***
Cannopolis’ wheelchair whirred as he entered the tent. “They’re gathering near the old Kite’s restaurant. Maybe five minutes.”
Strajowskie nodded. “Good. Let them come.”
“They’ve been handing our asses to us,” Cannopolis said, voice quiet. “I think it’s almost time to issue the retreat.”
Strajowskie raised an eyebrow, intrigued by Cannopolis’ stern and somber countenance. He hadn’t been as grumpy since being placed back into some form of command. His arms didn’t appear to have been soaked in water for years anymore, either. The skin was healing, muscles bulging anew.
He looked at the cuts on his own arms and grimaced. He’d stayed off the battlefield the night prior, due to a medic’s orders. It hadn’t been pleasant, yet the break from the battle was refreshing. He couldn’t help but wonder: Was he getting too old for this shit? Had he grown soft in the comfort of the White House?
Would he envy Cannopolis when he gave full command back over to him?
“You and Manera urged me to stretch this out.” He finished strapping lightweight Kevlar armor to his chest. As an added precaution, and after witnessing the ferocious gnashing of many a jugular, he slipped his leather neck-brace on. “I intend to uphold my end.”
“It’s been five days.”
“We agreed to a week.”
“Yeah, but we didn’t expect them to bring every swinging fang to the fight.” The general sighed through his nostrils. “It’s taking its toll on us.”
Strajowskie agreed, but he wouldn’t admit it aloud. The battle had become chaotic, yet they were on the cusp of victory. He could feel it.
“Tonight, we sink our feet in and ride it out,” he said, clapping Cannopolis on the shoulder. “Tomorrow, the moment the front line is pushed back, I’ll give the orders. You have my word.”
He walked to the exit and pushed the tent flaps open, stepping outside. The evening air was still fresh, not choked off by the death that plagued the eastern half of the country. The encampment bustled with activity, the sun sinking at their backs. A pinkish-with-purple-pinstripes hue glazed the sky. The Midwest would be missed, when he was back in California, sitting in his dark office. California was beautiful by its own rights, but it could never compare to the sweeping hills and plains.
He frowned, thinking about the battle at hand. If the odds continued in the Undead’s favor, how long would the beautiful center of the country remain so? Would it, too, be wrought with death and destruction? Would it be lost, like New York, Pennsylvania, the Great Lakes?
He held his head high. It was his solemn duty to ensure humanity marched forward. He would do everything he could to protect his country and Her people.
The Undead would not lay claim to anymore of the Earth.
He walked past rambling soldiers until he reached the outskirts of the camp, yards away from the hidden trench and covered cannon. Drake and several privates approached him.
“Mr. President!” Drake shouted in greeting, saluting. He didn’t wait for Strajowskie to return the salute. “You would’ve been impressed with our team yesterday. Kept the vamps at bay, sir.”
“Is that so?”
Drake hefted a pole onto his shoulder. It resembled a spear with a metallic hinged arm running from the top of the haft to the center of a ragged pike that had been shoved onto it. Like a giant homemade tattoo gun without an engine.
He wedged the butt of the spear against the ground, between his feet. With one hand, he slid the haft and the pike jutted upward, the arm moving it. He slid the haft back down and the pike retracted. “Easier to use within the small confines of our formation, sir. Keeps our shields closer together as well.”
Strajowskie nodded. “Ingenuity at its finest.” He assessed Drake’s Kevlar-clad squad. All young, though hardened by war. He quirked an eyebrow. “New recruits?”
“The rowdiest bunch yet, Mr. President. Calling themselves the Kevlar Dozen.”
There was a sudden raucous ahead, near the gas station on Sixth Street. Drake and the Kevlar Dozen turned as shouts rang out. Strajowskie stepped past them all, hustling to see what the commotion was. He neared a large group of soldiers, who all pointed to the eastern horizon. The purple hue was gone, replaced with the dull grey of dusk. Hushed whispers stopped as he shoved his way to the front of the group. He followed the pointed fingers and his heart leapt.
The Undead were in formation, trudging down the center of Sixth Street. Banners with Undead insignia billowed high above the first wave of vampires, held aloft by several of the ugly giant beasts. The ranks disappeared into the smog on the other side of Jackson Street about half a mile away.
