Читать книгу Death Hunt - James Axler - Страница 8

“‘It’s a mighty long way down the dusty trail…’”

“Don’t—”

“‘Where the sun bursts hot on the…’ By the Three Kennedys, the next line has completely escaped me!” Doc exclaimed.

“That’s a blessing, if nothing else,” Mildred murmured. She’d been pleading with Doc to stop quoting half-remembered lines, which she found more irritating than if he had been able to quote whole stanzas, for what seemed to be hours. It couldn’t really have been that long, but time was beginning to drag.

The companions were seated in the kitchen area of a redoubt, the last of the dried and still-edible frozen goods in pots on top of the stove. The self-heats had been securely stowed for their journey ahead; they’d leave when their chrons told them it was daylight up above.

A pall of gloom hung over the six friends, caused by the fact that there were only, now, the six. Ryan had veered between raging anger and deep sorrow in the time following the discovery that Sharona had jumped and taken Dean with her.

Although all of the companions had been shocked at the sudden departure of the boy, and hadn’t known what to make of the circumstances, it seemed that Cawdor had been hit on a deeper level—from which a scar had formed that was more pronounced than any physical reminder of his hard, raging life. Questions consumed Ryan’s mind. Had she tricked the boy? Or had he left of his own accord, without a word to his father and friends? Where were they now? What was to become of them? He had withdrawn into himself, not even wishing to share his anger, pain and confusion with Krysty. For several days he had been little more than a spectral presence, haunting the corridors of the redoubt where they were now resting.

He finally emerged into their midst, and spoken, his tone grim, resigned. But it was the dulled quality of his one good eye that was the biggest sign of his pain, its hard glitter and diamond-hardness temporarily gone.

“Wherever that bitch has jumped, and wherever they both are, there’s no way we can follow. And she knows that…” He didn’t add that it was Dean who would have told her or that this was the hardest thing of all to bear. “But even if we can’t follow, we can still hope…I can still hope,” he added after a pause. “All we can do is carry on. I want us to get out of here as soon as we can.”

There were no arguments from the others. To jump from this redoubt would remove Ryan from the source. To move on in physical space would make the moving on within him that little bit easier to initiate.

The companions scoured the redoubt, stripping the place of anything useful. No one spoke much, and the task was achieved in triple-quick time. They were soon entering the mat-trans chamber, settling into positions that would reduce the stress and agony that came with every jump.

It was the one-eyed man himself who closed the chamber door, folding his length into a sitting position, knees drawn up protectively as the chamber air began to crackle as a white mist whirled wisplike from the metallic disks on the floor and ceiling.

The obliquity of the jump was something Ryan welcomed.

The deviation, however, didn’t last long.

He was haunted by dreams, not the surreal nightmares of a mat-trans jump, the effect of every atom being broken, twisted and turned into an electron stream shot from one unit to another before being painfully reassembled. Those kinds of nightmares, at least, had shape to them. They were sickening, and exposed every fear and loathing contained within the human brain. But they were just nightmares, just the subconscious dredging up the detritus and spewing it out in protest of the battering it was taking from the jump.

These hauntings were worse. They weren’t nightmares. They weren’t even dreams: neither in the sense of having coherence nor in having narrative; not even the distorted logic of most dreams. Instead, they were fragments: wisps as much as the white mist that had swirled around him before he’d finally passed out, with as much substance and with as much seemingly benign malevolence.

A succession of images and memories passed through his brain like a cavalcade; Dean as a small boy—absurd, this, as Ryan hadn’t known of Dean until the boy was nine—Sharona as she was before the rad sickness; the Brody school in which he had enrolled the lad when he had found him again. The circumstances of his rejoining their party the last time, after being used as a gladiator in a sport of barons. What had happened since: snatching him from Jenna, the twisted wife of Baron Alien, who had mixed old-occult practices and the old tech nuke to make her own new way of promulgating a master race…Fireblast, but Ryan had thought Dean had been lost forever.

The last image ripped from his head and held up in front of him was of Dean as he had last seen him: at rest in the redoubt, with plans for the next day. Plans to explore the underground base, to join his father and friends in stripping it before moving on to their next location, the next step in their search for…

Well, for what? What was there now, beyond survival? Twice before Ryan had found his son and then lost him. Was there to be a third chance?

