Forgotten at the post, Patrica savored the scant few seconds without pain, knowing this was no release from her death sentence, but merely a brief delay.

Surrounded on every side, Krysty turned wildly, as if searching the crowd. Then she found Ryan. They exchanged glances. He nodded, and she stopped running, dropping her blaster and raising both hands.

"Alive!" the baron roared, climbing down from the platform. "Take her alive at all costs!" The sec men swarmed over Krysty.

Returning the blaster to its holster, Ryan merged with the excited crowd and disappeared from sight.

Chapter Fifteen.

The ramshackle old pickup truck rattled noisily down the sandy street, resembling the loser in a car crash. Its tires were bald, the m.u.f.fler was held on by wire hangers, and the doors were composed almost entirely of duct tape.

But deadly serious armed sec men were in the cab and sitting in the open back. They had been boastful and confident in the ville, but now amid the ghostly ruins of the city, their conversations were brief and to the point. Death lurked everywhere among the crumbling structures: falling masonry, poisonous spiders and lethal plants. h.e.l.l-flowers, they were called. Beautiful plants, with gorgeous flowers. But take a sniff and you stopped moving until a buddy dragged your sleeping body away. Something to do with spoors, or such. But if you were alone, the victim would stand there locked in a perfumed dream until he toppled over dead from starvation. Then the plants would feed on the rotting carca.s.s. Before the fuel started running low, the sec men used to firebomb the plants on sight. They hated the filthy things. It was no way for a man to die, stupefied like a drunk in a gaudy.

Worse, outsiders come to loot the ruins-once cannibals, another time a predark war machine. And then there were the human muties who wandered in from the glowing red pits beyond the mountains, plus the local winged muties. Sometimes, even their own wolves turned against them for unknown reasons.

"Hold it!" Sergeant Benson cried, leaning out the pa.s.senger-side door. "Right here."

The driver applied the brakes, and the truck slowed, squealing every foot of the way. "Henders, check out that body!" the sergeant directed, pointing to a vacant lot. A sprawled form lay amid the wolfweed and wreckage. Lizards were chewing on his flesh, and what seemed like a perfectly good longblaster was in the bones of his hands. The triple-d.a.m.n reptiles always seemed to eat the hands of the dead first.

"Sure, Sarge," the private replied, puffing away on his pipe.

Strolling over, Henders used his bolt-action rifle to chase away the lizards, then pinched his nose shut against the stink of the decomposing flesh as he inspected the corpse.

"n.o.body I know," he reported, choking a bit. "Dead for a day, mebbe more."

"Get the blaster!"

"Sure." Bending over, the private picked up the rifle and felt the slightest tug from a string attached to the stock. His face registered curiosity, then horror for a full second before the lot was filled with an expanding fireball that vaporized the man, corpse and a hundred lizards, before reaching the sidewalk and dissipating.

Shrapnel peppered the truck, sounding like hard rain, and a man in the back toppled over with a cry, falling out of the vehicle.

"Skydark!" Benson roared, holding on to the sagging door of the battered truck and painfully lifting himself off the ground.

There was no need to recce the blast zone. Smoking shoes and a burning skull told the story. Henders was gone. The ground was a charred pit with flaming wreckage scattered for dozens of yards. Shaking his head to ease the ringing in his ears, the sergeant watched as the mushroom cloud of the blast rose into the cloudy sky. d.a.m.n explosion resembled a plas-ex blast, but n.o.body had any of that anymore. Not even the baron. Stuff crumbled over the pa.s.sage of time, became unstable, then dried into a hard, useless brick.

"Hey, Sarge!" a private called, stepping into view from behind the truck. His empty hands were dripping blood. "Pete is dead. Got a chunk of rifle barrel right through the belly."

In wordless fury, Benson glanced around the intersection at the movie theater, garage, p.a.w.nshop and office buildings. Nothing stirred-not a soul was in sight. But he knew the hunchback was somewhere near.

"Okay, Harold!" he yelled. "You got two of us with the trap! Well, enjoy the victory, 'cause you ain't getting any more!"

Silence answered the comments, and drawing a knife from his belt, Benson stabbed it into the street.

"You see that?" he asked, pointing at the knife. "There's where I'm going to stake you out like a dog!

Baron says we got to bring you in alive."

The sergeant took in a deep breath, then bellowed, "But alive doesn't mean with eyes! Or fingers!"

"Get moving!" Benson barked at the squad. "I want a five-block perimeter sweep of the whole d.a.m.n area. Smash open every ground-level door that looks suspicious." Clutching their longblasters, the sec men rushed to comply, fueled by their own anger and hatred.

"No prisoners," Benson growled, cracking open the top of his .44 Webley revolver and loading every chamber. The h.e.l.l with rationing. "Shoot first, and we'll loot the bodies afterward."

