James Axler – Gemini Rising

A full-throated war whoop from the back told him that J.B. had jumped position and kept them level.

The tires spun like crazy, digging their treads into the dirt as Ryan shoved the gas pedal to the floorboards. Jogging left, then right, Ryan desperately dodged a barrage of smaller rocks, ignoring the trickle of blood seeping down his face and into his shirt. For a brief second, he saw the other three wags wildly zigzagging across the hill as huge boulders rolled endlessly from the bushes at the top of the hill.

“Fifty more yards,” he cajoled, crushing the wheel in his grip. “Come on, baby. Move your fucking ass!”

Another boulder came straight at him. He dodged it, and a handful of small rocks sprayed over the truck, shattering the windshield completely. Covered with tiny glass pebbles, Ryan glared at the people now visible in the bushes, struggling to shove additional stones to the edge. Somebody fired a blaster, and the Uzi chattered above him. A man screamed, followed by more gunfire.

The truck seemed to launch into the air as it crested the top of the slope and sailed through a bush to crash on top of the screaming man, his hands raised as if to knock the truck away. Shifting gears and pumping the gas, Ryan plowed into a crowd of stunned men frantically trying to load rifles. The vehicle recoiled as the dead bounced off the rusty chassis.

The wag bounced over a man caught underneath, and Ryan spun the wheel to lurch sideways and slam another. The screaming man left the ground and flew across the field to wrap boneless around a tree.

Squealing to a halt, Ryan exited the truck and shot a woman who was shoving shells into a homemade shotgun, the patched barrel held together with baling wire.

More rifles shots sounded, and the telltale chatter of the Uzi spoke of J.B. at work.

Then the passenger van appeared, followed closely by the cargo van and the second truck crushing more men under the sturdy tires. Firing steadily, the companions charged out of the wags, and a dozen more attackers dropped under the withering cross fire. Clem and Bob triggered their flintlocks, billowing clouds of smoke masking the men, but two coldhearts flew backward as the .75-caliber miniballs smashed into their chests and out the back side, leaving gaping holes the size of a grapefruit.

Moving like a panther through the battle, Hector buried an ax into the head of a coldheart, cleaving the man to the waist. As the vivisected body dropped, a sniper in the bushes caught the farmer in the arm, and Hector staggered to one knee, then rose again firing a handgun snatched off the ground. The sniper fell, bleeding from the belly, and Ryan finished him with a head shot.

Armed with ax and blaster, Hector sprang into the bushes lining the crest, searching for more hidden assailants. A scream followed by ghastly whacks announced he was successful.

As the two groups took cover behind whatever was available, the blasterfire rose to a deafening cacophony. Acrid black smoke from the homemade rounds masked the battlefield as bullets flew thick across the grassy slope. Dean headed for the truck with the Molotov cocktails, but got pinned down behind a still-bleeding corpse. Tiny dust spurts caused by ricochets constantly kicked up from the ground. A van tire went flat, and numerous holes were punched into the thin metal bodywork of every vehicle by the random hail of hot lead. Spotting a canvas tent near a split-rail fence, Bob charged from underneath the truck and was immediately hit by several rounds at once. The fur-clad hunter stumbled once, still grimly advancing, then sighed and fell sprawling to the ground, his flintlock thundering impotently at nothing in particular.

Crawling on his belly through the fresh blood and spent shells, Ryan advanced to the shelter of a stack of split wood stacked near the hot ashes of a dying camp-fire. There was a haunch of meat on the spit, and Ryan was repulsed when he realized it was the partially consumed torso of a human female. The coldhearts were cannies.

Waiting for a lull in the combat, the one-eyed man pulled the pin on his only grenade, counted to five and threw the bomb at the enemy. Somebody cried out a warning, but it came too late. The white-phosphorus charge detonated in the air, raining deadly chemical fire onto the coldhearts. Hair and clothes blazing, the enemy ran about screaming insanely and slapping themselves with burning hands until they finally collapsed, the blackened flesh split apart, exposing the charred bones inside the steaming human corpses.