by Derek Gunn
Chapter 5
The lead vehicle was a pickup of sorts, though with a few modifications. The basic chassis was that of a pickup but someone had added a lethal-looking heavy machine gun in the back which swivelled on an upright strut, and there were heavy metal sheets surrounding the thrall who held tightly to the trigger guard. Metal sheets also lined the sides and the rear. It must have been hard on the engine but the thralls were more interested in security than performance, it seemed.
The extra protection did little to protect the occupants, however, when an RPG missile flew from the small hillock to the right of the road. It struck the vehicle through the front grill, where overheating problems had led the thralls to remove the metal sheeting earlier. The vehicle slammed to a stop in a fireball that nearly blinded Harris in the pale light. Metal sheets were ripped from their supports and sent in all directions with the force of the explosion.
Shrapnel tore through the air and pinked loudly off the metal sheeting on the vehicle behind. Harris stayed down for another moment as he heard the air above him whistle with shards from the destroyed vehicle. He heard a few cries and knew that some of the shrapnel had found its way into thrall flesh. Then he leapt upwards and opened fire on the second vehicle on the road. He heard supporting fire from further down to his left as the rest of his forces joined him but he ignored this as he focused on his mission. He launched the grenade loaded into the attachment on his XM8 and then switched to machinegun and began to fire in three-round bursts even before the grenade had exploded under the stationary truck.
The thralls had reacted far quicker than he expected, though, and the grenade lifted an almost empty truck and turned it on its side as the last of its occupants jumped to safety. The thralls spread out immediately to find what cover they could, firing as they moved, and some of them rushed back behind the overturned truck and used it for cover.
He saw one or two stagger and fall but the majority of them made it to the relative safety of the ditch which ran the length of the road. These thralls were very well trained and moved as if they had expected such an ambush. He pumped another grenade but it exploded harmlessly against the overturned truck and Harris was forced to drop back into cover as bullets stitched the air around him.
The trucks had not seemed to have that many thralls in them when they had first spied the patrol, but now there seemed to be far more thralls than seemed possible to fit in the cramped vehicles. This was very definitely a trap, though whether it had been intended for his forces or Nero’s, he wasn’t certain. Either way, this did not bode well. Now that Carter had control of the two states he had more time and resources to mount more of these patrols, and Harris and his group did not have enough people, trained or otherwise, to take on these well-equipped patrols.
He was wrenched out of his thoughts as the thralls began to advance. He had hoped that they would stay behind cover and allow Harris to withdraw his forces, but these soldiers were far better trained than that. In fact, they were better trained then Harris and his men and already they had begun to spread out along the ditch, forcing his assault group to cover too large an area. Harris could see that his group were already stretched too thinly and that the thralls had already made it halfway up the slope and were unleashing blistering fire; keeping his men down while others leapfrogged their way further up the hill. Bullets sang in the air above his head and Harris was forced to duck down again. He had just caught a glimpse of a few thralls break from the cover of the third truck down and run along the road but the barrage of fire had been too great to stop them.
He knew instinctively that these thralls would continue down the road and then come up behind them in a few minutes, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was positioned at the end of the ambush party and was probably the only one to have seen the flanking party, but the thralls below him kept up a withering fire on his position and he was forced to curl up behind his cover and wait for the thralls to complete their manoeuvre.
His group wouldn’t have a hope if the thralls got behind them. The thralls would pick them off easily in the crossfire and Harris couldn’t even signal the others. They had stopped using radios quite some time ago when Sherman had told them that the signal could be detected. They relied now on hand signals, which had worked well when they had attacked targets which were not expecting them. Shit, he thought as he cursed Sherman yet again for betraying them. They really needed someone with Sherman’s skills and experience, someone who knew how to do this.
There were twelve in the ambush party but not all of them were deployed as he would have liked. He had put Ricks over on the far side with the RPG as it was flatter there and gave the boy a clear shot at the road and had left April with him. He still considered both of them far too young to take a more active roll in the fighting.
Now, he wished he had put a few bodies on that side as he would have had a good crossfire at the thrall positions and they wouldn’t now be in danger of being overrun. At the time, the relatively flat, open plain had seemed too much of a risk as cover was sparse. Besides, if he was honest, he had expected that the thralls would be as easy to handle as before and he would not need to overexpose his men or add complexity to what seemed to be a simple ambush.
He knew now that he should have had a few of the men dig in and cover themselves with soil and lie in wait. Instead he had deployed all his forces along the gentle hillock which ran parallel to the road. Unfortunately, the very slope that had hidden his group in the initial attack now offered the same protection to the thralls as they advanced towards them. And there were more of them.
Was this a trap? He wondered as he curled into a ball when a grenade tore into the earth beside him and threw soil over him. Or were they just expecting trouble from Nero and had come prepared? Harris retreated back further behind the incline he had just come from as the rate of fire increased. The last truck on the road still had its heavy machine gun working and it was pounding the entire line of the slope with heavy calibre fire, giving the thralls plenty of time to advance further up the slope, and all the time the other thralls were making their way around them. If this continued much longer they would be trapped in the very crossfire he should have set up.
