Trail of Tears (19 page)

Carter watched his men approach the wrecks
cautiously and forced himself not to fidget. He had briefly toyed
with the idea of letting his men find any traps the quickest way,
by setting them off, but there was still a long way to go and he
might run dangerously low on troops by the time the others caught
up. Besides, if they thought he was looking out for them they would
obey his orders without thinking when that blind obedience might be
needed.

“You were right, sir.” One of the thralls
waved his hand and brought in the experts to disarm the device.
Carter felt his heart begin to pound in his chest. The fact that
there were traps at all confirmed that the humans had set them.
What would Nero’s forces need booby traps for? He watched his men
slowly disable the bomb and then grind the wrecks to the side
impassively, but inside he urged them to hurry. Something was
surely happening somewhere in this city. Something that the humans
thought important enough to set crude traps in order to slow him
down, but why had they not set up an ambush as well? He forced
himself to remain calm but he felt his heart thump in his chest. He
was so close.

He indicated for the truck behind him to
pull ahead and take point. If there was a second trap, more
cunningly hidden, then he would allow his men to discover the
threat. After all, there was only so far he would go to protect his
thralls.

* * *

Tanya Syn watched the plume of the
approaching vehicles as the knot of anxiety in her stomach twisted
another notch. The patrol was later today and already the light was
bleeding from the sky.

“I don’t like it,” she heard Josh
mutter.

“Maybe they’re trying to throw us off by
mixing up the schedule,” she heard John Hammond whisper, though why
he was whispering was beyond her. The patrol was still miles
away.

There were twenty one of them in total on
this raid. Most of them were well armed with an assortment of
weapons they had picked up from their previous raids. They had
plenty of ammunition but little in the way of heavy ordinance. But
it was skill that they were most lacking in. The men who sat ready
to take out the thralls were ordinary people. None had military
training that she knew of. The oldest among them was fifty-four and
the youngest a mere seventeen. It wasn’t that they could not handle
their weapons, of course. Most had owned guns before the fall of
civilization so they could all shoot to a certain standard, but
none of them could plan these sorts of operations with any real
conviction. Even Josh was just feeling his way.

It had seemed common sense to put men on
each side to catch the thralls in crossfire. However, there was
also the risk that they might hit each other as the thralls spread
out after the initial engagement. Josh had warned everyone to keep
their fire low and not to follow targets blindly up the slopes
where their fellow attackers were. But in the heat of battle
anything could happen.

Her eyes strayed to the road. This time they
had chosen a stretch of road on a slight bend. There weren’t a lot
of places to attack such a patrol, a fact the thralls were only too
aware of as well. They couldn’t attack too close to either camp or
they would risk reinforcements catching them before they could get
away. But, the further they allowed the patrol to travel the longer
it took them to get back to the safety of their caves. Added to
their problems was the terrain itself. It was pretty flat. The
thralls tended to travel along open stretches of road where they
could see as much around them as possible. Their route changed each
time but Josh had managed to limit their options by closing some
routes with rotting vehicles or digging up the surface. The trick,
he had told her, was to try and make each new collapse appear as
natural as possible. There were effectively five routes still open
between the camps. Three of them had to be chosen early on in the
journey and then it was blind luck if they set up in the right
place for the last two.

Today they had chosen the right route and
they had prepared the road.

They weren’t all here for her, she knew. The
supply patrol was their only source of food. There was some
wildlife in the area but they hadn’t managed to catch any as yet.
There were no crops either. No one had tilled the soil around the
city for years and, even if they had, the ground was covered in
snow so nothing could grow. The only sources of food were the crops
grown by the humans in the camps outside the city. They were
heavily guarded so, until they could swell their numbers by a large
margin, attacking such a camp was impossible. Even if they had the
numbers they couldn’t take or hope to hold such a camp. There was
no way they could fight off the vampires if they knew where they
were.

