by Derek Gunn
“The Cave is our last resort,” Crockett explained. “Once we go down there, that’s it, we’ve nowhere else to go. At least up here we still have options, few though they might be. As for the doors, well, I doubt they’ll hold out long against the vampires when they arrive.”
“Oh yeah, I nearly forgot about them.” Rodgers looked earnestly at the other two. “Listen, I really don’t want to go back to the way we were…”
“Don’t worry, we’ve seen to that,” Harris interrupted. He grimly placed a hand on Rodgers's shoulder. “No one is going back to that life. One way or another, it ends tonight. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a certain lady to see before they attack.” Harris turned toward the door.
“What makes you think they’ll attack now? Won’t they wait for the vampires?” Crockett asked.
“Don’t think so. Take a look out there.” Harris handed the binoculars to Crockett and the worthy looked eagerly out over the grounds.
“I see what you mean.” The entire approach to the complex was covered with thralls. Standing three deep the line stretched from the river right across to the forest. “Kind of reminds you of Zulu, doesn’t it?” Crockett commented.
“What?” asked Rodgers.
“Bourke’s Drift,” Harris answered when he saw Rodgers blank face. “A small party of English soldiers defended an outpost in Africa in the 1800s against thousands of Zulu warriors.”
“Oh,” replied Rodgers. “Did they make it?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, some did.”
“Some? How many is some?” Rodgers asked, but Harris had already gone.
Sergeant Philips looked down along the line of men. Some two hundred thralls had gathered just out of range of the complex. The Lieutenant’s orders demanded a full assault; no feints and no patrols like the last time. This time they were going to throw everything they had at them and level the place.
“Bazooka!” he called. Two men pushed their way to the front of the line and knelt while they took aim at the doors to the house.
Philips turned to his Lieutenant. “Sir, we’re ready when you are.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. Have you detained General Evans yet?”
“Not yet, Sir. I have a patrol out looking for him.”
“Very well, commence the attack.”
The two rockets shot across the lawn and left a fine smoke trail in their wake. They impacted simultaneously and the explosions rocked the entire building. The doors disintegrated. Wood and masonry flew in every direction as the entrance, and most of the surrounding supports blew apart.
The Lieutenant grinned when he saw the destruction. A jagged hole measuring some twenty feet in diameter and ten feet in height became visible when the evening breeze whisked the smoke into the darkening sky.
“Sergeant!” he shouted. “Advance.”
Harris saw the men with bazookas kneel and take aim from his vantage point on the balcony. “Incoming!” he shouted and ran into the house to take cover.
The explosion was huge. Harris was thrown across the upstairs landing and sprawled into a bedroom wall. Splinters and rock fragments flew everywhere in a deadly hail. Harris rolled into a ball and covered his head in a vain attempt to protect himself.
He heard a few screams from downstairs, but didn’t have time to check the extent of people’s injuries. He brought his weapon to bear and waited for the thralls to arrive.
Rodgers picked himself up from behind the sofa on the ground floor, and then quickly dived back down when bullets ripped the furniture to shreds. He had been on the first floor, directly in front of the doors, when the blast had come. The force of the explosion had been so great that he had been lifted up and thrown through the banister railing. He had landed directly in the path of the thralls, so he remained behind the sofa to protect himself while they swarmed through the ruined entrance.
The noise was deafening. Bullets gauged holes in the stone fireplace behind him, and splinters of stone covered his prone form. He pulled himself along by his elbows and returned fire blindly around the far end of the couch. Gunfire erupted from above him and men poured fire down in support.
Harris ran from one side of the landing to the other and tried vainly to outrun a line of bullets rapidly catching up to him. He had to move from his previous position when the thralls had lobbed a grenade that bounced across the wooden floor to lie ten feet from where he had crouched. Too close to stay and too far to get to it and kick it out of reach. He launched himself up and ran the only direction left to him, straight into the thralls” line of fire.
