Deathlands 51-Rat King

by Axler, James

  The creatures had incredible power in their heavily muscled back legs. It was almost as though the creature had taken flight, its jump describing a sharp arc as it achieved a height of just over six feet, starting to descend with its elongated jaws distended, teeth flashing as it headed straight for Ryan's good eye.

  Dean was a good shot. He fired at the creature, judging its airspeed in a fraction of a second. The slug from the Browning ripped through the top of the creature's skull, entering through one eye and exiting just behind its flattened ear, taking a chunk of the skull with it. Its trajectory thrown off by the impact of the bullet, the creature spun in the air, landing just in front of the one-eyed warrior.

  Ryan would have appreciated Dean's fine shooting if he had the chance. But he was far too busy taking evasive action against another of the squirrels, which had emerged from the brush behind him. He turned quickly on his heel as the sound of the disturbed brush reached him.

  The mutie was coming at him from a lower trajectory, its front paws tearing at the air with its wickedly sharp claws as it sprung toward his groin, looking to tear into his flesh. Ryan crouched and lowered the SIG-Sauer, loosing off a round that tore a chunk of fur and flesh from the side of the creature, spraying a fine mist of blood behind it.

  The mutie squirrel bared its teeth in a squeal of agony as Ryan sidestepped the flailing arc of its trajectory and stamped on the skull, his heavy combat boot crushing the bone and smearing the brain on the earth. He was unwilling to waste ammunition when he was unsure of how many of the creatures were lying in wait.

  There could have been a few, or hundreds. He couldn't allow the latter option to occupy his mind.

  Bedlam had broken out around them as the creatures sprang from the brush in attack. Krysty fell to one knee, keeping a still poise about her as she picked off as many of the creatures as possible before having to take the chance of reloading and being temporarily defenseless.

  They seemed to have a group intelligence about them, as they concentrated less on her the more she put down. So when she had to reload as swiftly as possible, she was granted the respite she needed.

  Mildred, too, was having no little success in picking off the creatures. She adopted a classic firing stance and peppered the air with slugs from the ZKR, shooting fast and accurately—and thereby buying herself time to reload.

  The two mute sec men weren't faring so well. Neither was an excellent shot, and they were missing more of the flying squirrels than they were hitting. As their blasters ran out of ammunition, they found themselves using the rifles as clubs, both reversing the blasters and swatting the creatures out of the air. They were marginally more successful in this, as the number of stunned squirrels littering the path attested. Fortunately most of those hit had their spines or skulls broken, only a few managing to return to enough sense to pose a problem. The sec men had to try to stomp on them without missing those creatures that were still in flight.

  Dean picked off the squirrels as they sprang at him from all sides, but was hindered by the mute sec men, who were near enough to cause him problems with their flailing blasters, forcing him to duck and weave on one knee to avoid being caught by the flying rifle butts. His success rate was lower than Krysty's or Mildred's, so more of the creatures concentrated on him, and he was fighting a losing battle.

  Jak came to his aid. He had dispatched a flying squirrel with every slug from his Colt Python, and hadn't bothered to reload. His childhood in the Louisiana swamps had been spent stalking and killing wildlife far more dangerous than even these killing machines. The Python was holstered in a blur of silver metal before his hands delved into the patched coat and withdrew some of his knives from their hiding places.

  Jak's eyes burned sightlessly, lost in a fearsome mixture of blood lust and intense concentration as his arms became a whirling blur. He held two of the razor-sharp knives in each hand, his whipcord wrists twirling them in a figure-eight pattern that sliced the very air, ripping and tearing at anything that came within range, absorbing any shock that might come from the jar of blade on bone as he disposed of the many creatures that flew at him.

  Their almost group mentality caused them to cease the intensity of their attack on Jak, allowing him to help Dean by taking out those squirrels that the boy missed in his attempts to avoid the desperately flailing mute sec men.

  But the man facing the most problems was J.B. He had decided to use his Uzi on the creatures. The rapid-fire pattern of the blaster would have been a problem in less skilled hands. The cluster of people near him would have been endangered as he spun to attack the squirrels as they flew at him from both sides of the brush.

