Vampire Apocalypse: A World Torn Asunder (Book 1) (9 page)

The vampires recovered quickly
though. Harrington saw one of them grab the captain and shake him
violently. Harrington couldn’t hear what was said, but the vampire
screamed at the thrall and gesticulated at the burning buildings.
The captain seemed to recover and gathered some thralls to
investigate. Harrington took all this in from his position in the
west tower and then aimed his crossbow at his target.

Bill Anderson saw his first shot
bury itself in a vampire’s chest. The creature howled and Anderson
thought his ears would burst. Blood sprayed from the creature’s
chest and splashed the poor wretches around him. The vampire flayed
about trying to grab the quarrel but it was too far imbedded. The
creature howled in frustration and it dug its talons into its flesh
as he tried to remove the source of its agony. Thralls rushed to
help the vampire, but the creature was so frenzied with pain that
it lashed out and its razor sharp talons tore them apart. Some of
the thralls screamed and fell to the ground holding bleeding limbs,
while others backed away until, finally, the creature
collapsed.

Anderson took aim at a second
creature, but his eyes could not match the speed with which it
moved. One minute it was 10 feet away and the next it had torn the
crossbow from his grip. Anderson smelled the foetid breath and
offered up a final prayer when, suddenly, the creature jerked
upright and collapsed at his feet. Anderson stared unbelievably at
the corpse and then noticed the quarrel sticking from its back. He
looked up to see Sarah Harrington in the East tower and waved
briefly, but she had already reloaded and moved on to her next
target.

Anderson shook himself, looked
around, and then dove to the ground as bullets shredded the air
where he had stood. He rolled to where his crossbow had fallen,
reloaded and once again joined the fray.

Harris watched the chaos from
the motor pool. Six vampires were dead and twenty or so thralls
were either dead or injured, not counting those in the barracks.
Quite a few of them had died in the confusion created by their own
masters” over-reacting. The vampires were creatures secure in their
strength and they had been taken completely by surprise. They had
not reacted very well and that played into the rebels” hands.
Harris saw the captain of the guard gather up five thralls and
approach the burning buildings behind him. Harris has intentionally
positioned himself with his back to the flames so that anyone
approaching him would be facing the fierce light of the flames and
would be blinded on their approach. When the thralls came level
with his position, he lit the trail he had laid earlier and ducked
low behind the vehicles to exit out the back of the motor pool.

Seconds later another round of
explosions ripped through the night. One after another the
explosions continued as cars and trucks were thrown high in the air
with awesome force. The captain stopped his patrol, shocked by the
unexpected blast. Within seconds shrapnel from the machinery flew
outward and shredded them to pieces.

Johnson was having trouble
picking out a target. The vampires were too fast that as soon as he
lined up they had moved on again. To complicate matters further the
prisoners were trying to get to safety, but their drugged bodies
were so slow that they only got in the way. He watched in horror as
one of the creatures stopped and savagely ripped the throat of a
helpless prisoner. Johnson shouted with rage and pulled the trigger
on his crossbow. The quarrel caught the vampire in the chest and
buried itself deep into its heart. The creature went down
screaming, but Johnson had no time to gloat.

Suddenly machineguns roared and
bullets tore into the prisoners all around him. The thralls had
recovered from their initial shock and, unlike Johnson and his
colleagues, they didn’t care who they hit with their fire.

Johnson dived for cover and
cried out with pain as a bullet ripped into his shoulder. He cursed
his luck; that made two bullets in as many days. All around him
bodies danced grotesquely as bullets pumped into the unfortunate
prisoners. Johnson ignored the pain in his shoulder and groped for
a grenade at his belt. He pulled the pin and threw it at the
largest group of thralls. He didn’t wait to see the result, but
instead continued to pull grenades from his belt and throw them
until all four explosives were gone.

When the rage had subsided he
looked around and frowned at the silence that had descended. Most
of the thralls were dead, their bodies mangled by the force of the
explosions, but some still stood. Bullets ripped into the ground
all around him, but there was no sound.

