But not now.
Now dog packs numbered well over a million canines, roaming the polluted and untainted landscape alike, constantly seeking prey to appease their ever-present hunger. Other than the bestial mutants, dog packs were the primary danger to travelers everywhere.
Blade knew this danger well; he had battled dogs on several occasions, and the prospect of another such struggle was singularly unappealing. Up until the moment Hickok kicked in the door. Blade had hoped to avoid a full-fledged engagement. At that instant, with the baying of the savage band as it closed in from both sides, his hopes were dashed on the brutal rocks of reality.
Chastity screamed for her life.
Clyde and Bonnie took the brunt of the attack from the dogs in the hallway, Clyde trying to beat them with the bazooka and Bonnie swinging her AR-15 as a club.
The dogs in the alley surged forward in unison, closing on the giant, their teeth snapping and slashing, trying to overpower the human by sheer force of numbers.
Towering above the five raging canines, his bulging muscles rippling with every skillful move. Blade ripped into them with his Bowies. The razor edges of his big knives sliced eyeballs, hacked off ears, chopped tongues, and slit flesh and hair with gory ease. Two of the dogs were dead in as many seconds, and the remaining three severely injured before they could retreat beyond the range of the Warrior’s lethal weapons.
While Blade held off the five in the alley, his companions were not faring as well. A Rottweiler clamped its viselike jaws on Clyde’s right leg below the knee, wrenching and twisting its head ferociously. Clyde cried out and doubled over, exposing his head and neck to the other dogs in the corridor. Out of the pack hurtled a Pit Bull, its pointed teeth chomping on Clyde’s throat. He shrieked as blood sprayed from his severed vessels.
“Clyde!” Bonnie wailed, letting down her own guard and reaching for her brother.
A Husky pounced on her left arm. and she released the AR-15.
The hallway was a mass of barking, howling, bloodthirsty canines.
“Daddy!” Chastity shouted, clinging to the gunman’s neck. “Do something!”
Stuck in the middle, screened by the others. Chastity in his left arm, a Python in his right hand, Hickok had obeyed Blade’s injunction to avoid gunfire. But the sight of Clyde being torn to shreds, of Bonnie cursing as the husky chewed on her, and the terrified cry of his adopted daughter all conspired to rouse the gunfighter to action. He lowered Chastity quickly to the ground, placing her between Blade and himself, and then drew his left Colt. He faced the dogs in the corridor, his countenance seemingly chiseled in stone.
Clyde’s neck resembled shredded venison.
Bonnie was striving to wrest her arm from the Husky.
The gray and black mongrel from the window sprang at the gunman.
Hickok snot the mongrel between the eyes with his right Python, the revolver blasting and bucking in his hand.
Catapulted backwards by the impact of the slug, the mongrel flipped onto the hall floor.
The gunfighter advanced on the dog pack, each step slow and deliberate, firing twice with every stride. His next pair of shots downed the Rottweiler and the Pit Bulclass="underline" the two after that killed the Husky and a charging Collie. He moved past Bonnie, who was on her knees, her left arm pressed to her stomach, and thumbed back the hammers.
Panicked by the abrupt deaths of five of their number and the thundering of the Magnums, the canines were endeavoring to flee.
Hickok wasn’t about to let them off so easy. He continued to walk forward, firing each Python once more, and yet again. With each shot a dog fell, four of them thrashing and whining as they died in pools of their spurting blood.
The rest of the dogs were clawing over one another in their frenzy to escape. Barking and baying, they fled through a door at the far end of the corridor. In seconds they were gone.
Hickok watched the last dog hightail it. He reloaded quickly, holstered the Colts, unslung the M-16, and turned, prepared to lend aid to Blade, but his friend had already dispatched the dogs in the alley and was staring at Clyde, frowning.
Chastity was leaning against the wall, sniffling.
A crimson river flowed from Clyde’s neck. He was on his right side, his eyes glassy, his spectacles lying in the spreading crimson spring. Beside him, her knees immersed in his blood, oblivious to her own wound, crying softly, was Bonnie.
The gunman walked to her and squatted. “Bonnie?”
“Leave me alone,” she said, her words scarcely perceptible.
“We can’t stay here. The shots will bring the Hounds.”
“Go on.”
Chastity ran to the gunfighter, skirting Bonnie and flinging her slim arms around his neck. “Daddy! You’re okay!”
“Fit as a fiddle,” Hickok assured her.
Blade came over. “Bonnie, Hickok’s right. We must get out of here.”
“Go.”
“You’re coming with us,” Blade said, wiping the Bowies on his pants.
“I’m not leaving my brother,” Bonnie stated huskily.
“There’s nothing we can do for him,” Blade noted, his tone reflecting his sympathy.
“I’m not leaving,” Bonnie insisted.
Blade slid the Bowies into their sheaths, then crouched. “The Hounds will catch you and kill you.”
“I don’t care.”
“Let me see that arm.”
“It’s fine.”
“Let me see,” Blade said, reaching out and taking her left arm in his right hand. The husky had made a mess of the flesh near her elbow but, fortunately, had not torn open a vein or artery. “This must hurt,” he commented.
Bonnie looked at her brother, her eyes streaming tears. “He didn’t want to do this. He only came because of me.”
“He loved you very much,” Blade said.
She merely nodded and moaned.
“He wouldn’t want you to waste your life,” Blade mentioned.
“It’s too late to turn over a new leaf,” Bonnie responded in abject misery.
“We can’t leave you,” Blade said.
“I want to bury him.”
“There’s no time,” Blade replied.
“You go on. I’ll bury him and catch up when I can,” Bonnie proposed.
“There’s no time,” Blade stressed.
Bonnie finally took her eyes from her brother and gazed at the giant.
“Get the hell out of here!”
Blade sighed and frowned. “I’m truly sorry for what I’m about to do.”
“What?”
Leaning forward, Blade scooped her into his massive arms before she could resist. He stood and nodded for Hickok to proceed down the hallway.
“Put me down, damn you!” Bonnie protested, kicking her legs.
Blade ignored her and strode after the gunman.
“Put me down!”
“You’re coming with us,” Blade declared brusquely.
“You bastard!”
“There are some who would agree with you,” Blade quipped.
“Please!”
“No.”
Bonnie glanced over his broad right shoulder at her brother’s body, then sobbed. “Oh, Clyde.” She buried her face in Blade’s neck and wept uncontrollably.
The Warrior let her vent her emotions. He followed Hickok through the door at the end of the corridor, finding another hall leading to the right.
They took the hall to a large room caked with dust and filled with broken furniture. A broken picture window fronted a narrow, deserted street.
“The mutts are long gone,” Hickok remarked.
“Good,” Chastity said.
A front door hung by one hinge, its paint chipped, its wood warped.
Hickok barreled out the door and stopped on the sidewalk. “Which way pard?”
Blade scanned the filthy street. “We need a place to hole up,” he said, nodding to the right.