Ahern, Jerry - The Savage Horde

"Mommie!"

Hands reached out from the kitchen doorway, a massive man in blue denim and black leather right behind them. Sarah fired the M-, shifting the selector to full auto, the burst running from the man's bare sweating midsection and up along his chest in a ragged red line, the eyes wide open, the body lurching back through the" doorway.

Sarah snatched the pistol from Annie's hands.

The other ammo—the Winchester. The spare magazines for the . and the M-—all in the kitchen.

Another of the brigands was coming through the doorway, Sarah pushing the children down as the man raised a shotgun. Sarah fired, the M-coming up empty as the man fell back, the shotgun discharging into the chandelier in the center of the ceiling, Sarah hearing it, feeling the glass as it showered down on her.

"Mom!"

Michael's voice.

She wheeled, Michael firing his rifle, a man coming through the window, the curtains barely gone now as the fire spread to the outside wall, the smoke acrid.

Sarah started to jerk back the .'s hammer, but Michael was firing again, the body spinning out, the hands—bloodied—reaching for Michael's throat.

The boy rammed the rifle forward, the flash deflector punching into the center of the already floundering man's face.

The man fell back.

"My gun—it's empty, Mommie!"

"Get over here," Sarah shouted, drawing Annie and Millie against her skirt, holding the children with her left arm. Michael was beside her now, and so was Mary Mulliner.

The brigands would come—in a second, perhaps two—she would kill her children, kill Millie Jenkins, kill Mary Mulliner—she still didn't know if she could kill herself.

There were seven rounds in the pistol. Two for Michael and Annie. One for Millie. One for Mary. One for herself—five.

She had two left to fight.

The smoke was heavy now, the wind from outside the house that blew through the shot-out windows feeding the flames.

A brigand—she could see the look of lust in his eyes as he jumped through the window, the flames which caught at his shirt swatted out under his massive right hand.

She raised the ..

"Get out of here!"

"Yeah—later," the man snarled, raising the rifle.

Saran pulled the trigger. The . Government Model Colt bucked in her hand, the man's face registered shock, surprise. He toppled backward.

Michael had picked up a leg from a broken chair. She didn't know how it had gotten broken. He held it like a club.

"Let 'em come," he snarled.

"No," Sarah whispered.

One round was left. She edged back toward the stairwell, to escape the flames, to postpone—the inevitable.

"Mrs. Rourke!"

It was Millie Jenkins. Sarah looked down at her face, then at her eyes, then up the stairwell.

A man at the head of the stairs, a submachinegun in his hands.

Sarah pumped the trigger of the .—once, then once again, the body lurching back, then doubling over, falling, the submachinegun spraying into the wall as Sarah pulled the children close to her.

The body fell at her feet, Mary Mulliner reaching down and picking up the submachinegun.

"It's empty I think," Mary almost hissed.

Sarah took the submachinegun—she thought it was an Uzi.

It was empty.

She looked at the dead man—no other gun, no spare magazines she could see.

There were not enough rounds left in the . for her to kill herself.

It had to be Michael first—he'd try to stop her otherwise.

She pressed the muzzle of the . to his head as she hugged him to her.

" love you!" She screamed the words.

She started to squeeze the trigger.

"Mrs. Rourke!"

She looked to the doorway beyond the smoldering curtains, a man having gotten through. A young man, carrot red hair. "You're safe!"

It was Mary's son.

Calmly—Sarah raised the thumb safety on the . and handed the pistol to Mary Mulliner.

Every woman had the right, Sarah thought—at least once. She closed her eyes and fell, her head swimming, bright floaters in front of her eyes.

Chapter 23

Sarah Rourke sat with her blue jeans across her lap, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and her bare legs against the wind, the fire licking loudly in front of her.

"We got all your things out of the house—Mom told me where they were."

"How are the children, Bill?"

"Fine, Mrs. Rourke—Michael's sleeping and so's Annie. Millie's sitting on Mom's lap—but she's all right. Won't go to sleep though."

Sarah looked behind her at what had been the farmhouse. It was as burned and gutted as her own house in Georgia.

"I'm sorry for your mother's house," she whispered. "Sorry I fainted on you, too. But—"

"Hey—I understand it. I'm just a kid—at least I was. But—well, since the Night of The War, I seen a lot, ya know, ma'am."

"Yes—I know. I have too," Sarah told him. "Your resistance people were just like the cavalry—just in the nick of time," and she forced a laugh.

"Here," he said, sounding awkward to her. He handed her a gun—it was shiny. A ., small like the ones her husband carried, but different somehow. "This was my Dad's—that's why Mom's crying. Not 'cause of the house, ya see—Dad—he didn't make it during the last raid on the Russians in Nashville."

She turned the gun over in her hands. As she looked at it, young Bill Mulliner continued talking to her. "Dad was a friend of this guy named Trapper—gunsmith up in Michigan before the Night of The War. Trapper made the gun up for him special. Started out a Colt Combat Commander—the one with the steel frame.

Them's Smith & Wesson K-frame rear sights—gun's real short in the barrel and slide and the grip—a round shorter. Makes it nice to carry. And that's a Colt ambidextrous thumb safety on her—no grip safety—pinned in. That's a special nickel plating Trapper used."

"But this was your father's gun—you can't give it—"

"Ma'am—see, I got plenty a guns—and—well—if it weren't for you, my mom'd be dead too. Figure with this on ya, and a regular .—you can use the same clips—"

"Magazines I think they're called," she smiled, feeling self-conscious at correcting a man about a gun.

"Yes'm—but you'll always have six extra rounds when ya need 'em. She's a smoothie of a shooter, ya know— and—well—so here," and he handed her a spare loaded magazine for the pistol.

She looked at the pistol in the firelight. The right side of the slide read "Trapper Gun" and there was a scorpion etched there in the metal, like there was on the flat black grips, barely visible in the flickering of the flames. "Thank you, Bill—I don't know what to say—I, ahh—"

"You just stay alive with it, ma'am—that's thanks enough and more."

"We can't stay here anymore, can we?" she said, still holding the gun, wrapping the blanket more tightly around her.

"No, ma'am—there's a big refugee camp not too far from here—should be safe from them brigand vermin. You and Mom and the children are gonna be okay there. Least ways ya should be."

She leaned across to the boy, still holding his dead

father's gun. She kissed the boy on the cheek.

"Mrs. Rourke," he drawled.

She leaned back against the side of the log that was being fed slowly into the fire, feeling the pleasant warmth. She closed her eyes. But she didn't let go of the pistol.

Chapter 24

Colonel Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy picked up one of the rifles at random. There were dozens ranked along the wall, more still in crates. He personally liked the M-—not as well as the Kalashnikov pattern rifles, but liked it nonetheless.

And for the coming situation, American-made arms would be the best choice. He turned to the junior officer beside him—a Captain Revnik. "Captain—you must see to it that each of these rifles is thoroughly inspected. There is no use in storing arms which are defective. Any rifles which prove defective must be detail stripped and the defective part found, discarded or repaired and the rest of the parts binned according to type for use as spares."