‘Full steam ahead,’ I reply, edging towards the cabin door. ‘Get them all safe and out of this hole. As you said before, the history and precious cargo stored aboard this train belongs to their rightful owners, the families and cities that lost everything in the Nazi occupation. Get the gold, art, all of it, and yourselves home.’
‘What about you?’ she replies.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I lie. ‘I always am.’
I drop down from the train and watch as it passes and heads towards the tunnel and escape. Dave continues to fire the forward flak guns until they too have entered the tunnel.
‘I don’t understand either,’ Abbey says.
‘Yes, you do,’ I reply. ‘I’d rather you didn’t watch this next bit.’
‘I’m not leaving you,’ she replies.
‘Thank you,’ I tell her.
‘Emma is going to be so pissed with you,’ Abbey says.
‘Never doubted it,’ I reply.
51
CORPORAL ANDREW COOPER—Prisoner. Somewhere in Germany
We’re dragged down the dark tunnels. McClair struggles against them with every step but I save my energy. We may only get one chance to put up a fight and try to escape so I bide my time and wait. My left hand is in agony from the fingers they’ve removed, as is my mouth from the ruined teeth. I swear to pay our captors back before I die.
We are pushed on into one of the testing rooms. Tables lined with medical equipment and two chairs are waiting for us. After so long in the dark cells, the bright lights hurt our eyes. McClair tries to fight his way free one last time but the clubs and rifles of our guards stop him. He is tied to the chair with leather straps, and then for good measure, they add chains before a pair of female scientists inspect him. Just as the guards take hold of me to tie me to another chair, Colonel Steinhardt enters the room along with a pair of scientists.
‘Don’t do this,’ I plead. ‘It’s wrong. You’ve tortured and experimented on innocent people,’ I say. ‘We’re innocent. We have families.’
He scoffs, ‘Innocent! You mean criminals, cowards, and murderers?’
‘They didn’t deserve this. Nobody deserves this!’
‘It’s a greater purpose; one beyond the here and now,’ the colonel explains. ‘This is about discovering the ancient truths from myths of old. When the Fuhrer first told us of his ambitious plans, we secretly laughed. We thought it was all fairy tales and bedtime stories to scare little children, but we were so very wrong. We found a survivor of a time long past, a horror and evil of this world. The demon’s blood holds true power and the key to the Reich’s dominance of mankind.
I realise he means Vlad.
‘We hunted him for many months before we finally cornered him. We were astounded by his power and eager to find a way that we could harness it. We immediately saw the potential, dreaming of an army made up of soldiers all with his powers. There were many failures until Krueger was our first breakthrough.’
‘But you haven’t managed to repeat it in others.’ I laugh, mocking them. ‘You have only your one freak of nature.’
‘The answer has not revealed itself yet, but we are close. Soon we will find perfection and the giants, Riese, will march across this world and crush all who oppose us. We believe a higher concentration of the dosage, such as this one I now hold, may result in a faster metamorphosis. Let us see whether this is true with your friend here.’
‘Don’t do this,’ I say, trying to fight free of the guards holding me. ‘I beg you, don’t do this.’
‘Stay away from me, you bastards!’ McClair screams.
I try to reach for Colonel Steinhardt to stop him but the guards are too quick, hitting me hard and knocking me to the ground.
‘Wait, wait,’ the colonel says with a cruel smile of delight across his face. ‘Corporal Cooper, how long have you been a soldier in the British Army?’
The room tremors, the lights flickering for a moment.
‘Do not fear,’ the colonel says. ‘It is just Allied bombers. I assure you, we are quite safe inside the mountain. Now Corporal, tell me how long you have been a soldier?’
‘Since the beginning,’ I reply, still gasping for breath.
‘And you have lost friends? Comrades?’
‘Too many.’
‘Name them,’ the colonel orders. ‘Tell me all who you have lost. Share with me all that you have sacrificed’
‘No,’ I say as I struggle to stand.
‘You will do this or I will submit your friend here to the experimentation,’ the colonel orders.
‘Corporal, don’t…’ McClair tries to say before he too is beaten into silence.
