Deathlands 124: Child of Slaughter (13 page)

The De Lisle had a round in the chamber, and Ricky could shoot it just fine on the run, but bullets bounced off that beast with no effect. Whatever its weak spot, Ricky wouldn’t have nearly enough ammo or time to find it.

He cut a sharp right around a steep hill, and the monster swerved to follow him. Ricky had tried the same thing enough times to know he couldn’t lose the beast with that trick.

But there was one maneuver he hadn’t tried yet.

Heart and feet and arms still hammering, Ricky swung an even sharper right and bolted up the hill. He gave it all the juice he had left, launching himself as far as he could up the sandy slope.

He heard the hippo-porcupine roar behind him, felt the thudding of its hooves on the base of the hill, and then heard another roar. This one came from the same low altitude as the first, and Ricky knew why.

Stopping at the halfway point, he turned and saw the creature still at the bottom, pawing at the sand. The angle of the hillside was just too steep for the hippo-porcupine to climb.

Looking down from the safety of the heights, Ricky considered various possible weak points on the animal’s body and settled on the eyes. Sitting back, he braced himself on the sand and sighted the carbine, fighting to keep a lock on the creature’s left eye while it roared and thrashed its head.

He timed the shot just right. When he squeezed the trigger, the round slid right into the hippo-porcupine’s eye socket.

The creature wailed and toppled over on its right side, making the ground shake a little when it hit. Ricky took a moment to catch his breath and wipe the sweat off his forehead.

Then he started looking around for someone to help.

* * *

W
HEN THE SEVEN-FOOT-TALL
armored tarantula lunged to face Ryan, he darted around to its backside yet again, staying out of range of the beast’s front-mounted acid jets.

Ryan knew he’d only bought himself another couple of seconds, but he was determined to put them to use. Armor plated and acid spewing the creature might be, but Ryan had an idea of how it might be vulnerable in a way he could exploit.

Taking a deep breath, he got ready, then sprinted around to one of the armored tarantula’s front legs. “Hey!” he shouted for attention, and banged on the leg’s plating with the butt of the Steyr Scout. “Hey, stupid!”

In response, the creature’s black-furred head rotated down to pin him in its unblinking, many-eyed gaze.

Ryan watched for the familiar twitching of the fangs that always signaled a release of acid. “Yeah! I’m talking to you!”

The beast twisted its head back a little farther and made a sound like a belch crossed with a sneeze. Ryan tensed, ready to explode from the spot at any second.

Then he saw the fangs twitch, and he knew what was coming. He lingered half a heartbeat more, then bolted away in the nick of time, just as the acid spray shot out of the creature’s maw.

The acid splashed over the tarantula’s armored leg, bathing the lower knee thoroughly. Ryan, watching from behind the creature’s enormous body, held his breath. He’d known from the start that his plan might be faulty; it made sense that the monster’s armor would be resistant to its own acid.

As the acid ran down the leg, the metallic plating sizzled and smoked. The acid was burning its way through to whatever vulnerable parts were within.

Clenching his teeth, Ryan darted to his next objective—the front leg on the other side. “Hey! Hey, dummy!” Again, he banged on the armor with the butt of his rifle.

And again, the tarantuladillo craned its dark face around to look his way. This time, the noise it made was a loud buzzing interspersed with guttural clicks. Whatever it meant, Ryan didn’t give a damn.

But when its fangs twitched, all his attention zeroed in on them. Every muscle in his body coiled, ready to spring, and he waited just a second more.

Then he sprung. As before, he bolted away just in time, as the beast’s powerful acid washed over its armor-plated leg. He heard the metallic material hissing as the powerful spray ate it away, exposing the once-protected parts underneath.

His face etched with grim determination, Ryan ran around the great beast to the first front leg, which had been cooking just long enough in its acid bath. Swinging up the Steyr Scout, he pumped three rounds into the heart of the damage in quick succession.

Then, as he back stepped, the knee buckled with a loud crunch like a toppling tree. The tarantuladillo thumped
down hard on that side, cracking another two legs in the process.