Ryan opened his eye with the feeling that, should he part his lips, his intestines would vomit themselves out through his mouth and the pressure would blow his brains down through his nose.

Except, this time, he wouldn’t fight it and he wouldn’t care.

But he did. The nausea and sense of being turned inside out, the pounding in his skull, as some kind of consciousness returned…served to kick in his sense of survival. Operating on instinct rather than intellect, he pulled himself together, battling to regain the full use of all his senses as rapidly as possibly, lest the mat-trans chamber be vulnerable in any way, leaving them open to attack. He was first on his feet and the first to organize the six companions into a party capable of securing the immediate area.

As always, it was Jak and Doc who took longest to recover from the jump. Doc’s body and mind had been through too much to withstand the jumps, but still the seemingly old man’s stubbornness pulled him through. As for Jak, he was tough, but there was something in him that didn’t respond to the jumps. The albino was always the last to come around, puking painfully as his body readjusted.

J.B. and Mildred exchanged concerned glances as they secured the area. Ryan, perfunctory about the operation, made himself go through the motions, seemingly not as sharp as usual. Fortunately, Krysty could feel the darkness coming off him, which had nothing to do with her doomie sense and everything to do with her feelings for the one-eyed man, and was able to cover and compensate.

A thorough recce determined that the redoubt was secure, so they settled in for some rest before heading into the outside world. In itself, the redoubt had been no problem. Deserted, it had remained untouched since the advent of skydark. The only signs of passing time were the layer of dust that had gathered where the gently wheezing air-conditioners had slowly begun to wind down without continuous maintenance. The air was slightly stale and some of the comps had cut out where transistors and fuses had died of age.

As with most of the redoubts they had visited, there was no sign of life. Unlike many of those other redoubts, there was little sign that the land around the installation had suffered much upheaval. The levels they explored showed little other than minor cracks in the reinforced walls and ceilings.

And unlike other bases, this one hadn’t been completely stripped. The armory would replenish their ammo supply and the clothes stores would provide much-needed new underwear, T-shirts and fatigues for those who wanted them.

The companions rested, then spent a whole day taking inventory and planning their next move. Another good night’s sleep refreshed them enough to tackle the unknown that lay beyond the redoubt. They knew from preliminary recces that the levels were intact up to the surface, that the maps and charts on the walls of some of the offices and comp rooms suggested they were in the northwest of the Deathlands, an area prone to erratic climatic and temperate conditions. All levels to the final exit door were known territory: what lay beyond was in question.

Which was how they found themselves gathered in the kitchen area, waiting for their last meal, Doc’s impatience and anxiety expressed in the way he once again sang old snatches of half-remembered songs and poems.

“How long before we eat? I’m getting antsy waiting down here,” J.B. muttered.

“Yeah—get going. See what face,” Jak agreed.

“It’ll be ready when it’s ready, like everything is,” Ryan commented flatly.

“It’s not like you to get all philosophical on us,” Mildred said with a note of surprise she couldn’t quite disguise.

Ryan shrugged. “Had some time to think, and I’ve had a lot to think about. But, fuck it, you just have to keep on, right?”

“If you say so, lover,” Krysty said gently. “But it doesn’t mean we should give up.”

“Give up what?” Ryan asked. The clearness of his good eye as he fixed it on her betrayed that he was genuinely confused as to her meaning. Was she saying to never give up on looking for Dean, or did she mean never give up on their quest? But what use was looking for the promised land when he would never be settled inside?

“Give up on anything…on each other,” Krysty said.

There was little else to say. Ryan knew she was right. If nothing else, the companions had to look out for one another. They had been through too much together and lost too many friends along the way for it to be any other way.

He nodded. Brief, but enough. “You’re right. Let’s eat, get ourselves together and get out there.”

Within an hour they were ready to go. At least an hour remained until, by their estimation of the time zone, the light would be good enough to call it daybreak.

“Dark night, let’s not leave it any longer. Even if it means watching the sunrise, I need to get out of this pesthole,” J.B. said irritably.

