The wild hogs came for him and another met the business end of his Warhammer as tusks slashed at his plastic armor. Otis moved as fast as he’d ever seen him move, lightning quick like he was when he was slapping fish out of the water. Long claws ripped through a squealing hog and sent it flying across the room, a streamer of intestines following.
Daisy and Popsicle roared into the fight, scattering the feral dogs like bowling pins. Mighty paws crushed and killed with every swipe, massive jaws snapped backs and ripped the animals away as they latched on and bit down. Harper and Vanessa fought back to back, morning star and spear whirling, slamming, stabbing and killing with every thrust and blow. The three littlest children were in the pantry with Murray, crowded against the back wall with his wheelchair between them and the door. He had steel in each hand and anything that came at them would have to go through him before it got to the triplets.
Swan made kill after kill with her arrows after she ducked out of the window and stood on the flat roof of the porch. They hyena was lost in the dark, she couldn’t find him. She picked off the bigger animals as her wolves fought in the hallway, savaging the opossums and wild cats, protecting her back.
Donny and Yewan tag teamed the boars and coyotes, much like they hunted deer. They hit them hard and fast, dealt killing blows and moved to the next. Claws raked open soft underbellies, spears plunged through hearts and lungs, jaws shredded jugular veins. Sharp, yellowed coyote teeth sunk into Kodiaks thigh and pulled him down. Otis bellowed and pawed away the animal, sent it smashing bone broke and lifeless into the brick of the fireplace. He stood over him to protect his boy, snapped and bit at the little creatures coming down the flue and pouring into the room. His huge claws decimated the attacking animals and his powerful jaws crushed bones. Kodiak rolled from underneath Otis and pushed himself to his feet. Blood streamed from dozens of slashes from the sharp tusks of the hogs, the bites of the dogs and the scratches of the cats. Kodiak dropped the hammer, pulled his blades and swung in fury and fear. He stabbed the dogs ripping at Otis’s flanks, he kicked at cats leaping for him and screamed his rage. The snarls, roars, yips and screeches of the birds all but drowned out the battle cries of the tribe.
Carcasses were splayed out all over the room and everywhere they stepped was slippery with blood and gore. Analise and Tobias had mounted their bears and smashed through the house swinging their battle axes and screaming Nordic curses at the unending tide of animals pouring through the shattered doors. The moon poured in and the pair seemed to glow, the rune tattoos displayed sharp against pale white skin. Tobias steered his bear out the door and led half a hundred maddened animals with him as they left a trail of dead or dying behind them. The laughing bark of the hyena could be heard above the thunderous cacophony of children and beasts fighting for their lives. Louder than the wet sound of intestines being torn from eviscerated animals, the howls of pain, and the guttural snarls of the wolves as they savaged anything that came near. It drove his pack onward as he skirted the edges of the room, away from the metal claws of the children and the rage of their beasts. He’d let the others fight then take their kills.
Harper batted away raccoons that leapt towards her face, reached over her shoulder to grab an opossum that was scurrying up her back looking for flesh to sink its fangs. She flung the creature into the wall and heard bones snap. She swung her morning star, shattered skulls and crushed ribcages.
They kept coming.
Swan was out of arrows and dove back into the hallway to fight with her pack. She was a blur of steel, a killing machine, as she hacked and spun through the crazed animals. Bloodied limbs flew through the air and heads were separated from necks as she fought with a tomahawk in each hand. The wolves surrounded her. A protective shield of razor-sharp incisors and fury. They ripped and shredded everything that threatened her like a river of sharp teethed fur. As many that died made it past her guardians, her bitten and scratched arms bled freely on her armor and it drove them insane. They had to have the hot, fresh blood. It would stop the cravings, finally satisfy their need.
Analise and Daisy went down under a swarm of mixed animals. Wild hogs, dogs, raccoons and feral cats clung to her legs and loose folds of fur, swarmed onto her back and shoulders. The wild child swung her saw bladed ax and ripped apart body after body but there were too many, every creature still in the yard turned to attack her. They overwhelmed the polar bear and she let out a huge roar as her glistening white fur turned red from the bites and scratches. Analise crouched low and held on, tried to protect her face and urged her bear to run. They couldn’t fight an attack that came from all sides. The bear roared once again and leaped into the pool, taking a hundred clinging animals with her.