Until they could come up with their own food
source these patrols were the only answer. She knew that she was
taking food from the other humans in the thrall camp, making their
lives even more miserable, but if they didn’t pull some of the
guards away from the main camp they would have no hope of freeing
the remaining captives.

“Could be, Ham,” she started as Josh
answered but his tone belied his agreement. He looked up at the
sky. “It’ll be dark in a half hour. The patrol will take twenty
minutes to get to us. That leaves us only ten minutes to take it
out and get to safety.”

Tanya sat and forced herself to stay silent.
She wanted to attack the patrol, despite the risk. It was the only
way to pull the resources from the main camp and allow them a
chance of freeing Mark. But she hadn’t earned the right after her
previous behaviour so she kept silent, the anxiety in her stomach
growing more painful.

Josh sighed and she could tell he wasn’t
happy with his decision.

“Take your places. We hit hard and fast.
Remember, three round bursts. Don’t waste ammunition.” His voice
carried easily to the others huddled in their positions.

* * *

The lead truck was a large Dodge with more
rust than the original blue on its surface. Heavy sheets of metal
were strapped to its grill and its sides and Tanya could hear the
engine labouring under the added weight. Two thralls sat in the
front and five others in the bed behind them. The truck was
followed by three large vans with their windows boarded up. Behind
them there were three other assorted vehicles with at least another
nine thralls sitting in various positions. A tenth thrall manned a
large .50 calibre machine gun mounted on the truck directly behind
the vans.

Her eyes strayed back towards the vans.
Something was nagging at her that she couldn’t quite bring to her
conscious mind. Something about the vans…

She felt a cold hand grip her heart as it
suddenly struck her. She reached out to Josh, to call off the
attack but the signal had already been given and she saw the
grenades already flying towards the lead vehicle.

“The third Van...” she shouted and Josh
looked over towards her. “The lead van isn’t as low to the ground,”
she managed before the grenades exploded and the Dodge lifted into
the air and tumbled three or four times before finally coming to a
halt blocking the narrow road. For a moment a silence descended
upon them that was eerie, and then the heavy chatter of the .50
calibre boomed into life and it was already too late. They were
committed.

* * *

Josh looked at Tanya as she screamed
something but the noise of the heavy machine gun was too loud.
Something about the height of the van he thought she had said. He
looked along the line of vehicles as fire erupted from everywhere.
He should be adding his fire to the chaos but something about the
look on Tanya’s face stayed his hand.

The first two vans looked normal enough,
though the blackened windows were new. Both vans rode low to the
ground. The third van, though, rode higher than the others. A lot
higher. As if it was empty.

“Oh shit,” he cursed as he looked from the
van to the darkening sky. “They wouldn’t …”

He began to pour fire on the thralls when he
saw them make a break for cover. They had to retreat. If Tanya was
right they would all be torn apart.

“Tanya, get the others and pull back.”

She nodded quickly and began to shake the
shoulders of the men firing down at the convoy. He could see them
look at her with confusion and more than a little anger but she
stood her ground and pulled them back from the main line.

The sudden reduction in fire allowed the
thralls to advance and Josh paled as he saw the line of thralls
move quickly towards him. He plucked a grenade and threw it. He saw
the thralls throw themselves to the ground and then they laughed as
the grenade went high over them. They rose quickly, encouraged by
his inaccuracy and Josh fired, taking two of them out before the
others made it safely to cover just below him. The grenade blew as
it rolled under the last van. The explosion blew the back doors off
and lifted the vehicle up a foot or so before it slammed back
down.

Some of the metal around the door had peeled
back from the blast but the main body of the van was undamaged.
Gunfire continued from the far side but the vehicles were in the
way. There wasn’t any help coming from that quarter. There was
still enough light coming from the dipping sun to hurt the vampire
he was certain was inside the van but the creature only had to wait
a little longer. He had to do something.

