Prodigal's Return

Instantly, the mutie moved forward once more, and there came the soft snap of breaking string.

“Now!” J.B. yelled, throwing himself to the ground.

A split second later, a bright flash of light washed over the area, and a deafening thunderclap shook the desert. Already in motion, the companions hit the ground half a heartbeat before a hissing barrage of shrapnel passed over their heads. Giving a low grunt of pain, Doc slapped a hand to his shoulder, where the fabric of his coat was soon stained red.

“Please, oh dear God…” Mildred whispered, almost afraid to look backward. Then she cursed bitterly as a greenish light pulsed through the swirling smoke and sand, still moving onward.

“Begone, foul Visigoth!” Doc bellowed, awkwardly firing the LeMat twice with his left hand, his right clenching the wound.

The first miniball hit sand, but the second ricocheted off something metallic, making the howler expand the cloud in a protective gesture.

Startled, Ryan narrowed his eyes in amazement. The cloud could change size? That was a protective gesture, which meant there was something in the world that the nuking thing feared. He had no idea what that might be, but the simple fact that the mutie had any kind of a mortal weakness gave him new hope.

“How far go?” Jak muttered, wiping the sleeve of his jacket across his sweaty forehead. A true albino, the youth was normally pale as new snow, but now he was nearly pink, flushed from the sheer effort of endlessly putting one boot in front of the other.

“Half mile mebbe,” J.B. replied in a throaty growl, rising stiffly from the ground.

“W-we’re n-not gonna make it…?.” Mildred sighed, her shoulders sagging.

Grabbing the physician by the arm, Ryan spun her and slapped her across the face. Mildred jerked back from the stinging blow, and placed a hand on her cheek.

“We’re gonna make it if I gotta kick your ass all the way!” Ryan snarled, his chest heaving. “Now move!”

Common sense overwhelmed her feelings of rage, and Mildred mutely obeyed, shuffling away from the man as if he had began to issue a green cloud himself.

“Tough love,” J.B. said, bumping her with a hip. “Next time, I’ll slap you. Then you can do me.”

“D-deal,” Mildred said with a weak laugh, a touch of hysteria creeping into her raspy voice.

Back in her own time period, the physician would have had access to dozens of chemicals that could have kept the companions mentally alert and physically strong for days. But these blighted days, her medical kit consisted of only what she could find in the ruins of decaying hospitals and veterinary clinics, along with whatever she could cobble together: upholstery needles to sew wounds shut, nylon fishing line as sutures, raw alcohol to clean wounds, razor blades instead of scalpels, and leather straps for tourniquets. There were a few precious drugs hidden among her meager supplies, but they were all soporifics, designed to put patients to sleep so that they could stand the terrible pain of meatball surgery, nothing that would keep the companions awake.

Heat lightning crackled across the stormy sky as they forced themselves to keep moving. The sand was starting to become mixed with dark earth and rocks, clearly indicating that they were coming out of the desert. That was a good sign, and it put some much needed strength into their heavy legs, their shuffle becoming a brisk walk. But the surge quickly faded, and they returned to a slow stagger, pausing only to fire the occasional round at the howler.

“Any more plas-ex?” Ryan asked hopefully, levering a fresh round into the Steyr. Five more rounds, and he would have to start using his 9 mm SIG-Sauer pistol, which had much less range.

“All gone. Used most of it getting us away from this thing in that box canyon,” J.B. answered grimly, his canvas munition bag hanging unnaturally flat at his side. “I’m down to two homie pipe bombs, some firecrackers, a couple of road flares and one, count it, one Molotov that I’m saving for an emergency.”

“And this does not qualify, sir?” Doc demanded, askance.

“Not yet,” Jak snorted, unscrewing the cap on a canteen to take a fast drink. He offered it to the others, but there were no takers.

Pausing at the top of the dune, Ryan saw that it abruptly ended at a rocky cliff that overhung a large pool of water. Lush green bushes grew in abundance along its mossy banks, along with a couple of juniper trees, and schools of rainbow-colored fish were darting about in the clear shallows. Suspiciously, Ryan checked the rad counter on his shirt, but it remained silent. Fireblast! He had hoped it might be a nuke crater and the rads might be enough to fry the howler. Then he grinned. However, mebbe he still could turn the water to their advantage.

“My dear Ryan, I hope you are not thinking what I think you are thinking,” Doc rumbled, sending two more booming miniballs into the misty howler.

