Desolation Angels

“Probably a .38 slug,” J.B. said. He crouched beside the naked metal frame that had been the front door. “Soft lead, round nose. If the old guy had been cranking full-power .357s through that Ruger cowboy gun, we might be singing a different tune.”

The Angels hadn’t rushed them yet. Now the defenders were hunkered down just inside the open-to-the-air windows and doors, waiting for the inevitable assault. They had shucked their packs and left them in the back storage area where they wouldn’t be underfoot.

At least we’re getting a chance to drink some water and catch our breath, Krysty thought.

Mildred bandaged Doc’s head quickly, using some unbleached linen strips they’d traded for at a post.

“What’s our prospect of breaking out the back?” J.B. asked.

A partly collapsed building stood right behind the one they occupied, across a narrow alley. To its southwest was the rubble of a thoroughly destroyed building, a long, low mound coming up as high as Krysty’s breastbone in places. The street on the other side was partially blocked a bit farther down by another tall building that had fallen east.

“Not like,” Jak called. He was unseen in the back of the store, keeping an eye on the rear entrance. “No way through.”

“Looked as if there’s mostly more open fields off past it, anyway,” Ryan said. “Be hard to get out unseen.”

“There sure seems to be a lot of open space around here, for a big city and all,” said Ricky, who was crouched by the southwest wall. Nothing remained of the interior furnishings but the counter. The kitchen stoves and sinks and whatnot had long since been pillaged for scrap.

“It’s Detroit,” Mildred said, cutting off the end of the last bandage with a pocketknife. “The Motor City. There, old man. You look as if I just treated you for toothache, but at least you won’t bleed out.”

She glanced over at Ricky to see him giving her a blank look. “They used to make cars here,” she told him. “So they had lots of cars. I reckon a lot of that space they’ve got growing crops and weeds used to be parking lots. Also, every third building seems to be a parking garage.”

“How you feel, Doc?” J.B. asked.

The old man shook his head. “I’ll be right as rain,” he said. Krysty noticed that his words were slurred. “Just let me sit here until the dizziness passes.”

“Concussion,” Mildred said. “That’s another reason not to make a break for it. This old coot isn’t fit to run any foot races. Least of all with bullets.”

“Why haven’t they attacked us yet, lover?” Krysty asked.

“Waiting,” Ryan said. “Working their way into a position they like. Mebbe waiting on reinforcements. Then they’ll rush us.”

Krysty glanced over the wall. Her heart skipped a beat.

“Here they come!” she yelled.

* * *

AS IF KRYSTY’S warning cry had been a signal, a furious storm of blasterfire erupted from outside.

Ryan drew his SIG, cursing himself for paying so much attention to the multiple-story building across the street. Sure, if the Angels got blasters in there, it would be triple bad, but he’d seen no sign of them even trying. And anyway, if Trader had caught him back in the day obsessing over potential danger with an obvious, actual one hanging over all their heads like an ax ready to fall, he probably would have left him high and dry in some pest-hole ville.

But regrets and reproach wouldn’t put a fired bullet back in the blaster.

J.B. leaned forward to fire his Uzi left-handed out the front door. He ducked back hastily as bullets started skipping in through the opening and across the floor right next to him.

It was obvious what the Angels were trying to do. A bunch of them were cranking shots into the former fast-food restaurant as fast as they could to keep the defenders’ heads down while other Angels charged the place. They had enough blasters out there to make it work. As long as they were careful not to hit their own attacking people.

Ryan wouldn’t have wanted to be one of those coldhearts trying to storm the restaurant, caught right between blasters like that.

“Right!” he yelled as bullets zinged and screamed crazily around the roofless interior. The same stout brick walls that kept bullets out also kept bullets fired in. “Let the bastards come, then blast them when they try to get in.”

J.B. sat on his heels with his back to the wall by the door. His right hand now held his shotgun muzzle upward by the pistol grip. His left clamped his fedora on his head as if against a high wind. He caught Ryan’s eye and gave his head a quick shake.

Ryan knew what he was thinking. It was a terrible plan. And it was.

Just better than any other option they had right then.

The bullet storm slacked. “Stay low, and get ready!” Ryan gritted out. That lull almost certainly meant the charging Angels had almost reached their goal. But if one of the companions popped up to shoot now, he or she would invite a reflex shot from one of the Angels ready to lay down covering fire. Or from one of the coldhearts about to break in.

He duckwalked to the front wall to avoid extreme-angle fire from the Angels’ covering force. He drew his panga in his left hand. It would be ideal to keep the bastards from getting in at all.

Real was dealing with whatever actually happened.

“Jak!” he called. “Keep an eye on that west window.”

Then they hit them.

A man rushed through the door. Prepared, J.B. stuck out a leg and tripped him. The attacker fell hard on his face and skidded, his long hair flying. Then the Armorer stuck his shotgun around the doorjamb and pumped out two quick blasts.

Men screamed. Ryan shot the fallen man in the side of his head as he blearily tried to push off the concrete floor, blood streaming from his face.

He plopped back down. He had a cowboy-style handblaster, similar to the one the wrinkly in the market had used.

Ryan shifted back two steps along the side wall to give himself an angle on the front door and window. He was gambling that there now would be too many Angel bodies in the way for there to be much risk of somebody sniping him from out in the weeds. The men lying out there were still shooting, which put Ryan back in his earlier frame of mind about not envying the assault force.

It was time to make the ones getting shot in the backs by their buddies look like the lucky ones.

A man swung a leg over the sill between the crouching Krysty and Mildred. Krysty promptly stabbed her knife through the back of his calf above his boot. He shrieked as she forced the knife out, cutting his hamstring. The leg was sucked right back over the wall and out of sight.

More bodies suddenly appeared, clogging the window and door. The Angels were so eager to get inside they were getting in one another’s way. Ryan shot a man who’d gotten stuck in the middle of the door in the belly. Nothing like having a downed comrade thrashing and howling in intolerable pain to take the rod out of an enemy’s pecker.

The Angel sagged back, screeching. A wild-bearded man to his left tried to throw him out of the way and barge in. Straightening, J.B. wheeled around the doorjamb and postponed the steel-shod butt plate of his M4000 right into the middle of the angry black-fringed face.

Both of them fell back against the crowd pressing them from behind. The man who had been on the gut-shot Angel’s right raised a remade 1911-model .45 blaster at Ryan. The one-eyed man shot him through the bare chest. He dropped to the floor.

Doc’s under-barrel shotgun roared. A man who had dived through the window, rolled and come up with a short-barreled revolver in hand screamed as the shot charge exploded his face, ripping off the skin on the whole upper half, knocking chunks of flesh from the cheekbone and blowing open that side of his skull. An exposed blue eye rolled wildly in its socket, then rolled upward as the man fell onto his back.

Concussed or not, it seemed, the old man still could focus his mind on the task at hand when the shit and the bullets began to fly.

* * *

KRYSTY KNELT BY the wall. She and Mildred angled their fire into the bodies and faces of Angels trying to climb in the big front window. Blood fell on her face like torrential rain.

The 5-shot cylinder of her 640 was rapidly exhausted. She looked around. Several handblasters and a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun lay inside the window where their former owners had dropped them.