Fall of the Mortals (Book 1) (21 page)

Harper and Foreman were terrified watching vampires swarming through the air outside the windshield. A few of them hit the windshield and bounced off. Harper grabbed one of his control sticks and hit a fire button. The Blackhawk’s big caliber machine gun rounds ripped through several of the vampires that were in its path, tearing them into pieces. Their remains fell to the street, the sidewalk and on top of cars.

“Get us out of here, Harper!” shouted Foreman, afraid for his life.

“Working on it!” yelled Harper. “Let see how high these bastards can fly!” he added, taking the helicopter upwards.

A vampire punched through Foreman’s window, gnashing its teeth at them. Foreman screamed. Harper aimed his pistol at the vampire but the helicopter moved to the left abruptly. He fired but his round shot Foreman in the side of his head accidentally. Foreman’s blood, bits of brain matter and pilot helmet splattered against the wall of the interior. Foreman’s upper body slouched forward against the controls. He lay dead, face down on the control panel, gazing forward with his eyes open. His blood trailed from the side of his head, down his uniform, and puddled at his feet

“Foreman! No! Oh my God!” Harper screamed, horrified at his terrible misfire.

More vampires flew against the windshield, desperate to get to Harper. There were so many that Harper lost his ability to see clearly. They climbed up the sides of the body and hung on the wheels.

“Get off the damn windshield!” Harper shouted, on the verge of having a meltdown.

The Blackhawk flew out of control and struck against the side of a building causing two of the propellers to break off. A few vampires were crushed in between the wall of the building and the side of the helicopter. It flew out of control in the air, spinning wildly.

“Mayday! I repeat mayday!” Harper hollered over his headset.

“What’s your status, Hawk One?” yelled Stanton over the air, sounding concerned for the first time.

“I’m going down! I repeat! I’m going down!” Harper yelled, knowing the end was coming soon.

The Blackhawk went into a downward spiral towards the pavement. The vampires hung on desperately trying to get to Harper and Foreman’s fresh corpse. They were willing to get to their blood no matter what. Nothing was going to stop them. The Blackhawk crashed in the middle of an intersection and exploded. Flames burst out of the windshield, side windows, the body and the rear. The remaining two propellers were sent in opposite directions. One of them hit against the post of the traffic signal, the other struck against a pickup truck and bounced off the side. The vampires that held onto the helicopter so desperately were blown several yards away, on fire. Three vampires were sent through a lobby window of a building. They landed on the lobby floor violently on top of thousands of bits of glass from the shattered windows. They stood up, still on fire, and walked back to the burning Blackhawk.  Other vampires flew back against vehicles bouncing off them and hitting the side of buildings. They too were on fire, standing up, glaring at their burning would-be feast, the late Lieutenant Harper and Lieutenant Foreman.

The flames didn’t faze the vampires at all. They were too focused on the burning helicopter and the wasted blood of the pilots. The fire on their burning bodies died down and they were restored to their perfect frames. Their burned hair grew back. Their burned skin returned to its original color. The clothing they were wearing appeared back on their bodies, unscathed.

On the pavement near Central Park, the severed arms, legs and heads of the vampires slid across the street and reattached to its joining body part until all the dismembered vampires were restored to their immortal bodies. Their blood that was spilled on the pavement and in the street disappeared. They stood in the street and grinned at one another, being indestructible.

***

On the Kennedy, in a control room, Stanton paced the floor frantically trying to reach Harper and Foreman over his radio. There were four rows of panel officers wearing headsets who were silent, wearing gloomy faces.

“Hawk One! Come in. Do you copy?” asked Stanton breathing heavy, his face beginning to perspire. “Harper! Foreman! Do you copy?” he asked again, still not receiving an answer.

Stanton threw the radio mic down and slammed his hands on a table. He looked at his control panel officers with frustration. Their silence and speechlessness told all. Stanton knew he didn’t have to say a friggin’ word to them; they knew Harper and Foreman were dead.

