Hive Invasion
“Hold on!”
Ryan was jerked off his feet as more bugs swarmed into the area. He took out the nearest two with head shots as three more ran toward him. Ryan brought his legs up just as they lunged at his feet, pushing off the rock face as Jak hauled him up, reaching the top ahead of several more that were already climbing in pursuit.
“Son of a—” Jak had his own blaster in hand and blew two of the ascending insects off the wall, sending them crashing down on the rest. “Time go.”
“You’ve got that right.” Ryan dug out his amphetamine pill and swallowed it, then sent a trio of 9 mm slugs down into the mass, killing two more and injuring one so that all it could to was shriek and writhe on the ground, before his blaster’s action locked back. “Go, go, go!”
Fortunately, the slash on Ryan’s leg was shallow, and he could run with little impairment. He took off after Jak, who was like a white-haired ghost flitting from rock to shadow to rock again.
“Where the...hell’re we...going?” Ryan panted as they ran.
“Just follow,” Jak replied, not even breathing hard. “Got surprise waitin’ for bugs.”
Ryan glanced over his shoulder to find the ground behind them covered with bugs as far as he could see. “Better be a damn good one.”
Jak flashed a death’s-head smile at him. “Is.”
The pill kicked in now, reducing Ryan’s various aches and pains to dull, faraway throbs. His flagging energy level spiked, and soon he’d drawn abreast of Jak, who skidded to a stop beside him. “Head there.”
“There” was a deep, narrow gulch carved out of the rock by wind and water over hundreds of years, snaking up the hill a good sixty or seventy yards. Not waiting for an answer, Jak began to climb, moving so fast up the steep surface he resembled an albino mountain goat.
Ryan followed him, still favoring his injured shoulder. The floor was steep, making the climb difficult, but not impossible. The only question was whether Ryan could reach the top before the burrow-bugs reached him.
It was a close call. Near the summit, the gulch turned almost vertical, making Ryan seek out hand-and footholds to propel himself the last dozen or so feet. Aided by Jak and Ricky, he was half pulled, half dragged onto the top, where he rolled over, breathing heavily.
“You old man,” Jak said, still pulling on his arm.
“Watch it, youngblood,” Ryan said as he pushed himself to his feet. “What’s the plan, hold them off again here?”
“Nope.” Ricky’s teeth gleamed white in the moonlight. “J.B. planned something way better.”
Ryan peeked over the edge to see a large knot of the bugs boiling furiously up the arroyo toward them. “Whatever he’s doing, he better do it fast.”
“Would, if we off this piece rock,” Jak said, dragging him farther back. “Come on!”
Ryan allowed himself to be led away from the edge to the other side of the hilltop, where the rest of the group crouched behind a small outcropping.
“Got Ryan,” Jak said.
“Now look who’s taking his sweet time,” J.B. remarked.
“Yeah, you,” Ryan replied. “Those bugs chased Jak and me clear up here and are going to be coming at us any minute now. What?” he asked on seeing the broad smiles on his friends’ faces.
“Are they, now?” J.B. asked.
As he said that, Ryan heard a dull crump that he felt in the soles of his feet and the pit of his stomach. The ground around them began to shake, and Ryan heard the patter of gravel, followed by the rumble of much larger rocks breaking loose. The noise grew until it was impossible to think, much less talk. A large cloud of dust billowed over everyone, making Ryan and the others cough. After about thirty seconds, the commotion died down, with only scattered falling pebbles and acrid dust hanging in the air left over.
Ryan walked back to the gully’s edge, now several feet farther back from where Jak and he had climbed up. J.B.’s controlled blast had brought down the entire cliff face, turning several tons of rock into a lethal landslide. Waving drifting dust away, Ryan squinted through it to look down the hillside. Other than scattered parts of burrow-bugs—a leg here, a smashed thorax there—sticking out of the large pile of jumbled rocks several stories below, there was no living sign of the small insectile army that had been pursuing them.
“Ricky came up with the idea,” J.B. said as he came up beside him. “Then it was just a matter of finding the right place to set it off.”
“Plus, if fortune smiles on us, the resulting blast should cause no little consternation among those damnably persistent insects,” Doc said.
