Tony shook his head in disbelief.
Siamese twins? What on earth did they do to end up in Hell?
He was about to get back to his feet and reload when something caught his attention. He looked left and upward, seeing something moving behind a multi-storey car park built from shiny beams and carefully sculpted concrete. The three-level structure suddenly turned ugly, clean lines contorting as concrete cracked and crumbled. The shiny beams bent and came loose. Within seconds, the car park came crashing down, and a towering beast, more terrifying than anything Tony had ever seen, appeared amidst the rubble. The creature almost seemed to glow.
Portsmouth’s soldiers stopped firing, stunned into inaction. Many of them had fought giant demons before, even helped kill a few, but this was three times the size of any they’d ever seen.
Tony was the first to take a shot at the giant beast. His rifle was empty, so he yanked his 9mm from his belt like a gunslinger and started popping shots at the giant. It was more symbolic than an actual attempt to harm it. He just needed to break everyone out of their stupor. The gunshot was a rallying cry. “Take it down,” he yelled, reholstering his handgun and pushing his final mag into his rifle. “Take it down.”
Echoing his call, General Thomas rushed back and forth inside the circle, his mouth pressed against a radio. “Take it down, take it down. Gunners fire. AT teams fire. Give the enemy everything you’ve got.”
The chaos went up a gear as machine-gun fire was overruled by the kaboom of the L118 firing. Shells whistled overhead and hit the giant demon with pinpoint accuracy, striking its chest and torso. The beast staggered, crashing against the French restaurant and demolishing it. Falling debris obliterated the nearby demons and scattered many more. The whizzing sound of RPGs joined the fray. Explosions lit up the fringes of the battle. Parts of demons rained down to earth with a splitter-splatter. Rifle fire, shotgun blasts, and handguns barked endlessly. Demons screeched in pain and anger, their bodies shredded and torn. The battle raged and twisted, but never once did it cease.
Until suddenly it did.
The only movement was the grey smoke drifting through the searchlight beams. No more demons emerged from the shadows. Their leader lay motionless in the rubble.
Did we win? Is it over?
Tony wasn’t sure who started it, but the army began to cheer. He couldn’t help but join in, but when someone grabbed him from behind, he spun around with his rifle raised, ready to shoot.
It was General Thomas.
The old man was beaming. “We did it! I told you, didn’t I? We finished the bastards off once and for all.”
Tony had no words. If true, they could finally reclaim the land. They could take back the farmland and factories, power plants and water facilities. They could exit the dark ages.
Thomas was screeching like a lunatic, running back and forth along the lines. “We are victorious. We are victorious. Long live Great Britain. Reborn and everlasting.”
The smoke gradually cleared, revealing demon corpses, body parts, and dozens of injured soldiers. It was like something out of a nightmare, as close to Hell as Tony ever wanted to get. Yet they had won. They had faced their end and refused to accept it.
Dendoncker appeared in the centre of the circle, a delirious grin on his face. “Christ, we beat them.”
Tony nodded, still unable to speak. He looked around, searching for signs of life. The playing fields were only full of cheering men. There were no gunshots or cries of pain.
It can’t be this easy. This doesn’t feel right.
Something shifted overhead, just above Tony’s view. He tilted his head back, expecting to see a bird, but the small shape flew too quickly across the night sky. It glinted against the moon and rapidly descended.
Tony’s stomach turned.
Dendoncker disappeared. One second the young corporal was standing there smiling, the next his body was ten feet away in the grass.
Tony whimpered.
A slither of Dendoncker’s skull remained, most of it now plastered to the heavy chunk of cement that had fallen out of the sky like a meteorite.
Men shouted. The gunfire resumed. The giant demon rose from the ruins of the French restaurant, its chest blackened but unhurt by the explosive shells levelled at it. In its hand was another chunk of cement the size of a Fiat.
“Look out!” Tony shouted.
The giant skimmed the debris towards the playing field like a stone across a pond, taking out a large chunk of the firing line. Demons immediately threw themselves into the newly created gap, attacking men from the side.
