Vampire Apocalypse: A World Torn Asunder (Book 1) (14 page)

Harris had studied all the new
recruits over the last few weeks in the hopes that someone would be
more suited to take on the responsibility. He thought that Crockett
would be perfect, but Harrington had been firm that they needed
both of them in separate roles if they were to survive; one for
offence and the other for defence. Harris had examined many others
but, even though he desperately wanted to pass on his burden, he
knew he could not do so unless the person would be able to do the
job better than he could, he owed everyone that much. Of all the
others Harris had examined, no one had come anywhere near what was
needed. “No,” he had replied with a heavy sigh.

“Then the responsibility is
yours for now. Accept it and it will be easier to bear. People may
die, of course, but this is a war of survival not just some
disagreement about religion. Your responsibility is to do the best
you can, you have saved far more up to now than you have lost and
you must take comfort in that.”

Harris shook himself from his
reverie and looked at his watch. He counted down the last few
seconds and then left his position on the roof to join his group.
Timing was critical. They had to be gone before full light in order
for the remaining darkness to cover their retreat. They were
counting on the early hour and the suddenness of the attack to
leave the thralls disoriented long enough to get the groups close
enough to their base so they could abandon their vehicles.

The final seconds passed and
then three large explosions rocked the night and everything went to
hell.

Dan Reiss crouched near the wall
and watched three members of his team plant the explosives. He kept
a nervous eye on the thrall who paced along the rampart some ten
feet above them and breathed a sigh of relief when the three men
finished and retreated a safe distance.

“Two minutes to go,” Reiss
whispered to the men around him.

His heart hammered in his chest
and his hands itched with sweat. This was the fourth raid he had
been involved in, but this one was different. Up till now they had
always had the element of surprise on their side. After the last
attack, though, the thralls had doubled the number of guards on all
of their installations. The people around him, many of whom he
didn’t even know, remained hidden from the thralls behind whatever
cover they could find and he shifted position nervously. One good
thing about the way the city and its environs had been left to
deteriorate was the number of abandoned cars they could use as
cover off the main travelled routes out of the city.

Reiss was a mechanic by trade,
but had been a sergeant in the local reserve on weekends for the
last ten years. His steel grey hair was cut short and his body was
well muscled from years of physical training. This “experience” had
earned him a command and he was terrified, not only at his own lack
of real experience, but also because the men he led were a mixture
of office workers, shop owners and factory employees.

Christ! He thought we even have
a male stripper. What’s he going to do, throw his thong at the
vampires?

Despite the tense situation he
smiled and looked down at his watch once more. “Okay people,” he
whispered. “Get ready.”

Philip Warkowski wiped his brow
and brought the rifle’s telescopic lens back to eye level. He
sighted on a patrolling thrall and followed him to the end of his
allotted area. Warkowski had chosen his position well and from this
rooftop he could see all of his targets without the need to change
building. After he had dispatched his targets, his orders were to
stay put and cover the retreat. Warkowski, however, had other
plans.

He had been among the group that
had been saved at the compound. He was deeply indebted to this
group of rebels and had the highest respect for them, but when the
thralls had taken him for their planned massacre, they had left
behind his wife and nine-year-old daughter. The thought of them
still in the city and at the mercy of the thralls consumed him.

He had pleaded that he be
allowed to find his family and bring them out during the attack,
but had been refused. If he was honest with himself he couldn’t
blame Harris for saying no. There was no way they could accommodate
everyone in rescuing their loved ones, he understood that. But that
wouldn’t stop him either. Their house wasn’t far from here. It was
just too close not to try. He should be able to sneak by the main
hotspots, find his family and return to his position with no one
the wiser. His stomach knotted with worry, both for his family and
because he felt guilty for leaving his post, but he reasoned that
he really didn’t have a choice. He glanced at his watch one more
time and settled himself to the task in hand.

Scott Anderson and his team were
the furthest along the wall in the least populated sector of the
three designated target areas. He glanced at his people and
marvelled at their calm. His small group was comprised of a nurse,
a farmer, a solicitor and two tech heads.

Hardly what you’d call an elite
strike force, he thought, but the looks of determination on each of
their faces gave him strength.

“Thirty seconds!” he
whispered.

Chapter 12

The explosions went off
simultaneously and tore large gaping holes in the wall. Bricks and
mortar flew in every direction at fantastic speeds, and the flying
shrapnel tore some of the thralls to pieces. Still others fell from
the ramparts and were crushed by chunks of torn masonry. Before any
of those who had survived the initial attack could react, smaller
cracks of gunfire broke out and added to the cacophony. All along
the wall the thralls who had escaped the initial violence of the
blast were dropped with well-placed sniper fire before the
assassins turned their deadly attention to the floodlights.

When the last of the lights went
out, the three groups invaded the city.

Harris ran, climbing over the
rubble, and sent a sustained burst of fire at two thralls who came
running from a nearby guardhouse. Their bodies staggered as the
bullets ripped into them, and Harris was already past them before
they fell to the ground. The rest of Group Nero followed close
behind and fired at anything that moved. Four thralls ran from a
building in various stages of dress. Harris pulled a grenade from
his belt and threw it at the group. The explosion flung their
bodies into the air and the bloodied remains crumpled to the
ground. Harris ran up the steps of the building and crashed through
the door.

Three more thralls appeared.
They were still groggy from sleep and Harris sent a hail of bullets
into their midst. He heard a sound, whirled to his left and froze.
In the corner he saw four women huddled together, their eyes
petrified. He saw their naked bodies and kicked one of the corpses
in disgust as realisation of their plight sunk in.

“Bastards!” he spat at the body
nearest him and approached the cowering figures. He pulled a
blanket from a nearby bed and gently laid it around the drugged
women. “Henshaw!” he shouted as the worthy came through the door,
“get these women dressed and take them out to the rendezvous
point.”

