Then his attention snapped back to the area where Ryan and Jak were as he heard a double tap of shots. There was no doubt that they came from Ryan’s SIG-Sauer.
Chapter Three
With the attacker silhouetted in front of him, Ryan stepped to the right and brought up the panga. If possible, he wanted to keep quiet and not draw the attention of the Slagger coldhearts down the incline.
The man landed short of Ryan, coming down hard. His clothes were reduced to rags, strips of material that fluttered around him, caked with filth. If the man hadn’t been standing downwind before the attack, Ryan felt certain he would have smelled him before he was able to get close enough.
Rad burns scarred the ghoulie’s face and arms, marring the bald scalp with purple blisters of proud flesh. Long black hairs jutted from pustular pockets on his head, and pus wept freely from the affected pores. Broken black teeth filled the rictus of his grin. Still, he was strong enough to swing the homemade club in his hands. A half moon of sharpened metal gleamed at the end of it, turning the weapon into an ax.
Dodging back, Ryan barely avoided the vicious swipe that streaked for his head. Instinctively he raised the 9 mm blaster. He didn’t want to fire it unless he had to. The detonation would draw the coldhearts from down in the basin. He hoped the intimidation of the blaster would be enough to turn the ghoulie back.
The ghoulie made gibbering noises and tugged on the club. The half moon of metal had gotten stuck in a mound of earth to the side. Yellow, phlegmy spittle ran from the corner of his warped mouth. With another frantic tug, the club ripped free of the earth. The ghoulie didn’t hesitate about carrying on the attack.
“Fireblast!” Ryan swore. He gave ground again, avoiding another hasty swing. While his attacker drew the club back again, he switched hands with his weapons, gripping the panga in his right fist.
The ghoulie growled menacingly and swung again, advancing a step as he did so.
Ryan held his position and stepped inside the club’s arc with practiced movements. A man handling a long weapon had to be prepared for his target to attempt to move inside. The ghoulie wasn’t.
Blocking the club with his right arm, cursing the fact that he wasn’t in a position to use the panga without risking his own safety, Ryan slapped the barrel of the blaster across the ghoulie’s temple.
The creature yowled in pained protest as a bloody tear opened up along his temple. Crimson ran freely down the side of his face.
Expecting the ghoulie to be dazed from the blow, Ryan released his hold on the club and lifted the panga for a straight thrust at the creature’s throat. Instead, the ghoulie swung the bottom of the club into the one-eyed man’s face.
Staggered, Ryan dropped and rolled back, slipping beneath the ghoulie’s follow-up stroke. He came up on his knees, ready to dig his boots into the ground and drive himself back to his feet.
Two other ghoulies landed to the right of the first. One of them carried a pitchfork with a broken center tine, and the other held a scythe sporting a ragged edge. The first ghoulie gestured toward them. They fanned out, moving in tandem to quickly circle Ryan.
The movements showed discipline and practice. Ryan had no doubts that they’d used the strategy successfully against past victims. It was possible that the activity of the Slagger coldhearts drew a crowd, or at least bottled up the trade routes for a time. Then the ghoulies could choose their quarry and escape. Ryan thought they probably lived in the area, existing off whatever they could steal or take from the ville’s usual inhabitants. And a ghoulie’s favorite meal was meat from a decaying corpse, one they had killed themselves and put away until it reached the proper degree of ripeness.
The fact that the first one hadn’t feared the blaster convinced Ryan that they’d had little encounter with them. He chose to rectify that.
Ryan lifted the SIG-Sauer and squeezed the trigger. He put two bullets into the head of the ghoulie who’d attacked him, then turned the blaster on the second mutie, the hollowpoints coring through the creature’s chest. The third ghoulie turned to run, screaming in incoherent panic. Without pause, Ryan shot him in the back.