Fall Prey: The Hunt

by Dallas Massey

  We shouldn’t be out now, he thought, mouthing the words.

  “Nervous?” asked Aaron. He leaned in towards Asher from where he sat on the other side of the truck, keeping his voice down so the others couldn’t hear.

  Asher took glanced to his left, certain if anyone listened in on them it would be Driscoll. He found his corporal sitting near the front of the truck, engaged in a mostly one-sided conversation with Salvo. He was trying to flirt with her, though by the look on Salvo’s face, he was failing.

  “Hard not to be when you’re about to bring down the vamps.” Asher turned to Aaron, his voice on low volume as well. His helmet concealed his look of confusion.

  “You know that’s not what I mean. You’re more tense than usual. Still hung up about our standoff with the captain?”

  “Uh, yeah, I suppose you could say that. This whole stupid plan is just suspect.”

  “Those are the orders, though.” Aaron shook his head, his helmet preventing Asher from seeing the look on his face. “Just between you and me, I think I’d rather take my chances with the vamps than deal with Greaves. I mean, what are the bloodsuckers gonna do? Bite you? Kill you? Anything like that will be over in a second. Greaves could mess you up for life. Who knows what he could do to you, or worse, make you do. Dude’s a freakin’ psycho sometimes.”

  Asher suddenly felt eyes on them. He looked up to see Sergeant Ito glance at him through her visor from where she sat at the front of the truck. He doubted she had heard anything, though he knew she wouldn’t care for the way they spoke about their superiors.

  Asher turned his head to the side to find Milo staring at him. The medic was intently interested in their conversation, holding his arms crossed over his chest as he listened in.

  Asher suddenly grabbed the side of his seat. He nearly fell to the floor when the truck abruptly swerved to the side, narrowly missing a large object parked in the middle of the road. As they passed in front of it, Asher glanced out the window to see an armored truck. It was clearly not one of the Legion’s, its paint job reminiscent of an ambulance. He couldn’t fully make out the green lettering through the darkness. He thought it said Cyber something.

  “Sorry to butt in.” Milo leaned in toward them, speaking as though nothing had happened. “But you’re not saying anything no one’s said before. I think we can probably all agree, Greaves might be and probably is, a controlling sociopath.”

  Bam!

  One of the Strykers in the front of the line slammed into some kind of small metal construction outside the slaughter plant perimeter, shutting down their conversation. Asher couldn’t see it from where he sat, but the sound of Stryker treads rolling over thin metal was unmistakable. Whatever it hit likely was reduced to nothing more than a pile of tattered debris.

  The Strykers behind the first ran through the plant’s chain-link fence, just as Captain Kilgore said they would, turning it into a snake-like line of scrap as they skidded onto the asphalt parking lot. Their transport vehicles followed, pulling around to form a line behind them, parking horizontally to create a fallback point should they need it.

  The driver of their transport truck slammed on the brakes, jolting all inside forward, swerving to a stop atop the wrecked fence.

  Asher shook his head, unsure of the Legion’s driver selection process.

  “Take up your positions in front of the trucks!” Greaves called out to his battalion through their helmets.

  Asher opened the door and jumped from the back of the truck, running around their line of vehicles to the designated spot. Several more Strykers rolled around the outside perimeter, moving farther down each side before turning to crash into the fence as they took their positions at the other edge of the parking lot.

  Asher stood nearly 100 yards away from the front of the plant, his comrades filing in beside him. Though a mass of clouds masked the moon, the target remained visible. The yellow-orange glow of the streetlights interspersed across the parking lot helped the situation.

  The soldiers made their line just a few yards behind the plant’s irregular formation of parked cars, unable to prevent the creation of several large gaps as they took the best vantage points. A second line formed behind the first, ready to file past them when it came time to reload.

  Asher assumed his shooting stance, his shotgun nearly at his hip, the need for accuracy lessened because of the line. He looked to both sides, finding Aaron to his left and Milo to his right, having to turn his head to see Driscoll just off in his peripheral vision. He couldn’t see Sergeant Ito from his position, though he was sure she was somewhere nearby in the second line. They held their weapons, keeping to their orders and remaining silent as they waited for Kilgore to arrive.

