Ryan's third victim had already been knocked off balance by one of his falling comrades, and Ryan's bullets hit him through the upper chest, on the left side. A clear heart shot, fatal within thirty seconds or so.
Perhaps fifty rounds were fired by Ryan's party, laying them all down. Peculiarly, none of the muties screamed or cried. Just a faint mewing from the dying.
In the loud silence, Ryan turned to face Finnegan, who was clearing the Heckler & Koch, reaching for spare ammunition.
'Open fire like that again, Finn, and I'll ice you myself.'
It was said very calmly, with no obvious anger. But the blaster flinched and looked down at his boots. 'Sorry, Ryan. You know how...'
'Yeah, I know how. But not again. Now let's get the fuck outta here before...'
There was a stifled scream from Lori. Everyone else was sufficiently experienced to know that all of the muties were down and done. Finished. But the tall blonde had been staring at the twitching corpses with a morbid fascination. Now she stood, pointing with her dainty blaster, her eyes wide with terror.
Three of the corpses had risen and were walking unsteadily toward them.
'By the three Kennedys,' exclaimed Doc, taking a shaky step backward, away from the horrific apparitions.
Ryan knew that stickies were notoriously difficult to kill, but this was something else. The three... another one was struggling to rise...
A second had an arm hanging by a thread of gristle with tattered rags of muscle bloodily weeping from the stump. Ryan had shot that one. A third had been shot in the face, the bullet dislodging an eyeball so it dangled prettily on the scarred cheek. The fourth had two massive bullet wounds in its chest and upper abdomen.
'They can't,' said J.B. in disbelief. 'They're dead.'
'Then why aren't they fucking lying down?' asked Finnegan.
One of the swampies had managed to fire its crossbow, the bolt flying short and burying itself in the earth near Krysty's feet. She stooped and plucked it from the ground, looking at the sticky patch of brown oil smeared around its point.
'It's poisoned,' she warned.
The four staggering muties were only fifteen paces away, lurching like drunken customers leaving a gaudy house at midnight. Ryan noticed that their wounds, appalling though they were, didn't seem to be bleeding as much as they should be.
'Again,' he said, opening up atpoint-blank range with the G-12 automatic rifle, the burst of the caseless ammunition sending all four figures dancing and toppling. He raked the four bodies repeatedly, using thirty rounds to make sure they wouldn't rise a second time. Blood spurted, and chunks of flesh splattered into the air, with gouts of crimson, carrying splinters of bone.
After the racket of the guns, the silence was intense. The bodies lay still, torn apart by the ferocity of the shooting.
'If there's more of them, they'll be on top of us any time now,' warned Ryan.
'How could they?' asked Doc Tanner, moving and staring down at the mutilated corpses. 'Such wounds, and they rose and walked.' He squatted down, oblivious of the blood soaking, around his cracked boots.
'Where?' asked the Armorer.
'Away,' replied Ryan. 'Must be more where that smoke was. I don't want to face more if they're that bastard-tough to put the stopper on.'
'Sure. Back to the swampwag? Or into the brush?'
Standing up, his hands slobbered with dripping blood from probing at the carcasses of the muties, Doc interrupted, 'Amazing. My dear Mr. Cawdor, it is truly amazing.'
'What?'
'These poor creatures, genetically mutated as a result of the neutron bombing, have developed a dual circulatory system. Two hearts, two sets of lungs, two sets of arteries. That is why they are difficult to slay.'
'Zombies,' breathed Krysty. 'By Gaia! They are truly the living dead.'
'Nukeshit!' Ryan looked at her in surprise. 'You don't believe that stuff. They're muties. Just muties. All muties are different, Krysty, but they're still muties. Right?'
The moment his words were out, he wished he could suck them back and swallow them. The girl glared at him for a long-held moment.
'I know about muties, Ryan. So do you.'
'Hey, I'm... I'm sorry, only...'
She nodded her understanding. 'I know why. Doesn't make it right.'
'I hear them,' said Finnegan, hastily reloading his blaster.
They all heard it. A distant ululating cry, rising and falling like the howls of hunting wolves. It sounded like an awful lot of swampies were heading their way.
'Let's move,' said Ryan, turning away from the water and running unhesitatingly into the heavy undergrowth alongside the track.
A desperate chase it was, and lasted all morning, and well into late afternoon. At one point there was another torrential downpour but they didn't dare stop for shelter, in case the muties just kept coming after them.
Ryan, Krysty, J.B. and Finn were able to keep going with no great strain. Battle-honed and fit, they could have run for a day. Lori, despite the handicap of her high-heeled boots, did well enough. But for Doc Tanner it was a torturous pursuit.
At first they more than held their own, ducking and weaving along paths that danced and twisted like a breakback rattler. Ryan led the way, his steel panga drawn, slashing the branches that blocked their progress. Every few minutes he'd hold up his right hand for a brief rest, while all of them fought to control their breathing so they could listen for the sound of the muties.
The banshee wail seemed closer for the first couple of stops, then it faded away until it was no louder than the humming of bees. But by the fifth check, Doc was in a perilous state, dropping to hands and knees, his chest heaving, sweat dripping from beneath the high hat.
'I beg you, gentlemen and ladies, to go on and leave me behind. I have my trusty cannon,' he said, half drawing the ancient, ponderous Le Mat percussion pistol. 'I assure youthat I shall give a good accounting of myself, and I shall take some of the monsters with me.'
'Save a round for yourself, Doc,' urged Finnegan, readying himself to move on deeper among the trees.
'No. Finn. You keep on this path with the women. I insist that...' Doc tried, but Ryan turned on him with a ferocious anger.
'Shut that fucking mouth, Doc, or I'll bust it. This isn't some old-fashioned fucking game of heroics. If you were gut-shot, I'd be first to leave you. But you aren't. J.B. and me'll stop and slow 'em some.'
'Usual on the paths?' asked Finn.
'Yeah. Straight when there's no doubt. Any choice, take alternate right and left. Dagger slash on the nearest bush or tree.'
Finn nodded and began to move, while Ryan and the Armorer readied an ambush for the swampies who were following. Lori helped Doc up on his feet, but still he hesitated,
'Come on, Doc,' called Finnegan. 'Have no fear.'
The old man came close to a smile; it trembled uncertainly on the edge of the white lips. 'You say to have no fear, my plump companion.' An ironic laugh. 'My own words to myself, a hundred times a day.'
'Come on, Doc,' urged Krysty. 'Uncle Tyas McNann used to quote something 'bout being of good cheer and playing the man.'
This time the smile was broad and genuine. 'I know the saying, lady. But the man who said it died moments later.'
'Get the fuck out of here,' said J.B., leaning against a tall sycamore, his gun a comfortable extension of his
