Branoc inched around the corner of a wishing well and leaped on top of the neighbor’s deck to knock the terrorist down. The two of them fought over the rifle. Shots burst up the siding of the house and sheared through the security camera mounted under the eaves. Branoc punched the face of the terrorist knocking the vampire’s head aside. The terrorist kicked up to hit Branoc but he had turned and the vampire swung through flipping to his feet. Branoc had the rifle and pressed the trigger into the vampire’s belly. The force of the rounds pushing him back against the house wall. Then, like connecting the dots, Branoc brought the shots up the vampire’s torso and blasted through its neck. Blood splattered across the pale blue siding punctuated with holes like a colander. Branoc held the rifle to his shoulder and spun to sight across the yard.
Garin traded sword strikes. A single report from Branoc and a bullet hit the terrorist’s head. The vampire’s head snapped back from the striking round. It would only distract the vampire for a moment. Garin used the time to whip his sword around and slice through the vampire’s neck.
The militia members behind the refrigerator renewed their firing having reloaded and watched how Branoc and Garin stopped the three terrorists that pinned them down. They recognized vampires too easily and fired at Garin and Branoc.
Garin and Branoc dove behind the garage and around a remaining brick wall standing loosely at the back of the house.
“Garin, go that way and draw their fire. Use these fresh clips.”
Garin clicked the releases on the clip in his gun and slammed in the replacement, “Good, that other one jammed.”
“That brand does it from time to time. That’s why I switched and those are only my trunk backups now.” Branoc added, “You do well with a sword.”
“My uncle taught me. Told me a vampire needs to live to survive.”
“Good uncle. Now run when I fire.” Branoc put his gun around the edge of the broken bricks and squeezed the trigger. The bullets thunked against the refrigerator in a tight dimpling pattern in the stainless panels. Garin remembered how a jacketed wine fermentation tank looked like that dimpled stainless refrigerator. An industrial look that might catch on.
Garin reached the edge of an old apple tree that burned next to the master bedroom. It gave him cover to shoot across the house at the kitchen. His shots busted ceramic off the flooding sink and gouged the top of the granite counter top to strike a two-by-four dangling from the collapsing ceiling and wrench it free of the nails above. The nail-filled board dropped on the heads of the militia members behind the refrigerator.
A bullet zipped by Garin’s ear like the angry buzz of a hornet.
A half dozen terrorists appeared in the glow of the neighbor’s automatic security light that flashed at their approach.
Garin spilled to the ground and scooted between the base of the burning apple tree and the cement foundation of the house. He aimed carefully and squeezed a round into the center of the throat of the front attacker. The shot sectioned his spine and the vampire fell to the thick grass of the heavy chemical growth-induced and poisoned neighbor’s lawn. More chemicals here than any farmer could have afforded yet they got the blame for polluting the rivers.
His second shot dug into a terrorist’s eye while his third shot collapsed a vampire’s nose. Garin clicked out the empty clip and slammed in a fresh one.
Street pressure released from broken bathroom fixtures shot to the sky like fountains dousing a portion of the fire. The water ran below the floor and pooled in the basement. Automatic rifle fire buzzed through the dirt and across the apple stump and ricocheted off the cement foundation or sunk into the wood siding below the floor as the rounds sought his flesh. The terrorists scattered behind a cement statue and a pile of landscape boulders.
Another group of terrorists pinned Branoc between the garage and the broken brick wall. He huddled with the cast aluminum grill and a table he tipped over across it. Stray bullets still struck through his leg and arm. But his vampire constitution sealed the holes quickly and the bullets ejected from his body in little bloody plops onto the deck. The militia pair behind the refrigerator shot across Branoc’s position and into the new terrorist group that held behind the garage wall.
“What are you doing?” I asked Brett. My fingers dug into the vinyl seat cushion. He rummaged inside the trunk with his arm through the arm rest port.
“Seeing what’s back here. I’m looking for another weapon,” his head turned to me, “they need help.”
