Vampire Apocalypse: Descent Into Chaos (Book 2) (4 page)

Dee had an impish face and always wore her lustrous
brown hair tied back in a severe bun that couldn’t take away from
the sheer perfection of her bone structure. Her eyes shone like a
cats and their cerulean hue seemed to spark if you looked at them
in the light. Her nose was short, almost too small, but her high
cheekbones took the beholder’s attention away from this small
imperfection and her smooth, almost glacially perfect skin, seemed
to shine with its own illumination. She was not beautiful, her chin
was quite pointed and her ears too large for her petit features,
but her bright personality and infectious laughter had most of the
men in the camp throwing themselves at her in the hope that she
would notice them.

She had been a sniper in the army and was a crack
shot. Luckily for them, she had been separated from her platoon
during the final days of the war with the vampires and she had been
swept up in the closing days of the war into their town just before
the serum had been launched against them. As soon as she had
recovered from the serum’s effects she had immediately demanded
that she be allowed to return to the city where she had managed to
hide her beloved Barrett.

She had found it still wrapped in an oiled rag under
the floorboards where she had hidden it before the chaos of the
serum effects had taken hold. The weapon looked massive strapped to
her small frame but the ease with which she handled it dispelled
any doubts anyone might have as to her abilities. Anyone still not
convinced only had to watch her shoot to quickly revise their
opinion.

Warkowski had been delighted when he had heard that
the group had another sniper, and the two spent hours discussing
scopes, wind velocity and ballistics in terms Harris had never even
heard before, let alone understood. There had been severe ribbing
from the others about the unlikely pair: Warkowski’s huge frame
dwarfed her to an extreme that was almost comical, but anyone that
knew Warkowski, and what he had gone through to find his family,
knew that his only interest was in her abilities. Dee, for her
part, liked Warkowski a lot but had set her sights elsewhere.

The team had walked over a hundred miles from their
new base and had spent the last day and night in the hills
surrounding the town of Bertrand, watching the vampire and thrall
patrols, making notes and fine-tuning their plan.

Bertrand was one of the towns that had been annexed
onto Von Kruger’s cabal when he had taken the nuclear plant. It was
a small town bounded on the north by the larger settlements of
Niles and Buchanan, but it was here that the thralls had stockpiled
their fossil fuels for the northern part of the state. Harris had
no idea why they had picked this small town but he suspected that
Von Kruger may have been planning to annex a little more territory
and wanted his fuel nearby.

Either way, it suited Harris.

The town was surrounded by lightly rolling prairie
lands but the rich golden sea of wheat that used to grow in
abundance now lay rotted in fields left untended and abandoned. Von
Kruger had been one of the few who had started a policy of farming
almost a year ago but had so few people that huge areas like this
were left neglected.

The eastern portion of the town rose into gently
sloping hills, which slanted down towards the river, and Harris and
his team occupied a line of low hills extending along the northern
border. The thralls had built a large compound just outside the
town, converting the ruins of St. Joseph’s Fort into a fuel depot.
As the small party descended from the hills they could see rows of
tankers and mounds of coal inside the fort. The once sturdy walls
that had seen action against the French and Spanish in times gone
by now lay broken and desolate, a testament to a forlorn defense
against the vampires two years ago.

The shattered and cracked remains of the ramparts
seemed to reach upwards in a jagged line as if grasping
despondently towards the brightening sky. Their shapes were mere
shadows against the tapestry of feeble light coming from the
horizon beyond, but there was enough light to see that their vigil
was a lonely one and that no guards paced their ramparts. There
were a few guards visible below the fort among the buildings, but
this was the early shift and the thralls had become very lazy,
preferring to stand near heated cabins rather than brave the cold
winds that whipped at the exposed battlements. From their protected
positions the guards would not see Harris and his group, so their
approach, though careful, was a relatively easy one.

They had left Warkowski and Dee Ratigan back on the
higher ground, which gave them an excellent view of the barracks
and the main road beyond should any reinforcements arrive during
the operation. Harris motioned for the rest of the group to split
into two sections; Sherman took Ortega, Fleming and Mitchell,
leaving him with Tanner, Rodgers and Steele. He watched as Sherman
led his men around a bluff, his large form easily negotiating the
uneven ground while his men slipped and stumbled after him. He
smiled to himself as he saw the Marine turn and fix the three men
with a stare that would strip flesh from bone. The men moved more
carefully after that.

Dave Sherman cursed as one of the men behind him
stumbled. Bloody amateurs, he thought as he shot Fleming another
withering look. It was just as well that the thralls were
over-confident and bloody useless or they’d all be dead. He moved
on with the other three following sheepishly. The men he had were
the best of a bad lot, but at least they were fit; some of the men
he had been given to train had been just useless, men who thought
that, just because they had done a little shooting with their
friends before the war, that that made them soldiers.

It still amazed him that with so many in their
community there were so few military, or even trained personnel. It
was a problem he had discussed at length with Harris and one that,
while Harris was sympathetic, had no answer for except that they
make the best of what they had. Sherman had a lot of respect for
Harris. He was no soldier but at least he knew his limitations. He
had a good strategic mind but was prepared to defer to those more
experienced than him when planning an operation.

This had worried Sherman at first. While it was
commendable for a leader to listen to others, it was dangerous if
that leader continued to defer to others during the chaos of a
field operation. Command had to be concise and definite during
combat. Luckily for them, Harris was a man who listened when
planning but once decided, commanded his men well. Sherman had no
ambition to lead. He had been a Sergeant and was happy to lead a
squad and leave the overall command to someone else, as long as
they didn’t get them all killed. Besides, it allowed him more free
time for other exploits. He felt himself growing aroused as his
mind drifted and he forced himself to concentrate on to the task at
hand. There would be plenty of time later for those pursuits, he
promised himself.

