Death Drop (17 page)

Without thinking, Otto took off at a dead run in what looked like a macho soldier’s dangerous game. But Otto wasn’t macho, he was desperate. His mind burned, trying to form a plan as the distance between him and several thousand pounds of speeding metal closed with alarming quickness. “Bertie!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

“BERTIE!” This time the terrorized cry came from Blink.

Otto’s footfalls were pounding in his ears. The sound of his heavy breaths were so loud he thought for sure his head would explode, but as noisy as the melee was in his mind, the off-kilter hum of Bertie’s dead, wobbling cogs wedged its way into his brain like a sonic spike driven by the cold, relentless hands of doom itself. The tumult was becoming unbearable, but Otto welcomed it with almost masochistic pleasure. The noise drowned out the shrill voice of fear that wailed in his conscience—fear that grew as Bertie charged, powered by the undeniable force of gravity pulling on Malo and
The Guardian
at the other end of his chain.

Otto raced headlong at the speeding machine that had saved him from death more than once today. He was grateful that the terror clawing at the door of his reason was still overrun by the heroic, bugling call of ‘charge’ trumpeted by his amped-up senses. He planned to throw himself at Bertie’s wobbling right tread. He hoped either the impact would jar the already unbalanced cog loose and derail the tread altogether or that his body might lodge between the broken tread and the ground, stopping Bertie’s forward momentum. As he dashed on, Otto’s fear was still overrun by the carnival of destructive noises erupting in his ears and he was glad: it was the worst plan he could ever remember.

The rush of splined gears and the whir of thumping treads on dirt thrashed at Otto’s ears as the distance between charging metal and sprinting flesh closed. The smell of fresh oil bathed his nostrils as Otto prepared to curl into a ball and hit the track with the side of his body.
“What is it with you and being crushed to death, eh?”
The little voice apparently had a key to the backdoor of his rational mind. With his shoulders lowered, Otto twisted his torso, but just as his feet lifted from the ground, a familiar sound echoed in his ears and he was thrust uncontrollably to the left—out of the way of the tread and Bertie’s destructive path.

“You’re going to live,”
said the little voice cheerfully.
“But Malo and Bertie are going to die,”
it concluded with counteractive melancholy.
“But you’re going to live!”
the voice celebrated again. Otto’s confusion and adrenaline ebbed just enough for him to feel racking pain surge from his upper arm, through his neck, and stab into the right side of his head. Scarlet billows traveled quickly down the chest and back of his jacket as it tried feebly to stem the flow of blood leaking from the hole in his shoulder. Then he heard the loud cracks of gunshots that sent three more bullets tearing towards his helpless body. Just as he feared, the Berzerkers had found them.

The force of the blast, along with his own diagonal movement toward Bertie’s tread, sent Otto spiraling through the air to land several feet to the right of the medical machine. He was in motion almost as soon as he hit the ground. Otto had pulled his heavy revolver and passed it to his left hand.
“Two shots left,”
he thought to himself.
“Just enough.”

Bertie sped by and as he cleared the line of fire between Otto and the Berzerkers, a hail of bullets peppered the ground inches from Otto’s leg, and a mist of fine dust sprayed into the air around him. Otto leveled his revolver at the medical machine, took aim, and squeezed the trigger. He didn’t have time to see if his shot was true—immediately after firing at Bertie, Otto wheeled his gun hand in the direction of the Berzerkers. The hammer on his service revolver slammed down like thunder and Otto’s only remaining bullet split the air as it flew across the ridge.

Otto’s final shot was guided by the fickle mistress of fortune. She smiled at him for a moment and his wayward bullet streamed over the boulder where the Berzerkers were taking cover. The very instant the projectile crossed the apex of the large rock, a withered, sickly brown face rose up to take aim at Otto and destroy him. The demon’s deathly red eyes registered a flicker of confusion a split second after the back of his knotted skull flew apart and littered the dirt behind him with chunks of ghostly white bone and purple-black gore. But lady luck was a cruel mistress that Otto knew only too well. She smiled one second and scowled the next.

