Hive Invasion (2 page)

Chapter Two

Ryan was already scooting backward as the needle-sharp claw spiked into the dirt between his legs, missing his family jewels by a hairbreadth. As it landed, he drew his faithful SIG Sauer P226 blaster and snapped a shot off at the monstrosity’s chest.

There was an odd, flat
crack,
and Ryan’s eye widened to see the creature still up and full of fight. He hadn’t missed—there was no way, not at this range. The 9 mm round wasn’t powerful enough to penetrate the chitin.

Still hauling himself backward with his free hand, Ryan aimed more carefully at the big bug’s head, or more specifically, its eye, and fired again. This time the bug’s limbs thrashed around madly, then the creature flopped to the ground a second later.

“Shoot the head!” he shouted over the sharp report of Krysty’s Glock.

“Behind you!” Her answering yell came as another shower of dirt fell on Ryan. He looked up to see one of the nightmares right above him, its daggerlike claws spearing down toward his chest.

He rolled out of the way as three hooks slammed into the ground where he’d been a moment ago. Turning onto his stomach, Ryan put a pair of bullets into the head of his would-be ambusher, then scrambled to his feet to help Krysty.

She stood over another of the wriggling, green mutants, her Glock 18C aimed at its chittering head. The blaster cut loose, and the bug shuddered once and went limp. A second mutie lay near the first, its head also oozing black ichor.

“Is that all of them?” she asked, looking around. Ryan was doing the same while rebuckling his belt when his head snapped around at the sound of more blastershots echoing across the plains.

“Sounds like they found the others. Come on!” Grabbing his Steyr Scout longblaster, he took off toward the camp, with Krysty right behind him.

“Looks like we were all wrong about what was making those hills!” she said in between breaths as they ran.

“Yeah, and I hope it’s the last mistake we make here,” Ryan replied, his long legs eating up the distance. The blaster shots continued, louder now, making him even more concerned. Ryan’s fears were briefly allayed when he and Krysty arrived on a rise overlooking their campsite. Their companions stood back to back around the campfire, which was already dying from lack of fuel. Every person below was shooting into a veritable tide of the green-brown bugs boiling up from the ground all around them. The razor-clawed muties chittered madly as they tried to break through the wall of lead being put up to stop them. At least two dozen bug bodies littered the dirt, with several only a couple of yards away from the defenders’ feet.

Even as he tried to figure out how in the hell he was going to get them out of there, Ryan admired how calm his companions were under what would have been overwhelming terror for anyone else. It was obvious that the burrowing insects had been stalking them for at least the past couple of days, and had sprung their ambush well, encircling the group and reinforcing the blockade with more ravenous frontline soldiers.

To defend against the onslaught, Ryan’s friends had arranged themselves in a points-of-the-compass formation that gave everyone overlapping fields of fire. Each shooter could be reinforced by at least one other person at all times, which was good, because from what he could see, the huge mob wasn’t stopping until the insects sank their claws into warm norm flesh.

On the north point was Doc Tanner, a man who appeared to be some sixty-odd years old by one measure and more than two centuries old by another. Time-traveled a hundred years forward from his home in the late nineteenth century, then from there forward another one hundred years to the Deathlands, his mind often teetered on a razor’s edge between lucidity and madness. Hidden within its depths were secrets of the predark technology built by the scientists of that time. He was a staunch friend, and had saved his companions’ lives on more than one occasion. Wielding a .44-caliber commemorative LeMat revolver in one hand and a rapier in the other, the old man blocked a pair of questing claws with his blade and put a bullet into his attacker’s head, pulping it and dropping the insectoid beast.

Standing near him on the western front was Mildred Wyeth, also a time traveler of a sort, but by very different means. A doctor back in the twentieth century, she was cryogenically frozen when what should have been minor surgery went terribly wrong. Resuscitated a century later by Ryan and his companions, she’d awoken to a world much different from the one she’d known. Now she made her way as part of the group, their friend and healer. It also didn’t hurt that she was a crack pistol shot, as good as Ryan himself. This was evidenced by her carefully aimed and placed shots. Every time she squeezed the trigger of her Czech-made ZKR 551 target pistol, something died.

