He looked up from his study of the engine. On the horizon, coming toward him and making a lot of noise, was something.
Wavy, blurry images of something. Noises like words.
Like words…
But clearly not.
He put down the screwdriver. Because he knew he might need both hands free.
Raine ran back to the buggy’s interior. First he picked up the handgun. Stuck it under his belt. Then the rifle. For now, he let the shotgun stay in the back.
Could just be other travelers, he thought, immediately realizing how stupidly optimistic that was-and how this was not a world to be optimistic in.
All he could do was stand there and watch what was in the distance come closer, slowly clarifying into recognizable shapes.
Raine thinking:
Bandits.
Thinking:
Oh fuck.
But as he stood by his buggy, the sun baking him, it only took minutes for him to see that the figures racing toward him weren’t bandits at all.
Fuck.
TWENTY-TWO
MUTANTS
They had no vehicles.
Instead, they loped along, a great bunch of them, almost as if they could gallop. And as they did, they made sounds, grunts mostly, and barking noises. Every now and then Raine saw one tilt its head up and give out a howling shriek… seemingly to the blazing sun.
They were still too far away for him to make out details.
But though they had a basic human shape, he could see that their heads looked oversized, eyes way too big in deep-set skulls. Mouths constantly open, grunting. Their arms were extra long, nearly simian.
A line of mutants racing right at him.
Guns, he thought, do these things have guns? Could they shoot?
Because there had to be… how many? Ten… fifteen of them? They were now spreading apart, fanning out into what appeared to be a tactic for them.
But a tactic for what? What did they want-the buggy, this dead buggy? The weapons?
As they came closer, though-to where he could see their mouths more clearly-he realized it wasn’t his possessions they were after.
No. These mutants had moved along on the food chain.
Their interest would only be for the lone stranger stranded in the desert. A gift from above. For them to enjoy.
Raine licked his lips.
Not ever taking his eyes off the line of mutants racing toward him, he reached back inside the buggy without looking. He found one of the water bottles. Brought it to his lips. A big gulp of water. Another. Then, eyes away from the horde for a moment, he put the cap on.
If I survive, I’ll need water.
It registered in his head that he had thought if.
He brought the gun up.
Still out of range, all he could do was wait.
As he kept them in his sights, he knew there was no way he would have enough time to take them all out before they overwhelmed him. His guns just weren’t designed to take on this number of enemies at once.
And then he remembered.
The wingstick! He turned his back on the line of mutants, their sounds an animal braying that filled the air. He went to the back and picked up the stick.
He had barely practiced with it.
But, again, at the rate the mutants were running, even if he shot fast-even if he was amazingly accurate-there would be enough muties left alive to get to him.
And what? Rip me into pieces, most likely.
He looked at the stick. Loosum had done her best. It was up to him now.
He gave it a heft in his hand, remembering how to hold it. The stance. He saw the detonator switch, actually a two-switch system: throw one, then the other switch-and then give it a toss.
How good would he be in gauging how far away they were? Maybe he was better off with the rifle.
But no. Dan had mentioned that these things were hard to kill, and something about the way they came at him confirmed that these deformed creatures could probably take a lot of bullets.
He put down his rifle, feeling as if he had taken a step into some distant, ancient past-only a hundred years in the future.
He took the stance that Loosum had taught him. Wingstick behind him, held parallel with the ground. Sweat dripped in his eyes, stinging, making the attacking mutants turn blurry. He wiped it away as best he could.
“Okay, bastards,” he said, used to the sound of his own voice, glad of it. He flipped the two switches. “Here we fucking go…”
And he threw it.
He watched the stick fly through the air in pinwheel fashion, and then- God, too soon-it started to arc around. In seconds it would shoot out its explosive charges.
“You get three… four throws… max,” Loosum had told him.
It curved what looked like three meters in front of the mutants. Each arm of the wingstick shot off a low-grade explosive, enough to take a bunch of them out… if it had been better thrown.
In seconds the stick was winging its way back to him.
The mutants were closer. He’d get-at best-another throw or two if he was fast. He debated grabbing the rifle. Fight it out in a way that was comfortable to him.
The wingstick flew toward him. He reached up and caught it, those days being a wide receiver in Bay Ridge High School now seeming so incredibly valuable.
I wonder if they even have football now? For some reason, the thought made him grin briefly.
He blinked and took the stance, getting ready for another throw-wishing that the mutants were much farther away, instead of now so near that he could make out the features of the individual monstrosities coming at him.
He threw the stick again.
Raine watched it fly this time as though the wingstick had a mind of its own… once free of his hands, it started its journey.
I could have used so much more practice.
But as he watched, he saw that because either the mutants raced closer or he had adjusted properly, the stick started to curve just before the line of attackers.
And he watched the explosions go off, shooting out from each arm.
