Sidestepping a charge by two wolves working together, Dean punched one in the face with his empty blaster and buried his knife into the other one’s muscular shoulder. Jak quickly fired his booming Magnum pistol twice, nicking a darting wolf, then his blaster clicked on a spent shell. He was out of ammo, and there was no chance in hell of reloading it. Sputtering a virulent curse, the albino teen dropped the blaster, and two knives appeared in his pale hands. With a flip, one was reversed with the flat of the blade resting along the bone of his forearm, and the teenager went into a knife fighter’s attack crouch. A wolf flew past him, and he slit the beast’s belly open as it went by. Spilling out its writhing guts, the wolf trembled and fell over, its long legs starting to paw the sand as if it were still charging. Incredibly, it started to rise again, so J.B. discharged his shotgun directly into the hole where the third eye had been. Its head blew apart into bones and blood, and the animal dropped.
Darting and dodging, the wolves bit more cloth, the rips now exposing vulnerable flesh. Steady as a rock, Doc stood amid the yipping muties and calmly fired a seventh, eighth and ninth time, his huge .44 LeMat booming hot lead death. The booms shook the walls of the store, and blood sprayed out from the hip of the wolf. But the animal neither slowed nor stopped from the glancing blow.
Her back against the wall, med kit laying protectively at her feet, Mildred banged away carefully with her ZKR 551 target pistol, finally wounding one animal in the shoulder, blood forming a geyser from the severed femoral artery. The wolf staggered from the wound, and Ryan rammed the stock of his Steyr into its face, bursting apart the third eye. Puss and wiggling filaments gushed from the cranial wound, and the wolf froze, motionless from the pain. Ramming his 9 mm blaster into its ear, Ryan fired and brains sprayed out the other side of its head. The corpse stiffly toppled over to the bloody sand.
Dean charged a wolf, shoving his Browning blaster into its misshapen face. He yanked the trigger as the wolf dodged. The bullet missed, but the muzzle-blast seared the unblinking third eye and the wolf retreated, howling in agony.
A wild honking noise announced the violent arrival of the Hummer as Krysty slammed the military wag against the brick wall alongside the companions, the headlights shattering as she crushed a wolf into pulp. Now safely bracketed in a corner, the companions concentrated their weapons on the animals, blowing away chunks of flesh with every round.
The alpha wolf recoiled as half its head was torn away, and two smaller muties alongside it crumpled from the impact of the hollowpoint rounds. Another pair of muties was slammed to the ground, blood gushing from hideous wounds.
The last mutie dashed madly about between the moving human legs, zigzagging wildly as it sought escape. Blasters fired and knives stabbed, but missed. Desperate, it leaped onto the hood of the Hummer. Krysty burped the M-60, but the .38 hollowpoint rounds only grazed its body, removing wads of mangy fur.
Diving among the humans, it bounced off the side of Dean, ducked between Ryan’s legs and broke free from the group, sprinting for freedom. But it suddenly stopped with a full yard of shining steel thrust through its laboring chest. Snarling himself, Doc twisted the blade of his sword, enlarging the wound, and dark blood gushed onto the sidewalk. Whimpering in agony, the mutie struggled to get away, its goat eye rolling backward into its head until only the yellow showed. Bracing a boot on the writhing beast, Doc yanked the blade free and thrust it back in again and again, skewering the chest, the stomach, the throat, searching for the vulnerable heart. Still trying to crawl away, the beast emptied its bowels as its whole body violently shuddered and went abruptly still.
Withdrawing his blade from the corpse, Doc cleaned the Toledo steel on the animal’s fur, then again on a bit of cloth from a pocket. Visually inspecting the long shaft for any damage, he returned it to the ebony sheath of his walking cane, where it snapped tightly into place.