Armageddon Heights (a thriller) (35 page)

‘Point the bloody gun at them, then!’ Wade hissed to him, and the man struggled to shoulder the AT4 and aim the automatic rifle, but it had the desired effect. One of the three men waved back and began to trudge towards them. Wade pointed to the transport to his left, meaning he was taking his prisoners over there. ‘Quick,’ Wade said. ‘We need to get as close as we can to the transport before he gets too close to us and spots something’s wrong.

He estimated they had less than a minute or so before the soldier realised he’d been duped. He began to walk fast, telling the others to keep up. He could hear their ragged breathing, almost feel their collective fear hot on his back as he led the untidy bunch in the direction of the vehicle and its unsuspecting driver.

The snub-nosed armoured car was painted in desert camouflage, he noticed as they got up close, given a hellish sheen by the sunset, a large machinegun sticking from its back like the spine on a primitive creature. It had wheels on the front, protected by metal plating, and tank tracks on the rear. One of its thick armour-plated cab doors was open. He bet the inside had been like an oven during the heat of the day and they had been glad to let in a little cool evening air. It wouldn’t stay open long, he knew that. The bitter cold would fall fast, and soon the bonesnappers would be out in force, drawn to the sound of fighting and the smell of blood.    

Thirty seconds, he mouthed to himself, working out they had fifty yards to cover to get to the transport, turning to look at Keegan and motioning aggressively with his gun.

‘It doesn’t make you look any more macho,’ she said under her breath but loud enough for him to hear.

‘Very funny. Look defeated,’ he returned stiffly.

There were shouts of alarm at their rear, shots being fired. They heard bullets zip over their heads like angry wasps.

‘Damn! They’ve found us!’ cried Keegan, seeing Sentinels begin to pour out of the trapdoor. ‘Jack – the AT4!’ she cried. He handed it to her as the others fell instinctively to their knees. ‘Cover me! Shoot at the bloody trapdoor!’ she yelled at him.

The young man let off a quick burst, the tracer from his gun showing he was wide of the mark, and the recoil jolted his unprepared body, but it was enough to force the men to fall flat to the ground. His second burst was closer, kicking up fountains of ruby-coloured dust into the air in front of their pursuers.

Wade opened up on the three men to their right and the one who’d been headed in their direction fell to the ground. The remaining two scattered and sought whatever cover the softly undulating ground offered, returning fire as soon as they did so. Wade’s face puckered as he felt a severe punch to his right shoulder and bicep, and he felt his arm go weak. The gun fell from his useless hand. He’d been hit in the same arm as before, blood already soaking through his shirt. He looked up. The armoured truck, so close now, had started its engine, and a cloud of black smoke was pumping from its exhaust.

‘Take out that truck!’ Wade yelled to Keegan, pointing at the one to his right. He grabbed his automatic with his left hand and staggered to his feet, hearing more bullets whine angrily through the air, unsure which direction they were coming from.

Keegan got down onto one knee, shouldered the AT4 and pulled up the telescopic sight, taking careful aim on the vehicle. She readied the weapon, turning off the safety. ‘Come on, girl, make it count,’ she said.

The flames leapt out of the anti-tank gun’s rear, and the rocket, riding a streak of white light, ripped through the air and struck the side of the armoured vehicle. It exploded with a deafening, thunderous roar, sending pieces of metal and smoke spiralling into the air.

Wade, taking advantage of the men to his right having to take cover from the blast, made a headlong dash for the left-hand truck, but he saw the driver through the bullet-proof glass leaning across to close the door. Wade knew he would not make it in time.

That’s when he saw, by the lurid light of the flaming truck, the grotesque black shape slink out of the encroaching blackness of the desert night, its sleek muscular form speedily tearing across the dusty land and leaping through the narrow gap of the truck’s closing door. He heard piercing, gurgling screams from the terrified driver, accompanied by a loud, terrible, and by now familiar roar that chilled him to the core.

It was a bonesnapper.

Wade continued his run, lifting his automatic as he reached the vehicle’s cab. The door was wide open now, and the sickening sight inside the cab caused him to catch his breath. The creature’s slavering jaws were savagely tearing through the soldier’s tunic into flesh, sinew and bone. Blood had been splashed everywhere. On seeing Wade at the door it reared its ugly head and roared, turning its attention on him. It launched itself through the air.

It took the full blast of Wade’s gun at point-blank range, the bullets ripping its chest cavity apart in a bloody cascade, and it fell with a dull thump to the desert floor, narrowly missing Wade.

‘Hurry!’ he called to the others, wiping the creature’s stinking blood out of his eyes. He waved at them frantically.

