by James Axler
An alarm! Snarling a curse, J.B. mercilessly cut it down with the stuttering Uzi. Silence didn’t matter anymore. The recce was over.
“Light ’em up!” the baron ordered, firing the Winchester, then flipping the arming level of the longblaster to shoot again and again.
A dozen stickies died in their cocoons before even knowing there was anything wrong. But a score more of the creatures jerked awake and stared at the little band of humans as if unable to comprehend the sight. Then the stickies started to swarm, their deadly hands stretched out toward the invading norms.
Everybody opened fire, the multiple muzzle-flashes strobing in the dusty darkness. Shuddering into death, stickies fell to the floor, only to be replaced by more. Leaping over predark furniture, some of the creatures started to crawl along the walls, their sucker-covered hands reaching down from above.
“Molotovs!” Ryan shouted, swinging a saddlebag onto the floor with a strident crash. “Block the stairs! Use the flames as cover!”
Letting go of the Uzi to let it swing from its canvas strap, J.B. yanked out a willie pete gren and flipped the sphere into the nest. Only a heartbeat behind, a sec man lit the rag on a Molotov and threw it against the ceiling. It crashed into a fireball, the contents dripped down onto the leather and the saddlebag instantly caught, the rising well of flame filling the landing. The shadows were banished, showing only more stickies, along with woven cages full of human bones.
Shooting in short, controlled bursts, Mildred was hit by the shocking realization that these stickies kept captives. Prisoners of muties, to be eaten at their convenience. A hellish larder worse than the butcher shop of any cannie tribe.
With the first shattering glass, the stickies charged. But still they made no noise, the lack of their usual hooting giving the rush a terrible dreamlike quality.
Even though he was shocked to the core, Ryan still managed to ace two muties before spinning around and dashing for the escalator. What kind of muties were these? The things had almost norm intelligence!
As the conflagration began to die down, J.B. added another willie pete gren. The second flood of burning white phosphorus completely filled the landing, setting several stickies ablaze. Minus their usual hooting, the muties dashed madly about, waving their arms wildly until crashing into the walls or tumbling over the balcony and plummeting out of sight.
“Eat this, ass-sucker!” a sec man snarled, throwing a Molotov.
Darting around the pool of willie pete, a stickie incredibly caught the thrown bottle in a suckered hand, and made to heave it right back when Mildred triggered her rapidfire and blew the container apart. Covered in burning oil, the stickie backed away, waving its arms, still terribly silent.
“Why aren’t they screaming!” Doc demanded, the LeMat and Ruger performing a duet of death. The black-powder blaster was throwing out clouds of smoke that soon mingled with the thickening clouds of reeking fumes from the burning dead.
“Shut it and run!” Jak commanded, burping his rapidfire into the muties.
A dull series of explosions came from the sec force’s longblasters, the rounds hitting with deadly accuracy. But the closed office doors suddenly were thrown open and more stickies joined the mob. The army of them seemed endless.
Taking the awkward metal steps at a run, the companions and sec men retreated fast, firing every step of the way. The grim norms had to concentrate on not tripping down the escalator. The serrated steps were larger than regular stairs, and one wrong move would send a man tumbling, which would start a cascade of bodies falling down the motorized stairs, easy prey for the slavering muties.
And those little cages. J.B. grimaced hatefully, pulling another gren. About to yank the pin, he scowled at the charge and tucked it away to rummage for another. An implo gren would remove half the building, acing the norms along with the stickies.
Turning to shoot, a sec man tripped and staggered, immediately knocking over two other men. As the trio went tumbling, a blaster discharged, the lead ricocheting off the marble walls, a light fixture exploding on the ceiling.
The stickies charged at the fallen men, as if sensing these enemies were less of a threat than the others.
Jumping off the escalator, Ryan turned and fired at the mob of armed stickies boiling down the stairs like some jump nightmare. The first one toppled over in death, but the second was only wounded, and it started hooting insanely. Now all of the others took up the cry, and it was answered by countless more from the floors above until forming a deafening chorus of madness.