Next to her, guarding the south with his well-used .357 Magnum Colt Python, was Jak Lauren. His shock of white hair and pale skin were almost as blinding as the massive, chrome-plated blaster he clutched in his hand. Whipcord lean, the albino was the shortest of the men in the group, but more than made up for it by being the best hand-to-hand fighter Ryan had ever seen, hands down—and he’d seen a lot of them. Jak was taking down the insectoid invaders on his side, the heavy bullets shattering chests and blowing heads apart.

The fourth member holding the defenses was Ricky Morales. The newest member of their team, he was a few years younger than Jak, and an inch taller. Ricky had joined their group searching for his sister, captured by slavers on their home island of Puerto Rico. He was still looking for her, searching for any scrap of information that might lead him to save his only surviving family member. Like his idol, J.B., Ricky was a weaponsmith and tinkerer, always ready to play with some new bit of tech they might stumble across while exploring a redoubt. He could fix damn near anything, particularly blasters, making him another valuable member of the team. Normally he carried a .45 Webley revolver and a silenced, bolt-action De Lisle carbine. Now, however, he was blasting bugs apart with an automatic shotgun.

Last but not least, on the inner circle of their perimeter was J. B. Dix, Ryan’s oldest friend. Nicknamed the Armorer due to his encyclopedic knowledge of weapons and armored vehicles, Dix was the opposite of what most Deathlands people thought a weaponsmith should look like. Mildred had called it during a night of drinks, saying back in her day, people probably would have called him a shorter Ichabod Crane, glasses and all. She’d spent the rest of the night telling everyone the story of the Headless Horseman and other spooky tales from long-lost American folklore.

When he’d heard the comparison, J.B. had just shrugged and hadn’t said a word. Slender, bespectacled and sallow skinned, wearing a well-worn grayish-brown leather jacket and a battered but serviceable fedora jammed on his balding head, J.B. would be the first to admit that he didn’t look the part of a blaster expert—which suited him just fine. “The more an enemy underestimates me, the more surprised the person is when I do make my move,” he’d said during that same night.

During the battle with the bugs, he was backing up whoever needed him, his durable Mini-Uzi, stock extended and snugged to his shoulder, chattering as it spit short bursts of 9 mm slugs. As Ryan watched, the ground beneath the Armorer began to churn and collapse as a bug tried to ambush him from underfoot. As cool and collected as ever, J.B. took one step to the side and brought his submachine gun down. A three-round burst later, the ground stopped churning, with only a pair of clawed arms sticking out aboveground to serve as a crude gravestone for the dead bug.

As he dropped to his stomach on the flat rock plateau, Ryan was figuring out avenues of advance, retreat and flank, all in the name of getting his friends out of what might have been their last stand. They were roughly one hundred and fifty yards away. Normally an easy enough walk, even over the rough terrain, but that was without a mob of kill-crazy mutie bugs attacking from all sides, including from below. Still, Ryan thought he saw a way out. It would require timing, and more than a bit of luck, but if anyone could do it, they could.

“I’ve got to clear a path for them to get up here,” he said as he shrugged off his bandolier of magazines and set it beside him, then snugged the butt of the Steyr Scout longblaster to his shoulder and put his lone eye to the scope. “I need you to spot and reload mags if necessary. Keep an eye on the bugs and let me know if any of them get close to our people.”

After giving those instructions, Ryan went to work. Methodically he began picking off the muties coming out of the south area of the ring around J.B., Mildred, Doc and the rest. With his 7.62 mm bullets punching holes through the backs of the attackers, it took all of two seconds for J.B. to see what was going on and immediately organize a fighting retreat toward Ryan’s position.

Aided by Ryan picking off the vanguard of the muties with his longblaster, Jak and Ricky led the way, clearing a path with sustained fire. Doc and Mildred came next, the stocky black woman and reedy old man backing up the two teens and also watching their own respective sides. Last came J.B., fighting a rear-guard action that put him in harm’s way more than once if not for the timely intervention of Ryan and his Steyr. At one point the one-eyed man shot the head of a burrow-bug off its thorax just as its mandibles were about to close on J.B.’s leg. The bullet shattered the bug’s face, and its quivering body was quickly overwhelmed by its brethren, who didn’t seem to care that they were carving up one of their own.

