“Hope you know what the fuck doing—this not respond,” Jak yelled at the woman over the roar of the ocean, which was growing louder as the storm clouds gathered overhead and the first heavy drops of rain were carried on the strengthening breezes.
“Stupe boy,” she muttered by way of reply, wrestling the wheel of the boat from his hands. “You people listen to me, perhaps we’ll get through this. But you gotta do exactly what I say, or we’re fucked.”
J.B. shot a glance at Ryan. Could they trust her? Ryan shrugged. Right now, they had little choice.
The middle-aged woman, whose wide hips and seemingly fat physique belied a strength apparent in the way she handled the wheel, began to bark out a series of orders for the companions to change the tack of the sails and move the masts so that they could catch the crosswinds that would carry them in the right direction. Ryan and J.B. had worked on ships in their time, having once been stranded in a whaling port and left at the mercy of the insane and sexually voracious female ship’s captain Pyra Quadd, but Mildred, Jak and Krysty had less experience, and had to follow the woman’s orders to the letter. Doc was excluded from working, despite his willingness to lend a hand. The old man had tried to raise himself and assist, but was still too weak, and was persuaded that he should rest.
If rest were possible in such a place. The storm came upon them rapidly as they sailed straight into the heart of it, unable to alter their course quickly as the sails were rerigged, taken up by the air currents swirling around the cloud systems.
The rain started to beat heavily on the deck, huge fat drops that physically hurt as they pounded the companions’ raw and exposed skin. Drops hit them like hurled stones as they were picked up by the crosscurrents of wind and driven almost horizontally across the deck. Crosscurrents of wind battered at them, almost sweeping them off their feet and down from the mast as they clambered around, desperately keeping a handhold as they sought to redirect the sails and pilot the boat out of the storm.
The deck rose and fell around them, making it hard to keep upright and to move with any degree of safety. At any moment, they could be pitched forward by a sudden roll of the water beneath, sent skittering toward the rail and over into the choppy waters beneath, where disturbed sea life either went deep to avoid the foam, or tried to take advantage of anything that was beaten down by the storm.
Still the woman yelled—they didn’t even know her name, but she treated them as though they had sailed with her a thousand times. It was hard for any of the companions to tell if the boat was turning and making progress, as all around seemed to be a solid wall of rain and cloud, a permanent gray backdrop, illuminated occasionally only by sudden flashes of lightning as the clouds cracked together, the distant rumble of thunder buried beneath the whine of the wind and the roaring of the sea.
She seemed to be pleased with what was happening, and whenever Ryan could spare a second from the work to look over in her direction, it seemed as though she might just be doing it. Her expression was determined, but there was a light in her eyes that showed triumph. It was hard for him to grasp, as all he could feel was an immense weariness that crept over him as the rain beat down, hard and cold, seeming to freeze him to the bone, his eye aching and sore from the salt spray that mixed with the rain. His vision was a constant blur, no matter no much he tried to wipe clear his eye. What was the point? His arm was soaked, water running off his skin and matting his hair as though he were standing beneath a waterfall.
The deck beneath their feet—treacherous enough with the pitch and yawl of the sea—was made worse by the water that slopped over the sides and poured from the skies, making the planking slippery enough to land them on their backs, to slide them over the side. As if the work wasn’t hard and urgent enough, they now had to move slowly to try to keep some kind of balance lest they lose their lives in the irony of trying to save them.
Concentration on the work needed to turn the boat around and pilot it out of danger was so intense and absorbing that they didn’t at first notice that the storm was beginning to abate.
Mildred suddenly looked up, realizing that she was no longer being battered by raindrops like stones, even though the winds were still blowing strong. It was lighter than the gloom in which they had toiled for so long, and as she looked up she could see that although the clouds were skittering across the sky, they had broken, allowing the blue above to shine through.
“Shit, I think we’re through it…” Mildred said softly, staring up at the sky with bemusement.
Ryan paused, noticing that the deck beneath his feet was no longer pitching with such fury, and—as he looked across—he could see that the sea around them was starting to settle.
“Fireblast, you might actually have done it,” he yelled to the woman at the helm.
