The spacing between the ville wall and the pit was uncomfortably tight, barely wider than the trucks, and Ryan scraped the bumper along the wall several times trying to stay as far from the edge as possible. Thankfully, the vans would have no trouble, being so much smaller in width, but for the trucks it was tight quarters. Loose rocks tumbled into space as the wag slipped in some loose gravel and slid dangerously toward the right.
“Careful,” Stephen warned unnecessarily, swallowing hard.
“Shut up,” Ryan said through gritted teeth, concentrating on the driving.
Splashing through a small creek, the one-eyed man relaxed as the wag finally went past the ville and the path angled away from the quarry toward the woods.
Lumbering through a field of dried grass, their ride evened out as the truck jounced and bounced onto a predark road of pavement and concrete.
As their speed increased to nearly 40 mph, the lead wag rolled along the four-lane highway through a thick forest. The trees still had leaves, but the green was long gone, fiery colors of the rainbow filled the forest stretching into the distance.
“Get ready,” Stephen cautioned, working the bolt on his longblaster. “There’s almost always an ambush somewhere along here, just outside the range of the ville blasters.”
“Hey, J.B., incoming!” Ryan shouted out the open window.
Riding in the back, the Armorer thumped the roof twice in acknowledgment. Then raising his left arm high, he tightened his hand into a fist.
In the second van, Krysty hit the horn to signal she understood, but no sound came from under the trembling hood. She stuck an arm out the window and waved an okay, then relayed the same hand signal to the wag behind her.
Doc beeped the horn and passed back the warning.
Jak tried the horn with no results, so he flashed the headlights. Mildred readied the scattergun, and in the back, Dean drew his Browning semiautomatic and patted his pockets to make sure he had a butane lighter for the Molotov cocktails. The bottles were rattling in their wooden box, the thick rags tied around the long necks of the glass containers doing nothing to cushion them against the vibrations of the vehicle.
Tense minutes went by with no sign of any activity, then there was a lot of movement in the bushes on both sides of the highway. Ryan shifted to a higher gear and increased their speed.
“Here they come,” Stephen said, working the action on his shotgun, chambering a shell.
Dozens of green-skinned muties stumbled into view from both sides of the forest, charging headlong at the convoy. Ryan had never seen the type before. They almost looked like norms, except for the skin tone and complete lack of hair. Then a few opened their mouths, and he saw only rows of sharklike fangs and forked tongues.
Taking careful aim, J.B. fired a burst of 9 mm rounds into the closest bunch, and several of the creatures fell to the pavement, gushing black blood. One survivor snatched for a door handle and missed, while another successfully grabbed a side mirror and the supports snapped free in its grip. The mutie hit the roadway and tumbled bonelessly directly under the van.
Choosing his targets, Ryan veered around a thick clump of the attackers, then plowed through a couple of stragglers, the steel fenders smashing them aside to the sound of shattering glass.
“That cost us a headlight, ya fool!” Stephen raged. Zigzagging wildly, Ryan ignored the man, savagely plowing into the attacking creatures. From the wags behind them came the sounds of blasterfire, shotgun blasts and mutie screams.
Bracing himself against the random jerks of the wag, J.B. hosed the bushes on the right side of the highway with his Uzi, and more of the bleeding muties stumbled onto the road. Closely followed by dozens more of the green creatures, the naked beings waved their arms in the air and loudly hooted as if demented.
“Goddamn, I have never seen so many before!” Stephen cried, firing the rifle out the window at the darting figures. “It’s an army out there!”
“Been too long between convoys.” Ryan cursed, steering over some more of the saber-toothed muties. The wag lurched as crushed bodies bounced off the front bumpers, or were squashed beneath the wide tires. “They must be starving to come this close to a walled ville.”