J.B. started to object, when a hail of lead hit the ground around the gorillas as they crossed the little stream. Craning his neck, the man saw the others clinging precariously from the rock face, firing their blasters with one hand. Then there came the telltale thunderous boom of Doc’s LeMat, and a wounded male stepped backward to fall over, showing the back of its head missing.
“Climb!” the old man shouted, sounding like Zeus on Mount Olympus.
Ryan swept the field with his SIG-Sauer, putting a round into each of the remaining six apes, then turned and threw himself at the rock wall. Both hands grabbing hold of a horizontal crack, the Deathlands warrior pulled himself up until his boots found purchase on the rough surface, and he extended his arms to find another crack.
Clawing for cracks, J.B. followed a few feet away from his old friend. Cold logic dictated that everybody climb alone in case they lost their grip and fell. They had no ropes, or pitons, only bare hands. There was no way to help each other now, except for not colliding into someone on the way down.
Dean and Doc were already ten feet off the ground, moving faster than expected, and Mildred was scaling the rocks as if she had done it her whole life.
As Jak slowly struggled along the crevices, Krysty snagged an outcropping on the side of the mesa and pulled herself higher. Ryan and J.B. followed, pausing when they reached a small ledge to shoot at the hunting apes below. More than half of the muties were sprawled on the ground, but the rest continued on, uncaring of the deadly lead flying past their stubby heads.
Checking below, Ryan cursed as he saw the huge apes pawing at the rock wall, leaning close to sniff the mesa, then tap it with their massive fingers. The bastard things were still trying to follow the group.
One gorilla reached up with an incredible long arm and pawed the rocks, pulling itself off the ground with the one hand. Their flexible toes worked as auxiliary hands that fondled the rocks to find any purchase, and the beast moved higher on the wall. Grunting among themselves, the rest tried to follow the first and soon the six were hot in pursuit, and moving faster than any of the companions.
A particularly large ape roared at the tiny humans, and Ryan tried to target the big male, but the angle of the sheer cliff prohibited that now. Reluctantly, he bolstered his piece and proceeded skyward once more.
“Still after us,” Ryan warned the others.
“Fuck that,” Jak said, and fired twice at the creatures with his .357 Magnum blaster.
The apes flinched at the noise of the weapon, and one round ricocheted off the wall, spraying out rock chips and dust. The other creased the hairy shoulder of the bull male, and the beast sounded very human as it cried out from the pain of the wound. Then it locked its gaze on Jak, and the teenager saw the murderous intent in its face. He aimed again, and the mutie moved just as he fired, the round missing completely.
Unable to load without falling, Jak bolstered the piece and concentrated on his climbing once more. But not able to use the hurt leg, his speed was pitiful, and the ape gained on the teenager with nightmarish speed.
There was a cry from Mildred, and J.B. saw her flail as the root in her hand came free from the wall, loose pebbles sprinkling downward. Instinctively, J.B. reached out a hand to help her, but she was yards away. He watched in horror as the physician struggled not to fall, then cheered as she stabbed a knife into the cliff and used that as an anchor to move to a more secure area.
Tense minutes passed as the companions did nothing but concentrate on their individual tasks. Fingers dug painfully into the smallest of openings, and boots slipped constantly as they tried to dig in for a purchase that would hold their weight, if only for a scant few seconds.
Pausing to catch his breath, Ryan shot at the hunting apes and scored a wound. The beast was still scaling the cliff, but much slower. Encouraged by this, J.B. pulled a jagged piece of cliff loose and let it drop at another gorilla. The stone fell straight for the mutie’s face, but the creature reached out with an enormous hand and caught it, then lobbed the stone right back. J.B. barely had time to swing out of the way before the limestone slammed into the mesa where he had just been, exploding into powdery shrapnel.