She looked back at him with a wry amusement. “Y’shouldn’t have doubted, One-eye. Save my own skin, then I’ve gotta save yours.”
“Friendly gal, isn’t she,” Mildred murmured to Krysty. “Better watch her.”
“Look!” Jak yelled, pointing out over the stern. “Not safe yet.”
“Shit shit shit…” screamed the woman at the wheel. “No way are we out of it yet.”
Staring out over the stern at the dark shapes closing on them, it became clear why their helmsman was suddenly so terrified.
“What the hell are those?” J.B. asked slowly, not really expecting an answer. The shapes were sleeker than the sharks that had trailed them when they had first been dragged into the ocean, and they were moving at a greater speed. Somehow, they looked more menacing, more purposeful, as they sped toward the boat.
“Get back from the stern,” the woman yelled at them. “Seen those fuckers before, and they’ll have you over the side if you give them the chance.”
Doc glared at her. “Madam, I feel you are overstating the case and being a little too presumptuous. The mere thought that these creatures could—” he swept his arm out over the side as he spoke and was silenced as one of the shapes broke the waters and lunged up the rear of the boat.
They were dolphins, but unlike any kind of porpoise that any of the companions had ever seen before. Sleek and bottle-nosed, this particular mammal had twin rows of sharp teeth that were awesomely visible as its powerful tail propelled it out of the water and into the air. It hung over the rear of the boat, mouth open for what appeared to be an eternity, the twin rows of teeth looking razor-sharp and deadly, its fetid breath blowing back Doc’s hair as he stared into the maw.
It made a noise—not the high-pitched intelligent squeak of dolphins they had seen before, but a lower, more menacing growl. Doc could almost swear he saw the creature’s uvula vibrate as the sound emitted from its cavernous mouth. And then it snapped shut its jaws with a sharp crack, like a whip with more than a hint of wood being chopped. Doc had just had the presence of mind to snatch back his arm, and the creature’s jaws closed on nothing but air. It hung there, disappointment almost obvious in the bright, intelligent eyes, before falling back into the wake of the vessel.
“Good heavens, I fear I should take it all back,” Doc murmured in an awed, hushed whisper.
“Storm’s brought them to the surface, scavenging,” the helmsman said swiftly, “and they won’t go back unless they’ve got something to chew on. Seen it all before.”
“What can they do?” Ryan asked, trying to work out where the danger would come from. He was answered as the boat began to be buffeted from side to side by a series of hard bangs, the deck resounding as the porpoises threw their weight against the sides of the craft, hoping to turn it over. The impact threw the vessel from side to side, pitching almost as much as when the storm was at its height, making it hard for the companions to keep their feet.
The helmsman clung grimly to the wheel, trying to keep the course straight. She indicated ahead of them. “Just need to outrun these bastards. Look up there…”
Land was within view—swamplands, with inlets of rivers running from the edge of the sea through the densely vegetated land, which seemed to be almost melting into the water.
“Try to turn the mast,” she continued. “If we can get some more speed then we can get into the fresh water and run this fucker into the swamp. Just need to get far enough in for the lack of salt to drive them back before they smash us.”
Following her barked orders, the six companions—Doc now fit enough to help, and determined so to do after nearly losing his arm to one of the creatures—began to trim the sails to catch the winds behind them, the helmsman using the wheel to guide the vessel closer to the freshwater inlets.
It was hard for them to keep their feet on the still rain-soaked deck as the dolphins hammered the sides of the boat. Each blow altered the course a little, making the steering almost impossible. Yet despite this, the helmsman was managing to guide them closer, closer… They just needed enough speed to outrun the ravening porpoises.
As if they could sense this, the mammals assaulting the craft increased the vehemence of their attack. The blows grew harder, and as Mildred lost her footing and skittered across the deck, looking for something to arrest her slide before she tumbled through the rail, a dolphin loomed up the side of the boat, hanging in the air and darting its head as far over the side of the rail as it could manage to reach, snapping its jaws in an impotent fury as she managed to keep out of reach.
