Hickok pounded the hammer onto the doorknob once. Twice. Three times. The doorknob broke off and clattered to the floor. He wrenched the door open and entered.
Eureka!
The room was filled with weapons of every variety: revolvers, pistols, shotguns, rifles, machine guns, bows, swords, knives, explosives, and more. On a corner of the nearest table were the newest additions to the collection: a pair of pearl-handled Colt Python revolvers.
Hickok snatched up the Pythons, relief washing over him. He quickly checked, verifying they were loaded.
Footsteps pounded in the hallway.
Hickok emerged from the storeroom with the Colts held at waist height, the barrels tilted upwards.
Three of the Brethren were rushing toward him.
“Lookin’ for me?” Hickok asked, and shot each of them between the eyes, the Pythons thundering in the confines of the corridor.
The mutants died without uttering a sound.
Hickok bolstered his Colts and reentered the storeroom, seeking an equalizer. He was vastly outnumbered, and even his precious Pythons couldn’t fend off a horde of mutants. Well, 264 might not, technically speaking, qualify as a horde, but it was close enough for him. He gazed at a rack of machine guns and automatic rifles.
Just what the doctor ordered!
Hickok selected six of the automatic rifles, insured their magazines were full, then swung two over each arm. He was about to take the last two and leave, when his eyes fell on a green metal box in the far corner of the storeroom, its lid partially open. He walked to the box, knelt, and raised the lid.
Someone must have remembered his birthday.
Hickok stuffed his pockets, then retrieved the pair of rifles he’d chosen.
One in each arm, a stock pressed against each side, he exited the storeroom and headed for the Humarium.
Party time.
A mutant ran into view, took one look, and headed for the hills.
“Was it my breath?” Hickok quipped.
The Warrior calmly proceeded along the hallway until the junction appeared. He slowed, the rifles pointing straight ahead.
Where the blazes were the Brethren?
An answer was promptly forthcoming. They came at him in droves, charging around the corner en masse, most armed with only whips, the rest relying on their nails, their claws. They were no match for the gunman.
Hickok poured round after round into them, their bodies twitching and convulsing as their organs were ruptured by the heavy slugs. They toppled to the floor in rows, and those to the rear were shot as they attempted to clamber over their fellows. An acrid stench filled the corridor.
As suddenly as it began, the attack ceased.
Hickok squinted as he cautiously moved up to the pile of dead mutants.
He stayed next to the right-hand wall and squeezed through between the wall and the corpses.
Manta and three dozen Brethren were waiting for the Warrior ten yards into the Humarium. The Brethren were lined up behind their leader in disciplined ranks.
“Howdy, Fish Lips,” Hickok greeted the mutant.
“Drop your weapons!” Manta commanded.
Hickok snorted. “You must be jokin’!”
“You cannot hope to slay all of us before we reach you,” Mania stated.
“Drop your weapons and I will be lenient with you.”
“Now I know you’re jokin’,” Hickok said. “And as usual, you’ve got everything all backwards. I want you and your cronies to lay down on the floor with your hands behind your backs. Pronto.”
Manta took a menacing step forward. “Don’t be absurd! We’ll do no such thing!”
Hickok knelt on his right knee, placed the rifle in his right hand on the floor, and rose.
“You are surrendering!” Manta declared happily.
“Not quite,” Hickok said. He reached into his right pocket and extracted one of his surprises, holding it aloft. “Recognize this, Fish Lips?”
“A grenade!” Manta exclaimed. “We took those from the Cutterhawk.”
“You were real lucky the sailors didn’t have a chance to use ’em,” Hickok commented. “I trust you know what these can do?”
“If you use one in here, human, you run the risk of fracturing one of the outer walls,” Manta noted. “And if you cause a rift in the exterior walls, the Humarium will be flooded. Every human inside will be killed.”
“That’s a risk I’ll have to take,” Hickok said.
“You’re bluffing,” Manta snapped. “You won’t use a grenade. Even if you do, we can breathe underwater. Most of the Brethren will survive.”
Hickok detected a hubbub of shouts and cries coming from the north, from the direction of the kelp factory. “Say, Fish Breath, I’ve got a question for you.”
“Not another one!” Manta remarked bitterly.
“Yep. Did you happen to pull some of your overseers from the kelp factory to deal with me?” Hickok inquired.
“Yes. Why do you ask?” Manta responded.
Hickok grinned. “Just a lucky guess.”
Manta suddenly turned, listening to the uproar coming closer and closer. “No!” he cried.
“Afraid so,” Hickok said. “Your little empire is about to come tumblin’ around your gills.”
Manta glared at the Warrior. “If it’s the last thing I ever do,” he hissed, “I will revenge myself on you!”
“Now there’s an original line,” Hickok cracked.
Manta shook his right fist at the gunman. “I swear you will pay!”
“Just so you don’t jump me in the bathtub,” Hickok said. “You might scare my son’s rubber ducky.”
Further conversation was precluded by the arrival of nearly a hundred rampaging men and women from the north, from the kelp factory, where they had risen up and pounced on their overseers, killing every mutant and sustaining marginal losses in their frenzied bid for freedom.
Manta and the Brethren with him turned to meet the rushing tide of enraged, bloodthirsty humanity. The mutants fought with fang and claw, but they were grossly outnumbered. The humans overwhelmed the mutants, venting months, years, and even decades of simmering hatred and hostility. The center of the Humarium became a writhing mass of humans and mutants. Screams, cries, and curses rent the air.
Hickok leaned against the wall. He propped his other rifle alongside his left leg, folded his arms, and waited.
Fewer and fewer mutants were still in the fray. Bodies dotted the floor, contorted in their death throes.
Hickok began whistling the tune to “Home on the Range.” He saw five men stradding a mutant, beating at him with their fists and kicking him again and again and again. The mutant wasn’t moving, but their fury had not subsided. They would beat him until his corpse was a pulpy mass.
The battle was slowing, winding down.
A lone mutant broke from the melee and staggered toward the gunman.
Hickok straightened, his hands dropping to his Colts.
Manta was coated with blood and sporting half a dozen wounds. His left leg was bent unnaturally. He shuffled to within six feet of the Warrior, breathing heavily, his tongue flicking over his lips. “You! You did this to me!” he bellowed.
“I reckon so,” Hickok agreed.
“Human scum!” Manta growled.
“I’ve been givin’ some thought to what you said,” Hickok commented as Manta limped toward him.
Five feet separated them.
“And I don’t much like the notion of your traumatizing my son’s rubber ducky,” Hickok remarked.
Four feet.
Manta lunged, his claws stabbing for the human’s face.
Hickok hardly seemed to move; one moment his hands were lightly resting on his Pythons, and the next the Colts were bucking and belching lead.
Manta took a slug in each eye. The impact catapulted him backwards to crash to the floor in a disjointed heap. He gasped once, then was still.