12Skinning A Live BearSoren and Conn had tried several routes into Detroit, but hadn’t found a way that avoided the need to get past the sentries. They’d crept up to this checkpoint in their SUV, rolling silently down the slight incline in neutral, before parking on the edge of the road in deep shade.
Above them, to their left, was an old industrial warehouse perched on top of a manmade hill of concrete blocks, patches of parched scrub, and waist deep piles of the sand blown from the rich arable land now dried to desert by the demon sun. The dunes breathed and rippled with the movement of lizards and snakes just under the surface.
Below them, as the incline leveled out, the low-roofed checkpoint building straddled the center median. For all the good they would do, weak plastic barriers s
