Vampire Apocalypse: Descent Into Chaos (Book 2) (6 page)

More shots drew his attention as the thrall continued
to fire at Rodger’s helpless form. He had been hit almost as soon
as he came around the wall and lay in a small depression in the
ground. The thrall didn’t have a clear shot from his position but
he was able to keep Harris from moving by sending the occasional
round in his direction.

Any minute now more thralls could arrive from the
building they had identified as a possible second barracks and it
would all be over. They had hoped to take out the building before
the alarm was raised, but now he imagined men streaming from the
barracks and taking up positions around them. They had to get that
thrall and catch the others before they got too entrenched.

The thrall was positioned behind a fuel truck, but if
Harris used a grenade to flush him out the smoke from that much
burning fuel would be seen in the next town and re-enforcements
would soon be on their way. However, they weren’t set up for a
sustained firefight either. What could he do?

He moved down the length of the ruined hulk, retching
as he crawled through the gore of the dead thrall. He couldn’t see
past the depot wall to the other barracks, but no thralls had
appeared as yet so he might just have a bit of time. He heard the
boom of a sniper rifle but the bullet crashed into the metal a good
ten feet from the thrall’s position. It would seem that neither
sniper had a clear shot, so it was up to him to flush the thrall
out.

He rolled from his cover and slid in behind an empty
barrel.

The high-pitched ping of a bullet ricocheting of the
metal let him know that the thrall was well aware of his position.
He was stuck. In the distance he could hear the crackle of gunfire.
Somebody was still alive and fighting. He just wished he knew what
was happening.

Steele launched a grenade through the door of the
barracks and threw himself to the ground as wood and shrapnel flew
through the air. The explosion deafened his ears and he didn’t hear
the rumble of the vehicle behind him. He also didn’t hear the
bullets that tore into the ground around him. In fact, the first he
knew of the enemy behind him was the agony that shot through him as
bullets slammed into his back and sent him sprawling to the ground.
Dust filled his throat and he retched violently as waves of
blackness swept over him, bringing with them blissful oblivion.

Sherman saw Steele fall as he hobbled from the
communications building. He could see Tanner rush over to the
fallen man despite the bullets that slammed into the ground around
him. There were four thralls in a makeshift armored vehicle—it
looked like an old pickup with metal panels welded around the body.
Tanner fired back at the thralls but his bullets made little impact
on the vehicle’s armor and one of the thralls had now shifted his
fire towards him. He wouldn’t last long if he stayed where he
was.

He wished now that he had attached the grenade
launcher to his XM8, but the added weight spoilt his aim and he had
left it in his pack. Bullets spat at the ground around him as two
more of the thralls in the vehicle saw him and turned their
attention toward him. He pivoted to the side and threw himself
toward the end of the building but his injured leg collapsed and he
fell some way short of the intended cover.

Bullets tore into the ground around him and one
nicked his shoulder as he scrambled desperately towards the wall.
He shouted for Mitchell to take out the vehicle and hoped the man
heard him; Mitchell wasn’t that bright and would probably stay
there all day with a rocket launcher in his hands and not fire
until actually ordered to. He sighed in relief as he heard the
hollow pop as the grenade shoot from the barrel. Good boy, he
thought. There were two more hollow pops before the first grenade
exploded, followed by two more explosions so close together they
sounded like one sustained peal of thunder.

Sherman lifted his head and saw the burning wreckage
of the vehicle. There was no damage to the ground on either side of
the vehicle so all three grenades had obviously hit the target; he
really would have to give his men a lecture on conserving
ammunition. For now, though, he merely nodded at the men and
allowed them to grin happily at their handiwork.

“Mitchell, see if Steele is still alive,” he ordered
and motioned to the other two to follow him as he loped toward the
other barracks, cursing with each step as the pain in his leg
jarred with each impact.

Harris heard the huge explosion and then saw a large
plume of smoke writhe into the air, staining the clear sky like a
beacon demanding attention.

“Shit,” he mumbled. The smoke would be seen for
miles. They had just run out of time. He chambered a grenade and
sent it sailing towards the fuel truck. The resulting blast of heat
that seared across the ground scorched the area around him and he
felt the heat sear through his clothes. The depot was filled with
thick, cloying smoke but he broke from his cover and ran toward
were he judged the barracks to be. He couldn’t see anything as he
ran and he trusted to luck to get him there without serious
injury.

He broke from the smoke as if moving through a veil
and suddenly he found himself staring at three thralls who were
just as surprised as he was. They stopped their advance to bring
their guns to bear but Harris just kept running, and he continued
towards the thralls spraying bullets in front of him as he ran. The
thralls took a moment to get their weapons level and another to aim
and in that time two of them had been hit by Harris’s wild fire.
The third though, had him dead to rights and even spared the time
to grin at him before he pulled the trigger. Harris braced himself
for the pain but instead the thrall’s head suddenly disappeared in
a shower of blood and bone. The tale-tale deep boom rolled across
the valley and Harris promised a kiss to whoever had fired the
shot. He hoped it was Dee Ratigan, but either way he was going to
kiss one of his snipers for their amazing skill.

He caught movement from the corner of his eye and he
threw himself into a forward roll and came up ready to fire.
Sherman staggered on his injured leg as he saw Harris aim at him
and he hastily raised his hand in greeting and Harris sighed as he
removed his finger from the trigger.

“Rodgers is back there!” he shouted and Sherman sent
Ortega back into the smoke and then hobbled over to Harris.

“Not exactly to plan, eh?” he grinned as they watched
the plume of smoke roil upwards.

“Is it ever?” Harris replied simply. “Any
casualties?”