  The Armorer was no ordinary marksman. He fired in short, controlled and accurate bursts, the pressure of his finger on the trigger both firm and yet gently caressing. Honed by years devoted to the art of weaponry, his instinct took over from his consciousness, and he registered the flying creatures not as a danger but as targets that had to be eliminated. This approach displaced the fear from his conscious mind and enabled him to fire calmly and accurately.

  He would have had no trouble if not for the flailing sec men. One of the flying squirrels, dealt a glancing blow by a rifle butt, was deflected in his direction. It landed too far away for the sec man to stomp on it, so he ignored it. Mildred didn't notice it as she fixed her sights on an airborne danger, blasting it in the skull with the ZKR.

  The creature landed, stunned, and rolled toward J.B. The Armorer saw it from the corner of his eye, and raised his foot to crush its head.

  He raised his left foot.

  Acting on an instinct that forgot to remind him about his injury, or take it into account, he slammed the foot onto the prone body of the squirrel.

  An agony of red-hot needles traveling up his legs made the Armorer drop his Uzi from its firing position. He screwed up his eyes, gritted his teeth and emitted a small high-pitched scream that was all his tortured and tensed vocal cords would allow. There was no power in the injured ankle, and all the force he had put into his action was translated into pure pain.

  His foot was ineffectual on the squirrel, which squirmed beneath his boot, screaming for its life as its powerful front paws dug into the material of his combat pants and into the soft and tender flesh that lay above the top of the boot.

  J.B. was beyond screaming at the pain generated by the clawing. He felt little of it, as the agony from his untimely foot stomp was still coursing through his body.

  The creature used its purchase on his leg to haul itself from underneath the sole of his foot, clinging on its own injured agony to try to inflict damage with its dying breath.

  The elongated jaws opened, the sharp teeth poised as it moved its head back to get a good, firm, darting bite at his leg. J.B. regained enough awareness through the red mist of pain to drop the barrel of the Uzi even farther, until it was parallel to his leg. He put the snubbed, open end of the barrel against the creature as the head darted in.

  The mutie squirrel sunk its teeth into J.B.'s leg the same instant that he fired. He'd had enough presence of mind, through the pain mists, to switch to single shot.

  At such close range, he felt the heat of the blaster burn into his leg, scorching the material of his pants. Not that it was any worse than the pain he was feeling through the wounds inflicted by the squirrel. If anything, the pain there was so immense that he felt he would black out at any moment: It was so intense that his leg was beginning to numb, overloaded with agony.

  There was little left of the creature as the slug tore its body to bloodied shreds. The remnants of the corpse were scattered around the Armorer's feet as it splattered onto the ground. Most of the skull had also disappeared in the blast, only the snout remaining. One eyeball— miraculously undamaged—hung loose on a tendon. The teeth, firmly embedded in J.B.'s leg, were all that kept it anchored in place.

  "John!" Mildred shouted, her attention drawn momentarily from the attacking hordes by the action beside her.

  She
stepped closer to him in a sideways motion, keeping her ZKR trained to pick off any of the creatures that decided to attack. Eyes still scanning the brush on both sides, she crouched to where J.B. had fallen. He was sitting upright, cradling the Uzi with one hand trying to pick the snout from his leg, a glassy stare coming into his eyes.

  Mildred glanced at the wound and winced. "Leave it, John," she said sharply, hoping to get through the mist of shock that was fogging his perception. He stared at her, blankness falling like a curtain over his gaze.

  "Leave it," she repeated, gently pushing his hand away from the wound. "Let me look at it in a moment," she said softly.

  "Uh-huh," J.B. replied vaguely.

  "How bad is it?" Krysty yelled, casting one eye toward Mildred and J.B. while she kept vigilance on the brush.

