Quick fingers adjusting the nozzle on his hose, Roy took a backward leap. The weapons on his back stole his balance, making his heel barely clip a concrete stair. His weight dropped, leg flinging out before him. He crashed down. Pain rippled through his coccyx and up his spine.
"Crap," he snarled, eyes fixed on the mutant, hand scrambling to resecure his grip on the sprayer.
The rounded head swayed, dilated nostrils drinking in air and the stench of Roy's fear. Blubbery lips parted, revealing the bony ridge that served as its teeth. Massive arms pistoned into the ground. Huge claws gouged furrows into solid concrete. Mucus trailed from its lips, pooling on the floor and lubricating its approach. The stink of mutation and decay wafted from its dripping mouth. Weight pinned on one hand, the beast roared, slashing out with hooked talons.
Roy ducked the swing. Too slow, he rocked from the impact. Crushed against the wall, his head slammed into a handrail. Stars flashed before his eyes. Heat trickled from the point of impact. His guts rolled, cramping with the threat of vomit. Lungs burning to replace the breath that had been forced from his chest, he kicked out. Leather boots slipped on stinking ichor. Dropping a hand from the sprayer's nozzle, he levered himself off cold concrete. He kicked again, finding purchase this time, and launched himself back up to the next step.
Rage and frustraton ripped from the mutant's malformed throat. The sonic shockwave rattled lights in their fittings. Pungent saliva sprayed in glittering waves. Hooked finger rose, ready for another strike.
Roy raised an arm to fend off the splatter. Head throbbing, ears ringing, he hunkered down, collapsed into himself. Pressure enveloped his shielding wrist. Muscles and tendons strained in agonising resistance to the strength that plucked him from his seat. The stink of death overwhelmed him. Tears of pain trickled into his beard. His body shuddered from the uncontrollable act of vomitting. He recoiled against solid wetness pressed against his cheek, puked again as the rough, cat-like tongue wandered over his scalp. A high scream, not his and defintely not the mutant's, cut down into the pantry's depths. Its pitch lanced through the ringing in his ears, pierced deep into his brain.
"Not today," he growled, almost laughing as he stared into the black chasm of impendng death.
Grunting with effort, Roy kicked a foot toward the sprayer's hose. Catching the thin vinyl tube on his laces, he bent his knee up to his chest. Still dangling, he snatched the nozzle off his boots, juggled its length until his thumb raked over its trigger. Lips stretched in a grim smile, he thrust his arm into the mutant's gaping throat. Releasing liquid hissed deep into the void.
Rubbery lips and dripping nostrils clamped shut. Gristly orbs twitched in blubbery sockets. Liquid rumbled deep in its guts. Viscous tears pooled around its eyelids. Its flabby mouth snappped open again, unleashing a stinking scream of agony.
Shuffling the cannister strap from his back, Roy backpedalled up the steps. Eyes fixed on the writhing monster, he hurled the large plastic bottle between its jaws. The gnashing tooth ridge made short work of the container, mashing it in half. Sulphuric acid erupted from the split, melting unnatural flesh into bubbling paste. Hand on the rail, Roy hurtled up the steps. He cleared the door with a jump, landing in a heap behind it. Stagginer to his feet, he kicked the solid wooden slab into the stairwell. The creature's screams ended in a wet thump.
"Roy!"
Chanda stood in the workshop, shotgun barrels poking over her right shoulder. She held a sledgehammer in both hands. Rolled up sleeves clearly displayed twitching tendons from the deathgrip on its haft. Dave stood half a dozen feet behind her. Grace still clung to his shoulder. Roy couldn't decdide if Grace or Dave looked the least healthy.
"Good new and bad," Roy said, digging his fingers into his aching shoulders.
A gasp cut the air. Shuffling steps brought Dave within striking distance of Roy. Anger and disbelief showed in the curl in his lips and the hard edge in his eyes.
"Medicine," he said, eyes boring into Roy's.
"My daughter needs medicine. We saved your life because you said you had some. Where is it?"
Palms facing out toward the blond, Roy took a step back. The ache in his skull made checking his sudden surge of anger more effort than he could handle. He threw a glance to Chanda, saw her narrowed eyes and the mattock twitch in her hands.
"Okay," Roy said, his tone flat.
"If it's going to be like that, you can leave now. Chanda, you and Grace are welcome to stay. Dave, I'm sorry I let you down so badly. I wish you the best of luck out there."
Dave's jaw dropped. Silver lines twinkled in his lower lashes. Clutching the child tighter, he cast a look at Chanda. Roy bit down a smile. The woman shook her head, hands tightening around the hammer. Without breaking eye-contact with Dave, she took a small, almost imperceptible step toward Roy.
"You."
Dave stammered, coughed through a mucosal plug of fear and tears clogging his throat.
"You don't mean that. You can't."
Shifting the child onto a hip, he raked fingers through his hair. He wrapped the arm back around Grace's waist, his hand trembling as he did so.
Setting his feet at hip-width, Roy crossed muscular amrs over his chest. Face impassive, gaze level, he looked into the other man's eyes.
"Look," Dave blurted before Roy could speak.
"Look, I'm just worried about Gracie. You can see she needs drugs, right? She's sick. I'm her dad. Surely, you understand."
Roy ignored Chanda's derisive snort, clamped down on the flutter in his chest as she took a full step closer to his side. He stared at Dave, saw the way he buckled under its weight. Roy flexed the fingers of his right hand, tucked the thumb into his belt to avoid forming a fist. He couldn't swear to himself that he'd be able to resist forcing his knuckles down Dave's chicken-shit throat.
"Okay. I understand," he said, seeing his surpise mirrored in Chanda's hazel eyes.
"The mutant took out most of my food and medical supplies. I keep oils and lubricants at the back to avoid contamination. You can help me drag the corpse out into the forest. I have a pulley system in here, somewhere," he gestured around the workshop, his fingers more rigid than necessary.
"We'll get the corpse out, fix the door and then Chanda and I will take a ride out into the surrounding villages to see if we can loot some meds."
"Can't you go alone?"
His grin all teeth, Roy closed the distance between them in one rapid step. Eyes boring into Dave's, anger flaring when the smaller man looked away, he stroked a single finger through Grace's hair.
"You want the drugs, yes?"
"Yes. Yes, Gracie needs them."
"If I find some, and mutants take me out on the way back, that's not going to help, is it?
Dave's shoulders seemed to collapse into his chest. Gaze still locked on the floor, he shuffled back a pace.
"No, no it's not."
"If someone comes along and I bite it, there's still a chance of medication getting to the girl. I think Chanda's more suited to the run, but if you'd like to come instead..."
Finally, Dave's attention shifted from the scattered tools. He shook his head with enough vigour to make his lips flap.
"No," he said, swallowing.
"Chanda should go. Grace and I have a bettter bond."
"Yeah, I thought as much."
Roy shouldered past the snivelling blond.
-TBC-