They used the elevators to move them through the base, unwilling to expend unnecessary energy now that they were laden for the journey ahead. There was a silence over the group as they entered the elevator that would take them to the top level. Mildred, looking around at the companions, felt that it would benefit them to get out of the redoubt and into whatever was outside. Action would break the torpor that hung over them.

However, whatever was outside, in fact, was their next problem.

Knowing they were in the northwest, and that the earth and rock around the redoubt hadn’t suffered from shock waves and tremors, they knew little about what was beyond the exit door. As they left the elevator and moved up the gentle incline toward the thick, reinforced exit door, the unknown began to assume importance. Would the exit be blocked by a rockfall? Were they in a valley, or up the side of a hill where the scree may have eroded and thus leave them stranded? Was the redoubt entrance under water? What was waiting on the outside?

There was no way of knowing until the lever was pressed, and the door began to rise. There were outside sec cams, but they had long since ceased to function as a result of the nuclear winter following skydark.

Ryan waited by the lever to the main door as the last set of interior sec doors ground shut. When they had closed, the companions were standing within a shallow channel of space. The reasoning was simple. If there was danger, they could defend the channel until the outer sec door was closed again, thus eliminating any risk of an enemy gaining access to the labyrinthine redoubt, indefensible with the small force they had at their disposal. Natural dangers were another matter.

“You realize that if there’s water out there, you’re going to have to be pretty damn quick,” Mildred said as Ryan prepared to open the door. “The pressure if we’re below sea level will shoot it through the gap…”

Ryan agreed. “We should have enough time to get the door closed before this fills up,” he said flatly. “Anyway, chances are it won’t be under water. The tunnels would be fucked with that much pressure, and there’s no sign of dampness or leakage.”

Mildred nodded. Ryan was right. There hadn’t been signs usual of a high water table and they had rarely seen a redoubt with less stress damage or water infiltration. Nonetheless, there was a worry nagging at her that Ryan wasn’t one hundred percent on the ball right now.

“Okay, triple-red and in position,” Ryan said as he moved to press the lever, which they all knew was usually Dean’s job.

The companions fanned out on either side of the sec door. Krysty and Jak lined up behind Ryan. The one-eyed man had unholstered his SIG-Sauer, which he held in his left hand as he pressed the lever with his right. Jak had his .357 Magnum Colt Python to hand, while Krysty had her .38-caliber Smith & Wesson ready for action.

On the far side of the channel, J.B. took the front position, choosing to shoulder his M-4000, which, with its load of barbed-metal fléchettes, would wreak havoc on any flesh-and-blood enemy who may be lying in wait. Behind him, Mildred was ready with her Czech-made ZKR 551 target pistol. It wouldn’t cause as wide a range of damage as J.B.’s blaster, but with Mildred’s crackshot ability it was just as effective. Doc took the rear. The most vulnerable of the companions because of the mental and physical battering he had taken, he nonetheless had a streak of sheer granite will within him that would always make him a formidable opponent. If nothing else, he had his LeMat percussion pistol, which had the ability to inflict maximum damage on anything hostile that approached.

Ryan pressed hard on the lever and the outer door began to grind and open slowly. There was no inrush of water. Neither was there a trickle of rock and gravel to presage a landfall to indicate they were blocked in by rock.

As the door opened wider, the light from the redoubt tunnel flooded onto the land beyond. Dawn hadn’t yet broken, and Ryan cursed under his breath, knowing that the light streaming from the redoubt made them an easy target. He released the lever and flattened himself against the wall, motioning to the others to do likewise.

From what he had seen before pulling back, the land beyond the redoubt entrance was barren and flat, and there was a track that led from the door to the level ground. It was a shallow incline, and the dust on the track was undisturbed, suggesting that no one had been sniffing around the redoubt entrance for a long time.

He tried to still his breathing and to listen, straining for any noises that may betray anyone waiting in ambush, but he could hear nothing. He looked at Jak. The albino youth’s hunting senses were so finely honed that he had an almost preternatural grasp of the natural world around him. Jak shook his head briefly. He could neither hear nor smell anything dangerous out there. Ryan then looked at Krysty. With her doomie sense, her sentient hair would curl tightly and protectively to her scalp if there was imminent danger. The Titian mane was free-flowing.

