Off Season - Jack Ketchum [76]
His first bullet went wild, careening harmlessly off the walls of the cave behind the man in red. In the enclosed space the explosion was tremendous, and the man was startled and slow to respond, amazed to find Nick here inside the cave, firing a gun. In the time it took him to recover, Nick aimed again and fired. The second bullet caught the man full in the chest and pitched him backward into the fire. He was dead before he landed. Thick dark smoke and sparks filled the air and the red hunter’s shirt began to turn black. The man’s legs and arms began to jerk spasmodically. The stewpot spilled its contents on the earthen floor.
The big boy hissed and darted away, back into the cave, and the other children followed. Nick could barely see them through the heavy smoke. He saw Marjie stir below him and heard her moan. She was alive, then. Thank God.
He swung the driftwood at the women on either side of him, driving them back. He saw the huge hairless man lumber toward him through the smoke, his wrist wrapped in skins, some kind of club raised high above his head. Nick fired once and saw the man stagger, what was left of his shattered hand reaching instinctively for his belly. He lurched forward again, and Nick fired at him a second time and saw half of his neck disappear and a huge whale spout of gore shower the room as the head toppled sideways to his shoulder like a fallen tree. The man fell to his knees and then tumbled forward. His club rolled over the embers of the fire and stopped at Nick’s feet. He saw what the weapon had been. A human arm.
Then, suddenly, the children poured out at him past the now-dense clouds of smoke. His peripheral vision registered that the women beside him were moving too. He dropped into a low crouch and hurled himself against the nearest one, the fat one, and drove his elbow hard into the soft pillow of her stomach. He heard her grunt and heard something metal—a knife—rattle to the ground. At the same instant he fired at the children but there was too much smoke in his eyes and too much motion and the bullet went wild. Before he could squeeze off another round they were on him, their jaws working like the mandibles of hungry insects.
Suddenly he was aswarm with them. He felt a set of small sharp teeth at each leg. Another at his hip. A fourth child slammed into his back at his gun-hand shoulder and began to claw at his neck. He felt a moment of pure panic. Then he saw the biggest boy leap at him from amid the smoke and he pulled the Magnum around and fired, catching the boy in midair, his knife poised to strike. The blast jolted the boy backward as though pulled from behind by a rope. The knife fell spinning against Nick’s chest. He lurched forward and doubled over at the waist and shook off the clawing thing—a girl—at his shoulder.
He screamed in agony as yet another girl found his leg wound with her teeth, and thrust the pistol down at her. He pulled the trigger but the chamber was empty. He tried again. He screamed again as he felt the pregnant woman behind him bite deep into the arm in which he held the driftwood, biting him just above the elbow. He swung the arm up and rammed her hard but she would not let go. He swung the gun barrel around and slammed it into her face. She fell backward, blood streaming from her mouth and nose. The little girl at his leg wound bit harder, jaws working cruelly from side to side, trying to reach the bone.
He brought the gun around again and slashed twice at her skull with all his power. His second blow broke the child’s neck at the shoulder. A bubble of dark blood burst across her lips and she crumbled to the floor. But the leg was finished now. It buckled and he fell to one knee.
The boy at his hip released him