At the center of the first line, surrounded by dozens of the giant beasts, marched an Undead of unmistakable stature.
“I’ll be damned,” Strajowskie muttered. Hammers was in full battle regalia, with armor mounted to his arms and legs. He bit his lip. Months of hiding behind his own soldiers, and suddenly the Undead general was leading his men into battle? He didn’t like what that implied.
He could feel the machete sheathed against his leg. He patted the store of shuriken in his waistband and the ever-familiar bump that betrayed his mini-crossbow. He was shoulder-to-shoulder on the front line, Drake beside him, the Kevlar Dozen behind them. Everyone was in place with pikes, machetes, and crossbows at the ready.
The Undead lines halted across from them, ten yards away. The vampires stood frozen. Only the hunger glistening in their eyes gave them away to be more than silent sentinels. Hammers was dead-center, unflinching.
The president didn’t nod or show any respect to the bulky Undead general. Hammers had promised there would be no quarter given or taken when next they met face-to-face.
Undead banners dipped.
***
The humans dove in headlong, bellowing murderous cries. Opposing front lines clashed together in an eruptive roar, claws clanking against metal. Hammers attempted to remain at the front of the line, but his minions were hungry. They shouldered their way past with little or no regard for who he was. Not that it mattered.
He grinned. The call of battle had been beckoning him for far too long. Though he and Barnaby rarely saw eye-to-eye, he still obeyed orders. Staying cooped up in the encampment had brought forth a yearning for bloodshed he’d never experienced.
He’d have to thank Barnaby when next they met.
He pushed through his lines and strode to the nearest group of human soldiers. They fought against his brethren like stoic warriors should. He stood by as half a dozen of his soldiers were reduced to ash and body parts. The humans responsible then sighted him. Their eyes widened and their machetes stopped hacking away.
Before they could scream, he slashed through each of their throats. Warm blood enticed him. His nostrils flared, the scent overwhelming. Instincts kicked into overdrive. His powers pulsated within. He drank up the power and sent small waves rippling away. He wanted the humans to cower, to feel the waves as they sloshed against them in the heat of the battle.
He roared in ecstasy. His jackal bodyguards grouped around him. Humans stumbled within reach and died before they could wield their weapons against him. He and his jackals slashed and gashed their way through any who opposed them, and he relished in the warmth that sprayed upon him in torrents. Bodies piled up beneath his feet.
Within a minute of the commencement of the night’s battle, Hammers had mutilated and killed twenty humans.
Slickened by blood, senses overhauled by the inner bloodlust, he set forth to unleash his fury upon the Human Army. He hadn’t caught sight of Strajowskie, and so he continued to rip through the human fodder, forcing the Undead front line to move with him or remain behind.
With their general hacking through human ranks with reckless abandon, the Undead howled in delight and surged forth, eyes flaring.
***
“Fuck!” Strajowskie screeched. Another dozen vampires surrounded him. He’d thought the first night had been feroc
ious. He’d been mistaken. The Undead attacked so viciously he was certain the soldiers hidden in the ravine were already stumbling from their sanctuaries to fill in the dwindling front line.
The banners had dipped to signal the start of the battle only minutes prior.
With Hammers once again lost in the sea of soldiers, Strajowskie had turned his attention to the foes at hand. He twirled and parried, slashed and stabbed, dancing in and out of the milling soldiers—human and Undead alike—without hesitation. Claws and fangs raked at him. With calculated slices of his machete, ash erupted all around. Dismembered arms pelted his body. Another dozen stepped forth; another round of smooth maneuvers; another cloud of ash burst in the air.
He parried the next group of endless attackers, keeping the Undead at bay. An anguished cry broke his concentration. Drake. Strajowskie’s heart beat quicker than the strikes directed at him, resounding in his head. He felt the steady rhythm and immersed himself in the beat. Step, step, slash, parry, step, step, stab. A wild-haired vampire jumped above the other Undead and landed before him, knocking him off-beat.