After one series of blows, the vessel suddenly shuddered and lurched violently to one side, causing them to cling to the mast lest they be thrown to the mutie mammals. The helmsman swore heavily and loudly as the wheel was wrenched from her grip, spinning wildly, hammering hard and painful on her hands as she tried desperately to regain her grip. Gritting her teeth and hissing abuse at the pain, she grasped the wheel and tried to wrench them back on course.
The boat stayed at a forty-five-degree angle in the water as it moved.
“Dark night, the fuckers have managed to put a hole in us,” J.B. yelled.
“Aye, that they have, but I figure we can just about make it. Only a thousand yards or so and the waters will change.”
A thousand yards: not that much of a distance, especially at the speed that they had attained as the sails caught a sudden gust of wind, the current taking them in the direction they wanted.
But a thousand yards was a long way when a boat was shipping water and the craft was vulnerable. The mutie mammals knew this by some dark instinct, and redoubled their efforts to wreck the vessel.
Another crack from the left, where they were already listing, caused the vessel to suddenly slow as it began to ship more water. They had less than five hundred yards, and some of the porpoises had already begun to fall back, the mingling fresh and salt water at the mouth of the swamp proving too much for them to take. But there was still a core of mutie mammals who were inflamed with bloodlust and hunger, determined to finish the job they had set in motion.
“For fuck’s sake, use your blasters on them,” the helmsman yelled, pulling herself over so that she stood at a sharp angle to the deck, hauling at the wheel with all her strength to try to compensate for the drag caused by the sudden shipping of water.
It was, in a sense, incredible that they had got this far without firing on the mammals. Yet it had been hard enough to keep the sails tacked and to keep on the deck without even thinking about attacking the creatures.
Their weapons and belongings were still on the deck, their movement curtailed by the rocks that had been intended to weigh down and sink them when they were dumped over the side. They had moved a little in the chaos, but had come to rest against the small bulkhead, lodged in a safe position.
But getting to them wouldn’t be simple. The bulkhead was situated near the side of the boat, and in their desperation, the mutie mammals who were sticking with the attack to the bitter end were hurling themselves up into the air and hanging over the deck, heads moving, jaws snapping in an attempt to take some tasty morsel back into the depths with them.
Snapping jaws that were dangerously close to where the rock-bound blasters were stranded.
Ryan and J.B. exchanged glances. With the briefest of nods, the two men set out across the deck, desperately trying to keep their footing as the vessel pitched and yawed violently as the dolphins hammered against the sides, tipping at more and more of an acute angle as the water shipped in through the hole under the waterline. The planking of the whole vessel groaned with the threat of tearing apart under the stress.
And the swamps were in plain view, so close that they could easily swim in if the boat sunk—except for the predators that would have been glad of the opportunity to attack them.
Ryan and J.B. thudded into the bulkhead almost simultaneously, reaching into the pile to try to extricate their blasters.
J.B. pulled out his M-4000 and chambered a shell. “Ryan, use my Uzi. It’s no time for sharpshooting,” he yelled over the noises around them.
The one-eyed man gave him a wry grin. Ryan’s own blasters were more for single-shot firefighting, and he was glad of the Armorer’s offer.
The two men readied themselves for the next sighting of the mutie mammals, yet no amount of wariness or preparation could truly prepare a person for the moment when the giant predator burst from the deep, appearing suddenly in front of them with an awesome violence. The gaping maw opened, foul breath hitting them in a wave, the teeth standing sentry like a thousand soldiers poised to attack.
For the merest fraction of a second, both men were stunned. How could any blaster hope to make an impression on such a creature?
It lasted as long as it took their combat instincts to kick in. Both men fired simultaneously, the load of barbed metal fléchettes from the M-4000 ripping a hole through the upper jaw and snout of the creature, pulping the brain and splattering the glittering eyes, which now seemed to dull suddenly before disappearing into a mass of viscous fluid.
Ryan and J.B. were covered in a sticky, stinking spray of blood and eye fluid, the hot liquid sticking to them and running down their clothes, mixing with their own recently shed blood.
Realizing that there was no need for him to fire on the creature, Ryan moved the Uzi in an arc as he depressed the trigger, the shots weaving wide of the chilled mutie as it fell, but catching another of the dolphins as it broke the surface to join the attack. The creature squealed in a high-pitched tone, almost a human cry of pain. The Uzi fire wasn’t concentrated enough to chill the creature, but it took enough lumps of flesh from its body to make it retreat in agony and confusion.