The one-eyed man signaled across to the Armorer. They would move out, covered by their companions, and recce the area. He counted to three and signaled.

The two men rolled under the partly open door and hit the dirt outside the redoubt at the same moment, temporarily blind to the area beyond the arc of light as their eyes adjusted to the surrounding gloom. Ryan went left, J.B. right. Both held their blasters ready to fire at the least provocation.

Ryan felt the ground give beneath his feet. It was hard-packed dirt, suggesting that the area was dry, but there was a soft top layer, almost like dust, which made him feel that the place in which they had landed was like a desert. The impression was reinforced by the sparse trees and vegetation that loomed as darker shadows against the earth and sky as dawn approached.

His eye scanned the immediate area for cover and saw only a small cluster of rocks barely large enough to shelter one person. He made for the rocks, ready for an enemy to spring into view or to open fire. There was nothing to suggest the rocks were being used in such a manner. He skidded to a halt, hunkering down by them and pausing to look around.

All remained quiet.

He looked across to where the Armorer lay flat against the ground, one hand clutching the M-4000, the other clamping his battered fedora to his head. Their movements had thrown up a cloud of dust that shone in the approaching dawn as the first rays of the sun hit the motes.

J.B. shook his head. All was clear on his side of the track.

Ryan turned to signal the others to follow, then realized that they wouldn’t be able to see him. It was too dark outside the redoubt.

He rose to his feet and looked around. As the sun began to crawl above the horizon, he could see that the redoubt had been built into a hillside that had long since eroded, leaving the roof of the reinforced concrete tunnel almost exposed. The track had obviously, at some time, led down into the lee of the hill, but the weather conditions over the past century or so had virtually leveled the ground for as far as he could see. Which suggested that there were harsh storms—possibly chem storms—and that the desert wind was potentially deadly. They would have to get moving and try to find their way into a more hospitable terrain as soon as possible.

“Come on out. It’s clear,” he called as he walked back toward the entrance, waving J.B. back to the light as he did so. By the time he was within the pool of light, the Armorer was at his side and the others had emerged from the entrance.

“It looks bleak,” Mildred murmured.

“No animals. Bad sign,” Jak added.

Ryan had to agree. If the terrain could support little in the way of wildlife, then it was unlikely to welcome the companions.

“We need to move as soon as the sun’s up. Mebbe we’ll get a better look around in the light. And once it’s up, we can get a direction. Right, J.B.?”

The Armorer nodded, already searching his capacious pockets and baggage for his minisextant.

“What do you think caused that?” Mildred asked, facing the entrance and noticing the way the hill had eroded.

“Chem storms,” Krysty replied. “They could strip anything down if it’s stuck in them long enough.”

“Then I would venture to hope that we are not that unlucky,” Doc commented. “Although…”

J.B. had turned and was looking toward the horizon. The rising sun looked bloated and purple through the shimmering haze of cloud that hung sluggishly in the sky. Purple clouds—the sign of toxic chem—seemed to hover malevolently above the desert floor. As the light spread over the land, he could see that the foliage that had struggled to survive was stunted and twisted where years of chem-soaked rains had affected plant DNA structures. The earth had a faint purple-brown tinge in its dry constituency where the chemicals had infected the soil.

J.B. took a reading and pointed to the south-southwest.

“Sea’s over that way, I reckon. Depends how far north we are in the first place, though. Guess the sea should keep the land cleaner over there,” he added, unable to keep the uncertainty from his voice.

“Only one way to find out. And we sure as hell can’t stay here,” Ryan said simply.

They struck out in the direction indicated by J.B. once he’d consulted his minisextant and his old plasticized map. Ryan led the way, with J.B. bringing up the rear. Between them, Krysty and Mildred were followed by Doc and Jak, the albino mutie changing his position in the line to cover Doc’s back now that Dean was gone. It was a small thing, not even spoken of among them, but it was indicative of the changes they would have to make. Without the younger Cawdor, the dynamic of group security and battle plans had changed: regardless of personal feelings, to adapt for their survival they would have to almost forget that he had ever been among them.

