One Helluva Bad Time- The Complete Bad Times Series

by Chuck Dixon

  Those who weren’t indulging in an orgy of animal sex were chanting for the next victim.

  The deformed freak atop the bier let out an extended squeal while raising a shuddering hand.

  It was time for the stone to fall once more.

  43

  Gone Rabid

  Bat was next.

  The juddering fingers of the gibbering man child pointed to her, and Bucky made for her.

  Jimbo and Rick launched themselves simultaneously. Jimbo won the sprint and, after a hop to give him some loft, drove his head down into the stunned Bucky’s face with all the force he could muster. The thong cut into his throat, shutting off his breath as he bent his jackknifed body to strike downward. He stumbled past Bucky, fighting to stay on his feet. To fall was to die. To fall was the end of the fight.

  Bucky’s two front teeth snapped off at the gum line and were lost in the jet of blood gushing from his crushed nose. They were going to have to change the little bastard’s nickname. He fell hard on his ass, eyes white and spinning in their sockets. His ear and two teeth gone in one night.

  The blue men got over their initial shock and rushed the four from all around. Bat leapt and kicked, and many fell to their knees, sucking air and clutching testicles mashed by her steel-toed boots. Byrus simply hurled himself headlong into the mass like a gristle missile. He rammed a screaming blue meanie in the midsection, using his head as a blunt instrument at a full run. He was staying to Jimbo’s blind side, protecting his closest friend in all the world. The impact of Byrus’ attack drove his victim back into a clutch of others, and all fell in a heap with the Macedonian kicking and biting atop them.

  Jimbo rushed the surrounding warriors, ducking under their club swings to break through the ring around them. He hammered out an opening, sending men to the ground, only to see the gap instantly filled in again. Rick followed close behind him, stamping his booted foot down on the heads and throats of the fallen.

  The twisted little king shrieked atop his throne. His bearers dropped him without ceremony and rushed into the fight. The kids picked up rocks and clods of dirt and began winging them, striking friend and foe alike.

  Jimbo and Rick found themselves separated from Bat and Byrus in the confusion. The pair of Rangers stood back-to-back in an ever-shrinking circle of ground. A hand gripped the thong at Jimbo’s back and yanked. His throat closed painfully. His vision went gray, then red around the edges, and he was down with knees on the ground, then at the bottom of a pile-on of fists and feet. He heard Rick spitting curses then go silent. The ligature around his neck slackened, and the blows stopped raining down. He lay gasping for air, ears ringing.

  They hauled the Pima to his feet, a half dozen of the blue warriors keeping a firm hold on him. Jimbo turned his head to see Rick wriggling helpless in the grasp of another clutch of men. Rick was bleeding from gashes, and a big purple bruise was growing over one side of his face around a cut to his cheek. Bat was hauled forward with Bucky’s fist in her hair, and his other hand drawing the thong back like a bowstring to cut off her air. Her tongue stuck between her teeth, blowing spittle as she struggled to breathe.

  Byrus had the worst of it. Three blue fuckers dragged him back to the line. His dirty blonde mop of hair was stained black with blood. One eye was closed by an angry swelling that was spreading up from his jaw. The flesh of one thigh had a ragged tear sending a steady sheet of blood down his leg. He looked to be conscious but only barely. He was being held upright as much as he was being held fast.

  Bad as they’d been beaten, the locals took the worst of it. Bucky’s nose was a flattened black mass that looked like a blob of wet tar spread over his mouth. When he spoke, he sprayed thick gobs of blood from an upper lip with a ragged tear in it. Other warriors limped or crawled with a good number clutching their balls in sorrowful agony. At least one looked like he’d never go anywhere again, lying in a pool of blood dappled with falling rain. His jaw was nearly torn from his face, and one eye dangled at the end of a sinewy stalk.

  Through all this, the captives from N’itha’s village stood like sheep, uncomprehending and submissive.

