“Is that not a sign of those treacherous mutations known as stickies?” Doc asked.
Mildred looked at J.B. “They like fires and explosions, don’t they, John?”
The Armorer was busily polishing his glasses, peering shortsightedly at her. “Could be. Haven’t had a run-in with stickies for a while. Glad to say.”
Harve grinned and spit in the fire. “Some barons pay bounty on stickies. Handful of jack for a handful of hands. Reckon we might go hunt them on the morrow. We be a match for a gang of white-bellied muties. Pay better than dead pig.”
“Don’t taste so good as pig,” Jak said with a grin, poking at the cooking meat with the point of one of his throwing knives. “Soon be ready eat. Hungry.”
The aftermath of the devastating nuking of the United States, during the brief and final world war nearly a hundred years earlier, had resulted in enormous geophysical and climatic alterations to the country. It had also induced profound biological changes in all living creatures, with no species spared the bizarre and extreme mutations.
Stickies were one of the most common and vicious of the humanoid muties.
Their faces were often badly disfigured with running sores, diseased noses and lipless mouths with rows of filed teeth. They usually had thin, straggling hair and scrawny but muscular bodies. Their name came from their very specific mutation their fingers and palms, and sometimes feet, would be covered with a number of tiny, powerful, toothed suckers, like miniature mouths, capable of sucking strips of skin and flesh from anything they touched. In extreme cases some stickies might have these hideous suckers distributed all over their bodies.
They were generally of extremely low intelligence, though possessed of a brutish cunning. Stickies often roamed in small packs of a dozen or more and rarely used weapons, except for clubs and rough spears. Their particular love was for explosions and fires, the bigger and brighter the better.
Stickies loathed norms.
Talk of the possibility of the vile creatures being in the region killed all conversation for a while.
TIME HAD NO MEANING for Ryan. There was only a total dull blackness with no sense and no sight and no sound. His pulse was slow and irregular, his breathing even slower.
The old man had carefully washed him and redressed him. Amazingly his clothes had more or less survived the dreadful fall and the torrent, though the SIG-Sauer had been removed from its holster and hung on a hook behind the rickety door of the shack, cleaned and oiled.
During the first twenty-four hours, after dragging the apparently lifeless body from the muddy fringe of the river, where it had snagged on a fallen live oak, the man had tried to feed him warm potato soup, but Ryan’s mouth remained limp, letting the liquid trickle back out again. Even a spoonful of clear spring water was ignored, barely touching the dry, cracked lips.
“Live or fuckin’ die. Not much to me,” his savior had muttered crossly.
The spark of life was tiny and remote, gradually flickering toward extinction.
THE PORK WAS DELICIOUS. Though the boar had obviously been a tough old animal, the flesh was rich and tender, flavored delicately by the herbs that grew wild among the tall trees. Even with no bread or vegetables to accompany the meal, they all ate their fill. In the case of Jak Lauren, more than his fill.
“Smell of this must be drifting for a good twenty miles,” J.B. said, lying back and picking at his teeth with a splinter of bone.
” Would’ve been good for bringin’ some customers,” Gus said. “Kind of free advert.”
“Long as it doesn’t bring in the bears and wolves and all the vermin.” Harve looked thoughtfully at the carcass, which was missing one gigantic hind leg. “Wonder whether anyone could manage a mite more if we was to slice some more.”
Nobody answered for a while, considering the possibility. Jak licked his thin, pale lips. Krysty stood, shaking her head. “Should be moving on before it gets dark,” she said. “Search goes on, friends.”
The three hunters all shuffled to their feet, wiping hands on greasy trousers, shaking with the five companions.