War of the Damned (Relic Hunters)

by Martin Ferguson

  I land on the rock of the cavern floor and roll clear, only stopping when I reach the fallen body of a Winterbourne operative. I pick up his rifle just as more of the undead reach for me. I cut them all down, but as Leon approaches, the rifle clicks empty. Instead of waiting for Leon, I charge him, barging him over and to the ground. I land on top of him and without pause, dig my hands into the machinery of his eye, cutting my fingers as I tear the iron and steel free. Leon thrashes against me but I don’t stop until the replacement is severed and I drop it to the ground. Only then does the thing that was Leon Bransby stop moving.

  I stagger to my feet, bruised, battered, and bleeding, but the undead are still advancing around me. Through it all I see Matt in the distance, lying still with flames rising across him.

  49

  DAVE—Facing my mad, possessed ex-wife, Germany

  She finds me among the smoke and flames as I knew she would. She has yet to have any mechanical enhancements but her eyes and that damaged skin tone, that isn’t her. She walks towards me, not staggering like the others, but not with her usual guile either. In her hands is her Katana blade, rising up and ready to attack as she nears.

  Despite all she has done, all the crimes she has committed and all the people she has hurt, she is still the mother of my child. I have to try, if only for my little girl.

  ‘Jenny,’ I call to her. ‘Jenny, snap out of it!’

  She does not respond but charges me, swinging the blade down and then across to cut me in two. I deflect the blade with my rifle, a spark shining where the metals collide. The Katana swings again, higher to behead me, but I duck back and away.

  ‘Jenny, listen to me!’ I plead. ‘This isn’t you!’

  She remains unmoved, hunting me in silence.

  ‘I guess they finally found a way to shut you up,’ I say, ‘but that’s not you. Follia you called yourself, madness. It’s that free spirit that I fell in love with. They cannot have taken all that from you.’

  The Katana rises and I take my chance. Before the blade falls, I close the gap between us and grab her wrists. I try to knock the blade from her grasp but she overpowers me, punching me hard across the face again and again until I back away, blood pouring from my nose and lips.

  Before I can recover, she brings the Katana down hard and slices into the flesh of my arm. Her senses must be off as the Jenny I know would have severed the limb.

  ‘You’re still carrying that blade,’ I tell her, grasping the deep cut across my arm. ‘There must be some of you still in there.’

  She continues towards me, blade swinging back and forth, cutting through the air.

  ‘I’m not leaving here without you,’ I tell her, but she still attacks.

  The Katana rises and falls and I use my rifle to deflect the blow three times. On the third strike the blade cuts into the gun’s mechanism and becomes stuck, giving me one last chance to reach her. I barge forward, forcing her over and both of us to the ground. As I tear the blade from her grasp, she forces herself on top of me, hands gripped around my throat.

  ‘Your name…is Jennifer…Barton…’ I tell her between gasps for air. ‘You…have…a…daughter. Her name is Libby…’

  I see it in her distorted eyes, a flicker of recognition.

  ‘Your daughter’s…name…is Libby,’ I tell her again and the grip on my throat begins to loosen.

  ‘You have…a daughter,’ I repeat. ‘Her name is Libby…and she is five years old.’

  Jenny’s eyes begin to flicker and return to their normal green. She’s fighting it. Her grip loosens even further until I am able to break free of her grasp. Her eyes lower and then close, body falling limply onto me. I check her life signs, and though it is faint, her heart is still beating.

  ‘I’ll get you out of this,’ I tell her, rising up and carrying her towards the trains as the undead continue to advance.

  50

  ADAM—Facing the Commander & Creator of the Undead, Germany

  Colonel Steinhardt is my only target. He is standing back as the carnage unfolds around him. If we should fail in our attempts to bring down the mountain, at least I can stop this commander of the damned, the mad scientist who created all this evil. At his side are two guards, reapers, waiting like attack-dogs.

  I circle round and use the wrecked, abandoned vehicles for cover, keeping to the edge of the battle as my team holds off the onslaught. At all times, I keep one eye on him as I creep closer, making sure he doesn’t evade me and disappear. I just need one clean shot with an arrow to end him and his vile plans. I am all out of incendiaries and explosives; a good old-fashioned arrowhead will have to do.

