“I don’t know. I could just tell. But they worked together, like a military unit.”
“Come on, Earl. That’s impossible. If vamps worked together, they could have taken over the world by now. It’s been twenty years since there was a confirmed report of a Master.”
“Closer to thirty. I know. I’m the one that killed it,” Harbinger answered. “But Pitt is right on one thing. Something surprised me last night. I couldn’t see anything, but there was something in the conference room with us. How else could he have known that?”
The four of us jumped when the radio sprang to life.
“This is Priest. You lot aren’t going to believe this, but I’ve got signs of life. Somebody must have heard us arrive.”
“What?” Boone responded.
“Listen, I’m going to put my mike on it. I’m getting this through a duct.”
Every Hunter on the ship strained to hear. It was a series of seemingly random clicks, repeated over and over. I did not immediately recognize it. Sam picked it up first.
“Morse code,” he translated. “SOS . . . T R A P P E D space E N G I N E R O O M space D A R N E space SOS.”
“Priest, send a message back,” Harbinger ordered.
“No can do, chief. Don’t know Morse code.”
“On it, Earl,” Sam responded and hurried off in that direction.
Harbinger got back on the radio. “Okay, folks. Mission parameters have changed. This is now a rescue.” He released the mike. “Boone, gather your men. Let’s clear this ship!”
“Won’t be the first time Americans have saved the French,” the Special Forces vet shouted over his shoulder as he ran to rejoin his team.
I waited for my boss to address me. I could not tell what he was thinking.
“Pitt.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Cut the ‘sir’ crap. Can you think of anything else from that dream of yours that might help?”
“Not really. If the dream is right, then the really bad dudes have disembarked. So do you believe me then?”
He did not answer my question directly. Instead he got back on the radio.
“Holly, send up every stake we have. We need to kill us some vampires.”
“So is that a yes?” I asked again.
“Come on . . . We’re burning daylight. Nobody’s ever killed a Master in the dark.”
Chapter 8
Vampires are one of the most dangerous forms of undead—brutal, swift, and smart. No Hunter in the world takes one on lightly. They vary greatly in ability, with the weakest being only super dangerous, while Masters are virtually unstoppable, perfect killing machines. Unluckily for us, anyone who is killed while being fed upon by a vampire could rise as one the next few nights, so we were potentially looking at fifty enraged bloodsuckers on the freighter. Luckily for us, newly created vampires tend to be confused and disoriented. The longer the creature exists, and the more blood that it has fed on, the greater its power would become.
Once again, literature and the movies got the story partially correct. Vampires are creatures of the night. Indirect sunlight can burn them. Direct sunlight will kill them. Their cells can regenerate almost instantly, but a stake through the heart will paralyze their advanced circulatory systems, and shut them down long enough to take their heads off. Even in our line of work there are not too many things that could survive getting their brain housings severed. Holy symbols like crosses and blessed water occasionally have an effect, but are dependent upon the personal faith of the user. Most Hunters opt for violence over faith; we’re kind of like soccer fans that way.
I took small comfort from that fact as I hauled a case of fragmentation grenades up from the Brilliant Mistake. They could be destroyed, and we had the means to do it. I grunted as I set the heavy case down on the deck, unclamped the cable, and threw it back over the side. Holly waited below for our next request. Trip and Lee stood nearby, scanning for any threats. We were the security detail. Julie was in the Hind, still on overwatch, and the ten other Hunters had broken into two raid teams and were making their way gradually toward the engine room.
“This is Harbinger. Still haven’t seen anything.”
“Boone’s team. All clear. Stay frosty.”
We had sent a coded message down the duct. The French Hunter tapped back that most of his team had been taken out by vampires, and they had sealed themselves in a compartment, were out of ammo, and were hiding.
“Newbie team. All clear on top.” I cradled my Remington and watched the deck. Nothing was moving except for the French flag flapping in the breeze. Since we were standing in broad daylight, and worried about creatures that burst into flame when they got too much sun, there was not a lot for the Newbie team to do other than keep a sharp eye on nothing. The Hind circled lazily above.