  Jimbo was jerked and pulled in his captor’s grip. A shot to the kidneys with the end of a club buckled his knees. They dragged him back into line as Bucky hauled Bat toward the bottom of the bloody niche and the waiting hands of a gauntlet of pissed off blue guys. Bat still had the fight in her and kicked and struggled with a new flush of panic. Her handlers were determined and latched onto her, locking her legs together as they lifted her from the ground. They bore her toward the niche with Bucky in the lead barking orders, spewing flecks of blood from the mess his mouth had become under Jimbo’s savage head butt.

  The man-child was back up on his perch atop the shoulders of his bearers and keening a string of high-pitched demands. The brawl over, the crowd was getting back into the rhythm of their chant, anxious for the next decapitation. Thirsty for blood.

  Bat spasmed and stiffened her body, making her handlers fight for every inch as they brought her to the plate of rock before the foot of the vertical channel. They bent at the knees to lower her in place. She planted her feet and somehow made it take the total effort of six strong men to try to shove her into place.

  Her head was still just outside the niche when a grinding sound came from above, growing in volume. The pillar of granite fell down the shaft to land on the rock with a sharp crack that sent chips of stone everywhere. The pull rope fell with it, tumbling down to gather in a messy heap atop the stone leaning in the niche, its base only inches from the top of Bat’s head.

  The drop of the stone was followed by the bodies of screaming men raining down from above. The blue warriors sent up the narrow ramp to pull the stone aloft were crashing down on their brothers with devastating effect.

  Jimbo craned his neck to look up. Against the stormy sky, he saw the green trails of tracers flashing above him toward the rock face. Over the bewildered moans of the spectators and the angered shouts of the warriors, he could now pick out the sharp claps of rifle fire.

  With a renewed vigor fueled by mad hope, combined with the confusion of his handlers, Jimbo was able to break away from his handlers and stumble free. A blue man snarled and reached for the Pima only to have the top of his head vanish in a red haze. More warriors were falling. Two of the twisted king’s bearers fell with exit wounds blossoming on their indigo flesh. The bier crashed down, sending the little freak tumbling to the ground, squeaking with indignation.

  Panic set in. The warriors released their captives to run about waving their clubs with an impotent fury that barely concealed the utter terror they were feeling. Something invisible was striking at them. The wrath of their gods or the trickery of demons. The mystery of it was making them simple with fear.

  That panic turned to total pandemonium when some of the mob saw a reddish glow reflected from the clouds hanging low to the south. Their village was on fire. A dense column of smoke was rising to join the roiling sky filled with storm clouds. White embers ascended into the air like clouds of fireflies, whipped upwards by the heat of the blaze.

  Their home was burning. More than that, the fire, if it grew, would seal them in this cul-de-sac until they were roasted alive against the cliff face. The bloody sacrificial ceremony forgotten, the mob and the warriors rushed down from the shelf of rock to the narrow ledge that would take them away. Some came too close to the edge of the path. They were shoved, screaming into the crater to join their earlier victims. Their yelping king was borne away unceremoniously on the shoulders of one of his bearers. His mama shambled after at best speed calling out, begging to be taken along.

  Only Bucky remained behind, too pissed off to be frightened. With a roar of rage, he charged through the remaining captives from N’itha’s village, laying about himself with the club and braining adult and child alike. Those who weren’t dropped by his vicious assault took off after the rest of the terrified throng.

  Bucky charged on a direct path toward
Jimbo raising his club, now matted with fresh blood and hair.

  Lee and Chaz were out there in the dark somewhere, but the rifle fire had stopped. Maybe their angle of fire was all wrong, or they were dealing with the sudden exodus of thousands of freaked out primitives. In any case, there was no more gunfire coming. The four captives were bound and beaten and on their own.

  Bucky grinned madly, the whites of his eyes gleaming out of that ruined face as he rushed for Jimbo, the focus of his rage, with club upraised for the lethal blow.