He neared the end of the landing and jumped, then rolled into a kneeling position and brought his machine gun to bear, letting loose a sustained burst of fire. This unexpected development caught the thralls by surprise and their bodies twitched while round after round hit home.
More thralls appeared through the hole while Harris changed his magazine and looked for cover. The noise was incredible. Some fifteen men in various positions around the house and an unknown number of thralls all fired and screamed in the close confines. Explosions erupted everywhere. Both sides threw grenades and added to the chaos. The structure of the house was a complete mess. Thralls now poured into the house through windows and the other gaping holes that had been blown through the downstairs walls.
Bodies lay piled on top of each other. Harris” men poured a viscous hail of fire at these entrances. Thralls were decimated one by one while they poured through the breach, but it wasn’t all one-sided. Harris could see many of his own men already dead. Pools of blood seeped into the carpet or pooled on the wooden floors where they lay. Others slumped against walls, their shattered limbs held uselessly to their sides.
And all the time the thralls kept coming.
Rodgers heard the window to his left shatter and he looked up in time to see a thrall point his gun straight at him. With no time to think, Rodgers rolled out of the way of this new threat as bullets tore up the floor where he had lain. Unfortunately, the only space open to him was the open floor. He found himself on his back looking up at four very surprised thralls.
“Surprise,” Rodgers grinned and then pulled the trigger. The thralls were so close to the weapon that the bullets literally ripped through them and lifted the bodies into the air. Blood spattered everywhere and the warm liquid splashed across Rodgers” face. With no time to clear the blood, he jumped to his feet and made a break for the stairs, dodging both enemy and friendly fire on his way. The thrall at the window was now inside and already others had begun to join him.
“Shit!” he muttered. He picked up speed while the thralls gave chase.
Thralls were already on the stairs when Rodgers hit the bottom of the steps at a run. They were not expecting an attack from behind, and he poured fire into them without missing a step. He sprinted past them as bullets flew past his head and picked at his clothes.
“Stop firing, you blind bastards!” he screamed. “Good guy coming through!” and he launched himself flat on the landing as the men ahead of him sent a hail of fire into the thralls chasing close behind.
Chapter 27
Dan Reiss knelt beside Bill Anderson as they poured round after round into the hall below. Bazooka fire and grenades had torn further holes in the structure, and thralls seemed to pour into the house from every direction. Their sheer number was overwhelming. No matter how many the men killed, more appeared in their place. The stairs were littered with the bodies of the dead and wounded. The carnage delayed the thralls” advance as they climbed over the bodies.
Dan saw men crouched in doorways along the hall. They kept the thralls pinned down while they dodged out, fired and dodged back into the rooms before the thralls could respond. Most of the fire was blind; bullets flew everywhere. People on both sides died or grunted in pain when ricochets embedded themselves in flesh and furniture at impossible angles.
Grenades flew from side to side. With the thralls so closely packed, every grenade explosion among them took a terrible
toll. Blood flowed down the wooded steps and body after body fell while the humans defended the stairwell. Despite the carnage; despite the death, the thralls kept coming. Reiss could understand their single mindedness. Like the humans, they too feared their masters and would surely pay dearly for failure.
Slowly, inexorably, they forced the humans back.
Bill Anderson screamed as a line of bullets stitched across his chest. The force of the impact threw him backward where he lay fighting for breath. Reiss glanced quickly at his colleague and saw the damage to his chest. He knew immediately he could do nothing to save him but Anderson was still alive and his eyes suddenly met Reiss” and he began to inch forward toward him. The sheer volume of fire forced Reiss to retreat further down the hall, while bullets flew around him and drove splinters of wood and masonry into his flesh. And all the time Anderson stared at him, imploring him to help. There was nothing Reiss could do for Anderson and it would be madness to try and reach him, but still, those eyes seemed to stare at him in judgement and Reiss despaired.
