David Robbins - New York Run

The mutant was 15 feet below the landing, its claws clinging to the sheer walls, finding purchase where any other animal would slip to its doom.

Blade squeezed the trigger, the Dakon II recoiling into his shoulder.

The creature rocked as its forehead exploded, spraying the wall with black flesh, a pale yellowish muck oozing from the cavity, but it kept coming, climbing higher.

The mutant was only ten feet from the landing now.

Blade frowned, perturbed. He’d gone for the head, for the brain, hoping to dispatch the thing with a minimum of fuss. His shots should have struck the brain, killing it.

If it had a brain.

He aimed again and fired.

The creature shrieked as its squat neck was hit, its jaws twitching.

But it kept coming.

Seven feet now.

Blade rose and pressed the trigger, sweeping the Dakon in an arc.

The fragmentation bullets stitched a straight line across the mutant’s segmented body, geysers of flesh and pulpy gore raining on the wall.

But it kept coming.

And there wasn’t time for another broadside.

Blade retreated toward the stairs, watching the landing edge for the first sign of the mutant. There was a loud scraping noise in his amplified right earphone, emanating from underneath the landing.

Directly underneath.

Blade paused. But that would mean the thing was crawling under the landing to the other side, using the landing as a shield from the Dakon.

That would mean he was being outflanked!

Blade spun, finding his deduction was accurate.

The mutant had passed under the landing and climbed up the railing behind its prey. It was perched on the railing, its head swaying as it examined its next meal.

Blade raised the Dakon.

Snarling, the creature flowed over the top rail, its head and first two segments reaching the landing in a blurred streak. It reared on its lower segments, then pounced like a bird taking a fish, its serrated jaws spearing down and in.

Blade was caught before he could react. He felt something strike both sides of the helmet, and the mutant’s first pair of legs reached up, its claws digging into his broad shoulders.

It had him!

Blade rammed the Dakon barrel into the creature’s exposed abdomen and blasted away.

The mutant wrenched its iron jaws upward, tearing the strapless helmet from the Warrior’s head. It screeched as its jaws closed, crushing the helmet as effortlessly as a man would break an eggshell. Enraged by the agony in its belly, it flung its prey across the landing and into the opposite railing.

Blade’s left side bore the brunt of the impact, and he doubled over as an excruciating spasm lanced his chest. The Dakon II dropped from his benumbed fingers, and he fell to his knees, gasping for air. He saw the creature climb the rest of the way over the railing.

The mutant’s ghastly head and the first two segments of its hideous body rose from the floor, like a snake about to strike. It silently rocked from side to side, its jaws slowly opening and closing, opening and closing.

The squashed helmet was on the landing to its left.

If only he had his Bowies! He could dive under the monster and slash its guts out with a few swift swipes. But he didn’t have them, and Blade sensed he might never see them again if he didn’t come up with something fast. What he needed the most was a diversion, a distraction.

And he got it.

A loud war whoop from the stairs above caused the creature to bend its neck straight up as it searched for the source of the cry.

Geronimo was between landings, leaning over the railing. He aimed at the four green eyes and fired, sweeping the Dakon from side to side.

The mutant howled and thrashed, its head tilted, attempting to avoid the rain of lead. It suddenly bellowed and turned, its front sections climbing into the railing as it started up after this new pest.

Blade saw his chance. He rose, the Dakon II in his left hand, and ran toward the creature, grabbing the pulverized helmet as he did.

The monster’s head and first section stretched toward Geronimo, momentarily suspended in midair.

Blade pointed the Dakon at the mutant’s jaw below the head and squeezed the trigger.

The creature’s throat erupted in a shower of black flesh and pale ooze, and it whipped its head down, jaws wide, primed to rip its quarry to shreds.

Blade swung the ruined helmet around and up, driving it into the thing’s mouth, into its fangs, and as the mutant instinctively snapped its jaws shut, he released the helmet and stepped back, lowering the Dakon and firing at the mutant’s body segments, at the top of its legs, at the joints, where the legs were attached to the individual segments, and the fragmentation bullets did as he wanted, rupturing the limbs, bursting the joints, blowing four of the creature’s legs from its body.

With only four sets of claws still gripping the railing, the thing started to slip, loosing its balance, lurching precariously on the brink of the precipice.

Blade decided to help it along. He ran up to the mutant, reversing his hold on the Dakon II, gripping it by the barrel, and as the creature struggled to right itself, its grotesque head swinging down to the landing as its pair of front legs clawed for a purchase, he whipped the rifle like a club, slamming the stock into the monster’s face.

The thing snarled and swiped its jaws at the Warrior’s head.

Blade ducked and came up swinging, the butt end of the gun digging into the mutant’s left eyes.

Furious, the creature lunged at its foe.

Blade dodged, then rammed the Dakon’s barrel into the mutant’s eyes, shifted his hands, and squeezed the trigger.

The thing was staggered. It reared up, in extreme torment, forgetting four of its legs were gone.

Blade closed in, firing, the fragmentation bullets exploding two more limbs from the hideous segments.

Incensed beyond measure, the mutant tried to turn and crush its adversary. The motion was more than its remaining legs could tolerate. It lost its footing and pitched over the railing, uttering a shrill scream as it plummeted into the inky gloom below.

Blade grasped the railing and leaned forward, listening, waiting for the creature to hit bottom. Or would it? Maybe the monster would arrest its fall by catching hold of a jutting pipe or beam. Maybe it would attack him again before he could reach the surface! He held his breath, tuned to his right ear amplifier.

The mutant’s scream decreased in volume as it dropped, and its death cry was punctuated by a dull thud coming from the very bottom of the shaft. Then all was quiet.

Blade waited with baited breath, straining to detect a noise, to learn if the creature was going to renew its assault.

“Are you coming, or are you admiring the view?”

Blade glanced up at Geronimo. “On my way,” he said, and ran up the stairs.

“Let’s get out of here!” Geronimo stated as Blade rejoined him.

“You get no argument from me,” Blade said.

Side by side, the Warriors hurriedly ascended the shaft to the tunnel entrance. They stopped on the rim and glanced down.

“What are we going to do about these canisters containing the mind-control gas?” Geronimo asked. “If we leave them there, the Technics will eventually find a way of retrieving them.”

“I know,” Blade said thoughtfully. “We can’t let that happen.”

“So what do we do?”

Blade studied the abandoned jeeps and trucks. “You check the jeeps. I’ll check the trucks.”

“What am I looking for?” Geronimo inquired.

“See if they have any gas left in them,” Blade said.

“And look for spare gas cans or anything else we can use.”

A quick search confirmed a minimum of half a tank of gas in each vehicle, and they discovered four spare gas cans in one of the trucks.