Glass broke. Bullets were tearing down one side of the plane. Day knew suddenly that his gut feelings had been right all along and everything else was wrong. The helicopters were moving about, hovering in the air seemingly in defiance of physics, as supernatural as the creatures who mastered them.
Large bore guns sent a cyclone of damage that tore the side of the plane open. Epona’s head and chest exploded in a fine spray. Bracing the heavy machinegun at the hip, Fox took several shots in the chest that exploded as a fine red mist and then he tipped over as well.
Day grabbed Kvelda as the slim girl tugged the empty cartridge from her rifle and realised suddenly she didn’t have another. Day pulled them back to the side. As he moved, he saw Marlin’s legs ripped apart as he sighted and squeezed with the rocket launcher. Suddenly the glowing tip flew not into the heavens, but through the yawning open side door of Mother’s plane.
“No!” Day stuttered yet roared. “This way!”
He pulled Kvelda along tripping behind him as the front end of the plane erupted in a white flash. The tail and rear struts guarded them from most of the shrapnel. Hard air washed over them, knocking them flat. Fearing more for the girl than himself, Day scurried across the ground like a monkey, the M16 banging from his shoulder against his knees.
“Kvelda! Are you alright?”
She looked up at him like he was transparent. Her own gun was gone. She scrabbled at his arm and pulled herself upright.
“My father –?”
Day glanced back. Marlin was only metres away, dragging himself across the ground by his hands. His face and arms were black with the flecks of aircraft embedded in them, the world pausing as if to hold a breath before the man started bleeding to death from his wounds.
Day stumbled to say anything, yet somehow, with an incoherent spray of words he communicated Fox’s demise. Kvelda clung limply to him yet he sensed it was more from breathlessness than grief. The impact of her father’s death was too great to be absorbed in one foul move.
The ghoul copters were changing around again. Day snatched up another rifle from where it lay amid the wreckage. One of the shadows crossed them.
In front of the ruins of the plane a single man crouched and lifted a pistol thrown there by the explosion. Yelling with inchoate rage, he lifted the gun to the sky and emptied the whole thing. His words were cut short by a clear burst of machinegun fire and then his body seemed to fall apart.
“Get down and crawl away,” Day said suddenly, all but pushing Kvelda away from him. “I’ll join you.”
The girl stumbled and fell. Blinking back tears, she lay on her belly for a moment and then started crawling away, whimpering. Day went to ground as well, rolling out of his jacket and wrapping the guns with it. Though he felt completely exposed to the sentries in the air, he had to do something. So he crawled.
Ten metres from where he’d lain down, Day passed the first prostrate survivor. The man’s face and beard were streaked with dust and ash. His temple was bleeding from a tiny but profuse gash. He watched Day wriggle past like he was witnessing the resurrection of some alien god. His blue eyes trembled and after a moment, unable to bear any more, the man buried his face in his arm and wept spasmodically.
The helicopter with the ghouls manning the machinegun landed slowly behind them. As if on cue, four internees leapt up from where they’d been laying and ran towards the chopper. A burst of fire brought down the first three. The fourth person, a woman in a red sari with her legs wrapped in plastic sheeting, came rushing forward with a sub-machinegun salvaged from the plane wreck. She strafed the cabin, cracking holes in the cockpit glass. At least one of the ghoul riders was hit. Another ghoul, clad in the characteristic motorcycle leathers and helmet, came around the other side of the chopper and, with its automatic pistol extended, fired five times into the woman’s chest. The ghoul then turned the gun on a late runner, a teenage boy with a shaved top-knot.
Day felt sick to his stomach to be moving away and doing nothing to help take the upper hand. Yet he knew the mad, impassioned actions of the other inmates had done a great deal towards providing his cover. With his illicit arsenal trapped beneath him, he continued sluggishly away from the scene of the failed escape.
He caught up to Kvelda when they were both about seventy yards clear. She was sobbing silently and shaking almost beyond control, yet this did nothing to diminish her pace.