  "Hard to tell," Mildred answered, moving slightly away from J.B. in order to keep her area of brush covered. "I need to get a good look at it. It's the leg he already damaged, and those mother teeth will probably infect the wound." She cursed Wallace and his military lunatics, who had removed most of the medical supplies from her many coat pockets. But they were slack. Maybe she still had something in there. If not, J.B. was in for a rough ride.

  The waves of attacking squirrels had slowly decreased.

  "Know we winning," Jak said to no one in particular as he wiped the blood from his knives to stop them slipping in his grip.

  "Seems to me those little bastards knew our weak links and concentrated on them," Ryan commented, taking the opportunity to reload his SIG-Sauer.

  "Hell, Dad, all animals know when they're beat," Dean said wearily, checking his Browning. "Just some of us don't give up."

  Ryan suppressed a laugh. Sometimes he could see so much of himself in Dean that it was like having a mirror. "More than that, son," he said, returning to the subject. "It's like they knew who was faring best against them, and somehow targeted the others."

  "If Doc was here, he'd give us a rambling lecture about psi powers against natural instinct and observation," Krysty commented wryly as she joined Mildred at J.B.'s side. "How is it?" she asked, switching her attention to the concerned woman.

  "Not so good," Mildred answered curtly. "It was bad enough with his twisted or sprained ankle," she continued, indicating the way that the Armorer's flesh was swollen and spilling over the top of his boot, "let alone right here." She prodded with a surprising gentleness at the area ringed by the remains of the snout. J.B. flinched, even though she never made contact.

  "Need get teeth out," Jak commented, coming over to look. "Now. Meds left?" he asked of Krysty and Mildred.

  The black woman shook her head angrily, her beaded plaits swinging around her head. "Those asswipes at the redoubt took just about everything when they stripped us. We might have got the blasters back from the armory, but they weren't kind enough to leave everything else in there."

  But even as she spoke, her hands were restlessly searching through every pocket of her coat, opening flaps and probing into the corners of cavernous folds of material. With an exclamation somewhere between amazement, disgust and relief, she came up with a sealed roll of medicated bandage and a small bottle of pills. The label revealed them to be nonspecific antibiotics. She worried about a potential allergic reaction, but had no choice. They might help fight whatever rad-altered infections he could pick up from the vicious teeth that were embedded in his leg.

  "It's not much, but it'll have to do," she said grimly. "The teeth will have to come out."

  "Leave to me," Jak said, producing another of the leaf-bladed knives from within its patched hiding place. With no further comment he set to work, prying the teeth from the wound.

  The two mute sec men had moved into position behind the Armorer, and took a firm grip on him, holding him steady as he writhed and twitched in pain.

  Ryan looked away, scanning the horizon. "How far now?"

  Mac joined him, just away from the group. Despite his impassivity throughout the whole of their trip, he actually looked a little sick at the operation Jak was conducting.

  "Not far. Mebbe carrying your friend will slow us down," he speculated.

  Ryan glared at him. "We still outnumber you, friend."

  Mac gave him a weak smile. "Okay. If you can carry him at a pretty normal pace, then just about twenty minutes more. It'll be past sunfall now, and that's always a danger. But I guess those weird things have had enough for now."

  Ryan studied the path and brush around them, littered with the corpses of the mutie squirrels. "I hope so," he said shortly before turning back to where J.B. lay.

  Dean and Krysty were preparing lengths of the medicated bandage to bind the wounds, while the mute sec men had J.B. in a firm grip. When they caught Ryan looking at him, both seemed to communicate a kind of sympathy through their eyes.

  Jak had almost finished his task, under the watchful direction of Mildred. The bloodied remains of the snout had been sliced away, the knife paring the fur and flesh from the bone so that Jak could get a better view of how the teeth were embedded in J.B.'s leg. The bone was almost as clean as if it had been boiled.

  The teeth were firm in the jaw sockets, so there was little opportunity for Jak to pry loose the bone before extracting the teeth from the wound. He cursed to himself, knowing that this would make it more difficult for him to cleanly remove the teeth.

