Vampire Apocalypse: A World Torn Asunder (Book 1) (26 page)

“You don’t seem too worried
about that, General,” Steele countered. “It’s a pity those guns
will pound the shit out of them, isn’t it? Doesn’t seem quite
sporting, eh?”

The General stood for a moment
and Steele thought he was about to say something but then he simply
shrugged. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.” Evans
strode purposely away.

In the middle of bustling
activity, General Jack Evans stood still, impassive and outwardly
calm. But inside turmoil raged. All around him thralls hurried
about their business. The walls surrounding the house had already
been cleared to make way for the large guns, and the thralls busied
themselves un-coupling equipment, rolling artillery into position,
checking sights and unloading ammunition.

The young Lieutenant shouted
orders. Evans could tell that it would not be long before the human
facility was a smouldering ruin. He looked down at the grenade in
his hands, focused his will on the pin, and sent an impulse to his
hand to pull it. For the fourth time in the last few minutes his
finger didn’t move.

Goddamn mind control, he thought
bitterly.

Over the last two years Evans
had pushed against the control that bound him to the Vampires. He
still snapped to orders when a master was in sight. Their very
presence somehow acted as a stimulant, but during the day he had
been able to push his independence further and further. He had
gotten to a stage now where he could think relatively freely and
perform small actions of defiance. He had even been able to delay
the order to reinforce the thralls during the last assault to give
the rebels the time they needed to get away.

He had also succeeded in coming
to the artillery base; even to liberate the grenade, but he just
couldn’t pull the damn pin.

“Come on it’s only half an
inch,” he muttered. Sweat poured from his forehead. He looked up
and saw that the thralls were nearly ready to commence firing and
he tried once more. He put every ounce of will power into moving
the pin.

“Those pins can be a bitch
sometimes,” a voice whispered in his ear. His heart leapt in his
chest and, dizzy with the shock, he turned slowly to see Steele’s
grinning face. “I had a think about what you said.”

Evans could barely hear Steele
for the blood pounding in his head. The two men stood mere feet
apart and looked at each other while activities continued around
them. Finally, Evans saw Steele reach over and take the grenade. He
was powerless to stop him.

“And?”

“I think they deserve a chance,
don’t you?” Evans said.

Evans watched Steele closely and
saw him nod slightly. Then without another word Steele pulled the
pin. The metal clasp sprang free and he dropped the explosive into
a nearby ammunition crate.

“Run,” he said.

Evans didn’t need to be told
twice.

The Lieutenant noticed the two
men talking, but paid little attention while he readied his crew
for the barrage. He smiled in anticipation when the first shell was
loaded into the breach. He raised his hand to signal the firing
order when he noticed the General break into a run out of the
corner of his eye. He turned slightly and frowned at this strange
turn of events.

“General …” he began, and then
the grenade exploded.

It took only a fraction of a
second more before the rest of the ammunition followed suit. The
roar was deafening.

Evans and Steele launched
themselves to the ground and covered their heads while shrapnel and
rock flew in every direction. Bodies were shredded and equipment
launched into the air by the force of the blast, only to land in
twisted, useless piles across the lawn.

“Whoooooaaaaaa!” Steele shouted.
“What a rush! Come on; let’s see what other mischief we can
create.”

Jack Evans pulled himself to his
feet and looked up at the darkening sky. “It’ll be nightfall soon,”
he commented with a worried frown.

“Yeah, oh well, you only live
once,” Steele replied simply.

Chapter 26

The lawn surrounding the area
where the artillery had been set up was completely scorched. Small
fires licked hungrily at any combustible material; wood, clothes,
flesh and rubber all burnt. A thick pall of smoke drifted lazily
across the lawn carrying with it the stink of death. The silence
was broken by the thunder of feet as thralls from the lower camp
rushed over to put out fires and tend the wounded and dying.