The arid landscape that stretched around them was revealed in its immensity as the sun fully rose and cast its light over the land. As far as they could see, in every direction, the layer of dusty soil covered hard-packed earth that was streaked with the purple of the chem clouds above. It wasn’t desert. This was definitely soil rather than sand, but it seemed all the more desolate because of this. The few grasses that were spread in sparse croppings were tough, spiked blades that threatened to cut anyone who brushed against them. Few plants could survive in the nutrient-drained, chem-raddled soil, but those that did were sickly specimens that seemed to wither under the hot sun.

And a hot sun it was. The chem clouds, sparse purple and yellow wisps across the sky like a malevolent gauze, offered no protection from the harsh rays. Rather, they seemed to rap and to magnify the intensity of the heat, giving off a humid and fetid odor, with an underlying and poisonous sweetness that made breathing an effort.

As they marched, the companions were grateful the redoubt had given them plentiful supplies of water, since anything they would find—if at all—in this wasteland would be tainted and possibly deadly.

Grateful, also, for the salt tablets that Mildred had looted from the pharmacy in the redoubt and for the protective clothing that they had been able to find. The jackets Mildred, Doc, Jak and J.B. had chosen had been made for the old Pacific northwest weather, and so were thick and heavy. They also had hoods and visors that kept off the worst excesses of sunstroke, even if they made you sweat heavily underneath.

A whole day’s marching was slow and painful. Doc’s breath rasped painfully in time to their footsteps, and Jak stumbled and fell a couple of times, needing water and salt tablets more than the others. His small, slight frame had a surface area to mass ratio that made him lose water and salt quicker than any of the others, especially beneath the heavy protective jacket.

Mildred looked back at the pair several times as they marched, concern evident in her face.

The barren land seemed to stretch endlessly on all sides of them. Should they have struck out and tried to find life of some kind? Should they have taken another day or two’s rest—the ancient air-conditioning system could possibly have coped—and then made another jump, rather than risk being fried out here? Ryan had seemed to be motivated by more than just his survival instincts this time. It was a desire to escape the confines of a redoubt, and to just do something…anything. Or was she just reading that into the situation because she was tired, hot and cranky?

They stopped a couple of times on the first day, taking advantage of the sparse shade offered by a few stunted trees. The shallow root systems of the twisted trunks spread over a long distance before petering out, suggesting that they took whatever sustenance they could from the rain as it fell. It was likely that there was no water table unless a person dug deep—something that the lack of damage to the redoubt had earlier suggested—and that the only viable source for survival were the rains. Considering the dryness of the topsoil, it was likely there was little in the way of rainfall on anything approaching a regular basis. Looking at the deadly chem clouds floating above them, and the vast expanse of nothingness around them, the companions were glad for these signs: to be caught in a chem storm with no shelter would potentially be deadly.

Still, they trudged on in the heat, moving at a pace that seemed to deteriorate as the sun moved painfully slowly across the sky. Covering nowhere near the distance they usually would in such a time, the fall of twilight was promising. The temperature dropped rapidly, and although they all knew that before long it would be bone-chillingly cold, the sudden descent to a lower temperature was welcome after the stultifying heat of the day.

They continued until they came to the shelter of a stunted copse of trees. Ryan signaled for them to stop and, using the wood around them, they set about building a fire. The arid wasteland seemed deserted, but the light and heat was for protection as much as their own warmth. It would enable them to keep a lookout for any marauding nocturnal creatures. There had been no sign of any kind of life so far, but that wasn’t surprising considering the intense heat of the day. Anything that could live in such conditions would have to be hardy, and also nocturnal. The night, when they were trying to rest before the rigor of the next day, would be the dangerous time.

The companions organized themselves into watches and tried to rest. But, despite the clothes and thermal blankets they had taken from the redoubt stores, the cold seeped into their bones. When the time came to be roused for watch, none of them could safely say that they had gotten much rest.

As the sun rose the next morning, the companions were out of sorts and tired. Not one of them had had a good night’s rest.

“Gaia, but I hope this changes soon,” Krysty said as she stretched, looking up to the green-purple sky and making the most of that brief period between the chill of night and the heat of day.

“It can’t stretch like this for much farther. We should hit the coast soon,” J.B. stated.

