James Axler - Prodigal's Return

As Jak reached the shore, he slipped in the mud. Reaching out, Doc started to grab the young man by the collar of his leather jacket, then withdrew his hand, unsure what to do for a moment, especially as the collar was lined with razor blades.

“Get him out of the bastard water!” Ryan bellowed, over the gentle coughs of the silenced blaster in his fist.

Firing the scattergun with one hand, Doc thrust out his wounded arm. Floundering in the slippery mud, Jak grabbed the man’s hand and just managed to make it onto the shore before an expanding ring of greenish water reached the bank. Instantly, the lily pads began to turn brown and the frogs went silent.

“Incoming!” J.B. shouted, lighting the fuse on a pipe bomb.

Moving with purpose, Jak and Doc sprinted into the bushes. Once they were clear, J.B. tossed the pipe bomb into the discolored water, then turned to join his fleeing companions.

As the howler approached the shore, the water erupted into a boiling geyser of flame, mud and dead fish. Violently thrown backward, the mutie was blown out of the pond, to smack against the rocky base of the cliff. The sandstone facade shattered, sending out cracks in every direction like earthen lightning bolts. The ever-present cloud began to thin as the howler slid back down into the water, and the glowing nimbus of greenish light faded away.

“John, you got him!” Mildred shouted, coming to a stop.

“Mebbe, but I’m not going nearer,” J.B. said, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses.

“Besides, I don’t trust that bastard thing any farther than I can piss in the wind,” Ryan growled, working the slide on his blaster to eject a misfired round.

“Distance doth make the heart grow fonder,” Doc expounded, easing his right hand into the pocket of his sodden coat. “And my dear Jak, please allow me to apologize for not rendering more swift assistance.”

“No prob,” Jak replied, straightening the collar on his jacket making the deadly razor blades hidden among the feathers and random bits of metal jingle slightly. “How arm?”

“It has been better,” Doc admitted, fumbling to reload the scattergun.

“Mildred can fix you up once we’re able to stop running,” Krysty said, taking the weapon from the wounded scholar. There was a row of spare cartridges sewn into loops along the strap. She eased one free and pulled down the pump to thumb the fat round into the breech on the bottom.

Just then, a low moan sounded from somewhere.

Lurching into action, the companions took flight, pelting through the bushes and shrubbery. In the distance was a proper forest of trees, pine, oak and white birch stretching to the horizon. But the woods was a two-edge blessing. It meant the companions were that much closer to their goal of safety, but going through the trees would also slow them significantly.

“I just hope the howler is chilled and not merely knocked out,” Mildred grunted, holding on to her med kit while jumping over a fallen log.

The crumbling wood was alive with termites, and that triggered an old memory from high school biology class. A termite. That was what the howler vaguely resembled inside that bizarre cloud; it looked similar to the intermediate stage of development when a newly born termite briefly possessed both an endoskeleton and an exoskeleton. Bones inside and outside, with muscles anchored in each. Double protection.

My God, no wonder the thing was bulletproof, she realized in growing horror. In the intermediate stage, the insect was virtually unkillable, and a thousand times stronger. Increase the size of the insect from a quarter inch to nine feet tall, and the strength would be multiplied that much more. Bullets and grenades would be no more than minor annoyances to such an abomination. The companions would need an antitank rocket, or even an implo gren, to have a chance of damaging the adamantine creature.

“Don’t waste any more time shooting!” Mildred bellowed, redoubling her frantic speed. “Just run! Run for your motherfucking lives!”

It was her profanity more than anything else that spurred the rest of them to increase their speed, and they were almost at the trees when a greenish light began to pulse into being from the direction of the pond. Then came an inhuman moan, more of a growl this time, followed by the previous low keening.

“Sounds pissed,” Jak muttered in an almost conversational tone.

But nobody replied, the rest of the companions saving their breath for the all-important task of leaving the area immediately. When they entered the woods, it took a precious moment for their sight to adjust, but they never stopped moving. They merely slowed a little until able to see clearly again, and then resumed full speed.

The going was tough, with low-hanging branches threatening to knock them unconscious, and exposed roots trying to trip them. But the companions raced on, knowing that death followed on their heels.

Never pausing to rest, the howler relentlessly continued after them through the forest, leaving behind a swatch of decaying trees, the bark turning black before peeling off the trunks. Squirrels and birds dropped lifeless from the crumbling branches, and the leaves fell in droves as if it was late autumn.

“Dark night, what I wouldn’t give just now for a bazooka!” J.B. snarled.

“’A horse…a h-horse…m-my k-kingdom…f-for a horse,’” Doc wheezed, his face unnaturally pale and shiny with sweat. His right arm flopped loosely as he ran, the coat sleeve dark with blood.

Seeing his state of near exhaustion, Krysty made a hard decision and called upon Gaia, the Earth Mother, for additional strength, repeating a special mantra. Almost instantly an inhuman power surged through her body, and the woman no longer felt tired or weak. Renewed, she scooped up the much taller man as if he were a small child, and darted ahead of the others, disappearing into the shadows ahead.

“May God grant they make it in time,” Mildred whispered, straight from the heart. She knew that Krysty could summon amazing strength in times of extreme need, but it faded quickly, and afterward she would be as weak as a kitten.

“So let’s buy them some time!” Ryan snarled, pausing to turn and fire his blaster a fast five times.

In the high branches of a pine tree, a nest exploded with the arrival of the 9 mm rounds. Through the broken twigs, yellowish egg yolk dribbled out as a mother stingwing rose into view screaming for revenge. Launching herself forward, the deadly mutie streaked through the tangle of branches to flash along the nettle-covered ground, searching for the unknown transgressor.

Keeping strategically mum, the companions ran on. But a few seconds later, the howler moaned loudly. Screaming in unbridled fury, the mutie abruptly changed direction and dived at the hellish cloud with both needle-sharp talons arched for a kill. Silently, it vanished into the glowing fog, and never came out again.

“Son bitch ate stingwing. And that was a big one!” Jak gasped in disbelief, glancing over a shoulder.

The trees unexpectedly thinned to reveal an irregular plain of dark crystalline material that gently sloped away. Fireblast, Ryan thought, that’s a nuke crater!

“This…isn’t on…my map,” J.B. huffed, barely able to keep abreast of the others.

“Oh, yes, it is!” Mildred yelled in delight, looking far ahead.

A squat black structure appeared at the bottom of the glass bowl, the satiny smooth metal completely unscratched by the nuke strike from a hundred years ago. It looked to be a redoubt, an underground fortress designed to withstand even a direct strike from a thermonuclear weapon. Lying near a titanic door were two tiny figures, one with flame-red hair and the other with longish silvery locks. Neither was moving.