“How come Chuck got to go inside, and we’re stuck out here?” Albert Lee complained. He was a small-statured man of Asian descent. He had been a librarian once upon a time, before a colony of giant mutant spiders had taken up residence in his archives and started sucking the fluids out of his clientele. Unlike your average librarian, however, he had put himself through college on the GI Bill, and had been a demolitions specialist in the Marine Corps. His giant spider problem had met a fiery end, thanks to diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Sadly, the library had burned down as well. He was sharp, and unlike many of the Newbies, had already known which end of the gun was the dangerous one. I was glad that Harbinger had picked him to come along.
“Chuck has more CQB training,” I answered. CQB stood for close quarters battle, and Mead had a lot more experience in it from his Ranger days than the rest of the Newbies. Lee just shook his head and we went back to waiting. Time passed slowly except for the occasional radio check-ins. The two assault teams were converging on the engine room from separate corridors.
“This is Harbinger. Galley’s clear. Buckets of blood on the floor. There was a struggle here.”
“This is Boone. We’re above the boilers. More blood. Lots of shell casings. This must be where the French bought it.”
“This is Julie. Deck is clear.”
“Newbie team. All clear on top,” I said again.
“This is the ‘support’ team. I’ve got stupid sailors trying to hit on me and this damn boat smells like fish guts,” Holly reported.
I checked my weapons again. The 870 had an 18-inch barrel and a two-shot mag extension, giving me seven total shots in the gun. It was a personal favorite of mine. I had owned this particular unit since I was fifteen. I had replaced the fore end with a Surefire high intensity flashlight, mounted a glow in the dark XS bead sight on the rib, attached a side saddle that held an extra six shells, and added a nylon butt cuff that held six more. My load-bearing gear was heavily laden with extra shells: silver buckshot, silver slugs, flechettes, armor-piercing quadrangle shot, internally suppressed buckshot, Milo’s special magnum breaching charges, and even a couple of Penguin tear gas rounds. I had strapped on everything but the kitchen sink, and I’m sure that they had a specialty round for that as well.
My handgun was also an old friend. At MHI, Hunters are able to customize their kits to suit them, and any handgun is allowed as long as it is a .45 that is reliable with our special silver bullets. My pistol was a Kimber/BUL polymer-framed double stack 1911 that I had been shooting in three-gun matches for years. The fat magazines held 14 rounds of .45, and I had six extras on my belt. I had customized it with huge tritium Ashley Express sights, that gave up a little precision for a whole lot of speed, which suited me just fine. I had over 10,000 rounds through that pistol, and I had won more than a few trophies with it.
There were several grenades on my webbing, a few sharpened stakes, and other miscellaneous tools. The enormous knife strapped to my chest completed my ensemble. Being a big guy, I had taken one of the biggest knives in the armory. Milo had said that it was a kukri from Nepal, the weapon of choice of the renowned Gurkha troops. It was curved deadly steel, with a
fat heavy end designed for maximum chopping power. The version I had strapped on was called a ganga ram, and it was longer than my forearm. If I had to chop any heads off, I wasn’t going to screw around. Most of us were wearing the lightweight hockey helmets, as the big ones were too bulky for the close quarters of the ship.
I was as ready as I could be. I felt like I had in the minutes before a big money fight. Every one of us had been training hard, both physically and mentally. The Newbie team was ready to rumble. The others were armed with Heckler & Koch .45 subguns. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the guns, and thought the whole German engineering thing was really overrated, but Milo had gotten a good deal on a couple dozen, so they were passed out to most of the Newbies until they were proficient enough to pick their own gear.
The radio crackled again. The deeper the teams moved into the bowels of the ship, the greater the distortion. We were using top-of-the-line communications equipment, but there was only so much that radio waves could do through layers of steel plate.
“Boone here. We have movement ahead. Five yards from the engine room.”
“This is Harbinger. Movement ahead.”
“Shit. They’re behind us too.”
“Incoming. They’re coming through the grates.”
“Under the floor. Coming through the floor.” Gunfire erupted in the background.