In the dull light he saw Keegan half dragging, half pushing the others in front of her towards the vehicle. She discarded the now useless AT4 and took the automatic rifle from Jack Benedict, firing at the men trying to scramble out of the trapdoor.

With mounting horror, Wade saw the fiery green eyes of more bonesnappers appearing to float like twinkling fireflies in the growing blackness of the desert.

‘Keegan!’ he yelled. ‘Keegan, get your arse over here!’

Amanda, Cheryl and Lauren reached the truck first, and Wade opened the side doors to let them in. They shuddered at the sight of the dead bonesnapper, giving it a wide berth.

‘Oh my God!’ said Amanda, her hand to her mouth when she beheld the shredded torso of the soldier in the cab.

‘Get inside, now!’ Wade ordered, pushing her away from the grisly sight. ‘Keegan! What are you waiting for?’

She was walking backwards, firing into the dark. ‘They’re here, Wade!’ she shouted. ‘The bonesnappers! They’re all around us!’

Lindegaard’s sentinels had abandoned the pursuit and closed the trapdoor. Bonesnappers, too many to count, were sliding in and out of the dense undergrowth, creeping low, their malicious eyes fixed on Keegan.

‘What are you waiting for? Do it!’ he said, spittle flying from Dale Lindegaard’s lips as he bent close to Robert Napier’s face, the gun inches away. ‘Inject the bitch!’

In an instant, Napier had grabbed Lindegaard’s gun hand by the wrist and yanked it upwards, the gun going off close to his ear, the sound deafening. Jungius leapt into action and lunged at Napier’s throat, but Napier was prepared and rammed the syringe deep into the Jungius’ hand. He’d emptied half the tremethelene into it before Jungius could pull it away, yelling incoherently. His eyes were wide, fearful, staring at his fingers which immediately began to curl into a tight claw. He backed away, not quite believing what had just happened, watching Napier and Lindegaard as they scuffled and fought for control. The gun went off again, powdered plaster drifting down from the ceiling.

Jungius began to shake uncontrollably, both hands vibrating so much they were a blur. He started at something he thought he saw to his right, then to his left, screamed in terror at the nightmarish visions being paraded before him. His mouth began to froth and his head danced as if on a spring.

Napier bowled Lindegaard to the floor, hammering the hand that held to gun on the tiles, once, twice, three times. Lindegaard was pummelling Napier’s back but could make no impression.

Now Jungius’ limbs started to twist into sharp, painful angles, and he screamed. His neck snapped backwards, his backbone forming a perfect arched bridge. He thrashed wildly like a fish gasping for air.

Lindegaard pulled the trigger again and the bullet narrowly missed Napier’s temple. He heard the thump of it hitting leather. With one last effort, Napier smashed Lindegaard’s hand down against the tiles and heard the snap of his broken wrist bone. The gun went spinning harmlessly away. He beat furiously at Lindegaard’s face, both fists, one after the other, wanting to kill him.
Needing
to kill him.

The old man fell unconscious, his cheeks, nose and lips bleeding badly. Napier rolled breathlessly off him, and as he did so he saw the hole in the leather arm of the chair in which Melissa lay.

‘No!’ he screeched, getting to his feet and rushing over to her. With dismay he saw the blood seeping profusely from a hole in her thin cotton blouse and soaking through the material. He tore frantically at the blouse, searching for the wound. His hands were soon bathed in Melissa’s blood. ‘Oh, Christ no’ he mouthed when his probing fingers found the entry point, high in her side, below her right breast.

Linda Keegan staggered drunkenly for a moment, cried out in pain and held her side.

‘Keegan! What’s wrong? Have you been hit?’ Wade slammed the door of the truck shut on the others, telling them to keep it closed, and ran over to her. She fell just as he reached her but he managed to grab a hold under her arm to stop her hitting the ground. ‘Keegan!’ he said, trying to see where she’d been hit but couldn’t find anything immediately apparent. ‘Linda, snap out of it.’ But she had her eyes closed, mumbling something to herself. It was as if she’d half fainted, no strength to her limbs, her legs like rubber.

He lowered her to the floor, looking up to see the flitting shadows and burning eyes of bonesnappers about to close in. He fired his gun, the flashes lighting up the many monstrous, snarling heads. It scared them away and they retreated. For now.

He shouldered Keegan’s fallen automatic, took a firm hold of Keegan’s wrist and dragged her bodily across the ground, firing the gun as he did so whenever a bonesnapper got too confident and sprang towards them, snapping at the air.

‘Linda, can you hear me? Now would be a good time to come round. You’re heavier than you look!’