The group was making slow but steady time toward the rock plateau that would be their salvation when a high shout echoed off the steep walls of the makeshift ravine.

Ryan was already shifting his longblaster toward the source even as Krysty told him what was going on.

“Doc’s down!”

But Ryan could already see that. Doc was sprawled on the ground, his right leg vanished into the soft earth from the knee down. Several sprays of dirt around him signaled the worst was happening.

The creatures had sprung a second ambush—and they’d caught Doc.

Chapter Three

Each member of the group had his or her own quirks and foibles, which sometimes drew teasing from the rest. In J.B.’s case, it was often said that if he wasn’t concerned or worried about something, he wasn’t happy.

As usual, the phlegmatic Armorer would counter that by saying there was plenty to worry about in the Deathlands every day—he just concentrated on whatever looked most urgent and figured the rest of the group would handle the other, less-pressing matters.

And right now they were in a hell of a mess. There was no helping the ambush—after the past few days here, everyone had gotten used to the minor tremors shaking the ground at all hours, so when the latest one had started, no one had thought anything of it until the bugs had starting bursting out of the ground.

J.B. had seen his share of massed swarm tactics before and knew how to handle that. It usually involved pit traps, a moat and a good, solid, high palisade wall, preferably with sharpened spikes pointing toward the enemy.

But since they didn’t have access to such barriers, he’d been forced to improvise. Everything had been going reasonably well—their blastershots had brought Ryan and Krysty back to find out what was going on, and as he’d figured, Ryan had begun creating an escape route, which they were fighting their way through. So far, so good.

Assuming their ammo held out.

J.B. was also often compared to a walking computer, particularly when it came to logistics and supplies. Again, he said that knowing what people had on them was often the difference between life and death every day. He kept a running tally of every bullet each person in the group carried, often knowing more accurately how many an individual had than he or she did. And right now, his computerlike mind was running through the calculations of how many shells they’d expended fighting their way out of this trap, and he wasn’t liking what he was coming up with.

It would have been a different story if these burrow-bugs had the common sense to retreat when faced with overwhelming firepower. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem to have the brains to understand when they should have been running away instead of forward to the slaughter.

But again, that worked only if their ammo held out.

And right now, there didn’t seem to be any end to the insect army coming after them. No matter how he figured it, if they didn’t reach the safety of that rock ledge, this fight would have only one possible outcome—J.B. and the rest of the group were going to be dinner. Of course, the Armorer had no intention of going down that way. He’d eat the barrel of his Mini-Uzi before things got
that
bad. Right now, he was busy making sure none of the chittering, scuttling, eight-foot-long insects got the drop on any of his friends. You want dinner that bad, he thought, you’re going to have to work for it.

But when Doc shouted in surprise as his foot broke through the ground and he sank awkwardly up to his knee, J.B. had had to give the bugs a grudging bit of respect. After all, they didn’t need to get the drop on their next meal—not when they could make it drop in on them.

He lunged forward, grabbing under the shoulders of Doc’s ancient frock coat with one arm. He heaved back, but he might as well have been trying to pull the old man out of concrete. J.B. also had to watch his footing, since it was hard to tell where the pit trap began, and if he wasn’t careful, he could end up stuck in there with the old man.

Doc’s shout had also attracted Mildred’s attention, and she’d turned back to help, as well. “Get to the others!” J.B. shouted.

Her answer was to fire a shot that whizzed past his head. J.B. didn’t need to turn and check to know a dead bug would be lying on the ground behind him. “Not till you get him out and moving!”

J.B. would have argued, but there was no time. By now, Doc had slipped into the dirt up to his waist. Instead of panicking, he was watching the moving earth below him intently. “I say, John Barrymore, would you be so kind as to hold this for me?” he asked, holding out his LeMat.

“Doc...how in the hell am I supposed to hold that
and
hold you up at the same time?” the Armorer asked through gritted teeth.

