Salazar had no problems about putting on a show, however. He tried to emulate Ryan’s prowess with his knife, but was handling the weapon awkwardly. Ryan followed the flight of the knife from one hand to the other, waiting for his chance.
It came on the third time the knife was in Salazar’s left hand. He fumbled with it, having to adjust his hand slightly to firm up his grip on the knife. Ryan wasted no time.
In a flash, his right boot shot up from the ground, kicking Salazar’s hand, breaking several finger bones and sending the knife spinning through the air.
Salazar looked stupidly at his empty right hand, as if the knife had suddenly betrayed him.
Ryan followed the kick with a hard left cross to the side of the sec man’s face. Teeth and blood flew out of a corner of his mouth, much of it landing outside the ring, and his eyes rolled up in their sockets. He fell to the ground in a heap, his head slamming hard into the ground.
Richmond stepped forward to help his fellow sec man, but Brody kept him back.
Even one of Mog’s men, Foghat, moved in to keep Richmond away.
Ryan stepped forward and looked over the fallen guard. “If you agree to leave at the break, I won’t chill you, sec man.”
“Fuck you, outlander!” Salazar spit on Ryan’s boot and pounded a fist weakly against Ryan’s thigh.
Ryan flipped the panga so that it was pointing down and plunged the tip of it into Salazar’s chest. The knife stopped when it was through his body and had come up against the hard-packed ground beneath it.
A faint pulse of blood bubbled up around the panga’s blade, and a crimson line leaked out of the corner of the man’s mouth.
The crowd grew silent.
A bell rang to signify the first break.
Ryan and Brody were still alive, and there were two fewer opponents to worry about.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sec chief Ganley helped pull the second boat onto dry land and began overseeing preparations for another night on the shore. The volunteers were near exhaustion after fighting the wind and current on Erie Lake throughout the long afternoon. Some had gone off into the nearby forests in search of firewood and anything else that might be useful to them.
There was plenty of fresh fish to eat, but Ganley would allow them to break into some of the dried stores they’d brought to trade if anyone wanted. The following day would be a long one, and they’d need all the rest and strength they could manage.
A sudden scream came from somewhere inland.
Ganley ran toward the sound, followed closely by several of the others.
When he reached a small stand of trees, Ganley stopped in his tracks. He frantically searched the deadwood and pale leaves of the trees, but could see nothing in the afternoon shadows.
“Help me!” The scream was fainter this time, but clearly a man’s scream.
The scream had come from somewhere up ahead and to the right. Ganley headed toward it, signaling to the others to fan out to the left and farther right.
With each step the sounds of the man’s scream grew fainter, replaced by another noise more sinister in nature. It was wet and sloppy and mixed in with the unmistakable sound of bones snapping and muscle and sinew being torn apart.
And then he saw it.
Russell Duncan, a young fisherman in his early twenties on the mission to bring home a wife, was lying in a small clearing while his body was being torn apart by several pale white, sickly-looking mutants. They were tearing Duncan’s flesh open with their bare hands and taking bites from his open wounds with their teeth, shredding the skin and muscle with vicious jerking motions of their heads.
There were four of them feeding on the body.
“No!” Ganley cried out, but none of the muties seemed to notice. Others began trying to scare the muties away, but they all remained where they were, feeding.
Ganley raised his blaster and fired nearly a dozen shots. He was careful with the first shot, making sure he placed the round in Russell Duncan’s skull. When the body went limp and he knew the young fisherman was dead, he opened fire on the creatures in earnest, peppering the muties with a hail of blasterfire, throwing them back and away from the corpse and ripping holes in every part of their bodies.