Campbell’s face came on one of the monitor screens. He looked sad not bearing much hope for the panel officers in the room. It was as if he knew annihilation was upon them and he just hadn’t admitted it yet.

“Good evening, Mr. President,” said Julie, a control panel officer with a cheerful face.

“Hi there,” said Campbell, trying to inspire confidence in the survivors but doing a lousy job with a half-smile. “Are you people getting along okay?”

“We’re hanging in there, sir,” Julie answered. “Would you like to speak to Admiral Stanton?”

“Yes please,” Campbell answered. 

“Sir, it’s the president,” said Julie, calling Stanton’s attention. She adjusted herself in her seat nervously while Stanton approached. She knew things were bleak.

“We just got confirmation the targets we discussed are rife with the enemy, Mr. President,” said Stanton, hiding his emotion over the dead pilots.

“Remind me of the radius of damage we’re looking at?” asked Campbell with a worried look on his face.

“Each blast will reach up to twenty-six hundred feet in every direction, sir,” said Stanton, returning to his hardened militant self. 

“Jeez. That’s a whole damn half mile, admiral,” stated Campbell, baffled the radius was so large. He looked away and thought about it for a moment. He was unsure of the air strike. It was too war faring and seemed counter-productive.

“Have we confirmed there are no other civilian lives in these areas?” asked Campbell.

“My Blackhawks have made daily rounds over the entire New York, New Jersey and Baltimore vicinities for several weeks, sir,” answered Stanton. “The only civilians we’re locating are the ones left dead by the enemy.”

“And the air quality after the strike?” asked Campbell.

“Sir, because these cities will be hit with the latest VX-9 Warhead, it provides all the benefits of full nuclear strike,” answered Stanton. “However, due to the vaporizing properties of the chemicals when they come in contact with oxygen after detonation, the air will breathable after ninety days.”

“Ninety days isn’t bad,” mumbled Campbell, still unsure of the attack.

“Sir, now is the time,” stated Stanton. “What is your decision?”

“Approved,” Campbell responded with a firm militant look.

***

Three F-18 fighter jets took off from the U.S.S. Kennedy, a Nemitz-class sized super aircraft carrier. There were fifteen F-18s and a second Blackhawk parked on the main deck. The ship was staffed with numerous personnel, male and female, in the primary flight control room, flag bridge, the bridge and below in the lower decks.

The F-18s flew over the water heading towards the mainland. Stanton and several personnel stood by, watching them depart. Their loud thrusters turned into tiny orange dots in the distance. Stanton didn’t let his men see him doubt. He didn’t let it show but he worried that the mission wouldn’t be successful.

***

The vampires flew around the city buildings. It seemed like a typical night while everyone thirsted for fresh blood but not finding a single human anywhere.  They heard the sounds of something loud approach from the distance. The three F-18 fighter jets flew overhead. The vampires watched them fly into the city but made no sudden moves. They didn’t know how to react to them. The sound of the jets was loud and irritating to the vampires. They covered their ears and cringed from the sonic, shrieking noise of the combat planes.

In the cockpit, Captain Gary Gonzales adjusted some settings on his control panel that sat in between his knees. It was laden with switches, buttons and keypads.  He gripped his control stick and gently keyed up his radio. His face shield was retracted. His brown eyes looked firm and straight ahead. His nose and mouth were covered by the facial mask and air hose.

“Eagle Seven to Five and Two,” said Gonzales into his pilot mic. “We’re arriving at the turning point. Target three will be last and we’ll head back to Kennedy.”

“Copy Eagle Seven,” said the second pilot, his voice with some static over the radio.

“Roger that, Eagle Seven. Coming around now,” said the third pilot.

The three F-18s turned around in the sky making loud, thunderous noises with their jets. They headed back towards their city-sized targets.

The vampires in the areas of Manhattan, Newark and Brooklyn didn’t know what was about to hit them. They watched the jets approach in attack speed.

