“Light the torches! We got to see to fight!” Wu-Lang cried, dropping a spent clip and slamming in a fresh one. He pulled the trigger and nothing happened.
Screaming curses, he furiously worked the bolt and started to fire again.
Ever so slowly, as if his bones were melting, Samson slumped to the ground, the Marlin clattering to the asphalt from his dead hands. The entire back of the man’s clothes were soaked with blood, and he seemed to have only half a head.
“Regroup at the library!” Rev shouted as he dodged among the piles of supplies to put his back to the stone wall. Footsteps and gunshots headed for the granite building, and as the fight shifted away from him, Rev sprinted for the line of parked wags.
Scrambling into the nearest truck, Rev was startled to find Harlan already behind the wheel, coaxing the big engine into life. With a sputtering roar, the ramshackle engine finally caught and he rolled ruthlessly over fallen bodies of the crew.
“Go for the street!” Rev shouted, “and head for the searchlights!”
“No shit,” grunted Harlan, grinding gears and pumping the gas pedal.
A thump shook the truck, and the hood flipped upward, completely blocking their view. Then a line of holes sprouted in the roof, and the windshield shattered, spraying them both with glass. Cursing, Harlan hit the brakes hard, the disks squealing in protest.
The truck was still moving as Rev shoved open the side door and hit the ground running. Firing the MAC-10 over his shoulder, the man scampered into the night. Dark shapes were everywhere, and he clumsily dodged one, only to collide with another.
“Motherfucker!” Rev roared, waving his chattering weapon, hoping for a hit.
Then a charnel-house breath washed over him worse than anything he had ever smelled, and fiery pain exploded in his groin, moving upward through his belly and deep into his chest. Gutted wide open, Rev tried to scream but only whimpered as red-hot pain filled his world and he fell forever into a bottomless abyss.
Fighting the shuddering truck to a halt, Harlan dived from the vehicle and scrambled underneath for safety. Hiding seemed the smart move. Screams sounded from every direction, and dim headlights came on as another truck lurched from the line. Harlan calculated a jump to the wag, but froze when he saw the truck careen wildly left and right, then accelerate and smash directly into the low stone wall edging the parking lot. A mangled body crashed through the windshield and a winged figure enshrouded the man just as the headlights winked out.
An inhuman figure blocked his view of the wreck, and something grabbed hold of his blaster, crushing hand and weapon into a mangled pulp of flesh and steel. Harlan screamed as he was hauled out from under the chassis. Struggling to escape, the man smacked his face against the frame, knocking himself unconscious. His last conscious thoughts were of a fetid sewer breath and a distant pain in his groin moving ever upward.
The last of the crew now headed for the library, the line of trucks horribly alive with movement. An awful stench tainted the air, and the screams of the dying filled the night. Suddenly, a lone man holding a pistol and brandishing a machete stumbled into view.
“Come get some!” Hal cried, fury contorting his features into a feral mask as he expertly twirled the shiny steel blade about in a glittering whirlwind defense.
“Over here!” Wu-Lang shouted, doing a figure-eight pattern with the M-16 into the sky. The blaster jammed again, and he jerked the bolt to clear the bad round. Frigging predark ammo was for shit!
“Head for the library!” Brian added, shoving shells into the shotgun. When his revolvers became empty, he had simply grabbed the first blaster he found lying on the ground. There were plenty of shells sewn into the strap, enough for a while anyway. However, the man simply refused to notice how sticky the stock was, his mind overwhelmed with the current fight to bother with such trivia.
Hal jumped at the sound of their voices as if startled that anybody else was still alive, then he charged toward them firing his pistol to both sides. But he crossed only a few yards when he dropped to his knees, the machete skittering along the asphalt into the bare shrubbery lining the sidewalk.