Working together, Krysty and Mildred raked the creatures with their rapidfires, while Doc’s handcannons unleashed volleys of death. Pulling a Molotov cocktail from the bag at his side, Ryan held the oily rag in front of the sound-suppressed gun muzzle and stroked the trigger. The muzzle-flame ignited the rag, and he heaved it onto the metal steps. The firebomb hit and shattered, forming a crackling pool. A few of the sec men added their own bottles to the conflagration until it was a roaring bonfire, the bright orange flames licking upward.
Hooting wildly at the sight, some of the stickies charged through the flames, setting their ragged clothing ablaze. Others leaped for the walls and started shimmying along the decorative marble slabs in an effort to get past the fiery obstruction. Even as he chilled them, Ryan again noted that the muties didn’t seem fascinated by fire anymore. That had been their greatest weakness, and now that was gone.
Suddenly a wooden spear came through the flames and chilled a sec man. A scattergun boomed in response, followed by another. Molotovs went flying, and the MP-5 rapidfires chattered way, spent brass arching through the air to fall musically to the cold stone floor. More spears were thrown, along with wooden cudgels. A sec man cried out as his wrist was smashed and his blaster was knocked to the floor to discharge into his own leg.
Acing a mutie on one of the walls, Ryan felt his blood run cold at the terrible look of cold intelligence in their furious eyes. Hot plague, some of them are smarter than others, the one-eyed warrior realized even as he ruthlessly gunned them down.
Backing for the stairs, the two groups stopped to reload, the baron tucking the Winchester between his legs to thumb rounds into the breech, when a flight of spears streaked into the crowd of norms. Nimbly dodging, Doc smacked a spear aside with his sword. But a sec man fell, the wooden shaft going completely through his chest to pin the startled man to a chair. Screaming obscenities, another sec man fired blind into the writhing flames and threw more Molotov cocktails, while the companions concentrated on taking out the stickies on the walls. But the fighting was pandemic now, all pretense of order gone, and none of the norms were sure that they would ever escape alive. Unstoppable, the waves of stickies kept coming.
Chapter Eighteen
Blood and brass, screams and smoke filled the dusty air, and breathing became difficult. A rain of clubs took another norm, and J.B. threw an antipers gren at the muties. The staggering blast rocked the building, and pieces of bodies went flying everywhere. But another flight of spears pelted the group, and more norms were chilled. Red blood and gelatinous ooze seemed to be everywhere.
Fighting their way to the stairs, the companions and remaining sec men ducked again as thrown clubs came spinning out of the dwindling pool of fire, closely followed by spears. Another man fell, mortally wounded, his belly ripped open wide, the intestines slithering onto the floor like greasy rope. Dropping his blaster, the dying man grabbed the internal organs with both hands and began to wail as he tried to shove them back inside his body. With calm deliberation, Baron O’Connor flipped the lever of the Winchester to chamber a fresh round and shot the sec man in the heart. The piteous shrieks stopped instantly.
“Keep it up!” Ryan shouted, dropping a clip and slamming in his last spare. “They can’t see us any more than we can see them!”
“Use all of the bombs!” the baron shouted, dropping the spent Winchester and pulling out his handcannon. The old Glock .44 pumped copper-jacketed bone-shredders into t
he stickies, and every round chilled with gory efficiency.
Coughing from the thickening smoke of the chem fires, sec men obediently threw more bottles into the blaze, the crashing of the glass causing a gush of heat and noise. The smell of the roasting stickies was worse than cooking sewage!
Suddenly there came the sound of boots on the stairs and Sec chief Stirling appeared with a dozen more sec men brandishing weps and bottles. At the sight of reinforcements, everybody cheered and redoubled their efforts, the barrage of homie scatterguns, black-powder blasters and yammering rapidfires, reaching a deafening crescendo.
Temporarily out of brass, Ryan holstered the SIG-Sauer and did a fast side arm throw of a high-explosive gren onto the escalator. Releasing his rapidfire to hang by its strap, Jak did the same, and Baron O’Connor unexpectedly added a short pipe bomb.
“Move!” Ryan and the baron shouted in unison.