  Jak grasped the bone carefully but firmly in one hand, while he began to pry the teeth loose with the other. Mildred kept a close watch on J.B.'s leg, using a piece of bandage to wipe the dribbling blood from the localized area as the teeth moved in his flesh. With the blood wiped away, it was easier for Jak to see what he was doing.

  "Fuck mutie bastards," he cursed, as the jawbone seemed to take forever to pry loose. Finally it came away in his hand, and he tossed it over his shoulder, moving rapidly out of the way to allow Mildred to take over.

  Mildred didn't have much to work with, but she used another length of medicated bandage to clean around the deep puncture marks. She wiped away the dribbles of blood from the wounds. It was fortunate that the teeth had been sharp, as the wounds they left were like needlepoint rather than large, jagged tears. Consequently they were actually bleeding less than she had feared.

  It wasn't much, but at least it was something.

  After binding the Armorer's wound, Mildred gestured for the bottle of antibiotics. Mac, who had managed to turn back now that the worst of the operation was over, gave Mildred a canteen of water from his backpack, and she forced J.B. to swallow a couple of the pills.

  Semiconscious, he sunk back onto the earth.

  "Let's get moving," Ryan said. "The sooner we reach this ville the better."

  He left unspoken that once there, they would work on figuring out a way of escaping. It might seem like jumping from one danger to another, but if the talk had been of a ritual chilling, then it wouldn't be likely to happen straight away…and that would give them the most precious of commodities—time.

  Ryan took J.B. by the feet, and Jak moved to take him under the arms. It wasn't the best way to carry him, but it would have to do.

  They walked in silence.

  THE SUN HAD BEEN DOWN for nearly an hour by the time they reached the small ville. If ever there had been a ville that deserved to be described as a pesthole, then this was it. A few fires around the edges of the shacks and huts that comprised the ville were all that protected it from the encroaching dangers of nocturnal predators.

  Ryan couldn't see if there were any wags in the dim light, but somehow he doubted it.

  Mildred looked at J.B., strung out between Ryan, her heart sinking. She had been hoping to pick up some sort of supplies from the ville to improve J.B.'s condition, but from her first look, it seemed likely that she was better equipped than they were.

  They walked unchallenged into the heart of the ville, Mac leading the way. If there were any guards around the outskirts of the ville, Ryan didn't see them.

  Mac answered his unspoken que
stion. "No one moves out or across the valley after sunfall. You've seen it in daylight. It's far worse in the dark. Never know where you are. The insiders are as wise to that as we are. They've never attacked us by night, 'cause they wouldn't want to risk crossing the valley."

  "What about people from outside the valley?"

  Mac grinned with a return of the old sick humor, now that he felt safe on home territory. "They get this far, then the storms eat 'em up anyway. They're our friend, as well as our enemy."

  They continued until they were in a rough earthen square that served as the meeting point for the ville dwellers. In the dim light provided by the lamps and fires, faces appeared from the doorways of huts, keeping their distance but peering with interest at the newcomers.

  Particularly at Dean.

  "Why are they staring at me like that?" he whispered to Krysty.

  Krysty looked in the darkness, and could see that there weren't many children in view, and those who were all seemed to have some kind of deformity springing from either rad-blasted genes or inbreeding— faces with squat, snuffling noses dripping with mucus; hare-lipped, gap-toothed grins; slack jaws that hung open over black eyes.

  "I think you're probably the first child without a mutation or genetic problem they've seen for some time," she whispered. "This could be a good thing for us if we play it right."

  Ryan was too close to Mac to acknowledge her verbally, but he heard…and agreed.

  When they were all in the small square, there were muttering and rustling sounds from the huts as a small crowd gathered on the fringes.

  Ryan and Jak lowered J.B. gently to the ground. He was mumbling softly and incoherently. Mildred bent over him and felt his skin and took his pulse. He was too hot, and his pulse was racing. If they could have some water boiled, and a dry, relatively clean place clear of the ground, she could clean the wounds and redress them, maybe give him more of the antibiotics. She was uncertain how stable or effective the pills would be after so long, but they were better than nothing.