James Axler - Cannibal Moon

The albino youth ducked through the roiling dust and skidded down into the wide mouth of the culvert. It was the only hard cover close enough for them to reach. Krysty, J.B. and Mildred disappeared inside after him. Ryan followed, striding into the knee-deep, standing water. Doc and the cannie made it safely, as well, although Junior tripped and slid headfirst into the stagnant slop. Doc grabbed him by the collar and jerked him back up, dripping. The bath might have done Junior some good had the surface not been topped with a dense mat of bright green scum and floating human bones.

The clamor continued for a full minute as the cannie snipers poured fire onto the exposed top of the massive, corrugated steel pipe. It was ineffective in terms of penetration, but the roar of bullet impacts was deafening. They shook loose the crusted dirt from the top of the pipe; it fell on the companions’ heads and rained down into the water, making it hard to see and hard to breathe without coughing.

Then the shooting stopped.

Gradually the dust settled and the ringing in their ears faded.

“Everyone okay?” Ryan asked, looking from face to face.

There were nods all around.

“Not going to be so lucky for long,” J.B. said. “If they can keep us pinned down in here until sundown, we’re dead. Cannies can come at us unopposed from three directions.”

Krysty stared into the darkness that led under the highway. “This pipe is mebbe a hundred feet long,” she said. “Could be open at the other end, or ruptured someplace between here and there with a hole big enough for cannies to slip through.”

“Wouldn’t have to be that big,” J.B. said. “Just big enough to drop in a few grens, and we’d be their next meal.”

“Wonder why didn’t they spring this trap on us on the way down?” Mildred said.

“Trap not set,” Jak said.

“Mebbe they learned something when we slipped past them on foot the last time,” Krysty suggested.

“While it’s still light, I’ve got to do a recce up the pipe,” Ryan said. “If there’s no holes and if other end is blocked off, we might be able to hold out from here—we’ve got ourselves a ten-foot-wide shooting lane, if we mass our fire we can control the entrance and keep the bastards off us. If there’s another way in, we’re going to have to make a break for it.”

“Come, too,” Jak volunteered.

Ryan trudged ahead, sloshing through the vile water. He advanced with his handblaster drawn in case they already had company in the culvert. The deeper they went, the darker it got. The smell of death and corruption couldn’t have gotten worse. Again and again, Ryan nudged aside unseen floating objects with his knees.

After fifty feet, it began to get brighter and brighter, until he could make out a wide shaft of light piercing the gloom, illuminating a charred rib cage that bobbed in the slime.

“Bad luck,” Jak said as they looked up at the wide rent in the steel cylinder. The split ran from the top of the pipe halfway down its side. It was easily large enough for a man to slip through.

Ryan holstered his SIG-Sauer and passed Jak his longblaster, then he climbed up into the split and pulled himself out on his belly, crawling into the shadows beneath a shelf of uptilted concrete. After scanning the tree lines above them, he retreated back down the hole.

“No point in going all the way to the end of the pipe,” Ryan told Jak as he took back his Steyr. “We can’t stay the night here. Go back to the entrance. Draw some fire from the snipers so I can pinpoint their hides.”

Without a word, the albino teen turned and splashed off into the darkness.

Ryan crawled back out into the softening light. He squirmed into a comfortable prone position under the angled slab and dug in his elbows. Downrange, a wall of trees loomed in front of him. The snipers could have been hidden anywhere. He opened the rifle bolt and snicked it back an inch, making sure a round was chambered. Then he flipped up both of the scope’s lens caps. With the setting sun behind him, he wasn’t worried about a reflection off his front lens giving away his position.

Ryan didn’t sight through the scope. He needed as wide a field of view as possible to locate the targets. But he did drop the Steyr’s safety and snug its butt firmly against his shoulder. While he waited for Jak to make his move, Ryan listened to his own heartbeat and consciously relaxed, breathing deeply to slow it. He smelled the forest. Clean. Green. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Ryan stretched out the pause between heart-beats, getting the rhythm right, finding the null, the shooting space.

From far behind him came a clatter of boots as Jak jumped out of the end of the pipe.

The snipers were waiting for just such a move.

Bullets screamed over Ryan’s head, then came the flurry of sharp reports. Multiple, tightly spaced shots made the blasters easier to find against the dark curtain of trees. Ryan caught the faint orange wink of a muzzle-blast as Jak continued to draw sustained fire. The hide was a stand sixty feet up a fir tree. Ryan looked through the scope and rested its crosshairs below the erratic flash, adjusting his aimpoint for the distance and the forty-five-degree uphill shot. Then, with his cheek against the stock and his finger curled lightly around the trigger, he concentrated on his heartbeat.

Thud. Pause.

Thud. Pause.

He steadily tightened down on the trigger, taking up the slack, bringing it to breakpoint.

Thud. Pause.

Thud—

With a thunderclap roar the 7.62 mm slug sailed away.

The Steyr punched Ryan hard in the shoulder. Tensing his muscles, he rode the recoil, swinging the scope back on target. In the field of view, fringed tree limbs shivered as a body fell heavily through them. Then they were still.

The other two long blasters continued to rage. Jak’s odds of being hit increased with every passing second.

Cycling the Steyr’s action, Ryan quickly located the second target up the highway to his left on a high outcrop that jutted like the bow of a vast black ship from amid the tall trees. A more difficult shot because of the solid cover.

Ryan settled into position, adjusting his aimpoint through the scope. As his finger tightened on the trigger, as he was about to ice the crossfire and open the way for the companions’ escape, he heard crunching sounds coming toward him.

Footfalls.

Hard, running footfalls from the other side of the highway.

Swinging the rifle barrel down, he looked over the scope and saw three figures dashing along the hump, straight for him.

He snapfired and hit the lead cannie in the midsection, blowing him off his feet and flat onto his behind.

As Ryan worked the bolt to eject the spent shell, handblasters blazed and bullets chipped the concrete rubble on either side of him. The cannies were trying to reach and control the hole in the pipe.

Ryan fired again and the 173-grain, M-118 slug blew through the flesheater’s chest, taking most of his heart with it. The cannie’s momentum sent him crashing, spread-armed onto his face.

The third cannie was undaunted by the deaths of his pals. On the run, he dumped an empty mag. As he slapped home a fresh one, he stumbled on a loose bit of rock. It took only a second for the cannie to regain his balance, but by the time he snicked his blaster’s action closed, Ryan had cycled another live round into the Steyr’s breech and pushed up to his knees.

Before the cannie could bring his blaster to bear, Ryan shot him in the front of the throat, just under the chin, taking out three inches of his spinal column. Instant chill. The body dropped rag-doll limp, its head connected to torso by glistening threads of muscle.

Concrete exploded ten inches from Ryan’s nose, peppering the side of his face. As he ducked, he heard the hollow boom. The sniper up in the rocks was now targeting him, trying to pin him down. At the far end of the pipe, he could see more cannies filtering out of the trees. Swarms of them. They knew where he was, too. Their bullets zinged all around him.