The last Fuel Stop/Rest Stop Fortress seemed so long ago, so far
back...
Murdock leaned forward and his eyes closed.
The windows slowly darkened into complete opacity. The seat belt
crept higher and drew him back away from the wheel. Then the seat
gradually leaned backwards until he was reclining on a level plane.
The heater came on as the night approached, later.
The seat shook him awake, a little before five in the morning.
"Wake up, Sam! Wake up!"
"What is it?" he mumbled.
"I picked up a broadcast twenty minutes ago. There was a recent
car-raid out this way. I changed immediately, and we are almost
there."
"Why didn't you get me up right away?"
"You needed the sleep, and there was nothing you could do but get
tense and nervous."
"Okay, you're probably right. Tell me about the raid."
"Six vehicles, proceeding westward, were apparently ambushed by an
undetermined number of wild cars sometimes last night. The Patrol
Copter was reporting it from above the scene and I listened in. All
the vehicles were stripped and drained and their brains were smashed,
and their passengers were all apparently killed too. There were no
signs of movement."
"How far is it now?"
"Another two or three minutes."
The windshields came clear once more, and Murdock stared as far
ahead through the night as the powerful lamps could cut.
"I see something," he said, after a few moments.
"This is the place," said Jenny, and she began to slow down.
They drew up beside the ravaged cars. His seat belt unstrapped
and the door sprang open on his side.
"Circle around, Jenny," he said, "and look for heat tracks. I
won't be long."
The door slammed and Jenny moved away from him. He snapped on his
pocket torch and moved toward the wrecked vehicles.
The Plain was like a sand-strewn dance floorўhard and
grittyўbeneath his feet. There were many skid-marks, and a
spaghetti-work of tire tracks lay all about the area.
A dead man sat behind the wheel of the first car. His neck was
obviously broken. The smashed watch on his wrist said 2:24. There
were three personsўtwo women and a young manўlying about forty feet
away. They had been run down as they tried to flee from their
assaulted vehicles.
Murdock moved on, inspected the others. All six cars were
upright. Most of the damage was to their bodies. The tires and
wheels had been removed from all of them, as well as essential
portions of their engines; the gas tanks stood open, siphoned empty;
the spare tires were gone from the sprung trunks. There were no
living passengers.
