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The albino still held the knife, its taped hilt snug in his fingers. Using his superior agility and strength, he was able to wriggle out from under the attacker, turning the creature on its back, digging his knee into the soft flesh of its groin. In pain and shock the air burst from the mu-tie’s lungs, a thin scream breaking the silence of the night.
The flesh of the mutie was coarse, almost reptilian, the skin like flaking scales to Jak’s touch. His first cut was deflected, the edge of the blade skittering off the side of the stump of a neck. Jak fended off a flailing fist with the side of his forearm, thrusting once more with the knife. As a weapon, it wasn’t ideally suited to hand-to-hand fighting, but against the weak and clumsy mutie it was more than enough.
He felt the blood gush out from the deep, narrow wound, steaming in the pallid light of the moon as it ap-peared from behind the clouds. Jak turned his wrist, like the experienced knife fighter he was, and drove the steel deeper into the mutie’s flesh so that the flow warmed his hand.
The body went limp under him, and he started to rise, pulling the throwing knife from the creature’s throat. But the mutie wasn’t done yet. In a convulsive spasm of dying rage, it reached up for him, fingers locking around the boy’s skinny neck, holding him there, the two locked to-gether in a ghastly tableau.
“Chill him, Ryan!” Jak choked out, hacking at the scaly forearms of the mutie.
But Ryan was too busy struggling to hang on to the frayed end of the creeper that held the raft steady against the driving current. J.B. was in the center of the tossing, waterlogged craft, his pistol drawn, sighting along the barrel. But the movement of the tumbling waves threw off his aim, and he didn’t dare squeeze the trigger in case he
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shot Jak, unable to distinguish between the tangled bod-ies in the murky light.
The mutie was screeching, its blood spouting black and spattering on the damp stones all around.
“Help me!” Jak shouted hoarsely, trying and failing to break the mutie’s death grip.
“Cut the fingers,” Ryan yelled, head twisted as he tried to make out what was happening behind him.
“Can’t!” The screaming had stopped, but enough noise had been made to rouse a regiment of sleeping sec men.
Krysty saved the moment. Jumping surefooted, like a great panther, she landed on the loose stones, her hair breaking free from its binding and whirling around her head like a torrent of fire. She held her Heckler & Koch blaster in her right hand, the moonlight dancing off the mirrored finish of the barrel. In the blinking of an eye, the girl was alongside Jak and the dying mutie, stooping and placing the muzzle against its sagging mouth.
The crack of the 9 mm round was oddly muffled, al-most inaudible against the pounding of the Mohawk. The back of the mutie’s skull burst apart as though someone had struck it from inside with a sixteen-pound sledge, the contents of the brainpan slopping in the dirt. The fingers convulsed and then relaxed their grip, allowing Jak to break away.
“Come on!” Ryan called, feeling his boots sliding in the wet pebbles that lined the cold waters of the river.
Krysty led the way, running toward the bobbing raft, holstering her pistol as she sprinted. Planting a kiss on Ryan’s cheek as she jumped across the gap, she landed on all fours on the moss-slick timbers, grabbing at the mast to steady herself.
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“Double-hard bastard to chill,” Jak said as he came down the slope, panting like he’d run a desperate race. “Thanks, Krysty. Owe you one.”
“Let her go, Ryan,” J.B. said. “Be getting us com-pany soon.”
The gap between the shore and the raft had been grad-ually widening, despite all of Ryan’s efforts. He dropped the rope and jumped for it, landing awkwardly on the edge, legs trailing in the icy water.
The raft began to move away from the shore ever so slowly, just as fifty or more muties came bursting over the top of the slope toward them.