“Keep shooting,” Sheffield snapped, opening a third case of grens. He cast aside the wood slats and ripped off the protective plastic sheeting with bare hands.
“Any flamethrowers?” Collette asked, tossing more wood into the fireplace. The flames licked high up the flue, and something nosily clawed away from the flames.
“No,” he spit angrily, stuffing his pockets full. “We used them up in the slave revolt. Silas never had a chance to get any more fuel tanks.”
“Shit! Anything in that Quonset hut except these rapidfires and MRE packs? Another APC, or big whatyacallit?”
“M-60? How should I know?” he yelled in reply, going to a gun rack and taking down an AK-47 with an elaborately carved stock. Sheffield inserted a clip and pulled the arming bolt. “I have the inventory sheets, but haven’t inspected every fucking box yet!” Standing, the angry woman stared at the man in disbelief. “Don’t the sheets say what there is?”
Unexpectedly, one of the searchlights winked out, and darkness swallowed half the ville.
“Most of it’s in military codes, just a bunch of numbers,” Baron Sheffield said, going to a chink in the brick wall and chancing a glance outside. Nothing was visible, but tiny flowers of fire winked in the blacknessmuzzle-flashes of the wall guards.
“No time for that shit now!” Collette cursed, as a strange dog darted between the buildings. Shoving the stubby barrel of her Ingram subgun out a hole, she sprayed lead at the passing creature. It toppled over, and something rose from its back to scamper away by itself. What the fuck was that?
“Courtyard looks clear!” she said, easing off the trigger.
Cradling the longblaster, Sheffield grunted in reply but didn’t relax. Why now? The norms had been here for almost a year building the ville. Why all the trouble now?
“More coming through!” a sec man announced, firing his weapon, short arcs of brass flying into the air to tinkle musically on the cold stone floor. Outside, a flock of screamwings had descended on the bodies of the slain and were loudly feasting.
Switching to single shot, Collette steadily fired the Ingram with lethal accuracy. Each slug took a mutie in the head, skulls exploding, brains splattering outward in a grisly display.
“This has got to be the ash,” she said, dropping the clip and ramming in a fresh magazine. “There’s no more food around here, but us.”
“Fuckers eat each other,” a corporal pointed out. “But only after we ace them!”
Outside, the sounds of blasterfire were becoming infrequent, the human screams sounding constantly, as more indescribable things moved past the armory.
Cursing bitterly, Sheffield shoved a Kalashnikov out a hole and sprayed the darkness. Triple-damn Silas and his lust for revenge. “Soon as the scouts report a usable site we’re gone!” he stated, spraying a deadly wreath of bullets into the shambling humanoid mockeries. Bodies fell, but a few in the rear struggled to rise once more. He fired again, emptying the clip, and they dropped permanently.
As he reloaded, the man reflected that it almost seemed as if the second group had been using the first to test the defenses. Could that be? No, that was utter crap. He had once heard of a smart mutie that led an army against the norms of some ville, but that was only a campfire story. Something to frighten sluts and babes. Smart muties. Never happen. This was just a bunch of starving animals, nothing more.
“We got to use the Kite!” Collette raged, fumbling for a fresh clip and finding none. Hastily, she began to load one of the empties on the floor from the pile of loose ammo.
“Can’t!” he shot back. “I just tested it a while ago. I’m unable to focus it again for hours!”
“We’ll never last that long!” a sec man shouted over the chatter of a Kalashnikov.
“We can inside the blockhouse,” Sheffield stated, suddenly sounding calm. “The walls are thicker, the door solid iron.”
“Sounds good, my lord,” a sergeant replied, but then motioned his head toward the barricaded door. “But how do we get there alive across a hundred yards of open ground?”
The burned bodies of muties who had tried to climb the electric fence that surrounded the armory were a smoking pile on the ground. But there was also a hole in the barrier, and a giant cougar prowled along the brick buildings searching for any opening.