Harris curled up smaller behind his meagre cover and realised with a crushing blow that he just didn’t have what it took to take on well-trained combat veterans. This was an entirely different war. This time, the enemy were ready and able to fight back, and his limited training just wasn’t enough. Unless God himself intervened, he had just gotten his entire force killed by being overconfident.
He heard a sudden thump that nearly blew his eardrums and he risked a quick look over the slope to see what had happened. The truck that had housed the last remaining machine gun was in flames and he saw two figures cross from the far side of the road and pour fire into the exposed rear of the thralls sheltering behind the overturned truck before he was forced back behind cover again by the thralls on the slope. The level of fire on his position suddenly reduced without the heavy machine gun pinning him down, and some of the thralls on the slope turned their attention to the attack to their rear. Harris was finally able to get to his knees and check the load in the magazine.
He heard sporadic gunfire coming from the positions of his own forces and knew that they too had an opportunity to fight back now that the heavy machine gun was gone. It would be a very brief rally, though, if he could not take out the force that, even now, must almost be in position behind him. He took a deep breath and popped his head around the rock he was using for cover, trying to mark the positions of the thralls on the slope. He then dodged quickly back as bullets tore into the side of the rock and sent dust and shavings into his eyes. He hadn’t seen the thralls on the slope but he had seen a small puff of smoke before he dodged back behind the rock and he crawled to the other side of the cover and pictured the position of the thrall in his mind.
Without further thought he rolled out from behind the rock and stitched a line of fire
in the general direction he thought the thrall to be. If he had chosen the wrong position then he would be terribly exposed, but then, if he had chosen incorrectly he would also be dead from the thralls who were flanking him. At least this way, he had a fighting chance.
He weapon suddenly clicked on empty and he realised with a curse that he had held his finger on the trigger too long. All the training in using three round bursts had gone out of his head when his fear had taken over. He was a sitting duck where he was and he panicked as he groped for a spare magazine. His heart hammered as he finally got the magazine in place and slammed it home, expecting to see a thrall peek from cover and pour fire into his unprotected position.
But no fire came. He scrambled forward, remaining low to the ground, and saw the glazed eyes of a thrall just left of where he had thought the fire had come from. There was a neat hole in his forehead and, from what he could see, no other marks at all. He had missed with every other shot.
Harris looked along the slope and could see that his own forces were beginning to pour fire down on the thralls along the slope, and the thralls were trying to return fire up the slope and still cover themselves from the fire from the road where Ricks and April continued to pour fire from behind the overturned truck. Harris nodded in satisfaction and moved back away from the fighting to try and see where the flanking thralls were.
They were far closer than he had expected and he actually came face to face with one of them as he crawled around the cover. The thrall was as surprised as he was but Harris recovered first as the thrall had not expected to find his prey moving toward him. Harris rolled to the side and pulled the trigger, his finger freezing on the trigger in shock and pouring round after round into the thrall. The bullets tore into the flesh of the thrall, spinning him around like a demented marionette. His face was torn and shredded after the first few rounds but Harris was still in shock and locked his finger on the trigger, empting the magazine for a second time. His heart pounded in his chest and he couldn’t hear anything else but the thump-thump of the blood rushing through his system.
His hands shook as he thumbed the magazine release and brought his hand down to his pocket to pull another magazine free. Only there wasn’t another magazine. And then he saw a second and then the third thrall rush from cover as if in slow motion. The thralls were only thirty yards from him now and their weapons jerked as they fired toward him. Luckily, their movement as they ran caused their shots to fly wild but their sheer strength kept their weapons steady enough that the shots were getting closer. A bullet grazed his right leg and the pain seemed to help him focus. Harris tucked his arms in and rolled back toward the slope as the thralls closed the gap. Another bullet pinged off a rock beside his face and something tore into his forehead.
Suddenly he rolled over something hard and, for a second, he thought that a bullet had hit him in the side. His hand was crushed painfully against something hard and cold and, instinctively, he grabbed at it. He found he was holding a thrall machine gun by the barrel and his heart skipped a beat. Another bullet ploughed into the ground just beside his face and dust flew into his eyes, blinding him. Suddenly the thralls’ weapons went silent and he heard a curse and the metal sliding as they changed their magazines.
He did not have time to wipe his eyes and check his newfound weapon so he merely reversed the machine gun, pointed it in the direction he thought the thralls to be, and pulled the trigger. His eyes were watering badly as they tried to clear the dust and, by the time he could see vague shapes, the machine gun was empty. He steeled himself for the bullet that would strike his body but nothing came.
He wiped at his eyes and the scene slowly came into focus. Both thralls lay dead in front of him. His body began to shake uncontrollably as he realised how close he had been to death. He could hear more fire behind him as his forces still continued to fight for their lives, but he was incapable of moving at that moment. He had never been so scared in his life or so close to death, and he was totally unprepared for the shock that racked his body.
