Legion (An Apocalyptic Horror Novel) (Hell on Earth Book 2) (22 page)

Richard was still unarmed, so he kicked out at the first creature that came near. He caught it in the torso and sent it onto its back. Before it had time to right itself, Richard stamped on its skull—three times before it stopped moving.

Aaron stabbed and hacked with his knives. Leonard stabbed and swiped with his splintered cricket bat. Riaz swung his baton. The other survivors, who Richard knew only by face, fought bravely too, scraping with whatever they held on to.

But, one by one, the survivors fell. The apes were quick, and dodging them was difficult. A barrel-chested, bearded man beside Richard swung a hammer and missed. Off balance, he could not fight back as one of the snarling apes clawed at his neck and dug out a bundle of nerves, veins, and tendons. It looked like spaghetti.

More creatures emerged from the shadows between the buildings. More apes came.

Richard was sweating, his mouth hanging open as he fought for breath. He backed up against Dillon, keeping his son behind him. His fight was almost gone, but what could he do? The Church lay at his back along with certain death, but the way forward was no better. They were all going to die. Dillon would be alone as monsters feasted upon his flesh. The thought reignited Richard’s fury and allowed him to fight on a while longer, but it couldn’t last forever. His fellow survivors continued falling around him while the enemy continued to grow.

Riaz fell to one knee, bleeding from his shoulder. Leonard stumbled, looking ready to drop dead. Demon and human blood filled the chilly night air like a heavy mist. The smell of war was rancid.

“I’m done,” said Aaron, now in possession of only a single knife. “I can’t fight anymore.”

They backed up against one another, forming a semi-circle with Dillon in the centre. Richard, Aaron, Riaz, and Leonard. All that was left of a hundred refugees from the church. Richard kicked out, but then fell to his knees. His head hung, exhausted. The next attack would kill him. He couldn’t lift an arm.

They were done. Finished.

A creature reared up, prepared to pounce on its weakened prey.

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

The ape’s head disappeared from its shoulders. Several of its brethren fell too. Gunfire broke out and echoed off the tall buildings. The sound of salvation. Richard had been saved for a second time tonight.

“It’s the fucking Army,” cried Aaron.

But it was not the Army. Only a single rifle rang out.

Yet, the sudden attack at the demon’s flanks had been enough to disorientate them. They broke apart in confusion, not knowing where the attack was coming from.

Tat-tat-tat.

More of the demons fell. Rifle shots perfectly aimed.

“Over there!” Riaz pointed. “Over there.”

Richard looked up and saw three people across the road. Only one of them was a soldier, but his two companions were waving them over.
Come on!

“Go!” said Richard, grabbing Dillon and getting them moving. While the demons were suppressed, the group was able to get a head start and got across the road without resistance. There, they were grabbed by the three strangers.

“Move!” said the soldier, lining up another barrage of well-placed shots.

They reached the T-junction at the end of the road. At the bottom of the hill lay the police station, where Richard assumed they might be headed, but instead the soldier led them along another side road—towards
The
Slough Echo
.

“You’re the soldier from last night,” said Richard.

“Corporal Martin. You were the copper we spoke to?”

“Yes.”

“Good to see you again.”

“Likewise.”

They carried on running, right up to the doors of the
Echo
which had been barricaded from the inside. A man waited there and moved furniture aside to let them through the door. He was severely injured, entire face glistening with fresh burns. One eye seared shut. Richard recognised the man from his clothes and what remained of his greying hair. It was one of the two reporters who had been in the jeep with Corporal Martin last night. What had happened to him?

“Some racket you made out there,” the disfigured man said.

Corporal Martin grunted. “If I hadn’t made noise, I wouldn’t have got these folks in one piece.”

Together, they shoved the barricade back in place and raced up a stairwell that filled the lobby. They went up several flights before they stopped.

The disfigured man appraised them then. “Are you all that’s left?”

Richard nodded. “A lot of us ran when the battle began, but we’re the only ones left who stayed and fought.”

“Then you are worth ten of those who fled,” Corporal Martin told them.

Richard sighed. “They were just scared. I knew it would happen. For a while, it looked like we might make it, but then…” Richard thought about Skullface and what the demon had done to Jen.

Corporal Martin patted him on the back. “Let’s go inside.”

They headed through a set of double doors and entered a busy office. It could be forgivable to think all was normal with the world if the newsroom was anything to go by. Reporters tapped away at keyboards while runners moved between desks with bundles of paper. Richard looked for the female reporter he had spoken to, but couldn’t spot her.

