Leveling the museum-piece rifle, Harry eased back the iron hammer, checked the flint and pulled the trigger all in one smooth motion. Flame and smoke thundered from the pitted muzzle of the two-yard-long blaster. In spite of the moving target, the miniball scored a direct hit on the military wag, but only ricocheted off the armored side. Then the wag took a corner and was gone.
“You muck-eating idiot!” Phil cursed, slapping down the flintlock rifle. “He wasn’t going to stop with you shooting at him!”
“He was a mutie!” Harry replied hotly. “Whiter than milk! Probably a stickie from the waist down, or something even worse!”
“Don’t care if he was part blood rat. Stop the wag, then kill the driver, fool! How many times have I told you that?”
“Son of a bitch!” George coughed, brushing out his bushy beard. “Let’s go get the bastard!”
“No need to chase him,” Phil said, holstering his revolver. “He can hide from the wolves during the day, but when night falls and the bats start hunting, he’ll come crawling back. Tomorrow, his ass is ours.”
“And then we’ll make him pay,” Harry added grimly.
“Yeah.” Wiping the sand off his pockmarked face, George gave a guttural laugh. “They don’t all have to be alive. Baron needs corpses, too.”
Beating the dust off his caked clothes, Trevor started to agree with the gate guards, when he heard a metallic creak. Turning fast, revolver steady at his hip, the sec man blinked a few moments to clear his sight. Nothing seemed unusual or misplaced. Then he could have sworn that his mail truck moved slightly. He walked over and yanked open the doors.
Human corpses were piled haphazardly on the floorboards of the vehicle, bones and organs exposed, loose limbs and hands lying in the corners so badly had the winged muties clawed the bodies to pieces. Sprawled on top was an intact male corpse without an eye, and a redhead female dressed in military coveralls who didn’t appear mauled at all. Trevor studied the curve of her shapely ass for a moment before abruptly slamming the door.
Climbing into the cab, he pumped and throttled the engine a few shots to get the big-block V-8 firing on the alcohol fuel. The engine finally caught, and he started to roll into the dark tunnel.
“Damn, I got to get to the gaudy house fast,” he muttered to himself, pulling the gas mask from a bag on his belt and sliding in over his head. “Been too long without quim when the stiffs start looking good.”
AS THE CORPSE-FILLED truck began to move, Krysty rolled off Ryan and both drew their blasters. Crawling over the dead, she looked out the tiny rearview window. The opening of the tunnel shrank in their wake. Dimly seen through the billowing dust clouds, the guards were searching the ground for their dropped cigs.
Ryan tied his eye patch on and pulled a few strands of his black hair loose that got caught in the knot.
“Hope Jak is okay,” Krysty said softly.
“We would have heard them boasting if not,” Ryan noted in a whisper, retrieving his Steyr from underneath a headless torso. “Okay, we give this convoy a few minutes until we’re near the middle of the tunnel. These things are long, sometimes a quarter mile in length. Water damage should rough both ends, but the middle will be smooth. Once the tires start humming, we go.”
“At least he’s not going very fast,” she stated. “Won’t hurt much jumping from this crawling can.”
“Agreed.”
The redhead jiggled the handle on the door. “Locked,” she reported. “No surprise. Probably don’t want folks robbing the dead of blasters and such.”
“Ever hear of a baron who did?”
“Only your family,” she whispered, trying to stand but the ceiling was too low. Krysty debated sitting or kneeling, and settled for crouching on her heels. The blood and the guts didn’t bother her much. It was the warmth of the fresh corpses, suggesting a terrible mockery of life. Under her breath, she uttered a short prayer to Gaia. During this, the bouncing of the rough road diminished and the tires began to softly hum under the truck.