Vampire Apocalypse: Fallout (Book 3) (31 page)

Harris looked
at Warkowski as he searched for some answer to what the man had
said, but he couldn’t find one. Warkowski was right. Nuclear energy
was just too unpredictable and dangerous to mess with, especially
in a world where the resources and expertise to handle any problems
were severely limited. Maybe he had acted too quickly. Causing a
nuclear spill merely to act as a diversion was extreme to say the
least.

He thought
about all the people back in the community, and what would happen
if the thralls or the vampires found them. Surely their survival
was worth any risk? They could be the last humans left alive on the
planet in less than a year if what Pat Smyth feared came true.
Wasn’t the future of humanity worth that? He thought so. But still,
he felt a terrible sinking feeling when he thought of what they had
done.

If the winds blew the wrong way
the fallout might very well reach the town and kill every human
prisoner kept there. He knew there were only fifty people there in
total, a small number when compared to the thousands in the
community, but still. Were they any less important than the people
in the community? Had he become so callous that their deaths didn’t
bother him? Is that what it took now to survive?

Warkowski’s
views were valid but naïve. While he agreed that they were playing
with forces they didn’t understand and could not control, they were
also fighting for survival against forces that were far more
powerful than they were. Anything they could use to even those odds
was fair game. They weren’t merely in a fight between good and
evil, they were fighting for the survival of an entire race. He
looked into Warkowski’s eyes and was about to speak when Sandra
came up behind them.

“Peter, we might have a
problem.”

“Just the one?” He shrugged as
he tried to smile at Sandra.

“
This one’s
big enough, I’m afraid,” she sighed and sat on a rock beside the
two men. “One of the men we rescued is already coming out of the
serum’s effects. Seems he was only just put under.” She held up her
hand to stop Harris from interrupting as she saw him lean
fo
rward. “He’s still too groggy and I
don’t know the full story, so don’t ask. He is insistent, though,
that we have to go back to the plant. Keeps repeating it over and
over.”

“
The serum
might have been too much for him,” Warkowski ventured. “We have had
a few who couldn’t handle the reality they woke to find themselves
in.”

“
Yes, I
know,” Sandra replied a little testily. She had nursed many of
those unfortunates herself and was well aware how the shock of what
had happened was too much for some people. “But this is different.
He’s not mad, just insistent. You can see that he wants to say more
but the serum hasn’t fully worked its way out so he keeps lapsing
into repetition.

“
Don’t you
have any tranquilisers?” Warkowski asked. “Maybe he just needs a
little more time to come to terms.”

“
Yes, I have,
but I really don’t want to use it. What if it really is
important?”

“
His family
is probably still back at the plant. I know that would have me up
the walls.”

“You might be right,” Sandra
replied, “but I just get the feeling that it’s something else. I
can’t explain it. He looks terrified.”

Harris pursed his lips as he
thought through the situation. “Is there any way we can help him
overcome the serum any quicker?”

“
It’s hard to
say,” Sandra began and then seemed to trail off as she considered
the question. “I could give him a shot of adrenaline, but there’s
no way of knowing if it will help. There’s always a risk with
adrenaline. If he has a weak heart or some other condition we don’t
know about.”

“
Well, we
have to make a decision now.” Harris looked at his watch. “We have
to move out within the hour and if we travel any further there’s no
way we can go back. It’s just too risky. We’ll have to take the
chance with the adrenaline. If there is something back there that
we have to know about, then we have to know now.”

Sandra bit at
her lower lip as she considered the argument, and then nodded once
and quietly went back toward the others. Harris looked over at
Warkowski again but the man was looking out over the plain in front
of them. Warkowski wasn’t comfortable with making decisions that
carried with them a moral ambiguity. Harris didn’t like them
either, but someone had to do it if they were to survive, and it
didn’t look like anyone else was going to volunteer anytime
soon.

William Carter fumed as the
helicopter cut through the clear sky. He hated using so much fuel
but he had little choice in such an emergency. The power plant was
the root of his power. Without it his tenuous hold on the thralls
would be severely weakened if not severed completely. He had to
show them that he was in control or they would shift their
allegiance elsewhere. It was also essential to light up his borders
and show those vampires and thralls amassed there that all was well
and that any incursions into his territory would be severely and
competently dealt with. If the lights went out it wouldn’t be long
before those forces would take it as a sign of his weakness and
cross in a flood he could not hope to hold back.

An attack on the nuclear
waste convoy,
the local commander had said.
Von Kruger
.
The name leapt into his thoughts and he felt his anger grow. The
bastard had carried through on his threat. He had struck directly
at the heart of his control. It was a move borne from an
intelligence that he hadn’t credited the vampire with. He had
expected an attack from the vampire, of course, but one which
involved throwing his forces at the outer and less well-defended
camps throughout the state. He had expected him to be a nuisance, a
threat even, but this showed a cunning that he had not expected.
And that worried him. Had he so misjudged the vampire?

He looked out
over the horizon at the deserted and
desolate land below him. There were still many sun-bleached
husks of abandoned vehicles strewn around the landscape. Many of
the smaller roads were still choked with deserted vehicles;
desiccated bodies still lay in or close to their vehicles where
people had died in the violence that had preceded the vampires’
reign. Eventually he would clear away these reminders of the past,
but for now, he had concentrated only on the main routes, allowing
his forces to move quickly between borders.