An old woman came spilling out of an office and threw her arms out. “Welcome! I’m so glad to see someone else alive in this shit-stinking acid trip.”

Leonard was the least shell-shocked, apparently, because he was the first to step forward and offer a handshake. “Thank you for rescuing us.”

The woman shook his hand. “I’d been hoping for more of you. I’m Carol, and I run the
Echo
.”

“H-How did you know about us?” asked Richard.

The old woman smiled. “Your colleague, Glen, came to us this morning. Said he was gathering up survivors to defend the town.” She looked at each of them and then let her smile drop. “I take it he isn’t amongst you? Shame, he promised me a drink after all this was over.”

Richard was surprised to hear that Glen had been here. Obviously, it had been before he was… possessed… or whatever had happened to him. “Why did Glen come here?”

“He wanted us to post something on the website, telling people to head to the church. We did, but I admit it only got a few hits. Most of our traffic is coming from all over the globe, not so much of it local.”

Riaz frowned. “Why is the world interested in a local newspaper?”

Carol grinned. “Because we are the last bastion of knowledge in this war. Yesterday, one of our reporters, Mina, set up a website sharing whatever we could find out about the demons. It’s been helping people. Do you know that a few hours ago, someone closed one of those gates? Did you know that iron wards off the bastards? These are things we can use. Soon as we find them out, we share ‘em on the net.”

Aaron chuckled. “You’re like the underground resistance or something.”

Carol pinched the lad’s cheek like he was eight. “That we are, lad. Can’t let those buggers have it all their own way, can we?” She waved an arm at the office behind her. “Take a seat. I’ll get you all a cuppa. You’ve already met Corporal Martin, and Tom and Annie.”

Corporal Martin had already wandered off, but Tom and Annie nodded hello. They were obviously a couple because the tiny brunette leaned her head against the taller blond man as she spoke. “We went to the police station for help this morning, but no one was there. Corporal Martin found us and brought us here. Seemed like the least we could do was help bring you guys in.”

Richard looked at her. “There was no one there?”

“No. We looked everywhere, but it was abandoned. The cells were all open, and it looked like maybe there’d been a scuffle. No one was around.”

“Damn it,” said Riaz.

Carol looked at Riaz. “Do you know if the police force is still intact? London fell last night, but we haven’t been able to find out if there’s still a force in place.”

Riaz shrugged. “Last I heard, all local uniforms had headed to the city. I have no idea what forces in the other regions are doing.”

“Same is true of the ambulance service,” said a voice Richard recognised.

“Oliver? The paramedic from yesterday morning?”

The tall, shaven-headed man smiled. “Seems like forever ago, doesn’t it? You never called.”

“Sorry, things have been bad.”

Oliver patted him on the shoulder. “For us all. I’m glad to see you again. I was planning to head home, but my ambulance got knocked off the road by some cheese dick in an Alfa Romeo. Pure luck someone spotted me from the windows of this place. I’m not used to standing around in an emergency doing nothing, but I don’t know what else to do. I just wish I knew more.”

Carol tucked a bunch of her greying blonde hair behind her ear. “No news is good news.”

“Strange motto for a newspaper,” said Leonard.

“And you’d be right. Anyway, enough doom and gloom. Who is this handsome young man we have here?” She was talking about Dillon and moved gently towards him, reached out to touch his face.

Dillon remained expressionless, but muttered, “Hello.”

“You’ve had a tough time, huh, my lovely? Never mind, you’re safe now.”

“Mummy.”

Carol was a smart enough woman to understand. She nodded compassionately. “She’s in a better place now. If a person ever needed proof of Heaven, then Hell on earth is that. Must be a God and angels if there are demons, don’t you think?”

Dillon nodded. A single tear spilled down his cheek, and his bottom lip quivered.

Carol touched his chin and lifted his head. “No need to be upset, my lovely. I have someone you should meet. Alice? Alice, where are you?”

A little girl appeared from underneath a desk. She had an unopened chocolate bar in her hand and a smudge of a previous one on her cheek. Her face was sullen, not innocent like a child’s should be. “What is it, auntie Carol?”

“I want you to welcome our new friend…”

“Dillon,” said Richard.

“Dillon. He’s had a tough time, just like you, so I want the two of you to stick together, please.”

Alice nodded. She looked at Dillon, but didn’t gawp at his Down features. She offered out the chocolate bar. “I used to share with my brother, Kyle, but the monsters got him. I can share with you now, if you like?”

Tentatively, Dillon reached out and took the chocolate bar. “T-Thank you. I lost my mummy.”

