Hellspawn (Book 7): Hellspawn Aftermath

by Fleet, Ricky

  Arundel Castle loomed in the distance, just over the bridge. A quarter mile of looping through the cobbled streets and they would be at the breach in the hedgerows. Then they would need to work out how on earth to get the people over the walls. None of them would have the strength to climb, that was a certainty. Rope harnesses and brute strength would be the order of the day. Half of them were asleep, being cradled by the others. Kurt marvelled at how they’d managed to drift off with all the bumping and noise. After considering their previous situation, it might have been the first time in months they had actually felt safe enough to let their guard down. It didn’t seem so outlandish in hindsight.

  “Kurt?” Holbeck pushed.

  The promise of a steaming mug of tea beckoned.

  “Let’s do it. Move slowly so we don’t get bogged down. Don’t use the cannons unless absolutely necessary. We don’t want the whole town to come and see what all the fuss is about.”

  “And if we get overwhelmed, we go to plan B?” asked the sergeant.

  “Yeah. Get them to safety, and we’ll fall back to the pub to the south. If they follow us, we’ll just keep circling until you can swing back and get us.”

  “Roger,” said Holbeck, pulling the passenger door partly closed, leaving enough of an opening for communication.

  “Everyone ready?” Kurt called to the melee fighters. Jodi and Peter took the lead, and the others, though tired, fell in behind and prepared.

  Kurt banged on the armour with his war pick, and Carpenter rumbled forward, skirting the vehicles knocked aside during the lorry assault.

  “It’s a bit quiet,” said Kurt.

  “They might’ve followed us and got lost?” suggested Holbeck, leaning forward to get a better view of the streets.

  When they had rolled out, the streets were teeming with rotters. Only a quarter as many remained, if that. The battle they had been expecting on the journey home was going to be a boring affair following the prison.

  “I doubt it. We’d have crossed their path on the way back.”

  “Lucky then? At least we don’t have to fight to keep those poor people on top out of harm’s way.”

  “Maybe…”

  The convoy wormed its way through the scattered dead, passing the ancient homes of Arundel. All tall chimneys and squat doors. The latticed windows on most ground floors were broken in. All eyes turned to the Black Dog pub and hotel. Soldiers and recent captives both found themselves yearning for a sneaky pint and a comfy stool. Unfortunately, the current proprietor and patrons would be an unwelcoming bunch. Far more interested in cannibalism than customer service.

  Kurt and the others formed a ring of steel around the Warthogs. The undead attacked in dribs and drabs, low numbers that were easily dealt with. Sensing they were in danger again, the freed captives were all awake, watching the fighters below. Having endured physical and emotional torture beyond imagining, each blow of Kurt’s war pick chipped away at their fear. They were a long way from coming to terms with their ordeal, but knowing good still existed was like sunlight searing away the fog of their despair.

  By the time the fighters were navigating the crushed brush to the south of the castle grounds, Kurt and the others were dripping with blood and gore once more. The thought of a warm bath was closely beating the hot cuppa.

  “This isn’t right,” said Kurt, drawing the group to a stop.

  Hundreds of the dead had taken up position by the gore smeared walls where they had exited. No faces peered down from above, waiting for their return. The throaty grumble of the Warthogs could be heard from a mile away on the southern tower. Someone should have been on watch. The braziers along the wall were dead, only the dying embers left glowing as the wind flowed past. The ropes were missing too.

  “Where is everyone?”

  Kurt’s anger was dampened by an inkling that things were completely off.

  “What brought the zombies round here from the town?” asked Peter. “They should have followed us, if anything.”

  “Kurt, what’s your gut?” asked Holbeck.

  “This is all wrong. We loop around to the north and try the second way in.”

  “What about them?” Holbeck nodded at the gathered horde.

  “If we double back, we can take the Duke’s access road to the northern gate we sealed. It’ll screen us and the noise from our rotting friends over there.”

