LITMIR.BIZ

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lean, hungry bodies. Their fur was fecal brown with black streaks, which made them hard to keep track of in the ebbing daylight.

      Even as Jak watched, another of the monstrous creatures sprang away from the pack, rushing at a dark-haired woman holding a baby in her arms. The woman jogged backward as the creature howled as it raced at her, arching its back menacingly. Then it leaped, and Jak watched—emotionless—as its jaws clamped around the woman’s neck, rending a hunk of flesh from just below her throat in a dark stain of red. Then it shook its head, tossing her bleeding body aside, blood splashed across its sharp, daggerlike teeth. The woman flopped in a heap on the ground, letting go of her child as she collapsed, mud splattering all around her.

      Sec men were scrambling about, trying to frighten away the beasts by firing into the air and firing at the near-impervious monsters themselves, but no one had time—or inclination—to assist in the woman’s plight.

      She wasn’t dead yet however, that was what Jak knew. She wasn’t dead, nor was the baby. So Jak ran, head down, arms pumping at his sides, feet striking the rain-soaked soil, rushing to get into a position where he might help her.

      Emerging from the field, Jak scanned the scene ahead. The woman was lying still, just a few feet from the monstrous wolf as its jaws widened around the bundled baby that lay wailing on the ground, its pink blanket splattered with mud. The other people from the caravan and three sec men of the ville were running about, desperately fending off the rest of the pack, ducking behind the sheltering walls of the nearby buildings. Jak spotted the bloody remains of another sec man beside the pillbox sentry post, two of the gigantic wolves feasting on his entrails as he kicked and screamed.

      Sprinting through the field, Jak turned his attention back to the woman with the baby. He raised the heavy revolver in his hand, sighting down the length of his arm and pulling the trigger as he ran. There was a boom, a flash and the smell of cordite hung in the air as his first shot blasted into the wolf’s flank. Staggered, the foul creature turned its long-muzzled head to face Jak, the baby still clamped, drooping from its jaws.

      Jak stopped, his boot heels sliding momentarily in the wet soil, and he reeled off three more shots at the wolf as it began to race toward him, its feet striking the earth in a drumming tarantella, its pace increasing with every step. The first .357 Magnum bullet merely clipped the monster’s ear, but the second and third found their target, drilling into the beast’s right eye, exploding the eyeball and powering onward into its brainpan.

      The dark-furred monstrosity staggered a moment, its legs giving way under it like a ville drunk on free hooch night, before opening its jaws and dropping the child to the ground with a thump. The child rolled over and over, howling in shock, and the beast followed, its body sagging into a clump at Jak’s feet. The albino teen warily watched the creature’s legs spasm, kicking out in awful jerking movements as its dying form lay in the soaking, muddy earth.

      Then he leaned close, placing the muzzle of the Colt flush against the side of the monster’s head, and pulled the trigger once more. After that, the hulking thing stopped twitching.

      Leaning down, Jak picked up the baby. The pink blanket that it was wrapped in was stained with mud and disheveled from the creature’s attack, but the child seemed intact, its eyes screwing up as it wailed. Jak rocked the baby back and forth as he made his way toward the wounded woman who was lying in the mud.

      WITH A FINAL BURST of speed, Ryan raced ahead of his companions, the scoped Steyr rifle slapping against his back where he’d slung it, his 9 mm SIG-Sauer P-226 blaster now clenched in his right fist. The Armorer raced to keep up with his longtime friend, sweeping the area with the Smith & Wesson scattergun as the pack of wolves lunged at the locals with the savagery of a raging river bursting its banks. As soon as the pair reached the half-buried pillbox, their weapons spit fire, blasting shot after shot into the crowd of mutie hounds. The dismembered sec man lay there, an explosion of blood where his torso had once been.

      A little way back, the remaining companions took up static positions on the cracked blacktop. Doc wielded his deadly LeMat, an ancient percussion pistol that had been adapted to include an additional shotgun barrel capable of unleashing a single, devastating .63-caliber shot. To either side of the white-haired man, Krysty and Mildred were scanning the fields along the sights of their own handguns. Krysty favored a small revolver, a .38 Smith & Wesson Model 640, a stubby gun with plenty of stopping power. Across from her, Mildred had her double-action ZKR 551 targeting revolver in her hand.

      Mildred’s heart was pounding, and she steadied her grip by placing her free hand tightly beneath the wrist of her right hand. In her other life, a hundred years before, Mildred had been an Olympic free-shooting silver medalist, and she valued the need for a still mind and a steady aim when facing a target, even one as savage and unpredictable as the oversize wolves.

      There was a risk that more of the pack were hidden in the crops surrounding them, and the two women were meticulous as they eyeballed the fields in the ebbing light.

      “Incoming!” Doc shouted suddenly as four of the muscular beasts broke from the pack at the shacks and scampered across the rain-slickened blacktop toward them, their large paws slapping against the cracked tarmac.

      Krysty and Mildred swung around, aiming their blasters at the oncoming creatures as Doc unleashed that cacophonous .63-caliber wad of shot. The result was dazzling in the twilight, a bright explosion of light and fury. Twenty feet ahead, the lead wolf was eviscerated, exploding in a burst of guts and flesh, its head crumbling to the ground as two uneven hunks of flesh and bone.

      The other wolves slowed their pace for a moment, a tremulous whine coming from one of them, before racing once more toward Doc and the women. Mildred had their height now, and she snapped off a steady stream of bullets into the left-most member of the group, almost casually, such was her unhurried manner. To Doc’s right, Krysty held her Smith & Wesson tightly, her finger softly stroking the silver trigger as she waited for the shot. In an instant, she squeezed the trigger, pumping it repeatedly and launching 9 mm bullet after 9 mm bullet at the wolf to the right of the group.

      Both wolves dropped simultaneously, sinking to the ground as the streams of bullets snagged them. They were still alive, their bodies thrashing, but chunks of their heads and bodies were missing now, bloodied strips of bone visible in the one to the left where Mildred’s attack had struck at the same point repeatedly.

      The mutie in the center continued its charge, its head down, jaws slavering as it powered toward Doc and the companions, ignoring the harsh fate of its brethren. Its shotgun capacity exhausted, the LeMat in Doc’s hand spit fire from its standard barrel, driving a shot into the creature as it sprang off the ground toward him. At the last possible instant, Doc simultaneously ducked and sidestepped, letting the heavy form of the wolf sail over his shoulder, so close that he could smell the foul stench of the flesh that had been caught between its blood-soaked teeth.

      The beast landed heavily behind Doc and the companions, its feet hitting the slick tarmac with a thud before it scampered around to face the three friends once more, kicking up rainwater as it turned. Its dark lips peeled back and it loosed a low, angry snarl as it glared at the white-haired old man.

      Krysty and Mildred began blasting shots at the monster, but it was already moving, its padded feet slapping loudly against the cracked and broken blacktop of the road.

      “Dammit, it’s too fast,” Mildred spat. “I can’t get a bead…”

      To Doc’s other side, Krysty muttered something in agreement, but he ignored both women and timed the creature’s movements in his head. All he could do was keep out of the monster’s way. The hulking mutie barreled at him, howling as it ran, and Doc spun on the heel of his boot, pulling the sweeping tails of his dark blue frock coat to one side like a matador taunting a charging bull.

      “By the Three Kennedys!” Doc cried as the monstrous hound passed him, its meaty shoulder knocking into his leg as he struggled to step out of its way. It had been a glancing blow, barely a tap, but the speed and power of the wolf was such that it had crashed against Doc’s leg with the impact of a jackhammer. Even as he cried out, the old man felt his balance waver and suddenly he went tumbling

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