Hive Invasion by James Axler Read Free Book Online Page A

ass up.”
    Sheathing his panga, Ryan jerked the blade out of the insect’s head. Wiping the knife clean, he clamped it between his teeth, then reached for the rope and began to climb. But when he put weight on his right arm, his injured shoulder flared with white-hot pain, making him fall back to the ground. Ryan spit the knife out and tucked it into his boot. “Shit! Bastard chewed up my shoulder good. You’re going to have to pull me up.” Able to hold his blaster in his weak hand, Ryan looped the rope around his left. “Go!”
    “Hold on!”
    Ryan was jerked off his feet as more bugs swarmed into the area. He took out the nearest two with head shots as three more ran toward him. Ryan brought his legs up just as they lunged at his feet, pushing off the rock face as Jak hauled him up, reaching the top ahead of several more that were already climbing in pursuit.
    “Son of a—” Jak had his own blaster in hand and blew two of the ascending insects off the wall, sending them crashing down on the rest. “Time go.”
    “You’ve got that right.” Ryan dug out his amphetamine pill and swallowed it, then sent a trio of 9 mm slugs down into the mass, killing two more and injuring one so that all it could to was shriek and writhe on the ground, before his blaster’s action locked back. “Go, go, go!”
    Fortunately, the slash on Ryan’s leg was shallow, and he could run with little impairment. He took off after Jak, who was like a white-haired ghost flitting from rock to shadow to rock again.
    “Where the...hell’re we...going?” Ryan panted as they ran.
    “Just follow,” Jak replied, not even breathing hard. “Got surprise waitin’ for bugs.”
    Ryan glanced over his shoulder to find the ground behind them covered with bugs as far as he could see. “Better be a damn good one.”
    Jak flashed a death’s-head smile at him. “Is.”
    The pill kicked in now, reducing Ryan’s various aches and pains to dull, faraway throbs. His flagging energy level spiked, and soon he’d drawn abreast of Jak, who skidded to a stop beside him. “Head there.”
    “There” was a deep, narrow gulch carved out of the rock by wind and water over hundreds of years, snaking up the hill a good sixty or seventy yards. Not waiting for an answer, Jak began to climb, moving so fast up the steep surface he resembled an albino mountain goat.
    Ryan followed him, still favoring his injured shoulder. The floor was steep, making the climb difficult, but not impossible. The only question was whether Ryan could reach the top before the burrow-bugs reached him.
    It was a close call. Near the summit, the gulch turned almost vertical, making Ryan seek out hand-and footholds to propel himself the last dozen or so feet. Aided by Jak and Ricky, he was half pulled, half dragged onto the top, where he rolled over, breathing heavily.
    “You old man,” Jak said, still pulling on his arm.
    “Watch it, youngblood,” Ryan said as he pushed himself to his feet. “What’s the plan, hold them off again here?”
    “Nope.” Ricky’s teeth gleamed white in the moonlight. “J.B. planned something way better.”
    Ryan peeked over the edge to see a large knot of the bugs boiling furiously up the arroyo toward them. “Whatever he’s doing, he better do it fast.”
    “Would, if we off this piece rock,” Jak said, dragging him farther back. “Come on!”
    Ryan allowed himself to be led away from the edge to the other side of the hilltop, where the rest of the group crouched behind a small outcropping.
    “Got Ryan,” Jak said.
    “Now look who’s taking his sweet time,” J.B. remarked.
    “Yeah, you,” Ryan replied. “Those bugs chased Jak and me clear up here and are going to be coming at us any minute now. What?” he asked on seeing the broad smiles on his friends’ faces.
    “Are they, now?” J.B. asked.
    As he said that, Ryan heard a dull
crump
that he felt in the soles of his feet and the pit of his stomach. The ground around them began to