James Axler – Zero City

Extracting a small plastic mirror, J.B. eased it past the jamb of the window and tilted it inward to scan the area.

“Behind the registers,” he silently mouthed, pocketing the mirror.

Eagerly, Dean started forward, but Ryan stopped him with a single raised finger. The boy retreated, and the elder Cawdor first pointed at Jak, then Doc. Keeping his blind, left side to the wall, Ryan poked the muzzle of his Steyr around the jamb just as J.B. did the same on the other side with the Uzi.

The lead wolf was large and heavily muscled, with brindle markings showing it was from the forestlands. The rest were smaller and leaner, similar to whippets, but none seemed to be starving and that was a bad sign. Hungry animals would just attack, and any organized group of defenders could easily withstand them. However, a well-fed pack would wait and watch until a mistake was made, then charge when its victims weren’t paying attention.

“Wait for it,” Ryan said quietly. Then with a roar, the Hummer bounded into view, a barking pack of wolves surrounding the vehicle. Driving with one hand, Krysty was firing at the leaping animals with a blaster gripped in a bloody fist.

“Behind us!” Doc cried, firing the LeMat into the store.

Ryan spun, and there were the other six wolves crawling around the registers moving as silently as ghosts. In a heartbeat, the hunters had been the hunted.

“Hummer!” Dean shouted, announcing his target as he cut loose with the G-12. The blaster hissed a stuttering zip of caseless rounds, and six of the eight animals were torn into pieces under the incredible fusillade of subsonic steel. But then the HK stopped, and the youth realized he was out of ammo. Dropping the spent weapon, he drew his handblaster. Ryan discharged the Steyr, and a wolf in the store flipped over, crashing into an ancient display rack.

Free from the attentions of the beasts for a moment, Krysty scrambled into the back of the Hummer and cut loose with the M-60, the weapon chattering a deadly hellstorm at the beasts. Two danced in the air as their bodies were torn to pieces before the rest spread out, running wildly in every direction, one even darting under the vehicle.

But there was method to the madness, and Ryan cursed as he realized the wolves were combining into a pack again; the running around was merely intended to disorient the humans before a unified charge.

“Move to the wall!” he shouted, dropping the empty Steyr and drawing his panga while firing the SIG-Sauer. “Get the leader!”

The largest wolf snarled at the one-eyed warrior, and the rest of them repeated the challenge.

“Brace!” J.B. cursed, fumbling in his munitions bag. “Going to use a gren!”

But as if they knew what those words meant, the animals stopped running and crouched in fear, their haunches raising in submission. Uncaring, J.B. raised a gren and pulled the pin, pausing to gauge for distance. But then their eyes glazed over and a third eye blossomed wide, the yellowish orb glaring with monstrous hatred.

“They’re muties!” Mildred yelled. At her words, the foreheads of the wolf pack split open to display a third eye with a large square pupil, like a goat’s. Then they charged, moving across the sandy street with nightmare speed.

Krysty got in one more shot, and J.B. burped the Uzi twice in short controlled bursts, chilling one wolf and wounding another, before the animals swarmed over them from every direction.

Kicking at the slavering muties, the companions fired nonstop, wounding the animals over and over, but not one dropped. Snarling and snapping, the animals took wild bites, but only got layers of cloth. They spit the material out in disgust. Krysty fired the M-60 one final time, then was forced to stop, her hands helpless on the trigger of the deadly machine gun. Without a clear view, she could chill her own people instead.

Slamming in a fresh clip, Ryan shot the leader in the leg and as it closed upon him, he kicked the wolf in the jaw, his steel-toed Army crunching bone. Spitting teeth, the animal backed away, drooling blood.