Then he slipped.
Marcy and her son cried out. So did Vamps, although he snipped it short before it had chance to become a scream.
Screaming was not gangster.
His left trainer dipped into the river. His arms waved like tentacles.
Then his body stilled. He was okay.
His balance came back.
“Shit! Almost took a swim there.”
Another six steps and he successfully crossed the river, hopping onto the opposite bank, leaping in victory. On the opposite side, the others looked relieved, except for Marcy who still seemed anxious. Vamps considered what being a mother must be like: constant worrying.
“Okay!” Mass pumped his fist against his palm. “I’m coming over, bro”
“Be careful, man. You weigh ten times what I do.”
Mass looked funny as he crept up onto the lamppost, like an elephant balancing on a stool. His big shoulders bunched up, and he shuffled his feet humorously. Every time he peered down at the river, he swallowed like a cartoon cat watching a dog. It amused Vamps to see his manly friend so afraid of water.
Now was Marcy and Max’s turn to cross. Marcy stepped up to the post, clutching Max's hand. The little boy was beaming, even as he faced the tumultuous waters that could carry him away in a second—he had not yet reached sufficient age to appreciate danger, that was still his mother’s burden. Marcy visibly shook as she inched her way across the steel bridge. Max stayed close to her, obedient if nothing else.
“You are doing well,” said Aymun, remaining on the bank. He held his palms together beneath his chin, engrossed by the situation. “That’s it. Slowly, slowly, monkey catching.”
“This is easy,” yelled Max. “Easy peas-”
The ground shook. The river leapt up like a tiger's paw.
Marcy cried out, wobbling back and forth while trying to keep hold of her son.
Vamps spotted something on the other bank behind Aymun. Something large slid out from behind a roadside billboard advertising BMW electric cars. It was the wounded angel, now horribly burnt. They thought they'd been hunting it, but today, it had been hunting them.
The angel stomped towards Aymun, and Aymun must have sensed the vibrations from its footsteps because he spun around in horror.
Marcy and Max half-turned to see what was happening. When they saw the angel, they screamed and froze in place in the middle of the bridge. Fright almost knocked them both into the river, but Marcy held on and kept her son out of the water.
“Be gone!” Aymun shouted on the opposite bank. “I know why you are here, and you will fail, so be gone.”
The angel said nothing. It always said nothing. It only scowled. A blackened scorch mark covered its upper chest where Vamps had burnt it, and weeping bullet holes riddled its torso. But there was no denying the ferocity of the creature.
Aymun leapt aside as the angel stomped the mud as though aiming to squash a bug. Aymun wore a pistol on his hip, and aimed it now, pulling the trigger over and over again. The loud report of gunfire mingled with Marcy and Max’s screams.
“Come on,” said Mass, budging Vamps into action. “We gotta do something.”
Vamps pulled his MP5 from his belt and fired across the river. His shots went wild at such a distance, but he zeroed in on the angel trying to stamp on Aymun.
Aymun, who ran around on the muddy bank like a yapping terrier, fired bullets and dodged instant death. Mass opened fire too, striking the target several times.
The angel roared.
“Help us,” shouted Marcy.
Max cried in terror.
Vamps was focused on the angel, bleeding from a host of new bullet wounds. He moved down the bank towards the edge of the river, yanking on his trigger three more times and landing two hits. “You better run, bitch, before we cook what’s left of you. We Brixton boys, you get me!?”
Vamp's wet trainer slid in the mud. His leg buckled beneath him. The slip wasn’t catastrophic, but he had to struggle to keep from tumbling down the slope. As he fought to stay upright, his finger clenched around the trigger and expended the last of his rounds, making the MP5 click irritably once empty.
Mass continued firing until his own weapon was empty too, but Aymun was able to reload and fire his pistol several more times, but he was growing tired. Eventually, the angel swiped out with a long left arm and clipped Aymun in the back, sending him tumbling into wet mud beside the river.
Marcy continued to scream.
Scream.
Scream.