“Kvelda?”
She shook her knotted hair and said nothing, wiping her face and carrying on.
“Stop for a moment,” Day said. “Rest.”
“What are we going to do now?”
She sat up and wiped furiously at her running nose. Day was becoming accustomed to seeing her aggrieved. He watched for a moment until she looked at him and then he shrugged.
“There’s still hope.”
“Oh?” Kvelda raised an eyebrow. “You have any?”
Day thought about the guns and nodded. He wasn’t sure why. Being stranded still in the camp with a few weapons was a long way from being on a private plane flying to safety.
“Where there’s life, there’s hope,” Day said. He only realised afterwards it was a quote, though he didn’t know from where.
They watched the ghouls secure a perimeter. The second chopper remained airborne, but eventually a transport carrier came, the back loaded with another half-a-dozen identically dressed ghouls. They dropped from the heavy chopper in the bright afternoon light and quickly went about the business of scouring the ruins. They carted armloads of confiscated equipment back to the first chopper. Day figured a lot of the gear would be ruined, but the ghouls weren’t taking any chances. Likewise, on the three occasions onlookers came too close, the assault rifles rang out again. Five more carcasses dressed the ground.
All up there were about forty dead from Fox’s plan. Day was lucky he felt it was no fault of his. From the shadows beneath her brimming blue eyes, Day could tell Kvelda wasn’t anywhere near so guilt-free. There were plenty of people on the farm driven mad by their ordeals. In a handful of days, Kvelda had been through more than most. Paradoxically, at the same time she’d been spared from much direct suffering. The worst she had now was grief, and she was hardly alone in experiencing that. Grief was almost the default condition on the farm, Day reasoned.
The ghouls took no more than an hour. When they were done, four of them strolled through the wreckage with cans of fuel, pausing to liberally douse the bodies too. As they loaded themselves into the small final chopper, one lit a flare and threw it into the mire. The whole area became a bonfire in instants.
“They’ll see that in the other fields tonight,” Day said.
Sure enough, as the day slinked away, the light from the fires rose like a phoenix over the damask’d horizon.
Kvelda walked ahead of Day in the deepening light. Completely lost for how to comfort or even broach the subject with the girl, Day kept his distance, trudging slowly behind her. Yet he was surprised when her voice sounded in the gloom as strong as ever.
“What happens now, Day? My father’s dead. There’s no plane, no promise to get you out of here.” She stopped and turned. It almost seemed like her blue eyes clung to the light even as it elsewhere vanished.
“Will you go back to how things were before? You weren’t interested in me then, though I nearly threw myself at you,” she said.
Day shrugged. “I love you,” he said without really measuring the words.
Like a lost cause, the declaration sounded almost hopeless and, despite the bright meaning, Kvelda took it for what it was. She gave a small smile. The admission was some kind of victory after all, or perhaps just a relief to her. She walked back and rested her hands over his. Yet her words remained on their previous grim track.
“What does that mean here? Love’s not much in the face of death.”
“I never said otherwise,” Day answered.
“My friends loved me. Those I was with before.”
“Maya? I’m sure they
did.”
“But they died,” Kvelda said.
“Not all of them.”
“No. Maybe not then. That was a few days ago, though.” She shrugged and folded her arms. “Nothing can stop them taking us. And we’re trapped here.”
Day put his hands on the girl’s shoulder. “I can stop them.”
“I don’t think the guns will work,” Kvelda said.
“I don’t need the guns to kill them.”
Day stepped over the fur-wrapped bundle and took her in his arms. It was one act at least that finally felt good and right, though in the back of his mind Day knew he could be doing nothing more than assuaging a primitive instinct. He was lucky that for a moment at least he didn’t think about the others he had held before and where their bodies now lay.
Kvelda looked up until she could see Day’s eyes.
“Don’t tell me if you lie.”
“I’m not lying,” Day said. “I’ve slain one of the bloody . . . accursed . . . creatures since I came here. I have a friend – Carlos – who helped me fashion silver knives.”
