“Light ’em up!” shouted his partner, and both men fired.
The smugglers were so close the flame from the muzzles actually reached their faces. The .22 long round from the hunting rifle blew away a piece of the woman’s forehead, and the gushing corpse staggered backward from the gate, her hands clawing the air. Bleeding from a terrible wound where his ear used to be, her companion snarled in bestial rage and drew a massive black automatic pistol just before the second sec man cut loose.
The big-bore rifle stuttered three times so fast it almost sounded like one shot. The trip-hammer blows of the military cartridges opened his chest wide, and he joined his wife on the frosty ground, steam rising from the red blood pumping out of the gaping holes in their flesh.
The first sec man stood alert and watched for signs of treachery from friends hidden in the bushes, while the second guard ransacked their pockets, taking only a small derringer from the woman and the big handcannon from the man.
“Never seen its like,” the first guard said. “What is it?”
“A .44 Automag,” his comrade replied, dropping the clip and looking inside. “Big motherfucker. Damn, only three rounds.”
Impressed, the first man whistled, his breath visible in the cold. “You could trade for a good horse with that monster.”
The man grinned as he tucked the gun into his belt. “My idea exactly.”
“Now, my daughter would like that palm blaster.”
“Well, it’s my turn to get paid, but I missed with the first shot.” He tossed over the derringer. “So it’s yours. Fair deal?”
“Fair deal,” the sec man responded, tucking the tiny blaster into a pocket. “Thanks. Okay, let’s drag this scum to the quarry and feed the rock rats.”
“Don’t know if they’ll eat this kind of garbage, but at least it will get them off the road.”
Just then, the woman trembled and moaned.
“Well, shit,” the second guard complained, sounding annoyed. “The bitch is still alive.”
Angrily working the bolt on his rifle, the other guard pressed the hot muzzle to her face and fired again with explosive results.
“Not anymore,” he stated, wiping some gore off his face with a sleeve.
WATCHING THE GUARDS tumble the bodies into the pit, Ryan Cawdor adjusted the focus on the antique brass telescope, careful not to disturb the bushes he was hiding within and give away his position.
The telescope was an amazing little thing they had found in the ruins of the Virginia Beach Naval Station. Apparently, the base had been in the process of building a gateway when skydark hit, and thus the job was never finished. When the companions had jumped into the partially constructed mat-trans chamber, every working circuit in the complex blew and they barely managed to escape before the building burned to the ground. Afterward they dutifully searched the ruins of the base, which included several smashed warships lying scattered about hundreds of feet from the beach. A nuke had to have hit offshore and blown the crafts inland. All of the weapons and food were long gone from the base and the vessels, naturally, but Ryan had found this telescope. The unbreakable plastic lens was heavy, but the scope compacted smaller than binocs and was perfect for a one-eyed man.
Fighting back a shiver, Ryan tried to ignore the cold that seemed to be seeping into his very bones. He was dressed in a fur-lined coat, but with only a thin flannel shirt, denim pants and worn Army boots. The comfortable clothing was perfect for the dry desert of southern California, but useless against the damp chill of a Virginia autumn. The heavy metal of the Steyr SSG-70 rifle across his back and the blaster at his hip seemed to be leeching away what little heat his body generated. The weapons felt like lumps of ice pressed against his skin. Worse, the damp cold was making an old wound ache. Ryan gently rubbed the back of his hand against the leather patch where his left eye used to be. Sometimes in nightmares he could still see his brother’s knife descending and feel the terrible starlight of pain that haunted him for so many years afterward.