James Axler – Rat King

Armorer and throw itself at him.

Mildred prayed that the howling winds would drown out her footsteps, even though

she ran with as light a step as she could manage. The figure was now on top of

J.B., facing in the opposite direction to her, so at least it couldn’t sight her

as she tried to make ground.

She cursed the bundle of rags for being so shapeless and flowing. There was no

way she could risk a shot as the rags spread out over the prone Armorer, making

it impossible for her to delineate where the attacker ended and J.B. began.

The hissing sounds of low speech reached her ears when she came within range.

Why wasn’t John trying to fight back?

Without breaking stride or pausing for thought, Mildred tossed the ZKR in the

air, catching it by the barrel and preparing to use the butt as a club. As she

came within a few strides, she was sure that the bundle of rags could hear her,

as it seemed to suddenly pause and incline its head.

But Mildred was quicker, bringing the butt crashing down on where she thought

the skull would be located under the rags. She felt some satisfaction as the

slumping figure fell off J.B. He looked up at her like a man waking from sleep.

“What was that about, John?” she asked by way of greeting. The smile on her

face, however, faded quickly as she felt the pricking of a sharpened blade

penetrate through the thick coat on her back and draw a bead of blood in her

lumbar region. The warm blood trickled across and down, mixing with the sudden

cold sweat.

“Drop the blaster, missy. I don’t think Tilly is going to be too happy with you

when she comes around—if you haven’t broke her bastard skull.”

Mildred raised her hands and let her pistol fall to the ground.

She looked at J.B., who was still seemingly dazed, and shrugged.

“Some days you just shouldn’t get up. Am I right?”

KRYSTY STAYED behind the rock, keeping as much of the open space as she could

see through the swirling dust clouds. Through the roar and howl of the storm she

could hear scattered shooting and the yelling of voices. Roughly estimating the

size of the enclave from what she had seen so far, she figured that it wasn’t

that large, which made it all the more frightening that she couldn’t see what

was going on a few yards in front of her. But she had heard Dean’s shouted

exchange with his father, and watched the boy zigzag past her to find cover. She

knew that Ryan was waiting for them at the pass out of the enclave, and wondered

how they would all get to somewhere they couldn’t even see.

Her ears were sharp enough to detect the distances between the different sounds

of blasterfire and movements that she could hear in the enclave. Sharp enough to

tell when someone was running toward her.

Krysty whirled to face the direction of the sound and leveled her blaster.

“It’s me,” Dean whispered as he appeared through the curtain of the storm, his

Browning raised and on the defensive.

“Gaia! I nearly chilled you, Dean,” Krysty replied, dropping the blaster from

its targeted spot over Dean’s chest.

“Had to move quickly. They’re gaining ground on us all the time,” Dean said

breathlessly as he slid in next to her behind the rock. “Dad’s waiting at the

pass, Jak’s gone back to try and find Doc ’cause he’s gone missing. Don’t know

about J.B. or Mildred. This storm is slowing us up.”

Dean reacted with concern when he saw the way that Krysty’s fiery red hair was

moving about, coiling in tendrils about her head, neck and shoulders.

“Something wrong?”

She nodded. “Not sure what. But something other than what we’re prepared for.”

“Murphy’s sec men know this land well—and seeing as they got outside before us,

I reckon it’s not too hard to see how they could get the upper hand on this

terrain. We should expect anything from them.”

Krysty smiled at Dean. He was learning fast, but still hadn’t quite caught up.