Barbarian Beast Bitches of the Badlands

by Carlton Mellick III

  “Communicating with Outsiders is forbidden,” says Swaggat. “I find it hard to believe a Green Fish would help them.”

  The Red Fish ignores Swaggat’s comment and turns to the Rashers. “Search the place. Look everywhere.”

  The Rashers spit up and investigate the room. One heads toward Hyena’s direction, one toward Nova, and the third goes toward the bedroom Slayer’s hidden in.

  Hyena backs slowly away from them. She goes into another room, a second bedroom, likely the one where Swaggat sleeps. With her claws extended, Hyena climbs up the grooves in the seashell wall until she gets to the ceiling. Her spear points down as the shark man enters the room. He looks in the closet, throws blankets into the air, searches under the bed.

  In the main room, the Red Fish says, “What is this?” as he picks up a wad of black hair from Slayer’s back. “It’s hair.”

  “It’s not what you think,” Swaggat says.

  “They’re here!” Red Fish tells the Rashers.

  When the shark man in Swaggat’s bedroom looks back at the doorway, he sees Hyena clinging to the wall. Hyena growls at him as she closes the door, trapping him inside.

  As the Red Fish and another Rasher open the door to Swaggat’s bedroom, they see a shark man’s severed head rolling across the floor. Before they have a chance to react, Hyena drops into sight, hanging upside-down from the doorframe. Using her spear like a pool cue, she drives it through the other Rasher’s eye and out the back of his head.

  From behind, the third Rasher cries out as he stumbles through the room. Nova is on his back like a cat. Her claws sinking into his flesh, she bites into his throat.

  Red Fish runs for the door. He yells out to the other Rashers in the street.

  “They’re here!” he cries. “The outsiders are in—”

  As he gets to the front doorway, he stops in his tracks, his words cut short. A machete blade is sticking out of his back. When he hits the ground, Vermin pulls her machete out of him, hops over his corpse and pulls him inside. Then she closes the door.

  Blood sprays across the seashell wall as Nova bites open the Rasher’s jugular. After he dies and hits the ground, Nova doesn’t stop biting him. Her teeth thrash at his meat, ripping him apart like a ravenous wild animal. Hyena decides to let the girl enjoy her meal. She walks around her to Vermin.

  “Where have you been?” Hyena asks the grubby wolf girl.

  Vermin smiles wide with gritty teeth. “I’ve been near the whole time, watching out for you.”

  “This place isn’t safe,” Swaggat says. “There are too many of them outside. We need to go.

  They go to Slayer. They pick her up out of the closet and carry her. Her head rolls from side to side, her eyes flickering. Hyena grabs Slayer’s clothes and weapons on the way.

  “Have you seen any of the others?” Hyena asks Vermin. “Bunny? Zizzy? Did they get out alive?”

  Vermin shrugs as she helps carry Slayer out of the bedroom. “I saw them get chased away by those blue meanies. They never came back.”

  “Even if they survived, I don’t think they would have. Not with Zizzy’s wound.”

  Nova is still violently eating the shark man as they head toward the back door. She snarls and growls while she eats, blood coating the front of her body.

  “Nova, come on,” Hyena says.

  The girl continues eating.

  “Come on!”

  With Hyena’s words, Nova snaps out of it. She looks up with a piece of meat dangling from her lips.

  There is knocking at the door and voices yelling outside, wondering what is taking the Red Fish so long. Nova jumps to her feet. She wipes the gore from her chin and follows after the others.

  In the backyard, Swaggat loads Slayer into the back of a large truck. It is similar to the vehicle they came across out in the desert of the Forbidden Zone, but it is longer with seats for six more passengers. The wolf women get inside and Swaggat takes the driver’s seat. He starts up the vehicle.

  As several Rashers and Red Fish enter the backyard, the truck roars forward, plowing through a metal gate into the street. The Rashers follow after them.

  Racing down the road at top speed, they go deeper into the Forbidden Zone rather than back the way they had come.

  “You should go in the other direction,” Hyena says. “That’s where Bunny went. We need to find her.”

  Swaggat disagrees. “First we have to hide you four.” He wraps his tentacle around the gear stick, shifts into a higher gear, and hits the gas. “I know the perfect place.”

