had enough force to take on that many people. We need to be triple red on this, but—”
Mildred shook her head. “That’s not really the point I wanted to make. I know the carrion out there was pretty badly mauled, but how many actual people do you reckon there were scattered around?”
“Hard to say,” Ryan mused. “They were ripped up, scattered about, stripped—”
“But not enough to be all,” Jak interjected, nodding slowly to himself. “Few bones, even if some taken by animals.”
“So what happened to the rest of them?” Millie asked rhetorically. “Whatever hit this ville, it took a lot of them away, live or chilled. What the fuck does that, and why?”
There was a silence while they all considered this. Finally, Jak spoke. “Not matter. If comes back, be ready fight. If doesn’t, then not matter.”
The albino teen made sense. To worry over the unknown would do them no good. All they could do was mount a guard through the night and try to rest up before moving on to the next ville. Maybe do some hunting along the way. At least they knew there was game in the area, thanks to the dogs.
Ryan organized a guard, with Jak and J.B. taking first watch, before gratefully sinking into sleep. Mildred stayed by Doc. His fever showed signs of peaking and the sedatives at least enabled him to get some rest. But she wanted to be close in case it worsened and he needed immediate attention. Krysty curled up near Ryan, but found it hard to sleep. She knew she had to, as she was on next watch and it would be advisable to grab some rest now. But something was worrying her. Her hair rustled and moved of its own volition as she tossed and turned. It was nothing immediate; all the same, she knew that whatever had decimated this settlement was out there somewhere and there was a good chance they would walk right into it.
The cinder block hut was lit by a small oil lamp that Mildred had found in one of the buildings. As with everything else, most of the lighting had been smashed during whatever battle had taken place. Only this one item had survived, along with just enough tallow oil to run it for the night. It meant that they could save the batteries on the remaining working flashlights they carried, although the glow it cast was small and the smell of the oil was caustic if any were fool enough to stand too close.
Most of the hut was in shadow. The lamp illuminated the area where the sentry stood his or her guard, the rest of the hut in a pleasant semidarkness to facilitate sleep. As the others settled, some less easily than others, Jak and J.B. stood silently, occasionally moving from one covered window to another to check the outside.
The hut had four windows: two at the front on either side of the entrance and two at the back, evenly spaced. These were the long walls on the rectangular building, with the shorter walls being devoid of space. And there was only the single door. It had the advantage that there were only five entry points to guard, and the corresponding disadvantage that there were, equally, only the five exit points should they need to evacuate quickly.
When they had reinforced the hut’s security for the night, they had made sure that one window on each side of the hut had a shutter that could be opened from the inside to facilitate the need to survey the area. Added to this, one of the two on watch would patrol the outside, returning at intervals, signaling to be admitted and then replaced by the other. The night temperature was bitingly cold, so it was advisable to spend as little time as possible on the outside.
A simple sec system, and one that worked well for the first hour of watch, with no event. But as they slipped into the second hour, things began to change. It was J.B. who first noticed, on his third stint on patrol.
As the Armorer was admitted after rapping out the prearranged tattoo, Jak could see from his expression that all was not well.
“Something coming down from cover, up a mile or so where the rocks rise.”
Jak nodded. It hadn’t escaped his notice that the area to the west, where the beginnings of the volcanic regions housed some growth of flora in the otherwise barren rocks, would provide cover for anyone—or anything—that would care to bide its time before attack.
J.B. continued. “Ain’t people…animals of some kind, moving pretty quick, too. About a dozen, mebbe more. Look like bears to me, though all I could see were big bastard shapes moving onto the plain.”
“Take look,” Jak murmured. “How big?”
“Big—five-hundred-pounders to show at that distance.”
Jak’s impassive visage showed nothing, but the Armorer knew what was running through his mind. If a pack of bears in search of food had come across this settlement before, then that could account for what had happened. And from the havoc they had found here, it could mean big trouble.
Jak indicated to J.B. that he would be back soon and slipped out the door.
THREE QUARTER MOON. No surprise that J.B. had been able to make such a good assessment, as the sky was devoid of cloud and the light from the wan, yellow-tinged satellite spread over the bare expanse of rock, showing the crops of moss and lichens as black against the slate gray of the plain. To the west, the rising lands with ash, soil and small gatherings of shrub and forestation showed as indistinguishable shapes that took on a malevolent mien with the knowledge of that which they had sheltered.
But not, perhaps, as malevolent as the shuffling pack of dark shapes that moved across the gray rocks. Jak judged the distance. At their current speed, it would take them about fifteen to twenty minutes to traverse the distance to the settlement. Their ambling gait was deceptive. They were moving at a rapid rate, knowing that now was the time to hunt. Jak wondered if they had got the scent of fresh prey across such a great distance, borne on the winds, or if they were only returning to scavenge what little carrion was left.
They were moving as a tight pack, making it hard to pick off individuals as they moved, one obscuring another so that you found it hard to tell if two were three, or three were four. Jak figured that J.B.’s initial assessment was about right. But it wouldn’t do any harm to take a closer look.
The albino youth moved out to meet the pack, moving across the plain, using whatever cover he could find. There was little, but that didn’t really matter. The bears knew he was there, just as he knew they were. All he needed was a clearer look before racing back to prepare a defense.
One of the creatures at the front of the pack got wind of him, perhaps sight, but more likely smell. It rose on its hind legs and roared: a warning to him, a rallying call to its fellows. If J.B. hadn’t already awakened the others, this would sure as hell suffice. Meanwhile, Jak assessed the creature.
J.B. was wide of the mark. This evil-looking bastard was at least six, maybe seven hundred pounds. Its fur was matted and bare in some places, dark markings on its skin under the moon glow looking like sores or scars. Even in the pale, yellow-tinged light it was possible to see the strings of mucus and saliva that extended the length of the jaws, dangling off the sharp incisors and catching the light to gleam dully their threat. The tiny eyes, buried in the folds of muscle and fur, were dark specks that betrayed no hint of what may be going through that primeval mind.
Jak was pretty sure, though. He had slipped his Colt Python into his palm as he made his way forward. But even the briefest of visual assessments told him that the weapon would be next to useless unless he could get a direct hit in a vulnerable area. For a .357 Magnum bullet to be so ineffective meant that they would have to use some serious blasterfire against this pack.
Jak turned and ran, knowing that the movement would cause the bears to increase