A knee connected with Strajowskie’s chin and he was dazed. Vampires lunged at him. He sliced through reaching arms, heard the angered growls of the fiendish monsters, and still was unable to collect himself enough to locate Drake. Ash billowed around him, choking his lungs, marring his sight. Still he pressed forward, knocking faces with his elbows, slicing with his machete when he could maneuver it.
And then Drake and the Kevlar Dozen were beside him. Strajowskie stole a glance at the colonel and reeled. Drake’s right eye was gouged. There was no way an eyeball still resided in the socket. Undeterred, the colonel slashed away with his own machete, the hilt of which was covered in blood. With a roar, Strajowskie found his rhythm again and danced anew.
Suddenly, the vampires before them erupted into ash as arrows rained down from on high. The Kevlar Dozen brought their shields above their heads to block any stray shafts. Renewed, Strajowskie bowled over two gangling Undead and prepared to dispose of them, but Drake stepped forward, hefted one of the mechanical pikes, and skewered them while they flopped on the ground.
Together, they surged forward. The Kevlar Dozen abandoned their usual tactics then, relying on their shields to block blindsides. The majority used machetes and several wielded the rigged pikes like bo staffs. With the discipline of ninjas, they parried fists and delivered deathblows with ease. Within seconds, they were lost in the chaos, fighting their own battles.
Strajowskie had no time to dawdle at the privates and their expert moves, impressed as he was. Hairy arms elongated, and then giants appeared all around him. He was knocked in the forehead and the stomach simultaneously. He doubled over, elbows on his knees. Fists hammered down upon his back. His thighs bulged from the battering forces, straining to keep him upright. He almost toppled, but Drake and the Kevlar Dozen bounded into view.
The Dozen surrounded him, backs turned toward him. Then they crunched him in the middle of them and brought up their shields. Loud pings echoed and small dents formed with each blow. He hoped none of these privates rested their head against their shield. He didn’t want brain oozing down his nose again.
The shields swung out and Strajowskie regained his footing. Saved once more by Drake and his brave elite, he decided to repay in kind.
“Get down!” he said, pushing on their backs. “Get down!”
They obeyed his command. Ash still choked the air. He whipped out the wooden shuriken and slung them blindly. Howls roared all around. Specks of blood spattered against the Dozen’s faces, but they didn’t blink or grimace. With steel-like expressions, they stabbed and sliced at the calves and feet of the giant beasts surrounding them. None of the beasts burst into ash. Cuts and gapes sealed as soon as they were made.
Strajowskie cursed himself. Why do I always waste my shuriken at such inopportune times?
A cool breeze nudged through the battling parties. The ash cleared. The beasts’ faces came into view. Strajowskie stifled a laugh and smashed his fist into the eye socket of the nearest beast. The shuriken embedded in its eye shredded his knuckles, yet he felt no pain. A loud crunching noise reverberated. The beast howled, arms flailing. The Kevlar Dozen followed suit, smashing embedded shuriken into eyeballs, or nose bridges, or cheeks, or wherever they had happened to sink.
Strajowskie stepped out of the middle of the Dozen and hacked away with his machete. He breathed the ash in as it wafted. It no longer choked his lungs, which were on fire with exertion as it was. Wrapped up in the assault, the glee, he didn’t notice time slip away. He hacked and slashed, shot arrows at close range, nearly had his head ripped off by the Kevlar shields once more, got knocked unconscious twice by giant beasts, suffered a horrific-looking wound to his right thigh (his body still numb, it didn’t feel as bad as it looked), and watched his own men and women die at his feet.
He stole glances up and down the lines from time to time. Claws dug into anguished yet determined faces; ash erupted with every beat of his heart; blood squirted from all angles; fangs buried into necks and wrists and throats. Not once did he catch sight of Hammers, though he knew the Undead general was nearby.
Not once did he look up to the heavens and notice the bright twinkling stars wane to make way for sunrise.
Not once did he listen well enough to catch the roaring engines of the biplane as it flew overhead, crossing from the center of Junction City toward the Human encampment.
***
Keith gripped an emergency handle with his pincers and wrapped his good arm around a pole behind the co-pilot’s seat.
