James Axler – Zero City

Then a struggling wolf was lifted bodily into the dark, warm blood sprinkling down like gentle rain. Self-preservation overwhelmed loyalty, and the pack ran for the safety of the distant dunes. But as they raced down the sandy street a third was beheaded, a fourth disappeared, a fifth howled in unimaginable agony as most of its back was violently removed. Whimpering in terror, a few of the wolves rolled on their backs to expose their bellies in total surrender. Others desperately crawled underneath broken stonework, while the rest fled in blind panic, moving like gray ghosts in the darkness.

Nothing worked. Soon only scraps of warm fur and slowly spreading pools of blood marred the sandy stretch of roadway as deathly silence returned to the ancient ruins.

The bodies of the wolves were nowhere to be seen.

ALMOST DROPPING his smoking lantern, a sec man on the wall of the ville yelled a warning as another started beating a hammer on a metal bell taken from the fallen tower of a church. The bell rang loudly under the blows of the hammer, the noise awakening the citizens, spreading lights and cries across Alphaville.

“Incoming!” a private screamed, fumbling with his musket.

“Hit the lights!” a sergeant ordered, rushing out of a guardhouse, pulling up his pants. Behind him, a woman guard was doing the same, her face a combination of annoyance and terror.

Blasters clenched in sweaty hands, sec men rushed to their posts. From the darkness near the tunnel came the sputtering cough of the lawnmower struggling to catch, then a roar as the engine came to life. Now came the rumble of the big diesel generators turning over. The exhaust pipes spit out black smoke, the whole assembly shaking until the machinery revved to a sustained roar of power.

Switches were thrown, and the searchlights crashed alive, the twin beams stabbing high into the sky and catching dozens of the approaching muties. The beasts keened in agony, two of them clawing at their faces and dropping like stones while the rest wheeled crazily to avoid the horrible illumination.

The men working the searchlights zigzagged the beams across the sky, searching for the airborne enemy. Suddenly, a dark shape plummeted to the ground and bounced off the protective bars covering the Plexiglas lens of the searchlight.

“Dead wolf!” shouted a man on the wall, just as another slammed onto a woman carrying a lit torch. She went down and the torch was extinguished, creating a small zone of blackness.

Raggedly, a rain of wolves plummeted from the night, smashing lanterns and pounding the searchlights with triphammer blows. The protective bars bent, but held for the moment.

A truck in front of the tunnel turned on its headlights and the interior was brightly lit. The five muties crawling on the ceiling froze in position as the sec men opened fire with crossbows and muskets. Off to the side, the deadly .50-caliber machine gun lay disassembled where the frantic repair crew had stopped for the night, unable to continue the work in pitch-dark. The muties retreated from the light, except for a fanged male who madly charged the men, flying straight toward them only feet off the ground. The sec men stood their ground, steadily firing, until the mutie was among them. It careened off one man, knocking him aside as it angled toward another. The first man dropped to his knees, screaming hideously while trying to hold together the bloody ruin of his face. The rest scattered, diving underneath vehicles and into water troughs placed just for that purpose. But the mutie got two more before returning to the flock, its talons dripping red as it soared away.

Then brilliant blue-white globes dotted the night as reserve troops arrived, carrying lanterns. The wicks in the glass flumes burned fast, but threw off an intense nimbus. Oddly, the sec men placed them on the ground, and then retreated. The reasoning was made clear when greenish rain fell from the sky, impacting on the hot lanterns. The flumes cracked, and the contents whooshed into fireballs as the mutie poison reached the wicks and ignited.

The alarm continued to sound as an APC arrived, the back treads throwing off a cloud of sparks as the wag charged down the paved streets. A .50-caliber machine gun on top of the military wag sprayed short bursts into the sky as the side door slammed to the ground, forming a ramp, and out stepped a large muscular man. He was wearing what resembled a policeman’s uniform with the insignia removed, and elaborate needlework on the cuffs and collar.