“Then should you not be allowed back into Heaven one day, Daniel? You are doing good now.”
A shroud fell over the angel’s face, even darker than the shadows either side of them. “No.”
“But—”
“I said, no. There is no forgiveness for one who has looked upon the Abyss. My presence, my knowledge of the damned, it would taint Heaven. Only purity exists there. My soul is tarnished.”
Rick said no more. They walked in silence for an hour after that, until they neared the motorway’s entrance. Instead of heading down the slip road though, they carried on to the roundabout and peered over the railings at the wide road below. In the pitch-black darkness, the line of cars abandoned end to end seemed like a giant endless snake—a steel serpent without end. But while the great serpent remained still, there was movement.
People were alive down there.
Rick leant over the railing and pointed. “Other survivors.”
Daniel pulled him back and shushed him. “Take a closer look.”
Rick frowned. There were people. Rick saw them moving in the darkness—human movement, not the erratic, inhuman shuffling of the demons.
But then he realised that there were demons too.
Rick watched survivors walking with demons. The survivors moved in a line, demons at the front and back.
“What are they doing?” Rick turned to Daniel. “What the fuck are they doing?”
“Keep your voice down!”
Rick pursed his lips and glanced back down at the motorway. With no light to see by, it was impossible to make out individuals in the line. They were tied together—or chained—like a line of slaves in an old movie. The demons were hustling them along like cattle.
Being led to slaughter?
“Why are the demons not killing them?” Rick kept his voice low. “Why are they moving them along?”
Daniel sighed. “Remember what I was saying about possession? All those disembodied souls in hell? What you’re looking at is a production line of brand new cars.”
“I don’t understand.”
“These people will be used as vessels to house demon souls.”
Rick felt sick. The sight of people below being led to their doom like lambs… “How?”
“Best not to go into that,” said Daniel, “but they can only be possessed in proximity to a gate. They need to be near Hell for a disembodied soul to reach out and grab them.”
Rick started towards the slip road.
“Rick, where are you going?”
“To help those people.”
Daniel hurried after him. “Are you mad? There’s probably thirty demons down there.”
“And three times as many humans. If we free the survivors, we can overpower them.”
“You’re naive, Rick. Even if there were three hundred survivors down there, they’re afraid and weak. They’ll fall like flies.”
“We have to do something. Maddy might be down there.”
Daniel raised an eyebrow.
Rick grunted. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Just find it interesting that your biggest concern is Maddy and not your brother.”
Now that he considered it, Rick wasn’t sure about the reason either, but he tried not to overthink it. “Because my brother is an asshole.”
Daniel nodded. “Yeah, he is.”
“What if this is the reason they weren’t at the car dealership waiting for us? What if they were captured? I won’t stand back and allow all those people to be possessed. We’re at war, Daniel, you said it yourself, and right there is an enemy supply route. If we do nothing, all those people will end up being used by the enemy as tools. If we free them, they will add to our strength. So whose side are you on, Daniel? Are you truly here to help or not?”
Daniel shook his head slowly and glared at Rick as if he wanted to slap him. Quietly, he said, “I am here to help. I am on your side. If that is not clear by now—”
“Then prove it, Daniel! Time to commit. Not just to helping me, but helping the cause. This is war, and we need to hit back. That travesty down there is our chance. I don’t have a choice—my friends and family might be down there. You don’t have to help me, but I’m going either way.”
Rick started walking, ducking his head and creeping towards the slip road that would take him onto the motorway. He wondered how well demons could see in the dark. Not well, he hoped.
Daniel appeared beside him, also ducking. “You’re going to get killed, you know that?”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take. Like you said, only place I’ll be going is Heaven. So what’s to fear?”
Daniel didn’t reply, but something about the anxious expression on his face made Rick worry. What wasn’t Daniel telling him?
They reached the motorway, ducking behind an abandoned lorry. The chain gang was a hundred metres ahead, the nearest demon far enough away that hiding was easy. The problem would be when the sun came up, or if the whole group of them stopped to make some sort of camp. Then Rick would have to think more seriously about what he planned on doing. Following them was his only plan for now, but eventually he’d have to act.
How would he take down thirty demons?
Was it even possible?
He was going to find out.
Vamps
“Yo, Vamps, I can’t do this, man.”
They had just come to the aid of some Chinese tourists and things had got heavy. They’d ended up retreating across the Thames and were now even closer to the danger zone. It had left all of them shaken. Vamps looked at Ginge and shook his head. “You’ve seen what’s happening to our streets, Ginge. We don’t got no choice but to help out. Things are fucked. People need us.”
Ginge had grown pale, as he always did when he was tired. It made his red hair stand out even more. His expression was the same as Vamps’s five-year old nephew, Bradley, when he wanted sweets but got cabbage. “Vamps, man, we ain’t heroes. We gangsters.”
“Yeah, we gangsters, and another gang is moving onto our turf.”
Ravy joined the conversation. “I never signed up to fight no monsters.”
“Me either,” said Mass, shrugging to express that he was up for it anyway. “Just the way it is.”
