Savage Hills (Savage Horde Book 1)

by Chris Bostic

  The initial line staggered back and collapsed in a hail of bolts. Others pushed their way past, trampling over comrades as the throng pressed on.

  Joe ejected his first spent magazine and rammed home another. The withering fire left a windrow of corpses along the bank of the river, but the savages kept coming.

  Joe was on to his third magazine with one spare left when the charge oddly subsided.

  And then the darkness was shattered again.

  Grenades bounced off the cliff above and fell in front of their position. When the first attempt passed harmlessly, the savages tossed more. Several bounced under the ledge, and one detonated somewhere in front of Joe’s rock pile.

  Gravel blasted the top of his helmet, throwing off sparks as the rocks flew against the metal. A prick burned his neck, but he ignored the pain as he raised his head to check the savages’ advance.

  “I’m hit!” Danny wailed in the whole squad’s ears, but no one had time to answer the call.

  Joe waved at a cloud of dust from the explosions, and ran a hand over his stinging eyes. As the smoke cleared, another horde climbed the mound of dead and broke for the cave. Hot nickel sped from the squad’s coilguns, ripping massive holes through the savages. They crumpled to the hard ground with barely a groan.

  Eventually, the chirping evaporated into the night along with the gunfire, leaving an uneasy silence.

  “Where they at?” Pete muttered.

  Danny groaned through the communicator, and Joe thought he heard Connie slide over to take a look at him.

  “He’s torn up…bad,” Connie announced.

  Joe looked to Leisa and Laura, relieved to find them both okay. Then he turned to his left. Pete flashed him a shaky thumbs up when their eyes met, and Joe focused back on the killing field.

  Still quiet. Too quiet.

  He checked his weapon, fumbling with it in the dark. The magazine was almost empty, so he rammed in his last one. Quivering fingers found the selector and he switched it over to semi-automatic.

  I need to make these last ones count, he thought. One shot, one kill.

  Pete tapped him on the arm, causing Joe to jump.

  “What the heck?”

  “Take these,” he said, handing Joe three more magazines. “He’s gone.”

  “Who? Oh…” The shock of losing Danny quieted Joe. He calmly laid two magazines next to his rifle for quick reloading. Turning to Leisa, he held the other in his hands. “You need more?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” She reached out a trembling hand to take it, and Joe almost had to look away. He couldn’t stand to see her that way.

  “Check with Laura,” Joe mumbled.

  “Huh?”

  “See if she needs any ammo.” He paused, once again mulling over what the redistributing meant for Danny. He wondered how the savages had done the point man in, but tried to ignore the thought. “We’ve got extra.”

  She nodded and turned to her right. Seconds later she turned back shaking her head. “She’s fine.”

  “You need another?”

  “I’m good.” Leisa closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. She cupped her hand over her microphone and whispered, “I’m ready to run away with you now.”

  “If only it was that easy.” Joe smirked. “If only…”

  Yet another round of grenades thunked onto the ground in front of the cave. Joe buried his head in the rocks again. The blasts rattled the canyon walls, and Joe’s brain bounced inside his nearly impenetrable helmet.

  He groaned as the shockwaves pounded his skull, and lifted his head in time to hear Connie bark, “Here they come!”

  Bursts of fire rang out from the squad’s position, but not from Joe. The world slowed to a crawl. Rather than spraying the horde randomly, he took his time. Lining up every shot, he squeezed the trigger one at a time.

  A savage dropped. Then another. Joe became a machine, moving to the next target as they closed. The sounds of raspy breathing and the nasty, fishy stench built. A girl screamed. The savages came within ten yards. Another collapsed. Methodically, he squeezed the trigger over and over, dropping them one at a time until the last one was on him.

  Rolling to his side, he had to aim higher and planted hot nickel in the savage’s chest. The attacker flopped over backwards a foot from his hiding spot. The worn out soles of tattered boots blocked his view of the stream.

  The firing stopped again. And then he remembered the scream.