  Behind them, a dozen shark men are running after them, their raggedy blue robes flapping in the air. Their muscled legs pump so quickly that they are almost a blur.

  “They’re gaining on us,” Vermin says.

  Hyena looks back. Even though the vehicle is going at top speed, two of the shark men catch up. They jump up and grab onto the back, standing on the rear bumper.

  “We need to get up top,” Hyena says.

  Hyena grabs her spear and Slayer’s machine gun, and climbs out the window onto the roof of the vehicle. Nova and Vermin follow her, climbing like furry wolf spiders up the side of the truck.

  As the sharks get their claws into the roof, Hyena runs across the truck and swipes at their limbs with the blade of her spear. One of them dodges the attack by releasing his hands. But before he can grab another hold, Hyena spin-kicks him in the chest. Fishy fluids splash into the air as he falls from the truck. His face is torn apart against the dirt as he hits the ground at seventy miles per hour.

  The other one makes it to the roof before Hyena can stop him. He opens his jaws to attack, but a dart hits him in the neck. He turns to Vermin pointing the blowgun at him. He charges toward the small wolf girl as she loads another dart. She fires before he can reach her, hitting him in the face. He moves in slow motion as he raises one claw up in the air to attack, but the poison hits him hard before he can swing. He drops off the roof of the truck and disappears beneath its back wheels.

  “Hold them back,” Hyena says, as the other shark men close in on the vehicle.

  Nova grabs a wooden package from her ankle and hits a button. The package unfolds into a small crossbow that she straps to her wrist.

  “Aim for their legs,” Hyena says.

  They open fire on the school of Rashers. Hyena fires Slayer’s machine gun at them, blowing their legs out from under them. Three of them go down. It doesn’t kill them, but they won’t be able to run fast enough to catch them with those wounds.

  Nova fires crossbow arrows at their legs. The bolts go through their thigh muscles, but it doesn’t take them down. It slows them only a little bit. Vermin fires poison darts at the Rashers, but the shark men are so large that one dart takes several minutes to even slow them down.

  Another vehicle roars into the street and slams into Swaggat’s truck. It’s a large jeep full of Red Fish.

  “Pull over!” the Red Fish yell at Swaggat.

  They slam into the truck again, slowing them down by 15 MPH.

  Four shark men catch up. They go for the truck at different directions, two on the back, and the other two on each of the sides. With Vermin and Nova too close to her, Hyena knows she won’t be able to fight at her full ability. She’ll have to get rid of them before they get onto the roof.

  “Knock them off,” Hyena says.

  She fires at the hands of the shark men. It fills the roof of the vehicle with bullet holes, close to where Slayer is sleeping. She stops firing. Two of the shark men get to the roof.

  Hyena charges them and drop-kicks both of them in the chest. They fall off the back of the vehicle, but one of them grabs Hyena’s legs, pulling her off her feet.

  The Rasher is dragged along the ground, holding onto Hyena’s leg, trying to take her with him. Blood erupts from his flesh as he’s dragged. Hyena tosses her spear onto the vehicle and uses both of her hands to hold on. Vermin grabs the spear before it rolls off the roof.

  Her legs bleed as the Rashe
r’s claws dig into her calves. She barks and growls at the shark, wiggling to break free. Nova fires her crossbow into the face of a third Rasher as he climbs up the side of the truck. He continues climbing with the bolt in his face. She fires two more bolts, one in his eye, but he won’t let go.

  More of the Rashers come up from behind them. Vermin hits them with darts but they keeping coming, catching up to Hyena. The dragged Rasher starts climbing up Hyena’s body, clawing into her thigh, then pulling himself up to her waist. It climbs all the way up to Hyena’s face and slobbers onto her cleavage.

  As he opens his jaws to bite into her throat, Hyena bites first. She bites into his jaw, just above the chin, holding his mouth in place. She growls and tugs on his jaw as his teeth clack together. The Rasher chomps and chomps at the air, but Hyena won’t let go of him. Her teeth dig dipper into his gums, growling viciously. Blood drips down his chin. His lips tear against her teeth.

