Monster Hunter Bloodlines - eARC by Larry Correia (read a book .txt) 📕

than he looks because of the strength displayed, no wonder he wears the big coat and hat, really bulks him up—”

“Milo,” Earl shouted. “Get to the point.”

“Quick math, if each of these little guys are between a hundred and two hundred pounds each, there might be up to a couple thousand of them out there right now. But that’s assuming a perfectly efficient system, and even magic recycling can’t be that good, but still we’ve probably got a thousand of them at least.”

“That’s your low estimate?”

We reached the ground floor and ran for the reception area.

The giant Drekavac’s sword had chopped our heavy reinforced door in half, but the Hunters stationed here had dropped the emergency portcullis to block the way. A bunch of the man-sized monsters were currently hacking and tearing at it. And from the way the steel bars were popping, these things were still freakishly strong.

Several Hunters were already here, using the wall corners and our big reception desk for cover. They were shooting down the hall through the gaps in the portcullis . . . and from all the glowing holes in the walls, the monsters were shooting back. One Hunter was being dragged away by his friends, screaming because of the smoking hole that had just gotten punched through his thigh. He left a red trail on the tile.

I wasn’t surprised to see that Dorcas was there, even though she was a one-legged senior citizen, whom Earl had specifically told to go home because she was too old for this kind of roughneck shit. She was leaning on her desk, shoving 12-gauge buckshot shells into the mag tube of a Mossberg 590. “About damned time, Earl.”

“I thought I told you to sit this one out.”

“Oh, stick it. This is my turf.” Dorcas pumped the shotgun. Over the decades those two had known each other, he had only aged a few years but she’d gone from young girl to crusty old lady, so Dorcas was one of the few people around who gave Earl lip. “Ain’t no assholes gonna run me off. Now get to helping. That gate ain’t gonna hold them for long, and they’re hitting the other doors too.”

Earl started grabbing various Hunters and sending them in different directions to reinforce those entrances. I flipped over the table next to the memorial wall, braced Cazador over the top, and started flinging .308 rounds down the hallway. Milo crouched next to me and started shooting too. Ejected brass bounced off my armor. There were so many bodies throwing themselves against the gate that we couldn’t hardly miss. All I needed to do was not accidentally hit the portcullis.

We killed a pile of them and they just didn’t care. Bars bent. Welds snapped. The portcullis was down. They were coming in.

Dorcas picked up a clacker. “Fire in the hole!”

We got down as she set off the claymores.

MHI’s entryway was shredded by hundreds of projectiles. Dozens of monsters were torn apart. The air was filled with smoke and drywall dust. Then there was only the briefest delay before the bad guys came pouring in.

There were several of us shooting down that narrow channel. It was a fatal funnel filled with flying silver and lead. The Drekavacs pushed forward anyway. The wire strands of their thin limbs unraveled beneath the high velocity impacts. But not every aspect of the monster was suicidal because some of the creatures used cover and fired back.

There was a blue flash as the table Milo and I were hiding behind was struck. Splinters flew. Milo got hit and the impact knocked him down. He landed on his back and clutched at his chest. As more bullets hit the table, I grabbed Milo by the drag strap on his armor and pulled him down the hall and around the corner.

“Ouch! Ouch!” Milo was struggling to get one of the pouches open on his armor. He yanked out a magazine that was dripping molten plastic from the glowing blue hole burned through it. The spring shot out of the damaged mag and rounds went rolling across the floor.

“You okay?”

Milo grimaced as he shoved one hand inside his armor. “Oh, that hurts.” He pulled it out. Clean. No blood. “Oof. Low velocity. Not enough penetration to punch our armor. Lots of energy dump though. About like getting kicked by a horse.”

“You can analyze the ghost bullets later. Can you walk?”

“Sure.” Milo staggered to his feet and winced, clearly in a whole lot of pain. “Uh-oh. You know that feeling when you put a rib into one of your lungs?”

“No.”

“It’s not pleasant.”

I glanced back toward my previous firing position. It had been turned into swiss cheese. The reception desk was a smoking wreck. Hunters were falling back. Earl had picked up stubborn Dorcas and was carrying her over one shoulder. She wasn’t wounded. She was just too pissed off to retreat. In fact she was still shooting her shotgun as Earl ran. One of the blue streaks nailed her in her fake leg and blew her foot clean off. “Not again!” Dorcas tossed the now empty Mossberg and pulled out her hand cannon. She managed to crank off a couple of shots before Earl got her out of the line of fire.

I leaned out to cover them and dropped another monster with Cazador. They were close enough I just twisted the rifle to the side and engaged them with the micro dot sight instead of the much more powerful scope.

Earl passed our angry little receptionist off to Milo and Holly. “Get all the wounded to the cafeteria.”

“That looks like most of us, Earl,” Milo said.

“I know. Holly, keep them alive. There’s only one way into the pantry. That’s the choke point. Hold it.” Then he clapped my shoulder and gave me orders even as I was shooting. It was a good thing my rifle was suppressed so I could still understand him. “Basement, Z. We’re gonna reinforce them.”

We had only sent a small crew down to guard Sonya in Earl’s cell.