Nobody said anything. We stopped in front of the massive metal door. Julie grabbed Holly by the straps of her armor and looked her in the eyes. "It's going to be dark in there, Holly. Just like the hole. Are you going to be okay? You don't have to do this if you aren't ready."
"I'm fine. I hate vampires. Let's kill these assholes," she replied angrily. Julie nodded and smiled. I had no idea what that was about.
"We're going to move fast. We're not going to stack at each entrance. We're not going to do a full clearing. Keep moving. Watch above you. Watch floor grates. Lee, you bring up the rear, watch behind us. I'm on point, then Pitt, Trip, and Newcastle. Got it?"
"Let me take point," I suggested.
"Why?"
"I've got the shotgun. You've got a sniper rifle with a scope on it. Plus I'm expendable. If you're in front and you die, then the rest of us are screwed." I wasn't being chivalrous. For conversational distance a shotgun beat the pants off of a long rifle with a magnifying optic.
She thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "Pitt on point, then me. Any questions?" It probably made more sense to put one of the other three with the suppressed subguns next in line, but I did not think Julie was real confident in their shooting abilities at that point.
We were quiet, each of us preparing ourselves in our own way to enter the dark. Trip was obviously mumbling a prayer. Lee had his eyes closed and appeared to be doing controlled breathing. Holly was wearing an evil predatory grin. I made sure my shotgun and pistol were fully loaded and my magazines and knife were in place. At least my quick dip in the ocean had cleaned most of the wight juices off of me. The rest of the Newbie team was coated in them.
Julie slapped me on the back of my soggy armor.
"Go."
The first floor we covered was still lit with fluorescent lights, but by the time we hit the stairs for the next level down, we were forced to switch to our helmet-mounted night vision monoculars. Something had systematically smashed every light. Glass crunched under our boots as we quickly made our way through the narrow steel corridors. I had a pair of lights on my shotgun, one a super-bright white light, and the second cast a brilliant beam that was invisible to the human eye, but lit up the whole world in green through my monocular. The rest of the team was similarly equipped with infrared lights on their guns as well. Since we were fighting undead, the thermal-imaging gear had been left on deck. It was not very useful against things that were already room temperature.
We swiftly passed through what had been the galley. I kept the shotgun at the low ready, elbows tucked down to keep from banging them on the walls. Meals lay half eaten and rotting on the tables. The walls were splashed with a thick fluid that was indeterminate through night vision, but my gut told me that it had once been bright arterial spray. I bumped into a wine bottle with my foot and sent it spinning under one of the tables. The doors were basically watertight hatches, and I had to carefully step over a steep sealing lip on the base of each portal as I passed. So far all of the hatches had been open.
The crash of gunfire echoed through the corridors and ductwork. That was a good sign that our friends were still alive. My small team quickened its pace. According to the blueprints we'd studied on the way to the ship, we needed to go down one more flight of stairs, through some quarters, down a long corridor, and then we would be right on top of the engine room. We all flinched as an explosive whump vibrated the whole freighter and rattled the utensils in the galley.
"Bomb?" Trip asked.
"Hard to tell," Julie answered.
"I hope we don't sink," Lee grunted.
Our boots rattled on the metal stairs as we double-timed it to the next level. The time for stealth had passed. I turned the corner into the crew quarters, light probing ahead, shotgun butt ground tightly into my shoulder pocket. The long narrow room was filled with double bunks. Pornography had been crudely taped to the walls, and it looked strange in the glowing green light. Blankets and trash were strewn everywhere. It was a veritable warren of hiding places. Jerking my fist up, I signaled the team to freeze. I had sensed something.
Julie drew against me, her rifle at the ready. I could hear her breathing. There was a clank as another member of our team tripped on the doorway. Something was in the room with us. I could feel it.
Nothing happened.
The group continued to shine our invisible lights around the room. I could not put my finger on what I was feeling, but something was waiting for us.
Julie must have felt the same thing. "Everybody, NVGs off. Go to white light," she commanded.
