by Derek Gunn
The city was quiet; the cold evening air caused fog to rise from the water at the docks and gave a surreal look to the whole area.
“Looks like something out of an old horror movie.” Rodgers grinned and Anderson threw his eyes up to heaven.
“I knew it was a mistake to bring you. Can’t you take anything seriously?”
“Beer and women, after that I pretty much lose interest.” Both men grinned this time.
Darkness had just fallen but the horizon still glowed weakly as the sun sank beyond the cityscape. The committee had decided that the thralls would probably expect them to attack at dawn when they had usually attacked in the past. It made far more sense to attack when the vampires were tucked up for the day, however, the thralls would now be at a far higher alert setting. For that reason, they decided on an evening raid. While it was absolutely more dangerous to try and operate when the vampires were awake, they hoped that the vampires would consider it madness to try anything at night and that the thralls would assume that the vampires were in control at night. With any luck the resulting confusion would make the chances of success better. Of course, it was a huge gamble.
The two figures crept through the city and kept their eyes as much on the sky as on the streets. They moved slowly, their packs heavy with explosives, and had to change direction twice to avoid thrall patrols. Five minutes from the hospital they heard a faint rustling in the air above them. Both men dived for cover when a vampire passed overhead. Sweat poured from the men as the creature passed mere feet above them and continued on, oblivious to their presence.
“I thought they had a great sense of smell, night vision and shit like that,” Rodgers said. His relief was evident on his face.
“They do,” Scott answered, “but luckily their arrogance gets the better of them. Most never really achieve their full potential. Come on, let’s do this and get out of here.”
Philip Warkowski was in hell. At least that was what it felt like. It was easier to identify those parts of his body that didn’t hurt than those that did. He had awakened some five minutes ago and had been unable to move since. Each movement brought a fresh wave of nausea and pain, so he just lay there and tried to get his bearings. The room was dark and the only sign of life was the incessant pinging of the monitor by his bedside.
He tried to move his head. He knew he was in a hospital, but whose? Were thralls caring for him, so he could go on feeding their masters, or had someone brought him back to the Cave? Did Sarah and Jill make it out safely? Questions flooded his still muddled brain but there were no answers. The last thing he remembered was the explosion, and then half the city had fallen on him.
He gritted his teeth and slowly turned to his right, and an immediate rush of relief flooded through him. Sarah sat in the chair beside him, slumped in a half doze. There was no way that the thralls would let her stay with him. They both must be safe.
“Thank God,” he muttered. His voice was low, but was so out of place in an otherwise quiet room that Sarah stirred and opened her eyes.
“Oh my God, you’re awake,” she exclaimed and rushed forward. She held his face and kissed him repeatedly.
“Aaagghhh!” He couldn’t help but cry out as his body screamed in pain.
“Oh God, I’m sorry. That bloody serum wore off only this morning. I’m still a bit clumsy.” She smiled delightedly, despite her obvious sincerity. Warkowski understood. He had walked around for a whole week with a permanent grin on his face when he first overcame the serum’s effects.
“It’s so good to see you, Sarah.”
“God, but I’ve missed you, Phil,” she answered. “They told me we were held for two years. We’ve missed our baby growing up.” Tears sprang to her eyes and gently rolled down her cheeks.
“I know.” Despite the pain, Warkowski reached his hand to her cheek. “But we’re here now. We have the rest of our lives to make up for the past and look to the future. Speaking of Jill, how has she been affected by all this? Has she recovered?”
“Daddy, you’re awake!”
The shrill scream came from the doorway. The child sprinted across the room and launched herself at the bed. Before either adult could stop her, she jumped up on the bed and wrapped her short, stubby arms around Warkowski and hugged with all her might. Tears flooded her eyes, too.
“I missed you,” she said simply and buried her face in his chest.
Pains shot through every part of his body and consciousness began to slip away. He fought against the blackness to force his arms up and completely envelope his daughter’s tiny body in his massive embrace. The pain still came in waves, but Warkowski hadn’t been as happy as this in years. All the pain, the sacrifice and the work which had gotten him here melted away in that moment. He knew they would return, but it was enough for now.
“I missed you too, honey.”
The two men slipped into the hospital through the same window that Scott had used before. At least this had been repaired. He briefly felt sorry for the poor maintenance guy before smashing the window again and entering the dark building.
“Okay, we’ll be quicker if we split up. Set the charges every twenty feet or so on the far side of the building. We’ll meet up back here in…” Anderson paused to look at his watch, “…say, twenty-five minutes.”
Rodgers nodded and trotted off down the corridor, his pack bouncing from side to side as he went. He stopped at the end of the corridor to set the timer on an explosive, and then he rose and moved on to the next target area around the corner.
Scott had already laid most of his charges when a thrall came through a fire door right in front of him. He froze. His heart beat furiously in his chest, a cold sweat broke out down his back, and his muscles tensed. The thrall was distracted, reading a paper on a clipboard, and never saw the figure launch itself at him. The knife slid easily through the flesh under his chin, and the thrall collapsed into his arms, already dead.
