Blood Heavy (Blood Heavy Series)

by S. L. J. Shortt

  Steve and Sarah loaded up on hand guns, while Roach grabbed a shotgun. Parker went with the .44 Magnum and Goose chose the M-240, locking the disintegrating belt into position. He had one hundred silver bullets and he was going to make sure each one hit the spot.

  They grabbed a few grenades and as many extra clips as possible. Sarah dropped one as she tried to tuck it into one of the straps of her dress. Her hands were shaking wildly and her face was pale. She was terrified.

  It wasn’t until that moment that Goose realized just how scared he was too. This was really happening. They were about to fight to the death with a bunch of crazed vampires, and for some reason it was only now that it really hit him. He looked from person to person, studying the fear on their faces.

  The only person not showing any signs of being afraid was Joe, but then he had been in this kind of situation more times that any of them could count. He was a soldier, through and through, and this was what he was good at.

  Goose swallowed and an acidic taste trickled down his throat. He was going to have to check his anxiety at the door, otherwise he wouldn’t live to see the sun rise.

  “Alright, you guys get down to the ground level and stay there. Even if they manage to breach the school, stay on the ground level, there’s way more exits. Do not come upstairs. I’m gonna provide fire from the upper levels, I’ll join you once the minigun runs dry. Watch each other’s backs, and don’t hesitate,” Joe ordered. “Matt, get back over to the entrance, watch our six, we need to know if any of those sons-a-bitches try and flank us.”

  They were as ready as anyone could be for something this dangerous, which was not at all, but they didn’t have the luxury of preparation at this point.

  “You look after them, okay?” Joe almost begged Claire. She nodded with a look of heavy concern in her eyes. It concern for him. He nodded back and picked up the minigun.

  “Joe...” she said suddenly. “Watch your back.”

  She had wanted to say something else, but hadn’t been able to find the words.

  “You too,” He said, then rushed out of the office and down the corridor.

  “Elbry’s Math room will probably give you guys the best position,” Parker said. “Good luck.”

  And then there were five. Steve and Sarah looked at each other, something like guilt in their eyes. They were silently saying sorry to each other for ever getting into this mess. Steve then wrapped his arms around Sarah and kissed her hard and fast. It couldn’t help but look like he was kissing her goodbye.

  Suddenly, the fire alarm stopped and the lights all over the school went out, leaving them in darkness. They had cut the power. They were coming in.

  “Well, that can’t be good,” Roach groaned.

  A second later the emergency battery powered lights kicked in, lighting up parts of the corridors and classrooms, but not nearly as much as the previous lights. Unfortunately, vampires could see in the dark.

  “This is it! Let’s go!” Claire said.

  They all bolted out of the office and down the corridor. They rushed down the stairs and arrived at the Math room which Parker had suggested. He was right. The big windows at the side of the room would make it easy for them to see Black Forest coming, even with the pouring rain outside.

  “Do you seem em’?” Steve asked, squinting through the window.

  “They’re still on the tree line,” Claire said. She could see them even if they couldn’t.

  “What are they waiting for?” Roach asked.

  “They’re not! Incoming!”

  Goose’s heart practically leapt out of his mouth. He saw them through the rain. They started slowly, almost jogging in a lazy way towards the school, but that didn’t last long. They soon sped up, coming at the school in a full on sprint.

  A pounding noise cut the air as the minigun was unloaded above them. The rapid fire of the barrels was so fast that it was impossible to hear the gaps between each round as it shot out. Instead there was just one long loud tone.

  Little streaks of white hot metal came from above, followed by blasts of sparks as three Black Forest troops exploded whilst running. Others were hit too, but the bullets didn’t penetrate their hearts, causing them instead to fall over and yell in pain.

  Despite the onslaught of the minigun, they kept coming, moving at full speed towards the school. The blurs that they had become crossed the distance between the trees and the building far faster than any of them had imagined.

  Heart pounding and shaking all over, Goose let loose a yell, “Light em' up!” Then he squeezed the trigger of the M-240. The glass in front of him exploded as his bullets shot out into the air. Two more Black Forest were hit, one of which burst into flames. A beat later, Steve, Sarah and Roach had all opened fire.

  More vampires fell and more combusted, but they still weren’t stopping. More and more poured out from under the trees. There were way more of them than they had thought there would be.

  The barrage of gun fire didn’t stop them and the frontrunners leapt into the air as they reached the walls of the school. They blasted straight through the intact windows and into the math classroom.

  Claire was there instantly, slicing and hacking with her Ginsu knives, causing two vampires to detonate, just as more came flooding through. Goose held his finger down on the trigger and began spraying the entire room. Blood spattered against the walls as his bullets tore through their bodies. A vampire exploded as Claire cut his head right off, while another went down when Roach blasted his chest full of silver buckshot.