Their mission was to ensure that reinforcements were
not called, or that if they were, that they could delay them long
enough for the others to complete the mission. To this end he led
his men around the fort to the building at the far side that housed
the communications; at least, it was the only building that boasted
an aerial. They had seen men enter and leave that building
throughout the previous day, none staying for any long periods, so
they had marked this as a priority target.

Communications had regressed over the last two years
as mobile masts had either been destroyed or proved too costly in
power to keep serviced. Satellites had proved less than reliable,
as lack of maintenance had meant that there wasn’t always one in
range when you needed it. The thralls didn’t use them, preferring
simple radio transmissions, as they did not need specialized men to
operate them. As a result, centralized radio communications became
the order of the day. It was short range but cabals had little
desire or need to communicate with each other so short range was
just fine for the thralls.

Steele had rigged up a receiver that allowed them to
hack into any local transmissions so they were aware that no
patrols were due to arrive today, though anything could happen to
change those plans. It was essential that they take out the
communications without any alerts being sent if they wanted to
succeed here today.

Sherman motioned for his men to lie low as a thrall
passed a few feet from their position. He lifted the strap of his
weapon over his head and rested it on the dirt beside him and then
reached down to his thigh and slid his bayonet free. He motioned
for the others to stay where they were and then eased himself into
a crouch and followed the guard.

Thralls were incredibly lucky in many ways, as far as
Sherman was concerned. They had the strength of three men, could
run all day without keeling over, and had amazing senses. Oh,
nothing like their masters, but far better than any soldier Sherman
had ever seen—and he had seen some of the best. In fact, the only
drawback that he could see was that they were slaves to their
masters and that they were so full of themselves that they didn’t
use their abilities.

Instead of taking advantage of their incredible
abilities they preferred to strut around and satiate their lusts
with food and sex as and when they wanted. They could do so much
more.

Sherman had often thought how great it would be to
have their abilities, but he wasn’t prepared to take the downside.
The thrall in front of him should have heard him, he should have
been able to turn and swat him away with ease, but instead Sherman
reached the guard and slit his throat before he showed any sign
that he had heard the Marine.

Sherman let the guard fall to the ground and spat on
him with contempt. To have such abilities and to waste them was
unforgivable. Sherman motioned to his men and they followed him
toward their target.

The building that housed the radio was a small
porta-office that, according to a sun-bleached sign in front of the
building, had once housed the office that handled the
administration and ticket sales for the tour of the nearby fort. It
was a small structure with two rooms partitioned from each other by
a stud wall. There were windows on three sides, though they were
small and allowed the men to approach easily without being
detected. The building was situated outside the grounds of the fort
itself, but close enough that the structure lay within the shadow
of the fort’s high walls. Sherman shivered as he passed from the
growing heat of the sun into the cooler gloom. He made a cutting
gesture to Fleming and pointed at the wire that led to the roof. He
then turned and led the others towards the front of the
building.

He checked once more for any stray guards and then
moved to the door. Mitchell and Ortega took up positions on either
side of him and scanned the area immediately around them. Sherman
reached for the handle when, suddenly, the door was pulled inwards
and a guard appeared. The guard’s face was still turned towards the
interior of the cabin as he finished his conversation with someone
inside. Sherman reacted immediately, shot the thrall in the throat
and pushed past him before he had fallen.

The guards might be lazy but, once alerted to danger,
they were amazingly fast. Sherman fired at the radio operator first
and took the man with three shots to the head. There was a guard to
the operator’s left who had been leaning against the radio table,
but by the time Sherman had moved to cover him, the thrall had
disappeared. Sherman cursed and scanned the room. The enclosed
space of the room was filled with shouts, thumping feet and
sustained fire as Mitchell and Ortega over-reacted and entered the
room with their fingers frozen on the triggers. Bullets flew
everywhere and machinery buzzed and sparked as bullets destroyed
the equipment.

Sherman couldn’t find the thrall who had escaped and
he was deafened by the bedlam around him. He felt a sharp pain in
his thigh as a bullet ricocheted off metal and tore into his calf.
His leg collapsed and he fell heavily to the ground. The wound hurt
like hell but it had probably saved his life as more bullets ripped
through the air where he had stood moments before. He fell
awkwardly on his arm and his aim was spoiled as his own bullets
smashed through the window and added to the mad cacophony. He had a
moment to see the thrall grin as he brought his weapon to bear, and
then suddenly the guard pirouetted madly as round after round hit
his large frame. The bullets continued on past the guard and
continued to slam into the wood behind him until Ortega’s gun
finally clicked empty.

Sherman looked up into Ortega’s smiling face and
grinned as the man replaced his empty magazine. He had spent weeks
training these men to shoot in short, controlled bursts, and for
the first time in his life he was happy that they hadn’t
listened.

Harris looked at his small team as they waited for
the allotted time to pass. Sherman and his men were making their
way around the back of the town and it would take them at least ten
minutes to get into place so they had a little time yet before they
needed to move. John Tanner sat quietly fidgeting as he checked his
weapons yet again; Harris had noticed that the man did not like to
be still for very long. He got very nervous when there was nothing
to do and had plagued Harris over the last week or so about when
they would be going out.

The new community was hard to get used to, especially
in their new quarters with its cramped living space, so he could
understand the man wanting to get out. He hoped, however, that this
nervousness did not signify anything that he needed to be worried
about. Police work was very different to military operations and he
hoped that the man was able to make the leap; otherwise, he might
have to send him back to the nursery.