She was out cold, her face pale, deathly white. The terrible thought struck him that she was dying. Or already dead.

‘No!’ he said, stopping and checking her pulse. It was weak but still hanging in there. ‘Don’t do this to me now, Linda…’ he said, resuming his dragging of her and emptying the magazine clip in his rifle. He tossed the gun away and brought Keegan’s to bear on the encroaching bonesnappers, their confidence growing. He was fast running out of ammo and had no idea how many more bullets remained in the clip.

Finally Keegan gave a choking cough, as if she’d emerged from a deep pool and had swallowed too much water. She flapped her arms wildly, her eyes looking upon another scene entirely. When she looked up at him she didn’t appear to recognise him.

‘Linda, it’s me. You okay?’

Her senses returned gradually. ‘Yeah, I’m… I’m fine…’

‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know.’ She attempted to get to her feet, but her legs buckled and he had to support her. ‘Did I blank out?’ She suddenly remembered the pain in her side and put her hand there. ‘I was shot…’ she said. ‘Right here…’ But there was nothing to be found.

A series of loud howls brought her to her senses double quick.

‘Get inside,’ he said. ‘Go on, I’ll keep them at bay while you get on board.’

‘I can’t leave you!’

‘You’re the only one who knows the way, Linda. Please. They need you. I’ll cover you.’

As if to illustrate his words a bonesnapper made a dash out of the encroaching darkness straight for Keegan. Wade twisted and fired into the beast. It tumbled head over heels in the dust as Keegan skipped away from it and reached the safety cab door. She grimaced at the torn corpse but steeled herself and pulled the dead Sentinel out of the cab, averting her head from the sight. He fell limply to the ground. A snarling made her spin round to see another bonesnapper lunging for her. She kicked at its head with her boot and hauled the cab door shut on its manic scrabbling, its claws raking the metal.

Wade took aim and shot it dead. But he found there were more Bonesnappers coming round the rear of the vehicle, some around the front, cutting him off from the door.

‘Wade!’ Keegan screamed, hammering on the windscreen. She scrambled through a door in the back of the cab that led to the trapdoor in the top of the vehicle and up to the roof-mounted machinegun.

The creatures were encircling the vehicle now, more of them massing at Wade’s back. He watched as Keegan opened the trapdoor and took up position behind the machinegun. She turned on a spotlight, trapping the helpless Wade in its harsh beam. ‘Wade! Get over here!’ she cried desperately.

The machinegun opened fire, sending some of the bonesnappers scrabbling for cover and killing others. But yet more of them took their place in encircling the vehicle, wrapping around it like a grotesque woollen scarf, a number of them leaping effortlessly onto the roof and forcing Keegan to abandon the machinegun and drop down below again, slamming the trapdoor shut on them.

‘Wade!’ she shouted through the cab window again. She put the truck into gear and started to drive towards him, ploughing through the bonesnappers, plainly hearing their bones crunch beneath the wheels and tracks like so much cereal in the mouth. But a mass of bonesnappers clambered onto the cab and blocked her view. She lost sight of Wade altogether and was driving blindly.

‘No, Linda! Not this way! They’ll swamp you! There are too many of them!’ But of course she couldn’t hear him. They’ll never get away, he thought. He turned. A solid wall of bristling fur was at his back. She was headed into a hundred more.

Unless I draw them off, he thought determinedly.

He ran towards the vehicle, waving his hands and shouting, firing his gun at the creatures. One by one they slid from their perches and crawled in his direction. He backed off, firing as he did so, short bursts, trying to save ammunition.

At last, with the windscreen clear, Keegan saw him waving at her, telling her to head in the other direction, away from them, at the same time walking backwards, further away from her. Saw also the thick black mass of bonesnappers rising like a dark tsunami behind him. She knew he was lost. She could never reach him in time, and to even try would probably mean the end for all on board as the bonesnappers overwhelmed the truck by sheer weight of numbers.

‘Wade!’ she sobbed. ‘Sam!’ Her hand pressed against the blood smeared windscreen as if to reach out to him.

But with a yell of despair, tears stinging her eyes, she swung the wheel round and bore quickly away from the hellish scene.

Samuel Wade watched as the vehicle slewed to one side, knocking over bonesnappers as it did so, hoping he’d done enough and they would all get away safely.

The smell of the bonesnappers seemed to wash over him like a wave of rotting flesh, their great loping bodies encircling him in a fluid, weaving, and restless flurry of vile black hatred. He fired his gun till it clicked on empty, and he threw it at the nearest bonesnapper.

In his last moments he closed his eyes and thought about his wife and daughter.