Beneath the yellow coveralls, a coating of perspiration lubricated Ryan’s entire body—even between his toes. It was getting harder and harder for him to hold a train of thought for more than a second or two. The window and the door opposite the bed began to swim before his eye, as if he were looking through heat waves rising from sunbaked tarmac.
Poison, Ryan thought. These bastards are testing poison on me.
Then a rushing sound came from the ceiling grate directly above him. The suction from a tremendous updraft plucked at his hair and scalp. He was struck by a series of wrenching, head-to-foot chills. Perhaps from the current of air sweeping over his body? Perhaps from what had been put into his body? The shakes became so violent they made the bed frame rattle. His teeth chattered uncontrollably. Or maybe it was all inside his head? The sound, the sensation, nothing but fevered hallucinations?
He couldn’t hold that thought, either.
The world around him blurred, and when it refocused he was staring into a pair of gleaming, violet eyes. Long blond hair framed a face he knew all too well. Sharona Carson, wife of Baron Alias Carson, stood over him naked, her body oiled, reflecting the dancing firelight from the great stone hearth beside them. He was naked, too, on his back on a bearskin rug. Golden goblets of red wine and a crystal decanter were set out on the flagstone floor. In the withering heat of blazing logs, Sharona parted her knees and opened her thighs to him.
“I am a treasure,” she said, her eyes narrowing as she stroked herself. “Plunder me, you one-eyed bastard.”
“I don’t want this,” Ryan heard himself say. Low-pitched and gravelly, it didn’t sound like his voice.
“Oh, yes you do.” She pointed a finger at his loins and laughed. “Very definitely you do.”
Ryan tried to move and couldn’t raise the back of his head from the rug. It was so hot it felt like the side of his body facing the fire was about to burst into flames.
Sharona knelt, straddling his hips, and leaned forward, the tips of her long hair grazed his face and chest, crawling slowly across his skin. Then she straightened, reaching behind her back—and down.
He gasped as her fingers closed on him, and as if of its own accord, his right hand shot up to seize her by the throat.
With a rocking jolt, scene and setting changed. No longer on his back, no longer naked, he ran full tilt down a narrow, low-ceilinged hallway. His companions raced ahead of him carrying torches. Their speed and arm motion made the flames flicker wildly, producing a strobe light effect. It was difficult to tell where the floor ended and the walls began. They were trying to put distance between them and the muties in pursuit. They didn’t know how many of them there were; Ryan couldn’t count the number they had already chilled. The handle of the panga felt slippery and wet in his fingers, and the smell of spilled blood was thick in his nose. He gulped for air through his mouth, but try as he might he couldn’t quite catch his breath, like he had been running uphill for miles.
Part of him recognized the situation—he had been here before. It was like the redoubt in New Mex they had just left, only it was hot. Why was it so nukin’ hot?
As they all rounded a corner, J.B., Jak, Krysty, Mildred, Doc and Ricky skidded to a sudden halt, forcing him to stop, as well. Torchlight revealed a concrete stairwell and steps leading upward, right to left. The wall between the floor and the first landing above was carpeted in pale skin and writhing, spindly forms. The stickies were in a mating pyramid, sucker hands fixed to the wall and to one another. The crackle and hiss of the torches mingled with the moans and squeaks, and a chorus of wet, rhythmic sucking sounds. There were easily fifty of them in sight, thrusting and squirming in ecstasy. The copious juices this frenzy produced flowed over their naked bodies from top to bottom like a milky waterfall, and pooled on the floor at the foot of the wall. In the narrow space, the acrid stench was gut-wrenching.
Before the companions could retreat, the hairless heads of those at the bottom of the pyramid turned toward the blaze of the torches, which reflected in unblinking eyes as black as night, soulless shark eyes. Maws drooling with pleasure suddenly bared rows of savage needle teeth.
Stickies loved chilling even more than mating; the prospect of it sent them into an even higher gear of frenzy.
Mass coitus interruptus ensued. The muties closest to them peeled away from their coupling. They were spindly bastards but strong. Their sucker hands could pull the flesh from bone, or fasten hard with the natural adhesive they produced and then rip at will with their jaws.
Bare feet and puddles of love juice on polished concrete made for poor traction. The onrushing stickies slipped and slid, some fell, some dropped to all fours, scrambling to try to gain purchase, which gave the companions a momentary advantage. Ryan lunged forward, bringing his panga down in a tight, full-power arc. The heavy blade split the crown of a kneeling stickie’s skull, cleaving it apart like a ball of soft, moist cheese all the way to the chin. When he ripped the panga free, dark blood geysered from the crevice and sprayed across the tops of his boots.
Blasterfire roared in his right ear as Doc, Krysty and Mildred shot into the uncoiling mob of muties. The stickies dropped in bunches, as if their strings had been cut. Each high-powered slug passed through three or more bodies before ricocheting off the back wall. Their skinny torsos and soft skeletons weren’t substantial enough to slow the bullets’ flight. In such tight quarters, bounded on three sides by concrete walls, free fire was very dangerous.
A point brought home as Ricky fired his Webley Mark VI into a mutie’s open mouth. The heavy .45 ACP bullet took off the back of the stickie’s head, sparked off steel stair railing, sparked off the concrete and then whizzed past Ryan’s ear, whining down the hallway behind them.
“Back up!” Ryan shouted to the others. “Back the way we came!”
They turned as one and fell into a full retreat, running single file with Ryan bringing up the rear. Mildred and Jak had the lead with torches. Over the slap of their bootfalls and the pounding of his heart he couldn’t hear the stickies behind them, but he knew they were coming, and that they would never give up the chase. He sheathed the panga and drew his blaster. The companions sprinted blindly through the winding corridors until Mildred let out a shout.
“Got a map!” she said.
Every redoubt had floor plans, either framed behind heavy plastic or etched into the walls. It was a necessity given the complexity of the structures.
They paused only a few seconds, just long enough for Jak to read the map and find their route to safety. It was also long enough for the stickies to close the gap. With no one behind him, Ryan rapid-fired his SIG Sauer into the pale mass of bodies that filled the hallway, wall-to-wall. Torchlight glittered in a sea of black eyes.
“Go! Go!” he shouted, as the blaster’s muzzle flashed and stickies dropped in bunches, tripping those running up behind them.
Ryan stopped when the slide locked back on an empty chamber, then turned. The hallway ahead was already dark, only a faint light coming from his companions’ torches. As he ran, by feel he dropped the empty mag into his palm, pocketed it and reloaded. Really pouring on the speed, he caught up to his friends as they mounted another stairway, this one free of mating muties.
Jak led them three floors up, down a long corridor, and unerringly to the redoubt’s mat-trans. As they rushed through the anteroom’s doorway, Ryan stopped. “Get into the mat-trans and get ready to jump,” he said. “I’ll hold them off here.”
Ryan holstered the SIG Sauer. It was a last resort. In his mind’s eye was the image of the hallway jammed with pale bobbing heads and spindly waving arms. An unending supply of muties. And a limited supply of bullets. He drew the panga, quickly wiping the sweat and blood from his hand on his pants. He could hear their feet slapping the concrete and their mewling, and braced himself to defend the entrance.
“Are you ready?” he shouted over his shoulder.