Two of the mutants got torn apart by the blast, puffy red clouds erupting from places where their heads once were, those severed heads blown backward. The carnage was gruesome. And yet there was a more disturbing thing: their bodies, though headless, kept moving a few more feet before pitching forward.
Two other mutants got hit by the blasts. But despite massive wounds on their sides-Raine could see the blood gushing out-they kept coming.
He looked up to see the wingstick flying back to him.
The line kept coming.
He had time for only one more throw. Then it would be down to guns.
Could he take enough out before it got to that?
He wasted no time resetting and throwing as soon as he caught the stick. His first two tosses had shown him better how to gauge distance. Now he aimed at the mutants to the left, unharmed by the first blasts.
Like goddamn bowling, he thought as he threw.
Need to pick up the spare…
The stick flew straight at the group to the left. They paid no attention to it, though they had to have seen its effect on their brother mutants.
Closer now, Raine could see what they had for weapons.
Jagged pieces of metal. Long blades that looked like chunks of steel sharpened into three-foot-long approximations of swords.
Like a butcher’s convention. If the butchers worked in hell.
The stick flew at them, then past them.
Shit, he thought, wasted shot. But no, it curved behind the mutants, and at the apex of the curve it exploded, and the blast blew three mutants forward, facedown into the sand.
None of them got up.
The stick flew back.
C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, he thought. Maybe one more shot, and I got a chance.
He caught the stick, his fingers latching onto the center. He had to hurry now, no time to take a look or think a
bout distance. Had to get it out.
And too close-he’d have to make this a short throw. Right down the middle.
He took his last throw, but he didn’t wait to catch it.
Instead, he grabbed his rifle and-while waiting for the stick to curve around-rested the gun on the front of his buggy, next to the still nonfunctional engine. He barely set himself before he started shooting. Aiming right at their heads.
Had to have a brain, no matter what mutation had turned them into these creatures.
And as he shot, he saw the stick do its last curve and explode. A few of the mutants had pulled ahead, and they caught this last blast, great holes ripped into their midsections.
He kept firing with the rifle, sometimes catching one in the head, at other times a body shot that seemed to do little damage.
No question about it, they could take hits and keep coming…
He stopped his firing just a moment to see the wingstick fall to the ground a little ways past where he had originally thrown it. If he lived, it had made the difference.
Thanks, Loosum.
Now it was a last stand. In this desert, the buggy his fort. He kept firing, the line of mutants halved, and now they were close enough that he swore he could even smell them.
And that smell triggered something primal.
Definitely higher on the food chain…
If he needed any more motivation, he had it.
He targeted one, then another, mixing up the wounds, trying for the kill.
But they moved in such a strange, crab-clawing way that it was difficult to get a steady bead on their heads, between those egg-sized eyes that clearly weren’t human.
A memory flashed through his mind: diving off Belize. Facing a fourteen foot blue shark. Dark, black, ancient eyes focused on only one thing.
To strike, to kill, to eat.
He pulled out the handgun.
With a half dozen of them close now, unfazed by the dead mutants they left behind, Raine was past the point or use of aiming.
They had raised their odd assortment of jagged and sharp weapons, their homemade devices for cutting and tearing.
And just when he wished he heard another human voice-always so important when in battle, having a guy chattering next to you; the little bit of bravado that helps you go on-he found that he couldn’t say anything now. No words to cut across the desert silence.
Just the endless chatter of the guns firing, one in each hand like some psychotic character out of a spaghetti western. The grunting bellows of the mutants, so close. He kept firing.
Until He was out of ammo.
Out of ammo. And no chance to reload.
How many left? There were two nearly on him. A third, wounded, was still shambling toward him, but then stopped, finally dead.
The last two-one mutant with a curved piece of shining metal that caught the sun, the other with what looked like a medieval weapon, a club with nails and spikes stuck at the end.
They seemed to realize in some insane, brainless way that he couldn’t shoot anymore.
They slowed. Barking at him, nearly like grizzlies, testing him before they made their final attack.
Up close, Raine could see the way their bodies were different from a human’s. The torso thick, barrel-shaped. The mouths deformed, more like an open chute that had to be filled.
Looking at that mouth, he thought: No fucking way.
Not happening.
Not after a hundred years.
Doesn’t end here. Not like this.
The two mutants had gone to either side of him, as if deciding which one of them was going to be the first to make the move.
A feast for two.
Raine still held the guns out, though they had both turned useless.
He slowly moved away from the buggy. Should he survive, he didn’t want them screwing up the engine any more. They followed his steps.
With an instinct born of a hundred firefights, he knew they were seconds away from making their attack.
He looked-for the quickest moment-at the back of the buggy. A long piece of pipe.
A tire iron. Homemade by the Hagars probably.
A good piece of hard metal.
A last bellow. Their attack about to come.
Raine dropped his guns, spun to the left and grabbed the iron.
And of course, they had started moving.
He swung the pipe like a baseball bat, trying to clear some space before they landed on him. Their smell-now that they were so close-made his stomach churn.