Ryan raced around behind it to the front leg on the other side and repeated the process. The Steyr Scout blasted three rounds dead in the middle of the sizzling hole in the creature’s armor.

After which, that side of the beast crumpled, too. It now sprawled flat on the wet sand, alternately mewling and screeching as its own acid continued to eat away at it.

That was when Ryan walked up onto its back as if he was stepping onto a stone. He jammed the longblaster’s barrel against the top of the beast’s head and cranked the trigger.

The round he fired blew a hole straight through the tarantuladillo’s skull, ejecting its sizzling, acid-soaked innards onto the sand below.

“Damn spider.” Ryan hopped off the creature’s back and immediately scanned the area for whoever needed his help the most.

Quickly choosing his next target, he raced off through the rain, reloading the Steyr Scout along the way.

* * *

T
HE THORNY GREEN
tendrils gave Mildred another tug, bringing her to within four feet of the amoeba-like blob. One more pull and she’d be hoisted into its slavering maw, ready to be devoured.

It was time to make her move, the only move she could think of. Unarmed, with her ankles bound by tough tendrils, her options were narrowed down to one. The only alternative she could imagine was death.

So in the brief interval before the next tug, she gathered her strength as best she could, drew in a deep, bracing breath and got ready. There was just enough slack in the tendrils for her to dig her heels into the wet sand. She
pushed herself down so her knees were bent, and all her weight was focused on the foothold she’d dug.

Here goes nothing, she thought.

When the tendrils jolted her forward again, Mildred used the foothold as a pivot point and let the force of the jolt slingshot her up and over. Instead of being dragged into the blob’s maw, she shot to one side of it and came down hard on the big green pod that controlled the tendrils.

The pod made a kind of whistling sound, like a deflating balloon, and compressed under her weight. At the same time, the tendrils relaxed their grip on her ankles.

Mildred kicked her legs free and scrambled off the pod just as it puffed back up to its former size. Its tendrils thrashed wildly, writhing around in an effort to regain their grip on Mildred.

But she was already bolting across the sand, going after her ZKR 551 revolver.

Mildred could hear the tendrils slithering after her as she ran, close behind. She could swear she felt the tips of them tickling the backs of her legs, just about to make a grab.

She dived for the weapon, then rolled and came up with it in her hands. She opened fire on the tendrils, blasting them back though they were still too tough to blow apart.

Then, after a few more rounds, she leaped up and ran, hoping the tendrils weren’t infinitely expandable.

They weren’t. Mildred sprinted another thirty yards before they finally stretched to their limit. They flopped on the ground then, pulled taut and quivering after Mildred as if they thought they might still be able to reach her.

At last, Mildred was able to stop running and catch her breath. She slumped forward, panting and sweating, with her hands on her knees.

But she didn’t stay that way for long. Moments later, she straightened and looked around for any of her friends in need of help.

* * *

J
AK STOOD, PANTING
, his arms painted in blood up to the elbows. Moments ago, he’d wondered if there was a limit to how much damage the see-through lion’s body could repair on its own. If Jak kept hacking it up, would the animal continue to regrow and replace whatever was hurt or missing?

He finally had his answer, and he didn’t like it one bit. He’d stabbed and slashed his way through the beast as if there was no tomorrow, butchering it between dodging snaps of its jaws and swipes of its giant paws. There was hardly an inch he hadn’t cut with his blade, often plunging it in up to the hilt and twisting with a vengeance, yet…

Yet the lion was still alive and baring its teeth, glaring at him with its glittering dark eyes.

“Hey, kitty.” Jak stood six feet back from the big cat but was ready to run at the first sign of pouncing. “Thought supposed have nine lives only.”

The lion roared in reply and licked its muzzle, the same muzzle Jak had slashed to ribbons two minutes ago.

Jak shook his head. “Starting bore me.” He slid the knife into its sheath at his hip and reached for the .357 Colt Python holstered beside it. “Been fun, but fun wearing off.”

As the lion roared again, Jak swung up the Python and cocked it in one smooth motion. Squinting, he drew a bead on the middle of the creature’s forehead and squeezed the trigger.

