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its component parts lying around it.
    The first thing to check out was the Harley itself. It seemed impossible that it hadn’t suffered major damage in the fall.
     Stone sat on top of the thing and rocked it around beneath his legs. The bike seemed solid enough. The wheels looked aligned,
     the bars, everything. It appeared to have been able to withstand the shock. He tried the ignition and the motorcycle started
     up with a lion roar and then settled quickly back into a growl. He kept it in neutral and gave it some gas and the motor seemed
     to be all right. He got off, double-checked both tires making sure they were tightened, and then went on with the job of loading
     everything back again.
    Once he actually got going Stone found it wasn’t that bad. Since he had already put the thing together and taken it apart
     now he didn’t waste a lot of time figuring out angles and clasps. Lost in concentration as he reattached every part, he didn’t
     even realize he was done until he looked around and there was nothing more to reattach. Stone stood up and looked at his creation.
     Not bad. The Luchaire 89mm firing tube looked a trifle lopsided as it sat attached to the left side of the bike. He readjusted
     it.
    “Not bad, not fucking bad, heh dog?,” Stone commented, glancing over at the pit bull which was lying in its little mobile
     casket. Stone was so used to making snide comments to the animal, he had forgotten it was not in a hearing state of mind.
     He clamped his lips shut like he wasn’t going to say another word this year and mounted the dirt-covered Harley. He started
     her up and headed slowly ahead, keeping both feet flat on the ground, as he wouldn’t have been surprised to find the thing
     cracking right in half after the fall it had taken. But other than a few new creaks and groans here and there as the metal
     moved around a little readjusting itself, everything seemed like it was going to stay in one place.
    Within minutes he was moving at about forty, and for the first time that morning he relaxed a little, realizing as he did
     just how uptight he must have been. His stomach let loose with a whole rush of gurgles as the muscles within unclenched. Now,
     all he needed was to find the nearest McDonald’s, or the post-nuke version of such anyway, which meant a rabbit on the hoof.
    Stone realized that other than the Spam and a few pieces of candy bar he had choked down with coffee, he had hardly eaten
     a thing for days now. It was hard to grab a bite sometimes when the whole world was trying to kill you.
    Either he hadn’t noticed them before, because he had been so busy in his repair work, or else there hadn’t been as many where
     he and the dog had been spat out by the tornado—but suddenly Stone noticed a shitload of birds. He saw vultures as he focused
     in on a few of them munching on carcasses around the open prairie he was cruising down. With all the carrion around—and he
     could smell it in the air now, the heavy scent of rotting meat—the decay eaters were having a field day.
    Vultures were everywhere. The bent ugly heads were ripping into their meals in loud snapping groups on every side. Stone raised
     his eyes up and nearly gasped, for the sky above, relatively clear after the squalls of yesterday, was brimming with the creatures.
     Stone had never seen so many of the wide-winged birds. They seemed to fill the whole sky, flying in an immense circle that
     must have stretched out for a mile. There had to be thousands of them all flapping wildly as they went faster and faster and
     dropped lower. Stone had seen vultures eating before. But they were always in much smaller groups, perhaps a few dozen around
     a dead buffalo. This was of a vastly different order.
    It wasn’t just the numbers that started getting him a little nervous as he rode through the destruction and the countless
     feasts of their huge groups—it was their attitude. They were getting frenzied, wild, making screaming