He heard a scream behind him and glanced back in time to see Scott Anderson suddenly launch himself to his feet and run down the landing toward the thralls. He screamed at the top of his lungs for his fallen brother, his rage evident in his face while he ran. The gun bucked wildly in his hands as he ploughed into the first line of thralls.
The blood-spattered vision coming toward them took the thralls completely by surprise. They panicked and tried to retreat back the way they had come. Unfortunately for them, too many others were pushing from behind. Anderson caught them from his end and strafed his weapon from side to side while he screamed his grief. The front line of thralls dropped, but the second line pushed past and returned fire. Reiss was torn. Running after Anderson was suicide, but he couldn’t just stay here and do nothing.
Under cover of the confusion from Anderson’s mad sprint he started forward again. He regained his position beside the still form of Bill Anderson to provide covering fire. The stairway was a scene of utter confusion. The thralls had recovered from the initial shock and had already regrouped to advance again. On the top stair Scott screamed his rage and he pumped round after round into the advancing horde.
Tears welled up in Reiss” eyes when he saw Scott spin backward. A bullet ripping through his shoulder, and the force of the impact forced Scott to drop his weapon. For a second there was total silence, and then Scott turned again to the thralls. Unarmed, he stood defiantly at the top of the stairs when the thralls opened fire at point blank range. The sheer volume of fire tore him apart. He was already dead long before he slumped to the ground. The thralls gathered around the body and spat on it when they passed. Reiss could do nothing but use this distraction to retreat again down the corridor. He noted as he past that although Bill Anderson’s eyes still stared at him he too had died.
It had become impossible to see inside the upper floors of the house. The smoke from the explosions and small fires added to the gloom of the descending darkness. Harris fired at any flashes of light in the hall or shifting of shadows. He couldn’t see any of his colleagues and dared not shout out to them in case he gave his own position away.
Suddenly a dark shadow ran toward him and he brought up his gun to fire only to ease off the trigger at the last minute. “Nearly blew your fool head off,” he chastised Rodgers when he came level. “It’s just as well I recognised that stupid grin of yours.”
“You’d probably have missed anyway the way you shoot.” Rodgers tried to grin, but the enthusiasm just wasn’t there. Too many friends lay dead on this landing and he could hear others scream for help where they lay in the gloom. “How many are left?” he asked.
“No idea,” grunted Harris. “There’s sporadic fire over there,” he indicated the far end of the landing, “but other than that I don’t hear anyone.” Harris rolled out into the hall and sent a burst of fire down the landing to keep the advancing thralls in check.
“Nearly dark,” Rodgers commented, “they’ll be here soon.”
“Yea, let’s hope we’ve bought them enough time.”
“Do you really think we can win?” Rodgers asked.
“Probably not, but we’ll take a few of these fuckers with us.”
Dan Harrington stood at the Cave door and listened to the muffled sounds of battle through the large metal entrance. He leaned his forehead against the cool metal and cringed with every shot.
“We can’t just sit here and wait, Dad.” Sandra Harrington looked into her father’s eyes.
“Crockett was adamant we keep this door closed no matter what we heard. If the thralls get in here it’s all over.” He looked around for support. “Father Reilly, you tell her.” his eyes pleaded with the priest.
Reilly listened to the staccato bursts of gunfire and the occasional deep thump of explosions and sighed deeply, “Sandra,” he began, “your father …”
“No!” Sandra Harrington interrupted. “I don’t accept that. How can letting them die possibly be the right thing to do?” The tears began to roll down her cheeks, but her face was set in a determined manner. “We’re in this together. Hiding here like frightened rabbits, even if we do survive, is no victory at all. I want no part of it.”
The house was quiet. There hadn’t been a shot for a full five minutes and both sides used the time to take stock. Muffled whispers were barely audible through the gloom. An occasional cough or splutter was the only audible sounds. Harris and Rodgers inched their way along the last few feet of the landing and looked for a way back down to the ground floor. They had run out of room on the landing and the next push from the thralls would overrun their position.
