Matt pulled his ax from the duffel bag.
"Shit!" Jerry said. "What're you gonna—"
Matt strode out to meet them. He was damned sick and tired of the killing, tired of being forced to take lives in order to save lives. But once again, he was in a position where he had no choice. He lifted the ax and held it in both hands.
"Get in the back of the truck," he told Rich and Maggie as they sprinted past him.
Then he stepped forward and swung the ax.
Fixated on Rich and Maggie, Chuck didn't even try to avoid it. The keen edge of the blade caught him cleanly in the throat. Matt felt it shear easily through flesh. The blade caught a little on the bone, but only for a second before cleaving right on through it.
Chuck ran out from under his head as it popped in the air.
The body, geysering blood from the suddenly empty neck, ran several more steps before it collapsed. Chuck's head thudded to the ground at about the same time.
Matt was already pivoting, trying to continue the same swing and take Scott down with it. Scott's reflexes were too fast, though. He blocked the ax with the shovel he still carried. The collision almost knocked the weapon out of Matt's hands. He hung on, twisted away, and tried a backhanded slash. Scott avoided it.
That brought Scott's guard down enough for Matt to kick him in the stomach. As Scott doubled over, Noel charged past him. Matt clipped the young man on the side of the head with the ax handle. Noel lost his balance and went down.
Hammond and April, unable to run quite as fast as the athletic young men, had fallen behind. Hammond stopped and motioned for April to stay back. He wore a backpack now, and Matt wondered if it had more of the dynamite in it.
"Give it up, Cahill," Hammond said. More of the rotten flesh sloughed off his face as he grinned. "You can't get away. I took care of that. All you and the others have to do is join us, and you'll be fine."
Matt backed away as he gripped the ax. "I don't think so, Doctor," he said.
He didn't take his eyes off Hammond and the man's remaining allies. He couldn't look behind him, but he knew he was closer to the truck, which was still idling. The engine's growling rumble was the only small shred of comfort available to Matt right now.
"You're going to die screaming," Hammond promised. "Just the way she did."
Matt knew he shouldn't say it, but he couldn't stop himself.
"She?"
Hammond slipped the backpack off. It was already open, so all he had to do was plunge his hand into it and pull out Astrid Tompkins' battered head. It was barely recognizable.
No one would ever see the young woman's beautiful smile again.
It was all Matt could do not to launch himself forward like a berserker, to lay into them, hacking right and left with the ax. But they still outnumbered him four to one, and if he fell now, that would leave Ronnie and the others on their own. Matt knew that without him around to help them, Hammond's group would hunt them down, one by one if necessary, and slaughter them.
And probably eat them, he thought, remembering the "garbage dump" Ronnie had uncovered.
The truck's engine suddenly revved. Matt had to glance back. He saw it rumbling toward him in reverse.
"Stop him!" Hammond yelled.
Matt turned. The truck was close enough now that he was able to leap forward and land on the tailgate. Jerry was there to reach down and grab his shirt, making sure Matt didn't tumble out of the vehicle.
"Got him!" Jerry shouted.
With a grinding of gears, the truck lurched forward again, leaving Hammond, Scott, April, and Noel behind. Matt scooted deeper into the bed.
"Who's driving?" he asked.
"Rich thought he could handle it," Jerry explained.
The cab was pretty full by now, with Rich and Maggie added to Ronnie and Ginger. Rich seemed to be doing all right driving the truck.
"Was . . . was that Astrid's . . ." Jerry couldn't bring himself to say it. "Was that Astrid?"
"Yeah," Matt said. "I'm sorry."
"This is crazy."
"That's the word for it," Matt agreed. He couldn't see Hammond and the others behind them anymore. Night cloaked the mesa. The cones of light from the truck's headlights provided the only illumination other than the stars.
He went to the front of the truck bed and called, "Rich, stop!"
When Rich had brought the truck to a halt, Matt dropped off the tailgate and hurried up to the cab.
"I'm driving again," Matt said. "Rich, stay up here in case I need you to take the wheel. The rest of you, get in the back with Jerry."
"What are you going to do?" Ronnie asked.
"We'll head back to the camp," Matt explained. "There are picks and shovels there we can use as weapons, and I want to see if maybe Hammond left some dynamite in his tent. I'd like to see what blowing up that altar would do."
Ronnie must have explained to the others about the altar, because they seemed to know what Matt was talking about. She said, "So we're going on the attack?"
"That's right. We outnumber them now, six to five."
Ginger spoke up, saying, "Where's Stephanie?"
In a quivering voice, Maggie said, "The last time I saw her, she was with Astrid."
That wasn't good, Matt thought, but there was nothing they could do about it now. If Stephanie Porter was still alive, she needed to crawl into a hole and hide. That was the best chance she had of surviving this bloody night.
Ronnie said, "Maybe we should vote—"
"We're not voting," Matt broke in. "We're going to get whatever we can lay our hands on to fight with, and we're taking the battle to them."
For a second he thought Ronnie might argue with him. The tolerance and diversity of the academic world were all well and good, but tolerance didn't mean shit when you were faced with somebody whose only goal in life was to kill you, and possibly gnaw the flesh off your bones.
Ronnie must have realized that, because she jerked her head in a nod and said, "Fine. Let's go get the bastards."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Matt circled around the ruins, heading back toward the camp. He wished he could drive without headlights, so Hammond and the others couldn't tell right where they were, but it was too dark for that. He couldn't risk driving into a hole and busting an axle.
Ronnie, Ginger, and Maggie had climbed in the back with Jerry. Rich rode in the cab with Matt, the ax lying on the seat between them. He glanced down at the weapon and asked, "You . . . ah . . . carry an ax around with you, Mr. Cahill?"
"I used to work in the timber business," Matt replied, as if that explained it. "My whole family did. That ax belonged to my father, and his father before him."
Rich didn't press the issue. Instead he said, "At first I didn't really think they were dangerous. They just looked sort of crazed, you know. But then they started chasing us, and I knew that if they caught us, bad things would happen."
"That's putting it mildly," Matt said.
"And then they caught Astrid . . ." Rich couldn't go on for a moment. "You think it's all because of some altar that Dr. Varley's group uncovered?"
"I'm pretty sure that's the case."
"That's what made the Anasazi go nuts and start eating each other?"
"Does it matter?"
The tents loomed in front of them, the canvas bright in the night as the headlights swept over them. As Matt slowed the truck, he called to Ronnie and the others in the back, "I think we've beaten them back here, but stay inside the truck until I've taken a quick look around."
"Be careful, Matt," Ronnie called back to him.
The truck had stopped. Matt left the engine running and picked up the ax. He said to Rich, "If anything happens to me, or if you and the others are in danger, don't wait for me. Just grab the wheel and get the hell out of here."