  “Hold your fire until given the order!” Captain Kilgore leaped onto the hood of the red Firebird in front of them, shouting at them directly. “The commander wants to give us a show first!”

  Asher tightened his grip around his firearm, his limbs tense as he waited for the commander to ignite the explosives.

  “Detonating the charges now!” Greaves called into their helmets, the man himself somewhere behind their line.

  The charges placed behind the plant exploded. The deafening sound was so loud it felt as though it might crack the sky. Noisy as they were, the explosives produced only sound, not damage, as they were placed too far back to have any effect on the plant’s back wall. Greaves wanted to cause the enemy to flee the plant and run out into the open.

  “Hit ‘em from the back!” roared Commander Greaves, his voice barely registering over the ringing in Asher’s ears.

  The six Strykers behind the plant fired their M2 Browning machine guns. The .50 caliber rounds sliced through the thin tin walls, the shots pointed toward the ground so as not to hit the line of soldiers out front. The guns sounded much less intimidating from a distance, but Asher knew how powerful they were. Without adequate shelter, nothing living could stand against them once they began to fire.

  The guns ceased shooting and dead silence held sway once again. No one had left the plant.

  “Hit ‘em with the second round!” Greaves commanded without hesitation, giving the signal for the Strykers out front to fire.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  The six Strykers parked behind the line answered with their M2s, drowning out his words. The stream of fire started only a few yards in front of their line, moving through the parking lot up to the plant. The slugs tore into the vehicles, exploding windshields, tearing through metal bodies with unrelenting, destructive ferocity. They continued up to the plant wall, the rounds punishing the thin tin with round after round.

  They ceased to fire when their guns grew hot, smoke flowing into the air from the barrels.

  The plant’s walls stood riddled with holes, a great metal block of Swiss cheese under the yellow-orange glow of the streetlamps.

  “Grenades!” screamed Greaves, undeterred, the enemy refusing to rear its head. “Tear up the place!”

  The battalion’s grenadiers stepped forward through the line, the barrels of their launchers pointed toward the plant. The grenades burst forth, striking parked cars and the slaughter plant walls. Several cars exploded, sending metal debris flying, causing some of the soldiers to step back. The vehicles were set ablaze, further lighting up the lot. A few of the grenades hit the plant’s wall, leaving tattered holes in the metal. They reduced the area into a smoldering wreck, yet no one ran from the plant.

  Asher was beginning to believe the place was empty.

  The grenadiers continuously pummeled the ground, firing off round after round. Cars exploded, the wall was further punctured, and yet no one exited the plant. They ceased fire moments later, the smoke clearing to allow Asher a better view of the destruction.

  The parking lot was decimated, a graveyard of twisted, smoldering metal wrecks, precisely what the commander had prescribed. The silence returned, even more eerie and awkward than before, more deafening than the thunder of guns. A menacing red lig
ht now flowed out from the tattered holes blasted into the building. The front door was gone entirely, reduced to a gaping, bloody portal into a house of damnation. The wall of clouds above had gone from grey to a furious black, ready to burst.

  The hair on the back of Asher’s neck stood up. Something was wrong.

  “Still no sign of the enemy, sir,” Kilgore said through his helmet.

  “Do you think we have been given faulty intel, sir?” Tarango asked from near the other side of the line.

  A thunderbolt punctuated his question as lightning streaked across the sky. The gathered clouds above unleashed a torrent of rain, the heavy drops racing toward and then engulfing them. The soldiers had no choice but to let the water rush over them, nailed to the ground by Greaves’ orders.

  A giant shadow suddenly filled the doorway, turning the blood-red light to darkness. A towering man dressed in black-plated armor lumbered out, laboriously dragging a colossal, bloody meat cleaver behind him. Multiple large and identically clad figures followed him, each of them carrying an impossibly large shield and a vaguely stick-shaped implement.