In that same instant, the see-through lion lunged to one side, so the round caught him in his left shoulder instead of his forehead. The impact blew apart flesh and bone, blasting them in all directions.

With a strangled cry, the lion flew back to the ground, hitting like a sack of cement. It lay there, thrashing and
groaning, as Jak approached with the handblaster held out before him.

“Still not give up?” As Jak watched, the obliterated shoulder writhed, transparent shredded tissue kneading and reforming into new muscle and tendons. “Survivor like me. Kindred spirit.” He raised the .357. “Guess already know who walks away.”

The lion mustered a final roar and scrambled to try to regain its feet, then crashed back down. Its body was fixing itself, but not fast enough to save its life.

Unless, of course, a bullet wouldn’t be enough to kill it permanently. Jak knew it was a possibility, but what else could he do?

Pulling the trigger, he blasted a round into the animal’s head, blowing it to pieces. Then he kept firing rounds into other critical parts, exploding the chest and abdomen with shot after shot.

He stopped only when he ran out of ammo. That was when he took a closer look and realized the lion was still trying to resurrect itself. The little bits of it were twitching and pulsing on the sand, some squirming together and merging into larger pieces.

Jak thought of kicking the lion’s remains as far apart as he could get them, then changed his mind. “If manage to rise from dead after that,” he said, “deserve second chance.”

* * *

A
S THE PIRANHA-WASPS
closed in from all around her, Krysty leaped into action. Surging with the power of Gaia, she spun and swept her fist in a circle, smashing away a swath of the creatures with one swipe.

With the accelerated movement and heightened reflexes that came with the power, Krysty flashed this way and that, swatting aside bugs. But even as the ones she struck careened through the air, spinning like meteors to crash
down on the wet sand, others jammed their stingers into her flesh.

Blazing-hot bolts of venom shot into her, sizzling through her veins like napalm. Even as Gaia let her fight past it, pushing it back to the depths of her awareness, she knew a world of pain awaited her when the power faded. She just had to hope there wasn’t enough poison in those shots to take her life, or the battle she now fought would all be for nothing.

When a cluster of the vicious fish-bugs went for her face, she clubbed it out of the way with the butt of the Glock. Then she pistol-whipped more of the things on her arms and legs and sides. It was better to leave bruises from the blaster’s butt than take more hits of venom from the creatures’ stingers.

Speaking of which, though she wasn’t feeling much pain in her Gaia-empowered state, she had a sudden realization that she couldn’t take much more venom. A deep sickness was building in her gut and nerves and brain, and something told her she was nearing her limit.

Krysty marshaled all her strength and speed and cut loose in a graceful, brutal frenzy. She batted and kicked away bugs, whacked them with the blaster’s butt, then spun the weapon around and blew a clump of them into chunks and goo.

She continued that way for as long as she could, fending off the swarm until finally there were no more piranha-wasps attached to her body, driving their stingers in deep.

As soon as she stopped, she could feel the Gaia force begin to taper off. She started her descent from the peak of her powers, knowing all too well the venom-induced pain that awaited her. At least there would be no fresh injections of it; at least she had stopped the bug things from overwhelming her.

That was what she was thinking when she heard the buzzing. Turning toward it, she saw the swarm—what was left of it—hovering some thirty feet away, half its original size, but still enough to surround her.

And without Gaia’s power surging through her, Krysty knew she wouldn’t have a chance of survival.

She took a long, deep breath and tried to steady herself. Warrior that she was, she would go down fighting.

“Come and get me,” she grated. “What are you waiting for?”

As if in response to her words, the swarm started gliding toward her.

Then, suddenly, a blastershot boomed from nearby. A round blasted through the swarm, blowing several of the piranha-wasps out of formation. Another shot followed from the same direction, kicking out a few more.

Looking toward the source of the shots, Krysty saw Ricky taking aim with his Webley. He saw her looking and grinned as he pulled the trigger once more, throwing another round into the swarm.

Just then, another shot echoed from a different direction, and Krysty looked that way, too. This time, she saw Jak pointing his Colt Python at the swarm. His arms and torso were soaked with blood, but he otherwise looked to be unharmed from whatever threat he’d been confronting.