its scent to sully the air before it was needed was put to use. As they piled back into both trucks, those containers were divvied out to Skinner and Amriany alike.
“Come here, mole man!” Bill shouted.
Sighing reluctantly, Burke approached the passenger side of the red truck. The closer the Mongrel got, the more the bristly hairs along his back stood up. When he was within a few feet of the window, he was splashed with a slimy load of the pungent bait mixture. He bared his teeth, which only allowed some of the rancid gel to trickle into his mouth. “That shit’s gonna make me puke!”
“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” Bill said. “Run around town and find as many Half Breeds as you can. Shouldn’t be hard with that stuff. Get them to follow you, and bring them to us. When it looks like we can’t handle any more, take them to the reservoir. Got it?”
The Mongrel grunted. “Could have warned me before splashing that shit on me.”
“Would that have made it smell any better? Just don’t do any tunneling or you’ll wipe it off.”
Paige unscrewed a plastic container she’d taken from Ginger’s kitchen that had been used to hold the pretzel sticks she and the other Skinners had devoured. “And tell Quinn to send any of the others over to us so they can do the same.” When she saw the resistant look on the Mongrel’s face, she added, “You said you guys wanted to help. This is what needs to be done.” Some of the howling in the vicinity stopped and was replaced by excited, panting breaths. “I’d be quick about it too. Sounds like someone’s already picked up our scent.” With that, Paige turned the container over and dumped its contents onto the side of the truck.
“You’re not getting that shit on my baby, are you?” Al said from the driver’s seat.
“Not at all,” Paige told him. “Get moving.”
The truck lurched forward, forcing her to sit down and brace herself with her feet against the interior of the bed. As they picked up speed, she let the large empty container roll around near the tailgate so she could pick up the water bottles. She tossed one to Milosh, who was in the back with her, and handed another to Bill through the little sliding window that opened into the cab. He took it and jammed it into the cup holder so he could tend to his hunting rifle. It was a large caliber model that Paige didn’t recognize, although she was certain Cole would have known it just by the scope. The sickle was trapped beneath her foot like a long-lost friend.
On the edge of the parking lot, Quinn threw a fit as Jesse doused her in more of the bait mixture. Nadya waved to Paige and climbed into the green pickup. By the time Al rounded the next corner, Jesse was gunning the other truck’s engine and heading for the opposite end of town.
Gail ran up to the red truck on Paige’s side, moving on all fours with every bit of the feline grace that her form suggested. When she looked up, she snarled in a voice that was barely understandable through her needlelike fangs. “Bait,” was all she said.
Paige obliged her by squirting some of the stuff onto the Mongrel. Farther down East Court Street, larger paws scraped against the cement. She drew her Beretta and braced herself against a pipe that had been welded into the bed to be used as a handle. “All of you, go!”
Gail scampered past the truck to rush headlong into the approaching Half Breeds. The werewolves barked at her and bared their fangs, allowing strings of drool to trail from their mouths as they lowered their heads and quickened their pace. Even with her unnatural speed, Gail was barely able to veer away from the creatures before being clipped by greedy, snapping jaws. Three of the five Half Breeds veered off to chase her, while the others charged at the truck. Once they got a healthier whiff of the bait Paige had applied to the pickup, they became so anxious to chase it that their paws slid against the gritty street in their haste to circle around it.
By the time they made it to South Kentucky Avenue, Al had quite the following. Half Breeds relentlessly pursued the pickup, sideswiping telephone poles and streetlights in their haste to try and keep up with his erratic driving. More werewolves joined them as the main group fanned out and put some real steam into their strides in an effort to catch up.
“I think maybe you didn’t think this through,” Milosh said.
Paige held her Beretta in one hand and one of Bill’s .45s in the other. “Then why did you follow me?”
“At this point,” he said while waving his stump at her, “there’s not much else to lose.”
