“Open the bastard door!” Ryan commanded, sending another lance of flame at the beast. The gauges were nearly empty, the pressure flickering at registering zero. One or two more sprays and the M-1 A would be empty. He’d have to make each burst count.
“Can’t. Locked from the inside,” J.B. answered, pressing on the door. It opened a crack, exposing the thick steel chains wrapped around the handles on the other side.
“Blow it!” Mildred commanded, emptying a clip into the giant insect. As the rapidfire cycled dry, she dropped the heavy blaster and drew her ZKR. That had been her last clip for the M-16.
“Prep the LAW,” Krysty shouted, carefully placing the shots of her Smith amp; Wesson for maximum damage.
“No room,” Ryan said, sending another spray across the ground to maintain the fire wall. “We’re too close! The back-blast would blow us apart.”
Stepping close to the fire, Doc braced for a recoil and fired the M-203. The short weapon thumped, sending a 40 mm shell straight into the shoulder of the beast, the blast splattering out gobbets of flesh, and a limb fell off. Staring at the ghastly wound pumping blood, the mutie screamed, backing away from the norms. Ryan sent off the final arc of flame, coating its head for as long as he could until the spray sputtered and cut off.
Hitting the buckle on his chest, Ryan shrugged and the spent weapon dropped to the ground. Then he grabbed the harness and heaved it into the flames.
“Cover!” he yelled, going to the ground.
A heartbeat later the pressurized tank blew, sending out a death shroud of shrapnel. Hot steel zinged off the ground, slammed into the closed door, knocked over both bikes and ripped a long gash across the bulbous back of the spider, blood gushing in an emerald torrent.
Unexpectedly, there came the sound of heavy-caliber rapidfires, squirts of blood spitting from the side of the howling mutie. Squinting against the dying flames, Ryan could see Hummers full of sec men rolling down a wide flight of stairs on the plaza, the .50 cals throwing death at the creature. Then a line of rounds stitched the front of the train station, shattering the pretty white bricks.
“Mitchum.” Jak cursed, then slapped the used clip into the M-16. The nuke-shitting blasters would have lasted them for months in the Deathlands. Was there anything on these stinking islands that wasn’t trying to chill them?
“Let us welcome him properly,” Doc announced, opening the breech of his M-203. “Any more 40 mm shells?”
“Only had six,” Ryan replied, pulling the pin on a gren and throwing it at the oncoming wags.
The HE sphere hit the ground and bounced twice, going over the lead military wag and exploding on the hood of the second. The windshield vanished and the crew inside the Hummer screamed, clutching their ripped faces. Without a driver, the wag veered away from the other vehicles. Cutting across the plaza, it slammed into a fountain and spilled out the corpses, its hood buckling and the horn coming on to blare an endless monotone warning.
Standing, J.B. swung around the shotgun and gave the door two strident rounds of flfichettes. The wood blew apart, and the portal swung open on creaking hinges.
“The bikes,” Dean began. Ryan shoved the boy forward. “Leave them!” Rushing inside the building, the companions spread out behind the rows of pillars supporting a mezzanine. Shafts of sunlight streamed in through the slit windows along the top, filling the interior with crisscrossing beams of light. Rows of wooden benches badly consumed by beetles filled the open area, phone booths and ticket counters lining the side wall. At the far end was an iron grating, similar to the ones on the downtown stores, completely sealing off the stairs and turnstiles beyond.
“There’s the entrance,” Krysty said, pocketing the spent shells and quickly reloading.
“Save your grens,” Ryan suggested, bolstering the handcannon and bringing out the Steyr. “We may have to blast through.”
Watching through the doorway, they could see the horribly wounded spider attack the Hummers, slamming the nearest one onto its side.
Supplies and men tumbled onto the ground, the spider triumphantly raising a screaming norm in its mandibles and slowly closing the pincers, the hoary chitin slicing the victim in two. The body fell away, and the spider charged at the next military wag, tendrils of intestines dangling from its segmented mouth. Its thick legs stomped two more men flat, and Sergeant Campbell was lifted cursing from a Hummer. The spider shook him the way a dog did a rat to snap its neck. But the sec man lived and fired a flintlock pistol directly into the eye of the creature before it cut him in two. His legs fell away, but his wide leather belt got caught on the mandibles and his torso flopped loosely about until the beast shook it free.