I’ve gone deaf, he thought, and
looked about him, seeing people run, fall and die in total silence.
Everything seemed to move much slower than normal.

And then everything went black.
I’ve gone blind, he thought frantically. But then the darkness
moved and he looked up to see a vampire looming over him. He felt
the teeth bite deeply into his neck and rip the flesh. The pain was
ferocious and then he felt the warmth of his own blood as it poured
down his neck and chest. He could hear a sickening slurping sound
as the vampire fed. He struggled frantically but the creature had a
firm grip on him and seemed not to notice his furious kicking. He
felt his strength begin to ebb away and it became harder and harder
to resist. He had so wanted to kill more of them he thought weakly
as his head swam with the loss of blood. The creature suddenly
stopped and drew him level as he looked at him. The creature’s face
was covered in blood, his blood, and it pulled its lips back in a
grotesque parody of a grin as it mocked him. The last thing Johnson
saw was the creature’s look of triumph freeze as he pulled the
trigger for the last time and sent the bolt deep into its black
heart.

“Ten of the clan dead!” Nero
stared at the chaos around him. “And by mere mortals. Impossible.”
Then the realisation hit him. “The cameras! The cattle will
see.”

Bullets flew everywhere, but it
was the wooden bolts that sent icy fingers of fear through him.
They may be far faster and more powerful than the humans but if
those bolts struck them in their hearts they would die as easily as
the humans. He sent out a high-pitched scream, inaudible to human
ears, and gathered the other vampires to him. He pointed at the
towers around the compound and the group took to the air. Nero
strode over to the camera, killing anyone in his way regardless of
whether they were thrall or prisoner. The heady scent of blood
filled the air and the lust pulled hard at him, enticing him to
abandon all reason and gorge himself on those around him. But he
knew that would be the way to death. First he had to deal with
those humans in the towers. Then he could feed.

Once the camera had been
destroyed he changed and took to the air.

Kelly felt his heart quicken
when he saw the vampires change and take to the air. He gripped the
axe tighter, raised it above his head and brought it down savagely
to cut through the taught rope. The branch that had been held in
place by the rope snapped back with ferocious force and sent a hail
of sharpened stakes into the air toward the vampires.

Nero screamed in agony as a
stake ripped through his left wing. The rest of the group was above
him, and he saw the hail of stakes pass through them moments later.
Four vampires dropped like stones ahead of him. Stakes covered
their bodies and they changed as they fell to the ground. Three
others staggered as they began to lose height and spiral downward.
Nero himself began to falter as incredible pain shot through his
own wound. The area around the injury stung savagely and he knew
that the humans had used silver coating on the stakes. The wound
would never truly heal and the pain would serve to remind him of
his carelessness for eternity.

He looked up and saw the
remaining members of the clan fly through to safety. He called to
them to abort the attack on the towers. They were too few in number
now to continue here tonight. He took one more look below at the
camp. Fires raged out of control and bodies littered the ground.
>From below, the sounds of cheering filled the night.

“Celebrate for now!” he said. “I
misjudged you once. Next time I will be ready and I’ll feed on your
bones.”

With that he looked for his
companions and limped after them.

Chapter 8

The compound resembled a scene
from Dante’s Inferno. Bodies littered the ground and moans filled
the air as Harris walked through the carnage. The many fires that
still burned throughout the camp illuminated the true horror of
what had happened. In the centre of the camp he could see Sandra
Harrington and Scott Anderson helping the survivors into waiting
trucks.

“We all set?” Harris asked. He
was shocked at how tired Sandra looked. Her face was drawn and her
eyes had retreated deep into their sockets. The strain of the last
few months had really taken their toll.

“These are the last,” Sandra
replied and smiled weakly. “Scott and I will travel with this lot
and we’ll meet up with John at the transfer point. We’re due to
meet Pritchard there. He and I will lead them to the Cave while the
others dump the trucks.”

