Marcus Pelegrimas - The Breaking

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 knees. “Stop bitching.”

No matter how much she wanted to, Paige couldn’t argue with that logic. Once her pistols were reloaded, she holstered the Beretta so she could grab the sickle she’d kept trapped beneath her foot. She braced herself to keep from sliding across the bed as the pickup took a hard right onto Route 3. The sudden swerve caused the Half Breeds climbing Milosh’s side of the truck to either drop off or fall into the bed. Paige shouted for him to drop, and he tucked himself into a fetal ball as she leaned forward to sweep the curved blade in a deadly arc. Even though she’d managed to log some impressive hours with the machete, the shape and balance of the weapon was finally restored to its former glory. The sickle blade sliced across the eyes of one Half Breed and dug a deep trench across the chest of another. As those two yelped and recoiled, a third pulled itself forward until all four paws were in the bed of the truck.

Paige swung the sickle until her arm was bent across her face. Gritting her teeth, she sent the curved blade on a return path that drove its tip into the Half Breed’s shoulder. The edge that had been treated with fragments of the Blood Blade allowed the weapon to burrow several inches down, and the thorns in its handle kept the weapon in her grasp as the creature tried to attack Milosh. Its claws flailed wildly, scraping the Amriany’s shoulders and back to tear away layers of clothing before reaching his battered tactical vest. The wounds Milosh sustained were ugly, but nothing that the healing serums in his system couldn’t handle. Paige grabbed her weapon with both hands and leaned back. pulling at the Half Breed. The creature snapped its mouth shut within an inch of its meal before a charmed dagger punctured its forehead and scraped against the sickle blade within its skull. Milosh swore at it, twisted his dagger and then pulled it out.

“Al!” Paige shouted. “See if you can shake these things off. They’re scratching your paint job!”

She wasn’t sure which part of her warning ticked Al off the most: mortal danger to his partners or the damage to his truck. He shouted a string of obscenities while sending the pickup into a lurching series of turns that brought them careening up South Dunbar, around a tight corner, down Lincoln Street, and back onto Route 3. Since she and Milosh were already laying flat inside the truck bed, they were able to stay there while the Half Breeds were forced to struggle just to maintain their grip. Even with claws that could dig through metal, most of them were tossed to the street. The few creatures that tried to run in front of the truck were turned into living speed bumps that jostled Paige and Milosh even more.