  CHAPTER 14

  “Leisa!” Joe shouted and whirled around. She sat on her haunches, shoulders hunched over. “What’s the matter?”

  She didn’t reply at first. Joe noticed her chest shaking, and leaned over to tap her on the arm. She fell into him, and they crashed to the ground tangled together.

  “Where you hit?” he asked frantically, and tried to sit up.

  Sobs were her only reply. Deep, reverberating sobs.

  At that he looked over her to find Laura’s sprawled out form. On her back in the shadows, a pool of dark liquid swirled by the side of her head.

  “How?” he uttered. He’d stopped the closest savage, or so he had thought. None of them could’ve have gotten close enough to stab the girl like they had done to Kayla.

  Leisa mumbled into his armored chest, and he kept an arm wrapped around her as she bawled.

  “Laura’s down,” Joe said so the others would know.

  “Great,” Connie deadpanned, yet there was a pained quality concealed in his voice. “We’re shot to pieces.”

  “How down?” Pete said delicately.

  Joe was happy to hear his voice, but not thrilled to share the news. “Not moving. Covered in…you know.”

  “Got it.”

  “Share her ammo,” Connie barked, still struggling to get out the words. Joe thought he gasped oddly between every word, but he was too pinned down by the grieving Leisa to look over.

  A finger poked Joe in the neck. He jerked upright, toppling Leisa.

  “What the-”

  “Sorry,” she mumbled, pointing weakly to his collar. “Your neck.”

  “It already hurt. What the heck was that for?”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  Joe mashed his palm to the right side of his neck and it came away stained with blood. Now that he thought of it, the collar of his undershirt was practically stuck to his skin. He’d thought it was sweat.

  “Must’ve been that first grenade.”

  Leisa steadied herself and reached behind into her pack. While she rummaged, Joe turned to Connie. The man listed to the side like a sinking ship. His head slowly sank only to bob up every so often like Joe used to do in the boring early education classes.

  “Sarge, you alright?” he asked.

  “Not particularly.” The usual bluster was gone. “I’m starting to think I like the barbarians better than the savages,” he joked, but his voice turned so raspy he barely got out the last words.

  “What’s up with Sarge?” Pete asked, though Joe noticed his friend kept his glassy eyes glued on the mountain of dead savages piled up in front of the ledge.

  “My leg’s shredded,” Connie replied. “I’m done for.”

  “How?” Jake said, unable to believe the invincible man was human after all.

  “Grenade.” He coughed loudly into his mouthpiece. “Now pass out her dang ammo.”

  Joe couldn’t do it right then. Leisa was back with a handful of gauze and tape.

  “Hold still,” she commanded. Then she ignored her own words and reached up to tilt his head to the side. The movement sent a bolt of pain down his whole right side before it returned to rattle around inside his skull.

  “Yeesh,” he wailed.

  “Sit still. Please.” But she wasn’t over yet. She pulled out some kind of antiseptic package and wiped across the cut without warning.

  Joe cursed creatively enough to make Connie proud, and pulled away from her.

  “There’s no shrapnel,” Leisa announced. “I just need to wrap it up.”
>
  “Fine.” He clenched his teeth and leaned back in. “Do it quick.”

  Once the stars left his eyes and he gathered his senses about him, Joe snuck another look over at Laura. She hadn’t moved, of course. Surely Leisa had already checked her, as if the blood wasn’t indication enough of her fate.

  Hearing Connie’s labored breathing in his earpiece gave him an idea.

  “Why don’t you go bandage up Sarge?” he said.

  “Don’t waste it,” Connie replied sharply. “I’m a lost cause.”

  Leisa raised an eyebrow to Joe. She hesitated, but he waved her over.

  “We have plenty, Sarge,” she said. “And painkillers.”

  “Hmm…” The silence grew long. “I might take some of that.”

  “Bandage him up while you’re there,” Joe whispered, and Leisa crawled across the cave to the beleaguered sergeant.

  Once she was past Pete, Joe went the other way. He scurried over to Laura and gently shook her shoulder. He recoiled as an odd gurgle escaped her lips. Mashing a hand over his own mouth, he fought back tears as he leaned in close to hers.

