"Grab an end." The man bent down to clasp a large handful of the damp foliage.
Marc did it while keeping his eyes open, not liking to be unfamiliar with an area, but content enough to let the man's true colors show when they would. The odds on him winning weren't nearly as high as with the wolves.
"Pull!"
Angela grinned in surprised admiration at the cleverly disguised sewer entrance that rose up like a blanket. There were thin, dark green puddles where it met the ground, a poison of some type Angie guessed, and she was careful not to step in it, wondering if it was the fumes alone that kept the animals from coming through or if they'd learned to avoid it from seeing their packmates die.
"Close the flap and watch out for the rats. The antifreeze don't tempt 'em, and they don't scare easy neither."
As they moved into the damp, stinking air of underground, Marc gestured to the night vision glasses on her belt. Instead of putting them on, she tapped the big man on the arm, held them out.
He started to take them, and then shook his head, stepped by her. "You keep 'em and watch out. Your blood'll likely make fire shoot from their arses, and we'd never be able ta keep 'em out."
Angela heard Marc snort in amusement and she slid the glasses back onto her belt with a frown. She didn't sense evil in their huge guide, but his knowing what she was made her uncomfortable, and she dropped back, putting more distance between them.
Marc however, was starting to relax. He was almost sure the man had been military before the War, and he lit a smoke, gun still in hand, as they walked quietly through the stone tunnels. They moved over and around rotting furniture, mildewed piles of clothes, whole and broken cinder blocks. Gray and green moss climbed the tall, dank, concrete walls that met a cobwebbed ceiling about 20 feet above them, and their steps echoed along with the distant drip of water.
"About there. Be quiet. She'll have the little 'uns back ta sleep by now," he said, indicating that the battle with the wolves was a long-running one.
Angela caught Marc's silent words. "He thinks we're a couple. Tell him different, I may have to fight for you when it comes time to leave."
She too felt the enormous man's interest, but it eased her a little that there was no sense of him being the one to fear. They came to a stop, and when Marc gestured upward, she saw a trap door in a wooden floor that was over twenty feet up, an impossible jump.