  Carefully exiting back onto the main road, the remnants of Arundel town were trying to give chase, but as with all major swarms, the most damaged got left behind. They crawled and slopped, making little progress in their pursuit. Passing through the dead security gates, the unpowered steel screeched as the APCs forced their way through. Kurt turned back, closing them up and wrapping a short length of cord thrown by Eldridge around the struts. With enough weight brought to bear it would give way, but they would hopefully be safe and warm by that time.

  “Kurt, can you climb up here quickly?” asked Eldridge.

  Her tone and demeanour told Kurt that his hunch was one hundred percent correct. The dread washed over her face as he hoisted himself carefully atop the slowly moving Warthog.

  “See that?” she pointed.

  Hanging on to the turret shield, he followed her finger.

  “Is that where I think it is?”

  Kurt’s heart started to palpitate. Eldridge saw him start to sway, and reached out just in time to stop him falling as he dropped to his knees.

  “What was that?” called Ewington from the driver’s seat.

  “It was Kurt. Keep going,” she shouted down. “Sarge, be aware we’ve got a problem. Be on alert.”

  The radio came alive at once. “What problem. Be more specific.”

  Kurt was slumped against the turret, unable to look away, even when the treeline became choked and he couldn’t see. Still, he saw. The image painted indelibly on his retinas.

  “The windows of the big hall we were in are all blown out. I only noticed because most of the stained glass is gone, along with all the colour.”

  “What do you mean blown out?”

  “Take a look, Sarge,” replied Eldridge.

  Petermann dropped through the turret hatch and Holbeck appeared in his place. Scanning the main castle over the wall, he quickly found the hall. The glint of glass was gone, only the darkness of the room beyond was now visible.

  “What the hell did that? Do you think they had an accident with the ammunition?”

  “I can’t see it, Sarge. They don’t seem daft enough to play with the grenades or mortar rounds.”

  “We aren’t,” said Kurt, weakly.

  “What’s going on?” asked Matt, overhearing the exchange.

  “Explosion in your hall,” said Holbeck.

  “The Gypsies?”

  “What about them?” asked Peter. “You ok, mate?” He saw Kurt slumped against the turret, white as a ghost.

  Everyone had left their positions and walked alongside the second Warthog. Holbeck swapped places with Petermann again, before jumping from the APC.

  “I don’t like this one bit. Is there anywhere we can stow the civilians while we get a better lay of the land?”

  “The canal boat is just through those trees,” offered Jodi.

  “Yeah, we can fit everyone. Just about,” said Peter. “It’ll be a bit of a squeeze.”

  “Ok, Jodi, was it?” Holbeck asked.

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Would you be able to take your team and see these folks to safety without our help? I don’t want to waste any time.”

  “Kurt, careful,” gasped Eldridge as he stood on unsteady legs.

  “I’m ok,” he lied. He’d left his wife alone, thinking she was safe behind the walls. Whatever was going on, she was in grave danger, he could just feel it. He seemed to slide down the armour as if made of jelly.

  Jodi and Peter opened each of the rear hatches on the transport sections, urging the people to exit and follow. Several were lapsing back into catatonia, but Jason and
some of the others helped and in less than a minute a small procession was heading away from the vehicles. Louise and Jodi hesitated momentarily, desperate to know what was happening inside their home. Kurt waved them away.

  “Shall I go with them, just in case?” asked Joan. “I don’t like the idea of them being armed with only bats and a bad attitude.”

  Holbeck agreed.

  “They’ll be fine, mate, I know it,” declared Peter, squeezing Kurt’s shoulder.

  “We’ll see,” he replied, as if any confidence on his part would trigger some cruel god to steal them away out of spite.

  “Quick magazine check and we move. Eldridge, Petermann, you keep your eyes on the wall at all times.”

  “Aye, Sarge.” The turrets whined as the long, dark barrels of the HMG lined up with the ramparts.