Vamps looked at the bricks and broken glass covering the roads and pathways below. “We never signed on for nothing. We were born and raised, yo. This fight came to us. We go out and we help, just like we did yesterday. We stopped some bird from getting raped. Do you not get that? She’s probably alive because of us.”
“Vamps is right,” said Mass. “I like how it feels. I mean, what’s going down is shit, but I liked the feeling when we helped people yesterday.”
Ravy sighed. “Fine, but eventually we gonna die. This ain’t the boys from West Ham, this is some serious shit. Not to mention that psycho, Pusher, is on our case.”
“Way I see it,” said Vamps, “the chances of us dying are pretty high whatever we do. Least this way we get to go down swinging.”
Ginge sighed. He looked over the roof ledge and went silent. A moment later, he said, “All right, I’m in. What’s the plan?”
Vamps grinned. “We go out and head towards the first scream we hear. Arm up, boys, today ain’t gonna be the day we die.”
They grabbed their weapons and headed into the stairwell. On the third floor they were forced to stop when they stumbled upon a body.
“Ah, fuck, man,” said Ginge.
The lad’s face was a mess, half of it missing. Ravy covered his mouth and gagged.
“Guess that explains the gunshot we heard last night.”
Vamps reached up and took the green beanie hat from his head. He knelt down and placed it over the car-jacker’s ruined face. “Time I gave this back to you, blud. Sorry you got in the middle of this.”
Mass didn’t look as cocky as usual, and instead of slapping his fist he wrung his hands. “Pusher shot the poor bastard in the face. That’s cold.”
“He’s lost it,” said Ginge.
Vamps glanced at the dead car-jacker and nodded. “I think a lot of people have lost it at the moment. Let’s get out of here.”
The fighting in the city had continued through the night, but the city had grown quiet now. Cold too, with the dawn sunlight insufficient for bringing warmth. Dead bodies littered the street and started to smell, yet the scent of blood was not as pervasive as the pong of shit. Vamps had never seen a dead person—not until he’d killed the rapist yesterday—but it seemed like they all shit their kecks before moving on. It wouldn’t be long before the streets teemed with disease. Perhaps tonight they would finally head out and make for the coast.
Right now though, they had to patrol the streets. When this war ended, and if they lived, they might just get some respect. No more being kept down by society because of being young and broke. They would be warriors. When the shit hit, the upper classes were nowhere to be seen. No middle-class heroes in a ground war.
A jet flew overhead—gone as quickly as it arrived.
“Hey,” Ginge pointed. “Something’s going on down there.”
Vamps put a hand over his eyes to shield his sight from the rising sun. He thought he saw a bus in the distance “Piccadilly Circus. If that’s a working bus, why the hell isn’t it trying to bounce? They should be fleeing as fast as the wheels will take them.”
The brightly lit signs on the corner of Piccadilly Circus were scorched and blackened from fires in the shop below. The bus stopped. It was no city bus or open-topped tourist coach, but a plain white bus with darkened windows. The air brakes hissed, and the exit door folded open. A man in a grey suit exited and lit a cigarette. Vamps’s street senses acted up. Something was wrong about the bus driver. He was too calm—the way he stood in the street smoking like nothing had happened. A pile of torn-up bodies lay not ten feet away from him.
“Hold back, yo.” Vamps put an arm up. He crept to the side of the street, sliding in and out of the alcoves to keep his approach hidden. Somebody else got off the bus—another man in a suit. This one was younger than the other and as stocky as a wrestler. He had long blond hair like a young Hulk Hogan. In his hand, he held a length of chain and yanked on it. The first in a line of handcuffed men and women spilled out of the bus, the chain attached to their throats.
“Is it a prison bus?” asked Ravy.
Vamps shook his head. “No way. Travelling prisoners wear matching uniforms to stop ‘em runnin’ and blendin’ in. I know because they moved me from Belmarsh to Brixton after some fuckers from Angell Town tried to off me. I had to wear this shitty grey tracksuit. Those people over there are wearing their own clothes.”
“Then who are they?” asked Ginge.
Mass put a hand on the pavement and ducked lower, almost prone. “Who are the dudes in suits?”
“I dunno,” said Vamps. “Let’s watch what happens.”
They moved over to a delivery van and stooped behind it. Vamps stuck out his head to see what was happening. The two suited gentlemen brought the line of prisoners into the middle of the road and made them kneel. A sleek black Mercedes pulled out of a side street. It parked up, and a chauffeur stepped out and opened the rear door.
Vamps covered his mouth when he saw who exited next. “No freakin’ way!”
Ginge frowned. “Who is it? You know that dude?”
“Yeah, man. That’s the fucking Prime Minister.”
Mass whistled. “That skinny fucker is the PM? We should go over. If we help him, we’ll have it made, yo.”
“Innit,” said Ravy. “I voted for that guy. He said he would stop war in the Middle East.”
Mass raised an eyebrow. “You voted, buster?”
“Yeah! My dad said our vote is what makes us all equal.”
