“Protecting the truck is your top priority,” Officer Davin reminded me sternly.
After rolling up my sleeping bag, I put it into the back of the fire engine. Derrick gave me a nod. He looked good. I couldn’t help noticing. He stood like a war-god in his combat gear and blond hair glinting from under his hat. The cowboy hat clashed with the battle gear, but it suited him. Nathan hopped up beside him, taller and thinner but just as determined to fight. Scruffy-faced Gray, gave him a slap on the back. The engine rumbled to life.
“Let’s do this!” he called, pumping his spear into the air. I pretended not to notice the kiss he blew to Cassandra. She was on foot with me. I just hoped I wouldn’t have to rescue her pretty little butt.
The rest of our troop echoed Nathan’s cry. Adrenaline pumped into my veins. All my senses felt on high alert. The smell of vegetable-diesel exhaust and pine needles filled my nostrils. Dust filled the path. I strained to pick up any sound of approaching scarb. Surely, it wouldn’t take them long to hear or see us coming. We reached the top of the ridge, and the colony came into view. From the outside, it was nothing more than a mountain side with three visible entrances that looked like they could be caves, but who knew how many scarb lived inside? Sure enough, the scarb discovered our presence. I saw several run inside, and then about fifty or so came pouring out the east entrance. More came from the other side of the mountain.
“Get the hoses to the lake!” Officer Reynolds ordered from atop the largest of the three fire engines.
A half dozen soldiers from each troop unraveled the long hoses and ran off into the forest toward the lake. A dozen of our best fighters followed them for protection, massive water packs on their backs. The engines pressed forward in an effort to distract the scarb and keep the water hoses safe.
We headed downhill toward the colony. The scarb were three hundred yards from us and closing fast.
“Ready your weapons,” Officer Reynolds called. I pulled out my two small swords. Most of the soldiers around me prepared to aim the hose of their water packs, but I was second-guessing using the water pack at all. I was much better with a blade. I slipped my pack off. “Nathan!” I shouted over the rumble of the engines. He peered down at me. Someone had smeared two black lines under his eyes and one down his nose. War paint. “Catch my pack,” I called and threw it up to him.
“You don’t want water?” he asked.
“It slows me down,” I cupped my mouth so he could hear me. “You can aim it better from up there, anyway. Try to watch my back.”
He nodded and disappeared over the engine’s roof.
A moment later, Muse’s “Uprising” blasted from the top of the engine. Nathan’s head appeared again, a fat grin across his face. The song was on the only CD Ray had taken with him when the scarb first hit America.
“Nice,” I shouted up to him. Gray gave him a high-five, like this was a football game or something. But the music seemed to be in-beat with my heart, it pushed my muscles further.
The trees got thicker. I couldn’t see much past our engine, but I could hear the sounds of battle as the scarb reached the first troop. Men and women screamed. Scarb clicked and buzzed as they moved. Water blasted, leaving the trail wet and muddy beneath my boots. We were about four minutes behind the first truck. I wasn’t just going to sit there. I ran past our truck to meet them, when Officer Davin yelled, “Sergeant McCabe, you will remain with your assigned troop!” He looked almost regal in his army uniform and hat. The fire hose he held in his good arm was so big, I almost didn’t notice his other arm in its sling.
“But the scarb are attacking!” I shouted back, surprised that I’d suddenly been promoted to sergeant. “I can help.”
A soldier with a long gray beard by the engine’s front wheel agreed. “Yeah, we can help.”
“Yes!” Travis added and shook his pipe wrench.
Officer Davin squinted. “All right, you can go, but I want you to return to our engine as soon as we reach the east entrance.”
Yes! Travis and four other men came over to me. “We’ll follow you,” Travis said, and I was a little taken back. All of them were older than me.
“All right,” I yelled, and we ran down the muddy trail past the soldiers ahead of us. Through the trees, we could see the tail lights of the first fire engine glowing like two red eyes. They’d already employed two of the three hoses. The ground was slick. The soldiers still standing were drenched. We had to pass over several bodies. One was still alive, hanging onto a tree trunk, a deep gash through his midsection. But we couldn’t stop. Mrs. Weatherstone and the other medics at the back would tend to the wounded. The water was working, though. We practically had to climb up a pile of five or six drenched scarb bodies lying in the engine’s tracks. Their arms were stiff at their sides, their fingers curled.
