Skydark Spawn. James Axler

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      Chapter Four

      The friends decided to eat the gopher while it was fresh. They set up a spit in the middle of a crossroads so they could see anyone approaching. Doc, Dean and J.B. foraged for firewood, while Jak took a great deal of pleasure in skinning and gutting the animal that almost cost him his life.

      When Doc and Dean got back with the wood, Ryan whittled a long stick of green wood with his panga and gave it to Jak, who used it to skewer the gopher lengthwise. Then he placed the stick on the upright branches embedded in holes in the asphalt and checked to make sure it was balanced as it turned.

      In minutes the fire was burning hot in the spit and the aroma of cooking meat made the friends’ mouths water. Unfortunately the smell would also attract the attention of every mutie for miles around.

      “J.B., Krysty, Dean and Doc,” Ryan called, “take up a four-point perimeter. Triple red.”

      While Jak seasoned the meat with a few herbs, Mildred made sure the gopher cooked evenly over the spit, and it wasn’t long before the meat was cooked well enough to eat. Jak cut seven portions from the animal, pierced the meat with sharpened branches and handed them out to the group so they could all eat while on lookout against a mutie attack.

      When Jak handed Dean his piece, he stood over the boy waiting to hear him offer an opinion. “Taste like chicken?”

      Dean took a bite out of the haunch, chewed the meat and grimaced. “Not really.”

      “Cannie approaching,” Doc called.

      Ryan turned and saw one of the thin spiderlike muties coming up the road. “Careful, people,” he commanded. “If there’s one out there, there’ll be more.”

      “Want chilled?” Jak asked, his Colt Python at the ready.

      “No,” Ryan said. “Not worth the ammo.”

      “Then what?” Dean asked. “We can’t just wait until they surround us.”

      The boy was right. While Ryan didn’t want to waste precious rounds killing muties, they had to do something before there were a hundred muties around them and they’d have to blast their way out. “Everyone finish eating. Take seconds if you want, but leave the rest behind.”

      The friends quickly ate what Jak had provided for them, even though the meat was a little tough and hard to swallow. Ryan, Jak and Mildred took seconds, leaving more than half of the huge gopher on the spit.

      “Let’s move,” Ryan said.

      “Bon appetite,” Doc muttered in the direction of the muties.

      In a flash the friends were on their feet, continuing the journey south. By the time the group had taken fifty paces the first few muties were crowding around the spit and tearing at the leftovers. After they’d taken sixty paces, the muties numbered in the dozens and the gopher was all but gone.

      THE BASEMENT of the main building on Fox Farm was cold, wet and dark, and smelled of a variety of foul bodily fluids. This was where the problem breeders were brought to be made heavy. It was easier for them if they bred willingly, but it wasn’t necessary for them to cooperate. Breeders could still get heavy while being chained to the wall, and they birthed children after nine months in the basement just as well as those breeders who worked on the farm during the day and rutted every night. Their offspring weren’t as healthy as those of the farmworkers and they sometimes had to be put down, but it was still better to have them breed than send them away on a slave convoy.

      Fox paced under the dim light of an electric bulb waiting for his sec men to bring down the latest breeder who’d refused to rut. While he waited, he walked the length of one of the walls the breeders were chained to. The first breeder was a black-haired girl who’d never rutted before she’d come to the farm. She’d refused every one of the men assigned to her, and when it became clear she’d simply been putting off rutting, Fox moved her into the basement and had his four top studs rut her each night for a month until he was sure she’d gotten heavy. When she didn’t bleed at the end of the four weeks, he stopped the rutting. A few months later she began showing of signs of heaviness, and now she was more than eight months along and could give birth at any time.

      “How do you feel?” Fox asked.

      “Good,” she answered, pulling the chains away from her naked legs.

      “After the birth, will you be ready to rejoin us on the farm?”

      “Oh, СКАЧАТЬ