  Asher squinted at the objects in their hands, instantaneously recognizing them yet not believing what he saw.

  They carried fully automatic assault rifles.

  The plant soldiers poured out, nearly two hundred strong as they formed their own single line.

  “They are armed, sir!” screamed Tarango.

  “Keep your shirt on, Lieutenant!” Kilgore scolded. “We’re a thousand strong, and we got all the big guns!”

  The giant man let out a hateful roar, flourishing his great cleaver and pointing the blade toward them, his eyes glowing red beneath his helmet. His voice held no hint of humanity. His black-plated troops responded to his call, slamming their heavy shields into the ground. They drove them down deep into the asphalt, creating a barrier between themselves and the Legion’s line.

  The slaughter plant soldiers took cover behind their shields, having no need to crouch. Only the muzzles of their assault rifles remained visible through the gaps in their barrier.

  “Grenadiers, fall back! The rest of you keep your positions!” Greaves commanded with unease. “Hold until I tell you to fire!”

  The line remained in place, the grenadiers moving back behind the rest of the soldiers.

  “Fire all we got up front!” Greaves roared. “There’s no way to know what those shields are made of! Hit ‘em with all you got!”

  The sound of the firing shotguns and M2s intertwined, and the second line stepped in between the gaps in the first, their gun blasts creating a symphony of destruction. Their fire was relentless and unending, continuing until they spent all their rounds. Asher removed his double drum magazine as the smoke cleared, revealing the virtually untouched enemy line.

  “Move to fall back positions!” Greaves’ frustration was apparent. “We’re not penetrating those shields!”

  Their line had slowly fallen apart before the commander gave the order and now dissolved completely. The Legion personnel turned and dashed for the trucks like a panicked colony of ants. The enemy’s guns called after the battalion as they fled, instantly killing several of their number on the spot. The shots were accurate and well placed, hitting their victims in the neck where they had less armor.

  Asher ran for the truck directly behind him, dropping to the ground to slide across the slick asphalt and underneath the bed. Pushing through to the other side, he took up a position crouched behind the front tire. Several of his comrades did the same.

  “Got room for two, Ash?” asked Aaron. He emerged from underneath the truck to crouch beside him. Milo followed him, remaining silent and leaning his back up against the side of the truck beside them.

  Asher looked past Aaron, finding Driscoll standing near the back of the truck. The enemy had them pinned down, and he couldn’t recognize anyone else.

  “Grenadiers!” called the commander. “Fire from the fallback position!”

  One of the grenadiers, a slightly built woman, moved past Asher and the other huddled soldiers, stepping between the front of their truck and the back of another. She fully exposed herself to enemy fire as she aimed her launcher.

  “Intel is obviously faulty!” Driscoll moved toward them, yelling over the gunfire. “They were ready for us!”

  “We’re gonna have a heck of a time pulling out of this one!” Aaron called back, somehow remaining positive.

  The grenadier at the front of the truck fired her launcher.

  Asher slowly rose from where he squatted and cautiously peered over the truck’s hood to view the assault through the heavy rain. Surveying the devastated battlefield, he caught a glint of movement off to his peripheral left. He turned to see an abandoned armored truck, the one they had nearly run into earlier, slowly rolling backward into the parking lot.

  “Sir, our guns aren’t doing the job!” yelled Kilgore. “We need to try something else or start a full-on retreat!”

  “Release the hounds!” Greaves screamed into his microphone.

  Asher's eyes darted toward the right, their pack of dogs appearing atop the hills surrounding them, charging down the slopes toward the parking lot.

  The pack had almost doubled in size, with nearly fifty animals racing for their quarry. They crossed over the edge of the crumpled chain-link fence in seconds. Several of the vampire gunmen turned to face the hounds, their shots bringing down several of them. The rest of the pack hurtled toward them, bounding over their fallen comrades, their lust for vampire flesh unquenchable. Only a well-placed shot to the head could bring down a hellhound.

