James Axler - Hive Invasion

Nods and murmurs of agreement met his announcement. “A capital idea, my dear Ryan, but where are you suggesting that we go?” Doc asked. “Surely not back to the redoubt.”

The redoubt that had brought them here had been cracked open and looted long ago, and their arrival had destroyed its mat-trans unit, as well. Since then, they’d been traveling the dusty plains, with this valley their only encounter with living creatures in the past three days.

Ryan shook his head. “That’s a dead end. The important thing is for us to get out of this valley and see where we are, then we can figure out where to go. But that’ll mean moving as fast as we can, and with ammo low, we’re going to have to be careful how we take care of problems like those bugs, which J.B. and I imagine are going to come after us.”

As Ryan spoke, he looked around at the others, seeing exhaustion and pain on everyone’s face, even Jak’s and J.B.’s. Although part of him wanted to set out right then and there, he knew pushing everyone now would only result in more mistakes later on.

“I figure we should rest for a few hours, then head out at dusk,” he continued. “If we travel through the night, we should be free of this place by sunrise. Anyone got any questions or anything else to add?”

Jak spit to the side. “Wonder if bug parts okay eat.”

“Only one way to find out,” J.B. said.

“But how are you going to cook them?” Ricky asked. “I mean, you’re not going to eat it raw, are you?”

Jak shrugged as he walked over to the limbless torso of a bug that had died on the ledge. “Eat worse before.” He cracked the thorax, sliced off a piece of the translucent, jellied inside and touched his tongue to it, then spit it out. “Tastes like putrid mutie shit!”

“And you would know that how, Jak?” Mildred asked with a smile.

The weak joke took the edge off the grim mood, and Doc was the first to snort laughter at Mildred’s question. Soon everyone was chuckling at the albino, who flipped all of them off with both hands and a narrow grin.

“All right, let’s get some rest,” Ryan said. “I’ll stand guard for the first hour, then Krysty, then J.B., then Jak. If anyone sees anything, hears anything—bugs, whatever—get everyone up. We move out in four hours.”

Chapter Six

Ryan brought his panga down, pulping another of the everlasting horde of burrow-bug’s heads with the heavy blade. He whirled, searching for another enemy to kill, but saw none. He was alone, surrounded by hacked and broken insect bodies.

He took a moment to suck cool night air into his starving lungs while checking himself for injury. Blood streamed from several small cuts on his hands, arms and chest, oozing through his torn and ragged T-shirt. Every muscle ached; other than perhaps an hour’s rest all told, he’d been running and fighting almost nonstop for the past eight.

He glanced up at the stars but saw no glimmer of sunlight to the east. Not that it mattered—all daylight meant was that it was a bit easier to chill the rad-blasted muties. But just like back at the plateau, for every one he’d killed, two more took its place.

Although Ryan possessed a never-say-die mentality that had served him well through countless encounters with adversity, for the first time in a long time, he was starting to wonder whether he and his companions were going to make it out of this valley of death alive.

They’d eaten a few bites of tough, salty beef jerky—the last of their food—and barely gotten a couple of hours of rest when J.B. had woken everyone, saying he’d heard movement from the holes below. With Jak in the lead, throwing blade in hand, they headed higher into the rocky hills, hoping to lose the burrowing monsters before heading out to escape the valley.

Their attempt had been doomed almost from the beginning. With eight legs, the burrow-bugs were well suited to continue their pursuit, their claws clacking on the rocks as they swarmed up after the group. Ryan was hoping their head start would have been enough to discourage pursuit, but Doc was slowing everyone. It also didn’t help that the mutie insects were single-mindedly unstoppable in their quest to kill the intruders.

Traveling through the darkness had turned into a nightmare of running and gunning, trying to cross the broken terrain while constantly keeping an eye out for burrow-bug pursuers behind them and pit ambushes ahead of them. When every step could be the last, it made people hesitant and jumpy. As a result, they were making piss-poor time out of the valley, but it couldn’t be helped.

Ryan had issued a no-blasters rule unless there was no other choice, but that edict had been discarded in the face of the odds against them, although to everyone’s credit, they tried to conserve their ammo whenever possible. But every so often a bug got too close while someone was fighting another one or two and had to be dispatched with a single shot.

After four hours of a grueling pace, interspersed with several skirmishes, Ryan had called a five-minute break so they could catch their breath. Doc hadn’t sat as much as fallen down, his expression nobly stoic, despite the pain he had to be suffering. Leaning heavily on his swordstick, he had staggered through the past hour of travel, and more than once Ryan had thought he was going to have to carry the old man. But Doc hadn’t made a sound or said a word about how he felt, just kept up with them as best as he could. But at this point, Ryan wasn’t sure how much the old man had left in him.

Ricky and Krysty had also broken out the water bottles only to find more bad news—they were practically empty.

“This trip is getting better and better,” Ricky said with a grimace.

* * *

“ONE MOUTHFUL EACH. We’ll find more when we’re out of here.”

Ryan walked over to Mildred and kept his voice low. “You got anything that’ll keep Doc moving for another couple of hours?”

“You read my mind.” She glanced at the tall, thin man, who was drawing his frock coat around him to keep warm in the chilly night air. “He’s a stubborn old coot, I’ll give him that. But he’s also on the edge of exhaustion.” She reviewed her small stash of medicine supplies. “I’ve got a couple of amphetamines that’ll keep him going for a few more hours, but when he crashes, it’ll be hard.”

“As long as it gets him and us out of here, he can sleep for a week afterward, as far as I’m concerned,” Ryan replied. “Try to get him to take it now. When we move out, I’ll hang back and create a diversion to give you all more time to get out.”

“Not to be telling you what to do, Ryan, but you have to be as beat as the rest of us.” Mildred held out one of the small capsules. “Take this. Use it only if you think you’ll need it. It’ll get you through.”

Ryan tucked the pill into his pocket. “Thanks, Mildred. Get Doc taken care of, okay?”

As she headed over to the old man, Ryan went to J.B. and filled him in on the plan. The Armorer’s only reaction was to raise one eyebrow. “If you think it’s best, Ryan, I’m not going to argue. Just make sure you get back to us on one piece, okay?”

Ryan’s answering grin was grim. “Trust me, I’d rather not, but if we all stop to fight them, we risk getting surrounded again. Don’t worry about me. I’m not planning on catching that last train west just yet. We’re almost out of the valley. Just make sure everyone keeps moving, and I’ll catch up with you as soon as I can.”

“See you out there.” J.B. went over to make sure everyone else was ready to move. Ryan went with him.

“How you feeling, Doc?” he asked, checking his face with a small light he carried.

The old man stared back at him with bright eyes. He was breathing a bit faster and had two spots of color high on his cheeks. “Upon my word, Ryan, I am markedly improved from just a few minutes ago. Even my foot does not hurt nearly as much as it had been. That antibiotic Mildred gave me seems to have done the trick.”