Vamps was certain the man was John Windsor, Prime Minister, his jet-black moustache a dead giveaway. In a black suit, he strolled before the line of prisoners and spoke with the jailors. The chained men and women pleaded and begged when they saw their reigning PM, but the man acted as though they weren’t even there. One woman sought to rise to her feet, but the chauffeur hurried over and kicked her kneecap. She screamed and grabbed herself. The chauffeur shut her up by kicking the teeth out of her mouth. He left her there choking on blood.
“What the fuck, yo,” said Mass.
Vamps clutched his grandfather’s Browning, making sure it was still there. “This shit smells wrong.”
“Yeah,” said Ginge, uncharacteristically brave. His outrage had overtaken his fear. “We should go pop that motherfucker right in the mouth. He cut my nan’s benefits last year.”
Vamps had been about to break cover, but he leapt back down when he spotted demons spilling into Piccadilly Circus.
“What the fuck?” said Mass, his face dropping. “There’re hundreds of them. We need to bounce.”
Vamps agreed, but he couldn’t help but watch. The Prime Minister and his companions seemed unafraid of the demons, even as the line of prisoners screamed in terror. The demons surrounded the area until Vamps could no longer see what was happening.
“I’m fucking off,” said Mass.
Vamps nodded. “I’ll meet you at the Lyceum. I’ll be right behind you.”
“What are you talking about?” said Ginge. “We need to get out of here.”
Vamps waved his hand. “Get the hell out of here, boys. The Lyceum. I’ll be there. I promise.”
They didn’t seem to like it, but they got going, and once they fell out of sight, Vamps turned around and climbed up onto the van’s roof to get a better view. The demons were not attacking the PM. In fact, Windsor seemed to address them as though they were his goddamn constituents. One creature—a burnt man at least a foot taller than its fellow demons and sporting singed dreadlocks—stood directly in front of the PM and nodded his head obediently.
Then the strangest thing happened: one of the human jailors in charge of the line of prisoners handed over their chains to one of the burnt men. The demon led the frightened people away. Windsor headed back towards his Mercedes, smiling. Vamps had been around dealers most his life, and he had just seen a deal go down for sure. Sure as shit.
But what the hell was the deal?
And what the fuck was the Prime Minister doing out here trading the lives of innocent men and women to these demons?
The anger the question summoned made Vamps grip his gun tightly, his finger tickling the trigger.
But it would be suicide to fire a shot. The demons had only just left.
It was time to leave.
Vamps crept to the edge of the van, about to climb down when he heard a shout. “Hey, you over there!”
Vamps had been spotted.
Oh hell no.
With no time to waste, Vamps threw himself from the top of the van to the ground below. As he hit the pavement, his ankle folded sideways. Electricity ran up his right knee.
God dammit.
Vamps hoisted himself up and hobbled away, glancing back over his shoulder. The PM dove back inside his Mercedes like an attempt had been made on his life, but his cronies gave chase. They were much faster than Vamps, and the fact he had a gun would not help him, because they carried some of their own. Bigger ones.
The only question now was who would get to Vamps first—his boys or the bad guys. No way did he want to end up in chains like those people. Shit just got worse.
He ducked into a side street, heading towards the Lyceum. He thought about leading his pursuers away from Ginge, Mass, and Ravy, but he was too afraid to play hero right now. He needed his friends. His family.
He needed help.
But the Lyceum lay a couple blocks away. He wasn’t going to make it.
Blindly, Vamps threw back his arm and fired off a shot. The report was loud and made his temples thud, but he didn’t miss a step and kept running. He got up to running speed, but a sprint was beyond him.
He fired another shot behind him.
Then another.
Then they were firing back at him.
Vamps dodged behind a vegetable cart on the pavement and threaded himself between two parked cars. His chest heaved in and out.
Another shot rang out. A car window shattered.
Fuck me, I’m gonna die out here in the street. Just like my ma always worried I would.
Another shot hit the ground in front of him, kicking up chips of whatever shit roads were made of. Vamps realised he was moaning out loud as the fear escaped from his throat.
Then his boys appeared, looking dazed and confused, but there to help him. They had his back.
Mass led them down the road. Vamps waved an arm for them to take cover. “They’ve got guns. They’ve—”
Another shot rang out and sailed so close to Vamp’s head he felt the wind on his ear. Panic seized him, and his legs turned to jelly. He wobbled and fell. The road rose to meet his chin and suddenly he was laying on the ground as stiff as a board. The sound his body made sliding along the ground was like a watermelon hitting concrete. The Browning tumbled from his hand and clinked against the curb.
“All of you, down now!” One of the PM’s men shouted.
Vamps drew his head back and watched Mass freeze. His hands went up, and he got down on his knees. His expression could have melted ice, but his rage wasn’t enough to stop a bullet, so he did as he was told. Ravy and Ginge too.
The PM’s men split off to opposite sides of the road, keeping Vamps and the others in the middle. The cronie on Vamps’s left was dark-haired where his partner was blond. It was the blond who grabbed Vamps and shoved him roughly to his feet. Vamps eyed up the Browning in the gutter.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” said the blond. “I’ll leave you to die right here in the gutter, you piece of shit.”
Vamps gave up on the gun. Instead, he turned towards his captor. “The fuck you doing working with the demons?”
Hell on Earth Trilogy: The Complete Apocalyptic Saga Page 46
