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approaching group and gathered themselves on either side of the clearing,
keeping silent until their target was within range.
That wasn't the usual cowardly and noisy behavior of stickies. There was one
thing that this group had in common with others, though they attacked in a
large group, taking no chances on being outnumbered.
"Fireblast! So many of the fuckers!" Ryan yelled, loosing off a shot that
ripped through the stickie that was nearest, tearing a chunk of flesh away
from its rib cage and splintering bone, the flight path of the bullet pushing
a fragment of bone into the creature's heart and stopping it. The stickie's
expression changed from one of blood lust to a kind of dull surprise, before
the light went out in its dark eyes, and it dropped to the ground.
That was one less, but they were still outnumbered about six to one.
J.B. rattled off a series of shots that chilled three of the stickies and
grazed the flesh of several more. But instead of driving them away, as it
would have done with stickies they had encountered elsewhere, it only served
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to make the creatures more crazed. They attacked with a greater fervor, and
J.B. found himself flung to the ground by two of the wounded stickies, who had
launched themselves through the air. The Uzi was knocked from the Armorer's
hands by the impact, the strap still twisted around his wrist. Unfortunately
for J.B. that
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Axler,_James_-_Deathlands_59_-_Amazon_Gate only hampered him even further, as
one of the stickies landed on top of the blaster, his body weight pulling the
strap taut and causing the blood flow to stop, deadening the Armorer's hand
and leaving him with only one arm to defend himself.
Ryan, meanwhile, had turned the Steyr in his hands, now wielding it as a club
to try to clear space for himself by taking out as many stickies as possible
with one swing. He counted on the fact that the stickies were so crazed in
their attack to help him that they rushed blindly into the heavy stock of the
rifle, their own momentum increasing the force with which it hit them at head
level. There was the sickening sound of cracking bone and the squelch of soft
flesh as two of the stickies died, their skulls crushed, brains pulped. At the
extreme end of his swing, Ryan looked back to the forest. If they could get
some space and move back, would they be able to take cover and establish a
position of strength back there? The darkness hid the root system, and there
was every chance that they would be tripped by the raised knots, and so make
themselves even more vulnerable than they were now. He couldn't credit
stickies with having planned that aspect of the ambush, but if nothing else it
proved that lady luck had a mutie face that day.
While Ryan and J.B. were trying to deal with the stickies that had headed for
them, the others were dealing with their attackers with varying degrees of
difficulty.
Inevitably Jak was faring the best. Despite his initial shock at the silence
with which the stickies had waited, allied to his sense of foreboding, his
instincts and life of fighting kicked in with a vengeance. His white hair
whipping around his head like pale flames, he turned and spun among the group
of stickies who had
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Axler,_James_-_Deathlands_59_-_Amazon_Gate approached him. They were being
held at bay by the swift kicking of his heavy combat boots, and the
razor-sharp whirl of the leaf-bladed knife that he held in each hand, wrists
supple and twisting to angle the blades with each thrust at any exposed white
and sickly flesh that came within range.
Many of the stickies attacking him were nursing wounds and trying with pitiful
little wails to staunch the blood that flowed through their papery skin. But
despite the fact that he was seemingly on top of the situation, he was only
too well aware that he was doing no more than containing the situation. They
couldn't get to him yet, but inevitably he would tire sooner or later, and
with the large number of stickies surrounding him, he couldn't as yet see a
way to change defense to attack.
While Jak puzzled on that with a portion of his mind that wasn't occupied with
defense, Krysty was on the other side of Ryan, her hair clinging close to her
head and her mouth set in a grim line as she dealt with the forces attacking
her.
She held her .38 Smith & Wesson in one hand, but was using the barrel as a
club, her arm moving in an almost beautiful economy of effort to whip the
barrel against the flesh of any stickie that was within range, the sight on
the end of the snubbed barrel cutting through tender flesh and drawing blood
and cries of pain from its victims. Those stickies who got past the barrel
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found that Krysty had a superb sense of balance, as she used one foot to
anchor herself, and the other to shoot out a series of gracefully executed yet
rock-hard kicks, the silver tips on the toes of her blue Western boots
striking home hard. One stickie who got past her guard and right up to her
felt the hard bone of her elbow as she drove it back and into its face when it
tried to grab her from behind. The stickie's cheekbone shattered under the
impact, the compression forcing one eyeball from its socket
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Axler,_James_-_Deathlands_59_-_Amazon_Gate to dangle wetly on its cheek as it
fell backward, screaming with a piercing, high-
pitched shrill.
A small victory for the Titian-haired warrior, but she was as aware as Jak of
the fact that she was only keeping them back, not making headway. And soon she
would start to tire.
Farther back in the line, Dean was encountering problems. His Browning Hi-
Power had taken out a couple of stickies with accurate shots that had removed
chunks of scalp and cleaned most of the brainpan. But once again, he had
discovered that the sheer weight of numbers was telling against him, and the
Browning slipped from his grasp when a stickie had cannoned into him from
behind, driving him forward and causing his arm to drop. Another stickie
grabbed the fallen arm and bit into it, drawing blood with the needle-sharp
teeth and making Dean scream with the sudden pain. His arm temporarily
deadened by the pain, he dropped the blaster, which was lost beneath an onrush
of bodies.
Dean found himself weighed down by four stickies: one behind and three
attempting to drag him down from the front. With his free arm, he jabbed and
caught one of his attackers beneath its ribs, doubling it with pain and
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