  The car goes over a bump and Hyena is drenched with wetness. She bends the man’s jaw to see what has happened. The car has gone over a large rock, which caught the shark man’s crotch and ripped off his legs from the crotch down. His intestines spill from what was once his anus. The Rashers pursuing them slip on his insides and hit the ground so hard that they don’t get up again.

  The upper half of the shark man continues thrashing and chomping, but his muscles slowly relax. His chomps grow weaker, quieter. Eventually he is too weak to hold on. Hyena pushes his body off of her. It rolls beneath the wheels of the jeep chasing after them.

  As Hyena turns to crawl back to the roof of the truck, she sees Slayer awake inside. The dark-haired wolf leader is fighting a shark man from inside the cab. The shark is on the side of the vehicle, its head through a window, biting at Slayer. In her weakened state, Slayer tries to fight him off. Kicking him in the face with her furry foot, clawing at him. She’s naked and all of her secondary weapons were attached to her leather outfit, so she has to fight bare-fisted.

  “Slayer,” Hyena calls.

  Slayer looks back at Hyena.

  “Your stuff is on the seat in front of you.”

  Slayer leans over the back of the seat and grabs her leather pants. She pulls two pistols from the holsters, then fires them into the shark man’s mouth repeatedly until he lets go and tumbles to the ground.

  When Hyena gets back onto the roof, Nova is finishing off the last of the shark men. She has her sickle-sword inside of his belly, twisting it in a circle, spinning his intestines around like noodles on a fork. When Nova pulls her sword out, he falls off the truck. Nova bites through the intestines on the hook of her blade so that he doesn’t take her sword with him. Then she chews the leftover meat on her fingernails.

  The jeep slams into the truck, nearly knocking Nova off the side as she eats. Hyena looks at the Red Fish as they grind their vehicle against Swaggat’s truck, trying to slow them down.

  Hyena reloads another clip into Slayer’s machine gun and fires it at them. She runs across the roof and jumps onto the hood of the jeep, firing through the windshield at the Red Fish. Their bodies are pulverized by the bullets. The passenger dies first. Then, as the driver dies, the jeep spins to a halt.

  The two Red Fish in the back scramble to get out of the Jeep. Hyena shoots them in their backs as she hops into the driver’s seat. Only one of them makes it out of the back alive, two holes in his guts. He falls to the ground, writhing in pain, as Hyena speeds off in the jeep after Swaggat.

  The other Rashers are so far back, moving so slowly with their wounds, that Swaggat and Hyena are able to lose them in the wilds of the Forbidden Zone.

  Swaggat brings them to a rundown outpost. They hide the vehicles in a rusted garage and take stairs down into a hidden underground shelter.

  “This is where the resistance used to meet,” Swaggat says. “Back when there was a resistance.”

  Slayer is able to walk on her own feet, but she needs Vermin to assist her.

  “Where is everyone else?” Slayer asks. “Are we the only ones who made it?”

  “We don’t know,” Hyena says. “Marrow and Baretta are dead. Zizzy was critically wounded, but she escaped with Bunny.”

  “We can’t be hidden away like this,” Slayer says, as she sits down on an old clay stool. “We have to watch for the animals who infected Talon. It’s the only way to save them.”

  Hyena says, “We might have another way.” She points at Swaggat. “This Zoner says he can cure Talon and the others.”

  “How?” Slayer asks him.

  “We would have to remove all of the worms,” Swaggat says. “It’s difficult, because they reproduce so quickly. It’ll take a lot of time and several operations. But I’ve been able to do it in the past. Without the worms, your friends will regain control of their minds.”

  “Then let’s take you back to them right away,” Slayer says.

  Swaggat holds out his hands. “No, you have to help me take down our corrupt leader, Vinson. That’s the deal. You help us kill him and the Rashers, and I’ll save your friends.”

  “No deal,” Slayer says.

  Hyena steps forward. “But Slayer, I already—”

  Slayer gives Hyena a look that shuts her up.

  “If you really want us to help you then come with us back to our camp. We have five infected wolf women that need to be cured. One of them is the strongest warrior of our tribe. If you heal them then we will help you. If you fight with Talon on your side you will not lose, no matter how strong the enemy.”