“Steele took a few and went down. I sent Mitchell to
check on him.”

Harris nodded and then turned towards the
barracks.

“Are there any still in there?” Sherman asked.

Harris shrugged, ratcheted the slide on the launcher
and sent a grenade in through the window. A few seconds later the
building disappeared in a shower of debris.

“Not any more,” he mumbled. “Come on, we’ve work to
do,” he added coldly.

Sandra Harrington grimaced as she pulled herself up
from her bed. It had been two months since she had run screaming at
Nero, forcing him back onto the spear and impaling herself at the
same time. She had nearly died then; she would have, too, if Steele
hadn’t been there to stem the flow of blood and stabilize her until
they had gotten her to a medical facility.

She only remembered fragments of that day. The death
of her father still lay like a heavy blanket over her. There was so
much more she had wanted to say to him, feelings and memories she
wanted to share. They had been separated for much of her early
years but the last two years had gone some way to making up for his
earlier absence. She had wanted to tell him that. She had wanted to
explain that, despite the danger and terror of the last two years,
she had been happier with him that she had ever been. She had
wanted to explain that the constant arguments and frictions they
had had didn’t mean that she didn’t love him; in fact, it showed
just the opposite—that she wanted his approval and
understanding.

Harris kept reminding her that he must have known how
she had felt. If everyone else in the complex had been able to see
it, then Dan Harrington couldn’t have missed it. He might be right,
she sighed, but she still would have liked to have told him.

She staggered a little and shot out her hand to
steady herself as a wave of dizziness swept over her. She hadn’t
been up much over the last few weeks. The spear had torn through
her chest, narrowly missing a major artery but still shredding
enough muscle to keep her bedridden as she healed. She really
shouldn’t be up now, but Regan had called for an election and, as
one of the few remaining council members, she just had to attend.
It was even more critical that she attend with Harris and the
others out on unapproved mission, as Regan enthusiastically
reminded everyone at every opportunity.

Phil Regan was one of the ‘newbies’, as they had come
to call those who had recently been weaned off the serum. She
thought back to the old complex before the last attack and smiled
as she remembered how everyone had thought that two hundred and
fifty residents was a huge number. Now they supported over three
thousand souls, from the age of eight upwards. They hadn’t found
anyone younger than that. Her blood still boiled when she thought
of how the surviving thralls had explained that the blood of
infants and children under ten were considered a particular
delicacy by the vampires. The bastards had gorged themselves over
the last two years and had eradicated an entire generation.

They now had people scattered all over what remained
of their town but within a three-mile circumference so they could
easily return to the numerous defensive areas that had been set up.
Some had returned to their original homes if they were within the
limits dictated by the council, others lived in nearby hotels or
office blocks, anywhere that was structurally sound and could be
defended, if necessary. They hadn’t had any contact with other
cabals, but they hadn’t expected any based on the vampires’
reluctance to mix among their own kind and the early arrival of the
cold weather.

They had enough food to last through this winter but
next year would be a little lean. Harris had spent all his free
time visiting her and had filled her in on all the assignments.
They now had people trained in critical professions and crafts.
They had engineers looking at the town’s power grid, plumbers
looking at sanitation and running water, and gardeners and
horticulturists looking at re-planting neglected fields. They had
plenty of people working at re-building their defenses and
facilities. They spent every waking hour working to carve out a
place where they could all survive and grow, but all the time they
had to be careful that the town did not look any different than it
had under the vampires.

Fields were ploughed but covered at night with green
and dun colored sheets to hide the freshly turned soil; power was
restored to critical facilities but from outside the town looked
the same as it always had. Their supplies of fuel were almost
non-existent—another reason for Harris’ mission—but what they did
have was helping to prepare the community for what lay ahead.

With the huge increase of people came a need for the
original group to adapt. Before, where one person could control
certain important functions such as food assignments, security and
so forth, they now had teams working each area. The small committee
did its best to cope but none of the original group was actually
trained for civil administration and, increasingly, they found
themselves unable to cope with rising demands, civil decisions and
the growing number of conflicting views.

Many of the newly awakened had their own ideas on how
things should be done. Some wanted to rebuild, to train their
people and increase their supplies. Others wanted to wait until
they were fully ready and then go out and slowly retake the
surrounding towns, still others just wanted to stay put and hide
from the vampires and ignore what was happening around them. Sandra
could understand that people were scared, some were just plain
selfish, but they all had a responsibility. The newbies had only
just gotten back their freedom and they didn’t want to risk it
again so quickly, but the serum was a deadly concoction and, if
they waited until next year, there might not be anyone left to
rescue. There was just no way for a small community like theirs to
survive indefinitely in this world. They had to grow or die.

Someday the lack of contact by Nero’s cabal would be
noted and investigated. They would be discovered and they would be
wiped out without breaking a sweat. Their only hope lay in growing
as quickly as they could. Harris’ plan called for a series of raids
on the neighboring cabals, which would further degrade the already
strained relationships between the different factions. Using these
raids as cover, they could swell their own supplies and numbers
until they reached a point where their power base was large enough
to withstand a concerted attack. Before the serum was introduced,
the humans had been starting to turn the tide on the vampires, so,
if they could grow quickly enough by taking on each cabal
individually, they could grow to a size where their increased
numbers could take on any coalition forces that the vampires might
draw together.

Unfortunately, the original group was in the minority
now and such a plan was risky and would require severe rationing.
It also required most of the people to make themselves available
for military service, and this did not sit well with many of the
new residents. This growing discontent was providing the perfect
opportunity for other factions to gain support in areas where they
would not normally have been able.