“But, sir, we don’t have the
time.”

“I think they’ve earned a little
compassion, don’t you?” Harris stared hard at Henshaw and the man
dropped his eyes as he nodded. “Get them out. Leave them with one
of the snipers and follow us to the target.”

With that Harris stormed out of
the house and vented his anger as he slammed another magazine into
his weapon.

Group Bravo was pinned down just
inside the city wall. Dan Reiss and his team had stormed through
the breach in the wall only to be met by a hail of gunfire. Reiss
dove to the ground and bullets passed only inches above him. He hit
the ground hard and rolled, coming up in a crouch behind a large
piece of the destroyed wall. Four of his team had not been quite as
quick and bullets had shredded them before he could shout a
warning. Five others had thrown themselves to the ground and had
managed to crawl it into the city but now lay behind whatever cover
they could find, curled up and helpless as bullets hammered into
their cover and the ground around them.

The rest of Reiss” force was
still on the wrong side of the wall.

He sneaked a glance around his
cover. Six thralls with a heavy machine gun were dug in behind
sandbags about thirty meters away.

“Shit!” he shouted and dodged
back behind cover an instant before bullets hammered into the
stone. “Just our luck. We would have to blow a fucking hole in the
wall right beside an entrenchment, wouldn’t we?”

The sound of the machine gun
fire stopped and Reiss risked another quick look. The thrall
controlling the heavy machine gun lay slumped over his weapon and
two of the others were frantically trying to pull him away.
Suddenly he heard a high-pitched crack and a second thrall fell
facedown, the back of his head completely destroyed.

“Warkowski, you big, beautiful
bastard!” he shouted when he realised what had happened. He
signalled the other five members of his team and then broke cover
and sent deadly suppressing fire into the remaining thralls. Caught
completely unawares by the sudden turn of events, the thralls died
without firing another shot.

“Come on quick!” he shouted to
the rest of his force and they climbed over the rubble to advance
on the main barracks. Reiss looked back to the building where he
knew Warkowski was set up and, even though he couldn’t see the
sniper, waved his thanks.

Warkowski saw the figure wave
through his scope. “You’re welcome,” he muttered.

He scanned the area surrounding
the breach. Confidant that he had cleaned out all the thralls in
his designated area, he laid down the rifle and prepared to enter
the city.

Scott Anderson led his small
group over the rubble of the destroyed wall. The section they had
chosen to enter was dark and deserted. They had purposely come in
through the docks because no one had used the waterfront area for
two years now since the vampires had taken over. The hospital was
situated about one mile to the West and Anderson could hear the
gunfire and screams of the other two groups to the East.

“Poor bastards,” he sighed and
then slipped through the darkness.

Chapter 13

The thralls were using an old
police building as their base of operations. The sheer size of the
three-storey building was intimidating. It seemed to loom over
Reiss and his men. The building overlooked a small square in front
and smaller, one-storey buildings abutted it to either side. All
the windows had bars on them and Reiss could see figures behind the
frames as well as on the roof.

The square was completely clear
of any debris, and the two hundred yards between their current
position and the building was the perfect killing ground.

“Jenkins!” shouted Reiss. “Go
round the back and cause enough of a diversion to take some of the
heat off. Rodgers; see if you can find anything we can use in that
entrenchment we passed.”

Reiss risked a quick glance
around the corner and recoiled violently as dust and debris flew
into his eyes when bullets slammed into the wall. “Shit,” he
muttered, looking up at the sky, “only another ten minutes till
dawn. We’re running out of time.”

Just then he heard a whoosh
behind him, followed by a loud explosion, and finally a rebel yell.
He looked around the corner again and this time the door to the
building was in pieces. In fact, plaster and metal littered the
entire area in front of the door.

“Look what I found!” The excited
yelp came from a still grinning Rodgers who knelt to Reiss” left
holding a smoking bazooka.

“Quick everyone!” Reiss shouted.
“Let’s get in there before they recover.”

The men ran from their various
hiding places and swarmed the building. The thralls recovered
quickly, however, and bullets began to rain down from the upper
windows and rooftop entrenchments. Men scattered under the
ferocious assault. Reiss heard two more of his men scream and he
watched helplessly as they fell to the ground. Anger blinded Reiss;
he crashed against what was left of the door supports and threw a
grenade inside. He waited impatiently for the explosion and then
dove through before the dust had time to settle.

The interior was dark. Dust from
the explosion filled the air and he could hear intermittent
coughing as more of his men entered the foyer.

“Spread out!” he ordered.
“Rodgers, take three men and clear out upstairs. Perkins, check out
that door at the back. The rest of you, come with me.”

Reiss was headed for the
basement stairs when he heard a strangled cry behind him. He
whirled in time to see a dark figure appear from the alcove,
holding Perkins by the neck. The figure held the struggling man
three feet off the ground by only one hand. Reiss blanched.

He looked out at the night sky
and saw the first tentative rays of dawn appear over the horizon.
Shit, he thought, at least another five minutes before the
bustard’s in any danger. Christ, he could kill all of us and be
back in his coffin in plenty of time.

The sudden, sharp snap focused
everyone’s attention on the figure; Perkins ceased struggling and
went limp. The creature threw the body across the room
indifferently, with sheer, awesome power. The men watched in shock
as the body crashed through a boarded-up window and hung limply
over the windowsill, half in and half out of the room.

Then the vampire simply
disappeared.

Reiss heard a cry behind him and
turned to see the creature attacking Jack Walton.

Fuck, he’s fast, Reiss thought.
But before the thought was completed, another of his team flew
across the room like a rag doll and crashed heavily against the
wall.