When it had appeared that the demons were defeated, it had been a cruel lie. Hundreds more – maybe thousands – raced from alleyways and side streets. Men screamed and fell, the firing line rapidly shortening as monsters overwhelmed it.
Tony found his voice, shaking his head at Thomas with a mixture of rage and sadness. “We’re fucked.”
Thomas looked at Tony, his face stricken with horror. “What?”
“I said we’re fucked, goddamn it. We’re fucked, and I told you we would be.” Tony raised his 9mm and aimed it at Thomas’s face.
“Don’t you dare point that at me, you insubordinate fool.”
“I should have done this long before you made it across the channel. You’re a lunatic, Thomas. Look what you’ve done. Fifteen thousand souls, penned in and fed to the lions.”
Thomas’s bluster began to waver. “The fight is still ongoing. Tony, see reason, man!”
“The fight is over, you arrogant bastard. Wickstaff would never have been so reckless. I’m going to kill you. It’s the least I can do for her.”
General Thomas turned ashen, staring into the end of Tony’s handgun. “Please.”
“It’s too late.”
Thomas’s focus suddenly darted over Tony’s shoulder.
Oh shit!
Tony turned just in time to see a primate flying through the air. He tried to get out of the way, but it was too late. The demon crashed down on top of Tony and tore at his neck and chest. He rolled back and forth, trying to bring his knees up, trying to bring up his handgun. He yanked at the trigger frantically, probably hitting his fellow soldiers as much as demons. He screamed in pain as talons and teeth tore at his flesh. This was it. This was the end.
It hurt.
It was humiliating.
And in the corner of his eye, Tony watched Thomas hurry away.
The screams of men tore the world apart. The stench of blood and demons corrupted the air. Tony was bleeding and walking, bleeding and walking. At any moment, a demon might appear and take him down. Each stumble seemed like a miracle.
How am I still alive?
The answer was simple, yet hard to understand. One moment he’d been trapped beneath a demon, flesh being torn from his body. The next, that demon was dead in the grass with a dozen smoking bullet holes blotting its torso. Twenty-four hours before, Pearson’s men had attempted to murder Tony. Now they were saving his life.
The men helped Tony to his feet, but there was no time for thanks. Demons were everywhere, their numbers increasing until there was barely any room to move. Where terrified soldiers attempted to flee, primates hunted them down, leaping on their backs and biting into their necks. While the army had brought only a handful of horses, the animals’ hysterical braying could be heard over the top of everything.
Tony possessed only one thought, and he voiced it to the men who had saved him. “Thomas? Where did he go?”
One of the soldiers pointed. “He took off with some of the other officers. I doubt they made it far.”
Tony put a hand to his bleeding neck and groaned. “I had the bastard. I was one second away from pulling the trigger.”
No one replied. Now that Tony was safe, the men scattered, fighting for their own lives. Thousands of men and women were still fighting, but they fell by the dozen. The demons were like a wave crashing down, gathering up bodies with unrelenting force. More of them spilled from t
he side streets, but it was their leader that did the real damage.
Tony watched in horror as the giant yanked up the massive oak tree he had slept against earlier. Its massive roots tore the earth apart. The resulting crater swallowed up men and demons both. The beast then swung the ancient oak as if it were a cricket bat, obliterating a hundred men. Bullets struck the giant like a swarm of angry bees, but they imploded on impact, causing no damage besides sooty black marks.
“It’s over,” said Tony. “We’ve lost.”
And that was when he started walking. He had no destination, no purpose, he just couldn’t fight any more. He was done.
At first, he focused on making it to the middle of the playing fields. Then, he continued until he reached the road. Finally, and miraculously, he left the parklands and entered a side street. The more he walked, the more he wondered if he was dead. Perhaps his spirit had left his body and he was simply roaming the Earth.
The fighting faded behind him, the screams of men almost at an end. Demons screeched and wailed triumphantly, their victory well earned. Humanity had never stood a chance.