Thralls gagged on the fumes.
They went from fire to fire, and the dense spray of the
extinguishing fluid only added to the confusion. Sergeant Philips
looked around at the carnage and shook his head. This whole
campaign had been a complete mess; bad preparation and equally bad
leadership had already led to too many deaths.

Just then a shout came from his
left. He could barely see the two thralls through the mist, but
they seemed to struggle with a third figure, so he hurried over.
When he got closer he heard the soldiers urge the figure they held
on the ground to stay still until the medical team arrived to check
his wounds.

The person on the ground pushed
the thralls away and rose with a bellow. “Get away from me, you
incompetent bastards!” the Lieutenant screamed. His face was burnt
red and ragged pieces of flesh hung from his cheeks. Black soot
covered his body, a stark contrast to the wild, white eyes that
bored straight into the Sergeant’s face. “Where is he?” he
screamed.

“Who?” Philips held his hands up
to try to placate his superior.

“General-fucking-Evans, that’s
who.”

“Sir,” Philips began calmly, “I
haven’t seen the General. What happened here?”

“I’ll tell you what happened,
that bastard threw a grenade into the ammunition dump. He did
this!” He waved around him to indicate the carnage. “The traitorous
bastard, I want him found, Sergeant.”

The news hit Philips like a
brick. The General was a traitor? He was shocked. He had thought
that nothing could surprise him much anymore, but he couldn’t
really see the General as a traitor. Until he could confirm one way
or the other whether this was true, though, he decided to play
along and report to the Lieutenant.

Philips turned to the two
thralls who had found the Lieutenant and issued orders. The two
soldiers registered shock on their faces, but turned and began to
gather up a few more recruits. Then they disappeared into the
mist.

“What do we do about the humans,
sir?” Philips asked.

The Lieutenant’s face registered
pure hatred. “Kill them, Sergeant. Kill every last fucking one of
them.”

“What happening out there?”
Rodgers scratched his head while he watched the explosions rip
through the artillery.

“I don’t know,” Harris replied,
“but I sure am glad we’re not the ones on the receiving end.”

“Amen to that.”

The two men on the balcony
watched the late afternoon light up with explosive reports that
shattered the tranquil countryside. Everything had gone perfectly
so far. They had watched grimly while the thralls were decimated on
the lawn, and then listened to the screams from those in the
forest. Neither man took pleasure from the slaughter. This is war,
as Dan Harrington had said, and shit happens.

Crockett came through the
doorway and asked, “What’s all the commotion?”

“The artillery dump just blew
up,” Harris replied and turned to Crockett with a broad grin.

“Get the fuck out of here,”
Crockett exclaimed incredulously.

“It’s true,” Rodgers cut in,
“took all the guns with it.”

“God, that’s a relief. I really
didn’t want to give up the upper floors that easily.”

“Why not? Why don’t we batten
down the hatches and get below ground? It’ll take a tank to pull
those doors down.” Rodgers voiced the question that many of the men
secreted in positions around the house had thought about over the
last hour.

“The Cave is our last resort,”
Crockett explained. “Once we go down there, that’s it, we’ve
nowhere else to go. At least up here we still have options, few
though they might be. As for the doors, well, I doubt they’ll hold
out long against the vampires when they arrive.”

“Oh yeah, I nearly forgot about
them.” Rodgers looked earnestly at the other two. “Listen, I really
don’t want to go back to the way we were…”

“Don’t worry, we’ve seen to
that,” Harris interrupted. He grimly placed a hand on Rodgers's
shoulder. “No one is going back to that life. One way or another,
it ends tonight. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a certain lady to
see before they attack.” Harris turned toward the door.

“What makes you think they’ll
attack now? Won’t they wait for the vampires?” Crockett asked.

“Don’t think so. Take a look out
there.” Harris handed the binoculars to Crockett and the worthy
looked eagerly out over the grounds.

“I see what you mean.” The
entire approach to the complex was covered with thralls. Standing
three deep the line stretched from the river right across to the
forest. “Kind of reminds you of Zulu, doesn’t it?” Crockett
commented.