But the groups needed no encouragement, they were already pelting down the steps at a breakneck pace. Seconds later, the assorted mil ordnance cut loose and concussion shook the building, shrapnel from the staggering detonations throwing shards of broken floor and twisted metal everywhere. Breaking apart, the escalator groaned as if it were dying, then something loudly snapped inside the machine and metal parts sprayed out in every direction. Hit in the head with a spinning gear, a stickie perished trying to stuff its own brain back inside the broken skull.
With a cry, Stirling fell to one knee, a dagger of blue stone jutting from his shoulder. But the tough man rose and stumbled away, dribbling crimson in his wake. Reaching for the Steyr, Ryan felt white-hot pain along a forearm, and saw that he was pumping his lifeblood. Hugging the wound to his chest to try to staunch the blood loss, Ryan fumbled for the Steyr. Only five rounds left in the longblaster. He had to make every one count.
Just then, the foam tiles lining the ceiling collapsed and a half dozen stickies fell upon the group of sec men. Caught completely by surprise, the startled men began to fire among themselves, hot lead smacking into other sec men in their blind haste to chill the hooting muties. Ryan got the longblaster up in time to ace a stickie in the throat. Then another monster made a swipe at him, and Krysty hammered it to hell with her barking rapidfire. Doc shot one in the face with both handcannons and blew off its head, the skull shattering like an egg under the double assault.
A stickie grabbed Porter by the sleeve and yanked, but only took away the shirt. Unharmed, the man emptied his blaster into the mutie, shouting curses. Swinging his handcannon, Baron O’Connor pumped two booming rounds into the thing, and it went sailing backward over the railing to crash onto the reception desk in the lobby on the ground floor.
“Everybody outside!” Ryan bellowed, heading for the open doorway. He could see the two sec men there, shooting into the chaotic lobby, their black-powder blasters sending out plumes of acrid smoke that temporarily masked the exit.
Incredibly, more muties appeared at the top of the stairs. Their rags were smoldering, and many oozed bodily fluids. But their eyes were fierce and they moved without a sound, aside from the slap of bare feet on the shattered floor.
Spinning, one sec man tripped and another ran over his fallen comrade, uncaring of the trampled man. The baron gunned down the coward, and grabbed the sec man on the floor to haul him up, then shove him toward the door.
Desperate to buy seconds for the others to get out, Ryan and J.B. both flipped grens across the lobby, and the entire area was filled with the searing flash of willie pete. In response, the stickies hit the walls and crawled past the hellzone the same as before. Now they dropped to the floor, and, amazingly retrieved their thrown spears, then rushed at the norms in a picket charge, all the while hooting as their staring eyes choose victims.
A wounded sec man was slow to reload, and as he closed the wheelgun, a spear took him through the chest. The norm stood there for a long moment, staring in stark disbelief at the wooden shaft sticking through his blue uniform. Then he sighed deeply and lay on the filthy floor as if merely going to sleep. Somebody else grabbed his fallen blaster and emptied it into the stickies, before turning to run away.
Pouring outside, the companions and the few remaining sec men scrambled down the stairs and across the foyer to explode out the front door. As they dashed across the sandy street, the Metro went into action. The catapult thumped and a dozen Molotovs rained upon the granite steps, erupting into a huge fireball.
Trapped in the foyer, the stickies hooted angrily and threw some spears at the war wag. Those only bounced off the armed sides, and the sec men behind the sand bag wall returned fire with crossbows. A dozen muties fell, their mottled bodies feathered with arrows. The ville sec men took heart at the display. The muties might have weps, but they couldn’t aim worth drek. Time to press the attack.
“Cover the rear!” the baron shouted, firing his revolver. “Make a ring of fire! Use every Molotov!”
A spear flashed by his head just then, but the one-armed norm didn’t even flinch. “Every Molotov! Save nothing!”
Hoisting clicking bags, a team of sec men rushed to obey, while the rest continued to shoot from the sandy street. High overhead, the dark clouds roiled in mounting fury and a strong breeze blew along the street, kicking up a stinging cloud of loose sand.
