Twin Cities Run Read online

  Blade savagely rammed the stock of the Commando into the stomach of a Wack who’d grabbed him from behind. As the crazy doubled over. Blade spun, firing, nearly cutting his attacker in half at the waist.

  A stone dropped down from the darkness, catching Blade on the left side, bruising his ribs.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” Geronimo shouted.

  Another Wack, heedless of personal risk, came at them from the right.

  Geronimo held the Browning braced against his right hip and fired.

  “You got him!” Blade exulted.

  Amazingly, the assault ceased.

  “Where’d they go?” Geronimo asked, searching, believing the respite might be a deliberate ruse.

  “Maybe to regroup,” Blade suggested. “They’ve lost a lot already.”

  “Over two dozen,” Geronimo guessed. “I can’t believe they just keep coming.”

  Blade checked the magazine in his Commando. “If they do keep coming, I’m going to run out of ammunition. We’ve got to get back to the SEAL. We’ve plenty of ammo there.”

  “Where’s Hickok and Bertha?” Geronimo anxiously inquired.

  “I told them to get back to the transport,” Blade answered. “They must have made it.”

  “I hope so.”

  “How’s Joshua?”

  Joshua was still on his knees, pressing his left hand against the gash in the back of his head. His long hair was matted with dried blood. “I’m able to stand,” Joshua replied for himself. He grit his teeth and managed to heave erect, weaving.

  “Take it easy,” Geronimo admonished him. “We’re right here. We’ll help you.”

  “Sorry to be such a burden.”

  “You’re no burden,” Blade stated. “It looks like they’ve gone, so we can get out of here.”

  From the blackness to their left bellowed the familiar refrain:

  “MUH-EET! MUH-EET!”

  “Damn!” Blade crouched, waiting, knowing the Wacks weren’t through with them.

  “Let’s go!” Geronimo urged, leading the way.

  The Wacks literally poured from the darkness, filling the road in front of them.

  “They’re trying to block our retreat!” Geronimo yelled.

  Blade, furious, fired, holding the trigger down, unleashing a lethal barrage into the writhing mass of hostility in their path.

  It wasn’t enough.

  “Now!” a male voice screamed, and all the Wacks there let fly with whatever they were holding in their hands.

  There was nowhere to take cover.

  Blade, Geronimo, and Joshua futilely attempted to shield their bodies from the downpour of stones, bricks, glass, metal, and other objects. They twitched and convulsed as they were pelted, lancing agony piercing their limbs and torsos.

  The Wacks howled, still tossing their arsenal.

  Blade gave Geronimo a slight shove. “Get the hell out of here!”

  “I won’t leave you,” Geronimo snapped defiantly.

  “Think of Joshua,” Blade reminded him. “Head east. I’ll catch up in a bit. You’ll need me to cover for you. We’re too exposed on this avenue. I’ll hold them off, then join you.”

  “I don’t know…”

  Joshua moaned, almost collapsing.

  Geronimo caught him with his left arm.

  “Go!” Blade ordered. “This is no time to argue!”

  Geronimo grimly nodded. He supported Joshua, leading him from the road, hurrying to find any cover, any defensible position.

  Blade watched them go, aware the deluge had stopped. Geronimo and Joshua disappeared, and he was totally alone. He turned his attention to the Wacks, startled to discover they had vanished too.

  Damn!

  Where were they? Planning another attack? Bertha had said the Wacks were crazy. How crazy? What were the limits of their mental capacities?

  Could they carry out a complicated method of attack?

  A solitary rock hurtled from his left, missing.

  Annoyed, Blade fired a short burst in the direction the projectile had originated from. He was rewarded by a shriek of pain.

  Serves the bastards right!

  Slowly, alertly, Blade backed away, intent on following Geronimo and Joshua, afraid they would get too great a start and be impossible to locate in the dark.

  A shadow ran at him from the murky gloom, a female Wack with a knife clutched in her left hand.

  Blade remorselessly mowed her down.

  “MUH-EET!”

  Where was the bozo with the monosyllabic vocabulary?