‘Well, what is it to be?’ the colonel asks, syringe held to McClair’s arm.
‘Henry Brooke,’ I say, defeated as the room continues to shake from the Allied bombing. ‘William Campbell, Darren Long, Stanley Woods, Ben Wilson, Simon Thompson, Richard Stone, Alan Radley, Paul Baker, Charles Taunton.’
‘So many lives taken,’ Colonel Steinhardt says. ‘So much to endure. I too have lost people dear to me. The lives of my wife and children were taken by the bombs of your air force. Countless brave German soldiers will never return home to their families, lost in the deserts of Africa, the frozen wastes of Russia and the battlefields of Europe. You think that I am evil, but I am not the evil here. I am searching for a miracle – one that will protect our soldiers so no more are needlessly lost.’
‘The war is almost over,’ I repeat, the room trembling again from another Allied bomb drop. ‘There’s no need for any of this. Stop, now, I beg you.’
‘I am afraid, Corporal, you will have one more name to add to your list,’ the colonel says, jamming the syringe into McClair’s arm.
McClair screams in agony, his body instantly shaking and struggling against the restraints. His skin pales, his veins blacken, and his eyes whiten. McClair’s hands and feet curl into claws, and his hair and teeth fall out as fangs tear through his mouth. His screams become roars.
Then the room tremors and the lights go out, plunging us into darkness.
‘Do not fear, my friends,’ Colonel Steinhardt says. ‘The generators will restart any moment.’
I take my chance, hitting the nearest guard and grabbing a scalpel from the table of medical equipment. With the small blade, I cut through the restraints holding down McClair and release the beast he has become.
I back away until I hit the wall behind me, hearing the screams of the guards and scientists as McClair tears into them. They try to flee but cannot escape his claws. When the lights flicker back on I see the bodies of the guards all around me, but no sign of Colonel Steinhardt.
The creature that had been McClair stares straight at me, blood covering its claws.
‘GO!’ it roars in its inhuman voice, my friend’s mind almost gone but a remnant still holding on. ‘GO!’
I take a Luger pistol from the body of one of the dead guards and run, tracing my steps back through the facility towards the cells. I can still hear and feel the impacts of the bombing outside the mountain. This is my only chance to escape, but I’m not getting out on my own.
As I reach the cells, I gun down the two guards at the entrance.
‘How did you get away?’ Lathbury asks as I reach him and the other prisoners.
‘No time,’ I tell him, using the guard’s keys to release him. ‘We’re getting out of here, Bob. All of us.’
‘What, even him?’ Jenkinson asks, pointing to the masked prisoner.
‘I said all of us,’ I say, freeing everyone I can before turning to Vlad.
‘They called you a demon,’ I say to him.
‘They are right to,’ he replies with menace.
‘They’re using your blood to create those monsters,’ I say. ‘I can’t just leave you here.’
‘You have my word on my honour that I will not harm you or any of your men,’ Vlad swears beneath the metal mask.
I release Vlad of his chains and the strange mask
, catching him before he falls. He must have been here for years, barely skin and bones. For a moment his black eyes meet mine. I see a battle within him, an internal struggle as what looks like fangs emerge among his teeth. I raise the Luger pistol, fearful of what I have unleashed, but he stops me.
‘Thank you, my friend,’ Vlad manages to say, the black eyes gone and the fangs vanished.
‘What are you?’ I ask.
‘Evil,’ he simply replies.
‘Don’t make me regret this,’ I tell him.
‘I will keep to my vow,’ Vlad says
‘Jacobs, Waters, carry him,’ I order, the two men helping Vlad to stand. ‘The rest of you, take whatever weapons you can find.’
Without warning, Corporal Allen suddenly grabs the Luger from my hand and turns it on himself.
‘I will not let them torture me anymore,’ he declares, lifting the pistol to his head and pulling the trigger.
Time momentarily stops and we look to one another to check that we have all witnessed the same thing.
‘Why did he do that?’ Lathbury asks, stunned like the rest of us.