“Not from you or me.” I looked in the center console, “That’s a vampire battle and we don’t stand a chance.”
“I could distract them for a moment.”
“And you’ll die.”
“There’s a chance.” He turned his attention back to the black hole between the rear seats shoving his arm as deep as his shoulder. His knees stretched across the seat cushion. His butt wiggled in my face.
I turned to my own search but I didn’t find anything in the center console, “They can come back from the dead.”
“They are not really alive are they?” he grunted, “Nothing about coming back. They hobble along in a never ending death and terrorize the living.” He moved heavy cases and things that clinked like chains.
“Don’t be brave or show me courage. I’ve seen what they can do.” I needed to calm myself. I saw too closely, what vampires could do. “You’re staying here.”
“And if Branoc and Garin get killed then who will save us hiding here?”
A point I couldn’t argue. I closed the empty center console and searched the glove box. I’d grope under the seat next.
-:- Fourteen -:-
Branoc pushed two more clips from his bandoleer and yelled, “Garin, catch these.” A blur of motion. The clips launched across the burning debris and Garin snatched them from the air. The terrorists inched closer covering each other with bullets. Green apples plopped like little grenades to the ground at Garin’s feet. Strips of wood flicked off the siding from the bullets striking the house exposing the fire-damaged wall behind him. Leaves and twigs filtered through the branches to land on his head. The tree trunk vibrated against Garin’s back as the rounds dug into the apple wood. The terrorists fanned out around the neighbor’s yard as they approached. Quickly they would have an angle around both sides of the tree leaving him no cover.
Branoc rolled flat on the deck and between a corner of the table and tipped over the grill. He sighted along his pistols and fired two precision shots. His bullets cut through the necks of two terrorists leaning too far out from behind the corner of the garage. He twisted back behind his limited cover. The remaining terrorists behind the garage sprinted for the air conditioner unit to get them closer and afford a better attack angle on his position.
“Mistake.” Branoc whispered. He spun to the side, “Those aluminum cooling fins are like metal gauze.” Both of his guns puked out their rounds. His vampire strength countering the recoil – keeping the guns in the exact position he intended. Three shots ricocheted off the poured concrete foundation slicing into some of the terrorists – spinning them around. Other shots ripped through the condenser unit folding over aluminum fins and scraping chunks off copper cooling lines. The bullets and explosively pressurized refrigerant shocked his attackers back. He scooted forward getting the angle he needed to cut through the necks of the four nearest attackers, but getting that angle exposed his body. The militia members in the kitchen fired across their barrier and the broken walls around Branoc like gnats buzzing close to his ears. He dropped from his knees back to the deck and squirmed toward the corner of the garage. His Katana stayed tight to his leg where it hung from his belt. More terrorists hid behind the shielding wall. He couldn’t see his car from here. Did those kids stay put?
Between the springs and cables keeping the seat cover tight on the cushions and the seat adjustment rails designed with sharp edges, piercing spring hooks, and slippery with black tar-like grease smeared on them – I found a leather holster and gun.<
br />
Brett yanked on something that didn’t want to come through the gap in the seats.
The gun settled heavy in my hand. Its black surface finely inscribed with 18-9 and in smaller print Pineville NC. The rough grip nestled comfortably in my hand.
“Check the magazine to verify it’s loaded.”
“How do I do that?”
Brett stopped wrestling the case out of the trunk, “Here, let me see.”
I handed the gun to him like giving someone a pair of scissors.
Brett took the weapon and twisted it in his hand. The magazine fell into his fingers. He slammed the magazine back into the grip and ratcheted the top of the weapon in a fluid practiced motion, “Now be careful. I loaded a round in the chamber and here’s the trigger safety,” His face became grave, “You ever shoot a handgun before?”
“No.” Then I never wielded a sword and never killed a vampire before either.
