Go low, and you had an old-fashioned, hurt-like-hell gut shot, which was more than likely going to end up being a killing hit when delivered with a 9 mm round from a P-226 blaster. As J.B. had said more than once, “You hit when you miss with a chest shot. Nothing fancy about a shooting like that, but it gets the job done.”
Ryan’s backup was close behind him, closer still when the first shot exploded in the burning night.
The big sec man slowed as he approached the scene. “Christ, Cawdor, you chilled them all,” he said.
“Don’t fall all over yourself thanking me, Rollins.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the younger man in the mall sec colors said. “Five stickies downed by a single man.”
“Friend of mine once told me a running man with a sharp knife can slit a thousand throats in a single night,” Ryan said. “As long as he’s quiet about it.”
The lead sec man waved over his single living follower. “Use the tank extinguisher. It should have a full charge. Put those fires out as fast as you can.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Still wish you would have left one alive for questioning,” Rollins griped. “Dead muties can’t talk.”
“Since when have you ever known a stickie to volunteer any information? Even if they knew anything, half the time the stupe” Ryan’s voice trailed off, the sight of Krysty’s face tight with pain taking his earlier thought away.
“I’m okay, lover,” she said softly, catching his eye peering intently at her. “But we got major trouble.”
“What?”
“Bad. Very bad. I’ve got a mental picture of the roof of this mall, and it’s bright red, all red.”
“What the fuck is she talking about?” the sec leader said angrily. Ryan could see confusion and fear in the big man’s face. He’d gone about his life expecting stickies to perform and act a certain way. Now that the patterns had changed, he was losing his grip. Ryan wasn’t surprised. Most men would have done likewise when confronted with the abnormal, and there was nothing normal about the ways these stickies were behaving.
“Told you before, Rollins, she’s a seer,” Ryan said. “Senses danger. Bad things to come.”
“As red as blood, as red as fire,” Krysty whispered, every hair on her head moving gently back and forth like wheat in a strong breeze.
“Shut her up, Cawdor,” Rollins ordered, his eyes wide.
“Why? She scaring you? Good.”
Rollins shook his head. “We don’t have time for crazy mutie talk.”
“We’d better make time,” Ryan insisted. “Shit’s about to hit the fan.”
The small radio on Rollins’s gun belt squawked, the shrill tone adding to the mounting tension between the two men.
“Go ahead, answer,” Ryan said. “I don’t think either one of us is going to like what we hear.”
Rollins snatched the black-and-silver portable comm radio off his belt and thumbed the Send button. “What?” he half yelled into the tiny voice grid.
“This is Jameson, sir. From the west wing,” an excited voice said.
“I’ve got problems of my own, Jameson. Make it quick.”
“The stickies, sir. They’re over here. The bastards are coming in from all sides. We shot down one in a hang glider, but not before he dropped a shitload of rope ladders and some kind of flaming napalm. We’re boxed in, and more of them are crawling up the sides. What are we going to do?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The interior of Freedom Mall was a scene of mass chaos. Word about the mutie attack from all quarters had spread effortlessly through the storefronts and common areas of the mall, creating a panic where panic was the only foe to fight. And as the word spread and the fear grew, a planning flaw in the reconfiguration of the mall’s sec setup was becoming painfully evident.
The main entrance into the massive two-story construction was also the site of the primary exit, since all fire doors, loading docks and the nearly forty other former exit-entrances into Freedom had been long since barricaded shut with concrete and stone, and chain and metal.
As the masses tried to flee from terrors both real and imagined, the greed in men’s hearts came bubbling up to the surface. Realizing that all of the available members of the Freedom Mall sec staff were busy with the stickie onslaught, looters appeared in all of the stores and shops. Some of the establishments were closed for the night, others abandoned by their owners, who had fled into the mob attempting to escape. These were loudly ransacked.