“What?” asked Rodgers.

“Bourke’s Drift,” Harris
answered when he saw Rodgers blank face. “A small party of English
soldiers defended an outpost in Africa in the 1800s against
thousands of Zulu warriors.”

“Oh,” replied Rodgers. “Did they
make it?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, some
did.”

“Some? How many is some?”
Rodgers asked, but Harris had already gone.

Sergeant Philips looked down
along the line of men. Some two hundred thralls had gathered just
out of range of the complex. The Lieutenant’s orders demanded a
full assault; no feints and no patrols like the last time. This
time they were going to throw everything they had at them and level
the place.

“Bazooka!” he called. Two men
pushed their way to the front of the line and knelt while they took
aim at the doors to the house.

Philips turned to his
Lieutenant. “Sir, we’re ready when you are.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. Have you
detained General Evans yet?”

“Not yet, Sir. I have a patrol
out looking for him.”

“Very well, commence the
attack.”

The two rockets shot across the
lawn and left a fine smoke trail in their wake. They impacted
simultaneously and the explosions rocked the entire building. The
doors disintegrated. Wood and masonry flew in every direction as
the entrance, and most of the surrounding supports blew apart.

The Lieutenant grinned when he
saw the destruction. A jagged hole measuring some twenty feet in
diameter and ten feet in height became visible when the evening
breeze whisked the smoke into the darkening sky.

“Sergeant!” he shouted.
“Advance.”

Harris saw the men with bazookas
kneel and take aim from his vantage point on the balcony.
“Incoming!” he shouted and ran into the house to take cover.

The explosion was huge. Harris
was thrown across the upstairs landing and sprawled into a bedroom
wall. Splinters and rock fragments flew everywhere in a deadly
hail. Harris rolled into a ball and covered his head in a vain
attempt to protect himself.

He heard a few screams from
downstairs, but didn’t have time to check the extent of people’s
injuries. He brought his weapon to bear and waited for the thralls
to arrive.

Rodgers picked himself up from
behind the sofa on the ground floor, and then quickly dived back
down when bullets ripped the furniture to shreds. He had been on
the first floor, directly in front of the doors, when the blast had
come. The force of the explosion had been so great that he had been
lifted up and thrown through the banister railing. He had landed
directly in the path of the thralls, so he remained behind the sofa
to protect himself while they swarmed through the ruined
entrance.

The noise was deafening. Bullets
gauged holes in the stone fireplace behind him, and splinters of
stone covered his prone form. He pulled himself along by his elbows
and returned fire blindly around the far end of the couch. Gunfire
erupted from above him and men poured fire down in support.

Harris ran from one side of the
landing to the other and tried vainly to outrun a line of bullets
rapidly catching up to him. He had to move from his previous
position when the thralls had lobbed a grenade that bounced across
the wooden floor to lie ten feet from where he had crouched. Too
close to stay and too far to get to it and kick it out of reach. He
launched himself up and ran the only direction left to him,
straight into the thralls” line of fire.

He neared the end of the landing
and jumped, then rolled into a kneeling position and brought his
machine gun to bear, letting loose a sustained burst of fire. This
unexpected development caught the thralls by surprise and their
bodies twitched while round after round hit home.

More thralls appeared through
the hole while Harris changed his magazine and looked for cover.
The noise was incredible. Some fifteen men in various positions
around the house and an unknown number of thralls all fired and
screamed in the close confines. Explosions erupted everywhere. Both
sides threw grenades and added to the chaos. The structure of the
house was a complete mess. Thralls now poured into the house
through windows and the other gaping holes that had been blown
through the downstairs walls.

Bodies lay piled on top of each
other. Harris” men poured a viscous hail of fire at these
entrances. Thralls were decimated one by one while they poured
through the breach, but it wasn’t all one-sided. Harris could see
many of his own men already dead. Pools of blood seeped into the
carpet or pooled on the wooden floors where they lay. Others
slumped against walls, their shattered limbs held uselessly to
their sides.