Vamps regained his balance in the mud and patted his pockets for more bullets. He had to have something on him somewhere…
His jaw dropped when his eyes fell upon the bridge.
Marcy dangled in the water, clinging to the lamppost by one arm while the hungry waters tried to carry her away. In her other arm, she held Max, but the boy was silent and still, moving only with the water.
“You shot him,” Marcy wailed. “You fucking shot him.”
Vamps stared at the smoking sub-machine gun in his hand and realised what he'd done. God, please no. I slipped. My finger squeezed the trigger. Oh, please, fuck no!
“Fuck,” said Mass. “We need to get her.”
Vamps didn’t move. He kept trying to say something, or to move, but nothing his brain commanded went through to his body. Mass shoved past him and got back onto the lamppost. After several steps towards Marcy though, he stopped. Something on the far bank caught his eye.
The angel stood beside the water's edge and grinned. The gesture was aimed right at Vamps. Then, slowly, the angel looked down, down at the spot where the lamppost lay secured against the bank.
Vamps swallowed. “No, don’t!”
Marcy was too busy screaming to notice the angel. Her attention was only on Max whom she tried hysterically to wake up.
He wasn't waking up.
Mass hurried back towards the bank, moving away from Marcy rather than towards her. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!”
The angel kicked the end of the lamppost and launched it into the river as if it were a twig. The other end—the end with the concrete base—remained embedded in the bank, which caused the whole thing to pivot. Marcy hung on in the middle, clutching her son. Barely.
“Move!” Vamps finally got control of his body. He shoved Mass aside and hurried towards the lamppost.
“There’s nothing you can do,” cried Mass, grabbing him. “Vamps!”
Vamps shrugged free of his friend's grasp and struck him with a right hook. Mass grabbed him again, and this time threw him to the ground where he was forced to watch the lamppost slip away from the bank and sink into the water.
Marcy’s grip finally failed her. She and her dead child slipped beneath the water. The river carried them away like offerings.
Vamps struggled to get to his feet, but Mass held him. “Let me go. I can save her. I can save her!”
On the opposite bank, the wounded angel glared. Then it slipped away into the shadows.
Night had fallen.
Richard Honeywell
“They’re trying to come inside,” shouted David.
“Daddy. The monsters are coming.”
A huge car wheel came flying through the broken office windows and collided with Aaron. It hit the lad so hard it destroyed his face completely.
This is it, thought Richard. This is the end.
Corporal Martin jumped up on a desk and started barking orders. “Everyone into the second-floor stairwell. To the fire escape.”
Richard grabbed Dillon by the hand and raced out of the office. People stepped on his heels in the rush, but he didn’t look back—didn’t care who was with him. All that mattered was that he was first, which meant he and Dillon had the best chance.
Then he saw the demons piling up the stairwell from below, and he wasn’t so sure anybody had a chance.
Dillon cried out.
David from somewhere said, “Shit.”
Richard tried to turn back up th
e stairs, but the huddled masses bore down on him and forced him lower. The burnt creatures surging upwards howled with eagerness, their love of slaughter undiminished since the last time he had encountered them.
“Daddy, they’re going to get us.”
A burnt man made it up to the balcony six feet below where the stairs twisted back on themselves. He glared up at Richard with hungry eyes, gnashing his teeth. Richard shoved Dillon behind him, but could not retreat. The panicked bodies on the stairs formed a wall. The burnt creature raced up the steps, half-a-dozen of its vile brethren following. Richard prepared to fight with feet and fists.
He prepared to die.
Part of him welcomed it.
Except for Dillon. He had to fight for Dillon.
The burnt man leapt up the final few steps, reaching out for Richard, but then broke apart in mid-air amidst an ear-piercing explosion. Wet vileness spattered Richard’s face. He blinked in surprise.
Over the din of screaming people, Corporal Martin yelled like a tribal war chief. He held a shotgun in his arms and cocked it for another shot. “Let them have it, lads.”