I shake my head. I guess he’d had enough. There is only so much anyone can endure.
What remains of my section and the rest of the prisoners follow me out of the cells. We move as fast as we can, despite the injuries and the days without food, fear and our desire for escape drives us on. There are screams ahead of us and more machine gun fire. We step over the bodies of more dead guards until we are beyond the tunnel and reach the main caverns and hangars. It’s chaos. Dozens of the creatures have escaped in McClair’s rampage. They hunt down the German guards and scientists, taking vengeance on those who tortured and experimented on them.
‘Get to the trucks!’ I shout to our group as Lathbury and I force back two of the escaped monstrous fiends. ‘Jenkinson, Myhill, get them out of here!’
The creatures move fast and barely register the bullets as they strike. One gets past us, leaping clear and tearing apart one of the prisoners we released. It takes three bullets to the head to finally stop the crazed beast, but by then its prey is already dead.
‘Look!’ Lathbury says, pointing towards the dock. Colonel Steinhardt and his men are loading crates onto a U-boat, making their escape with the gold and crates from the trains.
‘We can’t let them get away,’ I say, arming myself with a fallen rifle. ‘If they’ve got the blood with them, they’ll use it to create more of these creatures.’
‘Agreed,’ Lathbury says.
‘Stop them!’ Colonel Steinhardt yells as he sees us.
I fire my rifle at him but a mighty roar deafens me and I’m suddenly knocked aside by the towering brute Krueger. His eyes are crazed and there are deep claw marks across his face and body.
‘You die here, Englishman!’ he roars.
Lathbury opens fire on him, but the German brute grabs hold of my friend and beats him bloody before throwing him into a pile of crates marked with the word ‘Riese’.
Krueger steps towards me with madness in his eyes but is stopped as the beast that had been McClair leaps at him along with two more of the experiments’ victims. They bite and claw at the brute but he endures it all, snapping the neck of one of the creatures and then almost tearing another in two. He beats down McClair and then pummels what had been my friend into the ground, pulverising his twisted, monstrous body.
Krueger reaches me and though I shoot him until there are no more bullets left in my rifle, he does not stop. I hit him but he strikes me back like a sledgehammer before taking hold of my head and beginning to squeeze.
‘Let him go!’ I hear Lathbury roar, his voice different. Wrong.
My friend has a syringe hanging from his arm. He’s already changing, growing taller, stronger, his skin reddening just like Krueger’s. Krueger drops me, and together, the two brutes charge and clash. They beat each other again and again, neither giving any ground nor showing weakness until Lathbury lets out a monstrous, sickening roar. His eyes have whitened as his body continues to change. He bites down on Krueger’s throat with fanged jaws and then tears his claws straight through the Nazi’s back and out through his chest.
Krueger falls lifeless to the ground with Lathbury standing over him, victorious. Eruptions rock the cavern as arsenals of munitions begin to explode. The tremors grow as entire magazines of ammunition and all those terrible chemicals the scientists used in their experiments ignite.
Towards the dock, Colonel Steinhardt’s men enter the U-boat and are making their escape.
‘They’re getting away,’ I say.
‘I will stop them,’ Lathbury says as he doubles over in pain. ‘Go, Andy! Get out of this cursed place.’
‘Bob, no,’ I tell him. ‘We’ve lost so many already. I can’t lose you, too.’
‘Goodbye, my friend,’ he tells me, roaring in pain again. ‘Go! Get our lads home!’
‘Bob, please don’t do this,’ I plead.
‘Goodbye,’ Lathbury replies, turning and running towards the dock.
I yell after him, but he does not slow or turn back. The U-boat has already cast off, but Lathbury leaps from the water’s edge and lands on the submarine’s tower. My friend tears open the hatch and climbs inside before sealing himself within. The U-boat then sinks into the water and is gone.
‘Corporal!’ I hear Jenkinson shout to me from one of the trucks. ‘C’mon, we’ve got to get out of here!’