  Blade reached the eastern edge of University Avenue, hesitating, hoping he could lose the Wacks in the nocturnal terrain. He doubted it, though.

  Considering their accuracy, the crazies must possess exceptional night vision. Possibly, after decades of hunting and foraging after dark, their eyes were adjusted to the lack of light.

  The snap of a twig apprised him of the danger an instant before a zany jumped at him with a pitchfork.

  Blade rolled, the rusted prongs of the pitchfork lancing by his head. He fired from the prone position, on his back, the heavy slugs ripping the Wack from the crotch to his neck.

  “MUH-EET!”

  Blade crouched, debating. It was definitely time to haul butt and catch up with Geronimo and Joshua. He ran, hunched over, trying to make his body as small a target as he could. Bushes and weeds choked the lawn he was crossing. A tree rose in front of him and he dodged the trunk, hearing a scraping above him as he passed under the branches.

  Damn!

  The Wack pounced on his back, bearing them both to the grass, iron fingers closing around his throat, the Commando useless, pinned under his chest.

  Damn!

  Blade tried to rise, but the crazy on top of him was endowed with the abnormal strength of madness.

  “Want the legs!” the Wack babbled.

  The legs?

  “Legs taste good!” the Wack cackled. “Legs taste good!”

  Blade groped for the dagger on his left wrist, finding the handle, drawing the knife from its sheath and sweeping it back and up.

  “Uuuurrk!” The Wack, shocked, released the death grip.

  Blade shoved upward, dislodging his assailant. He clutched the Commando, whirled, and fired. The crazy flopped and tossed as the bullets ravaged his body.

  Definitely time to get the hell out of here!

  The next blackened form was already coming at him from the other side of the tree.

  Blade pressed the trigger as the Wack swung a tire iron, expecting the chattering blast would decimate the lunatic.

  The Commando jammed.

  Blade brought the Carbine up, blocking the iron. He brutally jabbed the stock into the Wack’s throat, crushing the windpipe.

  “MUH-EET!”

  Blade threw caution to the winds and ran, heedless of the risk and the undergrowth impeding his progress. He considered dropping the Commando, but the gun was too valuable to lose. Holding the useless Carbine in his left hand, he drew a Vega with his right.

  Something swished through the air and imbedded itself in Blade’s left thigh. He stumbled and went down, intense agony racking his entire leg.

  What the…?

  Blade probed, his fingers contacting a thin shaft sticking into his thigh.

  An arrow! He’d been shot with a damn arrow! The Spirit help him!

  The brush around him came alive with soft rustlings and indistinct whisperings.

  The Wacks were coming for him!

  Blade angrily gripped the shaft with both hands and wrenched the arrow free. Moist blood flowed freely over his thigh.

  The nearest shrub parted and someone stepped into view.

  Blade grabbed the Vega and fired three times.

  Whoever it was fell out of sight.

  Blade shuffled forward, determined to escape. There was still a chance he could shake his pursuers. He had to find Geronimo and Joshua! He had to!

  “MUH-EET!” came from behind him, t
he basso bellow of the town crier.

  The weeds thinned out, ending in a paved square that once had served as a parking lot for fifty automobiles.

  Blade paused, wavering over the peril of exposing himself in the open.

  But then what choice did he have? Pressing his left hand on the arrow wound to suppress the flow of blood, he hobbled across the tarmac, the hairs on the back of his neck tingling from a sense of anticipated menace.

  Another arrow zinged by his right shoulder.

  Blade twisted, catching a glimpse of a form standing near the pavement. The bowman notching another shaft. Blade raised the Vega, carefully sighted, and fired. The boom of the gun and the scream of the Wack were instantaneous.

  As Hickok would say, Got ya!

  Blade limped on, heading for the far side of the parking lot. There appeared to be dense brush and trees ahead, and if he could reach that cover, he could elude the crazies on his heels.

  The pounding of feet on the tarmac behind him reached his ears.

  Blade glanced back over his shoulder.

  Four Wacks had burst from the weeds, intent on catching him before he could attain the other side.