Alice nodded. “I bet you miss her. I miss my brother. We can miss them both together.”

“Go on, you two,” said Carol. “Go play in the fort Corporal Martin built for you.”

Alice nodded and took Dillon by the hand. Richard felt his heart lurch at the sight of his traumatised son taking the little girl’s hand and allowing himself to be led away. Even after all the bloodshed of the last couple of days, there was still kindness in the world.

How much longer could it last?

“How bad are things?” Richard asked Carol. The woman was a tough old bird, he could see it written into every crease of her face, but the question drew a dark veil across her face that seemed like it might suffocate her.

“As bad as they can be without being over. London and New York are both graveyards. Tokyo, Paris, Melbourne, Chicago, I could go on. The world is finished. We’ve been invaded, successfully. All we can do now is try to survive. There’s a massive movement assembling in Turkey right now led by the Yanks. The Russians say they’re holding their own, but who knows. Corporal Martin has been in touch with what’s left of our Armed Forces here at home, and they’re in the process of fortifying Portsmouth. Several battalions stationed abroad are on their way back. Humanity is still alive and kicking, but we’re bleeding from every orifice.”

Richard collapsed into a nearby chair and placed his hands on his knees. He vomited on the carpet. Afterwards, he wiped his mouth and apologised.

Carol shrugged. “You know how much blood and puke I’ve seen lately?”

“Not as much as we have. I watched my wife get her head crushed by a seven-foot skeleton. What the Hell are these things?”

“Demons. Did you ever think they were anything else? Those gates lead straight to Hell, I would bank my pension on it. We are at war with Lucifer’s legions.”

Riaz snorted. “You can’t verify that.”

Carol raised an eyebrow. “Want a bet?”

“How?”

“I can verify it because we captured one of the bastards alive and have him locked in a cupboard.”

They all laughed, except for Carol who never changed her expression.

“What? You’re telling the truth?” said Aaron.

Carol smirked. “David, show them.”

The disfigured man appeared and nodded to the door behind him. “Right this way, ladies and gentlemen.”

They went back out into the hallway where David opened a door to a broom closet. Inside, tied to a chair, were the remains of a human being. It blinked at them when they turned on the light.

V
amps ducked
behind an abandoned tour bus and tried to understand what he was seeing. After escaping the warehouse, they had found themselves on Oxford Street outside the Selfridges building.

Where it all began. Where the London Gate had opened and spilled evil upon the city.

And the gate was still open, its glow lighting up the night making it seem like day.

“I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” said Mass. “Now that we’re looking right at it…”

Vamps nodded. “I know, Mass. I know.”

“Come on, you pussies,” said Pusher, already moving along the side of the bus with his two guys. “Time to get the fuck out of here.”

But Vamps didn’t move. The gate was a hundred metres further down Oxford Street, but even at that distance, he could see the huddled masses of human beings cowering before the shimmering lens. Demons moved everywhere, lining the street, but the section of road directly before the gate was filled only with frightened people—chained up like the ones Vamps had seen Prime Minister Windsor hand over.

What were the demons doing? Why were they keeping people alive?

“We can’t leave all these people,” said Vamps. “They need our help.”

Pusher stopped moving and looked back. “Are you fucking kidding me? We need to run. Look at your ginger muppet. He’s lost the plot.”

Vamps looked at Ginge and rubbed his friend’s wide back. He had not said a word since Ravy had died on the floor of their cell. “He’s fine. He’ll be fine.”

Pusher sniggered. “Yeah, whatever, mate. He’ll get you sodding killed. Unless you leg it right now.”

Vamps looked back at the people huddled in front of the gate. He winced when he saw one of the demons step forward to grab a young girl—a child—and hoist her up against the shimmering lens.

“Mass, we have to help them, right? Mass?”

“I dunno, man. What can we do? There are a hundred of them monsters there.”

The gate pulsed, and the little girl screamed. The demon holding her pulled out her arm and held it straight. Something glinted in the light and streaked across the poor girl’s flesh. She screamed again and blood jetted out of her wrist. She tried to struggle, but the demon held her in place. Eventually, her struggles weakened, and the only thing holding her on her feet was the demon.

The gate pulsed faster. A bolt of lightning shot out, struck the girl in her chest. She bucked and seized, but then stood straight and shoved aside the demon holding her. The little girl turned around, wickedness glowing in her eyes.

“I think they just possessed her,” said Vamps, feeling sick. “She’s… she’s one of them now. What the fuck?! That’s why they have all those people chained up! They want to possess them!”