  He didn’t see Byrus rolling into his path.

  The Macedonian tangled his legs in Bucky’s and took him to the dirt. Bucky went down on one knee and brought the stone club around for a strike to Byrus’ unprotected skull.

  Jimbo hurled himself across the intervening space to body check Bucky between the shoulders. The blue bastard crashed to the rock with Jimbo atop him. He still had the club in his grasp and was twisting to bring it to bear on the Pima. Rick Renzi had trotted forward and brought his booted foot down on Bucky’s wrist with a meaty snap. A fresh spray of blood jetted from the warrior’s mouth as he shrieked his pain to the night.

  Somehow, Bat was up now and kicking at Bucky’s head. They all took places around the fallen war chief and systematically drove their only weapons, their boots, into him until he moved no more. Bat was the last to admit victory. The Rangers prodded her away with their shoulders as she kept on driving her boot into the pulpy ruin of what was once her tormentor’s skull. Tears cut swathes down her filthy cheeks. Her breath came in wet gasps.

  They left Bucky’s still and broken body to move through the litter of corpses that had fallen to the fire of the invisible gunmen.

  Byrus dropped to his knees by a dead warrior. With an awkward effort, his numbed fingers found the bone handle of a flint knife. He pulled it from a sheath that hung about the corpse’s waist on a thong. The Macedonian sliced through his bonds then trotted to the others still panting from their exertions.

  “I will free you, baas. As you freed me.” He grinned, happy as a child through a distorted face black with crusted blood.

  44

  Going Downtown

  It was a target-rich environment while it lasted.

  Lee Hammond had to give up his position on the narrow section of ledge when the frenzied mob came rushing down toward him. He was on a narrow part of the trail where it curved around the crater. From his vantage point, he could aim directly across to where his friends were about to be fed into some kind of Flintstones’ version of a pile driver.

  He chose to head up the trail around the pit when Chaz and the skinnies found the village below empty of anyone. Chaz got busy setting the village to the torch to give them a distraction for their exfil once, and if, they found the rest of their unit alive. The skinnies were digging the action and rushing around tossing burning brands into thatch hooches that went up like kindling. The flames spread quickly, even in the downpour.

  Lee heard the chanting ahead and found the target area through his scope just as his friends’ final act of defiance was ending. Jimbo and the others put up as good a fight as they could without the use of their hands. He was relieved to see Bat very much alive and krav maga-ing caveman ass like a champ. But as he studied the sit-rep, he saw she was being dragged toward the foot of the contraption by six or more guys all painted head to toe in blue like they’d been bathing in a chemical toilet.

  The zone was well inside his optimal kill distance. He made a quick study of the contraption with the rock channel, rope, and the deadly weight. He trained the scope up to find the gang of rope pullers on a sloped section of rock high above the revelers. The scope on the M4 was a 20x with NODs option and up to the job. He sprayed the fuckers in three round bursts and brought them and their lethal hammer down. Those that didn’t fall the height of the cliff were splattered on ledges on the way down. He didn’t even need to hit them all. Once the killing started, they tried to rabbit off the ledge in a bunch. A good score of them simply plummeted to their demise, sliding off into space after being shoved aside by their pals.

  After the big rock dropped and the party broke up, Lee chose targets of opportunity to bring down the men closest to Bat. He followed up by kakking anyone near the line-up of prisoners that included his friends. His view of them was blocked as the crowd came between him and the kill zone. The party was over, and there was only one way out of this dead end, and no place to hide on the exposed ledge.

  The terrified horde was practically on his heels when he came off the foot of the curving trail. Lee dived into the cover of some pine trees and watched the passing parade of panic. Women, kids, and those buck naked blue fuckers came down the narrow trail, filling it from side to side. Where the path got too constricted, folks were jostled out of the way. Usually by the blue guys sprinting along and bashing aside anyone who got between them and where they wanted to be. Not fast enough or big enough and it was over the side into the pit with your ass. He saw a woman get her brains dashed out with a single swing from one of these heroes. She and the squalling baby she carried were knocked to the ground and crushed to paste under the feet of more than a thousand of their neighbors bugging out for home.