She waved her scarred and nearly petrified right arm at him and said, “I know how you feel. Since you seem to be doing just fine, stop your bitching and start shooting some of these things.” Leading by example, she turned to point both pistols over the side of the truck and pulled the triggers.
Milosh’s left stump had been cleaned and redressed by one of the Mongrels. There was always a medic in their packs, along with other vital members of a traveling community, including trackers and diggers. The only reason he was up and conscious was because of the Amriany healing serums that had been pumped into him. Paige knew he was going to crash and crash hard when the initial buzz wore off. If they were alive for that moment, she would be more than happy to crash along with him. For now, Milosh gripped one of Al’s hunting rifles and used his stump to steady the barrel. The Covid Accura .50 caliber fit snugly against his shoulder and made a satisfying crack as it went off. Even more satisfying was the sight of a Half Breed stumbling and rolling into the werewolf beside it as the round caught it low in its chest.
“Feeling better now?” Paige asked while pressing her side against the truck bed in order to fire three quick shots from the Beretta.
The Amriany nodded and showed her a wide, toothy grin. “This is the perfect cure. A little hair of the dog that bit me, no?”
“And then some. Watch your right.”
Milosh shifted his aim in that direction to find another group of Half Breeds charging down Sixth Street and skidding around the corner to fall into step with some of the others. His rifle sent a few carefully placed .50 caliber rounds into the front of the group. Between thundering shots he shouted, “I like this gun!”
Paige chuckled at his enthusiasm and took a few shots of her own. When the Beretta ran dry, she placed it under her foot and switched the .45 into her right hand. Half Breeds were closing in, despite the gunfire being thrown at them. They were only prevented from overtaking the truck by the sharp turns Al took and their own tendency to get in each other’s way in their haste to follow the malodorous bait. Once the Half Breeds had the scent in their nostrils, they would keep coming at them even if they lost a limb or two.
When her .45 ran dry, Paige reloaded both guns using spare magazines she’d prepared and tucked into her pockets back at the paint store. On many occasions, she and Cole had argued about gripping a pistol in each hand and firing away. He called it dual-wielding. She called it a great way to waste a lot of ammo without hitting much of anything. His defense boiled down to how cool it looked. Paige had to admit, when she fired both pistols at the werewolves that were now close enough to scrape their tusks against the side of the truck, she did feel pretty cool.
The guns bucked against her burning palms, spitting point-blank fire at the werewolves. When one Half Breed took a round in the face, it fell behind so another could charge forward and take its place. The motion of the truck and the constantly changing field of targets made it difficult to hit her mark every time, but even the misses did some damage as they ricocheted off the street and into another warm body. But somehow, no matter how many hits she scored, the werewolves were even closer by the time her pistols ran dry again.
“Milosh!” she shouted while ejecting the empty magazines one at a time.
The Amriany glanced over at her, spotted the pair of Half Breeds that had climbed onto the side of the truck and swung his rifle in that direction. Paige lay down and was forced to look up at the werewolves that in turn were looking down at her after scaling the side of the truck. Drool spattered against her face, dripping from their anxious jaws. When one of them hiked a third paw over the side of the truck, a .50 caliber round exploded from Milosh’s rifle and hit it like a sledgehammer. That werewolf collided with the other one, sending both of them to the street, to be swallowed by a growing wave of creatures.
Al steered onto Dickerson Avenue and headed south. His route would bring them to Route 3, through the main stretch of town, and back north to complete their circuit. More Half Breeds following them meant fewer of the creatures hunting the human survivors of Atoka. “There’s more of them than I thought!” Paige shouted.
Milosh fired another round at a Half Breed that had leapt forward to grab the tailgate with both front paws. The bullet chipped its tusk and snapped its head to one side, but didn’t knock it down. The werewolf set one paw inside the truck before the next .50 caliber round knocked it back into the street. “We took too much time preparing,” he said.
“We needed that time or else we couldn’t have done much of anything about these things.”
“Then follow your own advice,” he said while clumsily fitting fresh rounds into the rifle he balanced against his
