James Axler – Judas Strike

Holding on to the luggage rack, J.B. went to the front of the wag. “Go faster,” he urged.

“Can’t. Bastard engine is at the red line now,” Ryan shot back. The gauges on the dashboard flashed in warning, and the wag was barely traveling twenty miles per hour. “I push any harder, it’ll blow.”

“Then we start shooting,” the Armorer said, and sent a burst through the access door. The muties fumbling with the portal were blown off in a shower of glass, blood going everywhere.

In response, windows smashed on every side, and dozens of arms reached through to grab for the companions. A sucker-covered hand touched Mildred’s med kit on a seat and pulled it to a window. The straps caught on the iron grid, and Mildred emptied her blaster outside until the stickie let go and the med kit dropped to the floor. She snatched it away and tossed it onto the luggage rack out of reach.

But the deadly hands were everywhere, clawing for anything edible. In the rear, a Firebird was hauled away, and the plastic cover of a seat was ripped off, springs and foam padding bursting free from their tight confines. A canteen was taken, then an empty MRE envelope. The mutie attack was mindless, but unrelenting, and the companions raked the windows with blasterfire, hot lead tearing off chunks of the swamp dwellers. Mutie fingers and suckers rolling around loosely with the spent brass made walking tricky on the blood-streaked floor. A stickie got Krysty by the hair, and the woman cried out in agony as the creature tried to pull her along by the living filaments. Doc placed the LeMat on the thing’s wrist and blew its hand off. Weakly, Krysty dropped to a seat, violently trembling, then slowly stood and began to fire again without regard for conserving ammo.

Opening the side vent, Ryan blew the knee off one trying to crawl onto the hood. The mutie fell, thick blood streaking the polished metal. Reaching through the angled vent, Ryan tried to push off the deader on the grid and only managed to cut his arm in the process.

Crouching, Ryan saw the trees were only yards away, and then he noticed a breach in the woods, a pathway that led into the cool greenery. He didn’t give a damn where it went, as long as it was away from this nightmarish hellzone.

A steady hammering could be heard above the blasterfire. Suddenly, the back door flew open and a stickie climbed into the bus. It tried to crawl over the stacks of supplies and failed, then began tossing the boxes of food and ammo outside to clear a path for the others right behind. Krysty fired twice, winging the creature in the shoulder, then Mildred triggered the shotgun, blowing the mutie to pieces and destroying several of the boxes in the process.

“Close that door!” she bellowed, racking the slide.

“Can’t. It’s gone,” Dean replied, firing at a leg that creeped into view on the bumper. There was an answering hoot, and the wounded limb was withdrawn for the moment.

“What mean, gone?” Jak demanded, thumbing fresh shells into his exhausted weapon. A stickie reached for the teen from behind, and J.B. put a burst from the Uzi into its face.

“They tore it off!” he replied, dropping a clip to slap in a fresh magazine. “The door’s a hundred feet away and sinking.”

“How many more are there?” Mildred asked urgently. “Anybody keeping count of the dead?”

“Fifteen aced,” Jak replied. “About ten more.”

“Mebbe twelve,” J.B. added grimly.

Pursing her lips, the physician used a word that her father the Baptist preacher used to pretend didn’t even exist.

“Can’t let them whittle us down,” Krysty said, her hair coiled tightly to her head to prevent further grabs. “Okay, we form a firing line, right here.” Kneeling on the slaughterhouse floor, the woman pointed her weapon at the rear door. The others joined her in a cluster and waited, panting for breath.

“On my command,” Krysty said sternly.

A stickie reached into the bus and paused, expecting to be attacked. When nothing happened, it dared to dart inside and paused, staring at the motionless humans. Then hooting loudly, it began to climb over the stacks of crates as more stickies swarmed into the vehicle. As the creatures got past the boxes, they charged up the aisle for the motionless people.