Thomas doomed us all.
Or were we doomed from the beginning?
Portsmouth’s best men lay dead in a moonlit Winchester playing field, their blood soaking the grass. The demons would continue their purge until they reached the gates of Portsmouth. There, a diminished mankind would stand no chance of repelling an attack.
He wept as he walked, so loudly that he was sure he would be heard. Yet nothing came. No demons appeared to end his misery.
He walked for hours, right through dawn and into the bright morning. Eventually, he made it out of Winchester and entered the rural area that would eventually lead to the North Wessex Downs and Oxford beyond. It was the area where he’d found Mass.
Had the leader of the Urban Vampires taken his people north to Kielder as promised, or was he dead? Exactly how many people lived up there in the forest? Would they have any chance against the giant demon and its hordes? Tony doubted it. In fact, he wondered if Mass had even headed there. He hadn’t seemed like the kind of man to flee.
But he had a duty to warn them about what they were up against.
Tony slumped against a road sign as he passed it. The cold bite of his own blood vexed him along with the chill of morning air. Somewhere down the line he had dropped both his rifle and handgun, and he was now armed with only a knife. Any demons would have an easy time finishing him off, but it would probably be unnecessary. He was bleeding all over. His neck was torn along the collarbone, the skin flapping. A second wound bled on his chest, deep and painful. He located various other cuts on his face and shoulders, hands and wrists, but it was his chest and neck that worried him most. If he didn’t find help, he would eventually bleed to death or die of infection. He needed a medic, or enough supplies to take care of it himself.
He lifted his bloody hands and saw that they were shaking. He tried keeping them still but failed. For a moment, he feared he wouldn’t be able to walk again, but once he got one foot in front of the other he was able to move at a steady pace.
It would take him a week to walk to Kielder, or longer. As much as he loved a good hike, he didn’t think he could make this one. Even if his wounds were taken care of, he was too weak and vulnerable alone in the open. He needed transport, but driving was a reckless pursuit, prone to dead ends whenever the wreckages grew insurmountable. The safest and easiest route was always through the countryside – fields and country lanes. The problem with that, however, was that most vehicles – if you could even get one running – couldn’t cope with the terrain. Tony thought about trying to find a tractor or a Land Rover, but then he suddenly found something even better.
A village came into view ahead. The very first building he encountered was an old social club. Two wooden picnic tables stood out front, broken pint glasses littering the pavement at their feet. Propped against one of those wooden tables was a ‘scrambler’. The British Army always used to keep a few of the lightweight motorbikes around the bases for fun. They were quick, nimble, and small enough to lift whenever the terrain got tricky. They could get you up a mountain or across a shallow river. The lone scrambler outside the social club was like a gift from the gods.
If the thing starts.
Tony limped over to the motorbike and lifted it away from the table. He wondered who’d left it there, and imagined a young lad seeking safety at the social club. That the motorbike was here suggested the young lad’s body might be inside the building. Tony would need to find it in order to get the key.
Except the key was in the ignition.
“You’re joking me?”
Whoever had parked the bike had been in too much of a rush to care about removing the key. That person had probably died months ago, but their actions had given Tony a chance of making it to safety.
He turned the key.
The whiny engine came to life. Tony angered it by twisting the accelerator. The scrambler was alive – and ready for an adventure.
Tony’s vision blurred, and he had to wait for it to pass. Once he was sure he wouldn’t keel over, he straddled the small motorbike and kicked it forward into a roll. The engine throbbed between his thighs, growing warm. Despite the heat, Tony shivered. He was still losing blood and he was now in a race against time. If he drove all day and into the night, he might make it to Kielder in twelve hours. That was if he encountered no demons, no impassable obstacles, and didn’t bleed to death en route.
“I always did like a challenge,” he muttered to himself, and laughed grimly. “On your marks, get set…”
Tony twisted the accelerator and took off, leaving Portsmouth a doomed memory behind him.