  Behind the mussel flashes of his machine gun, Goose saw a few Black Forest goons moving around outside. They weren’t rushing to enter the school, they were doing something else. They moved over to the wall and began ripping the metal pipes off, before returning to the broken windows.

  His eyes went wide as he saw what they were about to do. “GET DOWN!”

  The vampires launched the broken pipes through the windows. With their strength they turned them into blunt metal missiles which shot through with such force that they dug into the wall behind them. One missed Goose’s head by an inch as he hit the deck, while Claire actually managed to catch the one sent at her and throw it straight back.

  Goose got back to his feet and opened fire again, not noticing that Steve was still down. It was only Sarah’s cries which made him look around.

  “Help! Please!” she screamed.

  He turned to see a metal pipe protruding from Steve’s gut. Blood was pouring from the wound and he looked like he was in shock. Sarah was panicking and didn’t know what to do. Both she and Steve gripped the hole in his stomach, trying to plug the bleeding.

  Goose moved next to them and continued to fire, hoping to provide cover, while someone else helped him.

  New gun fire suddenly came from behind, as Joe entered the classroom with his M-4 ready. He used short controlled bursts that seemed to hit their targets every time. He moved over to Steve and quickly checked the wound.

  “Get it out of him!” Sarah cried, tears in her eyes.

  “No! It’s plugging the wound, leave it in. Get him up,” he ordered.

  Roach rushed over and carefully helped Steve up by dragging his arm over his own shoulder. Sarah moved to Steve’s other side, and began moving him towards the door.

  “Fall back!” Joe yelled.

  Goose and Claire began moving backwards, still firing and fighting as they did so. They all rushed back out of the classroom and down the hallway, heading deeper into the school. A moment later the Black Forest troops were there as well. Goose and Joe opened fire again, hitting some of them, but not as many as they’d like. They were too fast and there were too damn many of them!

  They turned the corner and continued to move as fast as they could. Steve’s wound was making it very difficult to run and he was leaving a trail of blood behind him. Joe grabbed one of the grenades from Sarah and yanked the pin before throwing it at their undead attackers.

  BOOM!

  The gren
ade detonated and blasted the entire corridor with fire, shrapnel and debris. The vampires closest to it had simply vanished, while others were on the ground, growling and snarling in pain.

  The grenade had bought them some time and they headed for the end of the corridor. They reached the classrooms at the end and kicked open the heavy metal doors. They were in the biology labs, and these had to have strong doors because the room was filled with gas tanks for the Bunsen burners. The group slammed the door behind them and started barricading it as best they could with tables and chairs.

  Whether it was a good thing or not was yet to be seen, but there was a second door that led to another classroom. Either they could use it to escape, or Black Forest could use it to get in.

  Roach and Sarah laid Steve down against the wall. Blood had started coming out of his mouth now and he was looking pale and weak. Sarah refused to leave his side.

  “Parker, where are you?” Joe said over the radio.

  “I’m still on the east side of the school, where are you?” he asked back.

  “We’re in the bio lab! I think it’s your one,” he said, looking around at the test tubes and science posters which littered the room.

  “I’m on my way.”

  “The whole freakin’ school is filling up with undead, man! What do we do?!” Roach panicked.

  “Make em’ all-dead!” Goose growled, while reloading the M-240 with a new belt. His fear had been overtaken by his anger the moment he’d seen his friend bleeding out. Now he wanted to kill them all.

  “Joe!” Parker’s voice came over the radio.

  “What?”

  “You’re not gonna believe this! I got stragglers here!”

  “What?! There’s still kids in the school?!” Joe blurted.

  “Yeah!” Parker huffed. He was about three hundred feet away looking after a group of four terrified students that who were huddled behind a desk in an empty classroom. They had obviously decided to stick around, even after they heard the fire alarm, and only really gotten scared when the gunfire had erupted. “I’m gonna get them out, then head over to you guys.”

  “Be careful,” Joe’s voice said.

  Parker turned and looked at the frightened kiddies. “What the hell is wrong with you people? You hear gunfire, you run!”

  “Mr. Parker, what the hell is going on?!” one of the four managed to squeak out.

  “You’re leaving, that’s what’s going on! Get up and move!”

  They were so shocked that they just obeyed him without question. He rushed them to the door of the classroom after checking to make sure that the hallway was clear. He moved them down towards the east of the school, finally reaching the stairs. They moved down as quickly as they could and eventually came out not far from the main entrance.

  The other students seemed to have wised up enough to get as far from the school as possible because nobody was outside. He led them right to the entrance, where they were suddenly hit by the pounding rain falling from the sky.

