Bounty Hunter 1: The Bounty Hunter's Revenge by Joseph Anderson Read Free Book Online Page A

and
painstakingly rose to my feet. I hobbled out of the building and through the
pieces of rubble that I had haphazardly tossed out. The building that we had
initially used as a shelter was still a horrible reminder of the crawler
attack. I had moved all of the food and water supplies out of there and never
gone back in, but there were things I needed now.
    The blood of the aliens had transformed
after nearly a week of constant sunlight and heat. It resembled a black tar on
the ground, and I walked as gingerly as I could manage with my bad leg through
it all. I scooped up the ammunition and grenades and held them against my
chest. I walked out and back toward the stairs.
    I set the grenades down outside the
entrance along with the vast collection of bullets I had gathered up. There
were only three grenades, and I knew that I would have to set them off
individually. The casings on the grenades were surprisingly sturdy, and
contained safety mechanisms that only allowed them to be set off if the pin was
released. It was unlikely they would blow up even if I landed a direct shot on
them.
    After crawling back down into the
shallow hole I had created on the stairs, I set to work finding the lowest gap
that was big enough for me to slip a grenade into. Cass helped, and ran several
estimations on which placement would yield the highest result. I knew that each
explosion was a gamble, and that we had no idea how many layers of debris we
were dealing with. We might have gotten three excellent explosions and still been
faced with an impassible wall.
    I set my good leg against one of the
steps and placed the grenade against the gap we both agreed on. I’d have less
than ten seconds to get away after pulling the pin and releasing the spoon, and
I had to make the most of that time with the lack of mobility in my body. Once
the grenade was set I pushed it firmly through the gap and pressed off with my
good leg before I heard it rattle against the concrete below. I pushed with my
leg and pulled with my hand, moving in an awkward crawl out of the building and
onto the sand.
    The sand was not something I fully
considered and I found it extremely difficult to push myself along. I barely
made any distance in it when the explosion boomed out behind me and I heard the
crash and rush of tiny rocks and dust falling all around. When I was confident
that it was safe to get up, I saw that a large chunk of concrete had landed
only a few meters away from where I had been in the sand.
    “We need to think things through better
next time. This might be too risky,” Cass said when we were back into the
building.
    “I’d rather be crushed trying to live
than starve trying not to die.”
    The blast had moved what I considered to
be a fair amount of the rubble, but there was still no sign of it giving way to
the basement level. I had a moment of dread when I thought that the entire
lower level may have caved in but I pushed it aside. There was no need to
consider myself doomed until I knew for certain.
    I went back down the stairs on my
stomach and resumed clearing. The explosion had broken down many of the larger
pieces into ones that I could break loose and move. I worked until I could no
longer keep my eyes open.
    It was dark when I woke up, and I was
quick to remind myself that the crawlers didn’t come out until near the end of
the night cycle. I wasn’t sure if that was due to the location of wherever they
came from or the temperature of the planet, but I intended to make the most of
the time. I took shorter breaks and had Cass increase the food rations for more
energy. I pushed myself to go longer periods without sleep, and I was ready to
use the second grenade in less time than I needed the first.
    Despite what Cass had said, I repeated
the same plan as before. Getting out and onto the sand was still more distance
than any other direction, even if I couldn’t crawl along it. I was on my belly
in the sand when the second explosion went off, and a