dogs and wolves. Literally pulling them off.
When asked where he’d found the creature, Wolfram had zipped his lip, become
extremely edgy. Not long after, sticky sightings came in from all over. Soon
they became accepted; hell, a mutie was a mutie. Still, how they ate, for
instance, was just one of the many mysteries about them discussed by
Deathlanders with nothing else of importance to chew the fat over on an evening
when the chem clouds were low and it looked as if the acids were about ready to
drop.
Right now, however, the manner in which stickies ate held no interest for Ryan
at all. All he could think of, as he rolled desperately to one side, was the
incredible sucking power of those oozing pads lunging for his face.
He rolled so fast, so unthinkingly, that before he knew it he was on his back
and lying atop his rifle as the hand squelched down on the roof surface inches
from him.
That didn’t panic him. Already his right hand was at his belt, grabbing for the
hilt of the deadly panga sheathed there at his waist. Smoothly the blade came
out and just as smoothly, just as fast, he was rolling back to his original
position, the panga gripped tight then stabbing outward in a savage,
power-packed lunge. The blade thudded into the creature’s throat, just above the
clavicle, or what passed for a collarbone in the rubbery body. It jammed, which
was exactly what Ryan wanted.
Still holding the hilt of the wickedly sharp half sword, he jerked himself to
his knees. Two-handed, his muscles cording into cables along his arms, he tugged
at the wriggling, squealing creature. Brute force, it was the only answer. With
a sloppy, plopping sound one hand came loose from the war wag’s roof, then the
other. Ryan scrambled to his feet, heaved at the sticky, pulled him over the
metal rod, booted the creature in the side of the head.
The sticky was trying to grab for him, its squeal something like a butchered
hog’s, but unheard by anyone below because of the chatter of auto-fire. Ryan
used all his strength to slam the creature down on the roof. He smashed his boot
onto its chest and tugged at the blade. Dark red ichor was squeezing out of the
rubbery folds of its flesh, and the panga came out soggily. Ryan danced backward
as the beast fluted its fury, its wide blank eyes red rimmed. It sprang at him.
Ryan swung the panga two-fisted, felt it bite satisfyingly into oleaginous
flesh, watched grimly as the head flew off like a kicked ball, sailing away into
the surrounding gloom.
The torso sagged on suddenly limp legs. It collapsed sideways and rolled across
the roof before finally slumping against the rail.
Ryan turned to jump back from the roof gully and cursed savagely. More stickies
were hauling themselves up and over the other side of the war wag’s roof. A
brief glance at his right showed shadowy forms crowding onto the nearest trucks
in fluid, rippling waves, arm over arm, seemingly inexorably.
Hooley, in the gully, was already throwing up his rifle, and flame was stabbing
from it in short bursts. A stammer of fire from the ladder well told him that
Lint, too, had opened up.
Ryan scabbarded the panga, then unslung his own piece. No point in silent
killing now. He let rip a long jolting burst, left to right, at the bobbing line
of heads that had suddenly appeared to his right, over the rear end of the war
wag, watching dispassionately as they burst apart like so much rotten fruit.
Then he leaped for the gully as more squealing figures came over the side behind
him like an ugly tide.
He thought, this is going to be close. It flickered through his brain that no
way was he going to be able to make it to the hatch before he was overwhelmed by
the monsters.
He opened his mouth to scream at Lint, and then a vast, soaring gout of flame
fireballed high into the sky to his right and a tremendous cracking roar, half
deafening him. The shock wave of the explosion blew him over, sent him tumbling