Bloodfire

“Force them into the open street!” Ryan shouted, shouldering the Steyr and fanning the creatures with a hail of 9 mm rounds from the coughing SIG-Sauer. “Jak, light ’em up!”

While the others formed a ragged line to discharge volley after volley of rounds to drive off the creatures, Jak pulled out the Molotovs and started to throw them. The first hit the ground between the two groups to keep the muties at bay, but the next two bottles arced down directly onto the creatures, the glass shattering as it hit the ground, and splashing them with the fiery contents.

One stickie caught a Molotov in the chest and the bottle just stayed there, the burning rag fuse hanging impotently. Then Dean triggered his Browning, shattering the glass. Burning fuel engulfed the stickie, and it hooted wildly as it started running about blindly. Coming through the pool of fire, the creature headed for Krysty. The woman dodged frantically and it collided with a rusty mailbox, instantly trapped by its own resinous secretions. Even as it burned alive, the skin was turning bright orange and red to match the colors of the fire.

Incredibly, one more stickie fell from the cliff to land near the companions. Moving fast, Doc threw a fistful of salt into its face, and Ryan grabbed a bent curtain rod from a pile of junk and used the pole to beat the stickie into the growing pyre.

The stench coming from the frying muties was horrendous, their anguished hooting getting louder all the time, but the companions stood their ground with blasters at the ready until the thrashing creatures finally succumbed into quiet death.

“Mother Gaia! Hellhounds would be easier to ace than a stickie,” Krysty said, cracking open her revolver and dumping the spent brass to quickly reload. The shells hit the hard ground and bounced away.

“Stay razor, people,” J.B. growled, switching from the M-4000 scattergun to the Uzi machine pistol. “There could be more of them.”

“Probably not,” Mildred said, glancing into the rock shadows overhead and in the wreckage piled outside the city. “The food supply in the desert is too meager to support many of these creatures. Big as a human usually means a human size appetite.”

“Doesn’t mean that for sure,” Ryan countered grimly, slipping a fresh clip into the SIG-Sauer; “We best stay together. That’ll reduce the chance of another mutie slipping in close.”

“Camou stickies,” J.B. muttered, working the arming bolt of the Uzi. “Thought I’d seen it all.”

“There is a first time for everything, John Barrymore,” Doc rumbled, purging and recharging the LeMat, The Webley would be sorely missed.

“At least once,” Krysty agreed, her hair flexing and curling from her agitated state. Her steel blaster felt warm and familiar in her grip, but the woman drew no comfort from the weapon. This ancient city of the dead was quickly becoming a city of death. How many more battles would they have to survive before they could leave? But she already knew the answer to that question. Too damn many.

Thumbing fresh rounds into the side feed of the Winchester, Jak approached the grisly bonfire and frowned at the sight of his leaf shaped throwing blades mired in the crackling corpses of the deceased muties.

“Damn, good knives,” the albino teen muttered angrily, working the lever to prime the single-shot longblaster. “Hate lose.”

“Blasters are better,” J.B. said.

Masked by his sunglasses, Jak snorted. “No reload blade,” he stated. “Silent, too.”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” Doc rumbled, patting the bony swordstick thrust through his belt.

“I prefer distance,” J.B. said, straightening his fedora. “And the farther away, the better.”

“Talk with your boots,” Ryan commanded, walking along the perimeter of the city. “Jawing and yapping ain’t getting us any closer to the surface.”

Staying alert for any suspicious movements, the companions trudged along the base of the cliff, climbing over piles of preDark rubble and around a couple of deep chasms in the ground. The footing was treacherous, the pieces of the fallen dome constantly slipping away underfoot, and often shattering at the first step. Soon the smoldering corpses of the stickies were left far behind, only a thin plume of smoke visible to mark the location for the circling vultures.

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