  Asher’s eyes darted back through the heavy rain, focusing on the truck. Something stirred in the back, slamming itself against the walls, the sound distant and soft compared to the fire of their guns.

  “The weapon has arrived, sir!” Kilgore yelled at the commander.

  It took Asher a moment to realize what the captain meant, too preoccupied with everything going on around him. Greaves gave little information about the test weapon.

  The pounding intensified as the truck ceased to roll, gently stopping against one of the metal wreck piles.

  The vampire commander howled, indicating the truck with his cleaver. The vampire soldiers not preoccupied with hounds shifted their attention from the Legion’s line to the vehicle’s doors. The enemy personnel at the peripherals of the line remained focused on the attacking beasts, pelting them with gunfire as the animals crashed into either side of their line.

  The doors to the armored truck burst open. A black-clad creature sprang forth, charging toward the vampire soldiers so rapidly that its feet barely touched the ground.

  The commander howled yet again, his soldiers opening fire on the creature.

  Two knives materialized in the giant’s raised sword arm, one in the elbow and the other in the wrist. The monster let out a surprisingly high-pitched shriek and dropped his cleaver. The weapon hit the asphalt with a heavy, metallic thud and slid across the slick ground in front of the shield barrier.

  The test subject was at the vampire line now, suddenly joined by two dark-cloaked, dagger-wielding figures running close behind, bounding over the piles of wreckage. The vampire soldiers fully shifted their focus to the three black-clad enemies rushing toward them, issuing forth a barrage of relentless fire.

  The three charged their line, unaffected by the endless volley. The test subject hit the ground, gliding across the asphalt on its backside, feet first, taking hold of the vampire commander’s dropped cleaver as it went. It jumped to its feet as it slid on toward the vampire shield line. The test subject leaped up onto the edge of one of the massive metal shields, using its momentum to propel itself above the vampire commander.

  It raised the cleaver to strike.

  The vampire screamed his last as the test subject slammed the weapon down through the center of his helmet and descended back to the ground. It left the blade embedded deep in the monster’s skull.

  The test subjec
t’s companions followed him, leaping over the shield barrier, unleashing a hail of daggers into the vampires’ ranks. The vampire commander fell backward, landing prostrate on the ground with a mighty crash, blood flowing from his grievous head wound, his intimidating howls forever silenced.

  The hounds tore through both sides of the vampire line now, downing soldier after soldier, ripping them apart where they fell. The test subject and his companions joined forces with the beasts. Daggers flew, claws and fangs slashed, vampire limbs and heads littered the ground in a relentless scene of blood and horror only slightly concealed behind the shields.

  Asher couldn’t take his eyes from the battle before him, ceasing to watch when he felt a hand touch his shoulder. Sergeant Ito stood beside him. Aaron and Milo looked in their direction with idiotic smiles on their faces.

  The routed enemy shrieked, and the survivors dropped their weapons as they attempted to escape from their own line of shields. Some of them slipped upon the blood and rainwater slicked asphalt as they fled, falling to the ground to be torn asunder by the hounds.

  “Kilgore!” Greaves shouted. “Move your company out to keep those bloodsuckers from escaping!”

  “You heard him!” Kilgore cried out from behind. “Move out before they get away! We’re gonna have to go in close to hit them!”

  Asher sped around the hood of the truck, weapon raised, trained on the escaping enemy. He quickly regained his former position, his comrades filing in beside him, his concentration focused solely on what was going on around him. He stared down his gun sights, having some difficulty taking aim on the fast-moving enemy through the slowly slackening rain. The new line was in place now, and the Legion’s soldiers stood locked in a firing stance as they waited for the enemy to come within range.

  “Forward!” screamed Kilgore, seeing his line was too far back, allowing the enemy to escape off to the side.

  The company obliged, rapidly moving forward, stepping over and around parts of wrecked cars, occasionally causing significant gaps in the line. Several of the surviving enemy had already fled, escaping to the surrounding hills, never coming within the effective range. Nearly two dozen of the fleeing enemy soldiers rushed toward them, insanity the only force driving them to charge the line.