“I can’t believe she’s not dead.” Mildred leaned back from Krysty, who was lying on the ground, and wiped sweat from her own forehead with the back of her arm. “She shouldn’t be alive after all those stings. Her system is flooded with poison.”
Ryan was kneeling at the other side of Krysty’s body, gently holding her hand. It was one part of her that hadn’t been stung by the vicious bugs. “The Gaia power…”
“It doesn’t make her poison-proof,” Mildred said. “Unless maybe this place has changed the way she processes the power, or altered her physiology somehow.”
“Shift hard on her,” Jak said. “Mebbe forced her adapt.”
“Whatever’s keeping her alive, she’s not out of the woods yet,” Mildred told them. “She’s in some kind of comatose state. Her pulse is so low, it’s almost nonexistent.”
“She needs medical care.” Ryan said it without looking up from Krysty’s face.
“More than I can give under these conditions.” Mildred’s stomach tightened. So many lives had slipped through her fingers since her arrival in the Deathlands, but Krysty’s death would haunt her forever.
Krysty was a true friend as well as a teammate; as the only two women in the group, they had bonded on a deep level, supporting each other through the Deathlands’ endless challenges and celebrating the few and far between good times, as well. They had become like sisters to each other.
“Okay, then.” Ricky turned to Union, who was hovering, as usual, at the fringe of the group. “So where’s the nearest place of healing in these parts?”
“What’re you smokin’, kid?” From the way Union snapped out the words—and the auburn color of her braid—it was clear that Rhonda was in the driver’s seat at that moment. “We’re in the middle of the Devil’s Slaughterhouse! There’s nothing here!”
“What about some kind of shelter, at least?” J.B. asked. “Some place to hole up?”
“How the hell should I know?” Union spread her arms wide to take in her surroundings. “This place is constantly changing.”
“Choice clear.” Jak crouched at Krysty’s feet. “Need carry her back way came. Retreat to last redoubt.”
“Redoubt?” Union frowned.
Jak ignored her. “I take first shift. Move now. Running out daylight.”
“It’s a long way back,” J.B. said. “And we’ll be in deep shit if the terrain starts changing again.”
“What alternative?” Jak snapped. “Let die?”
“That isn’t going to happen,” Ryan said darkly.
“And what about Doc?” J.B. asked. “If we hump back out of here, we’re giving up on him, plain and simple.”
“We’ll split up,” Ryan told them. “Just like we talked about before, when we were going to get Krysty away from the source of the seizures.”
“Worth a try.” J.B. nodded. “And we were talking about backing out of the Devil’s Slaughterhouse anyway, so we don’t have to split up yet.”
“We can talk about who goes where on the way to the split,” Ryan said. “Good thing we’ve got an extra body along.”
He looked at Union, and so did the others. She just kept staring into space with an icy gaze, as if the black braid at her temple wasn’t proof enough that Taryn was in charge.
The team made preparations to leave, and Mildred checked Krysty’s pulse one more time. It was so faint, she almost couldn’t find it.
“Come on, honey,” Mildred said softly, pitching her voice so only Krysty could hear it. “You’ve got to keep it together. We’re all doing our best here, but you have to keep fighting, too.”
Just then, Ryan returned from prepping his gear and crouched alongside Krysty. “Is she good to go?”
Mildred nodded. “Ready to roll.”
“I guess it goes without saying, but you’re not leaving her side, Mildred.”
“The only way I leave this patient is if I’m dead.” Mildred met his eyes with grim determination. “We can’t lose her, Ryan. We can’t let it happen.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Ryan slid one hand under the middle of Krysty back and the other hand under her knees. “Nobody and nothing’s taking her away from us.” With a grunt, he lifted her off the ground and stood. “That’s just how it is.”
Suddenly, Mildred heard a strange sound in the distance—a thunderous pounding of the ground. Seconds later, she felt a pummeling tremor reach deep inside her, shaking her from within.
“What the hell now?” Whipping around toward the sound, she saw its source: a herd of black, horned animals stampeding in a vast mass over the horizon.
“Buffalo!” The nearest sandhill was at least fifty yards away, and Ryan hurried straight for it. Protecting Krysty was his top priority.
As for Mildred, she drew her .38 ZKR and joined the others, who were forming a line facing the buffalo.
“Let’s see if we can knock enough down that it’ll turn the herd.” The hoofbeats were so loud by now that J.B. had to holler to be heard. “On my mark! Ready!”
Everyone along the line flicked off safeties and chambered rounds.
But as the animals got closer, Mildred wondered if the team’s arsenal would be enough. Like every other creature they’d encountered so far in the Devil’s Slaughterhouse, these buffalo had been changed in an unnatural way.
Specifically, they all had an extra horn in the middle of their heads, a bone-white spike sparking with electrical current. The closer they got, the more clearly Mildred could see that all the horns were connected by dancing streamers of force, linked in a crackling golden network.
“Aim!” J.B. shouted.
“Aim?” Jak laughed. “Hard to miss.”
Still, the wall of electrified buffalo rumbled closer. They were less than a hundred yards away now.
Mildred swallowed hard. If she and her teammates couldn’t turn the herd aside, they would surely be trampled to death. The air she was inhaling could very well be the last she ever breathed before her body shut down forever.
Her finger tightened on the trigger. Electrical bolts zapped the ground ahead of the herd, coming perilously close.
Then, suddenly, she heard an unexpected sound over the thunder and crackle. A shrill whistle pierced the air, punching through the interference and instantly getting her attention.
Looking over her left shoulder, she saw Ryan standing in front of the hill where he’d taken Krysty…only Krysty was no longer in his arms. Instead of carrying her, he was waving his arms over his head, gesturing emphatically for her to join him. J.B. was about to order the firing line to open up on the herd when Mildred started shouting.
“It’s Ryan!” she yelled. “Look, over there!”
Everyone looked at once. Over by the hill, Ryan stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled again, then waved some more.
“Let’s go!” Mildred said. “He’s calling us over!”
“But what about target practice?” Jak shouted. “Like shooting buffalo in barrel!”
Just then, an electrical blast scorched the ground at his feet, and Jak jumped back.
“Stun guns on the hoof, is more like it!” hollered Ricky.
“Come on!” Mildred didn’t wait for a group vote. Whirling, she broke into a full-tilt run, sprinting as fast as she could for the hill.
Were the other three behind her? She was certain they were. J.B., especially, would never let his girlfriend get away from him in the heat of danger.
Trying not to think about the buffalo stampede, though it made the ground under her feet quake with each running step, she charged toward the hill. Yard after yard flicked past as she hurtled over the wet sand, crossing the midpoint and gathering her strength for a hardcore kick to the finish.
Mildred got a stitch in her side and pushed past it. Ryan was waving with increasing urgency; this was no time to give in to pain.
As she closed the gap to twenty yards, then ten, she felt as if the buffalo were right on top of her. Reaching deep, she found her last reserves of energy and tapped them, powering a final furious dash.
When she got to Ryan, he caught her, spinning around with the force of her momentum. “Get inside!” he shouted. “Go around!” Letting go, he pushed her by the shoulders, shoving her around the curve of the hill.
Without thinking, she followed his orders. She looped around the bend of the hill, looking for some kind of access point, and spotted an open hatch that was low to the ground and half her height.
The thunderous hoofbeats pounded closer. Mildred needed no further incentive to duck into the hatch and out of the path of the electrified herd.