“Trouble is, what kind of condition are we going to be in when we do?” Mildred commented. “The salt tablets won’t last forever and neither will the water.”

“We press on. Can’t turn back,” Ryan said simply.

Doc fixed Ryan with a stare. His blue eyes, sometimes clouded with troubled visions that only he could see, were today startlingly clear. He could almost see into Ryan’s heart, see the pain. But at what cost to the rest of them? He chose to say nothing—this wasn’t the time—and handed out self-heats to the other companions, leaving Ryan to last. The one-eyed man gestured that he wasn’t hungry.

“My dear boy, I do not care whether you are or not. You have to eat, keep up your strength. We are relying on you, do not forget,” he added with emphasis. “You are of little use to us if you do not have the energy reserves to march or to fight…and of little use to yourself in such a case, I should not wonder.”

Ryan frowned and studied the old man intently. He was right, of course, he was. The one-eyed man took the food. It was bland and chemical-tasting, as self-heats usually were, but it was energy. That was all that mattered.

“J.B., you reckon we’re still headed in the right direction?” he asked. The Armorer checked his minisextant with the sun and confirmed that they were still on south-southwest. “Then I figure we keep going. We’ve come too far to turn back. It has to get better…”

“More out there,” Jak commented. “Smell it, hear it. Mebbe not much, but something survives on more than this.” He bent and took a handful of the dry soil, letting it run through his fingers.

“Then let’s go,” Ryan decided. “Sooner we move, sooner we get the hell out of this.”

They broke camp and set off once more. Mildred wondered if she was the only one to detect the double entendre in Ryan’s choice of words. From the way that Krysty was looking at the one-eyed man, she suspected not.

Jak had been correct. It was a subtle change, and it took some while for them to notice, but the Gila monster that sprung across the line as they marched brought it home. The conditions were improving. The air was still stifling and the heat from the sun was still intense, but there was a lessening in the humidity. Looking up, they could see that the cloud cover was spare, the chem clouds allowing more of the sky to show through untainted. The soil around was still dry, but there were signs of lichen and fern. The grasses looked less stark. They were softer clumps, thicker and more lush. The trees appeared to twist less, the root systems seemingly able to burrow a little deeper into the earth.

Stopping to take note, Jak could tell that there was more wildlife. He could hear birds, see a few in the distance. Obviously poor, scrawny creatures, they were there, nonetheless. As were the reptiles and insects—more than that Gila monster or the dung beetle that now crawled across his combat boot. Even the presence of a dung beetle suggested mammals from which it could scavenge. Small one, mebbe, no more. The albino could sense no danger in the shape of larger predators.

Jak allowed himself a small smile. “More life—mebbe food and water and not so much heat,” he said to the others.

“Mebbe. Press on some more before we rest, see if we can find out what,” Ryan replied. For the first time in days, a smile creased his seemingly ever-grim visage.

They moved forward with a renewed sense of purpose and a pace quickened by expectation. And as they moved, so the landscape around them seemed to improve with every half mile they traversed. The dusty top layer of soil gave way to hard-packed ground beneath, which became that much softer beneath the trampling of their feet. The patches of grass and lichen spread out so that the exposed soil became an exception rather than the rule. And the musk of animal life grew stronger around them, becoming almost tangible.

Which should have been a warning.

The farther from the redoubt, the more the landscape began to resemble something that could feasibly support life. It was almost as if the redoubt itself had somehow acted as the epicenter for the desert area. Perhaps it had. Although the toxicity would have abated within the area itself, it was possible that the military activity in the redoubt had concentrated on chemical warfare, which was reflected in the desolation. The thought crossed Mildred’s mind and she made a note to check herself and the others for any signs of contamination that may occur in the next few days. Assuming that the next few days would be quiet enough to allow for such a check.

It seemed as though quiet might be the case as the day slowly faded into twilight and they put distance between themselves and the barren land. It was still stiflingly hot, but even so the temperature had dropped a few degrees and the lusher vegetation allowed for more shelter from the direct heat of the sun.

It also provided hiding places for the wildlife that became more prevalent.

Jak slowed and focused his attention on a clump of turquoise-berried shrubbery wild with red and yellow leaves among the green.

