Clean Island. Part I
Water oozed slowly from the huge tank through fresh cracks. The man in rags, standing nearby and occasionally scratching the back of his head, looked quite puzzled. The fact that the remnants of the camp were blazing around him didn’t seem to bother him at all. At least not as much as the water tank.
He could have stood like this for an eternity if he hadn’t been called out.
— Hey, Gurt! Hey, you frozen or something? Let’s get ready, it’s time to change the camp, otherwise these shooters will soon return and put all of us down!
The man turned around and realized that he is going to have a very hard time now. The chief will certainly make him the guilty one.
Psycho Pete, or simply Pete, as the members of the Lunatics gang called him, headed towards Gurt, clearly interested in the latter’s unusual confusion.
— Pete, we got a big problem... — Gurt started to speak, but the hysterical scream of the chief did not let him finish.
As he ran up to the tank, he fell to his knees and began to try to hold the water, which was flowing from the diverging cracks faster and faster.
— No, no, no, no, no, water, water! — Pete muttered to himself, trying to hug the tank.
After half a minute of this performance, he froze, as if some idea had occurred to him. He jumped abruptly and grabbed Gurt by the chest, pressing him against the tank.
— It was you! It was you, right?! Why would you leave us without water?! — he shouted to Gurt’s face, spitting and piercing him with a look of his mad swollen eyes.
Gurt, gasping for air, frantically tried to object:
— Pete, think about it, why would I do that? The tank got hit with shrapnel from the explosion, that’s true!
Having regained some control from the angry impulse, the Chief released Gurt from the grip — he immediately fell to the ground. Pete, having made some decision, called a man with a kind of epaulets on his shoulders, who was dragging a bale of supplies nearby: «Wahmister! Call everyone here! It's a holiday today — we will drink water! Liters of water!»
«Maybe, it's the last time we're doing it.» — he muttered under his breath.
***
A large group of Lunatics gathered around the tank, pushing each other with their elbows. Everyone tried to stock up on water or just drink as much of it as possible — it kept flowing onto the sand inexorably.
«...There’s nowhere to pour it into, you idiot! We don’t have another tank, all the canisters are full of gas. Whoever pours it on the ground will be left by Pete to get out of here on foot! — the wahmister publicly scolded one of his subordinates. — So go and grab all that’s left, before the tank bursts to oblivion!»
«If there is nowhere to pour it into, pour it into yourselves!» — Pete added with a nervous chuckle, heading towards the crowd.
To attract the attention of the gang, the chief hit the hood of a nearby wreck a couple of times — dozens of eyes immediately gazed at him.
«Right, daredevils. — He began his speech. — I still have no idea who attacked us, but we can no longer sit in this vacant lot. We leave right now, there's no time to wait for the rest, they will be occupied with the raid for a long time. But there is a much more serious problem: the water that you just poured into the flasks — that’s all the water we got. This means that we need to look for more, otherwise we won’t go far. We’ll search the place where I found this tank — on an island a couple of miles east of here. There are no other options, only to die here from thirst. No questions, get to your cars, fast!»
Pushing his subordinates and actively gesturing, Pete headed for his armoured vehicle.
Gurt, having filled the flask to the top, also moved towards his comrades, where they were packing the remaining belongings into the cargo compartments of armoured vehicles. Not reaching a couple of tens of meters, he was stopped by the chief’s call.
— Hey! You’ll go with me, we need to chat about something.
— Got you, Pete. Give me two minutes — I’ll go grab my stuff!
Gurt rushed searching for his bag — you can’t make the chief wait for too long. Especially if you had the honor to go on a raid in the same car with him.