Scrambling to their feet, both men tried to attain the far side of the deck, almost having to climb uphill as the vessel yawed dangerously. As one of the creatures reared up out of the surf, J.B. racked another shell and fired into its snout, the impact spreading a rain of flesh and blood over the deck.
Ryan directed his Uzi fire to the stern, clipping another of the mammals as it came up and loomed over the decking. One of the shots exploded its left eye, the others stitching a line of holes down its snout and onto its exposed underbelly. It flipped back, squealing in pain, hitting the water on its back, flailing as it tried to extinguish the fires of pain that the Uzi shells had left inside its body.
“Hold on to something, this is gonna be rough,” their helmsman yelled as she took the sinking boat into one of the channels leading into the swamps.
To their rear, the mutie mammals finally began to retreat, the combination of blasterfire and the freshwater into which the boat had now sailed too much for them. Not that the companions had a chance to see them retreat. Their world was now suddenly bounded by the overhanging trees and grasses of the swamp, looming up out of the waters as the land and rivers merged into a sludge that was sometimes more fluid, sometimes more solid.
The last-chance gasp of the boat had caught a gust that had whipped it in at too great a speed to negotiate the sudden turns and narrowness of the channels in the swamps, and they were thrown across the wildly pitching deck as the boat hit land, then water, then land, then water, throwing itself from side to side despite the attempts of the helmsman to keep some kind of course and bring the vessel in safely.
“Oh, fuck.”
It was the last thing they heard for some time. The boat groaned, the air was filled with the sound of splintering wood, and the craft came to a violent, shuddering halt, throwing them forward and into the air as it hit a bank too wide and solid to plough through or bounce off.
The swamp turned upside down around them and then went black.
IT WAS DARK when Ryan opened his eye, a pain shooting through his skull. A clear night, with a three-quarter moon that was bright enough to illumine the swamplands around. He tried to move, tentatively, feeling for any damage on his body. Apart from the protestations of sore and aching muscles, there was no major damage. He hoped the others had been as lucky.
In the clear light of the moon, he was able to see that the boat had careened into a mudbank and finally broken up, the internal stresses taking their toll on its superstructure and forcing the wooden hull apart. Pieces of hull and deck were scattered around, and Ryan felt lucky that no part of it had impaled him and hopefully, others had been spared.
Moving carefully—partly to save his aching limbs and partly so that he didn’t fall into the quicksand-like swamp in the semidarkness—Ryan tried to locate the others. In the thick undergrowth, he could see very little. Yet it was this undergrowth that had saved him from serious injury. The lushness of the foliage had acted as a cushion to his impact.
After some fruitless searching, he heard movement. Reaching for the panga usually strapped to his thigh, he realized that their weapons were still tied up in a bundle ready for dumping. He hoped that he would be able to find the bundle before he was in dire need; and for that he would certainly need daylight.
Dropping into a combat stance, Ryan crouched to hug the cover of the swamp, ready for the noise to be a source of danger. His relief when Jak Lauren emerged from the swamp grass was almost palpable.
“Ryan, found three others and our stuff,” Jak said swiftly, with no pretence at ceremony. “Krysty and Doc still out, J.B. coming to. Here.” He tossed Ryan the SIG-Sauer and the Steyr, then pulled the panga from his belt and handed it hilt-first to the one-eyed man. “Left stuff by them. No sign of Mildred or woman,” he stated.
Ryan nodded. “I’ve seen no one except you…and I was wondering how I’d find these,” he added with a grin, indicating the weapons. “Figured I might need them when I heard you coming.”
“If enemy, then not hear me till buy farm,” Jak said without a trace of humor. “Same for most around here,” he added, making it clear that it was a warning for Ryan to stay triple frosty.
Ryan could remember his last time in the swamps, and readily agreed. The two fighters agreed to divide the area, search, and meet back in half an hour. “Told J.B. stay put until feeling okay and I come back,” Jak added.