The iron caught the mutant with the curved piece of metal-which Raine realized was a crude sword-in the side… to apparently little effect, as it merely staggered backward.
The other mutant, with the club, quickly raised it over his head to smash down at him.
Raine recovered from his first useless hit and-locking two hands on the pipe-jabbed at the club mutant’s throat, just under its simian chin.
It reeled back, its intended blow forgotten.
But that gave the mutant with the makeshift sword a chance to hack at him-and hit.
The blade dug into his left shoulder, hitting bone. With a little more force, the arm would have gone flying off.
With all his adrenaline pumping, Raine ignored the blasts of pain, the screaming agony the wound created.
He also ignored the immense amount of blood that started gushing out.
His eyes filled with red lines, the nanotrites feeding back to his brain the information on the calamity that had just overtaken his body.
Absolutely of no use to him now. He blinked it off.
In time to see to the mutant with the club, still gasping for air, but also readying a second chance to plant the club into his head. Its mouth was open, hacking from the throat blow.
A perfect-ugly and smelly-opening.
Raine leapt at the thing as best he could, jamming the pipe right into that hole.
The dark, soulless egg-eyes of the thing went even wider.
Raine pressed harder, all the push coming from his one good arm, the other now useless, hanging at his side.
He heard words.
Curses. Over and over. A litany of death.
His words, as he jammed the rod deeper, like digging in dirt, harder, past the mouth cavity, deeper, cracking bone, penetrating to where there had to be a brain.
Sometimes it’s not such a good thing to have a brain.
The thing toppled backward, the dull eyes lifeless.
Without even looking, Raine rolled to the right, shaking free of the dead mutant. He couldn’t see it, but he could hear the other mutant’s blade strike down to where it thought he would be.
Missing by inches, hitting its dead partner.
Raine noticed that the pipe in his hand had a narrow end, where the metal tapered. It wasn’t that sharp, but then again, this wasn’t a real weapon.
It would have to do.
The last mutant was trying to remove its blade from where it got stuck in its now lifeless partner. The blow had been so strong it lodged the blade deep in the bloated body. From the grinding sounds, it must have caught bone.
Raine took the tapered end of the iron and used it as a blade, slamming it hard against the side of the mutant’s head.
The mutant turned at the last minute, eyes trying to comprehend how things went so wrong.
Raine rammed it hard. At first he thought it would just slide away, a useless blow against an obviously stronger skull than what mere humans had.
But then the telltale crack.
Not a death blow.
But the skull cracked. The thing’s blood, not red but a near blackish-purple, seeped out.
It had its blade free, standing up. Ready to use on its intended target.
But Raine had a way in.
Despite the agony from his arm and the fireworks display behind his eyes, he used the tire iron like an oversized dagger, right at the same spot.
And with the crack open, the iron slid in.
Raine left it there. Staggered backward.
He had nothing more to give.
One way or the other, the battle was over for him.
But he saw that for that last surviving mutant, the battle had indeed ended first.
Raine fell back onto the sand.
TWENTY-THREE
KVASIR
He came to, his head bumping up and down, banging against metal.
He opened his eyes, expecting to be looking straight up at the sun.
But the sky had deepened in color, and the sun had to be behind him, low. It felt cool.
He looked left.
Someone was sitting next to him, two gnarled hands on an oversized wheel. A man. He nodded as he steered, as if having some kind of internal discussion.
Then the man happened to casually look over at him.
“Oh! Oh, well. You’re up. Up is good. Eyes open. Sorry for the-” He slapped the wheel of whatever he was steering.
Wasn’t a buggy. Or a car.
More like… a tractor.
Raine started to sit up, and the move made his wounded arm ache. He groaned.
“Take it easy there. Just have that arm wrapped for now. Gonna need some real attention once we get to my place.”
Raine continued to sit up, taking care not to pull on his arm. Something wasn’t adding up. Wait…
“Where is…?” he asked, shooting his head around, looking.
“Your buggy? Towing it behind us. That will need some looking into as well. That the best they could give you? Come a hundred years-a hundred years into the future-and you’re driving a piece of garbage like that? No respect.”
The man laughed. A cackle. Sounded like something he would do whether he had an audience or not.
“No respect for their elders.” Another cackle.
Raine saw his buggy being towed by this… thing. Not completely a tractor, but most of it was. High seats. Big wheels. Moving so slowly.
“Thanks for-”
“Saving you? Seemed like you did a pretty good job of that yourself. Never saw so many muties just scattered around. Quite a mess. Though I imagine if I hadn’t seen you, others would have come.”
“Thanks, anyway.”
The man shot him a look and grinned through his bristly, wiry beard. “Yeah, well you might have held out. But-sooner or later-you’d be just another body in the desert. Be a shame, after you made such a hash of them.” The man went back to nodding, analyzing whatever it was going on inside his head. After a long spell of that, the old man finally said, “What’s your name?”
Rage Page 12