“It’s only fifty feet or so,” Ryan guessed, moving closer to the edge of the cliff.

“That should be enough!” Krysty said unconvincingly, thumbing her last three rounds into the revolver. The cylinder closed with a hollow click.

“Okay, I’ll give us some cover,” J.B. said, pulling out the Molotov and a butane lighter. “Everybody, get ready to move!”

As the howler started up the dune, the companions cut loose with their blasters, the sheer barrage of hot lead holding the indomitable creature at bay for a few precious moments.

Quickly setting fire to the oily rag tied around the neck of the whiskey bottle, J.B. then dashed it on the rocky soil directly in front of the mutie. As the fireball whoofed into existence, the companions turned and jumped.

The fall was short and they hit the water hard, their shoes and boots actually bumping the bottom of the pond. Bitter cold engulfed them, returning a semblance of clarity to their minds even as it stole some of the strength from their bodies.

Kicking hard, Ryan swam back to the surface and stroked for the nearby shore. Dripping wet, he and his companions moved quickly into the bushes and ducked. A few seconds later, a green cloud appeared atop the cliff. The howler moaned even louder than before, and incredibly, moved away, heading back down the dune.

“Thank Gaia, it worked,” Krysty whispered, allowing herself to relax for the first time in a day.

“And we sure needed the bath.” Mildred chuckled briefly.

“Hey, where blaster?” Jak asked, checking his empty holster, then looking about on the spongy moss.

“Over there in the shallows, near the lily pads,” Ryan said, pointing.

Frowning, the young man dropped to his stomach and began to crawl to the pond, trying to stay as concealed as possible.

“Speaking of which, it seems that I am unarmed once more,” Doc muttered, drawing the LeMat, only to slam it back into the holster at his side. Wet black powder was dribbling out of the weapon like ebony blood. The antique blaster would be completely useless until it was thoroughly dried and painstakingly reloaded.

“Here ya go,” J.B. said, sliding a scattergun off his back and tossing it over.

Making the catch, Doc checked to make sure the pump-action 12-gauge was fully loaded. At close range the S&W M-4000 could open a person like a tin can. Although what, if anything, the barrage of lead pellets would do to a howler was anybody’s guess. However, the scattergun had a much greater range than the sword hidden inside his ebony walking stick.

Just then, the green cloud returned to the little cliff and went straight over the edge to plummet into the pool. It hit with a large splash, and the plants along the bottom of the cliff began to wither and die.

“Run, Jak, it’s back!” Mildred yelled, through cupped hands.

Swinging up the longblaster, Ryan started putting 7.62 mm rounds into the cloud until he ran out. Slinging the Steyr, he drew his SIG-Sauer and began hammering the howler just above the surface of the pond. Under the water, some sort of a physical form was visible, more insectlike than norm, along with several mismatched legs, as if the creature had been built from a dozen different bodies.

At the first shot, Jak rose from the water with the Magnum in his grip and fired twice at the mutie, before turning to wade toward shore.

Heading for the pale norm, the howler moved through the pool, the water becoming dull and murky as hundreds of fish rose lifeless to the surface, pale blood oozing from their gills.

“Move fast, my friend!” Doc bellowed, charging out of the bushes to trigger the scattergun at the cloud.

As Jak reached the shore, he slipped in the mud. Reaching out, Doc started to grab the young man by the collar of his leather jacket, then withdrew his hand, unsure what to do for a moment, especially as the collar was lined with razor blades.

“Get him out of the bastard water!” Ryan bellowed, over the gentle coughs of the silenced blaster in his fist.

Firing the scattergun with one hand, Doc thrust out his wounded arm. Floundering in the slippery mud, Jak grabbed the man’s hand and just managed to make it onto the shore before an expanding ring of greenish water reached the bank. Instantly, the lily pads began to turn brown and the frogs went silent.

“Incoming!” J.B. shouted, lighting the fuse on a pipe bomb.

Moving with purpose, Jak and Doc sprinted into the bushes. Once they were clear, J.B. tossed the pipe bomb into the discolored water, then turned to join his fleeing companions.

As the howler approached the shore, the water erupted into a boiling geyser of flame, mud and dead fish. Violently thrown backward, the mutie was blown out of the pond, to smack against the rocky base of the cliff. The sandstone facade shattered, sending out cracks in every direction like earthen lightning bolts. The ever-present cloud began to thin as the howler slid back down into the water, and the glowing nimbus of greenish light faded away.