Scott let the body fall to the ground. With only seven minutes left on the timer it was irrelevant whether the body was found or not. Three minutes later he met up with Rodgers again. They exited through the same window and hurried back the way they had come. When they were just outside the hospital grounds the explosions started. Both men grinned when the night lit up.
“Let’s get out of here,” Scott shouted above the roar of the explosions. “We can use the confusion to cover our tracks.”
It took them an hour and a half to sneak back to the Cave. Both men looked exhausted from the trip and the stress of the night raid. The constant threat of discovery by thralls--or even worse, by vampires--had taken its toll and they almost fell through the door when they dialled in the code.
A hundred yards out from the house a figure watched from the crook of a tree. The night goggles he used gave him a clear picture of the entryway and the two men. He leaned back and smiled, his grey eyes twinkling in the pale light from the moon.
“Gotcha!”
Chapter 24
“Harris,” the words were high-pitched with an edge of panic, “you better come quickly.” Scott Anderson gesticulated madly to attract his attention. Peter Harris looked up and frowned. Scott wasn’t usually prone to panic. He excused himself from the conversation and headed over to him.
“What’s up?”
“You’ll have to see for yourself. Besides it’s not something I want to say here.” Anderson shoved Harris through the door toward the stairs.
“But Scott …” Harris began, but Anderson had already sprinted up the stairs ahead of him and disappeared through the balcony exit. Harris shrugged and trotted up after him, muttering all the time about boiling oil and certain body parts.
The balcony was a small wooden deck area connected to the second level of the upper house and gave a good view of the surrounding approach to the facility. Harris began to feel worried when he noticed that John Kelly was already there, his attention riveted to the East and binoculars clasped tightly to his eyes.
“Pete
r,” Kelly’s face was white, “you better take a look.”
Harris took the binoculars to look in the indicated direction. “Oh, Shit,” he said. What looked like the entire thrall army were setting up camp about three hundred yards from the house.
“They…they must have followed me last night.” Anderson’s face was ashen. He couldn’t quite raise his eyes from the floor. “God. I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.”
“Scott,” Harris put his hand on the man’s shoulder, “we’ll probably never know for sure how they found out. Regardless, we have to deal with it now, so don’t fall apart on me.” He turned to Kelly. “Don’t start a panic, but get everyone down to the Cave. Tell Reiss and Rodgers to join me here, and you’d better get Crockett. This is more his territory.” Harris rattled off the orders. “His idea of flooding the area certainly seems to have worked.” Crockett arrived and Harris indicated the growing build up of thralls. The two men saw the three tanks for the first time. All of them were stuck fast and listed forward, making use of their heavy guns now would be impossible. Two dozen thralls pushed, pulled and heaved on lines without luck.
“Come on, they’re sure to try an assault soon. Let’s get moving.”
The creature that had been Jack Walton woke. He could smell blood and his stomach ached. He rose fluidly from the bed and looked around at the two other beds in the room. Only one was occupied and, with a lick of his lips, he approached the other occupant. He looked down at Handsaw’s sleeping figure and smiled. Without a moment’s hesitation he tore the man’s throat out and blood poured into his mouth. Henshaw woke briefly and saw the creature’s hellish face. The drugs he’d been given held the pain at bay, but also made his muscles sluggish, so he managed only a soft gurgling noise before he drowned in his own blood.
The creature swallowed and felt a surge of power course through him. His senses tingled with the hot fluid.
“Breakfast in bed,” he cackled and moved on to the next room. The door was closed but the creature could hear the high-pitched giggling of a young girl in the next room. He smiled as he pushed open the door.
Young flesh, it thought and its mouth watered at the prospect. The creature revelled in its newfound power and didn’t bother to check if the door was locked or not. Instead it just crashed straight through.
“Report!” General Evans barked the order at his Lieutenant.
“Sir, we’ve set up a perimeter around the facility. Nothing can get out.” The Lieutenant panted while he recovered from his exertions.
“Having a spot of bother?” Evans asked and indicated the hive of activity around the tanks.
“Oh…yes, sir. The entire approach to the house is flooded. The tanks sank on us before we knew how unstable ....” The Lieutenant didn’t finish as his voice trailed off in embarrassment.
And well he might, thought Evans as he glared at the young officer.
“I’ve already radioed back to base to send up the long range artillery to flush them out.” The Lieutenant brightened, as if this news would make up for his previous mistake.
“That’s mighty efficient of you,” Evans commented with a sneer.
The sarcasm was lost on the Lieutenant, who grinned like a puppy and said, “Thank you, sir. I’ve also given the order for a frontal assault …”
“You’ve what?”
The Lieutenant cowered from the volume of the General’s outburst.
Evans reigned in his anger before he continued. “Son, don’t you think that if these folks went to all that trouble to flood this entire area, they might have a few more surprises waiting for some idiot who walks up to the front door?”
“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t think …”
“No, I don’t suppose you did.” Evans threw his eyes up to heaven. Both men turned then to the sound of gunfire and men screaming. “Come on, Lieutenant; let’s see what we can salvage from this mess.”