Then, the first engine came to a complete stop in front of us. Dozens of scarb leapt down from the trees. Several fought the soldiers atop the engine.
“Let’s get up there.” The last thing we needed was one of our trucks going down.
No one guarded the back of the truck, and two more scarb climbed up the ladder. I threw my ankle knife into the week spot of one’s shoulder blade. Green liquid oozed out of his shirt. The knife pierced his lung and he fell to the ground. I pulled the knife out. Travis and a gray-haired soldier with a pointed chin climbed up the ladder after another scarb. It had long, pointed orange spikes circling its eyes. They grabbed the scarb from behind. It slashed its pincher-like hands at Travis, it’s nails as long as a ruler, but the gray-haired soldier decapitate it and threw it’s body over the edge into the forest. I stepped onto the engine’s roof. There were four more scarb atop it and only half a dozen humans left from Troop One, including Officer May. Oh my heavens. How are we going to do this? A sinking feeling came into my heart. Maybe this had been a really bad idea. From the top of the truck, I had a pretty good view of the carnage around us. The trees moved like living things. Hundreds of scarb thronged them. The ground was thick with blood, slime, and scarb.
A three-hundred-pound-plus scarb jumped from the trees and landed on the roof right in front of me. He stretched out his scaly, blue arms for me, but each arm had split into two at the elbow, giving him four hands.
“Well, that’s strange.” I danced out of his lunge. I spun behind him, lifted my swords, and hacked off both his top hands from their hinges. Clear fluid squirted out of the sockets. When the fluid hit the roof, the metal hissed and burned. The scarb whirled to get at me, splattering my hands with the acidic juice.
“Agh!”It burned at my flesh. I wasn’t going to waste any more time with that, so I went for the weak part behind the scarb’s ear and drove the tip of my blade into his brain. More clear liquid squirted out and burned through the leather armor of my pant leg.
“Grah!” It singed my skin down to the muscle. The pain was so intense, my head started to get woozy. I thought I might pass out when a blast of water hit my leg. “Oh, thank heavens.”
There was Nathan atop the second fire engine. It had finally caught up with the first. He had my pressurized water pack.
“Thanks, bro!”
“Watch out,” he cried and aimed the hose at my shoulder. I turned just in time to see him blast another scarb back several feet. But then the water ran out. The scarb was still standing, but its shoulders and knees were starting to clam up, making it rather easy to take its head off. For the moment, we’d cleared the scarb from the roof.
“I’m taking the driver’s seat,” Officer May yelled. I guessed that the driver had been killed and that’s why it had stopped. Sure enough, that’s what happened, so we dumped the big man’s body out of the truck. He was the one who used to catch the most trout each winter. The engine lurched forward just as more scarb jumped from the canopy. One kicked me right in the chest, and I almost flew over the edge. Travis caught me. He hacked at the scarb with his pipe wrench until it was just a few mutilated pieces.
&nbs
p; “Not bad for a mechanic,” I told him between bursts of breath. The engine picked up speed, and the scarb fell by the way. We came out of the trees and saw the main entrance into the mountain colony. The opening was about nine or ten feet high, but its mouth was black. Who knew how deep it went. Dozens of scarb poured out of it. I felt like a five-year-old who had stomped on an anthill. Only now I was smaller and weaker than the ants.
There was fear in Travis’s eyes. “How are we going to make it?”Our numbers had been few to start with, not more than a hundred and fifteen. There had to be at least two hundred scarb outside the mountain already. More kept coming.
“We’ve got to get back to our troop,” the gray-haired soldier said as the engine slowed and prepared to position itself in front of the main entrance. But within seconds, the engine was surrounded by scarb: black ones with rippling biceps and red jawbones sticking out of their skin, pale ones that looked like they’d seen too little sun with eyes the size of apples bulging out of their sockets, sun-tanned scouts and barb-elbowed warriors with tendrils dangling from their feet. Those tendrils seemed to be waiting to wrap around our necks. There were scarb I’d never seen before, like the ones with four arms and one with red, bubbles on its skin that popped and sprayed acid.
“We’re never going to make it,” I whispered. And it was true. There were just too many of them. Nathan’s engine came rumbling up toward the entrance.
