Vampire Apocalypse: A World Torn Asunder (Book 1) (16 page)

That was, of course, before the
serum.

The vampires had introduced the
serum into the food chain, infecting livestock, food-processing and
water sources across the world. The humans never knew what hit
them. In the space of a week the battle was over. Humans lost the
ability to defend themselves and the vampires simply walled off the
cities and carved up the territory between the different clans.

The world as we knew it ended
and it was all because of the contents of this bottle. The thought
burned inside of him, the anger grew until he couldn’t hold it in
any longer. “How can you help them?” he shouted the question and
crossed to where the two white-coated men stood. “Answer me!” he
shouted and lashed out at the bald man.

He had forgotten that he held
the machinegun in his hands and Scott hit the man hard in the
forehead with the barrel. The man flew backward and crashed into
the boxes in the corner. Bottles smashed and the man cried out as
broken glass pierced his skin. Still enraged Scott turned on the
other man who cowered in the corner. He raised the weapon
again.

“Easy,” his brother’s voice cut
through the haze and Scott slowly lowered the weapon. “They’re not
worth it. Let’s get what we came for and get out before someone
comes.”

“I’m afraid it’s way too late
for that.”

The voice came from the doorway
and everyone turned just in time to see the thralls enter the
room.

Chapter 15

“Is that it?” Henshaw asked. He
nodded toward the small townhouse at the end of the street.

The area they were in had been
an exclusive part of the city once. Set some three miles from what
had been the city centre, the area boasted cute, three-storey
houses dotted along a tree-lined manicured green, the perfect,
relaxing environment to go home to after a hard day’s work.

“Yeah,” answered Harris. Henshaw
could see that Harris wasn’t himself. It had taken fifteen minutes
to get here since the initial assault and Harris hadn’t spoken
once.

Group Nero, spread out across
the green, used the trees for cover. The darkness was still dense
enough to cover their approach, but the first tendrils of dawn were
already beginning to make their presence felt on the horizon. Three
thralls patrolled outside Nero’s lair.

“What’s the plan?” Henshaw
turned to Harris.

“Plan?” Harris looked blankly at
Henshaw.

“Are we going to hit front and
back in a coordinated attack or …”

“Nope,” interrupted Harris.

“Then how are we going to get
in?”

“We go straight through the
front door, of course.” With that Harris rose and strode
purposefully toward the house. He reached behind him and brought
his machinegun to bear and let loose a sustained hail of
bullets.

“Harris!” Henshaw shouted. “Wait
you can’t…oh, shit!” He turned to the other team members. “Come on,
we’re committed now. Let’s help the crazy son of a bitch.”

Harris burned with rage. The gun
in his hands jerked violently and a constant stream of bullets
ripped into the three thralls in front of the house. Their bodies
flailed wildly with each impact, and Harris merely walked over the
corpses while he reloaded and then kicked the front door in.

“Harris!” Henshaw shouted and
grabbed him back just as bullets ripped through the air where
Harris had been standing. “Harris!” he shouted again, this time
shaking him violently and forcing the man to face him. “Getting
killed isn’t going to help.” He held Harris tightly in place
despite his struggling. “Snap out of it.”

Harris stared into Handsaw’s
eyes and slowly the bloodlust receded. Bizarrely, he could see a
reflection of his own features in Handsaw’s eyes. The visage
reflecting back at him shocked him so much that he suddenly stopped
struggling. His face was pale, bloodless even. The lack of colour
was further exacerbated by the blackness of his hair, which hung
limp and heavy with sweat.

Is that really me? He thought as
he stared at the reflection. He shook himself and blinked at
Henshaw as if awakening from a dream. “Okay,” he whispered, “I can
manage from here.” Henshaw looked a little dubious at first but
finally let him go, although he did stay close, Harris noted, just
in case.

The sounds of gunfire continued
to reverberate around the two men. More team members joined them by
the door to shelter from the fire that rained down from the upper
storey.

Two of the team lay on the
street, blood pooling around their still bodies.