  The soldiers had spent a portion of the journey injecting rounds into the empty magazines. Each combat vest had five which were fully replenished, plus the one in their rifle. They were as prepared as they could be.

  “Kurt, jump in my seat. Let’s see what’s going on.”

  Kurt floated across the ground, weightless. It was as if it was all a bad dream, and any moment he would wake to Sarah’s gentle rapping on his locked bedroom door.

  Holbeck climbed aboard and slammed the door, startling Kurt.

  This was no dream.

  The convoy rumbled on, deeper into the waking nightmare.

  Chapter 40

  “What the hell happened to you?” George blurted when Fred entered the great hall.

  The recently returned castle prisoners grimaced at his awful wounds as he glowered at them. Livid blisters were only getting worse as the minutes passed. Fred wanted to scratch at the fierce burning, but he would only end up peeling the top layers of skin from his entire upper body.

  “Her people happened to me!” he snarled, making straight for Sarah.

  “Leave her be!” George warned, stepping between them and offering a bottle of gin in consolation. “I said, what happened?”

  “We tried to take the tower. The bitches killed twenty of us, probably more by now.”

  Fred swigged from the bottle until George yanked it from his grasp, chipping one of his front teeth.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” roared George. “I told you to lock the people away, not attack!”

  “I made a call.” Fred tried to grab for the bottle, missed, and sulkily probed at his damaged tooth instead.

  “You made a call?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And how did that turn out?” George growled through gritted, undamaged teeth.

  “Not too well by the sounds of it,” snorted Sarah.

  George shot her a glance that was part warning, part pleading.

  “We… lost… twenty… men,” Fred repeated snidely.

  “We already lost three fucking hundred, you cunt!” George drew back his massive fist and Fred tried his best not to shy away. The anger bled out in an instant when he realised the implication. “Why? We were already weak, and you’ve made us weaker.”

  “If this group can hold the castle, we don’t need everyone. We’ve still got just as many people.”

  “It isn’t just this group. Their fighters are at the prison, trying to help,” George lied. “These are the women, and the children. And look what they’ve done to us. Imagine what happens when the men get back.”

  “Whoa, hold on there Mr Sexist.” Sarah couldn’t help herself.

  George raised his hands in supplication. “I know you women are fighters too. And so do a great deal of my dead men by the look of it. It wasn’t meant like it came out.”

  Fred was growing red with rage. “Why the fuck are you explaining yourself to that gash? I think…”

  “Because that gash and her friends have fucked us!” George rounded on him. “Don’t you see?”

  “No, I don’t see,” Fred muttered.

  “Ok, brother of mine, tell me this. Did you send the nobodies to attack the tower? The people who don’t matter a fuck in the big scheme of things? You didn’t send the hardcases in, did you? Tell me!”

  Fred’s face drained of colour.

  “You, absolute, fucking, bell end.” George emphasised the insult with pauses as he slumped back into a deep, leather chair. He was a beaten man, that much was obvious. He turned away from his pale sibling to stare at the flames, seeing their future burn away as surely as the pages of the expensive book which sat atop the crackling logs.

  “George, we can salvage this,” Fred tried to say, kneeling by George’s side. The wounded started to filter into the room, ending the nonstarter conversation before it began. George was away somewhere else at the moment.

  The groans and cries of the blistered and broken echoed weirdly in the hall from the damaged windows. The other prisoners shied away, trying to ignore the damage. Sarah stood up and took George by his meaty paw.

  “Help me get these chairs out of the way. Your people are going to need the warmth for the shock.”

  “Ok, Sarah,” he said absently, allowing himself to be led away.

  “Where’s Christina?” begged one of the men as he hobbled in with an arrow sticking out of his leg. “Where’s the doctor?”

  Fred marched towards the injured. “Travis, what the fuck are you doing?”

  “What you should’ve done, Fred. Help our friends.”

  The burly scouse prisoner took a menacing step towards the limping figure, but four uninjured bruisers interceded. The look on their faces told him if he made a move he was going to be crippled.