“Yeah, but even that isn’t the best news,” Krysty said. Taking Ryan’s hand, she led him to the far side of the hill, where the sun was just beginning to rise over the eastern horizon. Across a few foothills below them, he looked out onto a barren wasteland that, although sun-parched and desolate, didn’t contain any sign of the burrowing horde.
Wiping his face free of blood and bug goo, Ryan smiled. “We’re out of the valley.”
Chapter Seven
One day later, Ryan would have happily taken on one of those bugs again. He was so thirsty he would have hacked its head off with one swing and gulped down its thick, black blood as if it were fine wine.
His swollen tongue flicked out to try to moisten his parched, split lips, but retreated the moment it touched them. From the arid, cracked ground to the sullen, cloudless, crimson-red sky, everywhere he looked, there wasn’t a drop of water to be found. Or plants. Or animals. Once, they heard a long, far-off shriek of some kind of bird, but never saw any sign of it. Doc had grunted that it was staying out of the heat, proving that even a birdbrain was smarter than all of them. Save for the seven people trudging across the bleak landscape, there was no sign of life anywhere—just the endless horizon, wavering and blurry in the relentless heat.
The large lemon-yellow sun beat down mercilessly on them, sapping strength and making it hard to think, much less walk. True to Mildred’s prediction, Doc had crashed after the effects of the amphetamine had worn off. He was now being hauled by J.B., who plodded along with the older man’s arm slung across his shoulders. Mildred was also favoring her injured arm, bound in a crude sling across her chest. Ryan had also felt the slowness and exhaustion of the pill wearing off, but he powered through it, just as he did every other day of his life. His entire body hurt as if someone had beaten each inch of it with a club, but he walked on, determined not to show any weakness.
Even the normally indefatigable Jak was showing signs of wearing down. “Got find shelter soon...gonna cook, we stay out any longer.” His red eyes peered out from the folds of the dingy bright pink T-shirt wrapped around his head and neck, making him look like some kind of demented Bedouin.
“Just...like the...proverbial goose...my milk-haired friend....” Doc wheezed with every limping step.
“Save your strength, Doc,” J.B. said. “Need every bit of it to get through this.”
Despite her injury, Mildred didn’t seem all that affected by the heat, nor did Krysty. In fact, Krysty was scanning all around them, at times lifting her nose almost as if she was scenting the air.
“Something up?” Ryan asked.
“Don’t know. The breeze is rising, but it doesn’t feel right, somehow.” Shading her eyes with her hand, Krysty scanned the horizon all around. “Something’s coming. Surely there has to be some kind of shelter somewhere.”
“We could dig a hole in the ground, cover up and wait for the bad weather to pass, right?” Ricky offered.
“You take a shot at it, Ricky,” J.B. replied. “This hardpan is rock solid. I might be able to blast a hole in it with plas-ex, but it wouldn’t be large enough to do us any good.”
“Right now I’ll settle for any moving air. That breeze should feel good,” Mildred said, eyes on the ground in front of her as she walked, her combat boots kicking up small puffs of dirt with every step.
“Mebbe—if it doesn’t bring anything with it,” Ryan replied, keeping his tone neutral. If a storm blew up here—sand or dust or anything else—they were as good as dead if they couldn’t find any cover. Squinting, he tried to pick out anything that might serve as refuge for them from the surrounding wasteland.
“Our real problem is dehydration,” Mildred continued. “It’s so hot out here that we’re losing water but not realizing it because our sweat’s evaporating as soon as it comes out.”
“Always ready to give us the good news, aren’t you, Millie?” J.B. said with a quick smile to let her know he was kidding.
“Nothing funny about it,” she replied. “Facts are facts—if we don’t find water soon, we’re done for.”
The breeze was freshening, but even it was deceptive; a hot, dry wind that plucked at their skin and clothes, but provided no relief.
In the end, Ricky spotted their salvation. “There,” he said, pointing off to the south. “I think I see a stone building?”
Ryan and J.B. both shaded their eyes. “Hard to tell...” J.B. said. “Out here everything looks like dark smudges against light smudges.”
“If it is a building, we’d best get to it,” Krysty said, glancing behind them. “A storm’s definitely coming our way.”
Ryan glanced back as well and saw a dark cloud a few miles away. “Yeah. Best move out double-quick. J.B., I’ll spell you with Doc.”
“It is not necessary...my dear Ryan....” Doc whispered. “I just need...to rest...a spell....”
