“Ignore the noises,” Krysty said, dropping a speed loader into her revolver. “Only shoot when you see them. That’s an old trick to rattle us and make us waste ammo.”
“And we contemptuously thought they were unintelligent muties,” Doc stated, holding the LeMat in a combat grip to steady his aim. Only six more shots and he was out. “More the fools we.”
Swearing softly, Jak struggled with the bolt to clear a jam, the live cartridge hitting the ground with a musical ting-a-ling. “They not dumb.”
“Got it!” J.B. cried, standing triumphant, the broken blade of a knife shining between the teeth of his pliers. “Bastard thing was wedged in tight. Almost as if they knew exactly where it should go.”
“Get in, use the Uzi,” Ryan ordered, sliding across the Hummer. Taking the wheel, the man shoved the transmission into gear and started forward slowly, allowing the companions to climb into the wag.
“Everybody in?” Ryan shouted as he gunned the engines.
“Clear!” Dean replied, shoving a fresh clip into the handle of his Browning semiautomatic pistol.
A greenie stuck its head into view from a manhole and spit. Doc cried out, dropping his blaster to the floor of the wag. Swinging the M-60 about on its gimbal, Jak peppered the manhole with 7.62 mm rounds, but the mutie was gone.
Krysty lobbed a gren at the hole. The sphere bounced twice and went right into the opening.
Ryan hit the gas, and the Hummer raced away as flames erupted from the ground, resembling the muzzle-flash of a cannon.
“Knife!” Mildred ordered, and Dean passed her a blade. The physician sliced apart the sleeve of Doc’s frock coat, exposing his upper arm. There was a purplish bruise there, the flesh already tinged with yellow around a tiny barbed dart. Plucking the dart free, Mildred cast it away and cut a crisscross pattern into the flesh. Laboring to breathe, Doc made no response, sweat appearing on his pale face. Sucking at the wound, Mildred’s mouth burned as his blood came out. She spit it outside the wag and repeated the process until it no longer hurt her to extract blood from the wound.
“That’ll do,” Mildred decided, looking at the spot with her flashlight. “I got the poison out fast enough.”
“Thanks,” Doc mumbled, color already returning to his features.
“Don’t thank me yet,” the physician warned, opening her med kit and pouring the last few drops of witch hazel on a bandage. “This will hurt even worse. It’ll keep you alive, though.”
“I stand ready, madam,” he said through gritted teeth.
Mildred laid the damp cloth on the wound, and Doc sharply inhaled at the contact. She quickly tied it off with a field dressing as he continued to breathe rapidly.
“Don’t use that arm to shoot,” Mildred ordered, wiping the blood off her hands. “The recoil of that monster handcannon will open the wound and make you start to bleed. This is only a pressure bandage. Once we’re clear, I’ll stitch it closed properly.”
Clumsily, Doc lifted the LeMat with his left hand and rested it on the side of the Hummer. “I am no Sissiphant, madam,” he stated.
She nodded in understanding. “You’re welcome, you old coot.” Just then, a swarm of greenies charged from the darkness into the headlights once more. Ryan wheeled away from them as Jak gave the muties another taste of the M-60. Then J.B. added the ripping killpower of the Uzi, and a handful of the attackers fell over dead.
This time, the greenies didn’t get close and they raced away, leaving them behind.
“Can’t keep this up forever,” Ryan stated, shifting gears. “Eventually, they’ll get our range and do us all like Doc.”
“You have a plan. I can hear it your voice,” Krysty said, using fingernails to yank two spent cartridges from the cylinder of her blaster. She slid in live rounds and eased the S&W closed. “Whatever the hell it is, you have my vote to try.”
“Me, too,” Dean added, carefully removing a dart from the headrest of the seat in front of him. He tossed it away, then spit on his fingers and rubbed them clean on his pants.