Harris went over the plan in his
mind and nodded. They had prepared their new home as best they
could for the influx of guests and they were as ready as they would
ever be. They had hoarded as much food and blankets as they could
over the last few months. Water wouldn’t be a problem due to an
underground spring.

To call it a cave was a
misconception though. The facility was actually built half over and
half underground. Pritchard had found the complex about two months
before while scouting the area and they had planned for this day
ever since. It consisted of a two-storey brick building above
ground that stood within a walled enclosure on five acres. There
were two more levels below ground, cut into the bedrock itself.

The Cave was situated ten miles
from the city at the foot of a large hill and was surrounded by
forest behind and to the east of the complex. A small river ran
from the forest all along the west side of the complex, and a dirt
road ran from the front of the building in a winding route to the
main road. The rooms below ground were grey, lab-like and cold, and
it was this that led the group to dub it the Cave. No one knew why
it had been built, but it was generally assumed to have been
military in nature.

“Okay, take care and watch for
patrols. We can’t let them find the Cave.”

Sandra Harrington smiled. This
time it reached her eyes for a brief moment and her whole face
brightened. “Don’t worry, we’ll be careful,” she said, and then
touched his arm gently before she jumped into the back of the
truck.

Harris watched until the vehicle
disappeared from view and then turned back to the carnage.

“Harris!”

The shout exploded across the
courtyard and shattered the relative silence in the enclosure.
Harris snapped his head toward the sound and saw John Stone
gesticulating madly over by the armoury building. He broke into a
run and, on arrival, was all but dragged around to the back of the
building.

“Quick, follow me. You’ll never
believe what we found.” Stone pulled Harris behind him and then
suddenly stopped in front of the back door. He gestured for Harris
to precede him into the building. Harris was amused, but he moved
past Stone and entered the building only to stop dead in shock.

Lying on the ground in the
middle of the room was a vampire.

Planks of wood and pieces of
mortar surrounded the creature from where he had crashed through
the roof. His body was pin-cushioned with stakes from the surprise
aerial attack, but none had pierced his heart. Normally a vampire
would be able to survive such an attack and walk, if not actually
fly, away, but the group had long ago learned a few tricks when
dealing with vampires. All the stakes were tipped with silver,
which seemed to act as a poison to the vampires. While it didn’t
kill them, it rendered the area around the wound immune to the
vampires’ virulent healing abilities. This resulted in a wound that
never fully closed and caused constant pain.

This vampire, however, was going
nowhere. Harris counted seven stakes from where he stood, and he
could see the creature was in terrible pain. The vampire could
barely move as the silver coursed through its body and fought and
easily overcame its immune system, if the number of open and
suppurating wounds on its body were any indication.

“Get a container and soak up as
much of that blood as you can so we can test it later!” Harris
shouted the order while his mind raced with the possibilities. “We
might find something that’ll kill these bastards without having to
face them directly.”

They had been trying for months
to get fluids from the vampires but once dead, the creatures'
fluids tended to reduce to a sizzling goo that proved useless for
analysis. Nobody in their right minds approached a vampire that was
not dead, so this was the first chance they’d had to get a live
creature’s blood.

“What do we do with him when we
get the sample?” Stone asked.

Harris looked up at the
brightening sky. “Leave him to enjoy the sunrise.”

Harris left the armoury
building. Most of the group was gone and an eerie stillness hung
heavily in the air. The stench of fuel and burnt flesh hung over
the whole complex like a blanket and Harris” throat was brittle as
he called at those remaining.

“Come on, hurry up. We’ve got to
go before those bastards get here.”

The group’s plan allowed for
twenty minutes between the first shot and the first response from
the nearest thrall base in the city. Seventeen minutes had already
lapsed and it was past time to be gone. In the middle of the
courtyard Harris saw a hunched figure he recognized as Dan
Harrington. He walked over.