“Close those lips and move those legs, Doc, and we’ll be safe and sound before you know it,” Ryan said as he draped the older man’s arm across his shoulders.
The wind was already blowing harder now, ruffling hair, kicking up dust and driving everyone forward with more urgency. As they traveled, the smudge far ahead solidified into what looked like a large, low, stone building.
“What if it’s a ruin?” J.B. asked as they went.
“Any shelter’ll work to protect us from whatever’s coming,” Ryan said, leaving the rest of his thought unspoken. Deathlands was home to all sorts of crazy weather, from chem storms to acid—real acid—rain. “It’s gaining on us,” Mildred said, casting a glance to their right. “Since we’re no longer moving ahead of it, it’s going to catch us pretty soon.”
“I can see the building now. It’s old, but still standing,” Ryan replied. “We’ve just got to get there first. Everybody keep moving.”
Somehow, they all managed to quicken their pace. Ten more minutes of trotting and walking brought the companions close enough to see the large, solid stone building in the distance, squat and immovable. And just in time, too, as the storm was almost on them. Visibility was falling rapidly, and everyone was covered in grit from the swirling wind.
“Almost there! Keep your eyes on it—don’t look away, or you’ll lose it!” Ryan shouted over the now howling wind.
“Everyone join hands!” J.B. said, grabbing Mildred’s. If someone got separated or lost, it would be nearly impossible to find the person in the dense cloud.
Staggering through the rising dust storm, the companions pushed on toward their destination. By the time they reached the building, the wind had risen to a deafening howl, and they all were shielding their faces as they fought to stand against the gale. The dust whipped up by the storm was everywhere, caking, blinding, choking.
Ryan was practically carrying Doc along when he reached the old wooden doors. Even in this deserted landscape, they were stuck or locked. “Shit! Won’t open!”
“Let me try!” Jak shouted. Ryan hauled Doc away from the entrance while Jak backed up a few steps, then ran forward. When he was a couple of yards away, he leaped into the air and drove his foot into the seam between the two doors. Ryan faintly heard a loud crack above the storm. “Again—do it again!” he said between coughs.
Now hacking himself, Jak backed up and ran at the door again. This time his kick broke the doors open, and he fell in the entryway. “C’mon!” he said, holding one of the doors open.
The rest of the group piled inside, and Jak and Ricky struggled to push the doors closed, wedging them shut with pieces of the broken crossbar Jak had smashed through.
“Looks like this might have been some kind of school back in the day,” Mildred said as they looked around.
They were standing at the end of a long hallway, with several doors on each side of it. Old gray metal lockers lined the walls between the doors. Lights that hadn’t turned on in a century hung from the ceiling, and faded papers hung on the walls, unreadable after all this time. Although it was easier to breathe here, dust could still be seen filtering in through cracks under doors.
“Let’s see if we can find someplace as far away from the dust as possible,” Ryan said after trying to bring up enough saliva to spit, but failing. “Bet there’s not a drop of water to be found in here either.”
“Doubt it,” Mildred said. “This place was probably abandoned even in my time. Small town, maybe a mining or oil community once, then the mine closed or the oil dried up, and the town dried up along with it. It happened all the time.”
“Lucky for us they didn’t tear everything down when they moved on,” J.B. said as they walked farther into the hallway. Jak tried opening one of the doors, but a gust of wind and sand blew into his face, and he quickly shut it again while pawing at his eyes.
“Damn dust—hurts like hell!”
Ryan’s concern seemed to be well founded. In the center of the building they found a larger room that looked to have been a cafeteria in another lifetime. But when he tried the taps in a large, industrial-size sink in the kitchen, they didn’t even move, frozen shut by a century of nonoperation.
“Looks like we made it here, only to die of thirst,” Mildred said.
“We’re not dead yet, and there’s still more to explore. Might find a cache no one knows about,” Ryan replied. “Let’s keep going.”
They reached the end of the corridor and found a stairway behind a wooden door with a wire-reinforced window in it. The stairway led down.
Mildred frowned. “That’s weird. I didn’t think most buildings in tornado country had storm cellars, although they sure needed them.”
“Let’s take a look.” Ryan grabbed the rusty knob and turned it, opening the door with a scrape across the dusty floor. The moment he did, he froze, except for his blaster arm, which drew his SIG Sauer in a single practiced movement.