The catapult peppered the front of the building with another firestorm, setting the bottom level ablaze. Spears came out of the front door and a sec man fell, most of his face removed by the barbed point.
Suddenly the glass windows on the second floor shattered and a score of armed muties popped into view. But expecting that tactic, the furious sec men forced them back inside with crossbows and hot lead.
“Don’t let anything get out!” Ryan shouted, clumsily trying to load the SIG-Sauer. But his hands were slick with blood, and he dropped the clip.
“Burn it to the ground!” Baron O’Connor added loudly. “Use everything we have. It’s now or never!”
Rallying to the cry, the sec men began shooting at anything that moved inside the writhing flames. A window shattered on the third story and a stickie jumped out to land sprawling on a dead sec man. Waving a club, the mutie weakly tried to rise in spite of the fact that both of its legs were clearly broken. Caught reloading, Jak dropped the rapidfire and put two .357 Magnum rounds into its head, blowing out the back of its skull. Something moved in the sky, and a sprinkling of spears came flashing down from the roof. The wooden shafts hit the Metro, and another norm screamed into death.
Red light flickered into life from behind the infested building, and there could be heard the steady crashing of glass from the thrown Molotovs of the sec men. The ring of fire was expanding, slowly forming an impassable barrier around the nest.
Carrying two spears, a huge stickie tried to run through, and came out sheathed in red flames. Totally blind, the hooting creature raced across the street and smashed into the brick wall of a predark movie theater. The mutie stopped making noise and went still, but didn’t fall, the burning corpse stuck in place to the rough brickwork by its array of oozing suckers.
Covered with sweat and soot, Krysty and J.B. peppered the open windows to drive back a stickie trying to reach the side of the building. Then another window was smashed open and a stickie jumped onto the sill, then slapped a hand onto the outside wall. Swinging around, it pressed flat against the surface and began to scuttle around the corner of the building just as Krysty sent a long burst of 9 mm rounds at the thing, and missed. Then two arrows from the sec men on top of the war wag caught it in the back, and the mutie went limp, nailed in place by the wooden shafts.
Gouts of orange flame were licking out of the windows by now, and the ring of fire was completed on the ground. Charred bodies dotted the landscape, a mix of norms and stickies.
More spears came arching down from the roof. Easily avoiding those, the ville sec men continued their assault, shooting and reloading their blasters as if this were the end of the world. Changing angles, the catapult thumped again, and the
roof exploded in flames. A stickie tried to jump to the next building, but only made it to a tilting telephone pole jutting from the sand. As the thing braced for another jump, Ryan finished reloading the Steyr and fired from the hip. Hit in midair, the stickie was thrown sideways and tumbled lifeless to land in the vacant lot.
Thunder rumbled ever louder from above, and the sec men’s horses were nickering in fear at the mounting fire. Spears and blasterfire peppered the night, the increasing wind carrying away the horrible reek of the cooking corpses.
“Let’s end this!” Ryan snarled, firing into the blaze.
“Bet your ass!” J.B. answered grimly, throwing a gren.
Flying through the smoke, the mil sphere went in through the smashed remains of a second-floor window. A heartbeat later, the implo gren activated. With a dull thump, a huge chunk of the predark building vanished, contracting to the size of a lump of coal. The ville sec men paused in their shooting at the sight of a thousand more stickies exposed along the bisected flooring. The hundred on the second floor had to have only been the guards. The third and fourth floors were a solid honeycomb of the weird cocoons. It was a mutie army!
“Hit ’em again!” the baron ordered as he advanced closer, firing his handcannon nonstop. His features were illuminated by the crimson light, making the one-armed giant appear to be a war god from predark mythology. Madness filled his eyes, but the blaster boomed in deadly accuracy.
Heartened by the sight of the baron taking the lead, the sec men rallied and double their assault on the burning structure. But then a low groan came from the building as the interior beams started to bend, stretching like warm taffy. The walls cracked, floors broke apart, and the upper levels of the office building collapsed onto the lower stories in a prolonged avalanche of crumbling masonry.