  Swaggat rubs his neck with a tentacle. “It’s going to take weeks to heal them. We should really strike now, while the Rashers are in a panic.”

  Hyena says to Slayer. “I already told him I would do it. If you don’t want to you can stay here.”

  “I’m ordering you not to go,” Slayer says. “It would be a mistake to fight now. We aren’t in any condition to take on an entire army.”

  “But we have to try.”

  Slayer stands up and charges him. “Trying could get more of my sisters killed.”

  As she finishes speaking, she falls to her knees, clutching her stomach. Blood dribbles from her mouth.

  Swaggat examines her. “She’s opened up her stitches.” He looks up at Hyena. “Help me get her to the barracks.”

  The barracks are just a few rows of bunks with old handmade mattresses on them. No sheets or pillows. The doctor stitches Slayer up and asks her to take it easy. She breathes deeply but says nothing.

  “Come on,” Swaggat says. “We can’t upset her like that again.”

  They go to the other corner of the barracks and sit down to talk in private.

  “I know your friend thinks it would be wise to have more of your friends fighting alongside us,” Swaggat says. “But it would be better to attack sooner. Just one of you would be enough.”

  The man’s robe is wide open, revealing his chest and belly. Hyena grinds her claws into her knee at the sight of his flesh. Saliva builds inside her maw.

  “Slayer isn’t going to trust you,” Hyena says, then she swallows a gulp of saliva. “If you were to save our sisters she would give her life for your cause. But otherwise she won’t go with the plan. You’re a man. The women in my tribe never trust men.”

  “But you trust me, don’t you?”

  Swaggat puts his tentacle on Hyena’s thigh. The oily appendage curls around to her kneecap, wetting her spotted fur.

  “I . . . I guess so.” Hyena can hardly speak as sweat drips down the back of her fuzzy neck.

  “We can do it together,” he says.

  As his tentacle inches higher up her thigh, Hyena can’t take it anymore. She lunges at him so hard that he flies out of his seat and the wind gets knocked out of him as he hits the concrete floor. She rips his robe off with her teeth and digs her claws into his love handles, licking and biting at his shoulder and neck. The man nearly half Hyena’s size is completely pinned down by the massive dog woman. He immediately gives in, wrapping his tentacles around her an
d sucking on her furry breasts that are smashed against his face.

  As soon as they kiss, her black dog-lips wrapped around his gooey scaled fish-lips, she stops. She pushes off of him and stands back.

  “What am I doing?” Hyena asks herself aloud. “I’ve always been able to control myself before.”

  “Just give in to it,” Swaggat says, crawling on his tentacles toward her. “It’s natural. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Hyena shakes her head. “No, you don’t understand.”

  He gives up and sits on one of the beds. “Why are your people so sexually repressed?”

  “Sex turns us into beasts.” She rubs her fuzzy chest. “Every time we have orgasms we become more wolf-like. If we have sex enough times we completely lose ourselves to the animal side.”

  “Interesting,” he says, pulling his robe back on. “My people have sex with each other as often as we have conversations. We would go insane if we ever had to resist our sexual urges.”

  As he sits there, Hyena has to fight the urge to pounce on him again.

  “My people sweat a strong aphrodisiac,” the man says. “You’re probably feeling the effects of it now.”

  Hyena smells the air, “Aphrodisiac?”

  “Among my people, when two members of the opposite sex come in contact with each other it is nearly impossible to resist the urges. Until you actually go through with it it’s all you’ll be able to think about. The chemical released in our sweat is just far too powerful.”

  As Hyena recognizes the sweet fishy pear-like odor in the air, the aphrodisiac gets stronger. Her entire body feels like it will burst with hot moisture. She clenches her fists and moves several feet away from the man, trying to breathe in fresh air that doesn’t contain the sweet scent.

  “Let’s go back to the others,” she says.

  Then she leaves.

  When they return to the other wolf women, Hyena can immediately see the effect Swaggat’s sweat has on her sisters. They begin to wiggle in their seats, crossing their legs, then uncrossing them. Vermin squirms her butt against the concrete floor. Nova wags her tail quickly until she can’t take it anymore. She gets up and goes to another room to masturbate.