The name echoed like a chime as he spoke it. Their last meeting had been on ill terms. Nothing would’ve improved, especially after the afternoon’s slaughter.
“If you say you can do that, I’ll believe you,” Kvelda said. “But I’m not sure it makes us safe.”
Day instantly imagined a dozen nightmarish scenarios in which the vampires came for them two, three or four at a time. He knew she was right. Yet he shrugged as if none of that mattered.
“You’re right. It’s no more than another weapon. Another way to strike back.”
“I would like to strike back,” Kvelda said softly, as if admitting a dreadful truth at last.
“And you may yet.”
“Now I’m just tired though.”
Day nodded. “Sleep with me. I’m tired too, and cold.”
The night-time rituals were few in the field. They looked around themselves, shelterless again now they couldn’t go back. The risk of going near where the smoke signal had been released was too great.
The ground beneath them was flat and free of obstacles. Kvelda sighed and sat and Day went down beside her. She immediately sought his warmth and Day was only too happy to give it, yet that was all she seemed to want from him. They lay back and within minutes Kvelda was asleep. Propped awkwardly upon the fur-coated bundle of the rifles, Day lay awake much longer than he would’ve wished. The night was mercifully free of rain. When the morning came, they would be moving on. He hoped it was towards their freedom.
For one night the vampires stayed their hand. There was no sound of abductions and murders. Day eventually slept, convinced somehow there’d been a reprieve.
They were moving again, trekking south-east across the hex, when three ghoul choppers came snickering over the fence. Although it was a long way from winter’s end, the day was bright as spring, with only a bitingly cold wind to remind them they were still within winter’s domain.
The shadows of the aircraft passed them several times, yet whatever the ghouls were up to it involved neither attacks nor dropping supplies. Some time in the afternoon, after a lengthy study of the hex, the choppers went yet again over the fence-line and didn’t return.
“The plane must’ve really shaken them,” Kvelda said.
“I’d say so.”
“We did that?”
Day chuckled tiredly. “I suppose we did. Us and Fox.”
“Yes,” Kvelda said.
“We’ll just have to see whether it’s a bad thing.”
“What do you think they will do next?” Kvelda asked. “Do you think they’ll just let life go on as normal? This is a crazy world.”
Day shrugged. “There seems to be a certain number of losses they’re willing to take as long as the system keeps operating.”
“System?”
“Providing them the food source they need,” Day said.
“Oh.”
“So when you look at it like that, it seems . . . Well if I was a vamp and one field was causing trouble, you’d think they’d just start doing all their harvesting from one.”
“They must be scared,” Kvelda insisted.
“Maybe you’re right. But people lash out when they’re afraid.”
Day wouldn’t say anything more, though he knew Kvelda would form the idea he had a plan. The truth was he had a desire plus some tools at his disposal and, while there wasn’t any plan, he wasn’t going to let it stop him from acting. Although they had nothing but foreboding about what the ghouls intended, Day wasn’t going to stand still and let the vamps take him, even if it was just to transfer him to another field. Every time there was an action, the actors exposed themselves. His blind-fighting training had taught him that. Every time the vampires moved they exposed their weaknesses, however strong they might be. If they came for him before he had a way out, he’d fight just to bring them down, even if there were no chances for survival.
It didn’t take long to walk to Carlos’s area. Because he knew what he was looking for, Day found the concealed trapdoor easily enough.
“Carlos,” Day said at medium pitch. “It’s Day. Come out.”
The ground shuffled aside. Kvelda stepped backwards in alarm. Day tried to grin to show his friend he meant no harm. In the daylight he had wrapped a salvaged strip of cloth around his waist to conceal the two holstered pistols. Not knowing how Carlos might react, even though Day considered him a friend, Day kept his hand close to one of the grips.
Carlos looked up with a scrunched, tired expression. After resting a moment with his elbows on the edge of the pit, he hauled himself out of the self-fashioned depression and covered it loosely over again.