  “Okay, get as far away from the school as you can! Go, now!” he yelled, and the four students rushed off into the downpour.

  He waited until they’d disappeared into the storm, before turning around and walking back towards the doors. He didn’t get three feet before a low sound of flapping wings rang out, followed by a heavy thump behind him. He turned to see what his instinct had already told him to be afraid of.

  Selena was there.

  She was just as beautiful and terrifying as before. Her wings hung loosely on her back and her rain drenched face was smiling that same monstrous smirk she gave all her prey.

  He reacted instantly, raising his pistol and burning the clip into her torso. The bullets struck her and left red bloody holes in her body, but she barely even flinched. If they hurt her, she was hiding it perfectly, because the twisted smirk never left her mouth.

  Even through the rain, he heard quiet pinging noises as the bullets were forced out of her body and he saw the wounds healing right before his eyes.

  “Where’s Jericho?” she said with a playful tone. “I won’t ask again.”

  “Go to hell!” he growled, fear gripping his body. Even if he’d known, he still wouldn’t have told her. He knew he was going to die, but that didn’t mean he’d give Jerry up.

  She smiled, finding his nobility amusing, and moved towards him.

  A second later Parker let loose a gargled scream as he choked on his own blood. It was the last sound he ever made.

  Joe’s Garage

  “Come on, you bitch, where are you?” Jerry mumbled to himself. He was staring down at a map of St. Cloud, trying to deduce the most likely location where Black Forest would hole up.

  Unfortunately, he was getting nowhere, and his anxiety was gaining altitude with every second that went by. He was just about ready to cut himself and drive through the city with his hand held out the window, in the hopes that one of them picked up on his scent.

  The CB radio in the back of Joe’s shop suddenly started crackling. He had tuned the radio into the same frequency that he’d found in the stolen police car and was listening in on what they were reporting.

  “All units respond, two forty six in progress. Shots fired, Newton High School, all units respond,” the female voice said.

  He felt like he’d just been hit in the stomach with a hammer. “No, no, no, stupid!” He cursed himself. Of course they would attack the school. They would grab anyone they could who might know him. He should have known that!

  He grabbed the shock machete and the sawn-off double rifle, and jumped in the driver’s seat of the Boss as quickly as he could.

  “Show me what you got baby!”

  The engine roared to life as the garage door opened. He slammed his foot down on the gas and shot towards the school as fast as the car would take him.

  The engine was so powerful that it actually caused the car to do a wheelie as it left the garage, before the front tires slammed back down with a screech.

  CHAPTER 23 – THE GOOD DIE YOUNG

  Newton High School – St. Cloud

  “Parker...Matt…can you hear me?” Joe kept trying the radio, but was getting no response.

  None of them wanted to say it, but deep down they all knew why he wasn’t answering. Claire was keeping her eyes pinned on the windows, making sure nothing was moving outside, while Roach watched the second door to the lab.

  “They’re gonna bust through that door any second, we gotta move,” Goose said quickly. “Help me get Steve up.”

  He and Roach walked over and were about to pick him off the ground but Steve held out his hand to stop them. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. His voice was low and weak and his skin had turned pale from the blood loss.

  “No, come on baby, we’re going now!” Sarah cried.

  “I can’t move on my own, you gotta leave me...”

  “I can carry you!” Claire stated.

  “That would slow you guys down just long enough for them to get the jump on you,” he said.

  “No, nobody’s getting left behind, come on,” Goose growled and forcibly grabbed him. He started picking him up until Steve let out a groan of pain.

  “Goddamnit Goose! We gotta face facts here! I’m finished...I’ll bleed out before I ever get to a hospital...at least this way I can buy you guys some time,” he hissed, still clutching his wound.

  “No, no, no! Please! Don’t do this!” Sarah begged, tears still falling from her eyes.

  “I’m so sorry baby,” he whispered. She moved closer to hold him and kiss him. It was agony, but Steve had made up his mind. “You guys mind turning on those gas tanks and leaving me a grenade.”

  “Steve, we’ll figure something out, don’t do this!” Goose pleaded.

  “What, Goose? I can’t feel my legs. I’m holding my own guts in...I’ll let them get nice and close and take as many of them out as I can,” he choked. “I’ll rip those bastards apart.”

  Nobody said anything. Sarah’s sobs were
the only sound in the room, until they heard movement outside the classroom. Joe waited for a second and then walked over to the long lab desks. He reached underneath and started opening up the valves on the gas tanks.

  “Joe, what are you -”

  “You heard him. He’s right, Goose,” he said. Joe knew the score, because again, he’d probably been in a situation like this before.

  Goose couldn’t accept it. He wanted so hard for there to be a way out of this. Some miracle that was going to drop into their laps and save them, but there wasn’t one.