They had fifty men. It wasn’t enough, but if Mass could strike at the right targets quickly enough, he might be able to convince any responding forces to stand down and join him. From his early morning inspections, conducted from the roof of an empty warehouse, there seemed to be an equal mix of Thomas’s and Wickstaff’s people. The problem was that the men with the guns were all Thomas’s. Wickstaff’s loyalists had been disarmed.
The women from the farm had all been fed and housed, surprisingly by the opinionated old fisherman named Mitch. He’d also helped Mass and the others remain hidden while they took a breather. Mitch was a fool with a thoughtless mouth, but he was apparently kind at heart. The women were safe, but Mass suspected they understood the dangers ahead as well as anyone. Crimolok and his army was headed for Portsmouth. The fight was coming. At least for now, the women could enjoy some food and warmth without the fear of assault. If Mass had achieved nothing else, he had at least given them that.
Tox came through on his promise of being connected. The men in charge of the area’s stockpiles were indeed his friends, and they had offered Mass and his people as much food and drink as requested, including booze. It would be insane to get drunk, but Mass allowed himself one beer. He’d earned it.
Damien stood on the rooftop nearby, so Mass approached him. “Anyone spotted Wanstead yet?”
General Wanstead was, according to Damien, in charge of Portsmouth during Thomas’s absence. That made him their number one target. Mass didn’t savour the thought of assassinating someone, but he knew it might come to that. It very much depended on the kind of man this Wanstead was.
Damien folded his arms and peered over the edge of the roof. “He’s in the port administration building. I saw some uniforms hanging around there earlier, so he won’t be alone.”
“Okay, just tell me one more time who I’m looking for – a fat white dude with a posh accent, right? Anything else?”
“I got myself within earshot a couple of times this morning. He seems reasonable enough, I suppose.”
Mass nodded. “If Wanstead’s a good man, we might be able to persuade him to help us. If we tell him what’s coming, he’ll want to avoid a fight and prepare for what matters.”
“Or you could just take the guy out. You have fifty men. Put
’em to use, innit?”
Mass shook his head. “I can’t accept murdering a man unless there’s no choice.”
Damien frowned. “Having a conscience must suck.”
“It ain’t great, but it’s not something I can ignore. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it my way.”
“Fair enough.”
Smithy appeared on the roof, entering through a door that led to the warehouse’s mezzanine floor. Sipping from a bottle of water, he swished the liquid around his cheeks for a while before swallowing. He looked at Mass and nodded. “All right, boss, what’s occurring?”
“We’re going to take Wanstead hostage tonight and hope we can convince him to play ball. If not, we’ll make sure everyone is listening when we tell them Thomas murdered Wickstaff, and that Crimolok is coming to wipe us all out once and for all. We can fight each other or we can fight together.”
Damien scratched his scalp, appearing unconvinced. “You think that’ll work? Thomas’s men are the ones with all the guns.”
“They can still make up their minds about what they’re fighting for. Give a soldier a choice, he’ll usually make the right one.”
Smithy took another swig of water, then asked, “When do we make our move?”
Mass swigged the last of his beer, hoping it wouldn’t be his last. “Soon. We don’t have the luxury of waiting.”
“Okey dokey.” Smithy tossed his empty bottle of water off the roof. It bounced on a pallet of old wiring spools and pirouetted in the air.
Damien snarled. “Fucking litterbug. Be a man, fill the can.”
“I think global warming has taken a backseat, mate, but yeah, my bad.”
“It’ll be getting dark,” said Mass. “Come on, let’s go and tell everyone the plan.”
Tox met them down below. He and Addy were both armed, but they hid their faces beneath baseball caps. Both knew the plan because he’d gone through it with them earlier. Along with Cullen, they were the people he trusted most.
Addy pumped her shotgun. “So are we doing this or what?”
Mass nodded. “We wait until nightfall and catch Wanstead sleeping. I hate having to delay even a few hours, but we’re only going to get one shot at this. We need to get it right. Where’s Cullen and the others?”
Hell On Earth (Book 6): Rebirth Page 18