  Nothing. No breath. No more sounds at all.

  He went to put two fingers along the side of her neck, but didn’t finish the job. At the junction between her neck and shoulder, a gaping wound appeared. Another unlucky shot, right at the weak point.

  He rolled Laura onto her back, and summoning up what strength he had left, he dragged her by the feet to the back corner of the overhang. He kept his eyes glued on the woods the entire time, but nothing stirred. Surely the savages weren’t done yet, he thought, almost hoping for another attack. He had revenge in his mind in a big, bloody way.

  Returning to Laura’s rock pile, he grabbed her rifle and backpack and took them back to his spot. Her coilgun’s power pack was lower than his, so he ejected the magazine and chucked the weapon to the back of the cave.

  “About twenty rounds,” he whispered to himself upon examining the magazine. “Never got to unload ‘em all into the filthy savages.”

  Speaking of which, the stench had grown beyond fetid landfill at that point. Joe debated forcing his broken visor closed again to see if it would help with the smell. But he elected to rummage through Laura’s pack instead.

  He felt around, not looking for personal stuff, but more ammunition.

  Connie howled from the other side of the cave and cursed Leisa. He’d been rough on the girls before, but nothing to this extent. Joe pulled his hand from Laura’s pack and rose to his knees to help her.

  He didn’t need to.

  “Wait,” Connie whispered. “I’m…sorry.”

  “What’s that?” Leisa said with a healthy dose of swagger.

  “I’m sorry,” he grumbled. “Now how about those painkillers?”

  Joe assumed Leisa gave them to Connie, and he turned back to rummaging through the pack. He was smiling with two full magazines in one hand when Leisa returned.

  She furrowed her brow when she spotted his other hand deep in Laura’s gear.

  “What are you doing?”

  His smile quickly erased. “We need the ammo. Don’t you?”

  “Yeah, of course.” She crawled over him to slip into her spot. Once in position, she covered her mouthpiece. “Sorry for the attitude.”

  “You were giving it to Connie too.”

  “I can’t let Pete be the only one,” she remarked.

  Joe chuckled before growing serious. His face fell as he stared into the blackness. He counted down the members of the squad and arrived at three-and-a-half. They’d lost Kayla, Danny, and Laura, and now maybe half of their fearless leader.

  Though he already suspected the answer, he had to ask anyway. “How’s Connie?”

  “Bad. Real bad.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  But there would be plenty more to terrify Joe. The night had hardly begun, and the chirping started to build again.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Lock and load!” Connie shouted, apparently finding a burst of energy through the pain. Joe had expected to find the man in a painkiller-induced fog, and envisioned their sergeant slowly slipping away. Evidently, Connie had other plans.

  “Here they come,” he said, excitement in his voice. “Ready…hold up.”

  “What’s up, Sarge?” Pete asked.

  “They’re creepin’. I saw a head pop over that biggest mound, but then it jerked back down.”

  “More grenades?” Pete whispered.

  “Shoot, they oughta be out by now.” Connie chuckled at his own joke, but it came with a sickly gurgle and hacking cough. Joe realized at that moment that more than his leg was hurt.

  Joe stretched out on the cave floor and kept little more than the coilgun and the top of his helmet exposed to the savages. He wondered if the night vision would help, but knew his was disabled when his visor cracked. So he adapted, zeroing in on movement in the shadows.

  A darker spot swayed at the pile in front of him, and then steadied. To test his theory, Joe squeezed the trigger.

  The coilgun shoved against the shoulder as it expelled a single round. The sickly thwack of bullet meeting flesh echoed under the ledge.

  “What the-” Connie exclaimed.

  “Just doing a little target practice. Thinkin’ maybe a good sniping can keep ‘em away.”

  “It’s worth a try. Make every shot count.”

  “Yes, sir.” Joe didn’t need to be reminded about their dwindling ammunition problem. Instead, he settled over his weapon and scanned his field of view. It wasn’t long before another target presented itself.

