The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF - Mike Ashley [51]
Bars of shadow and light flashed across Stuart's face and the hum of tires against dry pavement filled the car. The wipers scraped against the dry windshield, back and forth, back and forth, and then they emerged from the tunnel into a shifting wall of rain.
"Christ," Stuart said. "Do you think it'll ever stop? Do you think it'll rain forever?"
She looked away, out the window, into the falling rain, and that rag of nursery rhyme returned to her. "Rain, rain go away," she said. "Come again some other day."
Night closed in around them. Mountains rose above the road like the shoulders of giants, black against the black sky. Melissa smoked her last cigarette. Far ahead, huddled high against an arm of the ridge, Melissa saw a sprinkle of lights, all that remained of a once-bustling town. The cabin lay farther north, isolated still higher in the mountains. Three rooms, Stuart, and all about them the besieging rain.
At last, the lights came up around them.
"Would you look at that?" Stuart said, pointing.
She saw it then, as well, a blazing Texaco sign towering above the highway. Beyond it stretched a strip of hotels, gas stations, and fast-food restaurants - most of them dark, abandoned.
"It could be a trap," Stuart said, "to lure in the unwary."
She sighed.
"We should have bought that gun."
"No guns," she said.
"We'll have to risk it. If they have gas, we could top off the tank, refill our cans. Maybe they'll have kerosene."
Without another word, he exited to the strip, passed the boarded-up ruins of fast-food restaurants and hotels, and stopped the Jeep beneath the canopy by the Texaco's islands. She watched as he studied the parking lot suspiciously; he put her in mind of some frightened forest creature, and she had the disquieting thought that men weren't so far removed from the jungle. Satisfied at last, he killed the engine; the noise of the rain grew louder, almost deafening, drowning out her thoughts. She opened the door and stood, stretching.
"I'm going to the restroom," she said, without turning; she heard the pump come on, gasoline gush into the tank.
"You want anything from inside?" he asked.
"Get me a coke and a pack of cigarettes."
The bathrooms were across the parking lot, through the downpour. Melissa shrugged on her raincoat, slipped the hood over her head, and darted across the pavement, one arm cocked ineffectually above her, warding off the rain. The interior of the restroom stank of urine and bleach; mold had begun to blossom here, sodden, cancerous roses along the base of the dry-wall. A trash can overflowed in one corner. Melissa's nose wrinkled in disgust as she covered the toilet seat with toilet paper.
When she returned, Stuart was waiting in the Jeep.
"Can you believe it," he said. "He took money, good old-fashioned American money. Fool."
"You get my stuff?"
He gestured at the dash. A can of Diet Coke waited there, sweating condensation.
"What about my cigarettes?"
"I didn't get them. We have to be careful now. Who knows when we'll be able to see a doctor again?"
"Jesus, Stuart." Melissa got out and slammed the door. She walked to the tiny shop. The attendant sat behind the register, his feet propped against the counter, reading a novel which he placed face-down when the door chimed behind her.
"What can I do for you?" he said.
"Pack of Marlboro Lights, please."
He shook his head as he pulled the cigarettes from an overhead rack. "Shouldn't smoke, lady. Bad for you."
"I've given up sun-bathing to compensate."
The attendant laughed.
She looked up at him, a young man, not handsome, with flesh the color and texture of the toadstools she had scraped off the kitchen floor. Flesh like Stuart's flesh, in the midst of that subtle change of his.
But nice eyes, she decided. Clear eyes, blue, the color of water.