There was an almighty clatter of gunfire, and the demons on the stairwell tumbled backwards, limbs tearing, torsos splitting. Blackened blood ran down the steps like tar.
“Move, move, move,” the Corporal ordered.
Richard realised he was now holding up the pack and in danger of being knocked down the stairs. Grabbing Dillon, he continued retreating, descending the stairwell, feet slipping in demon blood. Sporadic gunfire followed as the soldiers behind leant over the landing rails and took pot shots at the enemy reinforcements flooding into the downstairs lobby.
The survivors reached the second-floor stairwell and spread out. The soldiers moved up and took point, allowing Richard to fall back and keep Dillon out of harm’s way.
“Everyone, stay behind me,” said Corporal Martin. “Out the fire escape and down the ramp. David will unlock the bus and then we all file in.”
“There’s too many of them down there, we’ll never make it,” someone said, even though they'd all discussed this escape plan for weeks.
“Man up,” said Carol. “Don’t quit before we’ve even started. You have a dozen strapping young soldiers looking after you. You’ll be fine.”
“I need to get to my dad,” said Alice. “He’s at Portsmouth. I need to go.”
David patted her back. “We’ll get you there, lass. I promise you.”
“Let’s get moving,” David barked. “We have more than demons to worry about. There’s a goddamn angel out there, and a…” he couldn’t complete the sentence. Richard glared at him.
“The monster that killed my mummy,” Dillon finished.
Corporal Martin kicked open the fire escape and poked his shotgun out, scanning left and right. “All clear. Let’s move our arses.”
The soldiers filed out onto the metal catwalk that flanked the east side of the old building. Parked directly at the bottom of the ramp was a city bus long enough to hold seventy or eighty squashed up bodies. Best-case scenario, they might fill it with sixty. If anybody died in the next two minutes, it might be much less.
They needed to get on that bus quick.
Richard moved Dillon onto the ramp, and other survivors spilled out onto the catwalk around them. They started moving as a group, trying to stay quiet, but unable to stifle their cries of terror. A surge of demons appeared from around the front of the building, and the cries turned to screams. As if they somehow knew what the survivors were planning, the demons immediately surrounded the bus, severing their escape route. Part of the horde broke away, heading up the ramp towards the survivors.
The soldiers fired, cut the demons to pieces before they even got near, but already men were having to reload. They couldn't stay here out in the open for long. But what options did they have? Richard shook his head. They were screwed.
“Grab the chain,” said Corporal Martin. “Somebody, grab that bloody chain.”
Richard remembered the contingency plan and couldn't believe that he'd almost forgotten it. There was a chain, a relic the soldiers had gathered from a nearby museum during one of their scavenger hunts. It was made of iron. The chain had been set up as part of their escape plan.
Richard leapt towards the railings of the fire escape to grab it now. It hung from several curtain hooks secured against the steel railing with thick tape. More demons ran up the ramp. More bullets kept them at bay. The ammunition wouldn't last forever.
This has to work…
Richard wrapped both hands around the iron chain and yanked. The other end was attached to the rear bumper of the parked bus, and the chain leapt into the air. The demons unlucky enough to get in the way caught fire—incinerated in seconds. Those able to, backed off rapidly, leaving a gulf between two separate sections of the enemy army. One section—the smaller section—was squashed up against the news office building. It was these demons that presented the biggest threat, for they lay in the survivor's path between the brick wall and the iron chain.
Corporal Martin and his men focused their fire on this group and thinned their numbers quickly. The massive majority of the enemy remained on the other side of the chain, yet were unable to pass—roped off like a crowd outside a nightclub. Richard’s days as a police officer, dealing with drunken revellers fighting and shagging in alleyways suddenly came back to him. Contrasted with what he was doing now, it was almost something he missed.
“Okay,” Carol shouted amongst the huddled bodies. “Get to that sodding bus, and get there now!”