"And find me that son of a s.l.u.t Harold!"

THE BAs.e.m.e.nT of the government building was brightly lit, mirrors from the bathrooms on every floor now ringing the sleeping Dean on each side. Mildred remembered reading how Thomas Edison a.s.sisted the doctor operating on his mother by boosting the candlelight with mirrors, and the trick worked. If necessary, the physician had no doubt that she could do an operation on the boy's spine. That is, if Ryan returned with the field kit.

Sitting on a plastic milk carton, Mildred was rubbing gun oil into the stiff leather of her new boots. They fit better every day, but still needed a bit more softening or else she'd have blisters on her heels for a month.

Finishing the first boot, Mildred took a drink from her tin cup of coffee. It was room temperature, but she needed the caffeine to help stay awake. Sipping the brew, the physician listened to the stillness. The old building was as silent as a grave, and even her breathing seemed to echo slightly amid the empty stalls and bare walls. Jak was on the ground floor standing watch, and the others were out on recce, so she was alone again with Dean. Even if the group had working radios, they wouldn't be so stupid as to waste precious batteries on idle conversation.

Placing aside the empty cup, Mildred dutifully started on the other boot, removing the laces first so they wouldn't become oil soaked and impossible to tie anymore. But then the physician jerked her head toward the sleeping boy lying under the conference table. Had his breathing just changed a little?

Putting aside the boot, the doctor padded over. Suddenly, Dean started to hack and cough. His left arm ripped lose from the binding, and he clawed at the restraining straps.

Grabbing the limb and pulling it away, she knelt on the arm to keep it still, and the boy stopped breathing. Immediately, Mildred started to apply CPR, but then realized pressing on his chest to force air into the lung would only aggravate the possibility of a puncture from the broken rib. Pinching his nose shut, she inhaled deeply and exhaled into his mouth, their lips pressed tight together. His chest rose and fell at her ministrations, but the boy didn't stir and his pallor took on a faint grayish tinge.

"Come on, Dean," she panted between breaths, feeling light-headed from hyperventilating herself.

"Live!"

EXPLOSIONS SOUNDED from the ground floor of the skysc.r.a.per, then the front door exploded in a spray of gla.s.s. Firing steadily, Doc and J.B. stumbled into the tinged sunlight, their blasters booming and chattering.

Backing into the middle of the street, the two men paused for a moment as they quickly reloaded.

"Looks-" J.B. paused to swallow and moisten his throat, "-looks like we made it."

"By G.o.dfrey, what foul magician conjured these dark visitors!"

"Here they come again!" J.B. cried, snapping the bolt on his Uzi and triggering the blaster. Doc was only half finished reloading the LeMat, but he leveled the blaster and discharged the scattergun barrel. Smoke and thunder blasted from the muzzle, and something inside the building screamed in pain.

His heart pounding, Doc pulled a paper cartridge from his pocket, bit off the top and poured the black powder into an empty recess of the nine-shot cylinder, then placed the lead ball from the package into the recess and lastly tamped down the paper to hold the charge and lead in place. He shifted the selector pin from the shotgun back to the revolver. G.o.d's blood, how many of the d.a.m.n muties were there?

Doc reached over his shoulder and hauled out a Molotov.

"Light me," he ordered, proffering the rag fuse.

But J.B. started for the Hummer. "Let's get out of here while we got the chance," he retorted. "Then we'll blast them with a LAW from down the street."

"Brilliant," Doc said, as a window on the second floor exploded and a black shape sailed across the street to land heavily on the hood of the military wag. The bat clawed and bit at the sheet metal covering the engine, its large eyes shut tight against the blinding sunlight.

J.B.'s Uzi barked a dull staccato of death. The 9 mm rounds knocked the mutie off the wag, yellow blood spraying out from the impacts. The men rushed forward just as a dozen more of the muties leaped from the ruined front door of the building and landed in the middle of the street.

The companions froze, trying to be as quiet as possible while the creatures raised piglike snouts and loudly sniffed the air, turning their misshapen heads this way and that. In the tainted light of the cloudy sky, the beasts were mostly wings, their bodies no bigger than a dog's. Their ears were almost a full foot tall, their mouths filled with rows of needle-sharp teeth. The wings gave a semblance of size, spreading well over eight feet wide, the elongated elbows sticking high over their bodies and waggling ridiculously as the killers crawled about in a gross pantomime of walking.

In slow motion, J.B. took a careful step toward the Hummer, the sand softly crunching beneath his boot as he shifted his weight. Instantly, the muties turned toward him and a few started scuttling forward. The Armorer raised his leg, and one darted directly underneath the boot.