Turning back to his friends, he saw they’d all heard what he had once the door was open.
Faint voices from below.
Chapter Eight
Ryan immediately pulled back in case there were any guards nearby. The voices continued talking, echoing down the underground passage. They sounded as if they were fairly far away.
J.B. was beside him in an instant, Mini-Uzi at the ready. “Can you make out what they’re saying?”
Ryan shook his head, his reply just as low. “Too much echo. If I had to guess, it sounds like someone arguing over something.”
He glanced at Krysty. “You got anything?”
She also shook her head. “The storm is overwhelming everything, and something about this building is blocking my ability. It’s like a dead zone in here.”
“No tracks on the way in. They must have been here awhile,” Mildred said.
“No sign vehicles outside,” Jak added. “Caught storm like us?”
“Only one way to find out.” Ryan slowly eased the stairwell door open again. “Jak, you’re on point. Throwing blades for right now—don’t need to cause an alarm if we can avoid it. I want to get the drop on whoever’s down there.”
Jak had unwrapped the T-shirt from around his head and stowed it while making a knife appear in his other hand as if by magic. “Sneak and peek—fun.” He eased through the door, as soundless as a mirage. Ryan gave him a few seconds’ lead, then followed, with J.B. a step behind him.
The concrete stairs were covered in a thick layer of dust, also with no footprints on them. “Where the nuke did they come in from?” J.B. muttered.
“Shh,” Ryan cautioned, although he’d thought the same thing. They’d already encountered burrowing bugs. The last thing he needed to see was some kind of burrowing humans living in here.
Making no noise on the steps, the companions descended to the lower level, with Jak signaling all clear every few paces. A single light shone from an open doorway at the far end of the hall. They passed a few other doors on both sides of the hallway, most hanging open, revealing empty rooms inside. As they progressed down the dark tunnel, the voices became more distinct.
“—take us to the rest of your people, that’s all I’m asking. If she don’t get help, she’s gonna die!”
“What do you expect us to do? Whatever sickness she’s got ain’t like nothing I ever seen before!”
“’Sides, it’s hard to believe you don’t mean us any harm with that blaster pointing at us.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m out of patience, and I’m through asking!”
“Look, we can’t go anywhere until the storm dies down. And she’s right, all we could do is make your friend comfortable until she passes aw—”
A low, loud, bone-chilling moan interrupted the second speaker, the sound of someone in mortal agony. It continued for several seconds, cutting off the argument inside and making Ryan’s skin crawl. He exchanged a glance with Mildred, her eyes white and wide against her dark skin, and got a shrug in return as they drew closer.
Jak stepped up to the side of the doorway now and looked at Ryan, who was already handing him a small, polished metal mirror. Jak crouched and carefully extended it past the door frame to get a look into the room. He held it there for a few seconds, angling it around while the discussion of taking the injured woman somewhere continued. Finally Jak pulled his hand back and turned to Ryan, signaling what he’d seen.
Four people inside, all on far side of the room. Hurt one lying down. Two scavvies sitting against the right wall. Man with blaster standing between them and woman.
With a clear picture of the interior and its occupants now, Ryan was ready to take them. He pointed at Jak, then at the left interior wall next to the door. Jak gave him a curt nod, but waited while Ryan detailed what the rest of their strike party was going to do. When everyone was ready, he held up his hand and counted down from three fingers...two...one.
The albino stepped through the door and took up his position on the left side, while Ryan went in and took up a position on the right side. J.B. came next, followed by Mildred and Krysty. Ricky was staying outside with a nearly unconscious Doc.
“Nobody move, and nobody has to die,” Ryan said, the muzzle of his blaster dead center on the standing man, who turned his head to look at the newcomers in shock. They stood amid several empty freestanding shelves lining the walls, indicating this had once been a storeroom.
It was the break one of the raggedly dressed people sitting against the wall had been waiting for. He launched himself at the man, barreling into him and sending him staggering across the room. The blaster flew from the man’s hand, skittering across the floor to stop in front of J.B., who stooped and picked it up without taking his eyes off the two struggling, cursing figures.
“Fireblast!” Ryan said, striding forward. The scavvie crouched on top of the other man, who was dressed in a relatively clean light blue jumpsuit, and pummeled him with wild, flying fists. The former hostage taker was doing his best to protect his head and face, but his assailant was so pissed that only one out of every three blows was landing.