My fault, Harris thought. The
rage still burned within him, but this time he would control it and
use it to his advantage. He took two grenades from his clip, pulled
the pins and lobbed both through the open door. The explosions
rocked the entire building. Masonry and debris flew out on to the
street.

“Ashley, Kelly, you stay here
and watch our backs. The rest of you follow me.”

The scene that met them when
they entered was one of total devastation. The spacious hall they
entered led to an open living area and kitchen. Furniture lay
strewn about and the bodies of three thralls lay limp and bleeding
over the broken remains.

“You know the drill, guys,”
Harris ordered as he walked through the house. “Check the bodies,
make sure they’re dead. Clean out any others. Three upstairs, four
down here, and the rest of you find that bastard’s coffin.” Harris
snapped out the orders with his usual authority and Henshaw finally
relaxed.

“Are you sure he’s here?”

“He was last night. Most of the
clan set up in large houses with their own grounds. The thralls
patrol during the day, and that’s what made it so easy to track
them. Nero, however, is clever. He set up in an ordinary house
where no one would expect to look. It took us months to find him
and we only stumbled on to this place by pure accident.” Harris
spoke while he walked through the house and tapped the walls to
check for a basement or false panel.

Suddenly terrible screams came
from upstairs. Gunfire erupted and then, just as suddenly, there
was silence. Henshaw started to run for the stairs.

“Wait!” Harris warned. He
crossed to the door and looked out at the sky. “It can’t be a
vampire,” he stated when he saw the bright sky. “Okay, let’s do
this in relays of twos. We’re good for ten minutes before we have
to pull out.” Henshaw grinned at the irony that Harris was now the
one advising caution and then the two of them started up the
stairs.

Once they reached the top of the
first landing the next team leapfrogged past and entered the first
room.

“Clear!” came the shout from
within and the next team kicked in the door of the second room.
They continued until all of the rooms had been searched.

“Okay, next floor,” Harris
ordered.

A dark shape suddenly appeared
on the top landing. Harris caught an impression of fur and teeth
and a smell of decay, and then the shape launched itself down the
stairs. It crashed into Parsons, who had been halfway up the final
stairs, and the two bodies tumbled down to the landing. In the
small second floor area the group were tightly packed together when
the struggling pair came crashing among them. Bodies flew
everywhere like pins in a bowling alley and Parsons screamed
frantically as the creature tore flesh from bone. The screams
stopped suddenly when the creature ripped his throat out, and then
Harris saw the creature turn toward them.

The blood that still spurted
from Parsons” neck drenched the animal’s chest and face. It growled
and pulled back its lips to reveal wickedly sharp teeth that seemed
too large for its mouth. It had once been a large dog, but not
anymore. Its paws had large talons protruding so far out that the
creature rested on their points rather than the paw itself. Harris
saw all this in an instant, and then the creature leapt again. Its
speed was so great that it seemed to simply disappear.

Men started to scatter, but in
the landing’s close confines they merely tripped over each other.
Two fell down the stairs. Harris tripped over the severed arm of
one of his companions and fell backward into one of the bedrooms.
He watched the creature land on top of two other men and then lost
sight of it as he hit the floor. The smell of blood and faeces made
him gag. He clawed his way back to his feet, only to slip again on
the gore that covered the floor. The creature finished gorging on
its latest victim and then, as if on cue, turned to face him.

Harris backed up frantically,
brought his gun to bear and pulled the trigger. He screamed
continually as the gun bucked in his hands, and his finger still
gripped the trigger long after he had run out of bullets. The force
of the shots threw the creature against the far wall, and blood and
gore splattered the surface with sprays of colour. Harris grinned,
his face maniacal with fear, blood and triumph.

The landing area was a charnel
house; bodies and parts of bodies were everywhere. Harris couldn’t
even make out the number of dead in the pale light. Just then the
creature stirred and, with a shake of its head, stood up. It was
covered in blood, but its wounds were already closing as he
watched. Its eyes were deep red and it glared at Harris.

