David Robbins - The Fox Run

“The bright side! What bright side?” she demanded skeptically, brushing her blonde bangs from her eyes with her left hand.

“When I return,” Blade said, smiling, his eyes conveying the warmth of his tender affection, “I intend to ask a certain lovely lady to bind to me, to become my eternal mate. If she’ll have me,” he amended hastily.

Jenny’s eyes widened and brightened. She gripped his arms. “Do you mean it, really and truly?” she asked excitedly.

“Really and truly,” he affirmed. “Truly and really.”

“Oh, Blade!” She laughed and clung to him, trembling.

“Are you okay?” he asked, overjoyed he had managed to cheer her up.

“Couldn’t be better!” Jenny grinned and kissed him, hard, on the lips.

“To marry, to be man and wife! I can hardly wait!”

“You mean you still want me, after learning about all of my quirks?”

“Silly. Your quirks are your more loveable aspects. Oh, darling!”

They embraced in a long, lingering kiss. Blade felt the pressure of her full breasts against his chest, and his manhood, aroused, strained against her.

“Mmmm. Nice. I hope you know that tonight you are all mine,” Jenny stated.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he agreed. “But right now I’d better join Geronimo and Hickok and assist them in stocking our supplies for the trip.”

“I’ll walk with you to F Block.” she remarked.

Blade picked up his weapons, one at a time, strapping the knives to his body as he’d planned. The Commando was equipped with a brown leather shoulder strap, and he slung the automatic over his right shoulder.

Jenny watched him, apprehensively.

Blade took her proffered hand and they walked from A Block and headed in a northeasterly direction, toward F Block.

“You’re armed to the teeth, aren’t you?” she casually asked.

“Eleven weapons, in all,” he answered. “If they get me, it won’t be without a fight.” Instantly, he noted her eyes watering, and he regretted making the stupid statement.

“What all are you taking?” she kept the conversation going, her voice level.

“The Commando.” He touched the carbine. “Two Vega automatics, one under each arm. My Bowies, of course. The three throwing knives on my back, a dagger on my right leg and another on my left arm, and a Buck knife in one of my pockets.”

“You sure that’s enough?”

He looked at her, thinking she was joking, but she was quite serious. “I think it’s enough.”

Jenny became silent, thoughtful, and they continued walking, covering half the distance to F Block, nearing a small stand of oak trees to their right. Blade glanced at the growth and was surprised to note someone sitting at the base of one of the trees, leaning with his back against the trunk.

“Isn’t that Joshua?” Jenny saw him too.

Blade realized it was. Joshua was sitting in the lotus position, his eyes closed, apparently meditating.

“I don’t think we should disturb him,” Jenny said.

“I agree.”

They were abreast of the trees now, and Blade’s attention was arrested by movement in the tree above Joshua.

“Did you see that?” he asked.

“What?”

Something small, with reddish brown fur, was moving along a limb directly over Joshua’s head.

“I see it,” Jenny declared. “Looks like a squirrel.”

Blade thought so too, but he was bothered by the movement. If it was a squirrel, the motions it was making were erratic, different from normal.

Was his imagination playing tricks on him, or was there some unusual element about this animal? Squirrels and other small game were not uncommon in the Home. They couldn’t pose any threat unless they became rabid or…

The squirrel paused on the end of one branch, exposed, the sun revealing the reason it was moving oddly.

Blade heard Jenny’s sudden intake of breath as he reached for the Vegas in a cross draw, thanking the Spirit he had left his shirt in A Block, that there was no chance the guns could snag on any fabric.

“Joshua!” Jenny screamed in warning, and Joshua’s eyes opened.

Blade was running, closing the range. He wasn’t Hickok. He needed to be sure. “Move!” he shouted.

“Roll to your right, now!”

Joshua obeyed immediately, the roll saving his life.

The squirrel chattered and launched itself from the limb, narrowly missing Joshua’s leg. It landed agilely on the grass and whirled, facing Joshua.

Joshua saw the menace and he braced for the next attack.

Blade couldn’t wait any longer. He raised the right Vega and fired three times, trying to aim as he ran.

The shots missed.

The squirrel, distracted by a spray of dirt from one of the bullets, spun, spotted Blade, and charged.

Blade tried three shots from the left Vega. The small red squirrel, a male only eleven inches in length, could cover the ground at tremendous speed.

One of the shots nicked it on the right side and it twisted, but didn’t slow, pus spraying into the air.

“Blade!” Jenny yelled.

Frustrated by his lack of marksmanship, Blade tossed the Vegas to one side and drew his right-hand Bowie.

The red came in low and fast, fearless, intent on biting and rending.

Blade crouched, knowing he had one chance, realizing the rodent would be on him if he missed.

The red was four feet from Blade when it sprang, launching its body at his midsection.

Blade swung, the Bowie arcing, the blade connecting, catching the red at the neck, slicing off the deformed head.

“You got it!” Jenny exclaimed.

Blade watched the headless body flop on the grass, blood and pus forming a pool around it. He repressed an urge to continue hacking the body, to chop it into tiny little pieces. How he hated the mutates!!! Every damn one of them had to be exterminated! After all, one of them had killed his father.

“What’s going on, pard?”

Hickok and Geronimo ran up, guns at the ready. Joshua joined the group.

“Blade got a mutate,” Jenny explained proudly.

They saw it. Geronimo knelt and carefully, visually, inspected the body and the head.

“A squirrel!” Hickok stated in sheer disgust. “There’s no telling what shape and size these things come in. Remember that time a mutated frog hopped up from the moat and attacked some of the Family? A frog!

Mutates can be anything.”

“I’ve never seen a mutated insect or bird,” Geronimo observed. “Only animals and reptiles and amphibians.”

“That must be important,” Jenny stressed.

Joshua placed his right hand on Blade’s shoulder. “Thank you, my brother, for the rescue. I am not yet ready for the trip to the other side.”

Blade was glaring at the remains of the mutate.

“Are you all right?” Joshua asked.

Blade grimly nodded.

“I see you bagged the critter with your Bowie.” Hickok grinned. “Didn’t you hear shots? Ten or twenty?”

“Blade fired six times,” Jenny detailed.

“And missed?” Hickok asked, feigning amazement. “Maybe, instead of the Vegas, you should take a flame thrower.” He paused, snapped his finger, and playfully poked Blade in the side. “Too bad the Family doesn’t own a flame thrower, isn’t it? Then you’d really be cookin’!”

Despite his revulsion and resentment at the mutate, Blade allowed himself to relax.

“Better yet,” Hickok quipped, “a tank! That way, if you missed with the cannon, you could still run it over and crush it to a pulp.”

“Will you lay off him?” Geronimo stood. “He creased the thing once. A squirrel isn’t the easiest of targets, not even for you.”

“I’ll lay off when he gives me some sign he’s still the same adorable hombre we’ve come to know and appreciate as loco.”