Dan Reiss nearly tripped over Vince Crockett when he retreated to the other wall of the far landing.
“Did you see anyone else?” Crockett asked.
“Afraid not.”
Just then there was a sound of pounding feet on the landing as the thralls began the final push.
“Give me your gun,” Crockett reached out for the weapon. “I’ll cover you while you try and get downstairs.”
“No way,” Reiss protested, “we’ll go together or--” Reiss looked down at Crockett and noticed his injuries for the first time. His shirt was soaked in blood and his left hand was clutched tightly against his stomach, holding his insides in place.
“Oh my God,” Reiss exclaimed, “let me try--”
“No point, I can’t move. Now get out of here before they reach us.”
Reiss delayed another few seconds and wrestled with his conscience. The sudden eruption of gunfire from the stairs startled him into action, and he ran to the end of the landing while Crockett opened up and sprayed fire down the landing. Reiss heard Crockett scream abuse at the approaching thralls. After too short a time the screaming and the gunfire stopped.
Harris hung from the top floor landing while bullets tore into the wooden balustrades. Rodgers stood over him and pumped round after round into the advancing thralls. A bullet embedded itself in the wood under Harris” fingers and splinters ripped into his flesh. He screamed in pain, lost his grip and fell to the floor below.
His fall was cushioned by dead bodies. Blood splattered over him while he waded through the carnage. Above him Rodgers spun around from the force of a bullet and fell toward him, headfirst, his body limp. Harris rushed to break the man’s fall. He launched himself at the falling figure and managed to get his arms around Rodgers and straighten his prone form so that he fell on his back and not his neck.
The thralls completed their sweep above and started firing over the balcony. Harris grabbed the unconscious Rodgers and pulled him to an alcove where he quickly examined him. A bullet had grazed his head. Blood oozed from the wound and another had taken a chunk of flesh from the soft flesh of his upper arm on its way clean through. Harris tore his shirt and pressed the rag against the wound in an effort to stem the flow of blood.
Thralls now occupied the entire house and still they continued to pour in. Harris brought his wea
pon up with his free hand and heard the dull click when the hammer fell on an empty chamber.
Overhead he could hear the thunderous sound of wings.
The door, hidden in a recess under the stairs, opened and immediately shot a beacon of light through the dark. The sudden appearance of the light took many thralls by surprise, and the invading force had a small but important advantage when they pushed into the crowded hall. Harris saw the figure of Sandra Harrington burst through the light and open fire on the startled thralls. Harris grabbed Rodgers and made his way through the confusion to the open door.
Dan Reiss also saw the door open and felt renewed hope. He had landed heavily on the floor when he had tried to avoid the thralls, and now pain shot through his ankle when he put any weight on it. He steeled himself against the pain and limped toward the rescue party. His ankle gave way with a sickening crack and he fell again. He looked and saw the bone protruding at an awkward angle. He could go no further.
“Hang on,” he heard. The closeness of the voice startled him and he instinctively brought his gun up.
“Don’t be stupid,” the voice continued, “if I wanted you dead you’re not really in any position to stop me, now are you?”
Reiss didn’t have a choice, so he allowed the stranger to approach. Before the figure swept him up and carried him to the door, he caught a glimpse of a stocky, solid build topped by grey hair. The thralls recovered quickly and had already forced the rescue party back with their superior numbers. Sandra looked around and spotted Harris slip behind the thralls and move to the Cave entrance.
“Are there any more?” she shouted over the gunfire. Harris shook his head and continued on into the Cave. “All right, people, let’s wrap it up and get back inside,” she shouted and the humans retreated under a blanket of fire.
Just as they were about to shut the door Sandra saw a figure struggling with a man over his shoulder.
“Hold it!” she ordered and reopened the door for the approaching figures. She stopped suddenly and barred the door when she noticed the uniform and brought the gun around to point directly at the thrall. “Just drop him and leave!” she barked.