He had one grenade left but it would be a
hell of a throw to get the grenade into the van from here,
especially with the .50 calibre tearing up the ground around him.
The first of the thralls suddenly appeared over the lip of the rise
and he blew its head off with a sustained burst. His shock had kept
his finger on the trigger and the weapon clicked empty as another
thrall appeared. He automatically removed the cartridge and was
already reaching for another, but he knew there was no time. He
tightened his stomach muscles waiting for impact when the thrall
suddenly jerked as three bullets tore into its chest.

“Remember, three round bursts,” Tanya
mimicked his own gruff admonishment from earlier and he was too
relieved to argue. He reloaded and together they poured fire into
the last two thralls coming over the lip. The heavy chatter from
the .50 calibre finally stopped and he realised he could hear
again.

“The others are gone on. We should get the
others,” Tanya said and was already moving past him before he could
argue. He shook his head as he leaned down and stripped a grenade
from the thrall’s body and then followed her.

There were thrall bodies everywhere and he
could see five of his team moving from cover, whooping in joy at
another successful raid. One of the men, Al Reid, came towards him
with his hand raised for a high five salute. Josh ran past him,
pulling the pin on the grenade and throwing it into the van. The
explosion was muffled by the walls of the van and his team looked
at him in confusion.

“Get out of here,” he shouted and they
stared at him as if he had gone mad. “Go,” he screamed. “There’s a
fucking vampire in there.” That hit a chord and the men moved
quickly. Slowing only to help any wounded. For a moment the side of
the road fell into silence and he hoped that the grenade had been
enough.

It hadn’t.

The right side of the van suddenly peeled
back like paper and a vampire stood looking out. His clothes were
ruined and the flesh on his face and hands was shredded, though the
wounds did not bleed. The vampire looked uncertainly at the fading
light. Thin tendrils of smoke spiralled from the creature’s face as
the weak sun burnt the exposed skin, but it wasn’t strong enough to
give him pause. The vampire smiled and its teeth looked like those
of a shark.

There was a loud ratchetting sound and the
creature looked around to see Tanya pull back the slide on the .50
calibre. The noise was impossibly loud and Josh cringed as he felt
the throb beat at him. The heavy bullets struck the vampire before
he could move and each round tore chunks from the creature and sent
it reeling back into the ruined van. The vampire struggled to rise
but Tanya held the weapon steady. She looked tiny up there in the
bed of the truck and she shook with the recoil of the weapon but,
somehow, she managed to keep the weapon trained on the
creature.

For a moment Josh felt hope surge in his
chest but almost as soon as the feeling grew the gun stuttered and
died. He saw Tanya struggle to clear a blockage but the casings
were too hot to touch and she was slapping at the mechanism
furiously. The vampire was getting to its feet. It looked shocked
from the damage it had sustained but the flesh was already healing.
Josh saw it stand and then, suddenly, it was beside Tanya. She
yelped and the creature slapped her from the bed of the truck and
she fell awkwardly to the ground.

Josh ran towards her firing his XM8 as he
ran but the creature had already moved again and his bullets flew
wild. Suddenly Josh ran into the vampire. They were so damn fast.
The vampire merely looked at him and grunted in amusement.

“Is this it?” It hissed through the mess of
teeth and ruined flesh. “This is the pathetic resistance that I had
been sent to destroy. Where are the others? There must be more of
you.”

Josh felt the creature’s hands grip him
around the throat but it was the smell of decay that made him
retch. Bile surged up his throat but couldn’t clear his constricted
neck and it was forced back down. His lungs tried desperately to
suck air but nothing came. He felt his head swim and consciousness
began to slip away.

He thought he heard something loud but
couldn’t be sure. Suddenly his throat was free and bile spewed out.
His lungs immediately sucked in air but some of the bile came with
it and he fell to his knees coughing and trying to breathe. He
looked up to see the vampire spin to the side with a large hole in
its stomach. The bullets might not kill the bastards but each wound
hurt them and the vampire screamed in pain and rage.