  Blade knew they’d be on him before he could fire twice. This was no time for the gun. He smiled grimly. This situation called for dirty infighting, his specialty. He quickly holstered the Vega and drew his two Bowies, reassured by the feel of the heavy handles in his hands. Let them come!

  They did.

  The first attacker came at him with an upraised shovel, the tool held over his head. Blade jumped in close, before the Wack could swing, and slashed the Bowie in his right hand across the zany’s left wrist.

  The Wack’s left hand dropped to the ground, the man frozen in his tracks, horrified, watching the hand flap for a few seconds as the fingers twitched.

  “Clorg!” the crazy shouted, terrified, holding the stump up to his face and gaping as blood spurted in every direction. “Clorg!”

  Blade was already in motion, avoiding the first stab of the second assailant, who leaped at him with a knife. A flash of pale flesh revealed Blade’s target, and he buried his left Bowie in the man’s neck. To the hilt.

  He fiercely twisted the blade, then yanked the Bowie clear.

  The third Wack came in fast and low, diving for Blade’s legs.

  Blade cried out as the attacker collided with his injured left leg, and he went down, trying to orient his position in relation to the two Wacks still capable of fighting. He lashed with his right foot and caught the man who’d tackled him in the face, crushing the Wack’s nose.

  Where was the fourth one? Blade struggled to rise. There had been one more when…

  Chapter Eleven

  “Where are the others?”

  “Be quiet.”

  “But we can’t desert the others!”

  “We’ll find them. You’ve got to stay silent, Joshua.”

  “It’s so hard for me to think,” Joshua complained, his head reeling.

  “You’ve been hurt,” Geronimo stated. “You need rest. I don’t know how bad your injury is.”

  Geronimo, supporting Joshua with his brawny left arm, led him deeper into the trees they had discovered on the other end of the wide paved area.

  “I don’t think I can stay awake,” Joshua mumbled sleepily.

  “Just for a little bit more,” Geronimo urged him.

  “I’ll try,” Joshua feebly promised.

  Geronimo glanced back, extremely concerned. Blade should have caught up with them by now. Had he been killed or captured? What did the Wacks do with their victims? Bertha had told them the Wacks ate other people. Great Spirit! How disgusting!

  “I can’t go on,” Joshua muttered drowsily. “I’m sorry, ’ronimo.”

  Joshua passed out.

  Geronimo lowered Joshua to the grass. They were in a small space between two large trees. The two trunks would provide some shelter and seclusion. Geronimo flattened and pressed his right ear against the ground.

  Footsteps. Coming their way!

  Geronimo squatted, holding the Browning. He wasn’t about to leave Joshua. If the Wacks found them, he would go down as a Warrior should.

  He gazed at Joshua. Funny. Joshua wasn’t a Warrior, but he’d performed superbly back on University Avenue, despite his pacifist, spiritual convictions.

  Someone grunted.

  Geronimo tensed, ready.

  “Any sign of them?” a voice fifteen yards away asked.

  “Nope,” replied another.

  “Clorg not be happy,” said a third.

  “Clorg will be happy with one we got.”

  “Not much food,” complained the second man.

  “But is big one.”

  “Not much food,” the second man insisted. “Maybe two feeds if that.”

  “We find more tonight.”

  “Let’s go back.”

  “Okay.”

  “Say, Miffle?”

  “Yes?”

  “Seen my finger? I dropped it.”

  “Your own fault,” Miffle said. “Should not carry with.”

  “Didn’t mean to cut it off,” apologized the Wack. “Was skinning skunk.”

  “We knew.”

  “Let’s get big man back to Fant.”

  All three laughed.

  The voices faded.

  Geronimo, puzzled, stood. They hadn’t made much sense, but he did gather they had captured a “big man.” Had to be Blade. What should he do now? Stay with Joshua or go aid Blade? His mind whirled. If he stayed here, the Wacks would cart Blade off to wherever they lived and eat him.

  But, if he left Joshua to follow the Wacks, something might find Joshua in the dark and finish him off. There was no telling how long it might be before he had an opportunity to free Blade, even if he did trail the Wacks.

  Great Spirit, preserve him!