An odd noise caught Doc's attention, and he glanced over a shoulder to see two more bats directly behind him sniffing the air. Sweat broke out on his brow. He knew that primates sweated ammonia, and once any animal realized that, it could track a human forever. He didn't know if bats naturally had a good sense of smell, but these certainly seemed to. Thankfully, they were stone blind in daylight, and it was only the soft breezes from the coming storm in the desert that was keeping the muties from finding them immediately. However, if the wind shifted, or one got too close, it was all over. This close, sight wouldn't be necessary for the monsters to claw the men apart.

High above them, thick smoke poured from the broken windows of the skysc.r.a.per where the Molotov c.o.c.ktails had set the building on fire. The fuel bombs had done a good job blocking the stairs and slowing the advance of the winged muties. But the elevator shaft was more than their nest apparently. It was a highway reaching from the cool dark bas.e.m.e.nt to the observation tower. No wonder n.o.body had ever found them before. Who would search for aerial creatures underground? Smart, too d.a.m.n smart for his liking.

Aiming his LeMat at the largest of the bats, Doc dangled the rag of the last Molotov before the barrel.

When he fired, the muzzle-flash would ignite the rag, then he'd drop the bottle and dive out of the way.Hopefully, the noise of the gun would attract several of the muties into the flames before they knew what was happening.

Spreading out from the building, the bats crawled across the street and sidewalks in an instinctive search pattern, just like a flock of birds in flight. The similarity was unnerving.

Wiping the sweat off his brow, J.B. reached into a pocket and tossed a few spent cartridges down the road as a diversion. The empty bra.s.s landed quietly on the soft sand, and the bats started to go that way, then returned to their unified pattern. The Armorer mouthed a curse and started to unwrap a thermite gren.

Tucking the Molotov under his arm, Doc tried the same trick with his whetstone, but this time throwing the stone underhand.

It hit the side of the skysc.r.a.per, and two of the bats leaped upon the spot, sniffing and clawing air for the prey. The large bat squealed questioningly at them, and they chittered angrily in reply.

Oh yes, way too d.a.m.n smart, Doc decided.

Surrounded on every side, the old man reached out and touched J.B. on the arm. The man turned with the gren ready. Doc tapped his wrist where a chron would be, and J.B. lifted three fingers, then made a zero with thumb and forefinger. Doc understood and chose a direction to run. If they shot one, all of the others would converge in a swarm. But an explosion would get several and hopefully stun the rest. Ears that big had to be sensitive.

Doc had already tossed his only gren into the elevator shaft, hoping to seal the pa.s.sageway. The detonation only roused more of the monsters, including the big male they now faced. Its head was twice as large as the others, so if he wasn't the bull of the nest, he had to be the leader of the hunters. Nature abhorred a vacuum.

Accidentally, two of the bats b.u.mped wingtips, and they leaped on each other, clawing and slavering, until realizing the mistake. From behind them, a clanging sound announced that the wounded bat was crawling back on top of the Hummer. Probably thought the heat of the engine meant there was a living thing inside the sh.e.l.l. Judiciously, Doc aimed the LeMat at that particular mutie. Let them reach the Hummer and... No, the ignition fuse still had to be reinserted into the fuse box under the dashboard. That would take precious seconds they couldn't afford. Where the h.e.l.l were they supposed to run? Back into the dark recesses of the skysc.r.a.per was certain death. What else was around them? The park with the dried fountain, some burned-out buildings without doors or windows. An apartment complex, which meant too many doors and windows. A tennis court, a bank, a parking lot and a library.

The library had thick stone walls and slit windows much too small for the bats to crawl through.

Unfortunately, the door was out of sight around the corner. It might be locked, or missing entirely. Either of those would cost the men their lives.

J.B. waved to get Doc's attention and vehemently shook his head. The old man nodded in understanding, then pointed northward up the street to the Hummer, and next to the library. J.B. placed the ignition fuse between his teeth and pointed at the vehicle. After a few moments, Doc hesitantly nodded his agreement and braced himself for the concussion, holding on to the LeMat as if it were a good-luck charm.

Sliding the Uzi over a shoulder, J.B. removed the sticky electrical tape from the gren and placed the tapeon his shirt to get it out of the way. Holding the bomb tight in his left hand, he started to rotate and wiggle the pin.

Shifting his weapon away from the Hummer, Doc leveled the LeMat at a sniffing bat dangerously close to the Armorer, then realized another was moving toward himself from upwind. Once it pa.s.sed Doc and got downwind, they would be discovered, and that meant a fight whose lethal outcome was anybody's wild guess.

With a dry mouth, J.B. released the spoon of the grenade. The curved handle sprang away with a snap, and the bats swarmed toward him until he lightly tossed it at the main group of the muties. It landed with a thump, and they reversed course to converge on the military explosive.