“Don’t stop!” I yelled, but they couldn’t hear me. The truck stopped just feet behind the rear of the first. The third engine with Officer Reynolds came up behind, and it stopped, too. We were all trapped before the main tunnel, surrounded by a sea of monsters and forced into a tight semi-circle around the engines. Those on the ground quickly fell to the onslaught of the blood-thirsty scarb.
An ear-piercing scream rent the air. It was Cassandra. I could see her auburn braid swinging in the midst of scarb. Then it fell. There was nothing I could do.
Scarb started climbing the engine, scaling the sides without using the ladders, like beetles climbing walls. I spun my swords in two arcs, faster and faster. The blades chinged off the scarb’s thick plated chitin, but every once in a while it would drive into weaker connective tissue and take off a hand or slice into a rib cage. My hands were slick with their blood and fluids, but still they came. Where are the water runners?
I heard a snap. The gray-haired soldier fell lifeless across my boots. I had to kick his corpse off the truck.
“There’s too many of them,” Travis cried, his face splattered with blood and bits of black flesh. There were only seven humans left on top of the engine. The water from the holding tanks ran out. The packs ran out. I lost one of my swords after imbedding it into a brown scarb’s thigh. She fell back into the throng of beasts on the ground before I could retrieve it. I was down to one sword and my knives.
“Water runners!” I heard the cry from one of the engines back. I turned to see five or so humans running toward the third fire truck with two of the water hoses. At least three dozen scarb blocked their way.
“We’ve got to get to them,” I shouted to Travis. He nodded, and together, we slashed our way off the engine. We jumped onto the hood of Nathan’s truck and scrambled up to the top. Nathan and Derrick were back to back, fighting three black scarb. I took out one by slicing the tendons of its ankles so it couldn’t kick at my brother. Derrick used a large mallet to crush the soft spot of another’s skull. Nathan used his martial arts skills and put a roundhouse-kick into the last. There was a deep gash in Nathan’s upper arm.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Fine,” he huffed.
“We’ve got to get to those water hoses if any of us are going to survive.” I pointed. Nathan, Derrick, and three others abandoned the second truck, and we dashed over to protect the water runners.
When we got there, Sergeant Sims was hauling the hose over one shoulder, fending off scarb with his other hand. He looked at me with relief and said a quick “thanks.” Derrick and Nathan picked up the heavy hose, and I ran alongside, keeping the scarb back enough for us to get the hose to the third fire engine.
Officer Reynolds grabbed it and attached it to the holding tank on the side of the truck. I kept my one sword swinging. “Let her rip!” he yelled, and his soldiers turned the handle. Did it work? I suddenly found myself alone amidst a circle of about nine scarb. The others had all made it onto the truck. I spun my sword above my head like a helicopter blade, daring any of them to get closer. They snapped their jaws and clicked their pointed teeth at me. Two charged me from behind. Pain sliced down my spine. I screamed and threw my fist into the jaw of the beast that had cut me with his barbed elbows. His jaw sank into my shoulder, and he ripped off a chunk of it, spitting my skin and muscle onto the ground. Another scream jetted out of my throat.
I was all adrenaline and rage. The bloody-mouthed scarb went for another bite at my neck. I smashed the pommel of my sword over and over into his skull. The bone was too strong, so I went for his eyes. The butt of my sword dove in deep, and I smashed his eye into his brain cavity. This seemed to enrage the others, and in an instant, they were all over me, biting my calves and slashing my stomach with their barbs. One pressed heavily on my chest. I couldn’t shake them. There were just too many.
“Nathan!” I screamed. One of the scarb bit my left thumb to the bone. This is it. I can’t survive this. But then, something else attacked me: a torrent of pounding water. It hit me so strongly I couldn’t breathe. The water battered me over and over. When it stopped, I was nothing more than a heap of blood and tattered flesh lying in the mud. Blearily, I blinked my eyes. All I could see was muck and several lumps of bodies—if they were human or scarb, I couldn’t tell. Everything was covered in a tomb of mud, and somewhere far away, there were tree trunks. And then there were boots in front of me. Hands on my legs and back. I screamed and tried to fight, but then there was Nathan’s voice in my ear. “It’s okay, Cat. We’ve got you.”
