Sooner Dead (Gamma World) - Mel Odom [3]
Bullets peppered the leaves and branches, causing a flurry of motion. Hella’s heart trip-hammered inside her chest when she ceased firing. Another streak of lightning revealed that the creature had ripped away the front of her blouse. The abbreviated chain mail half shirt she wore next to her skin showed fresh scratch marks, and she dimly remembered the bruising second effort the creature had made during the attack. Thin streamers of blood flowed from three scratches beneath the edge of the chain mail. She didn’t know if the marks were from teeth or claws. She was certain her attacker had both.
“Hella!” Stampede’s bellow rang in Hella’s head.
“I’m fine.” Hella concentrated briefly, focusing on her gun hands and re-forming them into larger-caliber weapons. If she could have willed them into bazookas, she would have done that. As it was, she’d configured her hands into .50-caliber weapons, the largest she could manage. The new rounds offered sheer knockdown power, but they also took away some of her control and recovery, and they’d deplete her ammo backpack faster.
“Did you get it?”
“No. It nearly got me. Come ahead slow and make sure I know where you are.” Hella stood with her knees bent slightly, her weight low and spread so she could manage the slippery earth better. She tried to listen, but the drumming rain and the aftereffects of the loud detonations ringing in her ears ruined her hearing.
Branches jerked into motion to her left.
Immediately Hella pointed her hand at the brush and fired. The heavy recoil jerked her arm and knocked her off balance again as her feet shifted in the mud. She cursed and tried to stare through the rain and the leftover blind spots from the muzzle flashes.
“Hella!” Stampede sounded hoarse. His voice was so loud that the comm nearly ruptured her eardrum, and she heard the echo of his voice—delayed by the distance—coming from farther up the hillside.
“I’m all right.” Hella swiveled and kept breathing, making herself use her peripheral vision instead of her direct sight. The creature was still out there. She felt certain about that. It wouldn’t die quietly, not something that big and that fierce.
She moved quickly through the brush, dodging behind trees as she went but still maintaining a small area. Standing still did her no go. The creature had found her. At least motion meant her hunter had to move as well.
A branch cracked behind and to her left. Hella swiveled and brought up both hands. The barrels were once more open. A huge form vaulted at her, raking at her with its claws. The chain-mail shirt took another hit, but the claws slid down far enough to slice into her flesh as well. She bit back a cry of pain, thinking that it would be her luck that the creature carried poison on its talons.
She threw herself to one side and fired again, cycling rounds through her hand. No cartridges spilled out. Her body manufactured caseless ammo. There was only the repeated detonations as she unleashed a cascade of death.
A pained yelp rewarded her attention. The predator crashed through the brush without its usual surefooted grace. When she thought back over the image her mind had conjured, she knew the creature stood almost up to her hip.
“The thing’s big.” Hella stayed in motion, depending on that sixth sense she’d honed in the Redblight and the wilderness to keep her safe. With increasing frequency, the lightning flashes lifted the darkness again and again. Everything looked surreal, and the falling rain painted jagged edges on the world.
“How big?”
“Not as big as a bear, but it reminded me of a coyote. Doglike. Only a lot thicker.”
“The coyotes in the Redblight don’t grow that big.”
“I know.” Hella sank in to a large elm tree. She liked the sense of protection the massive tree gave her, but she knew it was false. The thickness of the tree and