Vampire Apocalypse: Descent Into Chaos (Book 2) (5 page)

Rodgers caught his eye and Harris couldn’t help
feeling better, despite his own nervousness. Rodgers had an
infectious, happy-go-lucky attitude that never failed to cheer
everyone around him. It wasn’t that the man was too stupid to be
nervous or even scared so badly that he was demented; it was just
that Rodgers accepted whatever fate could throw at him. He would do
his best to come back alive, but if he fell then there was no point
in worrying about it—although Rodgers had been unusually quiet of
late and the grin on his face looked forced. Harris made a note to
himself to have a talk with him to make sure everything was okay
when he had the chance. Things had been so busy since they’d
emerged from their old head quarters that no one had time to talk
things through.

Steele sat on his left and alternated between
checking the guards’ positions and confirming Sherman’s route.
Steele was an enigma to Harris. He was a fantastic asset, there was
nobody he would rather have with him in a firefight—the man was
incredible. He could move like a ghost and his ideas and strategies
for their upcoming campaigns were brilliant. He understood exactly
how the enemy thought and how they were deployed. He had moved
freely between many communities during his service to the vampires
and had seen the different ethics of each community; he was simply
invaluable.

It had been Steele’s idea to get each of the cabals
to fight each other and make their job easier as they consolidated
their own position. But, at the end of the day, he had also
callously worked against his own kind until recently. Could he
really trust Steele? What would it take for him to change sides
again? On a personal note, Harris really liked Steele. The man was
quiet, but despite what he had done over the last two years, he
seemed to have a strong moral code. He did not use his strength or
position to demand favoritism for better quarters, food or
supplies. He attended all the meetings but didn’t enforce his will
on others. He stated what they should do and why, he would argue
his point sure enough, but not aggressively and had always accepted
strategies that did not agree with his own.

Outside of training, he kept to himself, and most of
the people who knew of him kept their distance. They were pleased
that he had helped them, but they were slow to give him their
trust. Steele seemed to accept this, though Harris had argued with
his colleagues relentlessly that they could not have survived
without his help and that he deserved better. People tended to
shrug and promise much, though things always seemed to go back to
normal as soon as Harris moved away. Steele had, however, seemed to
have formed a bond with one survivor.

The fledgling community still did not have a reliable
system for keeping track of all those awakened—there were just so
many after they had liberated Nero’s city. So it was possible that
families still had loved ones alive and well but in a different
area, though at this stage it was increasingly unlikely that anyone
who had not found their family or friends would do so now.

Still there were many lost souls in their community,
people who wandered the corridors searching for loved ones in the
hope that they would just bump into them. One such soul was a small
girl of around fourteen called April. She was mute, and as no one
could sign, she was reduced to carrying a pad on which she would
write her questions to everyone she met about her family. It was
generally accepted that her family were dead, but the girl
continued to search regardless and everyone was so busy rebuilding
the community that no one really had time to sit her down and
explain the situation. Steele, though, had made a huge effort and
had spent a lot of time helping the girl search. The two had become
a familiar sight as they passed between the numerous buildings that
made up their new hub.

There had been many who whispered about sexual
perversion and questioned Steele’s motives, and Harris was
embarrassed to admit that the thought had crossed his own mind
briefly, but he was certain now that there was nothing to it, just
two lonely people who didn’t have anybody else and were comfortable
with each other’s silence. Harris had talked to Sandra about April
and her unhealthy search for a family that was quite probably dead,
but she had smiled at him and told him that both April and Steele
had stopped searching quite some time ago, soon after they had
found each other, in fact. Now they were just happy to be doing
something with someone who cared.

Whatever else he might do, Harris was convinced that
Steele would never let anything harm April and he was prepared to
accept the man at face value until he gave him a reason not to. He
looked at his watch—there were still a few minutes yet…

“Shit,” Steele muttered as he heard the crackle of
gunfire. “That’s too soon, something’s gone wrong.” He fixed the
others with a level stare. “We’ll have to go anyway.”

He didn’t wait for their reply; really, they didn’t
have a choice. They were committed now.

Steele launched himself out of the protection of the
slope and weaved his way towards the town in a low crouch. He kept
his eyes on the guards ahead and his gun pointed at the closest,
ready to shoot but holding fire until the last possible moment.
There was still a huge advantage to keeping their attack on this
side of the town as quiet as they could until they were in
position, despite the noise coming from Sherman’s men. The guards
may not be patrolling the fort’s battlements at this time, but, if
the guards made it to those fortified positions before they managed
to get closer, then they would be torn to pieces.

This was a small garrison town but the number of
guards was inordinately large due to the nature and size of their
charges. Steele had passed through this town on his way to crush
the human resistance months ago and had noted at the time how
critical its supplies were. On his way here he had crossed many
states, and it had been a struggle to obtain the fuel he needed to
get to his destination. Fuel was a rare commodity and he would have
had no chance of getting any amount without the papers from Von
Richelieu himself ordering all parties to provide any and all
assistance to him.

Even with those papers, most towns could only afford
small amounts, just enough to get him to the next town. Here,
though, it seemed they had fuel to spare and he had obtained almost
a half tank when he had promised that he would put in a good word
for the camp’s officers with Von Richelieu on his next visit.
Steele had spent a little time poking around while his bike was
being fuelled and had seen the sheer volume of this cabal’s fuel
wealth. If the council knew just how much fuel Von Kruger was
hoarding they would commandeer a fair amount of it for their own
purposes.

That was why Steele wanted to start here. Von Kruger
could not really complain if fuel—that should not really exist in
the first place—was stolen. But he would retaliate with a fury born
of deep insult and grave loss. Just what they wanted him to do.