  When I’m as close as I dare, I take a half breath, draw an arrow, take aim, and let it fly. The arrow soars true and on target, the colonel unmoving until the very last moment. His hand rises just before the arrow hits true, impaling his palm. Steinhardt does not flinch, but smiles as he pulls the arrow free.

  ‘Spirited young fool,’ the colonel states as he signals his pet reapers to hunt me down.

  I fire two more arrows at Steinhardt, one soaring wide and the colonel dodging the other, before I am forced to withdraw as the reapers near me. I pull back towards the trains, loosing arrows at the reapers in hopes that I can hit one of the creatures before they reach me. One hits true and I take advantage to put another arrow through its chest.

  I do not see the second Reaper until it is almost on me. The creature leaps up and crashes into me, throwing us back and tumbling. Before I can rise to my feet, its claws reach me, tearing chunks out of my body armour. With a deafening shriek, it roars and lowers to sink its fanged jaws into my throat. I kick out with both legs, forcing the creature away long enough for me to scramble free. I throw a bolas at it, catching its deformed body and limbs in a tangle of wires, but it continues to shriek with rage.

  ‘Such failure,’ Colonel Steinhardt states as he approaches. He kills the trapped Reaper with his Luger pistol before turning the firearm on me.

  ‘Wait, wait,’ he says, lowering the gun. ‘I could use someone with your tenacity and skill. I will need replacements for the losses I have suffered today.’

  ‘Forgive me if I don’t come willingly,’ I reply in defiance, drawing an arrow and lining it up on my bow.

  ‘I have many means to enforce submission,’ the colonel replies before he suddenly charges me.

  I have time to release a single arrow before he reaches me, the shaft impaling in his chest. The colonel does not stop and hits me hard enough to throw me over ten metres back. I crash to the ground but roll with the landing, rising up and firing another two arrows before Steinhardt can close the distance. Both arrows bury themselves in his chest but he still doesn’t stop. He grabs me by the body-armour and lifts me off my feet.

  ‘I only mean to make you stronger,’ he tells me, fully believing his words.

  ‘And enslave me,’ I reply, hitting and kicking him as hard as I can, trying desperately to free myself of his grasp. I manage to draw dark blood from his scarred face but he still does not release me. Instead, he throws me back and I collide with one of the Nazi gold trains.

  ‘Get up, Adam,’ Abbey tells me through the headset. ‘GET UP!’

  Before I can recover, he is on me again, slamming me into the locomotive. I try to fight him, punching hard until he releases me. I hit him fast and with as much strength as I can, the stomach, kidneys and head my targets. I twist free, trying to strike him from behind but he is too fast, a boot kicking me hard in the chest before he goes on the offensive. His punches hit like sledgehammers and even with both hands I can barely block a single swing of his fist.

  With one almighty effort, I close in on the colonel and hit him with every ounce of energy I still possess. I hit him a dozen times, enough to draw foul dark blood from the madman’s lips, but all he does is smile at me.

  ‘My turn,’ Steinhardt says. He grabs me by my armour and throws me into the side of a train carriage, cracking the windows with the impact of my b
ody before I hit the cold, hard floor. I try to rise up but he strikes me one more time across the head, my knees buckling from the blow.

  ‘Shh,’ the colonel whispers, quietening me as I try to resist him. ‘Though brave, your efforts are for nothing.’

  At his wrist extends the long serrated dagger and he stabs it into my side. My body armour takes some of the blow but the blade still finds my flesh beneath. The pain burns unlike anything I have felt before and I struggle to maintain consciousness, feeling the warmth of my blood seeping from the wound.

  ‘As you can see, I have experienced my formulas and enhancements for myself,’ the colonel states. ‘I once saw one of my first test subjects do this, and for decades I have wanted to experience it for myself.’

  ‘Fight him, Hunter!’ Abbey pleads.

  He takes hold of my head with both hands and slowly begins to apply pressure. Stars appear before my eyes, my very skull feeling like it will crack and crumble.

  ‘FIGHT HIM!’ Abbey screams.

  ‘You won’t escape!’ I yell at the colonel. ‘Someone will stop you!’