  “Doc?” Travis pleaded, searching the room.

  Sarah met the hidden doctor’s eyes and understating passed between them. Christina stood up from her place among the castle captives, and carefully stepped over the crouching forms.

  “Please, help us,” he begged.

  She moved towards the arrow, but he gently shooed her away with his unbroken arm. “No, these guys need help first. I’ll be fine.”

  She moved from man to man, inspecting the damage. “These are deep dermal burns. There’s no way I can guarantee their treatment will work with what I have here,” she said, honestly.

  “Can you do what you can? If you’re desperate for medicines and stuff, I know some of us will go out and get it.”

  Most of the men looked away, but a stoic few nodded grimly.

  “We’re going to need beds, and water. Lots of water. And as many towels as you can find. And any clingfilm or plastic wrap. We need to stop them getting infected.”

  “And how the fuck do we get water when it’s all locked away in your tower?”

  Sarah ignored Fred’s outburst and spoke directly to the men who had dragged the wounded back to safety. “Tell Denise that we need as much water as she can provide. If she argues, come and get me and I’ll confirm it.”

  “They’ll open the gates to us?” asked one of the prisoners.

  “Not a chance,” replied Sarah, tossing a small spool of washing line cord they had left over from the criss-cross of clothes drying wire in the hallways. “They can lower it to you.”

  “It’ll take too long,” said Travis, trying to put a brave face on his injury.

  “It’s all you’ll get,” Sarah replied, busying herself by moving cots closer to the fire, but not close enough that Christina warned her off. They needed to be warm, not hot.

  When ten were set up in a neat semi-circle, she quickly moved to the second extinguished fire. Hastily piling some kindling atop some old paper, she struck a match and lit the fire. As she knelt, blowing on the flickering flame, a man came running into the hall.

  “We’ve got company! It’s the fucking army!”

  “The what?” demanded George, returning from the fugue state.

  “The army. They’ve got machine guns on the tanks. Or maybe they aren’t tanks, but they’re definitely army.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” George asked, angry and disappointed.

  “You d
idn’t ask nicely,” Sarah replied, smiling menacingly.

  Two of the prisoners seized her, but without the earlier force. George led the way, leaving Fred in charge of a room in which both sides increasingly hated his guts.

  Chapter 41

  “What the hell?” asked Holbeck as he spied a ladder hastily disappearing over the wall.

  “Did you see it too?” said Kurt.

  “There are men up there, Sarge,” said Petermann, the HMG trained on their position.

  “Our men?” asked Kurt. It was a silly question. The soldiers had little time for introductions, much less an opportunity to memorise the faces of the castle dwellers.

  “No idea,” Petermann confirmed Kurt’s suspicion.

  “There are bodies,” Carpenter pointed out.

  Two forms lay still at the base of the wall as a handful of zombies feasted.

  “Take them out,” ordered Holbeck.

  Petermann opened fire and the crouched figures exploded. Nothing was left of the meal except green and red smears. The parts that still twitched were no threat.

  “Carpenter, pull up a good distance away from the wall. I want to see what’s going on before we approach.”

  “Roger, Sarge,” she replied, steering away from the fortress.

  A bullet ricocheted from Petermann’s turret shield, whining as it rocketed away. Another crack of a gunshot followed, completely missing.

  “Petermann, report!”

  “The people on the wall are firing. Shall I engage?”

  “Give them a short burst. Make them think twice before trying it again,” replied Holbeck.

  Petermann fired off three bursts, blowing hefty chunks from the thousand year old limestone. The heavy dudda, dudda, dudda, of the gunfire carried across the surrounding fields, summoning anything within earshot. Time was now against them.

  “Hold your fire!” cried a voice from the wall.

  Holbeck pulled Petermann back into the vehicle and climbed through the turret hatch.

  “You fired on us! Identify yourself!”

  “I’m George Fowler, and the castle’s now mine!”

  Holbeck couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You were at the prison?”