James Axler Deathlands 048 Dark Reckoning

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and bolts. Leveling their weapons, the blues retreated from the portal and
braced themselves for a pitched battle inside the confines of the bunker.
Chapter Fourteen
A red dawn dispatched the night above North Carolina, and the sec men of Beta
team shuffled from the doorway of the overturned dish, yawning and fixing
their clothing.
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"Now that's why I became a sec man," a private told his comrades as he rubbed
his stubbly chin. "Damn near wore myself to a nub."
"All you had in the first place," another chided.
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"Fuck you!"
"Not with what you got, stumpy."
"Shut up," Sergeant Campbell ordered, pulling up his suspenders. The night had
been long and one of the best in memory. Farmer women lasted a lot longer than
slave girls. The man almost felt sorry about capping the bitch he had been
riding.
She had cried, but they all did that. But this one used his name, and most
didn't even know it. That had unnerved him a lot. The sec man didn't like that
feeling, so he shot her twice just to make sure.
"Any coffee?" Campbell shouted into the still air, startling a flock of birds
covering the corpses of the men.
"Didn't think we'd eat here," a sec man said, wrinkling his nose.
The sergeant was forced to agree. The stink of the rotting bodies was strong.
The birds and bugs eating the flesh hadn't helped reduce the reek, only made
it stronger.
"Okay, saddle up and let's ride," he commanded, checking the magazine in his
blaster.
As the sleepy men stumbled into the rear of the APC, Campbell brushed back his
wild crop of hair and walked over to the bearskin on the side of the wag.
"Curing nicely," he said, running a hand over the hide. "I want you men
pissing on it more. Going to need a good coat come winter."
A sec man slammed shut the left door as the driver started the big diesels.
"What
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about Collette?"
Campbell climbed inside and took a wall seat. "Screw her. Going to keep it for
me. Head north, Sam. And where's the bastard coffee?"
The driver shifted into gear and the LAV-25 rolled out of the hamlet, leaving
behind the dead and a rich harvest of spent brass scattered across the bloody
ground.
The LAV rolled through the fields and into the woods beyond while a private
passed out the MRE packs and another warmed water over a small fire inside a
tin bucket, the smoke wafting along the roof and out a series of air vents.
Designed for cig smoke, the vents worked just fine for the tiny cookfire. "How
much farther?" Campbell asked. "Sarge?" the driver asked, confused. "How much
farther to the next dish, asshole?" Quickly, the driver checked a map taped to
the armored wall. "About sixty miles," he answered, working the steering
levers.
"Say, two hours. With good ground, mebbe less."
"Good. Hey, you! That water hot yet? Then give me a cup."
Breakfast was brief, and Campbell was dry shaving with a Bowie knife when the
vehicle passed the ruins of a fishing hamlet beside a raging river of
white-water.
The destruction of the flimsy structures was absolute, way beyond anything
needed to merely gain entrance. Worse, there were no bodies.
"What could've done that?" a blue asked, working the bolt on his Kalashnikov.
"River muties?"
"Don't know. Better bolt the hatch," the sergeant commanded in reply, and
unsnapped the flap that covered his handcannon.
Just then something erupted from the river in a geyser of foamy water. Wings
flapping, the creature streaked over the smashed kindling and slammed onto the
side of the wag. Claws raked the metal, trying to reach the men inside. A
black muzzle was shoved to an air vent, and a forked tongue jabbed a good
three feet into the wag. The mutie howled in frustration and crawled over the
vehicle,
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searching for a way into the strange egg.
A sec man cut loose with an AK-47 through a blasterport, but the river mutie
had already gone under the wag. Suddenly, the belly hatch slammed open and the
thing crawled into the transport. A taloned hand slashed at a sec man, who
dived out of the way. Another man slammed the stock of his AK-47 into the
thing's snarling face, and a third kicked over the tin bucket, fire and
boiling water covering the beast.
Keening in pain, the mutie went mad, claws slashing open the seat cushions and
a box of ammo, precious rounds rattling across the floor in every direction.
Tripping on the loose ammo, the rest of the sec men scrambled for their
blasters, while Campbell knelt and discharged the Colt at point-blank range.
The blaster's muzzle-flame extended to touch the beast he was so close.
Incredibly, the first round missed, ricocheting off the belly hatch and out of
the wag. Riveting its attention his way, the beast reached out and grabbed
Campbell by the boot.
"Rad me!" the blue shirt shouted, planting his other boot in the mutie's
throat to keep from being dragged any closer, and emptied the blaster at the
scaly invader.
The .45 slugs blew chunks off the creature's head, and still it tried to haul
him out of the wag, the grip on his boot tightening to a painful level.
Dropping the spent clip, Campbell tried to slap in a fresh mag when the APC
hit a bump and the clip went flying. The sergeant threw the blaster at the
bleeding mutie and drew his
Bowie knife. No stinking mutie was getting him alive!
Then a sec man jumped onto the belly hatch, slamming the armored slab onto the
beast, knocking it sideways. Partially trapped, it released the sergeant and
fought for its own freedom, screaming and thrashing like a demon from hell.
Now they could see the gaping, lipless mouth in the palm of each clawed hand.
"Ready, set, go!" a sec man shouted, and pulled the hatch out of the way. In
unison, the rest of the blues hosed the beast with their Kalashnikovs, the
barrage of 7.62 mm rounds tearing its body apart, black blood spraying onto
the walls.
Cut to pieces, the mutie screeched and dropped out of sight. Instantly, the
wag bumped a few times as the rear wheels crunched over the riddled body,
ending the high-pitched yells of pain permanently.
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"Bolt that hatch!" Campbell sputtered in rage, retrieving his blaster from the
sticky floor. "Bolt every hatch!"
"Freeze," a sec man whispered, and swung his blaster at the sergeant. Before
Campbell could react, the man fired a short burst, black blood gushing from
the side of his boot.
Weapon in hand, Campbell stopped in the act of squeezing the trigger when he
realized he wasn't hurt. Bending, he saw there was some sort of leathery sack
attached to the side of his predark Army boot It was torn apart by the AK-47,
but little squiggling things dangled from the base, dripping thick viscous
fluid.
"Some sort of egg," he growled, cutting it off with his knife. Then he scraped
the residue off the blade with the sole of his boot and ground it flat on the
rough metal floor. "Shit-faced little bastard must squirt out eggs when it's
about to chill.
I heard tell of a mutie down Mex way that did that."
"Cockroaches, too," a sec man added, grabbing a ceiling stanchion against
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another lurch of the wag. Throughout the whole fight, the driver hadn't
stopped or even slowed. Probably just too damn frightened to decide.
Struggling to his feet, Campbell sat down again. "Okay, I want this freaking [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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