Chapter 3

It hurt, but they could ignore the man being skinned, since he was going to die pretty soon, anyway. Their main concern had to be rescuing the men and women who were still alive and had a chance to stay that way. Guardian sent Jane back to the window with instructions to use her gun to kill as many of the Wasters as she could manage, starting with the one about to burn the woman’s pussy hair, moving to the rapists, and going from there to any other Waster that she could find to shoot at. Her main problem was not to shoot Ajax or Guardian who would be inside the barn while she was shooting.

Guardian planned for him and Ajax to go in the front door. That way, there would be no Wasters behind them. He was going to shoot any Wasters that he could find, and Ajax was to do his version of the same thing.

Guardian recommended that Jane just shoot through the window glass. That might mess up her first shot, but it was a better choice than breaking the glass before she fired. He reminded her to be careful about where she shot, and to wait for him and Ajax to enter the barn before she did any shooting. He sent her to the window and led Ajax to the front door.

This was actually a double door, and Guardian planned to open only one side. He had noted when he looked through the window that the door was unlocked, so he should be able to open the door with one heave. Guardian grabbed the door and threw it open. He stepped through the opening before any of the Wasters reacted to what was going on.

Jane began shooting as soon as the door flew open. Her first shot went through the glass and shattered it, but it flew off in some odd direction and did no harm. However, her second shot did hit the man with the candle in the back and mushroomed just as it was supposed to. Unfortunately, the candle fell onto some loose straw and started a larger fire.

Meanwhile, Ajax tore into the man who was doing the flaying and ripped his throat out. That caused the knife to slip and slash the victim’s throat. If anything, that was a blessing. Ajax ran to another man who was acting belligerent and tried for his throat. Ajax was only partly successful because the man had seen Ajax coming. However, Ajax fell back and ripped the man’s belly open. The dog immediately started to hunt for his next victim.

The fire was beginning to become a major concern, so Guardian holstered his guns and drew his knife. He slashed the bonds of all of the people tied up and shouted for them to escape before the fire trapped them in the barn. They had trouble moving because they had been tied up for so long, but they did stumble out of the barn.

When those seven people were moving, Guardian grabbed the rape victim in a fireman’s carry and carried her out of the building. Once he was out of the barn, Guardian lay the woman on the ground and called for Ajax. He had to call twice to get the dog’s attention, but he finally showed up.

Now, as far as anybody knew, the only living people still in the barn were a few Wasters. Ajax was sent to guard the rear of the building while Guardian covered the front. Jane was still at her window and shooting whenever she found a target. Guardian left her there because he felt that every Waster that she killed helped her on her way to recovery. He only called her away from the window when it looked like the barn wall was about to fall.

The burning roof collapsed and there was one scream from inside the burning barn. That died out shortly, and Ajax was called by Guardian. Jane and Guardian praised Ajax’s work and then turned to the eight people whom they had rescued. All of them were in pretty bad shape, but none of them were near death. The rape victim was in the worst shape, but she would recover, given enough time.

All of the victims were taken to the largest home in town and put to bed. Couples were put in the same bed when possible, but everybody had to share a bed in order to get all of them a comfortable place to lie down. The main thing that Jane and Guardian had to do was to supply the people with water. They’d had nothing to drink for nearly two days.

The rape victim had had all of her pubic hair burned off by the man with the candle before the rapes started, so she was in need of treatment for her burns. Fortunately, the man with the candle had been more careful at his fun than one might expect, and the woman’s pussy was in better shape than Jane expected. She found some lard to spread over the burns since she could find nothing better, but that did give some relief to the woman. Actually, she was more concerned about becoming pregnant as a result of the rapes, but she agreed to worry about that later.

The trio stayed in Webster for three days to care for the rescued citizens; however, they wanted to check on the Johnsons back at the grove of trees before much longer. A couple of the women were able to move around well enough to take care of the others, so the trio left because of their concern for the boy and his broken leg.

When they got back, they found the Johnson’s sure enough, but all three were dead. Mr. Johnson had not died completely in vain: he had killed two of their attackers with his shotgun before the rest charged him when his double-barreled gun was empty. It appeared that Mrs. Johnson had killed her son and herself before the Wasters could get to them, and Mr. Johnson had been killed in the general melee that came about when the living attackers had charged him.

This killing was enough to send Guardian, Ajax, and Jane on a manhunt! The ground had still been wet enough to make tracking easy. There were four sets of footprints leading away from the attack site, and the trio set out to follow them.

The Wasters had a two-day lead on them, so there was no expectation of catching the beasts for at least another day. They set up camp and sent Ajax out to hunt. This time, he came back with two rabbits, so they ate well that night and had some meat left for breakfast the next day.

That evening, Guardian told Jane the story of his mission. He had once been a soldier, but he had been badly wounded in an attack by a very large body of Wasters. He was the only survivor from his unit, but he had been found and taken back to a central hospital and research laboratory. At this point in his life, Guardian (Sgt. James Wilson) had been recruited for an experimental program. He was to wander around the continent gathering information on the general situation and doing what he could to eliminate Wasters.

His body had been rebuilt with a number of enhancements that increased his strength and stamina. Oh, yes, he could still be killed, but it would be more difficult than it would have been before his enhancement. He was also given a small computer implant that was keyed into his senses so that all five were enhanced well beyond what was available to a normal human. The computer also stored all of his experiences in a special memory, and this memory was dumped to headquarters while he slept each night.

Jane giggled when she realized that their sexcapades were delivered to headquarters. She didn’t care, but she did think that it was funny. She wondered if she could shock any of the people back at headquarters if she had some time to think about it.

Before they had left Webster, he had sent word to headquarters that he wanted Jane to join him. There was a special transporter gizmo in his pack that would handle items sent to and from Guardian whenever he was in contact with headquarters. Therefore, they had sent him an additional Colt 9mm automatic and more ammunition. They asked Guardian to do what he could to improve her shooting ability and to teach her what he knew about unarmed combat.

They were going to send her a duplicate of the Guardian’s small pack so that she could also contact them. Any medical changes would have to wait until she could make a personal visit to headquarters.

Jane was thrilled by the prospect of working permanently with Guardian, and she readily agreed to do all he asked. She did ask what could be done to keep her from becoming pregnant because that was a definite possibility, based on how much sexual attention she expected to receive from her partner.