“Ambush! It’s an ambush!”
The radio cut out. I couldn’t hear a thing. The three of us on deck stared at each other in confusion.
“Earl, come in, Earl. Boone. Anybody hear me?” Julie asked over the radio from the circling helicopter. She sounded worried.
I looked up to see her holding her hand to her neck, sniper rifle dangling from its straps. She was shouting something at the pilot, then she looked at me, and quickly snapped her rifle to her shoulder.
“Newbie team. You have incoming!” she shouted over the radio as she fired right past my head.
The supersonic crack could be felt in my eyeballs and eardrums as the bullet whizzed by, mere inches from my helmet. I spun in time to see a hideous undead face fall away from the ship’s railing, an extra hole in its gray forehead. Gore-stained men in rags were coming up over the sides, and charging with fast loping gaits, directly toward us.
No time for emotion. Training kicked in.
Without any conscious thought I raised the shotgun, flicked off the safety and caressed the trigger. I slammed a creature to the deck with a load of double-aught to the chest. Before it had even fallen, I had pumped and fired at the next creature in line, tearing off its jaw in a spray of black ooze. It kept coming, arms outstretched and clawed hands grasping for me. I cranked off two more rapid shots and it stumbled and fell over the railing. The chunk-chunk-chunk sound of suppressed subguns opened up as Trip and Lee fired their H&K UMP .45s.
Grabbing shells from my vest I rapid-fire shoved them into the loading port as I searched for more targets. The ashen undead were pouring over the sides of the ship, and spilling out around us in a confused mass. I fired at them as fast as I could, the gun an extension of my will. I put twelve silver-pellets through the brain cage of a creature closing on Lee, and dropped a slug through the chest cavity of another charging Trip. I felt a cold wet splash as the head of an undead that had appeared behind me was vaporized by a .308 round from Julie’s rifle.
“Close ranks. Get back to back! Back to back!” I shouted at my team. Somehow in the confusion they heard and ran toward me, all of us firing simultaneously in different directions. Some of the monsters that had been put down were already standing up again. I punt-kicked one as I passed, a move that would have broken every rib and probably killed a human. All it did was send the creature to its feet faster. It opened its maw in a soundless roar and lunged. I stuck the 870’s muzzle under its sternum at near-contact distance and blew a softball-sized hole out its back. It stumbled away momentarily, but then changed its mind and kept coming. I crushed its skull with the butt of my gun, and kicked its legs out from under it.
Lee screamed in pain as a bone claw struck him in the leg, and he collapsed to the ground. Trip stitched the monster through the face, grabbed Lee by the drag handle on the back of his armor, and pulled him to safety. I emptied my shotgun into the throng of undead, trying to take head shots, and then dropped it when it clicked empty. My tac sling kept it from hitting the ground. I instantly transitioned to my Kimber, centered the sights on the closest target and started firing. Bits of meat and bone flew from the creatures’ heads as the bullets struck home.
The three of us clustered together, shooting and reloading wildly. Lee lay prone on his stomach, firing his UMP upwards. More bullets cracked past us as Julie fired into the crowd. The slide of my 1911 locked back empty just as a creature was almost on me. My hand flashed toward a new magazine in a speed reload, but Trip was suddenly past me and took the monster’s arm off at the shoulder with his hatchet. With its remaining arm the creature brutally swatted Trip to the deck. I slammed the fresh mag home, dropped the slide and shot it through both eye sockets.
Lee was reloading, struggling to get a magazine out of his chest pockets while lying on them, his legs paralyzed beneath him. Trip wasn’t moving.
There were only two creatures still up, but they were coming our way fast. One was wearing what used to be a sailor’s uniform, and the other was wearing some sort of security coverall. Their eyes glowed red, and their teeth were broken and black. Sharpened bones appeared through the torn ends of their hands. I hammered two quick rounds into the first creature’s head, and it spilled forward onto the deck.
