Coolly, Mildred walked to the thing and put a round directly into its right eye with surgical precision. The head jerked, and blood flowed out of its mouth and ears.
Shoving the corpse to the floor, Doc placed a boot on the thing’s face and yanked his sword free. “And thou, wretched boy, that did consort him here, shall with him hence!” he said with a flourish, wiping the blade clean on the animal’s black coat. Then as they watched, the fur began to fade to a neutral color of greenish tan.
“Good God!” Doc gasped.
“More!” Krysty shouted, her revolver banging steadily.
Three more hellhounds leaped from the vehicle. But these didn’t join the fight. They bounded off into the junkyard, vanishing underneath and amid the endless collection of disassembled vehicles.
“Gaia, we’ll never find them out there,” Krysty said, her crimson hair flexing as she reloaded her revolver.
“We’re not even going to try,” Ryan replied. Something moved in the distance, and he fired the rifle at it. There was no yelp or hiss of pain. “Mildred, Dean, sweep the tank, two-man cover. Go!”
The two climbed into the vehicle under the watching blasters of their companions, then moved into the interior, thrusting the ready muzzles of the blasters under seats, into lockers and ammo bins.
“Clear!” Mildred announced with obvious relief.
“There’s nowhere anything as large as them could hide.”
“And you should see the control panel,” Dean added.
“Later. Everybody in the tank!”
“Once inside, we’re trapped,” Mildred reminded, kneeling in the open hatchway. “And if there’s no fuel in the gas tank, we die long and slow.”
Ryan glared, his mouth a rigid line. “Five minutes and counting. Dean by me, shoot anything that moves!”
The boy climbed down to take a position beside his father.
“Move people!” Jak shouted, racing to the worktable. Grabbing an armload of tools, he sprinted to the tank and tossed them inside. Doc shrugged off his backpack of supplies and started ferrying over fuel cans two at a time. Mildred grabbed the packs and hauled them into the tank, making room for the next load. “These things are full of something!” the elderly man announced. “Sure hope it is fuel.”
“Me, too!”
“What are hellhounds, anyway?” J.B. demanded, dragging over a massive a toolbox. “Muties?”
“Bio weps,” Jak replied, hefting a box full of oil cans.
“Escaped after skydark, eh?”
“Guess.”
“Nasty buggers.”
Wrapping a chain around the rear stanchion of the tank, Krysty asked, “Any weak points beside the eyes and ears?”
Opening a bulky canvas bag, Jak saw it was full of engine belts and radiator hoses. Mighty useful. He slung it over his shoulder. “Sure. Can’t swim.”
“Great,” J.B. muttered, helping Doc with more gas canisters. The coldhearts had to have raided every fuel tank in the place to get this much gas. There was nearly a hundred gallons. “Can’t swim. Just great.”
“We’re running out of room in here!” Mildred called.
“I’m on it,” Krysty shouted as she laid out the chain to the towbar of a jeep and looped it around. She then cinched the locking clamp tight. She stood back. “There. We can drag this along behind. Throw in anything you want.”
As the others rushed to obey, something moved in the shadows and Dean cut loose with his Browning Hi-Power, the bullets ricocheting off a steel support.
“Chill! Stop wasting rounds on shadows. We’re being stalked,” Ryan said, pulling out his silenced 9 mm blaster. “These things are smart. Too bastard smart for my liking. Wait until you actually see something.”
“Okay, Dad,” Dean said, slamming a fresh clip into the blaster while studying the darkness underneath a Hummer.
Over by the fuel pumps, a steel drum noisily toppled over. Nobody reacted. Then a loud creak sounded from the rafters. Spinning in a gunfighter’s crouch, Doc drew and fired his LeMat, the .44 Magnum slug blasting the overhead light into sparking rubbish. Darkness swallowed them, and immediately things began to move m the cluttered ring of military craft around them.
“Shield your eyes!” Mildred shouted from the front of the tank, and lights erupted all over the Leviathan, catching two of the hellhounds standing brazenly in the open. Ryan and Dean both cut loose, but only succeeded in driving the beasts away.