LITMIR.BIZ

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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?”

      Chapter Two

      Jak stayed on watch through the night. Their camp was another five hundred yards from the scene of the slaughter, but even so the albino youth felt a nagging sense that there was still danger in the air. When Ryan asked him, he shrugged. He couldn’t say what it was, but that he just had a sense of it. The woods were too alive for the night; something was making the wildlife restless.

      Krysty had been unable to shed any light on Jak’s unease. She was still running on adrenaline from the battle against the mutie raccoons and couldn’t sense anything.

      Jak

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