“Jesus!” Harris gasped and
backed away further. His foot caught on one of the bodies and he
tripped, falling back helplessly as he flailed wildly for something
to grab onto. His hands brushed material, the drape, and he grabbed
it with all his might to avoid falling. He seemed to hang
precariously, as if time itself had stopped, and he thought for a
moment that he would be able to steady himself when the creature
suddenly sprang into the air and crashed heavily into his chest and
sent them both sprawling to the ground. In all the confusion Harris
had somehow maintained his grip on the drape as he fell and the
material ripped along the rod and dropped heavily to the floor.
Light suddenly burst into the room and Harris was forced to shut
his eyes. The creature, however, recoiled and yelped with pain as
the light washed over it.

Harris was on his back, looking
straight up at the thing. Its flesh contracted over the bone and
wisps of smoke appeared all over its body. The creature swung its
head frantically from side to side; its teeth passing inches from
Harris” face but it seemed oblivious to his presence. Harris was
too afraid to move in case his movement attracted the thing’s
attention but if he stayed where he was he could be torn to shreds
with one brush from those teeth. Harris tried to think but the
teeth flashing before him seemed to scatter his thoughts. The
creature continued to howl as its flesh began to crack and melt in
the bright sunlight and then everything went black.

“Harris!” He heard the shout,
but it sounded far off at first. He tried to open his eyes but he
couldn’t see anything.

“Harris!” It was closer this
time, but still faint. He felt hands claw at him, a veil seemed to
lift from his eyes, and then he saw Henshaw.

“Christ you’re a mess.” Henshaw
smiled down at him and wiped the ichor that had been covering
Harris” eyes. The smell hit him then and he nearly passed out from
the stench.

“What was that thing?” Harris
asked.

“Fucking vicious is what it
was,” Henshaw quipped and helped Harris to stand up. “I managed to
shoot it in the head but I don’t know if it was the bullet or the
sunlight that killed it to be honest.” Harris tried to speak but
the horrors of the last few minutes were still too raw in his mind
and he merely nodded his thanks and patted Henshaw on the shoulder.
He looked around the room and blanched at the scenes that met his
gaze.

“How many?” he finally managed
and his voice cracked with emotion.

“We’ve got four dead here and
two outside,” Henshaw dropped his head. “Kelly and Ashley are still
on guard out front.”

“Come on, we have to finish
this.”

The two men slowly ascended the
stairs, their bodies tense, and ready to react to the slightest
movement. On the third level hall they found more carnage.

I didn’t even know their names,
Harris thought as he made his way through the gore. “Be careful,”
he whispered, “there might be another one of those creatures.”

Of the three rooms on the last
floor, the first two turned up empty. The two men were petrified,
their clothes were soaked with sweat and their hearts hammered in
their chests. Harris pointed to the last door and both men prepared
to enter. Henshaw put up three fingers and began to count down by
closing each one in turn. On the last count both men kicked the
door and barged into the room.

“At last,” Henshaw whispered.
The coffin was in the middle of the otherwise empty room. Both men
relaxed visibly as they approached the casket. They had finally
made it. Henshaw ripped at the drapes covering the only window in
the room and almost laughed as the material fell to the ground and
the sunlight flooded the room. Both men seemed to take strength
from the clean warmth that seemed to banish any lingering evil in
the room. They nodded to each other and gripped the lid at each
end. The two men, covered in blood and dust, smiled at each other
in triumph despite their ordeal. They lifted the cover up, sent it
crashing to the floor and looked down.

Empty.

“Bollocks!” Harris swore and
then noticed a blinking LED screen at the far end of the
coffin.

“Oh, Shit.” Henshaw saw the box
at the same time, then saw the display.

5 Seconds.

Harris knew they wouldn’t make
it down the stairs. He sprinted toward Henshaw, caught the other
man in a low tackle, and continued on to crash through the window
behind him. The two men flew through the air just before the room
exploded. Dust and debris flew after them as they plummeted the
three stories to the garden below.