Just as Otto’s last round found its mark, the fallen Berzerker’s muscles carried out their final order and squeezed the trigger of his weapon, and the meat above Otto’s hip tore open in burning pain. He had been shot twice in a matter of seconds; he was out of bullets, lying in the open, and unable to get up to find cover. There were two Berzerkers left, crouching behind their stone, dazed by the sudden death of their evil comrade and the seemingly impossible shot that had killed him. But soon their surprise would give way to their bloodlust, and they would emerge from their cover and find an easy target lying in the open just a few short yards away. Otto wondered how many more bullets he could take. He wondered if Blink was all right. But mostly, he wondered if shooting one of his last two rounds at Bertie had done any good at all.

***

Dr. Blink peered cautiously around the jagged edge of the large rock he had darted behind when the shooting started. He could clearly see Otto sitting up in the middle of the clearing with his revolver. Blink was awestruck when Otto took aim, not at the Berzerkers who were shooting at him, but at Bertie as he rolled helplessly toward the opening of the sinkhole that still concealed Malo somewhere below the ridge.
“Has he gone mad?”
he thought to himself, looking on in horror as Otto fired his gun.
“What is he doing?!”
Blink couldn’t contain his confusion as he watched the scene with dismay, and just before the anxiety erupted through him and forced its way out in a terrified scream, Otto’s desperate plan became clear.

The bullet crashed against the disjointed main cog on Bertie’s right hand tread and ripped it from the mechanical mesh of its surrounding gears. The toothy disc flew from its mount and cut across the ridge with explosive velocity. Its grooves tore at the soil as it rolled out of control along the ridge and veered directly for Blink. The thrashing hum of its grooves shook the ground and the doctor flattened himself against the boulder and closed his eyes. He flinched as a rush of air, pushed by the big cog, told him how close the spinning wheel had come to cutting him in half. He opened his eyes to see the disc tilt on its edge and turn a couple of revolutions, like an ingot left to spin on a table, before falling flat to the ground in a muffled whoomp. The gear had passed behind his boulder and missed him by inches.

Without the main cog for support, the belted metal pulled from Bertie’s remaining gears and sloughed onto the ground. His treadless cogs dug into the soil, and his chassis dipped to the right as the sudden shift in momentum turned Bertie sideways. He continued to slide toward the tunnel as mounds of dirt piled up on the inside of his bare cogs. Blink could see that Bertie was slowing down, but he wasn’t sure it would be enough to stop the heavy medical machine—the cave entrance loomed just a few feet away and he was still sliding. Blink cringed and a small pained squeak whined through his nose as he watched the front edge of Bertie’s chassis move over the crater’s edge.

Bertie was just moments away from spilling into the chasm and he and Malo would be lost forever. Blink was torn between dashing into the open to help slow Bertie down and his fear of being shot by the Berzerkers.
“You have to save Malo!”
he told himself, and at once he was steeled against the fear of being ravaged by bullets or eaten alive by monsters. He peered around the boulder one last time, and just before he could take a full stride into the open, he stopped short. Bertie’s front half hovered dangerously over the precipice, and his shell moaned to a halt as clods of ground cascaded over the rim and disappeared. Bertie had stopped—for now. Otto had done it.

Otto kept the barrel of his revolver trained on the rock that hid the two remaining Berzerkers. He didn’t have any bullets left, but he hoped the threat of the impossible shot that killed their friend and the sight of him wielding his weapon in their direction would make them think twice about exposing their heads long enough to get off a good round. He was losing a significant amount of blood, and he felt dizzy as the revolver sagged in his weakening grip. He righted the barrel and shook off the daze as he glanced in Bertie’s direction. Was his mind playing tricks on him, or was the medical machine hanging halfway over the edge of the vent shaft?
“Did I do it?”
he wondered.
“Is he stopped?”
And then Otto heard the faint sound of the chain attached to Bertie’s arm. It was softly clinking in a steady rhythm too perfect and continuous to be anything other than Malo climbing out of the tunnel. Otto had his answer and not a moment too soon, as the beasts behind the boulder locked him in their sights and prepared to blast him to hell.