The door burst open in a shower of splinters, and Jill screamed when the creature appeared in the doorway. Sarah pushed the child behind her and backed away but the room was small and she felt the cold wall behind her far too quickly. She looked frantically towards the other door but the creature moved like a blur to cut off their retreat. A deep rattle erupted from its throat. The creature was well over six foot and blood covered its face and hospital gown. There was something almost comical about such a creature wearing such an ordinary garment but there was nothing comical about its maniacal grin or the vicious tangle of teeth that dominated its features. The rattle, Sarah realised, was laughter. The hairs of her neck bristled when the creature approached.
“Get away from them, you son of a bitch.”
The vampire whirled and tensed its muscles for an attack. Warkowski managed to pull himself from the bed, but was still using it for support.
The deep rattle came again. “You have got to be kidding, human.” The vampire laughed and purposely turned its back on him as it focused on Sarah and Jill.
The roar began deep in the pit of his stomach; Warkowski was already halfway across the room before it erupted from his throat. The creature barely had time to turn before Warkowski tackled him and the two of them were sent crashing against the wall.
With strength born of despair, fuelled by a passionate love for his family, Warkowski laid into the creature and showered blow after blow into its demonic face. Muscles tore, bones crunched and sutures ripped, but he continued to assault the creature. Blood began to pour from reopened wounds at Warkowski's side, but he ignored it all. The speed of his attack had caught the vampire unprepared and, caught in the middle of a transformation, the relentless, vicious blows kept it off balance. Its flesh still rippled over bone as it tried to complete the change.
Adrenaline pumped through Warkowski's body and dulled the pain while he pummelled the creature. The vampire’s wickedly sharp talons flayed wildly around him, but he was unable to aim or take the initiative as blow after blow connected with its head. The vampire fell back further. Suddenly it tripped over some furniture, fell heavily to the ground, and crushed a chair in the process.
Warkowski didn’t miss a beat. He straddled the creature and continued pummelling him. “Let me hear you laugh now, motherfucker,” he panted, each word punctuated by another blow. Warkowski gulped in air and finally paused in his assault. His arms felt like lead weights and his head swam as consciousness threatened to slip away; he couldn’t go on.
He looked down at the creature but the vampire was already recovering, taking the precious seconds it needed to complete the change. He looked around frantically for a weapon, something that would inflict more damage than his battered fists. Suddenly, he saw the shattered furniture and he grabbed at the ruined chair. His hand brushed against one of the upturned legs but his desperate lunge had caused him to overbalance and he fell heavily onto the floor. The vampire cackled again as its body seemed to grow more muscular and demonic as it finished its transformation.
Warkowski blanched when he saw what the creature had become and he wrenched one of the legs from the broken frame. The sliver of wood seemed pathetic in his massive fist and he felt fear envelope him for the first time in his life as the creature rose to its feet before him.
Red eyes glowed balefully down at him in a face that was more wolf than human. Long, course hair covered its features; an extended snout replaced the mouth and nose. Long canine teeth sprouted from the upper jaws, and its breath reeked of death and decay. The creature shot its arms towards him and grabbed Warkowski by the throat, lifting the big man easily as it brought him close to its face.
“I will enjoy eating the little girl most of all. Young flesh is so much more tender.” The creature’s mouth was not designed for speech, but the general meaning was all too clear.
Warkowski couldn’t breathe. The creature’s claws were like vice grips around his throat. Pain wracked his body as blood seeped from a dozen re-opened wounds. His vision began to fade. With one last, desperate effort Warkowski gripped the chair leg in his han
d and brought it up into the creature’s body with all his remaining strength. The wood passed easily through the creature’s chest and its eyes flew wide at this unexpected turn of events. For a second it looked as if were about to speak, and then Warkowski wrenched the weapon up further with the last of his strength, driving the wood deep into the creature’s heart. The red eyes glared widely for a moment and then dimmed and the creature died with no more than a whimper. Warkowski fell to the ground in a heap as the creature collapsed beside him.
“See?” Warkowski coughed violently as he sucked air into his tortured lungs. He grabbed blindly at a nearby table for support and tried to pull himself to his feet. “A piece of cake.” He managed a smile before he collapsed into his wife’s arms, and then everything went black.
Rodgers skidded to a halt just inside the room and took in the scene in front of him. “Jesus, are you okay in here?”
Sarah Warkowski knelt on the floor with her husband’s head cradled in her lap. Her daughter, Jill, stood just in front, as if standing guard over them both.
“We are now,” she smiled and caressed her husband’s cheek.
Rodgers approached the terrifying corpse in the corner, still unsure if it was dead. “Did he do that?” he asked.
“Yes, he did.”
“How?” Rodgers stammered. “He could barely move the last time I saw him.”
“It threatened us,” Sarah said simply, as if that was explanation enough.
“Jesus,” Rodgers repeated. “I’ll see if I can get someone to help you patch him up.”
Harris stood on the balcony and watched the thralls” approach. “Must be at least thirty of them,” he commented to Dan Reiss and Scott Anderson.
Before either of them could reply, Rodgers raced through the door. “Sorry,” he panted. “Jesus, you’ll never believe what I just saw. Warkowski's awake--”
“Thank God,” Harris sighed.