Read The Fly-By-Nights for Free Online

just don’t know.”
    “Survival,” Garth said again. “But if so, then it’s against all the odds…”
     

     
    By then the convoywas into the city’s outskirts, negotiating a rubble-strewn road with the gaunt shells of burnt-out or shattered buildings growing up on both sides.
    The leader, Big Jon Lamon, grotesque in a nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare suit, stood tall in the turret of his rauper (or his “kettenrauper,” according to a hand-painted sign flaking away on its rusty iron flank, though no one could remember the designation’s origin: actually that of an armoured half-track, a museum piece in miraculously working order) where Big Jon had brought it to a temporary halt, and from which he hastened the convoy’s vehicles on as they passed him by.
    “That big building up front there,” Big Jon pointed, shouting orders at the driver in the shielded cab of the tow-tractor that pulled Garth and Zach’s trundle. “Get parked up alongside, deep in its shade, until we can sort out the accommodation. Mind you: no one goes inside, not yet!” Then as the vehicle trundled by and Big Jon spied a familiar face:
    “Ho there, Zach! How goes it with you?”
    “Battered and bruised, and aching in my back, my belly, and my two sides!” Garth’s father replied with a shout and a little dry humour. “Other than which I reckon I’m probably okay! Sorry for the women and kids, that’s all.”
    Big Jon, having begun to laugh, stopped at once and nodded. “Well, with luck,” he yelled, his voice almost lost in the thunder of the tow-tractor’s motor as the convoy rumbled on, “today they’ll get to rest up all they want—God bless ’em all!” Following which, Big Jon and his rauper both were lost in billowing clouds of dust .
    “Aye, but before anyone rests up there may be more work for some of you,” Zach muttered, as he fixed his son with a worried look. “Dangerous work at that.” He might have said more but instead, shifting his gaze beyond Garth, he nodded his acknowledgement of Ned Singer who was coming round from behind the weapons rack, swaying toward them in their corner seats.
    Zach’s meaning had been perfectly clear, however, and when Garth said, “Fly-by-nights?” it was more than just a question.
    “I hope not,” Zach replied, under his breath, “but it’s not unlikely. Some of these buildings still have roofs and could be occupied. In respect of which—well here comes your boss right now, doubtless to issue his instructions.”
    Answering Zach’s nod with one of his own, however perfunctory, Singer took hold of a dangling strap to steady himself and leaned over Garth. “’Prentice Slattery,” he growled, “I suppose you know what comes next, and what I expect of you? But are you ready for it?”
    Garth accepted that he was still an apprentice of sorts, at best a novice where fly-by-nights were concerned, and answered: “I’ll be ready when you call for me, Mr. Singer. But may I ask, what’s your reckoning? Is it likely we’ll be facing danger this time?”
    “Danger, for you? Not if you watch and learn,” Singer grunted. “Not if you stick close, do as you’re told and quick about it. The reason I bother myself with you: you’re my youngest, my weakest, my least experienced. If you’d gone scavenging with me sooner—if you had a bit more of that behind you, back at the Southern Refuge—I wouldn’t be so concerned. I would know you better, how you’d think and react in a crisis or difficult situation. But you’re a Slattery, and—”
    “—And what Ned?” Zach’s voice was dangerously quiet where he leaned forward, coming half out of his seat.
    Singer scowled but drew back a little. “Well, you know what they say,” he said. “Like father, like son…eh, Zach? I mean, there’s four other men at risk in the squad, and I can’t afford to sit still for any wild stuff. That first kill your boy made: fine; all well and good; another fly-by-night gone