James Axler – Rat King

broken, only a few managing to return to enough sense to pose a problem. The sec

men had to try to stomp on them without missing those creatures that were still

in flight.

Dean picked off the squirrels as they sprang at him from all sides, but was

hindered by the mute sec men, who were near enough to cause him problems with

their flailing blasters, forcing him to duck and weave on one knee to avoid

being caught by the flying rifle butts. His success rate was lower than Krysty’s

or Mildred’s, so more of the creatures concentrated on him, and he was fighting

a losing battle.

Jak came to his aid. He had dispatched a flying squirrel with every slug from

his Colt Python, and hadn’t bothered to reload. His childhood in the Louisiana

swamps had been spent stalking and killing wildlife far more dangerous than even

these killing machines. The Python was holstered in a blur of silver metal

before his hands delved into the patched coat and withdrew some of his knives

from their hiding places.

Jak’s eyes burned sightlessly, lost in a fearsome mixture of blood lust and

intense concentration as his arms became a whirling blur. He held two of the

razor-sharp knives in each hand, his whipcord wrists twirling them in a

figure-eight pattern that sliced the very air, ripping and tearing at anything

that came within range, absorbing any shock that might come from the jar of

blade on bone as he disposed of the many creatures that flew at him.

Their almost group mentality caused them to cease the intensity of their attack

on Jak, allowing him to help Dean by taking out those squirrels that the boy

missed in his attempts to avoid the desperately flailing mute sec men.

But the man facing the most problems was J.B. He had decided to use his Uzi on

the creatures. The rapid-fire pattern of the blaster would have been a problem

in less skilled hands. The cluster of people near him would have been endangered

as he spun to attack the squirrels as they flew at him from both sides of the

brush.

The Armorer was no ordinary marksman. He fired in short, controlled and accurate

bursts, the pressure of his finger on the trigger both firm and yet gently

caressing. Honed by years devoted to the art of weaponry, his instinct took over

from his consciousness, and he registered the flying creatures not as a danger

but as targets that had to be eliminated. This approach displaced the fear from

his conscious mind and enabled him to fire calmly and accurately.

He would have had no trouble if not for the flailing sec men. One of the flying

squirrels, dealt a glancing blow by a rifle butt, was deflected in his

direction. It landed too far away for the sec man to stomp on it, so he ignored

it. Mildred didn’t notice it as she fixed her sights on an airborne danger,

blasting it in the skull with the ZKR.

The creature landed, stunned, and rolled toward J.B. The Armorer saw it from the

corner of his eye, and raised his foot to crush its head.

He raised his left foot.

Acting on an instinct that forgot to remind him about his injury, or take it

into account, he slammed the foot onto the prone body of the squirrel.

An agony of red-hot needles traveling up his legs made the Armorer drop his Uzi

from its firing position. He screwed up his eyes, gritted his teeth and emitted

a small high-pitched scream that was all his tortured and tensed vocal cords

would allow. There was no power in the injured ankle, and all the force he had

put into his action was translated into pure pain.

His foot was ineffectual on the squirrel, which squirmed beneath his boot,

screaming for its life as its powerful front paws dug into the material of his

combat pants and into the soft and tender flesh that lay above the top of the

boot.

J.B. was beyond screaming at the pain generated by the clawing. He felt little

of it, as the agony from his untimely foot stomp was still coursing through his