun was pointed directly at him.
As his eye sought for and found passage around it, his right hand slapped the switches that sent three armorpiercing rockets screaming ahead, and his left spun the wheel counterclockwise, and his foot fell heavy on the accelerator.
He was half off the road then, bouncing along the ditch at its side, when the tank discharged one fiery belch, which missed him and then caved in upon itself and blossomed.
There came the sound of rifle fire as he pulled back onto the road on the other side of the tank and sped ahead. Greg launched a grenade to the right and the left and then hit the fifty-calibers. They tore on ahead, and after about a quarter of a mile Tanner picked up his microphone and said, "Sorry about that. My brakes don't work," and hung it up again. There was no response.
As soon as they reached a level plain, commanding a good view in all directions, Tanner halted the vehicle, and Greg moved into the driver's seat.
"Where do you think they got hold of that armor?"
"Who knows?"
"And why stop us?"
"They didn't know what we were carrying, and maybe they just wanted the car."
"Blasting it's a helluva way to get it."
"If they can't have it, why should they let us keep it?"
"You know just how they think, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Have a cigarette."
Tanner nodded, accepted.
"It's been pretty bad, you know?"
"I can't argue with that."
"... And we've still got a long way to go."
"Yeah, so we'd better get rolling."
"You said before that you didn't think we'd make it."
"I've revised my opinion. Now I think we will."
"After all we've been through?"
"After all we've been through."
"What more do we have to fight with?"
"I don't know yet."
"But, on the other hand, we know everything there is behind us. We know how to avoid a lot of it now."
Tanner nodded.
"You tried to cut out once. Now I don't blame you."
"You getting scared, Greg?"
"I'm no good to my family if I'm dead."
"Then why'd you agree to come along?"
"I didn't know it would be like this. You had better sense, because you had an idea what it would be like."
"I had an idea."
"Nobody can blame us if we fail. After all, we've tried."
"What about all those people in Boston you made me a speech about?"
"They're probably dead by now. The plague isn't a thing that takes its time, you know."