  ‘Who of your pitiful band could pose a threat to me?’ Steinhardt laughs. ‘The one surrounded by my men? The one burning in the hangar, or the one trying desperately to rescue his former love?’

  I try to respond but my words are gibberish until he lessens the pressure.

  ‘What was that?’ he asks.

  ‘You…missed…one,’ I reply, seeing the barrel of a gun emerge from the driver’s cabin of Hitler’s Steel Beast.

  My world erupts with the sound of the blast and the colonel is thrown off. I cough and splutter, my head ringing with sound and pain but no longer being crushed in a vice. As I stumble to my feet, I see Cecylia emerge from the locomotive, shotgun in hand. She’s limping heavily, her leg bandaged and causing her a great deal of pain with every step. I help to lower Cecylia to the ground and support her to stand.

  We stand over the body of Steinhardt, half his skull missing but the colonel is still very much alive.

  ‘Cezary and Piortr Nowak,’ Cecylia states with a fury I have not seen. ‘What happened to them? What did you do to them?’

  ‘They died,’ the colonel sneered. ‘I worked them, starved them, and when they could do no more, I used them for my tests.’

  Cecylia pulls the trigger of the shotgun, emptying a round into the colonel’s chest.

  ‘That was for Cezary Nowak, my great-grandfather,’ Cecylia says.

  ‘Do you hear that?’ the colonel asks. ‘That vehicle escaping.’

  I do hear the sound of an engine and the screech of tires as a truck careens away towards the tunnels. There is nothing I can do to stop it, not at this distance.

  ‘Doctor Zajak,’ I guess.

  ‘My apprentice, though only for a short time, will continue my work,’ the colonel sneers, earning another round from the shotgun into his chest.

  ‘That was for his son, Piortr Nowak,’ Cecylia states.

  ‘If you kill me, it will release all my creations from my control,’ Steinhardt states, his voice beginning to fade. ‘They will become mindless animals. They will hunt and kill you and anyone else they find.’

  ‘It’s worth the risk,’ Cecylia states coldly, taking out the Star of David hanging from her necklace and holding it for the colonel to see. ‘This is for all the lives your regime took and ruined!’ She aims the shotgun at the colonel’s head and pulls the trigger one last time. The blast leaves nothing of the colonel’s head intact.

  ‘I really wish I hadn’t watched that,’ Abbey says through the headset and I hear the sound of her vomiting.

  ‘I wish I hadn’t heard you throwing up,’ I reply, forcing a laugh as I check my stab wound. With Cecylia keeping watch, I apply a sealant from my first kit, causing me more pain but greatly slowing the blood loss. The wound still hurts, really hurts, but my quick-fix will have to do until we can get out of here.

  From all across the cavern and facility we hear wails, screams, and inhuman roars, Steinhardt’s army unleashed.

  ‘Sounds like the colonel wasn’t lying,’ Abbey says.

  ‘C’mon,’ I tell Cecylia, carrying her back up into the cabin of the locomotive. ‘We need you to finish getting the train ready.’

  ‘We need to hurry,’ Emma’s voice calls as she carries Matt’s unconscious body toward us.

  ‘He okay?’ I ask, seeing smoke rising from my brother’s scorched chest.

  ‘Just a bit charred,’ she replies. ‘Give me a hand, would you? Your brother weighs a tonne. He’ll be fine, but he’s out of it for now. Have you seen Dave?’

  ‘Did someone call my name?’ Dave calls from across the room. Follia is slung over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift.

  ‘Don’t say a word,’ Dave warns, snarling.

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ I reply, causing Emma to laugh.

  More of the undead soldiers stagger towards us and Dave places Follia in the locomotive cabin alongside Matt. Then he hands us what remains of the explosives.

  ‘Set the explosives where the rivers meet the U-boat dock,’ he instructs as he climbs up towards the top of the train. ‘You already know how the trigger mechanism works after your firework escapades.’

  ‘What about you?’ Emma asks.

  ‘That Nazi colonel kept this train in pristine condition and ready to roll out,’ he replies over his shoulder. ‘My bet is the flak guns are loaded. We need them.’