“What?” Ryan questioned briefly, stopping as he noticed the albino hunter slow down.

Jak answered him with an almost imperceptible nod, not bothering to shift the glare of his red eyes from his target. In a smooth, fluid motion he palmed a leaf-bladed throwing knife from within his patched camou jacket. The knife left his hand with minimal effort, flashing through the air and into the clump of vegetation.

There was a squeal—fear and pain mixed on a screeching note—and the bush seemed to take on a life of its own, exploding as two creatures shot outward in a blur of motion. They were moving away from the companions, fleeing in fear, but the death rattle from the shrub suggested that there had been a third creature and that Jak’s aim had been true.

Ryan moved toward the vegetation, the SIG-Sauer in his hand, ready to blast anything that may present the merest hint of a threat. He used his heavy combat boot, raised tentatively, to open up the dense foliage. It would take an incredibly strong bite or claw to go through the toughened leather, and he was unwilling to risk a more vulnerable hand or arm to the task.

“Fireblast! That’s not a pretty sight,” he breathed as the creature in the shrubbery became visible.

The others joined him.

The creature was some kind of mutie raccoon, larger than any they’d seen before, with a heavily developed back and hindquarter musculature that made it look like some sort of hybrid raccoon-badger. Its snout had been cleaved by the knife, the razor-honed point making short work of the bone and flesh, Jak’s unerring arm driving it up and into the frontal lobes of the creature’s brain. The mutie lay in the last twitches of death, staring up at them with eyes that could no longer see.

“Shit, that’s a mean-looking bastard,” Mildred whistled.

“Yeah, and his little friends are going to be pretty pissed at what we’ve done when they get over the urge to run,” Krysty added thoughtfully. “They’ve been tailing us, right?”

Jak nodded. “Smelled them couple a miles back. Part of pack, getting closer, bolder when they think we don’t know.”

“They’re pretty quiet for something so big,” Krysty stated. “I thought I could feel something, but I didn’t hear them.”

“Guess we’d better be triple-red, then,” Ryan said decisively. “If we’re their game, they’ll be back. Figure we’re probably the biggest, tastiest-looking prey they’ve seen for a while.”

The companions set off once more, keeping closer and staying on the alert. Blasters were drawn in anticipation of an attack. As they became aware, it seemed that there was more noise, more movement. Was it because they had been slack before the chilling or had the scent of blood stirred up the creatures of the woods?

Small rodents scuttled into the undergrowth as they approached, causing J.B. and Ryan to draw beads, fingers tightening on triggers before relaxing as they realized there was no threat.

Doc and Mildred directed their attention to the skies. They were entering an area where there was a denser canopy of leaf and branch cover than before. What kind of birds were sheltering in the cover provided? And not just wildfowl. There was also the possibility of snakes dropping onto them from above.

“Over there,” Jak snapped suddenly, gesturing them to halt. He slipped out of line and into the cover of a grassy knoll. He emerged, dragging the corpse of what looked like some kind of wild dog. It had been gnawed at the hindquarters, the stomach and ribs stripped bare. The head and forequarters had been barely touched. The animal almost had a look of surprise on its muzzle, its glassy eyes seemingly shocked even in the moment of chilling.

“Fresh, mebbe less than day. No flies, maggots, no rotten meat smell. Must be close. Mebbe we stray onto their hunting ground.”

He didn’t add that the dog looked powerful and that the mutie raccoons were either powerful in a pack or were even more formidable than they had guessed individually.

“Need to stay triple alert now,” Ryan said quietly. “They could be close.”

“Not all that close, dear boy,” Doc said, suddenly sinking to his knees and examining the still intact forequarter of the beast. “I suspect we may be in spitting distance of something approaching a ville.”

“Why do you say that?” Ryan asked, puzzled.

Doc smiled grimly and traced a scar line on the joint of the dog’s foreleg. “This is no mere scar, and I suspect that this creature may not have been as wild as it was once. Dr. Wyeth, would you confirm my suspicions?”

Mildred came over and hunkered down beside Doc. “This had better be good,” she muttered. “It’s not my idea of a good time to kneel down and look at a hunk of rotting carcass.”