“Jesus Christ, did we really have no other choice but here?” Lester muttered. Sweat glistened on his pale forehead.
Keith shrugged, but turbulence made it look more like a spastic, involuntary action. “They’ve got to know!” he shouted over the sputtering engines.
“Yeah, yeah.” Lester’s forearms bulged as he strained to flatten their quick descent.
Keith was shaken to his core as tires screeched against broken asphalt. He lost his grip with the pincers but maintained a hold on the pole. His feet lifted off the floor, crashed back down. His soles ached. Another rattling of the plane. His grip faltered and he was splayed against the floor. He slid toward the tail of the plane and his head rang against the gaylord which housed the cement mix.
The shaking stopped, but it was still so bumpy his teeth chattered. He rolled onto his stomach and crawled his way up the interior. Then he pulled himself up to stand once again behind the co-pilot’s seat.
Through the windshield, jagged limestone layers of a bluff approached.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Lester let go of the yoke with one hand and performed the movements of the Catholic sign of the cross, uttering a prayer that Keith couldn’t hear over the deafening roar of his own heart.
The bluff wall inched ever closer. Keith closed his eyes and braced for impact.
The nose of the plane shuddered. A sound like that of a blacksmith’s hammer ringing against an anvil echoed inside the cabin. Lester then uttered more epithets, drowning out the clunking sound of the propeller biting into limestone.
The plane rocked back violently. The clunking stopped. Hisses of steam rent the welcomed silence, along with a multitude of blaring alarms. Keith reopened his eyes. His shoulders sagged in relief. His legs almost buckled. He needed air. He limped past the gaylord and over to the cargo exit and pulled the handle. The hatch opened and he scrambled down the modified ramp. The succulent smell of alfalfa hit him like a train.
“Are you fucking nuts, Manera?” Cannopolis wheeled into view, rolling down the slope that hid the trench and the cannon. He screeched to a halt as Keith staggered away from the smoking plane.
“We must—Hundreds—Thousands!” Keith uttered between gasps. A full-fledged anxiety attack was coming on. His head rang, adding to his increasing panic.
Lester wobbled out and stood next to Keith, a pair of binoculars gripped in his shaking hands.<
br />
Cannopolis regarded both of them as if they belonged in an insane asylum. “You almost died, you fucking idiots,” he scolded. He glanced past them. “And the plane is in shambles. Do you realize how long that fucker will take to repair?”
Lester sucked in a sharp breath. “Fuck the plane! Here!” He shoved the binoculars into Cannopolis’ open hands and then pointed back up the hill.
“Fuckin’ lunatics,” Cannopolis muttered. His wheelchair turned around with precision, asphalt crunching beneath the wheels.
We don’t have time! Keith screamed in his head. Unable to speak, he ran after Cannopolis with a fresh surge of adrenaline. Lester’s footsteps soon echoed behind him. He caught up to Cannopolis and gripped the wheelchair handles. Using every ounce of strength he could muster, he propelled the general up the hill.
“Hey! Hey now!” Cannopolis protested.
“Shut up!” Keith stretched his legs further with every step.
“You did not just tell me to—”
Keith halted before the covered trench and pointed over Cannopolis’ shoulder.
The general curled his lip in disgust and looked down. After several seconds, he gasped.
“We flew as fast as we could.”
The general regarded him with wide eyes. “Fall back!” Cannopolis shouted as dark figures filtered around them, rushing headlong toward the battlefield. The general wheeled around the trench and sped down the slope. “Retreat!”
***
Strajowskie pushed the limp Undead beast off of himself and stood, swinging his machete wildly. The vampires surrounding him scattered. He swooned to one knee and glanced around, ears ringing.
The Undead were fleeing. He snorted and bloody snot flew out of his nostrils. The ringing in his ears died. He heard shouting. From everywhere. The words were indistinct, muffled. He whirled around. His soldiers ran away from the battlefield as well.
“What th—What the fuck?” he stuttered, swaying. He wheeled back again. The Undead fled in lines, with gaps between each one. They’d never gone into formation during battle. Why the hell were they filtering through the empty streets seamlessly?
The Human-Undead War Trilogy (Book 1): Dark Intentions Page 28