The skull was blackened and elongated, earless, ending in a running sore where the nose would have been on a normal animal. The hooded eyes were pale yellow, crusted with a hard white froth. The lower jaw was underslung, gaping open with a triple row of stained, serrated teeth showing between the swollen, obscenely delicate pink lips.
Ryan guessed that its body was around four feet in length, with an extra five or six feet of twitching tail.
“Look left,” J.B. breathed, his voice suddenly hoarse and high.
There were two more of the monstrous rodents, creeping slowly out from the undergrowth to join the other mutie, where all three stood together, their weeping eyes locked to the seven invaders into their territory.
Ryan looked cautiously around, checking that there didn’t seem to be any more of the giant rats, trying to decide whether it was best to let them go unharmed, or to wipe the face of the earth a little cleaner by chilling them.
There was always the risk of gunshots attracting the wrong kind of interest.
The mutie rats didn’t seem able to decide what to do. Threaten or retreat?
“Let’s terminate them,” Mildred whispered, a few paces behind Ryan.
“They’re monsters, Dad!” exclaimed Dean, unleathering his blaster.
The rats were so disgusting that Ryan felt his instincts taking over from common sense.
The SIG-Sauer had a built-in baffle silencer that he’d replaced some months earlier. It wasn’t as efficient as it had once been, but it was still better than nothing.
“I’ll take them,” he said. “Mildred, stand ready to pick up anything I miss. Once I start shooting, them there’s no turning back.”
The three creatures were still huddled together, eyes staring incuriously toward them. The golden eyes were oddly dead, showing no emotion, like a great white shark’s. The long, crusted tails were whipping from side to side, as though they were considering making a charge.
“Fireblast!” Ryan said quietly. He leveled the pistol, steadying his right wrist with his left hand, standing in the middle of the blacktop, legs slightly apart, in the classic shootist’s crouch.
The first of the powerful 9 mm rounds hit the leading rat through the side of the head, just below the dripping orifice where its left ear would have been. The jolt of the explosion ran clear to Ryan’s shoulder, but the noise of the shot was satisfyingly muffled.
The mutie squealed, like a buzz saw slicing through a sheet of plate glass. It rolled on its side, legs kicking up a spray of slurried mud, blood jetting from its shattered skull, shards of bone dappling the ground.
Ryan didn’t wait to see how successful his shot had been. He knew that it was a terminal hit.
Shifting his aim a little to the left, he centered the foresight on the throat of the second of the monster rodents, squeezing, steadying the blaster and firing a third round. The full-metal-jacketed bullet hit the last of the vile trio in the chest as it began to turn toward him.
In less than five seconds, all three of the mutie rats were down and done for. One choked on its own sluggish blood, as it scrabbled to try to get back on its paws, but all the lines were permanently down.
The second had simply slumped down, chest and belly in the dirt, dimming eyes staring vacantly ahead into the walls of the dark forest.
The last of them made a halfhearted effort to pull itself deeper into cover, but thick blood pumped from the gaping exit wound. The bullet had splintered the spine, paralyzing the stumpy rear legs. It was making a feeble, mewing sound, like a drowning kitten, its tail lashing from side to side, banging against the fungus-covered stump of a diseased sycamore. Chunks of flesh fell from it, ripped off, scaled and revolting, sending a spray of dull crimson across the trail.
“Pretty shooting, lover,” Krysty commented, relaxing her breath in a loud sigh.
Ryan nodded slowly, holstering the warm blaster. “Sound of the shots shouldn’t travel too far through thick trees. Not with the silencer.”
Doc sneezed, doubled over and sneezed again, groaning as he put away the big Le Mat and reached for his kerchief.