Ryan could see the logic: keep all those whose locations he knew in one place, then collect everyone together when they were fully conscious. Should, ideally, make it easier to find the missing pair…
Or maybe not. Almost half an hour later Ryan had nothing but insect bites and a mounting sense of frustration to show for his searches. The swamp area he had searched was empty—at least, devoid of human life. He made his way back to the meeting point, where he was astounded to see Jak standing with Mildred: between them they were carrying the woman who had helmed the boat. She was unconscious.
“Hey, Ryan, how’s things?” Mildred said brightly, as though she had only seen him a second ago and they were crossing paths on the street of a friendly ville.
“Mildred, what—”
“I figure I got lucky and didn’t land too badly…and I landed near her,” she added, indicating the unconscious woman she was helping carry. “It was a real struggle trying to drag her around with me until Jak found us.”
“But why were you trying to do that? Why—” Ryan began to ask, but was cut short.
“I’m not sure, but I think I’ve got a mild concussion that’s making me do some stupid things,” Mildred interrupted. “Good thing Jak found me, or no knowing where I would have wandered. It should pass—weird kind of knowing it, to tell the truth—but I figure one of you should stay with me while you round up the others.”
Ryan sent Jak. It was obvious, as the albino knew where the others were situated. While Ryan waited for him to come back with them, he had to sit and listen to Mildred ramble on about anything that came into her head. Truth to tell, he had no idea what she was talking about, and he seriously doubted that she did, either. Eventually she fell asleep. The other woman was still out cold.
It became a long wait. Jak, having picked up J.B., was obviously trying to rouse the others rather than have to carry them, and so by the time they appeared, the sun had risen in the early morning sky, and it was set to be another humid, misty day in the swamps. The marsh gases began to rise, moisture pulled from the swamp by the heat, and the sounds of swamp life began to echo around Ryan, Mildred and the woman. Strange to think that she had saved their lives—albeit to save her own—and yet they didn’t know her name.
Ryan heard the procession through the swamp before he saw them, and when Jak led them to where he was waiting, he was glad to see that J.B., Krysty and Doc were showing nothing more than a few knocks and bruises for their ordeal. In fact, he hadn’t seen Doc looking so strong since they had left the redoubt—fireblast, how many days had that been?—and the old man looked able to take on whatever faced them ahead.
Their approach stirred both Mildred and the woman lying beside her.
“Shit, my head feels like someone’s used it for target practice with a baseball bat,” Mildred moaned.
“You remember what you were saying before?” Ryan asked. She shook her head, giving him a blank, uncomprehending stare. “Dammit, that’s a pity—thought you might be able to explain what the hell it was all about,” he said wryly, before explaining what he meant.
Mildred whistled softly. “Man, I was gone. Can’t remember a damn thing…”
They gathered together and Jak divided the bundle of belongings he had rescued. There was little left, as most he had distributed as he searched, but J.B. was glad to be reunited with his ammo and explosives stores. And, searching one of the bags, his eyes lit up when he unearthed his battered fedora. “Thought I’d lost it,” he muttered, carefully placing it on his head as though it were some kind of talisman.
They ate some of the self-heats that had been stored in their belongings, and used the remains of the bottled water that had survived the journey. They were surrounded by water, but the brackish liquid of the swamp was an unknown quantity, and they were unwilling to risk drinking it until it was strictly necessary.
Over their unpalatable but necessary meal, they introduced themselves to the woman. She wasn’t hostile, but by the same token she found it hard to be too friendly.
“Remember, I was ready to chill you all, and I don’t think that I’d be too kindly disposed to me after that,” she said warily.
Ryan shrugged. “That was a ville thing. You saved our hides after.”
“To save my own,” she pointed out.
“But that’s the point,” Krysty interjected. “We’re on the same road now, so we need to look for each other’s backs. No one else to do it. What happened before doesn’t matter. Things were different then.”
The woman shrugged. “Guess so, if you want to see it that way. Name’s Coral, and I’ve never really done anything except fish. Don’t know anything about surviving in swamps like this,” she said with a shiver as she looked around.
“Figure you stay with us, it’ll be okay until you find somewhere you want to stop.” Ryan shrugged.
“Yeah, but where’s here in the first place?” Coral asked with an answering shrug.