“PLEASE DON’T EAT ME!” Otto bellowed at the top of his lungs while tossing his gun away. “Please just finish what you started. Shoot me and give me a quick death—a soldier’s death! You’re already so close, see?” Otto cried out as he smeared his hands in the blood flowing from above his hip and held them out toward the Berzerkers. “Please…I can’t think of anything worse than being eaten alive! Have mercy—please just shoot me!”

The beasts rose from their hiding place like ghosts. Their cruel features and black eyes burned with malice as they advanced on the helpless figure wailing pitifully in the clearing in front of them. Now that Otto had thrown down his pistol in a feeble attempt to invite the Berzerkers’ mercy, they lowered their guns. They reached with spindly, clawed fingers to their belts and unsheathed ill-shaped blades as they advanced side by side.

The Berzerker on the right had a big left ear and a withered stump on the right. His pug nose had three large nostrils that were sniffing the air heavily between two enormous curved teeth that jutted out from his lower jaw. His companion swayed on long legs unused to supporting the full weight of his body. Otto had no doubt that this beast would have preferred to rush across the clearing between them on all fours and tear him to pieces: its big teeth, which flashed between fits of snarling, dripping with stringy saliva, would have done the job easily. Otto could tell that the snarling Berzerker was outranked by the other and only drew its sword to follow the lead of his superior. The nostrils of the one-eared monster pulsated as he lifted his head slightly upward and sniffed. His eyes closed to small black slits as he bathed in the sweet aroma of fresh blood that floated on the breeze from Otto’s wounds to his buzzing senses. The creature staggered forward, in a hungry daze as it flexed its muscular hand around the handle of its curved sword in fevered anticipation of the meal to come. The underling snapped its jaws repeatedly in violent chomps of its horrid, stained teeth that grew faster with each step toward Otto.

“I think we
will
eat you!” the one-eared creature snickered in a cruel taunting squeal. “What do you think, my pet? Is it time to feast?” He turned to the beast that was still chomping its jaws and swaying disturbingly behind him. The second Berzerker didn’t answer and Otto wasn’t surprised—it didn’t look like the creature had evolved enough to speak—it was more wild animal than soldier. “You won’t need your blade!” the one-eared Berzerker said, and the feral beast behind him dropped its sword to the ground with a dull clang. “Leave some scraps for me, won’t you?” The one-eared Berzerker patted the thick neck of his pet. “RIP HIM OPEN!”

Otto was right. The beast hurtled at him at an astonishing clip fueled by murderous hunger, all four of its paws drubbing the ground and thumping out a death beat. With each passing second Otto’s heart pounded faster, speeding blood to his wounds and calling the ravenous beast to hasten its attack. The one-eared Berzerker howled in excitement as his pet moved in for the kill. The beast dipped its head down from its shoulders and elongated its neck, stretching out toward its quarry. Its eyes rolled back into its head and sealed shut as it opened its oversized jaws. This was the final moment before it snapped its mouth shut on Otto’s throat.

KABOOM!

Liquid and bone sprayed Otto as the Berzerker animal disintegrated—mostly. Remnants of its hind quarters lay several yards to Otto’s left. Otto flopped to his back and clutched his hip as waves of darkness crept into his vision again. He could pass out now. He didn’t need to see anything more to know who had saved him. He knew Malo was standing at the edge of the vent shaft, clutching
The Guardian
in his enormous right hand as whispers of hot smoke from the gun’s barrel licked at the cool air on the ridge. Otto had to buy the Moxen some time and his whining about being eaten alive, along with the copious amounts of blood he was waving around, did the trick. He closed his eyes and the rest of his senses reported in one last time as he drifted off. He felt the warm liquid covering his body turning cold in the passing breeze. He shivered. He could smell the slight sting of spent powder on the wind and would have smiled if he possessed the strength—he always liked that smell. The last thing he could remember was the sound of
The Guardian’s
quad barrels spinning and the ghastly, final squeal of the one-eared fiend followed by a wet sounding explosion. This time, Otto found the strength to smile—then he was gone.

Chapter 18: Secrets

O
tto could feel his senses returning to him. The haze of his slumber was lifting as visions of his family turned from hopeful dreams to sad memories before fading into the ether. His eyes cracked and fought to open completely as hard, white light poured through the breaches in his lids. “God, what did they
give
me?” he said out loud as he struggled to sit upright.