In Manhattan, numerous crowds of vampires floated in the air in the aisles of tall skyscrapers gnashing their teeth and flaring their eyes at the fast moving approaching jets. Some of them yelled and screamed at the air strike team as if they were an army of unarmed savages waiting for a brutal, overpowering assault.

A rocket launched from Gonzalez’ F-18 and descended towards the base of the Empire State Building. It left a distinct trail of smoke in the air and whizzed by multitudes of vampires in the air. Many of them moved out of the way of the rocket as it flew to the pavement in front of Empire State’s main entrance. There was a bright flash, a tumultuous boom and a massive wave of fire that ripped through the narrow aisles of skyscrapers and buildings in a quarter mile radius. Any vampires caught in the vicinity between Ninth Avenue and the borough of Manhattan and from Fiftieth Street to Union Square were caught in the consuming waves of fire and smoke. Most of the vampires put their hands up to guard themselves as a reflex while the sweeping, raging fires appeared to have swallowed them up.

The Empire State Building collapsed. The windows of the towering skyscraper shattered while it crumbled to one side. It broke in half and fell diagonally on top of the shorter buildings on Thirty-Third Street and Thirty-Second Street. Large portions of the building broke apart crumbling into the burning chaos of the street below. The roof, sides of the building and steeple smashed the smaller buildings and broke into many pieces which filled the traffic lanes of Twenty-Eighth Street through Thirtieth Street. The vampires in the way of the falling massive building were crushed under its heavy weight. Some of them tried to fly out of range but were still caught under the tremendous tumbling broken pieces of iron, steel and glass of the falling skyscraper.

The three F-18s flew from the city and came back around. Gonzales slowed his jet down and looked down at the destruction. He saw countless vampires still flying through the air, many of them on fire as if the flames had no effect on them.

“Oh man,” Gonzales mumbled sounding depressed, knowing the enemy was going to be hard to kill.

He looked through the rest of the city and the surrounding areas. In the distance, fires could be seen over the entire cities of Newark as well as Brooklyn. They received the same punishment as Manhattan. The other two F-18s flew over him and headed back to the Kennedy. Gonzales powered up and flew towards the coast.

In Brooklyn, vampires that were buried under destroyed buildings began to rise. They threw large pieces of rubble off them and stood on top of piles of broken buildings, demolished vehicles and rocks. Some of them were on fire but flew around as if the flames didn’t bother them.

Ruzzo, a male vampire that was on fire, floated over some rooftops staring in the direction of the ocean, along with several others. Ruzzo’s head was burned to baldness. The flames on him didn’t bother him.

Miguel, another male vampire, came up next to him. Their orange eyes didn’t blink but stayed focused on the horizon. They watched the thrusters of the three F-18s grow smaller in the distance. 

“What fools you mortals be,” said Miguel in a creepy voice, wiping dust from his face and rubble off his shoulder.

“They’re out there somewhere,” stated Ruzzo, his face glaring into the distance. The flames on him were dying down. His hair grew back to its natural state. The burned marks on his face and hands disappeared.

“Yes, but over ocean water,” answered Miguel. “We’d burn.”

“They wouldn’t expect us,” said Ruzzo, forming a sneaky plot of attack.

“It’s out of our hands,” said Miguel. “The military is too far away.”

“If Kristof were here, he’d know what to do,” said Ruzzo.

“Doubtful he or his brothers will show,” said Miguel.

“Our leader will come!” said Ruzzo scornfully.

“Where is he then?” asked Miguel.

“Speak of the devil and he appears,” answered Kristof, appearing behind Ruzzo and Miguel in a cloud of black smoke along with three other vampires dressed in black robes, his brothers, Adrian, Lucian and Seth.

Ruzzo and Miguel shrunk at their presence.  They were afraid of them. They knew Kristof and his brothers were powerful vampires and had brought the human world to its knees. They didn’t dare appear to be coy or rude.