Steele wrenched his mind back to the present and
threw himself flat as the first of the guards finally looked up and
saw him. He fired as he lurched forward and saw the guard stagger
back as his three-round burst took him in the chest in a staccato
motion. The guard’s own shots cut the air where Steele had been
only moments before. It was a mistake to think that, just because
they were lazy, that the thralls were not well trained. They were
in mortal fear of their masters and trained hard to show them that
they should retain their master’s favor. Their enhanced strength
and reactions were also far in excess of anything that humans could
hope to attain. In fact, the only thing that gave humans any chance
at all was the fact that the guards had had nothing to do for
almost two years and had grown complacent.

Once they woke up to the danger it would be much
harder to fight them. Of course, by that stage, they would be
killing each other.

Hopefully.

Steele rolled as he hit the ground and came up firing
at the guard beside the one he had killed. The XM8 Heckler and Koch
bucked in his hands but the gas-powered action used to eject the
spent cartridge and chamber the next one was far less violent than
the recoil system employed by older models. The three-round burst
took the thrall in a neat pattern in the chest, slamming hard into
his heart and tearing the muscle to shreds. The thrall dropped to
the ground without firing a shot.

Steele liked the new XM8, despite what the US
military might have thought of the weapon before the vampires came.
It was shorter than the old M16, but its special rifling meant that
it lost no velocity. It used standard 5.56 NATO rounds, so they
would have no trouble finding ammunition, and it came with an
option of a 30 or 100 round magazines, so even their less accurate
men would have to hit something.

It was light too. He was still surprised at how
people who had never before fired a machine gun always seemed to
say that it was heavier then they thought it would be. What did
they expect? Anyway, the XM8 was as light as they come, and it also
came with some very cool extras like laser sights and a single
shot, under-barrel grenade launcher, for those who wanted to make
more of a mess.

Steele had found a cache of the weapons, still in
their boxes and destined to be returned to the factory. Steele was
well aware of the history of the gun and the political reasons why
it was never adopted by the military in pre-war America. He,
though, had been delighted to get them as it made those people who
could not really handle the weight and recoil of the other weapons
they had far more useful.

A round passed close by his face and he shook
himself. This wasn’t the time for daydreaming. He lowered his hand
to the under-barrel and braced himself as the grenade launched from
the weapon. Three thralls were sent into the air like dolls cast
carelessly aside only to land in shattered heaps on the ground.
Steele chambered another round and then returned to firing
three-burst rounds at the thralls that poured from the
barracks.

Harris weaved his way towards the main fuel depot,
alert for any movement ahead. He ignored the barracks, trusting
that Tanner and Steele would take care of any resistance from that
area. He trusted also that Rodgers was still with him but didn’t
take the time to check; he either was or he wasn’t—it was too late
to abort now, anyway.

Bullets whizzed past him, one snatching at his jacket
and scoring a shallow graze along his arm. Pain knifed through him
and he felt something warm spread along his arm. He threw himself
down and fired blindly in the direction of the shots. He crawled
towards a small ditch to the side of the road but the level of fire
increased around him and forced him to stop and try and bury
himself as far into the ground as he could. Dirt shot upwards in
small plumes as each round sought him out but there was nowhere to
go.

He wasn’t going to make it. He tried to crawl back
but the bullets began to stitch across the ground, tracking him
relentlessly. He only had seconds before the line reached him but
he couldn’t see anywhere to take cover. The bullets were only
inches from him when, suddenly, they stopped. For a brief moment
silence reigned and Harris watched in shocked relief as the small
cloud of dust from the last impact settled gently back to the
ground. He looked up tentatively.

Nothing.

He couldn’t see the thrall who had been shooting at
him but there was no answering fire when he lifted his head either.
He looked back and saw Rodgers behind him. He looked as confused as
Harris was. He heard a distant boom, a much deeper sound than the
normal popcorn-like crackle of gunfire that came from where Sherman
and the others were. The sound seemed to reverberate through the
valley like rolling thunder and he suddenly made the connection.
Warkowski and Dee were on the ball. He forced himself up and ran
towards the wall surrounding the fuel depot and flattened himself
against it as he waited on Rodgers to join him.

He peered around the corner and pulled backwards
quickly as bullets thumped into the wall and sprayed shards of rock
into his face.

“I can see one of them behind a rusted truck on the
right but I can’t see the other one!” he shouted to Rodgers over
the noise of the guards’ fire. “You take left and I’ll go
right.”

He looked at his companion and saw him nod his
understanding. Harris slid the loading mechanism back and then
forward for the grenade launcher to lock a shell in place and
turned back to the edge of the wall. He snapped his head round the
corner, pulled the trigger and jumped back behind the wall as more
bullets thumped into the wall. He heard the deep thump of the
exploding grenade and then launched himself around the wall again.
Bullets spat around him, causing the ground to erupt in small
plumes of dry dust as he ran. Behind him he heard Rodgers grunt but
there wasn’t time to check on him.

The rusted hulk of the truck where one of the thralls
had been hiding was now a mass of smoking, tangled metal and no
bullets came from that direction. One down, he thought. A bullet
grazed his ear and he was sent spinning as nausea flooded through
him and sent him tumbling to the ground. The bullets had come from
behind a fuel truck over to his right and he stumbled back to his
feet, fighting dizziness as nausea threatened to send him sprawling
again to the dirt.

He rolled behind the still-smoking wreckage of the
first thrall’s hiding place, ignoring the blood and viscera that
littered the area. He took a second to let his stomach settle and
took deep breaths as he fought the nausea. His head was splitting
and it thumped painfully where the bullet had grazed him.