I flipped my monocular back and complied, pushing the button that activated the 120-lumen Surefire light on the forearm of my 870. Brilliant, scalding light suddenly filled the room from five waving points.
A night vision monocular has some advantages over a similar pair of goggles that cover both eyes, but it also has its disadvantages. On the plus side, with the single lens, one pupil will be fully dilated for natural human night vision, and the other eye will be looking at an already bright green world. The human brain, being the amazing thing that it is, superimposes both lighted and unlighted images together. You get electronically enhanced vision, with one eye still able to see as well as any human could in the dark if the device gets lost. With two-lens goggles, you have better night vision capability, but if your device goes out, you're pretty much screwed until your eyes adjust to the dark. Great as our monoculars are, there's a disadvantage inherent to them as well. When you suddenly flip on bright lights, one of your eyes is immediately blinded.
So the five of us were down to one sort of functioning eye and one dazzled eye when the Surefires kicked in. That was probably why the image of the vampire crawling down the ceiling toward us was extra surreal. As I had been told, it did in fact look like a normal person. This one looked like a regular sailor. Pale and defying gravity, but human.
I reacted a fraction of a second before the rest of the team. In that moment I was able to pump two silver slugs through the vampire's chest and pelvis. The concussion of the shotgun was deafening in the confined space, but nothing compared to the sonic crack of Julie's M14. Her bullet clipped the vampire through the shoulder. The creature dropped to the floor, and both of us hit it again on the way down. The rest of the team did not have a clear shot through us.
The vampire screamed inhumanly as Julie and I simultaneously dropped to our knees. The three Newbies behind us opened fire over our heads. The suppressed weapons shuddered as. 45 bullets stitched the creature, with plenty of other bullets missing and hitting the walls and bunks. It shook and staggered, but kept coming. Impact holes puckered in the monster's pale skin, only to instantly close. I emptied the rest of my slugs in a continuous burst, nailing the monster from the crotch to the forehead, the last shot snapping the vampire's head back violently.
I dropped the smoking Remington, drew my handgun, and fired two shots before I was swatted aside. My body armor cushioned the blow, but I was hurled through the air and slammed into the steel wall. Pain surged through my ribs and I lost my pistol on impact. Julie dropped down and rolled under a nearby bunk, narrowly avoiding the vampire's foot as it smashed an indentation into the metal floor. Illumination from five different flashlights pointing in strange directions created a hellish and confusing scene.
The rest of my team emptied their subguns into the creature as it closed on them. Holly and Trip started to reload and Lee drew his knife and swung wildly. The vampire moved so quickly that it was hard to visually track. It side-stepped the blow, grabbed Lee by his arm and tossed him across the room. I heard the smaller man skid roughly across the floor. The vampire was distracted from Trip and Holly as heavy. 308 bullets struck it in the feet and legs.
Julie's cover was torn away as the sailor thing grabbed the bunk and ripped it from the wall, easily breaking the heavy bolts. It reached for her but I got there first. I swung my ganga ram with all of the fury that I possessed. Somehow it sensed me in midswing, and started to mov
e. I had been aiming for its neck, but instead my blade sunk deep into its shoulder, breaking the collarbone and grinding out against the top of the monster's ribs. Black fluid sprayed everywhere like a pierced hydraulic cylinder.
Spinning away, the creature ripped my blade from my grasp. The vampire flew backwards, and stuck to the wall like a spider. Screeching in anger, it reached up, grasped the hilt of the massive Nepalese blade and drug it out of its back. The noise of steel scrapping on bone was sickening. The blade dropped to the floor with a clatter. I heard the near simultaneous dropping of bolts as Trip and Holly got their UMPs back in action. Julie was reloading. Lee wasn't moving. I reached for a specialty 12 gauge round, dropped it into the open chamber of my 870, and ran the pump forward.
The wound was already sealing. It hissed something obviously profane in French.
"Parley-vous this, mother-fucker."