And then another voice, older and more commanding. “Can you stand?”It was Officer Reynolds.
“I think so.” I tried, and though every cell of my body protested, I made myself walk with my arm around my brother. The sight of the engine came in and out of my hazy focus. And then there were the water hoses. Three of them jetting out torrential blasts of water. That’s what hit me and got those devils off. That water saved my life.
Strong arms pulled me to the top of the fire engine. Nathan had me sit. Mrs. Weatherstone was there and began immediately patching up my wounds. I watched weakly as the scarb broke out in waves and tried to get at us, only to be blasted back, incapacitated, by the water. Nathan and Derrick got down and ran the second hose over to our troop’s engine. Amazingly, Officer Davin was still alive. Once they cleared the assaulting scarb, Officer Reynolds commanded them to “Focus all the water into the tunnel!”
Both fire engines focused their water into the main entrance. The third engine remained abandoned and useless at the side. None of the personnel on that truck made it. Not the driver, not the water runners, not even sweet Officer May.
The tunnel filled with water, and soon no more scarb came out of it. Scarb bodies floated in the muddy water pooling around us. Ray! What if he’s in there! “What about the two other tunnels?” I shouted to Officer Reynolds as our truck pulled up beside Nathan’s to get closer to the main entrance.
He didn’t have an answer for me. I started to get up, and though my legs were wobbly, I was determined to use them. “You can’t save him,” Officer Reynolds said sharply, as if he knew that’s what I was thinking. I kept walking. “You have to stay here and complete this mission.”
“The mission?” I yelled back into his lined face. “The mission is a failure. We may have flooded this tunnel, but the scarb will get out the other two and be all over us again! I’m going to look for Ray while I still have a chance.”
Officer Reynolds didn’t blink. “I order you to stay.”
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sp; I took a moment. “I don’t take orders from anyone,” I said and climbed off the truck. Just as I reached the muddy ground, it happened just as I said it would. Scarb poured over the hills from the east and west entrances. Hundreds of them. Many were already crawling on their hands, their feet kicking in the air. They only did that when they were especially pissed off.
“Davin, you take the right,” Officer Reynolds called. “We’ll take the left.
“Wanna swim you filthy beasts?” I heard Nathan taunt the approaching scarb.
Gray joined him. Gray was short compared to Nate, with buzzed brown hair and hazel eyes. He and Nate had been friends since we joined Rimerock. “I heard you like fire-hose first thing in the morning!” he laughed. It wasn’t funny to me. Ray could be drowning in the water that saved us.
Run, Cat, run! My mind shrieked for my body to move, but there was nowhere to go. Find Ray, find him. Get inside the colony. My boots sloshed, my clothes clung coldly to my skin. Every way was blocked by water or scarb. The fire engines kept us in a protective circle of water, if I left it, death was certain.
“They can’t get to us! Hah!” Gray boasted from above. But I knew things weren’t looking good. How long can we hold them off? How long until they discover our water hoses and destroy them? We couldn’t hold them off forever.
Suddenly, a horrible buzzing sound filled the air.
“What on earth?” Officer Reynolds yelled, his eyes to the skies. Several dozen fliers came out of the upper entrances of the mountain. They zoomed toward us.
“Fliers?” Mrs. Weatherstone shrieked. Strangely, all the scarb on the ground stopped their attack. Those closest held their ground.
“Fliers!” Officer Reynolds echoed. “Aim your hoses at the sky!”
But the water streams were slow as they arched upwards, and the fliers easily maneuvered out of the way. Among them, I saw a blur of red hair. It’s her. The one that took Ray. She’s here.
I pulled out my sword, ready to get revenge. Within seconds she was right above our engine with her two massive bodyguards and several others. They dropped altitude until they were just inches out of my reach. I prepared to cut them off at their ankles and anything else I could with my blade. Before I knew what was happening, the fliers dropped a thick rope net over my head. I heard my brother and several of the others scream. Through the rough cords, I saw that they too had been netted. Captured? Just like Ray. How can I be captured? I slashed at the ropes with my sword. Then the ground underneath me gave way. I was lifted several inches into the air. I started hacking at the net, but scaly hands grabbed my wrists and took the weapon from me.
SWAB (A Young Adult Dystopian Novel) Page 6