He continued to see the muzzles of the thralls’ weapons in his mind as they pointed at him. They seemed to grow until the darkness within seemed to reach out to him, as if it could swallow him whole. He wasn’t certain how many thralls had made it behind them, he thought it had been three but he couldn’t be certain. He tried to force himself to rise and check for any more thralls, or at least to help his men, but he couldn’t move.
He could feel the pain in his leg and along his forehead, he was distantly aware that something warm was seeping down his face. But he found he could not move, despite the angry curses he directed at himself. In the distance the gunfire reduced and then stopped completely. He lay there on the grass and strained to hear voices, orders, anything that would give him a clue as to who, if anyone, was still alive. Had they won or was everyone dead? Tears of frustration poured down his cheeks as he tried to roll over and get to his feet, but his body would do nothing except shake.
Finally he heard movement behind him but he had to wait until whoever it was came into his field of vision. At one level he prayed that it would be one of his men, but, on another, he did not want them to see him like this. He heard the familiar high voice of Ricks and he felt relief wash over him. They had won after all. But it had been too close. He had wanted to protect the younger members of the team, and in so doing had exposed the rest of the team to unacceptable risk. He had nearly gotten them all killed today.
These thralls had been ready and waiting for an attack and they’d been well trained on how to turn the tide of the battle on their attackers. He had been overconfident and his inexperience had been plain when the ambush had gone wrong and he had had no backup to counter the thrall’s response. Worse than that, though, was the fact that he had frozen when they needed him most.
But who had these thralls been expecting an attack from - Nero’s thralls or humans? Had the thralls figured out where they were or was this just a coincidence? Either way, they couldn’t afford to assume they were still safe on this side of the state line. This new development would only make their survival even harder now. He would also have to warn Phelps and his community: the wireless protection wouldn’t stop the thralls if they came looking for them.
These thoughts, and others, continued to flood his mind as he became aware of raised voices close by. He felt hands on his body as they searched for wounds but then everything began to go black. He saw Sandra’s face swim before him briefly, but whether this was real or imagined he wasn’t sure.
And then the darkness washed over him.
Chapter 6
Walking into the Cave was less like a homecoming and more like returning to the scene of a great tragedy. Sandra Harrington felt her hand grope for Harris’ before she knew what she was doing and she ignored his glance as she saw him turn toward her out of the corner of her eye. The house above the complex had been completely destroyed by the thralls and the vampires a few months ago during their assault. It looked empty and desolate and yet it was still filled with memories. They had not spent very long here before but, somehow, it seemed to retain the very essence of those they had left behind. She could almost see their faces among the ruins as she approached the main entrance to the house.
She still wasn’t convinced that this was a good idea. There were just so many memories here in these walls. Her father had died here, along with too many of her friends. But Harris was right about one thing, they had to stay somewhere and, being outside the protection of Adam Wilkins’ wireless disruptor and with the vampires’ incredible senses to consider, she had to admit that it certainly made sense to stay here. Even if it tore her apart emotionally to do so.
The thoughts of her father made her suddenly falter and Harris stopped beside her. To his credit, he didn’t rush her. She had not known her father long in peace time. His long estrangement from her mother had left a hole in her life that she had not realised was there until she had begun to spend time with him again. It had been just
before the war that she had visited him, and then events had overtaken them all. She still had no idea what had become of her mother, and it pained her to think of her in a cage somewhere, slowly dying of abuse and serum overdose.
She remembered how her father had told her one day, before the vampires had taken over completely, that she must put the fear and worry for her mother to one side if she wanted to remain sane. She had really tried to do that over the last two years. But it was hard. She and her mother had been so close, and she missed her guidance. In fact, she was spending so much time lately trying to work out what drove Peter Harris that she had pointedly ignored her own motivations and feelings. In a rare flash of clarity she realised that her own motives for continuing to fight were not a million miles away from his, though hers were a little more selfish. She wanted to find her mother, or at least remove the threat of the terrible death that the serum threatened while she continued the search.
She tried to shake her maudlin thoughts away but the house in front of her was so steeped in memories that she found it hard to lift herself. She took a deep breath and smiled briefly at Harris, who still waited patiently beside her. The others of the group were less understanding and they shuffled incessantly as they waited on her to move. Some of them kept glancing up to the clear blue sky as if expecting to see a plague of vampires rushing toward them. She wasn’t entirely sure why they were all waiting on her but assumed Harris had instructed them to allow her to lead them into the building.
She scanned the outside of the building as she tried to convince her legs to move. She took in the bullet holes that stitched along those few broken walls that still stood, though they were pitifully few and looked like jagged sentinels, lonely and forlorn, among the rubble. Through the shattered windows she could see glimpses of the destruction that had been wrought that day; furniture still lay overturned or shattered around the rooms and windows gaped like toothless mouths with the occasional shattered fragment still stuck stubbornly in the frame. Jesus, how did any of us actually get out of there, she wondered as she surveyed the damage.