“Only point at something you want dead. Keep your arm tense to absorb the recoil. And don’t jerk the trigger or you’ll never hit anything. Too bad we didn’t have a date at a shooting range.” He gripped the case again, “Oh, you’ve got seventeen shots left in the magazine. Count them as you fire as I don’t see any additional ammunition boxes and didn’t spill any in the trunk that I could reach.”
“So that’s what the number eighteen is on the side.”
“Yep.”
“What’s in the case?”
“I don’t know but hoping it’s a rifle,” he tore at it and yanked it through the hole. A black plastic case with aluminum banding around the hinge line like one for musical instruments. It pulled through as hard as an extrusion die. The car shook from his wrenching and bouncing effort on it. Not that the neighbors would think anything indiscreet happened out here, they focused on the gun battle at my sister’s house.
The cratered kitchen and broken ceiling and punctured roof revealed lights flashing up the stairs. I saw my sister pushed along. My nieces and nephews tugged at her hands while my brother-in-law carried their youngest. Her arms clamped around and squeezing his neck. Her hair covered her face. The whole family soaked wet. The flooding below must have pushed the militia’s plan. All of them forced up the last of the stairs at gun point by militia members. They stumbled forward into the driveway.
“Brett, they’re moving my sister to a van.”
A last grunt and the case popped free. Brett asked, “Where are Branoc and Garin?”
“Still pinned down.”
Brett snapped open the catches and flipped back the lid of the case. “Good. An assault rifle. Maybe we can use this to free your sister.”
“You know how to use that?”
“Same style my father uses. I’ve shot it a few times.”
“Any bullets?”
Brett lifted a pair of clips pocketed in the foam case. “Two clips.” He snapped one into the gun and clicked the bolt back to chamber the first round. “Ready.”
Garin squeezed the trigger and blasted into several exposed knees and elbows. The vampires receiving the bullets recoiled but Garin knew they would only renew their attack when the wounds closed up. He could not move from his location with their bullets still scraping the sides of the tree trunk. Blisters of bark bulged out on either side or thunked into the siding.
The bright lights of a van rumbled down the street. It halted in front of the house shining its headlights like search lamps against the neighbor’s driveway full of cars. Garin saw the reflected red eyes of a vampire peering through one of the cars. A newer leased Cadillac CTS. The owner of those eyes bashed the point of a gun through the window and fired cleanly across the car at Garin. It entered his bicep and exploded out his triceps muscle splattering blood on the siding. Garin’s gun fell from his fingers. The other vampires rushed at Garin seeing his gun in the grass. I watched Garin fall to his knees and reach for the gun but he held something else in his good hand.
Camouflage militia burst from the van and scampered into the remains of the house to reinforce the kitchen pillbox.
Branoc jumped around the corner of the garage and punched the first of the terrorists with his fist. The vampire tumbled to the side while his other fist struck the second vampire knocking it against the garage and rolling it across another two vampires. He caught their dropped guns while they still floating in the air and he fired into the spinning bodies.
Streaks of blackness converged from the shadows around my sister’s driveway. Blurs of black jumpsuits from the neighbor’s dense shrubbery. My gut knotted up the same as when a pair of similarly dressed vampires attacked Garin and I in my apartment. Their faces blackened with paint and their hair tied up in taut buns by black stretch nets. A mix of black and dirty blond hair their only distinguishing features. Thin young women when they became vampires, how recently or a millennium ago?
I slammed my hand against the car window.
The new team of vampires snatched at the militia members holding my sister’s family and twisted their heads off. The green camouflage outfits broiled with blood as my sister’s family shrieked and became covered in crimson blooms.
The new vampires flipped out black hoods and popped one over my sister’s head. They tumbled the kids into burlap sacks and slung them over their shoulders. My brother-in-law kicked and punched at the vampires as they pulled away his daughter. Woefully outmatched, he still fought them. They could not get a hood over his head. Then one of the vampires walked over and backhanded his cheek snapping his head to the side. His body spun and then landed sprawling and motionless upon the driveway.