But her imprecations went no further. She squinted, taking a closer look at the scar. Dammit, but the old fool was right.

“Shit, that’s been stitched. This is a domestic canine, which means we must be near some kind of settlement. There’s no way it would wander far if it was used to living with people, and it doesn’t look like it’s been dragged that far.”

Ryan’s face split with a crooked grin. “Signs of life. That’s something, right? We’ll move on out, keep heading seaward. Who knows how far we are from the coast, but at least we know that there’s someone between us and the water.”

Spirits lightened by this revelation, the group picked up the pace. If they could find some kind of settlement before darkness fell, it would be safer than making camp out here.

But, as they moved on, Krysty frowned. The strands of Titian hair around her neck and shoulders started to curl, wrapping themselves close to her nape. She shot a glance at Jak and could see that he, too, was in a heightened state of awareness.

“Yeah, approaching from there—” he nodded as his gleaming red eyes caught hers “—and plenty of them.”

Even as he spoke, the others became aware of a crashing in the undergrowth that was growing nearer with every second. A pack of the mutie animals was approaching at speed.

Ryan unslung the Steyr, and slammed the bolt. “Triple-red. Fire as soon as you sight,” he yelled. Even as he spoke, he was aware that the gloom of twilight under the cover of the trees would make for great pools of shadow that would disguise the movement of the creatures. Hoping the light would hold out long enough, he knew there would be places where he would have to shoot on sound alone, which would be difficult once the firing started, obliterating all else.

The first of the mutie creatures, driven by a lust for blood and, perhaps, some primeval desire for revenge, appeared from the undergrowth only a few yards from where they stood. It leaped across the intervening space, its powerful haunches propelling it through the air. Ryan raised his rifle and fired a solitary round. The creature’s flight was checked, the force of the shell almost changing the mutie’s trajectory as it spun sideways, falling to the ground with a hideous cry of pain. A second shell finished it off. The one-eyed man was taking no chances that the wounded animal might fight back.

Rather than retreat, the chilling of the lead creature just made the muties more ferocious. They began to pour out of the undergrowth, reaching double figures with a frightening speed. Mildred, Krysty and Jak, armed with their handblasters, picked off the animals singly, aiming—like Ryan—for accuracy. But there were too many animals and not enough space and time in which to maneuver.

“Doc, take the left hand with shot. I’ll deal with the right,” J.B. yelled over the bedlam of squealing muties and blasterfire. As he yelled, he unslung his Smith & Wesson M-4000.

“Understood,” Doc shouted, for once not wasting words. The Armorer’s intention was clear: they were the only two of the companions with the firepower to put a serious dent in the marauding forces. While the others picked off the animals in front of them, it would be up to Doc and J.B. to try to stem the flow from the darkness beyond.

It was no time for subtlety.

Doc used the shotgun chamber of the LeMat, firing into the darkness, the percussion pistol roaring as the shot emerged from the barrel of the old blaster, moving at high velocity into the darkness, spreading out to put deadly pellets through anything that got in its way. The squeals and cries from the darkness suggested it was an effective tactic.

Likewise, J.B. fired off a blast from the M-4000. The normal shot charge from such a blaster would be effective, but the Armorer had loaded barbed-metal fléchette rounds that, when propelled at immense velocity, would turn and twist in the air, ripping chunks out of whatever they came into contact with, causing irreversible internal damage on any carcass they entered.

The twin-pronged attack had the desired effect. The numbers of attacking creatures were immediately lessened; many turned and fled in fear or injury. The rest of the companions had the precious seconds they needed to pick off whatever attackers remained.

In the aftermath, the air stank of blood and cordite, the carnage obvious, even in the encroaching darkness of the night.

“Shit, too late to find a ville now,” Ryan murmured. “We need to move on a little, pitch a camp, before the stragglers return to attack again.”

“We should be okay,” J.B. commented. “There’s enough chilled meat here to keep most of the predators for miles around busy until sunrise.”

Krysty allowed herself to shiver. “Let’s get moving, then, before any of them come out of cover.”

Doc smiled. “That would be wise. And, of course, the smell will be awful here.”

Jak snorted. “Yeah. Sooner pitch camp better—downwind, right?”