And what? Rip me into pieces, most likely.
He looked at the stick. Loosum had done her best. It was up to him now.
He gave it a heft in his hand, remembering how to hold it. The stance. He saw the detonator switch, actually a two-switch system: throw one, then the other switch-and then give it a toss.
How good would he be in gauging how far away they were? Maybe he was better off with the rifle.
But no. Dan had mentioned that these things were hard to kill, and something about the way they came at him confirmed that these deformed creatures could probably take a lot of bullets.
He put down his rifle, feeling as if he had taken a step into some distant, ancient past-only a hundred years in the future.
He took the stance that Loosum had taught him. Wingstick behind him, held parallel with the ground. Sweat dripped in his eyes, stinging, making the attacking mutants turn blurry. He wiped it away as best he could.
“Okay, bastards,” he said, used to the sound of his own voice, glad of it. He flipped the two switches. “Here we fucking go…”
And he threw it.
He watched the stick fly through the air in pinwheel fashion, and then- God, too soon-it started to arc around. In seconds it would shoot out its explosive charges.
“You get three… four throws… max,” Loosum had told him.
It curved what looked like three meters in front of the mutants. Each arm of the wingstick shot off a low-grade explosive, enough to take a bunch of them out… if it had been better thrown.
In seconds the stick was winging its way back to him.
The mutants were closer. He’d get-at best-another throw or two if he was fast. He debated grabbing the rifle. Fight it out in a way that was comfortable to him.
The wingstick flew toward him. He reached up and caught it, those days being a wide receiver in Bay Ridge High School now seeming so incredibly valuable.
I wonder if they even have football now? For some reason, the thought made him grin briefly.
He blinked and took the stance, getting ready for another throw-wishing that the mutants were much farther away, instead of now so near that he could make out the features of the individual monstrosities coming at him.
He threw the stick again.
Raine watched it fly this time as though the wingstick had a mind of its own… once free of his hands, it started its journey.
I could have used so much more practice.
But as he watched, he saw that because either the mutants raced closer or he had adjusted properly, the stick started to curve just before the line of attackers.
And he watched the explosions go off, shooting out from each arm.
Two of the mutants got torn apart by the blast, puffy red clouds erupting from places where their heads once were, those severed heads blown backward. The carnage was gruesome. And yet there was a more disturbing thing: their bodies, though headless, kept moving a few more feet before pitching forward.
Two other mutants got hit by the blasts. But despite massive wounds on their sides-Raine could see the blood gushing out-they kept coming.
He looked up to see the wingstick flying back to him.
The line kept coming.
He had time for only one more throw. Then it would be down to guns.
Could he take enough out before it got to that?
He wasted no time resetting and throwing as soon as he caught the stick. His first two tosses had shown him better how to gauge distance. Now he aimed at the mutants to the left, unharmed by the first blasts.
Like goddamn bowling, he thought as he threw.
Need to pick up the spare…
The stick flew straight at the group to the left. They paid no attention to it, though they had to have seen its effect on their brother mutants.
Closer now, Raine could see what they had for weapons.
Jagged pieces of metal. Long blades that looked like chunks of steel sharpened into three-foot-long approximations of swords.
Like a butcher’s convention. If the butchers worked in hell.
The stick flew at them, then past them.
Shit, he thought, wasted shot. But no, it curved behind the mutants, and at the apex of the curve it exploded, and the blast blew three mutants forward, facedown into the sand.
None of them got up.
The stick flew back.
C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, he thought. Maybe one more shot, and I got a chance.
He caught the stick, his fingers latching onto the center. He had to hurry now, no time to take a look or think about distance. Had to get it out.
And too close-he’d have to make this a short throw. Right down the middle.
He took his last throw, but he didn’t wait to catch it.
Instead, he grabbed his rifle and-while waiting for the stick to curve around-rested the gun on the front of his buggy, next to the still nonfunctional engine. He barely set himself before he started shooting. Aiming right at their heads.
Had to have a brain, no matter what mutation had turned them into these creatures.
And as he shot, he saw the stick do its last curve and explode. A few of the mutants had pulled ahead, and they caught this last blast, great holes ripped into their midsections.
He kept firing with the rifle, sometimes catching one in the head, at other times a body shot that seemed to do little damage.
No question about it, they could take hits and keep coming…
He stopped his firing just a moment to see the wingstick fall to the ground a little ways past where he had originally thrown it. If he lived, it had made the difference.
Thanks, Loosum.
Now it was a last stand. In this desert, the buggy his fort. He kept firing, the line of mutants halved, and now they were close enough that he swore he could even smell them.
And that smell triggered something primal.
Definitely higher on the food chain…
If he needed any more motivation, he had it.
He targeted one, then another, mixing up the wounds, trying for the kill.
But they moved in such a strange, crab-clawing way that it was difficult to get a steady bead on their heads, between those egg-sized eyes that clearly weren’t human.
A memory flashed through his mind: diving off Belize. Facing a fourteen foot blue shark. Dark, black, ancient eyes focused on only one thing.
To strike, to kill, to eat.
He pulled out the handgun.
With a half dozen of them close now, unfazed by the dead mutants they left behind, Raine was past the point or use of aiming.
They had raised their odd assortment of jagged and sharp weapons, their homemade devices for cutting and tearing.
And just when he wished he heard another human voice-always so important when in battle, having a guy chattering next to you; the little bit of bravado that helps you go on-he found that he couldn’t say anything now. No words to cut across the desert silence.
Just the endless chatter of the guns firing, one in each hand like some psychotic character out of a spaghetti western. The grunting bellows of the mutants, so close. He kept firing.
Until He was out of ammo.
Out of ammo. And no chance to reload.
How many left? There were two nearly on him. A third, wounded, was still shambling toward him, but then stopped, finally dead.
The last two-one mutant with a curved piece of shining metal that caught the sun, the other with what looked like a medieval weapon, a club with nails and spikes stuck at the end.
They seemed to realize in some insane, brainless way that he couldn’t shoot anymore.
They slowed. Barking at him, nearly like grizzlies, testing him before they made their final attack.
Up close, Raine could see the way their bodies were different from a human’s. The torso thick, barrel-shaped. The mouths deformed, more like an open chute that had to be filled.
Looking at that mouth, he thought: No fucking way.
Not happening.