J.B. was on his feet, the minisextant in his hand, trying to get a fix on the position of the sun. “That’s what I’m hoping I can tell you in a moment,” he murmured. “Yeah,” he said finally, looking down at the others, “I figure that if we head off to the northeast, we’re about twenty miles or so from where we met Jak.”
“West Lowellton,” Krysty mused. “Wonder if they managed to build the kind of place they wanted?”
“Had chance when we left,” Jak said. “Mebbe we’ll see.”
“What are they talking about?” Coral whispered to Mildred.
The physician shrugged. “It was before they, uh, found me. But around here is where Jak comes from,” she added.
Krysty looked at the albino with an appraising eye. “Yeah, kinda figures. He looks like some of the swampies we used to deal with. That stopped awhile back, though.”
“Any idea why?” Mildred asked.
Krysty shook her head. “No idea. Just like they weren’t there, one day.”
Mildred wondered if this was an ill omen, but there was no time to dwell on that as they prepared to head out.
Jak took the lead at Ryan’s behest. The albino was at home in the swamps, and knew them intimately. Any dangers that may lurk from the native wildlife and from the treacherous ground beneath their feet were known as second nature to the hunter.
Yet, as they progressed, Ryan became aware that Jak was moving with unease. When they stopped to rest, Ryan questioned Jak about that. The answer he got was unsettling.
“Feels weird. Not good, like something bad hangs over us…over all of this,” Jak added, sweeping his arm to indicate the swamp around them.
Ryan frowned, then looked at Krysty. Her doomie sense was usually a good indicator of when trouble was around the corner. He noticed that her sentient hair was waving in tendrils that suggested a sense of unease.
“I can feel it, but I don’t know what it is. It’s…it’s almost like an emptiness,” she began, groping for words. “It’s not the swamp or the animals—”
“Nothing wrong there, but no people,” Jak cut in. “Where are hunt parties?”
Ryan tried to get an angle on these feelings, translate them into something concrete. Whatever was causing the atmosphere was also responsible for the lack of human population. However he looked at it, there was no way it could be good; but beyond that, he had little notion at present of what that could mean.
“Just stay triple red. Be ready for anything,” was all that he could counsel. It wasn’t enough to keep him happy.
They continued on for over an hour, with nothing to break the monotony of the march until Jak suddenly halted.
“Swampies…coming straight for us.”
“What the fuck are swampies?” Coral asked.
“Met them before—muties that just won’t lie down and die,” Krysty snapped, drawing her Smith & Wesson.
“Can’t we skirt around them?” Mildred asked. Like Coral, she had no previous experience of the creatures.
J.B. shook his head. “Tricky fuckers. They’ve got good hunting instincts, and if the swamps are as deserted as we think, then they’ll sniff us out as the only fresh meat in town.”
“Great,” Mildred said dryly. “Just what we need.”
With their weapons drawn, they continued on their way. Coral was unarmed, so Jak gave her a couple of his leaf-bladed throwing knives to use for defense. “Though not much good with these fuckers,” he added less than helpfully. “Just use as last hope, and pray we blow the fuckers away.”
There was no chance they could avoid the swampies. The mutie creatures would have scented them and would be closing in; it was merely a matter of hoping that the hunters wouldn’t be able to surround and surprise them.
Slowly, they made their way through the swamps, every bird call, animal cry or sound of moving water holding the possibility of heralding attack. Their mouths dried, their nerves itched… The not knowing was the worst of it.
And yet, when the attack did come, it still took them by surprise.
Crossing a narrow strip of marshy grass that weaved an erratic path between two landmasses, surrounded on either side by rush-strewed waters, they could see clearly for several hundred yards in each direction, and felt relatively safe.
The one thing they didn’t expect was to see a half-dozen swampies emerge suddenly and shockingly from the water on either side of them, waves of stagnant, stinking swamp water sweeping over them, blinding the companions. The muties had to have been laying in wait, using their enhanced respiratory capacities to stay hidden.
The swampies were uncannily silent as they attacked, the only sounds being the movement of their limbs through water. The dwellers in the bayou had called them les morts vivants—the living dead—and indeed they closely resembled the voodoo zombies of legend. But these were very much alive and had only one thing on their minds: chilling their prey.