“Then we don’t have no choice,” said Mass.

Vamps looked at his friend.

“We have to help those people.”

Vamps grabbed his friend’s hand. They pulled each other close and enjoyed the last moment of peace they might ever get as they were probably about to throw away their lives.

They had no choice.

Vamps turned to get Ginge, to try one more time to talk his friend back to reality, but he was taken by surprise when Pusher grabbed Ginge by the back of the shirt and tossed him into the road. Ginge tripped over his own feet and sprawled against the tarmac. Instinctively, both Vamps and Mass ran to gather him back up, but as they did, Pusher yelled at the top of his lungs, “Hey bitches, enjoy Hell.”

The shout was loud enough to alert the demons at the gate.

Pusher and his two guys legged it into an alleyway and were gone from sight in seconds.

Vamps and Mass tried to pick up Ginge, but he was a dead weight, not even trying to help them by standing. No matter what they did, they could not get him moving. But no way were they leaving him.

Vamps looked at Mass, who looked back at him. Both of them were scared, but neither was about to leave the other. They were family, and that was how brothers on the street lived and died.

“I got your back,” said Mass.

Vamps nodded. “And I got yours, brother.”

They managed to get Ginge to his feet just as the demons surrounded them. At least Vamps had been able to hide his grandfather’s Browning under his t-shirt before they grabbed him.

* * *

W
itnessing
a mass of demons racing through the night towards you is terrifying, it doesn’t matter who you are or how tough you might be. That was why Vamps found himself shaking for the first time in his life.

The burnt men were accompanied by their ape-like companions, and other demons more human—more like greying zombies. There were also a couple of flesh-and-blood human beings, but their eyes were pure Hell. They were possessed.

“You want to fight?” Mass asked, holding Ginge against his big chest so that their friend didn’t see what was coming.

Vamps shook his head. “Not yet. We fight now, we die. Maybe later.”

“Later we’ll probably be dead too.”

“But not for certain. We fight now and it’s certain.”

Mass let his body relax just as the demons fell upon them. Vamps swore as a burnt man clobbered him around the back of the head and shoved him. Before he had chance to shake it off, he was grabbed on either side and restrained. One of the ape-like creatures backhanded him with one of its long, bony arms. Vamps saw stars and went limp as they dragged him away, but turned his head enough to see that Mass and Ginge were being brought along too. Least they were still together.

Being this close to the demons—with them actually touching him—made it hard to breathe. The air was like spoiled fish on a barbecue.

What lay ahead was worse.

Further up Oxford Street, the imposing gate shimmered in all its wretched glory. Before it huddled a mass of frightened people, as many children as adults. Their fear was intoxicating. It made Vamps want to throw up.

“
Sssit down,
” one the demons hissed. Vamps was about to oblige, but the thing hit him in the back of the shoulders. It knocked the wind from his lungs, and he ended up panting on his hands and knees. Mass and Ginge got clobbered too, but Ginge didn’t cry out. He was too far gone to even register pain.

Vamps reached out and touched Ginge’s arm. “Ginge, man. Please!”

One of the demons kicked Vamps in the backside. “Quiet!”

That the demons could speak was frightening. Vamps had considered them monsters until now, but they were more intelligent than that—monsters with an agenda, enemy soldiers that could be cruel and vicious all on their own. They were so confident of their own strength that most of the prisoners weren’t even secured. Their fear kept them in place.

Vamps shuffled up beside his friends and kept his mouth shut. He still had to believe there would be an opening—not just to escape, but to help some of these people. Pusher may have screwed them over, but Vamps was right where he had been intending to be—sat in the road in the heart of the city with his family beside him. If he was going to die, better it be here. If he was going to live, better to fight here.

The demons grabbed a young man—perhaps thirty—and shoved him towards the gate. His screaming face was awash with snot and tears. “Please, I have a family. I have children. I’m a school teacher.”

A burnt man whacked the man in the kidneys and shut him up. Then sliced open his wrist. “You are nothing.”

The gate shimmered and popped.

Another lightning bolt.

It struck the man the same way it had struck the girl. Only a few seconds passed before he turned around and smiled at his comrades. “My brothers!” The school teacher now spoke with a German accent. “My brothers, thank you. I am back in this world of eternal struggle, and I am ready to fight!”

The demons continued their work, shoving people up against the gate and bleeding them. All manner of accents materialised. Vamps heard people change their speech to German, Spanish, French, and many tongues unrecognisable.

Who was possessing these people, and why had they not been able to escape through the gates like the other demons?