Tucking away his gla.s.ses, J.B. opened his mouth and covered both ears to cushion the effects of the blast. Doc copied the position just as the Army charge cut loose. The street erupted, sending out a stinging sandstorm and flaming chunks of flesh everywhere. The men went sprawling, but so did the bats.

Screaming so loud their wails keened into the ultrasonic, the surviving muties took flight and wheeled madly around in the sky, constantly colliding with one another, seemingly impervious to any injury incurred.

Standing, Doc fired the LeMat, blowing the head off a bat and igniting the rag. He dropped the Molotov and took off at a run, with J.B. right beside him, the Uzi firing into the sky.

Then a bat careened off another and plowed straight into the driver's seat of the Hummer, squealing in protest. The mutie on the hood took up the cry and the rest flapped toward the Hummer, covering it with their wings, clawing at the metal, ripping the seats and canvas doors apart. The five-ton wag rocked under the a.s.sault, and one of the tires hissed loudly as it went flat. The bats screamed in triumph as if making a kill.

In midstride, the companions changed direction and headed for their only remaining hope.

"Head for a truck!" Doc shouted, turning to fire, then taking off once more. At his words, the bats went terribly still and started sniffing the air again, cawing their hunting cry, searching for an echo. Both men knew moments were all they had remaining.

"They might not run," J.B. countered, bounding over a low stone wall. He stopped, spun, fired the Uzi twice, then dropped the exhausted clip and reloaded.

As the men angled around the corner of the granite building, the muties were out of sight, but their cries were coming strong and fast. The effects of the blast were wearing off the survivors.

Stopping near a stack of crates, the men saw the line of trucks and knew why the villes sec men hadn't taken them away. The vehicles were wrecks, riddled with bullet holes and discolored in numerous spots as if splashed with acid.

The men checked their weapons and surveyed the neighboring buildings. They were ramshackle structures without doors or windows. Worse than useless. The double doors to the library were to their left, the bra.s.s bound portals wide open and inviting. The interior of the building was pitch-black, and numerous dried bloodstains marked the front step. This was where the others had been slain.

"Got another grenade?" Doc asked, frantically reloading. "Nope. Molotovs?"

"Negative."

The hunting cries of the muties started to get louder.

"We aren't going to outrun them, and the Hummer is out of commission," J.B. stated grimly, lighting the tiny stub of his last cigar. He drew in the dark, then exhaled in satisfaction. "Library is our best bet."

"Once inside, we are trapped," Doc told him. "The sky is already starting to darken."

Drawing a knife from his boot and tucking it into his belt for easier access, J.B. growled, "Same can be said for them."

"A mousetrap?"

"Yep."

The sky rumbled ominously, as Doc studied the broken line of trucks. "Might work. If there is still fuel in the tanks."

"Only one way to find out," J.B. said, lowering his voice to a whisper as the first of the bats crawled over the stone wall.

The muties looked ridiculous waddling on their chicken feet and tiny clawed hands, those impossibly long elbows sticking high into the air. But their feral faces removed the clownish appearance. These were man-eaters on the prowl. Only six left, but that was more than enough.

Dropping the sheath of his sword, Doc tossed the ebony cane away. It clattered on the sidewalk, but the muties made no move toward the noise. They were learning.

"Left door?" J.B. asked, firing short, controlled bursts at the creatures. The bull mutie charged him, raising a cloud of dust in its wake.

"Right. I mean correct!"

Doc a.s.sumed a firing stance, the old LeMat boomed and the bat flipped over sideways, its muscular body blown in two. The ones behind climbed over the dead, unstoppable in their rage to reach the men.

Constantly firing, they stepped back closer to the library and parted, one to either side of the outside doorway. Now angling his aim above the oncoming muties, J.B. st.i.tched the first Mack truck across the lot, punching holes in the steel canister set under the step of the cab. Nothing happened.

Resetting the hammer on his weapon, Doc triggered the shotgun and blew off a bat's wing. The victim yowled, and the others recoiled from the buffeting of the discharge, but didn't flee.

J.B. directed their remaining LAW missile at the second cab. A fireball engulfed the vehicle. The gasoline blast lifted the wag into the air, tires coming off and windshields shattering.

Their tall ears flattened, the muties screamed at the explosion, fleeing from the painful concussion straight toward the two friends. Waiting until the very last moment, Doc and J.B. grabbed the ornate handles of the big library doors and swung them farther apart, pinning themselves between the bra.s.s doors and the marble building. Trapped in a triangle of shadow, the battered men couldn't see what was happening. They heard crackling fire, another explosion, the bats screaming and several thumps against the doors they clutched tightly.

Doc waited for as long as he could, then whistled sharply and frantically shoved. His heavy door moved in smooth timing with J.B.'s, but just before closing, an inhuman arm thrust out of the narrowing gap and shoved back, clawing for their faces. J.B. slashed at the limb, cutting off a finger, and something coughed in reply.