“All right, enough of that!” Grabbing the one on top by the back of his ragtag jacket, Ryan hauled the short wiry guy, arms still flailing, off the downed man. When the guy tried turning to punch Ryan, he simply lifted him off the floor and held him in midair.
“What’re you— Let me go! You gotta kill him before they kill all of us!” the captive yelled in a high-pitched voice. He was dressed in a patchwork combination of what other people would have called rags, but on closer examination, Ryan saw they were stitched with care and fit the guy’s small frame well. His pants were a mix of canvas, blue denim and leather, and his shoes were worn construction boots that had been repurposed with what looked like rubber patches on the toe and heels. Ryan turned him around to see his face, revealing short-cropped, dirty blond hair framing a definitely female face now twisted into a combination of rage and fear.
“Look, just calm down, all right? He’s unarmed now, and it doesn’t look like you’re in any real danger.”
“You don’t understand!” she cried. “They’ll—”
Another loud groan interrupted her, and everyone glanced over to see another person lying on the floor, a jacket fashioned into a crude pillow under her head. The woman was dressed in the same kind of jumpsuit as the man, except her abdomen was grossly distended, making the fabric bulge out.
“Just relax, Sammee,” the man on the floor said through swelling lips. “Please, help her if you can. That’s all I ask.... I’ll do whatever you want, just help her.”
“You best do what Tully said, kill both of them quick before they come for all of us,” the second person sitting against the wall, a lanky black-haired man, said.
“I’m not taking orders from any of you right now,” Ryan said. “J.B., Jak, watch these three. Mildred, check her out.”
“It’s all right, I’m a healer,” Mildred said as she crossed the room and knelt by the sweating, ashen-faced woman holding her bloated stomach with both hands. “Do you know how long you’ve been pregnant?”
The woman shook her head, but broke in as Mildred began asking another question. “Not...pregnant. It’s...dying.”
Mildred’s brow furrowed. “It? What’s it?”
Sammee opened her mouth as if to answer, but instead let out a high-pitched scream at the top of her lungs. Mildred placed a hand on her stomach, then drew back. “It’s distended and hard...and, oh, my God.”
As Ryan and everyone else watched, something stretched out the woman’s skin from the inside, creating a small bump as if poking at her, then retreated.
“Do you have a parasite living inside you?” Mildred asked as she pulled out her small medical kit. “Do you know how long it’s been there? Or how you contracted it?”
Sammee shook her head. “Dunno—just know it’s killin’ me—” Her words turned into another scream of pure pain.
“I’m going to try to cut it out of her!” Mildred selected a scalpel and positioned it at the top of her stomach. But the moment the blade touched the woman’s skin, she jackknifed forward, tendons in her neck popping as she strained against something inside her, mouth open in a silent scream, then fell back onto the floor, motionless, her wide eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
Mildred checked her pulse at both the wrist and carotid artery. “She’s dead. I’m sorry.”
“No! No! No! No!” The other man crawled over to his dead woman and cradled her in his arms. “We were leaving, gonna make a new life...” He looked at the ceiling and screamed, “We were going! We would have left you alone! Why couldn’t you just leave us alone?” Mildred was already preparing a small tranquilizer shot, one of the precious few she had, and stabbed it into the man’s arm as his screams faded into loud sobs. The man didn’t notice, just cried until the drug took effect, and he slumped over into unconsciousness. When he was out, Mildred closed Sammee’s eyes, removed the jacket from under her head and covered her with it.
For a moment, no one moved. Then Ryan spoke. “What the hell’s going on here?”
“Let me down and I’ll tell ya.” With both of the jumpsuited people out of commission, the blonde fist fighter had calmed down a bit.
“All right—just remember who has all the blasters.” When she nodded, Ryan carefully lowered her to the floor.
Tully straightened her clothes and walked back to her partner before saying anything. “You know I’m Tully, and this here’s Latham.” She nodded at her bearded companion. “We’re part of a group heading west. We come from south of the Lachan Mountains, but over the past few years the barons over there have been gettin’ more and more greedy, putting folks off their land, and killin’ them that don’t go peaceful. When we had enough, we headed west. Heard of plenty of good land out there, with few people to bother us. We’re just lookin’ to settle down somewhere and farm and live without any trouble.”