J.B. let fly with a burst of fire from the mini-Uzi, catching a thin, rangy man across the chest and shoulders, flinging him back into the water. But it wasn’t enough to chill him, and Coral screamed as he rose again. A well-aimed shot from Mildred’s ZKR through the forehead took him out. She figured that if they had enough strength to keep getting up, maybe they could be chilled like traditional zombies, with a shot through the head.
“Never thought all those late-night movies would turn out to be educational,” she muttered to herself as she took aim on a squat, fat woman who was wading purposefully through the water toward them.
The swampies were carrying machetes and knives rather than blasters—even the dumb muties had enough sense to know a water-logged blaster didn’t work—so the companions had some advantage. But the blinding wash of swamp water had given the muties valuable seconds in which to draw close.
Two of them zeroed in on Coral, one from each side of the path, realizing that she had no blaster. They were waxy, their skins covered in sores, and as they reached for her, she was frozen with fear. One was short and skinny, the other tall with a huge gut. Both had immense strength, and, taking one arm each, began to tug at her. She screamed from pain as much as fear. Their combined strength was ripping the muscles in her arms, pulling her shoulders out of their sockets. The knives plunged uselessly to the path.
There was little help for her. Krysty, Jak and Ryan were using their handblasters to fire on the swampies, trying to get them in the head each time, other shots proving little more than a delaying action. The swampies were on the path, grabbing at the companions, who kicked out, trying to stop them closing their vicelike grips about their arms and legs, dragging them into the water.
J.B. took the M-4000 from his back and let loose a load of barbed metal fléchettes that took out one swampie by severing the top half of his body almost cleanly from the bottom. Doc, too, had dealt with one swampie in this manner, using the LeMat’s shot chamber to equally lacerate a swampie who bore down. But the ancient percussion pistol had only one load of shot. Before Doc could reload, he had been dragged down by a swampie. The creature couldn’t wait to take a bite from him, and he felt its fetid breath as its head came toward him, the dull eyes showing nothing of its imminent triumph. The old man twisted his arm and wrist so that the LeMat was against the swampie’s temple, then loosed the ball round into its skull. The exit wound took half of the skull with the brain matter, splattering it with soft sounds into the waters beyond.
Coral was down, her arms useless. She screamed one last time as the swampie with the huge gut decided to end his tussle with his compatriot by using his machete to hack her in two. Her screams were drowned in her own blood as he hacked around her neck, chest and shoulders to try to cleave her in two. He was stopped only by a round from the M-4000 which reduced his own neck and shoulders to bloodied ribbons of flesh and splinters of bone. He was joined in oblivion by his compatriot, whose focus on his prey meant that he didn’t even see Krysty fire into the back of his head with her Smith & Wesson, the .38 slug exiting through an eye socket, draining his head of all gray matter.
The last echoes of the last shots rang out over the swamp. The companions stood, panting heavily, exhausted by the struggle. They were covered in blood that was both theirs, their opponents’ and Coral’s. The woman was chilled meat, and there had been little they could do in the battle to save her. The corpses of some of the swampies lay on the path, while others had sunk into the swamp, claimed by the waters from which they had sprung.
“Dark night, we didn’t repay her too well,” J.B. breathed heavily.
“If you can’t take care of yourself, you shouldn’t be out here,” Ryan said in reply, though his tone belied the words.
Pausing only to clean the blood from them as best as possible, and slipping the corpses into the water to cover their tracks for any other swampies, they continued on in subdued silence. What else was there to say?
When the sun began to fall, they were still some distance from Lafayette and West Lowellton—farther than they could make in the daylight left. There had been no sign of any other life; nothing to suggest that the swampie hunt party had been little more than a bunch of rogue scavengers. The random nature of the confrontation did little to improve their collective mood.
They set watch for the night as they pitched camp. There was still that oppressive air hanging over the swamp, as though it were bereft of human life, and this was amplified by their anger and sorrow at the outcome of the battle.
It was a fitful night’s sleep for all. The following day they would reach West Lowellton and then they might have a better idea of just what was happening in the bayou.