“You must be Kvelda,” Carlos said.
“Day told you?”
“A-yup.”
He smirked suddenly, just a little, like he was uncomfortable in a woman’s presence. Then he narrowed his eyes in the brightness and forced one eye open as he turned towards Day.
“Hell of a thing that happened.”
“Uh, yeah,” Day said.
“Wouldn’t happen to know who was involved?”
“I think you know it was me,” Day said.
“Bet your tail I do,” Carlos said.
“I’m sorry.”
“That was a shitty lie, Day.”
“I know. I didn’t know what else to say.”
“Don’t suppose there was room on that plane for me?”
“I didn’t really know what was planned. I guess we could’ve fit you in, maybe.”
“I think I’m glad I passed on that ride,” Carlos said. “Crazy idea.”
“It spooked the ghouls.”
Carlos laughed shortly. “That it did.”
“Do you still want out of here?”
Carlos spat, the gesture too enigmatic to read.
“Oh, comin’ to me when your first plan fails, huh?” Carlos’s grin actually widened. “You always gettin’ other people to run your schemes, Day? I thought you was all set to be a survivor.”
“It’s not like that.”
“People who help you seem to wind up dead.”
“We might all be dead if we don’t move.”
Carlos said nothing. His face wrinkled in acknowledgement at the unpleasant fact. Eventually he conceded Day’s point with a slow nod. He stroked his stubble and moved a little back and forth and to one side.
“What’s your idea?”
“We’ve got some guns still.”
Carlos grunted, unimpressed.
“Uh-huh?” he said, moving on.
“I can get us up onto the wall. I killed a vamp in the next field over. I can do it again. One at a time and we’ve got a chance.”
“Then?”
“Tunnels,” Day said. “I think there’s access between the fields, all the way across the farm.”
“Underground?”
“Yep.”
“No sunlight then?”
“There’
s artificial light I’m sure,” Day said.
Carlos scowled angrily. “Not worried about seeing, Day! No sunlight means the vamps live down there!”
“Maybe,” Day said.
Carlos made a face. “Tunnels full o’ vamps. No thanks.”
He turned aside and glanced meaningfully at his camouflaged cache.
“I’m going for a walk. You keep in touch, Day.”
He started moving and Day, in mild shock, almost didn’t notice Carlos’s last comment.
“You come see me when you’ve got a plan that doesn’t involve suicide.”
“I don’t think he likes you,” Kvelda said eventually.
Day sighed, trudging beside her. “With Carlos it’s not about like or dislike. He hates risk. I guess he might think we can still get through . . . or that he can get through, at least.”
“Escape?”
“No, just . . . survive.”
After another lengthy pause Kvelda said, “I’d rather be dead.”
“Me too,” Day answered, wondering for a moment if it was true.
Night steadily approached once again. The rain had held off, making Day glad once more since they still lacked a shelter. One man plus a woman unlikely to be killing in cold blood put them at a strategic disadvantage as far as acquiring a new place to sleep.
The biting wind didn’t relent. Eventually the couple relocated from the spot they’d chosen to shelter instead in the creek bed. It being a cold night as usual, the creek was only a memory of its former self, filled not with water but the sleeping and often fretful forms of humans huddling out of the elements. Day and Kvelda found a spot causing a few people to shuffle along and then they laid down, close in each other’s arms.
“I’m glad you’re with me, Day,” Kvelda said.
Day stroked the girl’s broad face and then her tapered chin. When he tried to get closer, she stilled his hand with a gesture and burrowed her face into the fur of his jacket.
“Be still,” she said. “Your moving makes me cold.”
She fell asleep, leaving Day awake and slow-burning with feelings for which he didn’t have names. Full night was all around them, stars appearing like pinpricks in the heavens which Day fancied must be a cold and airless hell. The moon rose while Day was still stargazing, the muted light falling in vibrating beams across the bodies of the sleepers all around.
Endless Night Page 23