Hive Invasion. James Axler

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      “No time for chivalry, Doc!” Mildred said as she put another two slugs into the bottom of the pit. “Your ankle’s sprained. That means you go first. Now, shut your yap and step up! Use both hands!”

      While the latest bug casualty was being swallowed back up by its brethren, Mildred shoved her blaster into her waistband, then laced her hands together to form a stirrup. Doc tossed his rapier and its sheath up out of the pit, then, grimacing in pain, braced himself with a hand on her shoulder as he put his feet into her improvised step. As he did, she heaved him up with all of her strength.

      “Whoa—!” Caught off guard by the move, Doc waved his arms like a particularly ungainly stork, then grabbed hold of the leather sleeve. “Got it! Pull, my good John Barrymore, pull!”

      His long legs scrabbled against the side of the pit, sending another shower of dirt into Mildred’s face. Shaking her head to clear her eyes, she felt Doc’s weight leave her, and drew her blaster and turned just in time to confront the latest abomination coming for her.

      “Not today.” At less than a yard away, she couldn’t miss—and didn’t. The .38 bullet entered the bug’s eye and punched out the back of its armored head, splattering the pit wall behind it with globs of black goo. The brain-dead bug stood there for a moment, then toppled backward, falling with a crack on the next one coming up.

      “Okay, anytime you guys want to get me out of here would be fine!” Mildred shouted up.

      “Working on it! Sit down and watch my back, Doc!” J.B. replied. “Here it comes, Mildred!”

      J.B.’s entire upper body appeared over the pit edge this time as he leaned down so he himself dangled into the hole. The reports of Ryan’s longblaster echoed steadily overhead, reassuring Mildred that Doc wasn’t left to fend off the bug army alone.

      “Be careful, John!” she said.

      “Grab the sleeve, and I’ll pull you up!”

      “I’m getting there, I’m getting there!” Backing up to the far side of the pit, Mildred used the sinking corpse of the burrow-bug as a precarious platform to push off. Running as hard as she could across the shifting dirt, she scrambled up the side of the pit and grabbed the jacket sleeve. “Got it!”

      “Okay, just hold on.” J.B. was starting to pull her up when the wall next to her exploded. Pelted by dirt clods, her vision obscured, Mildred didn’t see what hit her. The next thing she knew, she was knocked backward by a powerful blow that made her lose her grip on the jacket and tumble back down to the bottom.

      Something thrashed and writhed on top of her, and Mildred felt a sharp pain stab into her upper chest. Hearing something clacking near her head, she blindly thrust out a hand, ignoring the stabbing ache that coursed through her arm, and grabbed a thick, jagged mandible, cutting her fingers. Realizing a bug had landed on top of her, she jabbed her pistol, still clutched in her other hand, above the shaking bug pincer and squeezed the trigger twice. The bug’s body shook spasmodically on top of her, then collapsed and lay still.

      “Son of a bitch!” Still feeling the dirt quiver and move around her and knowing she couldn’t rest, Mildred squirmed out from under the bug carcass, wiping dirt out of her eyes.

      “Dark night, that was close! Come on, Millie, let’s get you out of there!” J.B. said.

      “Amen to that!” Still clutching her pistol, Mildred took a running start again and leaped for the jacket sleeve. This time she used the edge of the hole in the wall for leverage, and was able to get even higher. She grabbed the sleeve with her free hand and pointed her blaster down the black tunnel, hearing faint skittering and chittering noises from inside. “Pull me up!”

      J.B. started to do so again, and had almost gotten her to the lip of the pit when Mildred felt a strong tug on her combat boot. She glanced down to see yet another of the bugs with its mandibles firmly clamped around her foot. “Shit! Hang on, John. I have to do a little extermination!”

      “Hurry up, for shit’s sake!” he said through gritted teeth.

      Mildred aimed and squeezed the trigger, but the hammer fell with only a dull click. She pulled it again, but with no better result. “Damn it, I know I had one left—misfire!”

      “Great!” J.B. said. “Doc, a little help!”

      The old man’s head appeared over J.B.’s. Apparently he was lying on the Armorer to provide ballast. “Oh, my. One moment...” He stretched out a long arm with his LeMat revolver extending from his hand. His face was caked in dust and dirt, and his eyes were watering profusely, leaving wet tracks down his face and making him resemble some sort of demented, muddy clown. “Do not move, Mildred!”

      “Jesus! Can you even see what you’re aiming at, Doc?” she shouted back while trying to dig her other foot into the dirt. The burrow-bug increased its pull on her, making Mildred feel as if she was being stretched apart.

      “The beast is fairly large—” Doc squeezed the trigger of his LeMat, and the slug buried itself in the bug’s head. “That should do it!”

      And it did. The bug slumped to the ground—but its mandibles were still locked tight around Mildred’s ankle.

      “Dammit!” Still holding on to the jacket for dear life, Mildred kicked at the bug’s head with her other foot. Slowly it began loosening from her foot.

      “Careful, it’s starting to tear!” J.B. said. He was right—his jacket had been through a lot already, and the stitches around the shoulder were starting to pop loose.

      “Almost got it—off!” With a last hard kick, Mildred freed her foot just as Doc shot another of the tunneling beasts scuttling toward her. Its body slithered back to the bottom, where it disappeared into the tunnel below.

      “Can’t...hold...on!” she cried. Her bleeding fingers were slippery, and Mildred felt the leather slide through her slick hand. She glanced down to see three of the hungry muties jostling one another to be the first to sink their pincers into her when she fell. Although she squeezed the jacket sleeve with all her strength, she still felt herself slipping. Mildred tried to lift her other hand to support herself, but the injury in her chest flared when she raised her arm higher than her elbow, and she had to let it drop again. Looking back up, she saw more thread tearing away, and the hole between the sleeve itself and the rest of the jacket growing larger. “Please—”

      A strong hand suddenly gripped her wrist, and she looked up to see Doc’s lined face smiling down at her. “You are so close to being free of this accursed hole, and the world is an infinitely more interesting place with you in it, my dear Dr. Wyeth. Now come with me.”

      And just like that, with Doc and J.B. helping her, Mildred was free of the pit. J.B. gave her a quick hug, also patting her down for injuries at the same time. “Where are you hurt?”

      “Below my shoulder. I can walk,” Mildred replied, already rising to her feet. “Let’s go.”

      “No time to reload,” J.B. said. The cylinder of Mildred’s target pistol didn’t swing out for quick reloading—each shell had to be manually ejected with the rod on the side of the gun and bullets inserted one at a time.

      He handed her the Mini-Uzi and took up Doc’s LeMat. “I’ll help Doc, you cover us. Only got about fifteen rounds СКАЧАТЬ