  Geronimo sat, cross-legged, and moodily contemplated their predicament. They were separated. They were cut off from the SEAL. They were in hostile territory with one Warrior a prisoner and Joshua hurt.

  Where were Hickok and Bertha?

  Joshua moaned in his sleep.

  Geronimo placed his right hand on Joshua’s forehead. Just what they needed! Joshua had a fever.

  Geronimo made up his mind. He would stay with Joshua until morning, tend to his wound, leave him the Browning, and track the Wacks to where they were holding Blade. He’d rather take the Browning, but the Smith and Wesson was gone, probably dropped by Joshua when he was hit on the head.

  His thoughts took a morbid turn. What if they never returned? What would the Family do? Send out more Warriors to find them, although Plato had promised not to? What if the Wacks ate Blade before he got there? What if Hickok and Bertha were dead? He stared up at the stars, praying for the sun.

  Chapter Twelve

  The bright light on her eyelids woke her up.

  Bertha involuntarily started, pushing herself up from Hickok’s chest, blinking rapidly, trying to adjust her eyes to the morning sun.

  She must have dozed off!

  That thought immediately woke her up. What was the matter with her, falling asleep in no-man’s-land? Was she as crazy as the Wacks? To her credit, she had managed to fight off fatigue until an hour before sunrise, succumbing because her system was emotionally overwrought and she was extremely fatigued. She had been unable to sleep soundly since leaving the Home.

  Bertha stared at Hickok. He was breathing, his chest rising and falling in a regular rhythm. Dried blood caked the left side of his head, shading his blond hair a dull brown. There was a circular indentation in the center. She gently raised the hair and intently examined the wound. It didn’t appear to be deep, but she worried nonetheless, dreading he might have sustained brain damage. She wouldn’t know until she revived him.

  And the sooner, the better.

  Birds were chirping in nearby trees.

  A good sign. If danger was present, the singing birds would fall silent.

  B
ertha rose, her legs stiff, clutching the Springfield. She cautiously stepped around in front of the bush and onto University Avenue. Bodies of Wacks were scattered along the road and on both sides. Bad news. Bodies would attract vermin, rats and dogs and worse. She had to get Hickok on his feet and get him back to the SEAL, or at least to a safe hiding place.

  Water was what she needed.

  A crow flew in from the south, circling over the bodies, cawing its find to its brothers and sisters.

  Bertha walked north on University Avenue, searching for water, for anything she could use to revivify Hickok. Three blocks passed and she stopped, loath to go any further, to stray too far from the gunman.

  To her left stood a decrepit office building, two stories high. The windows were busted, the doors long gone. Before the war, a fountain had delighted passersby with a ten-foot-high jet of spray. Now the fountain basin served as a large catch bowl for rainwater.

  Bertha ran to the basin and dropped to her knees. This was just what she needed, but how would she carry the water back to Hickok? She glanced around, frowning, disappointed, because there was nothing she could use.

  “Planning to take a bath, Bertha?”

  Bertha spun, seeing she was covered by a man with a rifle and two other men with bows, the arrows notched and aimed at her. She recognized the six men surrounding her.

  “Say, there, bro! How does it go?”

  “Don’t give me any jive, honey,” the man with the rifle said. “Stand up. Real slow.”

  Bertha did as she was told. “What’s the matter with you, Tommy? Is this any way to treat your old friend Bertha?”

  Tommy, like the others, was dressed in shabby, grungy clothes. His black hair was long, past his shoulders, and he sported a beard.

  “Old friend Bertha?” Tommy repeated, his finger on the trigger. “We all thought you was dead. We haven’t heard from you in weeks. Z took it real hard. He thought you’d been wasted by the Watchers or the Uglies.”

  “And here I am.” Bertha beamed. “Alive and kickin’!” She could sense their suspicion, their wariness, and she couldn’t blame them. She’d feel the same way if the situation were reversed.

  “Very strange,” Tommy stated. “Here we all think you’re dead and gone, and look at you! New clothes! A beaut of a gun! And you’re lookin’ healthy and well fed! Someone’s taking good care of you, aren’t they, babe?”