Terminator Salvation_ The Official Movie Novelization - Alan Dean Foster [32]
In his short, brutish life he had known far too many of the latter.
Save for the comforting grumble of the jeep, the silence on the old highway was pervasive. Tough and resilient, the desert scrub appeared to have survived better than the largely transplanted and imported landscaping of Los Angeles.
Occasionally he thought he caught glimpses of movement among the stones, succulents, and cacti. Rats, mice, rabbits, ever-opportunistic coyotes and cats gone feral. He smiled to himself. Small mammals had survived the age of dinosaurs by fleeing to burrows. Perhaps humankind would survive the age of machines the same way. Something dark and winged soaring overhead drew his gaze upward.
He was not at all surprised that among the surviving species of birds, buzzards seemed to be doing particularly well.
If the 7-Eleven that hove into view was a mirage, it was a pleasingly solid one. Though for all that was left of it, it might as well have been vapor. Torn and battered, its windows and front broken out, with its filling island twisted as if by a tornado, it appeared to have been ravaged as much by the weather and human refugees as by Skynet.
Bent and rusted as they were, the presence of the gas pumps prompted him to glance down at the jeep’s dash. He was not surprised to see that the fuel gauge indicator was flirting with a large letter E. Determination would still get him to San Francisco—but another tankful of fuel would sure be a big help.
At the moment, he was not ashamed to admit that he needed the expertise of someone much younger than himself who knew about their present surroundings. Reaching over, he elbowed the sleeping teen awake. Reese muttered something unintelligible, but when his eyes opened, they opened fast. He was instantly awake, his awareness ignited like the flame on a gas stove.
Slowing further as he drew closer to the station turnoff, Wright indicated the silent structure.
“Looks dead. What do you think?”
Leaning out the side of the jeep, Reese squinted at the building. Excitement replacing exhaustion, he pointed to a symbol that had been spray painted on one wall. More than anything, it resembled a crude double helix.
“Hey...that’s it.” The youth pointed. “That’s the insignia of the Resistance. It means this place has recently been visited by its soldiers and found to be clean. Looks deserted, too. It should be all right to get out here—at least for as long as it takes to pick up what we can. Pull over.” Reaching into the back seat, he nudged the jeep’s smallest passenger.
“Star, wake up! We’ve found a store.”
Sitting up, the girl rubbed at her eyes, and looked at Reese as if to say, What kind of store?
Settling back down in the front passenger seat, the teen studied the ruins absorbedly, dividing his attention between the relic and the now alert and attentive little girl in back.
“It’s kind of a mess, but it looks like a mini-mart.” At this her eyes widened hopefully. He had to smile at her reaction.
“Don’t get too excited,” he told her. “You know what these places are like inside. We went through plenty of ’em back in L.A.” He eyed the gaping, windowless front speculatively. “Maybe we’ll be lucky this time, maybe not.” He turned back to the older man. “Come on. You drive like a grandmother.”
His initial reaction after they parked the jeep and finally got inside was “not.” Star’s expression showed how her heart sank as she joined the two men in inspecting the rows of broken, crumpled shelves. The minimart’s interior had been ravaged and scavenged with a thoroughness fit to satisfy the most scrupulous barbarian. The store had been cleaned out. There wasn’t a paper clip to be had, much less anything edible. A long-silent freezer contained a single empty carton of milk.
Wright wondered why whoever had drained the contents had chosen to place the empty container back in the silent