It leapt at me, launching itself like a demon frog missile. I brought the shotgun up and pulled the trigger as the muzzle contacted the vampire's chest.
A regular breaching round is used by police to safely break the locks or hinges on heavy doors during raids, which fragments without endangering any bystanders. The 3-inch magnum 12 gauge sintered magnesium/tungsten breaching charge that I had just fired had been designed for blowing through hinges suitable for bank vaults. Milo had told me that, during testing, this special breacher had put a basketball-sized hole through a side of beef.
The recoil was amazing, even by my standards. The noise was going to leave all of us with ringing ears for a week. The vampire's torso exploded in a black mist.
The creature's momentum carried it into me, we both crashed to the floor, rolling and thrashing. Entrails were spilling everywhere. Its legs were kicking on the ground, but its top half kept fighting. I pushed it off as it clawed at me and rolled away. Trip and Holly responded by pouring two full magazines of. 45 caliber silver into the thrashing monstrosity, riddling it with holes. As soon as they ran dry, Julie charged the torso. She placed one heavy boot on the creature's neck, raised a sharpened stake high over her head and, with a cry, slammed it through the evil black heart.
A fountain of black ooze shot into the air and the hideous shrieks pierced us to the bone. Julie was splattered, but undaunted. The vampire was twitching, but could barely move. She held her hand out. "Big knife."
Grabbing my ganga ram from the floor I limped over. I handed it over hilt first. The knife was huge, but she was a strong woman. She swung it back with one hand like she was clearing brush with a machete, then struck. There was a thud and the screaming finally stopped. The head rolled free. She kicked it in disgust.
"Reload. There's more where that came from. Lee, you still with us?" Julie said. She wiped the knife blade on her leg and handed it back over, mouthing the word "thanks." She looked deadly serious covered in vampire gore and illuminated by powerful flashlights.
"I'm okay. Ow, damn," Lee said as Trip helped him to his feet. He sounded weak and raspy. "I think I broke a rib."
"Take it easy for a sec. Holly, cover the other doorway. Keep it on white light. Our vision is shot, and the lights disorient them."
"That was disoriented?" Trip asked.
I speed-reloaded the shotgun. I did not dare load any more breaching rounds since they were useless past contact distance. "Anybody see my pistol?"
Lee handed it to me, scuffed, but undamaged. I changed magazines and reholstered. The bunk I was leaning against had a picture of a sailor's wife and kids standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. I shined my light on the vampire's body. The flesh was slowly bubbling and melting into a tarlike substance, leaving only sticky bones. The eyeless skull appeared to be watching me.
"So that's a Master vampire. They aren't so tough," I said.
Julie surprised us all by laughing. It was a genuine sound of merriment, and was totally out of place in the splattered crew quarters. She paused in cleaning the slime off her prescription goggles long enough to look at all of us poor befuddled Newbies. She shook her head and smiled.
"That was just a baby." All of the Newbies had some choice words at that. Holly swore so creatively that it was almost poetry. "Masters can move so fast you can't hardly see them. They can eat a stack of Bibles and wash it down with a lit Molotov cocktail. This guy was probably turned in the last week. Abnormally quick regeneration, but the more powerful the creator, the stronger the creation. Whatever started this mess was one bad son of a gun. It would have to be to create those wights to serve as daylight guardians too."
Satisfied that she could see again, Julie pointed toward Holly and the passage to the engine room. "Owen on point again. Trip, stay by Lee and help him if he needs it. Holly, you bring up the rear. If we come across more vamps, stop, then throw in some grenades first. All right, let's move."
I took my place at the door, light stabbing ahead, searching for targets. Julie took the second position. She spoke softly in my ear.
"Parley-vous, mother effer?"
"It sounded good at the time," I shrugged. "Hey, if we don't die in the next few minutes, are you doing anything for dinner tonight?"