“Well, you are not going to like my answer,” Doc began as a booming crack echoed across the hills, and J.B. felt something brush his back as it fell.

“Just spit it out, Doc!”

The old man turned to look back at him, his gaze and voice crystal clear. “You are going to let me go.”

“If I do, you’re dead!”

“Not quite, John Barrymore.” Doc held up his other hand, which still held his sword. “I will dispatch the villain attempting to carry me away, and then return—”

Another, closer shot rang out, and this time one of the bugs fell against J.B. as it died. “Whatever you two are going to do, do it fast!” Mildred snapped.

“All right!” Snatching the LeMat out of Doc’s hand, J.B. let him go and turned to take out two bugs that had been charging at him from the rear. He heard a shout from Doc—something about eating cold steel—then the man disappeared completely from sight.

“Doc? Doc!” J.B. dropped to his knees at the edge of the collapsed six-foot-deep pit and looked for any sign of the old man.

“Come on, John! These bastards aren’t going to stay away forever!” Mildred said as she shot another one through the eye.

“Hang on!” he shouted back, although he knew it was growing more hopeless by the moment. More seconds passed, bullets flying around him, but J.B. kept looking. He was just about to give up hope when he still saw nothing below, but then a wrinkled hand burst up from the dirt, looking for something to latch on to. J.B. leaned down, grabbed it and hauled upward with all his strength.

Emerging from the ground like an old gaunt gopher, Doc spluttered and coughed as dirt cascaded off his face and head. Once he’d sucked in a great, gasping breath, he was able to help by shoving on the sides of the pit with his feet, propelling himself up until they were both lying at the edge of the hole. Doc was still clutching his lion’s-head sword, its blade coated in the same thick black gunk that had come out of the other burrow-bugs.

With a mad chitter of rage, a bug exploded out of the pit, its clawed legs feeling about madly for its prey. J.B. aimed Doc’s revolver at it and pulled the trigger, hoping the old man hadn’t emptied the weapon.

He hadn’t. The slug cored the bug’s head and sent it falling back into the pit to disappear under the loose dirt. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” J.B. said.

“Agreed, John Barrymore, much agreed,” the other man replied. But when he rose to his feet and tried to take a step forward, he sank to the ground, his face twisted with pain. “I am afraid that one of those buggers may have injured me more than I thought.”

“Can you walk at all, Doc?” Mildred asked while J.B. stood over both of them, his Mini-Uzi back online and spitting lead death.

Doc tried to stand again, only to sink back to the ground with a grimace. “I fear not. Mayhap it would be best if you two went on without me. I shall hold the rear to my last breath— I say, whatever are you doing?”

“Saving your skinny ass,” Mildred replied as she hoisted him up and slung his arm over her shoulders. “Although I’ll be damned if I know why. If I left you here, I wouldn’t have to listen to your pontificating anymore. J.B., we’re leaving!”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied as he reloaded. “About time too. I’m on my last mag. Move out. I’ll cover you.”

Mildred still had her blaster in her free hand, and with Doc holding his sword
en guard
to fend off any close encounters, the three headed out again. J.B. estimated they were about fifty yards from the rock shelf, and he saw Ryan, Krysty and Ricky already there. The Puerto Rican teenager was lying next to Ryan, sighting down the barrel of his De Lisle carbine to take out more of the attacking insects. Between Ryan and him, the path to the plateau was opening up—awash in the bodies of dead bugs, but opening up nonetheless. With the two marksmen covering their left and right flanks, J.B. divided his time between guarding their six and making sure neither Mildred nor Doc fell into any other pit traps.

The ground in front of them suddenly dropped away into a pit at least fifteen feet deep. Mildred and Doc skidded to a stop at the edge, breathing hard as they realized just how close to disaster they’d come.

Unfortunately, J.B. had been backing up behind them as he kept an eye on the dozen or so bugs that were tracking the trio about ten paces back. Before Mildred or Doc could tell him to stop or move out of the way, he bumped into them hard enough to overbalance the pair and send them both tumbling into the pit.