James Axler – Rat King

For a fraction of a second, Ryan was taken aback, wondering how they got out of

the redoubt and into position. No point wasting time thinking about that,

though. They were there, and that was enough.

He whirled, his hand snaking to the panga on his thigh and clutching the handle

as he became aware of a shuffling sound behind him.

The panga was raised to strike when a flash of white hair and red eyes made Ryan

drop the weapon to his side.

“Closing in,” Jak said, hunkering down beside Ryan. The Colt Python was in his

fist, looking huge and heavy in that small hand. “Moving in like pincer. Their

land, too,” he added meaningfully.

Ryan nodded. “How many?”

“Count seven, mebbe eight. No more.”

“Even numbers, then. More or less. Okay, we’ve got to get through that channel

before they can close us down,” Ryan said, indicating the narrow inclined path

leading out of the enclave.

Jak pursed his lips. “Move quick, shoot fast. Sec men slack enough for us see,

so mebbe chance.”

It was a good point. Ryan looked back over the hummock. There was a sporadic

crackle of Uzi and H&K fire punctuating his brief discussion with Jak. He could

see that J.B. and Krysty had moved up to join Dean and Mildred so that they were

only twenty yards away.

There was no sign of Doc.

“Where’s Doc?” he whispered.

“Lost in storm?” Jak mused. “Let me look.” Then he disappeared from Ryan’s side

and into the swirl of dust and grit.

And into someone else’s trouble.

MURPHY’S MEN HAD the advantage of old tech radios that kept them in touch. The

compact devices spluttered and buzzed in the rad-riddled air, cutting out where

old transistors began to fail, but they gave Murphy an edge he knew Cawdor and

his people didn’t have.

This should be simple. And if the outsiders just happened to get chilled by

accident as they recovered Tanner? Well, that was just too bad, wasn’t it? As

long as Wallace got the old fart, he wouldn’t moan too loudly.

Murphy raised the radio to his mouth. “Pergolesi, can you hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” came a tinny voice, crackling over the static.

“Try and pick off Cawdor. Chill the one-eyed fucker.”

“YES, SIR… And fuck you, too,” Pri SecClass Pergolesi muttered as he slid the

radio into the pocket of his combat vest. He raised his H&K and took sight at

the one-eyed man. How the hell did that madman Murphy expect him to pick off

anyone in these conditions with the first shot? And face it, that was all he’d

get before fire was returned.

He saw the blurred figure move around as he started to squeeze the trigger,

unaware of the sun glinting off the H&K’s snubby barrel.

The crack of the ZKR and the whine of the bullet as it took chips off the rocks

in front of him made Pergolesi fall backward, swearing to himself. He heard the

radio squawk in his pocket and the chatter of H&K fire from the other side of

the enclave.

Damn, Murphy would have his hide for this.

MURPHY WAS TOO CONCERNED with his mission going to hell to worry about Pergolesi

at that moment. After ordering return fire from the other point of his patrol,

he directed his men to form into a pincer and close on the group in the enclave,

forcing them toward the narrow exit from the small valley. It would be

relatively easy to pick them off from there.

“Leave the old fart to me,” he yelled savagely into his radio. “I can’t trust

any of you mothers to get it right, can I? Shit, if you want something done, you

just have to do it yourself… Now jump!”

He slid his own radio into a pocket and checked the clip on his Uzi. It was

full. He kissed the barrel again, even though it hadn’t brought him much luck

first time around, and left the cover of the rocks.

One thing Ryan had been correct about was that Murphy and his sec men were used

to the conditions, each generation having been blooded in the enclave by their