Guy N. Smith Throwback

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The limbs jerked, twitched, went into spasms, the head nodding like a
puppet's, stretching so that the veins in the neck bulged and stood out. One
scream and then the vocal cords gave out, just left the victim mouthing his
cries of agony mutely. Fingers and toes bent over, long nails digging deep
into the flesh so that blood began to flow.
A silent scream, a choking cough that brought up a blob of black congealed
blood, almost drowning in a second until he got it out. Pain and hate in those
eyes, an expression that bridged a gap spanning thousands of years.
And Reitze stood back and laughed, coughed his own blood and still laughed. If
only the other two had not died overnight they could have had the same. ML
273, a formula that destroyed the body in much the same way as strychnine did
only much, much faster, did not act on the brain. You only died when you
couldn't stand the pain any longer.
He watched the throwback disintegrating, nerves stretch and break, vomiting
his life's blood in huge splodges until the skin whitened to the colour of
pork. Twitching because he hadn't the strength to writhe and convulse, biting
on his teeth until they chipped and broke.
Just the heart pumping weakly and the brain still functioning. Reitze knelt
down and pushed his face close to the other's, stared into those bloodshot
eyes.
'I wish you didn't have to die/ He unloaded his hate in a terse whisper. 'I
wish you could go on like this for ever because you bastards have killed the
world off. Sure, there'll be a few survivors but they'll be the unlucky ones.
I'm dying now but what few fuckers of you remain are going to pay!'
He stood up, lurched unsteadily. Time was running out for him, too. He had to
be going, he could not stop here any longer. Down the corridor and into the
vehicle bay. The duty soldier did riot question him when he made for the end
Land Rover, took a rifle out of the rack and filled his pockets with
ammunition. Nobody travelled unarmed these days.
Reitze pulled himself up into the driver's seat, collapsed into it. Only hate
and will power gave him the strength he needed, spun the wheels as he
misjudged the clutch. Up the ramp and out into the open.
Most of the snow had blown off the lane and drifted the hedgerows; he hoped
the Land Rover would make it. Soft powdery patches created wheel-spin in
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places and once he had to hit a drift at 30 mph to bulldoze his way through.
He skidded, hit something beneath the snow with a metallic clang, bumped over
it and kept going.
God, he hoped he would find some of 'em, that the soldiers hadn't driven 'em
all to the woods and fields, that the cold and the coughing hadn't wiped the
last of 'em out. The shitfuckers, he wanted 'em now more than he had ever done
all along.
Within a mile he found the first one, a female coming towards him, limping,
dragging herself along. She saw him, stopped, but did not attempt to run. In
all probability she had not the strength.
He hit her dead centre with the Land Rover, the speedometer needle flickering
on 35, a crunching impact that slewed the vehicle sideways on, sprawled her
across the bonnet, gushing blood like a burst flagon of claret. Reitze jammed
on his brakes, threw the Land Rover into a 390-degree spin and threw her off
into the road. Then he went over her with the nearside front wheel, caught her
with the rear one as well. He didn't even glance in his mirror because he had
spied some more throwbacks further up the lane.
They ran for the bank, floundered in the snow and had to grab hawthorn
branches in the hedge to save themselves from sliding back down. Suspended up
there they thought they were safe. The Professor cruised slowly forward, slid
to a stop fifteen yards from them. Slowly, deliberately, he picked up the
rifle and climbed out. There was nowhere they could go, it was easier than the
kids' airgun gallery at the fairground.
Five of them, he took the furthest first, a teenage girl, disintegrated her
features with a dum-dum bullet, transferred his sights to the second and blew
out his jugular vein so that bright scarlet blood sprayed technicolour
patterns all down the snow-capped hedge. The third had turned his back so
Reitze blasted his spine, sent him writhing down the slope.
The last two jumped for it, gave him sporting shots as they ran and slipped on
the ice. He missed for the first time, broke a leg at the second attempt,
scored a direct head shot on the fifth one.
Four dead, one flaying about. He climbed back in the Land Rover, edged it
forward in low-ratio. He aimed the offside front wheel for the head, felt it
crunch and split, bumped over the trunk with the back tyres, split the abdomen
like a squashed haggis.
Half a mile further on he saw the big wood, knew there would be some of them
in there but he would have to leave the Land Rover and go on foot, hoped he
had the strength to clamber over those huge drifts. The fuckers would be in
that wood all right.
Only his obsession kept him going. He was breathing heavily, spitting blood
all the time, and his heart was trying to hammer its way out of his body. It
took him nearly half an hour to make it to the wood.
Huge trees, mostly oaks, a few dead leaves still clinging stubbornly to their
branches. Rhododendrons were virtually the only cover; that was where he would
find the bastards skulking, flush them out as if he was hunting rabbits for
sport. It was sport.
It was the blood that gave them away, thick dark lung-blood, a trail of it
leading up to a dense patch of bushes, maybe fifty metres square. Reitze
leaned up against the trunk of an oak, the rifle resting in the crook of his
arm. They were in there, all right, skulking like the animals they were.
Getting them out was the only problem . . .
He thought about it; thinking didn't come easy these days. He found the Camel
packet in his pocket, just one left. Just one. He straightened it out, rolled
it between his fingers. Just one small white cylinder of paper packed with
rich dark tobacco. He sniffed it; it smelted sweet. He would in all
probability never smoke another after this one because he wasn't going back.
He put it to his lips, flicked his lighter, drew the smoke down deep into his
diseased lungs, sent himself into a fierce coughing fit.
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They would know he was here now, but it didn't matter. Jesus, he wanted the
fuckers to know what they were in for. An idea, but the deep snow made it
impracticable; if it had been summer he could have set fire to the whole wood,
stood downwind and waited. Get roasted or shot, you fuck pigs, it's up to you!
But it wasn't summer and no way was he going to be able to fire the wood.
Shit!
The hunter, it gave him a sense of pride, Man's superiority over animals. They [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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