I shot the former sailor in the face. Its claws slashed out toward me as I threw myself down in an attempt to avoid them. My back hit the deck, sliding through the spilled fluids, firing upward into the creature still relentlessly pursuing me. Its neck erupted in a spray of black as Julie nailed it, temporarily slowing the monster. I pulled the massive ganga ram from my chest and swung at the creature’s legs. The big knife tore through the monster’s knee, severing the limb. It fell beside me and I cleaved the top half of its skull off, spilling pink brains and black fluid onto the painted deck.
The front of the ship was littered with steaming gray bodies. Some of them were still moving, and a few were already starting to rise. I raised the huge knife over my head and shouted in rage. I hacked wildly at anything that twitched, spraying fluids and meat with every swing. Lee struggled to his feet shakily and shot .45 caliber holes in anything that looked suspicious. The Hind dropped altitude, and roared over the side of the ship.
“Owen! The undead are coming out the portholes. They’re crawling up the sides of the ship. Holly needs help.”
Shit. I slammed the still sticky knife back into its sheath, holstered my pistol, retrieved my shotgun and started loading it with slugs as I ran toward the chain ladders. Julie was dangling from the Hind, firing at the side of the ship below me. A ricochet sparked upwards and struck my body armor. Ignoring the painful but not dangerous hit, I leaned across the railing to look down at the deck of the Brilliant Mistake. Holly was firing her UMP at the monsters dangling unnaturally from the slick steel hull. They were crawling along it somehow, in violation of gravity and common sense, heading directly toward her. There were at least five of them, and they were soaking up bullets without much effect.
I put the bead on a creature directly below me. It was an awkward angle, and I had to lean over so far that I was afraid I was going to end up in the ocean. I stroked the trigger and put an ounce of silver through the first undead’s shoulder blades. Arms limp, it slipped from the hull and fell into the waves. I pumped the action and took aim on the next target.
Then a cold feeling surged through my body, starting in the center of my back, and spreading out into my limbs, so very cold it burned. My legs went numb and buckled beneath me. My 870 slipped from my grasp and dangled on its sling. I was jerked around like a rag doll. An undead sailor held me by the straps of my armor. Its touch had caused instant paralys
is. I looked into its clear, blood-red eyes as it opened its mouth impossibly wide, black razor teeth glistening. I tried to move, but all I could manage was a weak flopping of my arms, twitching the muscles of my face, and a small tingle of my fingers. I was about to die.
Suddenly the top of the creature’s head opened up like a cantaloupe stuffed with firecrackers. Julie had fired right past my limp body. The bullet actually grazed my helmet. It was perhaps the best shot I had ever seen. The creature fell, lifeless claws trailing away from me. I could see Trip and Lee heading my way, trying to reach me before my limp body went over the rail. Trip dived recklessly over the near-headless undead, arms outstretched like I was the winning end zone pass.
He did not quite make it.
I fell the thirty feet into the ocean soundlessly. Not because I was too brave to scream, believe me. I was screaming on the inside, but my throat was too frozen to make any sound. I hit the waves with a huge splash. Immediately the weight of my armor and weapons dragged me down. My limbs floated numbly around me. I was at least able to close my mouth, but water started to rush relentlessly down my nose. I tried to move. I willed my arms to move. Nothing was happening. I tried to struggle. I raged soundlessly at my helplessness as I spiraled into the depths.
The light was dwindling above. I did not know if that was because I was putting some serious distance against the surface, or because my brain was running out of oxygen. The water was cold, but my body felt colder still. Lights began to pop behind my eyes as water expanded into my lungs. I knew that soon they would lock up in desperation, and I was screwed.
What were the undead that paralyzed you at their touch? We had discussed them in class . . . There had been a picture of Julie fighting one. Wights. Wights could paralyze you. How long did it last, though? Lee had gotten up pretty quick, and Trip was moving around when I slipped over the edge. A minute? Maybe two? Unfortunately I didn’t have a minute or two. My depth was increasing, and I was starting to panic from lack of air. Terror without the outlet of movement is a real bummer. I kept trying to move, willing myself to respond with all my might. My fingers wiggled slightly. Not enough.
The Monster Hunters Page 13