“Beware of the Cerberus,” Doc rumbled softly, the LeMat and Webley held steady, his arms crossed at the wrists to support the heavy handcannons.
The fog seemed to react to the sound of his voice, almost as if it recognized the old man. Then a .50 cal crackled around the corner, and the fog abruptly paused, unable to decide between the two groups in the stygian tunnel.
“Keep nice and slow,” Ryan growled, a hand on his blaster. “No sudden movements or it’ll strike.”
“Let me try something,” Dean said, unbuttoning his shirt pocket.
“Do nothing!” his father ordered sternly. “Only weapon that can kill this are implo grens.”
“Don’t have any,” J.B. said, shaking his head. The man held both the Uzi and the shotgun at the ready, even though he knew they would be useless against the living death cloud.
“Maybe we can outrun it,” Mildred suggested, feeling very small and defenseless before the colossal fog. “Trick it somehow and then double-back and slip inside. No way it could reach us past the nuke-proof door.”
There was a sense of intelligence about the creature, and she wondered if it could actually understand their words, or if it was merely responding to the tone of their voices, as a dog would.
Billowing endless, the fog started toward the companions, but another barrage of blasterfire from the sec men made it reconsider.
“Trick this? Not a chance,” Krysty said, moving away from the creature. Her hair tingled from its proximity, and her skin seemed to crawl as if alive with static electricity.
Holding the last gren, Ryan pulled the pin and dropped it at his boots. “No way we can reach the redoubt now,” he said grimly. “We can’t kill it, or even harm the bastard thing. So when I drop the gren, run down the tunnel and don’t stop. If anybody makes it to the surface alive, head for the bank. We’ll meet there.”
“We return to the city of the gorillas,” Doc stated, holstering his piece as a prelude to running, “yet a fighting chance for life is better than none.”
“Get ready,” Ryan said. “On my mark.”
Pushing his way past the adults, Dean walked straight to the towering Cerberus and held out a small plastic rectangle.
Instantly, the fog pulsed toward the boy but then stopped, and a single thin tendril extended to brush over the mag strip on the B12 identification card from the corpse on the crashed Hercules aircraft.
Just then, bright light bounced along the walls of the tunnel and a Hummer drove into view, Mitchum at the wheel with a revolver in his hand. His face was in ribbons, blood everywhere, the dead bodies of his crew hung off the armored war wag, clusters of tiny bats still feeding off the nutrient-rich life fluids of the corpses.
“You fucking bastards are gonna pay for this!” the colonel screamed, spittle spraying from his mouth as he fired the blaster.
Suddenly rushing forward, the mist split apart and flowed around the companions, leaving them undamaged in its midst. But they were surrounded, unable to move in any direction.
“Smoke wouldn’t hide you!” Mitchum screamed, firing his revolver into the swirling banks of glowing fog.
Oddly, the bullets didn’t seem to reach the outlanders even though they were only fifty feet away. Slamming on the brakes, the sec chief climbed into the back and grabbed the .50 cal, only to notice the ammo belt was gone, completely used up in the fight against the bats. Shitfire!
Clambering into the rear of the Hummer, the colonel lit the main fuse for the Firebirds and swung the pod at the companions. Instantly, the fog surged forward. One by one, the Firebirds launched and punched into the cloud to simply disappear.
“Impossible,” the sec man muttered as the fog flowed irrevocably over the military wag. The headlights dimmed and a strange stink of lightning filled the air, making it hard for Mitchum to draw a breath.
“This can’t be happening!” he screamed from within the confines of the shapeless fog. Still launching, the Firebirds left the pod and their exhaust winked out, the impotent rockets falling to the ground and breaking apart, spilling their precious cargo of black powder.