Tobias heard the splash over the snarls and screams and urged his mount in that direction. The water would be safer than the land, they would have an advantage. The bear fought the whole way across the courtyard, savage fast and twice as deadly. He reared, grabbed a boar that slashed at his leg and ripped it to ribbons with his claws. Tobias tumbled off and disappeared in a swarm of fur and snapping jaws. He fought with his weapons, his fists and feet to get away, to jump in the pool, while teeth tore into him or broke on his armor. They both stumbled into the water, swam for the bottom and the animals let go, released their grip to rise for air. He hacked and slashed, bit and gouged, every bit as ferocious as any of them. The Viking children stood waist deep and tore through the Savage Ones with a berserker’s rage while their bears crushed and smashed the swimming animals. Pale skinned bodies fought side by side, white hair flew and guttural black-cursed screams of ancient fury cut down their enemies. They bled from half a hundred bites and scratches, the moon shone down, the water turned red and the animals began to flee.
The battle in the house thundered on and the noise was deafening. Vicious snarls, pitiful moans, howls of pain, Otis’s roars, smashing walls, splintering furniture and the war cries of the feral children mixed with the laughing hyena. The children fought to survive, the savage ones fought to kill and it was a free for all. No battle plans, no lines of skirmish. Kill or be killed. Fight them off and stay on your feet, if you fell, you’d die. Desperate, flailing fighting where they kept moving and jumping, helped each other if they could but mostly tried to keep the animals from ripping them apart. There was no time to think of anything other than living through the next few seconds.
Vanessa got her back against a wall, speared a snarling raccoon off the overturned couch. It was coiled, ready to leap and go after the soft flesh of her throat or her eyes. The beast let out a shrill cry as it hit the floor and was trampled underfoot. A dozen bloodied opossums, cats and raccoons crashed into her, scrambled up her armored legs and snapped at her face. She dropped the spear, pulled her machetes and slashed at them. She screamed as one of them sunk its pointed teeth into the side of her hand. She ripped it free and it took a mouthful of flesh, sent a spray of blood, but she barely felt it.
Caleb, Landon and Clara remained in the pantry. They each held their sharpened screwdrivers in white knuckled grips and stabbed at any paws that reached for them under the door. Murray had helped them make the deadly icepicks, they were perfect for their size. Their foxes were crammed in behind them and barked their stuttering barks of warning. The capuchins had climbed to the top shelves and were running around chittering, shrieking their danger sounds and sending a rain of boxes and cans down on them. Murray had his own hands filled with steel, ready to kill anything that broke through. The door shuddered and splintered as a wild boar’s tusk smashed through the solid wood. It squealed in pain as the shivs sank deep in its snout. The long tusk hooked, got jammed for a second before the wiry haired beast tore free and took one of the panels with him. Clara shrieked as a cat bounded through the opening and clawed its way up Murrays legs. More animals came through and their foxes started snapping at them, their gekkering barks lost in the crash of cans and bottles as everyone fought the flood coming in.