  With a wet thwack and the crunch of gravel, another savage met his maker—whoever or whatever that might be, Joe thought wryly.

  The others joined in the sniping, picking off several of the savages before they got too close, but there seemed to be no end in sight. Joe went cross-eyed staring in the murky blackness, and even a rapid series of blinks wasn’t enough to clear his vision completely.

  “This sucks,” Joe said, and Pete echoed his thoughts. But it was only going to get worse.

  Deathly quiet settled over the valley, and then the chirping resumed. It built in volume until Joe was convinced the whole gorge was filled with savages.

  The bushes on the other side of the river shook. He expected them to rush out in waves, but none came. Feet pounded on the ground, and his heart pounded away in his chest. But it was just watching, waiting, and listening to their chirps rise to a fever pitch.

  The woods came alive with a thousand pinpricks of light, and the boom was a millisecond behind. A fusillade of bullets tore into the gravel and ricocheted off the bluff all around them.

  Joe had to bury his head in the dirt, and flashed back to Laura’s lifeless eyes.

  One unlucky shot will do me in, he thought. He pulled himself into a ball behind a seemingly miniscule pile of protecting gravel.

  The shooting continued unabated. Connie chattered constant updates in his ear.

  “Nothing yet,” the sergeant kept saying over and over. “Not yet.” And then it changed. “Unholy alliance, here they come!”

  Joe lifted his head, knowing he had to respond. The shots had at least tapered off somewhat, but they were replaced by a wall of shadow.

  The wave of mustard-colored inhumanity swarmed over the bodies of their fallen comrades along the riverbank like ants feasting at a picnic. They raced across the open whistling and chirping, swelling and charging.

  Joe responded by emptying a full magazine into their ranks and ramming home the partial one. Bodies piled up across the short divide, slowing the savages. But they kept coming.

  Leisa shrieked. Pete cursed. Joe shot until the barrel of his coilgun grew so hot it glowed red. If they had been using gunpowder like the savages, the squad’s weapons would have melted.

  The savages crossed the divide and several made it all the way to their position this time.

  With shiny bayonets affixed on their rifles, they lunged or
dropped to bony knees to poke under the ledge. Joe slid backwards, still firing.

  His boots hit the back wall as the savages pressed on. A bayonet jabbed the rocks by his head. He pulled the trigger, but his coilgun was empty.

  The savage grinned with pointed teeth and raised his rifle to jab again. Joe beat him to it. He swung his weapon, catching the savage on the side of his oversized head with a crack.

  A last magazine rammed home, Joe finished off the savage. But the attack continued, and he emptied half the magazine, one shot at a time.

  Finally, the attack broke, and the chirps and whistles died down as the savages slunk away. Joe slumped to the dirt too exhausted to move.

  “We did it,” Pete said.

  “Leisa?” Joe croaked. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” The voice that came back to him was weak, and he turned his head to find her curled against the back wall too.

  “Connie?” he asked. “You still with us?”

  “You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he said, but the normal growl was long gone. He was as weak as the patients Joe had seen in the Republic’s infirmaries. Like his grandparents, and all the others who were never going back home.

  “Gather up,” Connie said.

  “Say what?” Pete asked.

  “Just come over here for a minute,” Connie replied.

  With the opening to the cave crowded with bodies, Joe crawled across the back wall. To his relief, Leisa was on his heels and moving well.

  “You’re good?” he asked her as he slowed so she could crawl alongside.

  “Fine.”

  She didn’t look fine to Joe, but he couldn’t see any sign of injury in the way she moved. More likely, the damage was internal. Without time to grieve, shock was a formidable opponent.

  Their helmets were covered with the blood of the savages. He reached out with his palm to wipe several droplets off her visor.

  “Thanks. It’s on your face too,” she said, grimacing. “We’re gonna need another bath.”

  He chuckled and started crawling again.

  “They hit us with everything they had,” Connie said once they’d gathered up. “They’ve really got to regroup and think about how they’re gonna take us out.”