Disclaimer: I don't own The Hills Have Eyes.

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Edge
Chapter Six: Desperate Times

Thank God for her endurance training, was all Amber could think.

A lesser person would have been completely overwhelmed, probably would have tripped over various things and have fallen about like some flailing doll. And while Amber certainly had the blonde-haired, blue-eyed look of a Barbie, she was anything but. She was an army brat by choice and by upbringing.

These things were underestimating her. Just like everyone else in her life.

Amber wasn't sure where they had first ambushed them. These…mutants? She had heard stories, vague, silly nightmares that her father had told her when she was a child, of testing gone wrong. Of cannibalistic mutants. But those had just been stories, right?

She was starting to doubt that now.

They had encountered Redding - the leader of the expedition below - on the rocks. After a chilling warning, "They're everywhere, you know. I pity you fuckers. Especially the women. You've got two on your squad, don't you, Jeffrey?"

Amber remembered the term he used, the exact words before he blew his head off, "They keep the women and use them for breeding - keep their numbers up. I'd tell you to hurry away, but you're already in the hills. This is their territory. Only one way to escape, now."

The shot that ended his life had resonated through her body as if her bones were made of glass.

Breeders.

She shuddered as she jumped over a particularly craggy rock, landing on the balls of her feet quickly before turning around and pointing her gun. No one was there. Where did he go?

The radiation - if the rumors were to be believed - certainly didn't damage their intelligence. Crafty little bastards, they were. They had managed to observe that Sarge was their leader, their masthead, and took him out first. Some crafty maneuvering on one of the freaks' part was enough to make Crank miss the hill dweller completely and fire an array of bullets straight into Sarge. He had died minutes later, with Delmar pressing desperately down on the wounds and Amber fighting back tears.

Though none of them were incompetent, Sarge was their leader, and having that one safety net ripped from beneath them was jarring.

They had gotten Mickey next. The jock with the bright smile and the blue eyes was taken down by an arrow of all things. Straight through the neck. And before Amber could tell him to not pull it out, Mickey had done just that, ending his life even quicker with blood soaking his uniform.

Amber had turned then, seeing a female mutant. And this was equally jarring. Her tall, Amazonian physique was something that she didn't expect, certainly, as well as the slightly disproportionate head and larger than normal eyes. And that bow. That would certainly be a problem.

Amber fired a few shots in her direction out of anger, she had to admit, because she killed Mickey. Mickey.

The woman had laughed - a strange, high, disturbing sound - and dodged out of sight, slinking like a snake down into a crevasse in the rocks.

Amber growled to herself. It was down to only her, Delmar, and Crank now. Her heart was hammering wildly in her chest, as if possessed. She still had ammo, which was a plus. Everything else was sickeningly in the negative direction.

She breathed in and out, trying to calm her rattling nerves. She kept telling herself it was just a battle situation, like everything else. Why couldn't Missy be here? She was always the calm one, the level head, the rock. Or Napoleon? Sure, his neuroticism was intense to a nauseating degree, but he would at least have a view on things that would help. Not that she was short handed with Delmar or Crank, but she couldn't help but wonder…

"Amber!" Delmar shouted. "Amber! You okay?"

"F-Fine," she stammered, cursing herself for sounding weak. "Where's Crank?"

"Bastards!" She didn't have to ask twice. "Stupid, stupid fucks!" The pounding of gunfire sounded.

"Quit firing your gun in the air like that! We need to save our ammo!"

Thank God for Delmar, too.

Amber peeked out from the rock she was hiding behind. Delmar was glaring angrily at Crank, which would have been comical under any other circumstances, but not today. She rose from her position and moved over to her two squad mates.

"What do we do now?" she asked.

"Obviously, keep an eye out for you," Delmar pointed out. "Remember what Redding said?"

She bristled, remembering the exact words. "How could I forget?"

Crank started to curse, sounding more stressed than she'd ever heard him. He looked over to her, and the concern in his eyes was more than a little shocking. She stepped forward and started to say his name, but shouts interrupted her. Shouts that sounded shockingly familiar. Shouts that ended up forming a name.

"Missy! Missy!"

Amber stiffened, looking in the direction of the shouts. Delmar and Crank stood at attention. "Did…is that the others? Are they saying Missy?"