  The goddamn weirdest sights of a night of truly weird sights was a dude painted up for the Blue Man Group piggybacking some kind of dwarf who was howling like a cat with its tail caught in a car door and a shriveled up old bat with tubular tits swinging like a pair of pendulums chasing after. It was all leant a hellish touch by the rising glow of flames, and the fire in the village reached flashpoint. A hot wind was blowing embers toward the woods at the foot of the cliff face. Even in the driving rain, these pines could catch fire in a heartbeat. Lee needed to haul ass up that trail and get any survivors the fuck out of there.

  Behind him, something erupted. He turned to see a blast go skyward with a white flash at its heart. Everything went black and white for a half-second, followed by a series of pops that went on and on, sending greenish arcs into the sky. That was ordnance. The fire had found the weaponry taken off the abducted Rangers.

  The fleeing villagers hesitated. A gust of hot air washed over them, driven by the concussive wave of Semtex going off in close series below. But they were being shoved from behind by their cousins, and the procession was at a run once more. They moved swiftly past Lee’s hide until there were just a few stragglers left moping down the trail.

  “Fuck this,” he hissed, stepping from the brush. Lee wasn’t waiting anymore. He trotted up the trail, meeting some kids younger than four picking their way down from above. They were stepping around a lot of trampled bodies mashed to meat jelly laying all over the rocks. He showed the kids his teeth, and they picked up the pace to take off past him, legs pumping, to find their mamas.

  Following behind them were some sad sacks of shit nursing wounds. Blue guys. Like the ones who were trying to feed his girlfriend into their stone age guillotine. They were hurting. Some from bullet wounds thanks to him. Others from injuries taken when Jimbo and the others put up what they thought was their last fight.

  He walked up close to each one and served a double tap center mass to each. Maybe ten in all by the time he made his way around the circular pathway to where he met his friends coming down. Enough shots that he had to slap in a fresh mag.

  Jimbo was carrying Byrus on his shoulders. Rick was limping, using a pole for support. Bat was trying to help. They were all in a condition that shocked Lee. Spattered in blood of their own and others—what was left of their clothes was stiff with it. Foul as hell and sporting bruises and cuts. Harshest of all was the dead look from their eyes. It was the glaze that’s left when the adrenaline is gone. They were in the wake of the rush. When the fear has risen to high tide and then fallen away, leaving one surprised to be alive. Walking shock. If post-traumatic stress disorder was the price of survival, this was the moment in which it was forged.

  The glaze left Bat’s eyes when she saw Lee double timing for them. For a fleeting
instant, her eyes went from staring into the abyss to recognition to the dancing lights of the woman he knew in his heart he loved.

  She tore herself from Rick’s side and practically skipped into his arms. Lee Hammond, life-taking and heart-breaking, hard-charging Ranger, crushed her to him, never wanting to let her go.

  King Chaos rained down in the village.

  The skin palace was collapsing into itself as flames consumed the dome of dried skins and timbers. Explosions continued to shake the ground from within what remained of the structure. Cakes of Semtex ignited when the heat reached them. The air was peppered by stray rounds going off at all angles with the ammo inside weapons and magazines cooking off.

  Some of the hooches were fully ablaze. More were smoldering in the driving rain. Smoke hung heavy over the enclosure, filling the air with a noxious reek of burnt leather and hair. At least it covered the fish stink.

  The blue men and their kin were frantically scooping up wet mud to put out fires. There wasn’t much order to it, and many gave up on the effort as shacks turned to pyres. Others were rushing into their homes to retrieve treasured possessions. Still more were taking goodies from homes not their own. Fights broke out over what belonged to who. In addition, the rounds flying everywhere as ammo cooked off were dropping any citizens who got too close to the skin palace.