She thumped me in the shoulder to indicate that it was time to move out. I took that as a no. I moved quickly, the light from the flashlights behind threw my hulking shadow down the hall. I had pulled something in my leg in the struggle with the vampire. My head and chest ached from my earlier adventure in the water. My stomach and throat hurt from all of the heaving. My nerves tingled with adrenaline and terror-induced endorphins. I was still seeing purple ghosts in one semi-blinded eye, and I was covered in vampire juices. I was having a great time and had never felt more alive.
Finally a voice came over the radio. It was Harbinger.
"Lights coming near the engine room. Who is it?"
"Hold your fire. It's me and the Newbie team," Julie answered.
"Stop where you are. There's a mess of hostiles about thirty feet from your position through the door on your left. We're at the end of the hall on the other side of that. Why ain't you up top?"
It was good to hear Harbinger's voice. I pointed my shotgun at the indicated compartment. Anything that came through that portal was going to get a snout full of buckshot.
"We lost radio contact after you got ambushed. The deck got swarmed with wights. We killed them, but the boat crew wasn't going to stick around, and the Hind was low on fuel. The Newbies did good, only minor injuries. We decided to come find you guys. I thought for a minute we had lost you, Earl," Julie answered.
"Nope. But Boone lost a man. Roberts got swarmed in the ambush. We have some others wounded, but nothing critical. It was bad. There had to be at least twenty vamps. And they rigged the lights to blow when they attacked." His voice sounded tired and ragged.
"That doesn't sound right. Undead don't coordinate," she said.
"These do. It was planned. We killed most of them, and the rest are holed up in that engine compartment. There are at least five."
"Fire?" Julie asked, sounding hopeful.
"Negative. Fuel storage is through there. Same with explosives. We set anything off in that room and we're swimming home. Plus the room that Darne and his men are locked in is on the other side of where the vamps are."
"Plan?" she asked.
"I haven't figured that out yet. We can go in shooting. But if we do we might hit a steam line and cook us all, or we might hit the boiler and blow a hole in the bottom of the ship. Either way we're running out of time. We got another coded message from the French Hunters. The vamps are trying to break into their compartment-wait a second."
I did not turn to look. I kept my muzzle on the door. We had a great position. Both groups of Hunters could fire with impunity into the doorway, and the angles were such that the chances of ricocheting a shot into the other team were virtually nil. Trip and Holly both squeezed around me so that they would have a shot as well. The injured Lee watched our backs and Julie stayed on the radio. The walls and floor vibrated slightly from the powerf
ul engine nearby. The air smelled of diesel and rubber and rust and the faint copper smell of blood.
While we waited for Harbinger to get back to us, I could not help but ask, "Did any of you guys know Roberts?"
"He was the tall, skinny, blond guy on the boat," Trip said. "Seemed like a good guy."
"He was a great guy. Brave. A little crazy, but he was a dang good Hunter," Julie told us. "Roberts has been with us since we restarted. First batch of Newbies we had. He'll be missed. I think he had an ex-wife and some kids in St. Louis."
Harbinger's voice crackled in my ear piece. "Sam says that he found something on the schematics. We're directly under the main cargo bay. There's an escape hatch there that leads into that engine compartment. Sam says that we can put somebody through it, and they can pierce a steam pipe in the vamp's room, and then close the hatch before they get cooked. The steam will fry the undead, or at least flush them into the corridor where we can blast them."
"Won't that kill the Frenchmen also?" Julie asked.
"Sam doesn't think so. Might raise the temperature a little, but judging from the schematics they should be fine. I'm sending Sam, Grant and Mead up to do it."
"What about Boone's team?"
"My team's a little occupied, Jules," Boone replied over the net. "Your uncle Earl neglected to mention that we have at least two more of the bloodsuckers pinned down by the shafts. One of them is the son of a whore that bit Roberts."
"Roger that." She released her mike. "Wait for the cookout."
"I could place some claymores down the hall. Give them a surprise when they come running out," Lee offered helpfully. Just like a former demo guy, always looking to blow something up.
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