The latest possessed soul spoke with an Arabic accent or similar. The young woman in broken spectacles looked bizarre as she spouted off fiercely. “Ha! I stand in their graveyards as I swore to do one day. I topple their towers and ruin their greatest city. I stab fear into their hearts. But I knew nothing of true terror. Now, I will bring this degenerate world to its knees. The Red Lord will reign.”

Mass looked at Vamps and raised an eyebrow. “Man, I think that’s Bin Laden.”

Vamps said nothing to that. It was absurd. So why did he believe it might be true?

The huddle of frightened people grew smaller with each sacrifice, and the buffer between the gate and Vamps reduced. He wanted to help, yet for thirty minutes he sat and did nothing whilst people had their bodies taken over. Soon he, Mass, and Ginge would suffer the same fate. So why wasn’t he doing something?

Because he had absolutely no idea what to do.

He looked at Mass. “I think it’s time to fight.”

“Really? Shall I take the forty demons on my right, and you take the fifty on your left?”

“Maybe these other people will join us if we start something.”

Mass scanned the trembling, white-faced people. “I don’t think so, blud.”

Vamp sighed, nodded, sighed again. “Then I guess this is it. The Brixton Boys’ last stand.”

Mass sighed too. “Time to die?”

“I think so. You got my back?”

Mass punched his palm. “Till the grave, Jamal.”

The mention of his birth name almost wrecked Vamps. Thoughts of his old dear—the only person who called him Jamal—and the friends he had known and lost, made him want to weep. But it also made him angry. Angry that these fucking demons thought they deserved another shot at the world after screwing up the first time round. They belonged in Hell. They had no right to be here.

Vamps nodded at Mass. “Let’s do this.”

“Quiet!” One of the zombie-like demons marched towards them, looking like a middle-aged postal worker with jaundice. Before the demon struck him, Vamps leapt up and head-butted the fucker right in the face. Mass leapt up and grabbed him around the neck before he fell.

Snap!

Mass let the dead demon fall to the ground where its face fell unnaturally to the side on a broken neck.

All Hell broke loose as the remaining survivors screamed and cowered. Some leapt up to join the fight, but not enough. This was a fight they would all die fighting.

Vamps was okay with that.

He pulled out his Browning and popped the nearest burnt man in the head. Then he swivelled and aimed another shot into an ape’s face. The next trigger pull brought the echoing
click
of an empty chamber, so he took down the third demon by smashing the old wooden butt into its face. The scrap of skull between its eyes crumpled and blood filled both eyes.

“Lights out, motherfucker!”

Vamps turned and saw Mass perform a double leg take down, not on a demon but on a gun toting human who was working with the demons. One of Windsors’ men. He knocked the wind out of the son-of-a-bitch and took his pistol. He shoved the muzzle in the guy’s mouth and pulled the trigger without pause. It was messy.

Vamps thought of the rapist he had shot, and froze for a second. Everything around him moved in slow motion, and he wondered if he was paralysed. All sound merged into a single, high-pitched buzz. The only smell was blood.

He was in Hell.

Then he was back.

Back in a world where killing was no longer avoidable.

Mass leapt up and continued firing shots, rounds flying all over the place and striking demons in the kneecaps and arms. One bullet even hit a kid, but there was no time for guilt. These people were dead anyway unless Vamps and Mass somehow pulled off a scene to rival Sparta.

Vamps remembered Ginge and spun around to get him. Surprisingly, the big lad was on his feet. Vamps grabbed him by both arms and looked into his eyes. “Help us, Ginge. Help us get the fuck out of this.”

Ginge stared straight through him. He turned away like he’d just remembered he’d needed to be somewhere. Vamps cursed.

The three or four men who had leapt up to join the fight were now dead—torn to pieces. It had seemed like only thirty-seconds since they had first jumped up. That was how quick it was between a man living and dying in this new world.

But Vamps was still alive, and so were his friends.

Vamps’s focus had still been on Ginge, which led to him being blindsided by a burnt man, but Mass was there to grab the monster in a rear naked choke and pull it away. Vamps stamped on one of its knees to make the struggle a little less strenuous. Mass broke another neck and threw the demon to the ground, but he was tired and panting.

Vamps was tired too.

A hundred demons surrounded them—a giant net closing in. The enemy had stopped rushing in so carelessly though, now approaching slowly and methodically. Vamps smirked that a legion from Hell was being cautious around him and Mass. It was something he could hold on to if this was the moment of his death. He had died as one hard-as-nails motherfucker.