Myhill runs to me and drags me away, pushing me up and into the back of the truck. All around us, the Nazi base continues to burn and explode, but I am numb to it all. I look back to the water, hoping for any sign of the U-boat and my friend, but there is nothing to see. As soon as the rest of the escaped prisoners are aboard the truck, Jenkinson sends it accelerating away and down one of the tunnels.
‘Where’s Vlad?’ I ask, realising he is nowhere to be seen.
‘Gone,’ Myhill replies before sobbing loudly. He’s been shaken by everything he has endured in this nightmare. We all have.
52
ADAM—Alone and surrounded by the Undead, Germany
‘Ready for one last stand?’ I ask.
‘I’m with you to the end, Hunter,’ Abbey replies.
As the train continues to enter the tunnels, I turn back to the U-boat dock and the explosives. The undead are already swarming around the trigger and I have to fight them back. I use two arrows, stunning a pair of soldiers before I charge into them, barging both into the water of the U-boat dock. I fight off another with my bare hands, running dangerously low on arrows.
I watch as the last of the cargo containers vanish into the tunnels, but to my shock I see a figure left behind. Of course it’s Emma. She’s freed herself somehow and is determined not to let me stay here alone. Once safe, she runs towards me.
‘Em, you’re crazy!’ I say.
‘That makes two of us!’ she says, her lips placing a kiss on my cheek that is tantalizingly close to my lips.
A second later, she hits me hard on the chest. ‘Don’t you ever do anything like that again!’ she warns. ‘Have you learnt nothing since you joined the museum! We are supposed to be a unit, a team, a family! We do not leave anyone behind! We survive together!’
‘Told you she’d be pissed,’ Abbey taunts.
‘I didn’t want you risking yourself…’ I try to argue.
‘That is not your call to make!’ she yells, before forcing a smile. ‘But I’d have tried to do the same. I was actually about to throw a stun grenade at you before you saw me.’
‘Outsmarted for once,’ I tease.
‘A one-off,’ Emma replies. She picks up a German Second World War submachine gun from a corpse and readies herself for our final stand. ‘So, are we doing this or what?’
‘Absolutely,’ I reply, pulling one of my arrows free of another body. I will need every last one if we are to hold off the undead long enough.
‘Abbey, can you monitor the train?’ Emma asks via her earpiece.
‘Matt’s got a tracker on him, so yes, I can monitor their progress through the mountain.’
‘Keep us updated,’ I tell her.
‘The train’s still picking up speed,’ Abbey replies.
‘The time created by Dave’s flak cannons has just about run out,’ I reply.
The horde has reached us, Nazi and Winterbourne undead clamouring forward. Some have firearms and others wield the rusted blades, claws, drills, and saws of their enhancements. We fight together, back to back. We fight with everything we have.
I loose two arrows and then throw my last wire bolas before charging down a rotting corpse. Emma is behind me, firing round after round until her gun runs empty. After that, she uses anything she can as a weapon. My last arrow soars, leaving my quiver empty, but still the horde come. I am forced to use the bow as a staff, clubbing one corpse before another snaps the bow in half with its twin bayonets fused at the arm. The deceased Nazi smashes its blades into my body armour, tearing one section free before I can evade it. My chest beneath the armour is sliced open, but not deep – I hope.
‘Keep them away from the bike,’ I tell Emma as I charge down a woman that was a Winterbourne operative. Half her face has been replaced with iron. ‘It’s our only way out of here!’
‘You just focus on protecting that trigger!’ she replies, tearing the rusted metal blade from a Nazi soldier’s severed arm and using it as her own dagger.
‘Reaper!’ I warn Emma as one of the creatures leaps towards us. I pull her clear of the beast’s charge, and Emma quickly recovers and strikes the creature with her make-shift blade.
‘You’ll hate me for saying this,’ I say, ‘but if this is the end… then I’m glad you’re here with me.’
‘Likewise,’ she says with the hint of a smile at her lips. ‘Abbey, where’s the train?’
‘Getting close to a kilometre from you,’ she replies.
‘How much longer until they reach a safe distance?’ I ask.
‘You don’t want to know,’ she replies, before crying, ‘Watch out!’
War of the Damned (Relic Hunters) Page 28
