The first triple burst, sounding to an inexperienced ear like a single tearing explosion, ripped into the edge of the sodden wood, a hand’s breadth from the monster’s snout. Wooden splinters exploded, showing white beneath the surface. The next four bursts all caught the mutie alligator, raking it from the end of its jaw, along the side of its questing head, into the light-colored belly with its softer armor.
Blood spouted over Finnegan, soaking his face and chest. Shards of jagged bone were torn from the creature’s savage teeth, pattering into the water. One of its eyes disappeared, the whole cavern of the socket disintegrating under the high-velocity fire from Ryan’s weapon.
The reptile was kicked back into the water, off the edge of the causeway, its claws tearing away at the wood. Propelled at an extreme velocity, the rounds punched into the target with fearsome force.
There was no need for anybody else to fire. More than a dozen bullets had ripped the alligator apart, sending it flailing and thrashing, throwing up a great pink spray that darkened to crimson, covering its death throes. Hennings helped Finnegan to his feet, and they stood on the edge of the torn planks staring as the monster passed from life. The others, including Ryan, with his finger still on the trigger, also watched carefully.
“Bastard that big could still come at us,” he said.
“Be fine way to go. After all he’s fucking eaten,” grinned Hennings, one hand still on Finn’s shoulder. “Being that fucker’s dinner.”
“Why did you sit down there?” asked J.B.
Finnegan shook his head, wiping the mutie’s blood from his face and neck. “I asked a man that. Tail-gunner off War Wag Three. Dean Stanton, his name. Little runty guy with a lot o’ balls. Once seen him throw himself clear off a high bridge into a couple of feet of water. Near Missoula. We dragged him out and I asked him why he done it.”
“And?”
“And he said it just sort of seemed a good idea at the time.”
Finnegan began to laugh, hanging onto Hennings for support. The laughter was contagious, and they all began to laugh, even J.B., easing away the tension of the fat man’s near escape.
“Crazy bastard,” called Ryan, patting the stamped sheet-metal housing of the automatic rifle. It was damned near the closest he ever came to showing any affection.
“Thanks, Ryan,” said Finn.
“Sure,” he replied.
The alligator was nearly still, no more than a twitching corpse. Around it the water was stained a deep brown-red, and small fish began to appear by the hundreds near the carcass.
As Ryan and the others looked on, fascinated, the dead alligator, better than fifty feet in length, began to jerk and roll, its white belly up, the fish tearing at it.
Within less than five minutes the corpse had been stripped to raw bones and shreds of tattered sinews.
“Piranhas,” corrected Krysty. “And you’re right, Henn. They are mean bastards.”
It was a relief to finally set foot on dry land at the end of the walkway.
There was a small stone building, with a roof of woven reeds, standing among a grove of oaks. Its windows were unbroken, and although the stucco on the walls had peeled, most of it remained undisturbed by the elements.
It was an odd sight in a world where the great bombings of 2001 had reduced virtually every building to rubble. Ryan could almost count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he’d seen prenuke architecture intact like this.
“Figure the low land protected this place?” he asked J.B.
“Has to be.”
“No.”
“What’s that, Doc?”
Doc Tanner rubbed at a green stain on the side of his stovepipe hat. “Not the lie of the land, my dear Mr. Cawdor. Have you not heard of a little toy called the neutron bomb?”
“Neutron bomb?” asked Ryan. “What the fireblast was that?”
“I heard of it,” said the Armorer slowly. “Took out men and left the houses. That it?”
Doc nodded. “A simplistic summary of the effects, but accurate enough for our purposes.”
The door of the little building was open; the weather had apparently cleared out whatever it might have held.