Delmar looked sick. "I think so."

Without any further communication between them, they started running in the direction of the voices.

After only minutes of running, they found themselves facing the group assigned to stay with the very person they were looking for. Spitter, Stump, and Napoleon all looked at Amber and her two comrades as if they had seen a ghost.

"You're okay!" Spitter stumbled over his words. The innocence of his statement was refreshing, but untrue.

"The three of us are," Delmar stated calmly, but raw emotion rattled his words. "We can't say the same for Mickey and Sarge."

Napoleon looked like he had been slapped across the face.

"What happened to Missy?" Amber asked, cutting to the chase. Though the question needed to be asked, she had a sinking feeling that she knew what had happened to her friend. Panic settled into her bones just thinking about it. Delmar tensed beside her and Crank cursed.

"She…" Stump began, his eyes wavering for a moment before he looked away. "She was taken."

"Taken?" Crank practically exploded at the word. He was holding his gun in a careless manner, one that suggested he might shoot Stump if he didn't tell him what he wanted to hear. "What the fuck do you mean, taken?"

"By this guy!" Stump exclaimed. "This mutant…mutant freak! She was just standing there. Next to this hole. We thought nothing of it, but then she was…was…dragged…"

"Dragged? Dragged?"

"Yeah!" Stump snapped back. "As in, pulled down into wherever that mutated fuck was taking her! Dumbass!"

"Dumbass? Who you callin' a dumbass?"

"You, last time I checked - "

Delmar stepped forward and placed his hands on both of their chests, pushing them apart. "Hey! I don't know what the hell you two are thinking, but this is no time to be turning on each other! We need to get Missy!"

"Missy's probably dead, if they killed Sarge and Mickey," Napoleon reasoned.

"No," Amber interrupted fiercely. She turned to Crank and Delmar. "Remember what Redding told us? They don't kill women."

Delmar winced while Crank got oddly silent.

"What do you mean, they don't kill women?" a strange tone of panic entered Napoleon's voice, more panic than usual. Amber felt the urge to comfort him, but no comforting words seemed to be allowed in this place. "What do they do to the women, then?" His eyes grazed over Amber's tiny form.

"Breeders," Delmar provided the answer when Amber didn't seem to be able to. "To keep up their numbers."

"What…" Stump trailed off as he started to wring his hands on his uniform. Amber didn't think she had ever seen him so concerned. She remembered their banter about tattoos, but that seemed so long ago. "But they can't do that to Missy!" The concern in his voice was palpable.

"They will," Amber said grimly. "So we have to go get her."

"Of course." Delmar adjusted his pack on his shoulder. "I guess the only option we have is to head down where they took her."

"Why are you here, anyway?" Amber asked. This had been bugging her ever since they had mentioned the way Missy was taken. "Why didn't you go in the hole after her?"

Looking down at his shoes, Stump was the one who answered, "We thought we might find an easier entrance up here. The hole she was dragged into was so small that none of us could fit in. Not even Napoleon, and he tried."

Amber nodded. She could understand that. "I…think I saw one of the things move towards the top of the hill over there." She pointed. "I'm not entirely sure, though."

"Then let's go," Napoleon said. Amber was shocked at how in-control he sounded. Steady and no-nonsense. She supposed that was what certain conditions did to people. "In and out. Kill anything not named Missy. Easy. End of story."

"Wait a second," Stump said, pausing. "Where's Spitter?"

A yelp responded, and everyone was on guard, turning around and staring. Gaping at what they saw.

A large man, bald and with a paunchy stomach, had just drawn a ragged, crude blade across Spitter's throat. Blood gushed from the wound, flowing onto the front of Spitter's uniform and all across the man's large, wicked hands. The mutant laughed wickedly and threw Spitter's body forward, landing in front of him with a resounding thud.

"Spitter!" Stump cried, lurching forward. Delmar and Napoleon cried out in protest. Crank's curses were the only thing intelligible. Amber felt her shoulders start to shake.

The mutant put two thick fingers to his lips and whistled. The two figures from before - the one with the cleaver and the woman - climbed from the rocks around them, making a v-shape formation with who seemed to be their leader in the center.

Amber tensed, reaching for her gun. She locked eyes with the one who killed Mickey.

Easy would not be the word she would use to describe this situation.

End Chapter Six.