“No!” I screamed. I flipped open the car door, the hinges creaking and complaining when they caught the forward energy. I raised the gun in my hand and flipped over the safety. I gripped the gun with both hands as if I’d seen in every police show I’d ever watched and squeezed the trigger. The shot went wide of the jumpsuit vampires and struck a van.
Brett tripped getting the rifle out of the car but righted himself and fired at the jumpsuit vampires. He hit a vampire in the collarbone. My second and third shots both ended up in the trees from the recoil of the first shot and maybe because I worried I might hit my sister or her kids. The jumpsuit vampires snarled and disappeared into the thick hedges toward the spur of woods between a pair of houses down the street.
Terrorists fired toward Brett and I. Bullets struck the car behind us like rocks hitting tin. Lead scoured the dirt at our feet in little puffs of soil. Brett yanked my arm and got us behind the car. He laid his rifle across the top of the trunk using the rear pillar to protect him as he returned fire at the terrorists. I felt the air and Brett’s body shake with each trigger pull, thumping against the car body.
From several properties farther up the road, I heard branches snapping and brush breaking. Three shadows raced out blurring toward us. Brett remained intent on his targets. Thunk thunk thunk pounded out of his rifle behind me as it flipped brass trinkets across the trunk lid that tumbled down the rear fascia bouncing against the ground. I blinked my eyes freezing the image of the rapidly moving shadows. My reflexes took over. Point at what you want dead. I pulled the trigger. I do not know how I held the gun steady. Strength in facing such fear? Something deep in my DNA forged by survival in the last ice age when my ancestors confronted similarly armed saber toothed tigers? I counted.
Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve.
The first shadow faltered. It stumbled out of its vampire stride as one of the bullets struck it hard.
Eleven, ten, nine, eight.
The second shadow twisted in the air from a solid hit. My shots pierced its shoulder and gouged its chest.
Seven, six, five, four.
The first two vampires split to the sides to flank us while the third continued at me. No fear of such a paltry weapon that I fired at her.
Thunk thunk thunk continued behind me. Brett twisted his head to look at what I was doing. “Shit –” He shifted his body to fire at them – but horribly too late.
&nb
sp; Three, two.
The hard fist of the third vampire smacked the gun from my hand.
The other two vampires kicked the rifle from Brett’s hands and punched him. The force of their combined hits flipped his body over the car to land somewhere on the pavement and gravel on the other end of the vehicle. I didn’t hear him get up.
“Dieses ist she!” hissed the third vampire. One of them snatched my arms around behind me and wrapped my wrists in iron fingers. Something sounding like a flag in the wind snapped open and a black hood popped over my head. Strings drew tight around my neck. I heard Branoc’s pistols barking amid the other guns. Where was Garin? And was Brett even alive? They shoved me forward. Clutching at my clothes to hurry me along.
A phone buzzed and a hand released me to retrieve it, “Ja. We have her.”
One of the other vampires laughed, “Too easy. The locals are dumm.”
“What?”
“That one, Garin, sees us.”
“So?”
“He’s the one that killed Elsie and Greta.”
One of the jumpsuit vampires hoisted me on her shoulder. I felt the brush of branches as they took me into the damp woods. They ran at their vampire pace and the sounds of gunfire quickly receded. Me as their prisoner and the fates of so many I knew remaining undecided.
The terrorist leaped from behind the car and rushed at Garin. Garin slumped back against the tree. His arm useless but healing. Not in time to pick up his gun. The terrorist grinned as he raised his rifle to cut through Garin’s neck.
Garin flicked the steel sword concealed under his leg and sliced through the terrorist’s shins. The vampire slid off the stumps of his legs and the bones sunk like tent stakes into the warm soil. Bullets from the wounded terrorist charged the air but Garin didn’t stop. He sectioned the arms off stopping the rifle shots and then he struck the neck from his attacker.
The Vampires Of Livix Twin Pack (Volumes #1 & #2) Page 28