  ‘Hurry up,’ Cecylia calls out to us. ‘The thermite has been applied and the water temperature and pressure is soaring. If we don’t leave soon the whole thing will blow.’

  ‘As soon as it’s ready, guide the train out slowly,’ I tell her. ‘We’ll jump on-board as you pass the docks.’

  ‘C’mon,’ Emma says, taking the colonel’s Luger pistol and leading us towards the U-boat docks. We see more of the undead emerge from the facility, dozens of them, hundreds, all marching free.

  We set the explosives at the point where the rivers meet the docks as per Dave’s instructions. To give them an extra kick, I drag nearby crates of ammunition towards them.

  ‘Should make a helluva bang,’ I tell Emma. ‘This is very close to the train lines so we will wait until we are well clear before setting off the explosives.’

  ‘One problem with that,’ Emma replies, holding up a device with two bullet holes right through it. ‘This is the trigger.’

  ‘We can’t set it off?’ I ask in alarm. We can’t let these monsters escape the mountain.

  ‘We can’t do anything from distance,’ she replies. ‘I can maybe rig it with a delayed timer. Twenty seconds maximum, maybe at a push.’

  ‘That’s not long if this brings down the mountain like Dave predicted,’ I say. ‘Someone will need to stay behind.’

  ‘Who?’ she asks. ‘Got to be one of us, I guess.’

  ‘We can figure that out after you set the timer,’ I tell her, already knowing the answer.

  I spot a vehicle that may be of use and hurry towards it, just as the train begins to make its approach. It’s an impressive sight, a testament of German engineering and design. It is unbelievable to think that it has not moved in over seventy years, yet now, with steam pouring from its chimney and the pistons and wheels rotating, it is as if it had never stopped its life on the tracks.

  Hitler’s Steel Beast lumbers forward slowly, Cecylia’s head sticking out of the cabin window as she sounds the horn. With a deafening crack and boom, I hear the flak guns open fire on the approaching undead horde, Dave’s guess proving correct. The deadly four-barrelled cannons tear through the mass of Nazi soldiers but more keep coming and are already closing in on the docks where Emma is setting the explosives.

  I check my chosen vehicle’s fuel tank and am amazed to see it is half full, even more so when the engine starts up on the third attempt.

  ‘A motorcycle,’ Emma calls to me. ‘Why am I not surprised?’

  ‘Germany has always produced good cars and bikes,’ I reply, push
ing the bike towards her. ‘Is the trigger ready?’

  ‘Yes, but the timer will give us only ten seconds, twelve maybe,’ she says, showing me the make-shift device. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s the best I could do. It’s a simple on-off trigger switch.’

  ‘Ten seconds is not enough time to escape,’ Abbey tells me.

  ‘We’ll make it work,’ I tell them as the train nears us. ‘Now, you’d better get on board the train. I will wait until it is well clear before I activate the explosives.’

  ‘You can’t hold back that horde on your own,’ she says, pointing towards the approaching undead. ‘That’s suicide; I won’t let you do it.’

  ‘Somebody has to stay,’ I argue. ‘Better just one of us than the mountain burying everyone.’

  ‘No, you’re not doing this,’ she says firmly. ‘That’s final.’

  ‘Fine, we’ll do it your way,’ I tell her, secretly taking a wire bolas from my jacket. ‘Keep an eye out while I check over the trigger.’

  ‘Worried about my work?’ she asks, turning her back for the one moment I need.

  ‘Not at all,’ I reply, throwing the bolas, its wires wrapping around her arms and legs.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she yells at me.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, Adam?’ Abbey repeats through the headset.

  ‘I won’t let this place claim you as well,’ I tell Emma, picking her up and over my shoulder before she can fall. I don’t have a death wish, but I won’t risk her life, or any of the others.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ she demands, still fighting against the wires. ‘Why are you sacrificing yourself?’

  ‘You know why,’ I reply as I match the momentum of the train and board the locomotive’s cabin. ‘Explain it to Matt, please,’ I tell Emma as I lower her to the cabin floor. ‘I doubt he’ll understand either.’

  ‘Don’t do this, Adam,’ she pleads, but my mind is already made up.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Cecylia asks, keeping her eyes on the train’s controls and gauges.