James Axler – Gemini Rising

Then a warbling scream sounded in the distance, and Krysty spun with her blaster in hand. “That sounded human.”

“Cougar,” Jak corrected, steadily whittling. The spoon was already taking shape under his expert skills.

Reluctantly, Krysty accepted the statement. The Cajun hunter was seldom wrong in such matters. Testing the meat with a knife point, she sliced into the carcass and found it nicely gray inside.

“Soup’s on,” she announced. “Grab a plate or go hungry.”

Another scream cut the night air, and everybody froze where they were, plates and cups poised in midair.

“That was human,” Mildred stated, placing her empty plate on the ground and drawing her ZKR target pistol.

“Where are the hunters?” Doc asked. He fumbled for their names. “Clem and, ah, Bob?”

“Gone as guards to cover the Johnson family while they wash dirty diapers at the creek. They didn’t want to stink up the campsite.”

A woman’s scream cut the night, closely followed by the boom of a black-powder weapon.

“That was a musket,” J.B. stated. He stood and snapped the bolt on his submachine gun. “We got trouble.”

“Sounded close, couple hundred yards to the west,” Ryan added, working the bolt on his Steyr. “Mildred, damp down the fire. Jak, Doc, stay here with her. Everybody else, ten-yard spread. And watch your shots we got friendlies out there. Go!”

As Ryan moved past the trucks, the darkness reclaimed the night.

The companions started to head for the distant creek when a commotion in the weeds could be heard coming their way. Without comment, they moved into a tight cluster, with every weapon out and ready, the oiled barrels sweeping the night for targets.

“There it is!” a voice cried from the blackness. “Kill it!”

“Don’t shoot!” a woman screamed. A dark mass rose from the weeds and out charged a mutie carrying a bundle of rags. It was humanoid, two arms, two legs, one head, but there the resemblance stopped. A thick black mane of hair crested its lumpy head and trailed down the back, separating into different lines that ended at its ankles. Its muscular shoulders rose to meet the lumpy head as if the being possessed no neck. The skin was grayish with bits of dried mud, or perhaps scabs flaking off. The square eyes were yellow as if it had jaundice, and a filthy loincloth swaddled its waist, with a crude stone dagger jutting from a sheath made from human skin bearing a crude tattoo.

“Swampie!” Ryan tilted the barrel of his longblaster to fire from the hip, but then the bunch of rags it held started to cry.

“The baby!” Mildred cried, dropping her crutch. The physician went into a marksman stance, both hands wrapped around her deadly little Czech ZKR blaster. But as she trained on the mutie’s head, it lurched into the bushes again, going to all fours and galloping away with remarkable speed.

“Dark night! After the bastard!” J.B. shouted.

The companions chased after the darting mutie, nearly colliding with the hunter and the parents who had been beating the bushes trying to drive it into the camp.

There was a furtive movement in the farmhouse, and Dean leaped at the mutie as it rushed through the ruins. The boy cried out in victory as he got a handful of the coarse black hair, but then the creature literally ripped itself free from his grasp and charged due east, straight for the stream.

Dropping his rifle, Ryan was already running in that direction, trying to cut it off. His lungs were laboring to draw in more air, but the warrior willed himself to go faster. Once in the water, the swampie and its tiny prisoner would be gone forever.

Man and mutie collided at the top of a low rise, Ryan driving the beast into an oak tree near the edge of the bluff. Snarling, the creature swung a webbed hand at Ryan. He ducked and the fist slammed into the tree, bark exploding off the trunk from the powerful impact. In the background, Ryan heard the splashing stream and knew he was almost out of time. A single jump and the swampie would escape with its living meal.