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with living creatures in the past three days.
    Ryan shook his head. “That’s a dead end. The important thing is for us to get out of this valley and see where we are, then we can figure out where to go. But that’ll mean moving as fast as we can, and with ammo low, we’re going to have to be careful how we take care of problems like those bugs, which J.B. and I imagine are going to come after us.”
    As Ryan spoke, he looked around at the others, seeing exhaustion and pain on everyone’s face, even Jak’s and J.B.’s. Although part of him wanted to set out right then and there, he knew pushing everyone now would only result in more mistakes later on.
    “I figure we should rest for a few hours, then head out at dusk,” he continued. “If we travel through the night, we should be free of this place by sunrise. Anyone got any questions or anything else to add?”
    Jak spit to the side. “Wonder if bug parts okay eat.”
    “Only one way to find out,” J.B. said.
    “But how are you going to cook them?” Ricky asked. “I mean, you’re not going to eat it raw, are you?”
    Jak shrugged as he walked over to the limbless torso of a bug that had died on the ledge. “Eat worse before.” He cracked the thorax, sliced off a piece of the translucent, jellied inside and touched his tongue to it, then spit it out. “Tastes like putrid mutie shit!”
    “And you would know that how, Jak?” Mildred asked with a smile.
    The weak joke took the edge off the grim mood, and Doc was the first to snort laughter at Mildred’s question. Soon everyone was chuckling at the albino, who flipped all of them off with both hands and a narrow grin.
    “All right, let’s get some rest,” Ryan said. “I’ll stand guard for the first hour, then Krysty, then J.B., then Jak. If anyone sees anything, hears anything—bugs, whatever—get everyone up. We move out in four hours.”

Chapter Six
    Ryan brought his panga down, pulping another of the everlasting horde of burrow-bug’s heads with the heavy blade. He whirled, searching for another enemy to kill, but saw none. He was alone, surrounded by hacked and broken insect bodies.
    He took a moment to suck cool night air into his starving lungs while checking himself for injury. Blood streamed from several small cuts on his hands, arms and chest, oozing through his torn and ragged T-shirt. Every muscle ached; other than perhaps an hour’s rest all told, he’d been running and fighting almost nonstop for the past eight.
    He glanced up at the stars but saw no glimmer of sunlight to the east. Not that it mattered—all daylight meant was that it was a bit easier to chill the rad-blasted muties. But just like back at the plateau, for every one he’d killed, two more took its place.
    Although Ryan possessed a never-say-die mentality that had served him well through countless encounters with adversity, for the first time in a long time, he was starting to wonder whether he and his companions were going to make it out of this valley of death alive.
    They’d eaten a few bites of tough, salty beef jerky—the last of their food—and barely gotten a couple of hours of rest when J.B. had woken everyone, saying he’d heard movement from the holes below. With Jak in the lead, throwing blade in hand, they headed higher into the rocky hills, hoping to lose the burrowing monsters before heading out to escape the valley.
    Their attempt had been doomed almost from the beginning. With eight legs, the burrow-bugs were well suited to continue their pursuit, their claws clacking on the rocks as they swarmed up after the group. Ryan was hoping their head start would have been enough to discourage pursuit, but Doc was slowing everyone. It also didn’t help that the mutie insects were single-mindedly unstoppable in their quest to kill the intruders.
    Traveling through the darkness had turned into a nightmare of running and gunning, trying to cross the broken terrain while constantly keeping an eye out for