Sooner Dead (Gamma World) - Mel Odom [2]
Quietly as she could, Hella shifted beneath the microweave camouflage blanket she’d taken with her to keep watch. Daisy snuffled again then bleated mournfully. Hella wondered if the predator thought of Daisy as prey or if the big lizard had been part of the reason the thing had hung back for so long. Daisy was intimidating to many things, including several that were larger than she. The lizard hunted her meals too, and she was deadly in the wilderness.
Breathing rhythmically, Hella tapped the comm in her ear to wake Stampede. “Wakey, wakey.”
Stampede answered almost immediately. He always came up out of sleep and into full wakefulness in a heartbeat. Despite the fact that she and Stampede had been friends and partners for several years, Hella still had a hard time accepting how quickly he could shift from sleep.
Lightning blazed across the sky again, and the peal of thunder that followed sounded like a cannon shot. Hella’s ears rang.
“We have company?” Stampede kept his voice low, but it rumbled like the thunder as well.
“Yeah. And it’s getting more curious.”
Stampede snorted and that sound wasn’t human at all. “Or hungry.”
“Maybe.” Hella let her gaze go loose and didn’t focus on anything. Trying to focus in the dark, even without the barrage of light and noise, was foolish. Human eyesight was limited at night, and peripheral vision was strongest. Not looking at something allowed her to see it better.
“Don’t know why it couldn’t have waited till a decent hour to fill its belly.”
If the situation hadn’t been so tense, Hella would have grinned at that. Stampede groused about everything. And he hated getting out in the rain.
“Any idea what it is?”
“Something furry.”
“So am I.”
Hella grinned at that. Stampede took a lot longer to dry than she did, and he stank when he was wet. Even he admitted that. “I don’t know if it’s people-smart, but it’s clever enough. And definitely patient.”
“If I’m going to get out in the rain, I’m ready to hunt it.” Stampede growled a curse. “I’m tired of playing cat and mouse with this thing.”
“The night will work against us.”
“It’s never around in the day.” Stampede blew out a breath.
“That we can see.”
“I know.” Gear clanked as Stampede pulled it on. “I’m going to wake Poole and Smothers. Set them up to watch the camp.”
“All right.” Hella agreed with the choice. They’d been in-country with the expedition for five days. During that time she, like Stampede, had taken stock of the security team the New Mexico scientists had brought with them. None of the guards were used to the Redblight, or the harshness of the wilderness for that matter, but those were the two people Hella would have picked.
“I’ll be there in a few. Don’t get killed.”
Hella hunkered down as another lightning bolt seared the night. Then the creature exploded out of the darkness to her right.
The soundless approach caught Hella completely off guard. She’d never faced anything that big that could move so quickly. The appearance was almost like a magician’s trick—first she saw it, then she didn’t—only in reverse.
She pulled her head down and threw her arms over her face to protect her eyes because there was no time for her to take aim and fire. She had an immediate impression of bulk and wet fur and ferocity as the thing snapped at her with gleaming jaws made even more fiercely white by the lightning flashes.
Driven by the predator’s mass, Hella flew backward. Desperately she tried to keep her feet under her, but the muddy ground made that impossible. Her boots tore through the loose earth and slipped. She caught herself on one knee and one gun hand. She felt the mud pack the barrels of that weapon and knew it would take the nanobots in her body a short time to clear the blockage.
Twisting, she aimed her other hand at the darkness and the creature.