The queen shifted again, rolling back over with an effort. Ryan couldn’t blame her. In her place, he wouldn’t have trusted himself either. The procession was oddly silent, only the irritated squeaks of the young as they scrambled around again for the milk, the thick, sibilant breathing of the rats as they watched the humans leave and the hiss of the lit torch breaking the silence. Ryan felt more than heard the pack of medium pig-rats pacing them, flowing around the queen’s head to follow the group.
A sudden shot caught Ryan off guard, and he stumbled, catching himself before dropping either the torch or the tank. Before the echo died away, he heard something slither down a pile, and looked to his left to see a medium pig rat with a bloody hole where its right eye had been roll to a stop from the nearest pile of dung.
The guards had tensed again, ready to leap, but a shrill hiss from their queen stopped them.
Ryan looked back to see Mildred with her blaster still extended, pointing at the top of the nearest pile. “Saw it tensed to leap and took the shot.”
Ryan nodded, then turned back to the queen, his expression hard. “Doc, put your blaster up here, pointed right at the valves.”
“Ryan, I—”
“Do it right now.”
Doc hastened to comply, setting the heavy barrel of the LeMat so its muzzle was aimed squarely at the two valves on top.
“Cock the hammer.”
“Really, Ryan—”
“Cock it! I won’t say it another time.”
His thumb trembling only slightly, Doc hauled back the hammer until it caught on the sear. Ryan’s stony gaze pinned the queen, who had raised her large forepaws in the classic ‘I surrender’ pose, which would have been funny if his life and those of his companions weren’t on the line at that particular second.
“Glad to see you get my point.” Drawing back his foot, Ryan kicked the carcass of the dead pig-rat over to her. “Any more of this shit happens, and we all go up.” For emphasis, he brought the torch right up to the tanks, close enough for the flame to kiss the curved metal surface. Even the guards shifted uneasily at that, and the queen waved her front paws in unfeigned terror, chittering as she attempted to placate him.
“Ryan, I think I see the true wall a few yards distant,” Doc said.
“Well, then, let’s get the hell over to it.” Hauling the tank cart into motion again, Ryan forged ahead, straining his eye to see the end of the room. After a few more yards, he held the torch just high enough to see the real wall perhaps another five yards away, the flat, gray plane rising to the ceiling out of the piles of crap.
“Son of a bitch—where’s the bastard elevator?”
Doc pointed to their left along the wall. “We have to follow it to the other door and pray it isn’t also covered in feces.”
Ryan had taken a single step when a new noise caught his attention—the slight sputter of the torch. He looked at it in time to see the flame waver a bit before regaining its bright, steady flare.
“Hey, Doc?”
The old man was intently scanning the tops of the dung heaps. “Yes, Ryan?”
“The torch just sputtered on me.”
“Oh dear.” Doc glanced back just in time to see it happen again. “I suggest all of us redouble our efforts to find the elevator door before that tank runs out of fuel.”
“Everyone else, search the wall. I’m going to make sure our friends here don’t get any more bright ideas.” Ryan lugged the tanks and cart a few more yards, then set it up on its end, keeping the torch close to the tanks and, drawing his SIG-Sauer with his now free hand, turned to face his attentive audience.
The pig-rats had followed their every move, the medium-sized ones closest now, dozens of them arrayed in a gray-brown carpet that stretched out into the darkness. Interspersed among them were the half dozen giant muties, each one looking as if it wanted to bound over and rip Ryan’s head off. And behind them was the bloated queen, still suckling her young as she stared at the group of humans with unblinking eyes.
Ryan kept the torch near the tanks, but the flame sputtered again, flickering once, then again before regaining its constant glow. One of the guard pig-rats edged forward, and Ryan swung his blaster to point at its head, which remained perfectly still when it saw the muzzle line up on its face.
“How we coming back there?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Doc, over here! I found it!” Mildred, with her sharp eyes, had spotted the floor markers of the elevator above the piles of crap. “Oh God! There’s shit all over the front.”
“Don’t just stand there like a stupe, clear it!” Ryan was trying to keep his eye on three of the huge pig-rats, who all seemed to be moving in perfect concert at him; one from the left, one from the right, and the largest one coming straight up the center. Ryan triggered a shot in front of the massive one’s foot, maiming a small pig-rat near it, but the horse-sized beast simply crushed the wounded one into the ground with its next step, leaving the remains to be fought over by his smaller comrades. Ryan raised his blaster, sighting down the barrel at the middle one, but held his fire, sensing that if he took this one out, the others would be feasting on his guts in the next two seconds, blazing torch or no blazing torch.
Setting down their burdens, Krysty and Mildred joined Doc in attacking the large pile of mutie shit blocking the elevator doors. With muttered curses, they shoveled double handfuls of it out of the way, flinging it aside until a pathway began to take shape.
“Don’t keep cleanin’—as soon as one of you can hit the door button, do it!”
As he said that, the torch sputtered again, spitting out several brief bursts of flame before the fuel flow continued. As one, the entire mass of muties surged forward, then stopped as the flame reasserted itself. Ryan threw a glare at the queen, but she seemed content to watch from her position behind the front lines, observing her soldiers advance on the group’s seemingly hopeless position.
“Get over, Mildred. Doc and I’ll keep working on this.” Krysty kicked at the pile with her booted foot, dislodging large chunks of feces and sweeping them out of the way. At the same time, Mildred tensed and leaped up over the two-foot-high pile to the door. She slipped upon landing, but caught herself and slapped the door button. “Nothing’s happening. Wait, I got a green light! It’s coming down!”
“About fucking time something went right in here.” Ryan shook the torch to keep it going, but maintaining the flame was getting harder and harder. Get Jak and J.B. to the doors!”
Sensing a presence beside him, Ryan turned just enough to see Krysty at his side, the M-4000 leveled on her hip. “What are you doing?”
“Sure as hell not leaving you behind to face them alone.” Bracing the shotgun, she fired a single round at the nearest small rat, pulping its head and dropping it where it stood. The shotgun’s echoing boom made the entire mutie army pause, the larger ones peering at the remains of their companion before lifting their heads to stare at the flame-haired woman and the lethal black cannon she wielded.
“You certainly know how to get their attention.”
“Learned from the best.” Krysty swept the M-4000’s round muzzle back and forth, and Ryan was gratified to see the beasts shy away from it, even the larger ones.
The next thing he heard was one of the sweeter sounds in his lifetime—the soft yet distinct chime of the elevator announcing its arrival.
“Ryan, Krysty, we’ve got Jak and J.B. inside,” Mildred called to them. “Let’s go!”
“Okay, you head in, I’ll be right behind you.” Ryan waited until Krysty was over the hill of crap before taking a cautious step backward, then another, until he felt his foot sink into the pile