The violent attack happened quickly
, only a few moments had passed since they smashed their way into the house and already half his pack was dead or dying. Diablo heard the rage of the wolf girl from above and saw the stairs leading up. She would be alone, isolated from the rest of her tribe, the rest of the screaming, battling, killing children were all downstairs. He sprang for the steps, bowled a pair of coyotes aside and ran for her. Her back was to him as she swung her steel claws at one of his pack. He ran for her, his jaws wide, strings of drool trailing from his hungry maw. He passed an open door where wolves snarled and growled and butchered a band of coyotes. Furniture crashed, glass broke, blood soaked into the hardwood floors. Plaster fell away from the walls as flailing, snarling bodies crashed into them, fur and feathers flew and windows were broken. Diablo ignored it all, he only had eyes for the wolf girl. He leapt, mouth wide to crush her head and was surprised when he was slammed aside by a half-grown pup. River sank teeth into his shoulder and ragged viciously, ripping away muscle and mottled hide. They smashed to the floor in a tumble, knocked Swan off her feet and the three struggled to find footing in the blood slick hallway. River spat out the hunk of hyena meat, crouched low and sprang again. He was a third the size of hunchbacked beast and Diablo met his charge head on. Muzzles crashed the hyenas jaws snapped and flung him aside. River’s snarl of death and defiance became a howl of pain and blood flew from shredded fur. Swan was in a frenzy, her armor torn, some missing. Her arms and face were soaked in blood from a dozen deaths she’d dealt. Her eyes were wild and she was in a battle rage. Like men charging from the muddy trenches to face machine guns or storming a beach being pounded with artillery, she was beyond fear. Beyond rational thought. Kill was all she knew and she screamed as she dove for the monster snapping at her pack. She was choked up on tomahawks and used them as extensions of her hands, steel fingers finding soft flesh. Diablo bit down on metal as he tried to snap her bones and rip her limbs free from her body. The spike punctured the roof of his mouth and the razor edge sliced through his tongue. He’d never felt such pain in his life. Zero skidded out of the blood-soaked room and the wolf pounced, dragging claws across his hindquarters and snapping canines into his haunch. Diablo yipped, ran for the shattered window at the end of the hall and tried to shake loose the pain in his maw. Swans arm was caught in his mouth, a tooth through her armor and hooked in her flesh. She swung her other tomahawk into his shoulder, tried to throw a leg over his back and held on as he leaped through the opening, landed on the porch roof. He bucked and turned, opened his fang filled mouth wide to free himself of the metal cutting into him. Swan lost her grip, barely felt the ripping of meat as her arm tore free and found her feet. Her hair was wild, blood poured from her arm and her eyes glowed mad in the moonlight. She growled, bared her teeth and crouched to attack. The hyena shook his head, sent long strings of bloody drool flying as the cubs jumped through the opening to join the fight. Diablo turned and leaped down to the roof of the golf cart then to the ground. He barked his laughing bark but it was filled with yips of pain as he ran back toward the hole under the fence.
20
Aftermath
Swan stood in indecision for a moment and watched as animals started streaming out of the house to follow their wounded alpha. They’d be in the woods and gone in seconds if she couldn’t stop him. She looked at the drop, was afraid her pack would try to jump and hurt themselves then raced back down the stairs. Tears streaked her face. She snarled and growled as she leapt over the carcasses that covered nearly every square inch of the floor. She’d almost had him! She was insane with rage and bloodlust; she couldn’t let him get away again. Not again. Not when she was so close to ending him once and for all.
Donny grabbed her as she ran for the broken doors, following the last of the fleeing animals out into the night. He wrapped her up in a bear hug before she could get out the doorway.
“Let me go!” She snarled.
Donny shook his head. No way. He knew what she was trying to do. The animals would tear her to bits of they caught her out in the open.
She struggled against him but his arms were like bands of steel. She twisted and tried to put her knee in his groin. Nothing was going stop her from settling her score with the hyena. She had to get on the monster’s trail before he was gone for good.
“Swan. Swan. SWAN!” Harper said.
Swan snapped her head around to her sister. Her eyes were wet and wild. The gentle Swan from before the outbreak was replaced by a rabid caged animal desperate to break free. A blood painted devil seeking to kill and destroy.
“You can’t do this. There are still too many of them. It’s dark. Let him go. I promise you we will hunt the rest of them down. I promise. We need you here, with us. Look, everyone is hurt. If you go out there you will die.” Harper pleaded softly.
“I don’t care!” Swan yelled and redoubled her efforts to get free.
“But I do.” Tobias said as he limped up the porch steps, Analise beside him. They were soaking wet, dripping with water and blood, their dark tribal tattoos stark against their pale skin in the moonlight.
“Somebody help!” Landon yelled from the kitchen and the fire in her eyes receded as some of the madness faded away. She quit struggling and Donny let her go as everyone rushed toward the pantry.