The soldiers led the way, smashing their rifle butts against any demon brave enough to peel away from the wall. On the other side of the chain, a hundred demons spat and hissed, but were unable to attack. The smell of burnt flesh and faeces fouled the air when a burnt creature with sliced open breasts was dumb enough to try to grab one of the soldiers. Its arm crossed over the chain and burned to dust.
“They can’t hurt us,” said David. “Just keep moving.”
The group of frightened humans moved along the channel towards the bus, like sheep scurrying between pens. Muffled screams escaped some of the survivors, because even though they were safe, they were not fearless. Richard felt the sweat pouring from Dillon’s palm as he led him through Hell. Even if they reached the bus, what then?
The vehicle's back door—a fire escape—had been left ajar, but secured with a padlock. David produced the key, and once the door was open, the survivors began to push and shove and panic.
“Stop,” shouted Corporal Martin. “Stop pushing.”
A woman in the crowd tripped and fell beneath the iron chain. A burnt man fell on her and started carving open her chest. Blood gargled in her throat. Carol grabbed the frightened man who had caused the woman to trip and slapped him hard across his shocked face. “Wait your turn, or I swear we’ll leave you behind.”
Corporal Martin gathered people onto the bus—the crowd more orderly after having seen a woman fall to her death. Richard pushed Dillon ahead of him and shoved him up the back step, then squeezed in after him.
“Out the way!” David shoved his way through the bodies in the aisle. “I’m the one with the keys, so let me to the front or we aren't going anywhere.”
“Last person in,” said Corporal Martin from the back. The bus was so packed people could barely move, but at least now they had walls and glass between them and the demons.
The engine rumbled to life as David turned the key.
Outside, the demons moved away from the iron chain and started throwing themselves at the sides of the bus. The soldiers threw open the narrow top windows and poked out their rifles, firing into the crowd.
The bus began to rock on its springs.
They needed to make their getaway now, or they wouldn't be going anywhere.
David shifted into gear. “Hold onto your butts.”
The bus jolted forwards, and those in the aisle staggered and fell. Richard held onto Dillon, but he hi
mself fell onto Carol’s lap.
“I knew you’d been eyeing me, Richard,” she said, “but now is not the time. Come on, Dillon. You can sit on Auntie Carol’s lap. Your dad's too heavy.”
Dillon did as he was told, a dazed expression on his face.
“I’ll be right back,” Richard said to Carol, then waddled up to the front of the bus, stepping on toes and bumping elbows with passengers on either side. A soldier glared at him, but he kept going. He wanted to see what was happening.
In the driver's seat, David gripped the steering wheel tightly. He didn’t blink, even as he careened into a pack of demons—the bus lurching and crunching their bodies beneath its large tyres. Richard clutched the back of David’s seat to hold on, and it made the man flinch.
“Richard! You bugger.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” The bus lurched again, crushing yet more bodies. “If we don’t get out of here soon, we’re going to bust an axle. There's too many of them.”
Richard wished it wasn't true, but the demons filled the street like swarming insects. Where had they all come from?
“Just try to avoid them if you can.”
“Yes, thank you for that, Richard. What wonderful advi—” More bodies beneath the wheels. “God’s sake. What? Oh, please, no.”
Richard glanced through the cracked windscreen that was one or two more impacts away from shattering. Standing in the middle of the road, Skullface stood impassively. Behind him, the massive angel who wanted to see them all dead: Andras. A pile of fresh human corpses lay at the angel's feet—survivors dragged out of their hiding places and butchered. Their corpses were being displayed like trophies—and as a threat.
Even without a face, Skullface was clearly laughing at them.
Richard put his hand on David’s shoulder and squeezed hard. “Floor it!”
David winced. “What?”
“Put your fucking foot down, David.”
“We’re doomed either way, so what the Hell. Hold on to your hat.” He stomped on the accelerator and pushed back in his seat as the engine roared. He up-shifted and picked up speed—the bus's engine beefier than either of them had probably expected. Skullface remained standing in the road. The angel moved behind him, ready to meet the bus's charge.
Hell on Earth- the Complete Series Box Set Page 65