As he looked
below him he could see how the rebel humans could survive for so
long. They could be right below him at this moment and he would not
be able to see them in the mass of abandoned vehicles. All they
would have to do would be to blend in and hide inside a truck and
he would pass overhead oblivious of their presence. He wondered
briefly if any eyes watched him now. And then he smiled as he
realised that he was being ridiculous. He had more pressing worries
to consider.

So
far,
Von Kruger had only attacked a
convoy carrying nuclear waste. While this was serious enough he
might still be able to nullify the threat if he acted in time. But
if Von Kruger was using this to divert his attention while he took
out the plant, then waiting might see everything he had worked for
go up in flames. He wondered briefly why the vampire had not
attacked the plant itself. There could be many reasons, of course.
He might not have had enough vampires gathered for such an attack
at the time and had seen the patrol and decided to attack that
while he waited for the rest of his forces. He wondered where the
master vampire was hiding during the day. If he could find him now,
before nightfall, he would be able to destroy the vampire
forever.

It was a huge
state, though. He glanced around the big helicopter and took some
comfort from the sea of hard-bitten faces of his elite guard. He
had crammed in as many as the craft could take and still take off.
It wouldn’t do him any good if they were attacked in the air but
the quicker he got there the quicker he could add their strength
and competence to the plant’s defence. Once he had reached the
plant he would send the helicopter up again to see if they could
see anything that might be used as a lair. Maybe he would get
lucky. Either way, there was going to be a reckoning before the sun
rose tomorrow.

Had Von
Kruger always planned this? Was their meeting just a ruse to ensure
he was miles away when he attacked the plant? The vampire had
obviously forgotten that he had access to a helicopter. His other
forces would not reach him by the time darkness fell tonight so
would only be good for cleaning up after the battle was already
decided. The vampire might not have factored in the extra men he
had in this helicopter though and Carter hoped that they would be
enough to swing the coming battle in his favour.

He turned his
mind to the attack. The report had been sketchy at best, their
radio technology was nothing like it had been two years ago. They
had received a brief transmission saying they were being attacked
and then nothing. Too many masts had either been destroyed or sat
idle without power. The report had come from the plant supervisor
who was in the process of organising a patrol to go out and see
what damage had been done. Their lead technician was also with them
to determine the extent of the leakage. He had tried numerous times
for an update but all he received was static. He forced himself not
to activate his internal radio and urge the pilot to hurry. It
wouldn’t do any good and would only reveal his nervousness to his
men. It was imperative that he command their respect in this
crisis. His mind raced in sympathy with the screeching engines. He
had no idea how to control a nuclear spill. He had to hope that
this technician was capable of limiting the effects of the spill or
working the plant would become very dangerous, if not
impossible.

He would have
to respond to this attack. Something that would strike into Von
Kruger’s power base as effectively as this attack had done to him.
A sudden idea came to him and he leaned forward to the Sergeant
with a cold grin on his face. There was only one thing that the
vampires needed above all else. Humans. He would show Von Kruger
the consequences of such an attack if he had to kill every last
human in his territory.

Von Kruger listened to the
report with growing unease. His meeting with Carter had not gone as
he had planned. His anger had consumed him as he had spoken with
the human. In fact, it was all he had been able to do to force
himself to leave before he tore the human apart. Not that that
would be so terrible, but it did not suit him to have a war with
the thralls at this time. He had to find and destroy the humans
first. Their weaponry was far too dangerous to allow anyone else to
control it. He would handle the thralls when it suited him.

He still
didn’t know why his control of his temper was so tenuous
lately. He knew he had always been hot-headed,
but this was something different. He had lost himself to the
violence against Wentworth. He could not now recall a single
coherent thought from that whole debacle. That had never happened
to him before and his loss of control, while it had worked in his
favour that time, left him worried that the next time he might not
be so lucky. He had survived for hundreds of years through guile
and cunning. There was no way he could survive the coming battles
if he continued to lose himself to his anger.

And now Carter and a sizable
force had packed themselves into a helicopter and flown north in a
hurry. The thralls had not used the flying machines since the war
had ended. There were just too costly to keep in the air.
Why
use them now?
What was most worrying was that they had
travelled while it had still been dark.
Why would he take such a
risk?
Was Carter so confident that he did not consider the
vampires a threat, even at night? No, he answered his own question,
Carter was no fool. If something had forced him to fly north by
night, then it was something that was worth taking such a personal
risk.

The humans
! The thought
jumped into his mind. He must have found the humans.
Did he know
of their weaponry?
That would certainly explain the mad risk he
was taking in using the helicopters at night. If he gained control
of the humans’ weaponry…he had to stop him. He surged to his feet
and called for his aides. He would have to gather his forces and
head north. It was too late now to travel with the sun already
rising; but they could prepare. They must be ready to move as soon
as the light began to fail. If he was lucky, it would be a cloudy
day and they could leave before dusk.

“His name is Trevor Atkins.”

“
My
God.
” Harris suddenly recalled the
heart-breaking walks with one of the young boys in the community as
they had walked the long line of dead bodies from the train after
the last rescue. The thralls hadn’t cared where their bullets had
gone and some of their shots had torn through the tightly packed
prisoners in the rail cars. Sometimes a bullet had ripped through a
number of bodies before finally lodging in some poor unfortunate’s
flesh.

The young
boy, Peter, he now recalled his name, had handled it all stoically,
but Harris had felt for the boy. None of the faces they had
examined had been peaceful in death. It was too much for anyone to
go through, especially a young boy of eleven. They hadn’t found his
family and Harris hadn’t been too sure if that had been the best
result. If they had found them, at least the boy would have been
able to grieve and then move on. Could this possibly
be…?