The little triplets were trying to get Murray’s chair out of the closet but it was overturned and tangled in a jumble of broken jars, boxes of spilled noodles, dead animals and hundreds of cans from the smashed shelves. The boy was half buried from the avalanche and the monkeys weren’t helping as they chittered and tried to tunnel into the pile to get close to him.
It only took a moment to fire up the lanterns, get him upright and back in his chair as the adrenaline faded. The battle craze of only seeing what was trying to hurt you, of kill or die, was replaced with pain as they looked around at the extent of the damage.
Landon, Caleb and Clara’s faces and arms were cut and scratched. The triplets had fought a desperate battle; it was the first time they’d used their homemade icepicks in a real fight. Landon had lost his and had bashed at the furious creatures with a can of beans. They fought with hands. With teeth. With anything they had. Blood crusted Vanessa’s face and leaked from the corner of her mouth. Tobias had an eye was almost swelled shut from the gouges above and below it. Murray’s leg was laid open from a boar, the one buried in the jumble of cans with a dagger sticking hilt deep in one of its eyes. Their clothing and armor was tattered and torn. Bite marks and claw slashes covered their arms and faces. Their animals weren’t in any better shape. All were cut, bitten, bloodied and licked at wounds.
Kodiak looked like he’d been through a meat grinder. The hogs had worked him over. If he hadn’t been wearing his armor, they’d have ripped him to shreds. Otis was almost as bad. They both bled from dozens of bite and claw marks.
Harper’s ear was torn where hungry teeth had ripped the earring from it. Her pants were shredded and barely hanging on. Blood dripped from a nasty bite wound on her hand to puddle on the floor.
Swan felt the pain of the bites and scratches she’d suffered as the adrenaline in her system wore off. She was just as bruised and battered as the rest of the tribe but everyone was still alive. They hadn’t lost anyone. Her shoulders slumped. A wave of exhaustion swept over her. The whole fight had only lasted a few minutes but she felt like she’d been fighting for hours.
She felt empty and hollow as her rage ebbed. She was a vicious fighter and she had lost herself in the battle, she hadn’t been ready for it to be over. She wanted to keep killing. It nagged at the edges of her conscience. She was so far removed from the carefree girl from before the outbreak that it didn’t seem real anymore. A wisp of memory of a girl in a tie-dyed t-shirt waving a protest sign was all that remained. It scared her when she thought about it too much, so she tried not to. Push it down, lock it away. The old world was gone and wasn’t coming back. Sometimes she missed her former self, but she had to maintain her edge. It kept her and her tribe alive and that was
all that mattered.
Swan looked one more time out of the broken doorway into the blackness. She would chase Diablo to the ends of the Earth if that’s what it took, but the tribe came first. That was the only thing that allowed them to stay strong and survive.
Vanessa would have a set of claw mark scars to go along with her self-inflicted ones. She probed gently at the vertical slashes and winced when her fingers touched the raw flesh. She couldn’t even remember what animal had inflicted it. The battle was a blur of savagery and carnage. Her throat was raw from the screams as she thrust and hacked her way through the invaders. Her arms were so heavy with fatigue she could barely hold them up. She took inventory of herself. Not one square inch of her exposed legs and arms wasn’t crisscrossed with scratches or bites.
Donny finished off the few animals that survived then rubbed a bloody hand through Yewan’s equally bloody fur. Most of his armor was torn off, they’d have to replace the elastic traps with leather bands and buckles. He held his hand over the gash in his stomach that oozed a steady stream of blood. One of Yewan’s ears was in tatters and her sleek fur was torn in places.
Murray cradled the arm that something had bitten. He thought it was a raccoon that took a piece of his flesh but the closet had only been lit with a glowstick, it was hard to tell. The deep puncture wounds throbbed. His leg was ripped open from the jaws of the boar. He’d gladly endure the pain if he could feel it. Even for just a minute. The capuchins fussed over him as they poked and prodded, combed his hair with worries fingers. He swatted at them halfheartedly. He knew they only wanted to help.
The Feral Children (Book 2): Savages Page 14