Cannibal Moon

“Hard to say for sure,” Sprue answered. “But they’re following the same trade route we are, between here and Slake City. We’ve caught them riding around in wags, just like norms—except for the goddamned sides of smoked meat packed in the trunks. These ain’t no dum-bass muties, for sure. They fight just like us, with blasters. They learn from their mistakes. That’s something a stickie can’t do. Stickie follows instinct, even if instinct says to jump off a cliff. Cannies use their brains.”

The convoy master took a deep swallow from the blue jug, gasped as the alcohol burned its way down his gullet, then shuddered and said, “I want to hear the whole story about your pet flesheater.”

The whole story was something Sprue wasn’t going to get. Ryan had no intention of mentioning their destination, the Hells Canyon redoubt. The companions kept such things to themselves. It’s what gave them a leg up on the competition.

“Have you ever heard of a queen of the cannies?” Ryan asked the bearded fat man. “Down Louisiana way?”

Sprue paused to scratch his chin. His hand disappeared up to the wrist in the tangle of coarse hair. “Can’t say that I have, but it’s been a couple years since I run wags there,” he admitted. “Louisiana norms are good folk for the most part, but they’re shitpoor. Not enough jack thereabouts to make me wanna go back. Don’t like the humidity or the gators, neither.”

“Incoming!” someone shouted from the perimeter.

Suddenly everyone took up the cry. “Incoming! Incoming!”

Ryan and Sprue vaulted from the lawn chairs as streaks of light arced in from the darkness. Streaks of light that hissed as they fell almost lazily into the convoy’s midst.

Crashing to earth, the Molotov cocktails bloomed orange, their explosions sent flaming fuel flying in all directions. It sprayed over wags and a few unlucky crewmembers. Men and women screamed and batted at themselves as they ran and burned. Their comrades immediately caught them and knocked them down. They smothered the flames with blankets and dirt, then dragged the still-smoking, still-screaming victims to cover beneath the wags.

Gunfire roared around the defensive perimeter. Every blaster was cutting loose at once. The din was tremendous; the chill zone a complete circle.

But the gasoline bombs kept falling, turning the center of the ring into a lake of fire.

“It’s all flat ground out there,” Sprue snarled into Ryan’s ear as they crouched beside a van. “There’s no cover for 150 yards in all directions. The throwers should be chopped down by now.”

He was thinking arm toss; he was thinking short range.

He was thinking wrong.

“Catapults,” Ryan told him. “The cannies are using catapults.”

Chapter Seven

As the Molotovs rained down, Mildred stuck to Junior Tibideau like grim death, her fingers gripping the back of his trouser waistband.

Krysty, Jak, J.B. and Doc had also taken cover under the 6x6. On either side of them convoy crew was firing longblasters through gunports and gaps in the wheel well armor. The clatter in the narrow space was earsplitting.

J.B. crawled up against the steel skirt and had a look for himself. He immediately turned on the nearest of the two riflemen. “What the hell are you shooting at?” he shouted. “You can’t see anything out there!”

The prone crewmembers ignored him. He and his pal continued to rattle off frantic, full-auto bursts from their AKs. They had plenty of ammo to burn. Rows of 30-round mags were laid out beside them.

From their panic, Mildred guessed they hadn’t encountered a cannie attack like this before. Up until now Convoy Master Sprue’s strategy for surviving the night had been to pick a campsite he knew they could defend. The response to attacks had been to hunker down and fight back until dawn. Unless the present situation changed radically, by dawn the circled defenders would all be dead. The only option was to pull up stakes and make a run for it before the fires took their toll. But there was a big problem with that. Running could put them in an even worse position in a hurry. The road ahead could be mined. Or blocked by an impassable obstacle. In the dark, strung out without room to circle, the wags would be easy pickings for the cannies.

“Flares! Put up some bastard flares!” the convoy master bellowed to his crews as he ran the inside of the perimeter.

The rest of the companions squirmed up to the 6x6’s steel skirt so they, too, could see downrange. Still holding on to Junior’s pants, Mildred peered under the rear bumper. A few seconds later, 100,000-candlepower illuminating stars burst over the battlefield and slowly floated down on their deployed parachutes.

In the ghastly white light, the companions stared out at a flat expanse. A plain of nothing. No big rocks. No trees. Not so much as a blade of needle grass decorated the pale dirt.

The wild blasterfire around them faltered, then ceased.

Even the hair-trigger crew could see there was nothing for them to shoot at.

The illuminating stars hit the ground, one by one, sputtered and began to wink out. At the edge of the flares’ dying light, a tiny yellow dot arced silently up into the black sky. To the right and left, two more dots shot skyward. They climbed higher and higher until the companions lost track of them as they passed, whistling, overhead.

Then gasoline bombs burst in the center of the circle.

J.B. came to the same conclusion Ryan had. “There’s no sound, no flash when the fuel grens are launched,” he told the others. “They’re using some kind of mechanical launcher. They’ve got them dug in below ground, out of the line of fire. There’s no way to hit and break the Molotovs with small arms before they’re catapulted. They aren’t even visible until the throwing arm swings up, and by then it’s too late.”

“What about RPGs?” Krysty said. “Couldn’t they use those?”

“The cannie targets are only visible at the instant of launch,” J.B. said. “And then they’re just pinpoints of light. Hell of a trick to lob an RPG into a hole in the ground 150 yards away in the dead of night.”

A cluster of Molotovs exploded directly above their heads, making the 6x6 shudder, spilling liquid fire down its metal flanks and onto the dirt around it. Intense heat and the stench of burning fuel engulfed the companions.

“The cannibal bombardment appears to be coming at us from all sides,” Doc said.

“There’s no telling how many launchers they’ve got out there,” Mildred said.

“Cannies knew this was a favorite overnight spot for convoys,” J.B. said. “Probably got their butts kicked here a bunch of times before they figured out a way to attack it. Catapults would be easy to hide in excavated positions. Cover them with mats and dirt during the day. Uncover them after dark with the ranges already zeroed in.”

J.B. didn’t have to point out that gasoline bombs were a highly effective homemade munition, and they had the double advantage of pinning down the targets and lighting up the kill zone for longblasters. A perfect tactical choice under the circumstances.

As if underscoring that conclusion, the 6x6 was again rocked by overlapping explosions and blasts of heat.

“They’ve locked in on us,” Krysty said.

“Biggest wag, biggest target,” J.B. said.

Even as he spoke, a different sort of smoke began to filter under the wag. Blacker. Thicker. Chokingly abrasive.

Jak put his palm against the undercarriage, then immediately jerked it away. “Hot!” he said in surprise.

J.B. touched it, too, and had the same reaction. “Wag’s on fire!” he exclaimed “Fuel from the Molotovs must have dripped down inside.”

The 6x6 absorbed yet another flurry of blistering direct hits.

Mildred envisioned the piles of rags on the cargo bed above their heads, the cargo bed loaded down with leaky fifty-five-gallon drums of highly flammable liquids and stacked ammo crates.

The smoky air under the wag suddenly became almost too hot to inhale.

“Run!” J.B. shouted to the others. “Run, quick! Before the bastard blows!”

As the companions scrambled out, he helped Mildred drag Junior from under the wag. Then they grabbed the cannie by the armpits and half carried him away from the raging heat at their backs.

Ahead, wide puddles of fuel burned out of control. Dead folks lay facedown in them, their clothes melted away, their flesh charring to ash. Smoke and flame spewed from wags all around the ring. Even as the crew resumed shooting, more Molotovs slammed on target.

Mildred sensed the wheels were about to come off.

And in the next second they did. Literally.