Frankie took a step inside but then paused. In fact, it wasn’t so much that he paused but that some invisible force had struck him. Smithy went to join the demon but stopped a few feet short when he remembered how volatile his companion was. “W-What is it, Frankie?”
“I… I remember.”
“Your brother? You remember what happened at the hospital?”
“I had a gun. I… brought a gun with me to the hospital.”
“You brought a gun to a hospital? Why?”
“I… There was this guy, this piece of shit who reminded me of…” Frankie trembled on the spot like an electrical current was passing through him. His voice had started out in a mutter, but it grew angrier now. “I came to the hospital because I was looking out for my brother, but… he shot me.”
Smithy struggled to understand. “The man? The man who hurt Davey shot you?”
“No… No, it was Davey who shot me. My little bro shot me. My. Little. Brother. Fucking. Shot. Me.” Frankie started raging. “I’m dead because of that little shit! After all I did for him. He-He fucking shot me. He killed me. Davey killed me. What the fuck!”
Smithy started backing away. Frankie bellowed so furiously that the door frame rattled. If he got any angrier, his rotting flesh might erupt and spill his insides on the floor.
This is my chance to sod off. He’s distracted.
Smithy turned slowly and made for the exit. In the dark, he bumped against the wall of the narrow corridor and staggered. He had been about to curse but bit down on his lip and stopped himself. Behind him, Frankie continued to bellow almost incoherently.
Good riddance, you crazy motherf—
Smithy’s ankle turned and his leg flew awkwardly out to the side. He crumpled to the tiles with a painful thud and nearly yelled out in agony. It was a miracle he stayed quiet, opening his mouth and miming a scream instead of actually letting one go. He clenched both fists and breathed through the pain. The erotic novel lay on the floor beside him. He’d trodden on it in the dark and sprained his ankle.
Bloody filth.
Frankie still faced into the ward, still yelling about his brother and some guy who had apparently wronged him. His anger was fading though. Smithy had to get up and get out of there. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he climbed onto one leg and limped as quickly as he could for the door. The two dead demons were in his way and he had to hop over them, but then he reached the door and yanked it open. The cat-piss stench of the waiting area hit him again, but it might as well have been fresh air. This whole thing with Frankie had been heading in a bad direction, and it was a relief to finally turn his back on the demon. He felt sorry for Frankie, the dude was clearly crazy, but it wasn’t Smithy’s issue at the end of the day.
“See you in the next life,” Smithy muttered as he hobbled out into the waiting area.
“Where you going, blud? You ain’t running out on me, are you?”
Smithy froze, but then he fell forward as an elbow struck the small of his back. Having been balanced on one leg, he went sprawling onto his side, quickly disorientated by the darkness and dust spiralling around his head. Frankie was a shadow in the doorway behind him, and for a moment he remained completely still – not a living thing but a watchful wraith. Smithy started to inch away, hoping the demon would stay where it was, but Frankie leapt out of the gloom. His face was a mask of hanging flesh and bloody blisters. He bared his teeth and all but his fangs tumbled out from behind his swollen lips, falling soundlessly into the dust on the floor. “Nobody makes a mug of Frankie Walker,” he growled. “Night night, Smithy.”
Smithy tried to get up, but before he even got close, a heavy tan boot struck his jaw and turned off the lights.
4
“We head back the way we came,” said Mass. “It’s the only place they could’ve gone.”
“I don’t like it,” said Honeywell. “We shouldn’t react without thinking. Let’s just take a moment to—”
Mass growled at him. “Gross and Tusk are our boys. Once we find the people behind this, we’re going to crush them like fucking insects.”
“Calm down.”
“How can you say that, Rich? You lost your whole family trying to protect what we have. Now someone is threatening us and you don’t want to hit back?”
“Of course I do! Sometimes, all I want to do is snap our enemies in two with my bare hands, to tear them apart with my jaws. Then I remind myself that I’m not an animal. I’m a father and a husband, and I’m fighting for future wives and children. This is bigger than our personal losses, Mass. We need to think this through.”
Mass ignored his sergeant’s pleas. “Let’s move out.”
The group hurried down the road, trying to spread out but hemmed in by hedges on either side. Mass raced ahead by himself, legs hollowed out by his anger. Gross and Tusk were good lads. Gross, in particular, had a talent that kept them all entertained. At night, whenever they made camp, Gross would sing old pop songs from before things had turned to shit. His impersonations of certain male singers were spot on – particularly his Tom Jones medley, made even more impressive because he was a diminutive Geordie and not a barrel-chested Welshman. Mass suspected he and Addy were an item, and the look on her face since he’d been taken made it clearer. She was furious, but also distraught.
They had to get Gross and Tusk back.
They passed by a road sign with the bottom panel missing then took a knee at Mass’s command. The kidnappers could’ve gone in several directions, but an agonised scream alerted them to an A-road heading north.
“Is that Gross?” Addy had already started off in that direction.
Mass threw an arm out and waved the others forward. “Move!”
“Wait,” said Honeywell. “This could be an ambush. Think!”
The screaming continued. It was unclear whether it was Gross or Tusk. “Eyes open,” said Mass, “and stay down.”
Tox raised his hunting rifle and barked a warning to the others. “Heads up.”
A young red headed woman hurried towards them, clearly distraught. When she saw their guns pointing at her, she put her hands in the air and begged for help.
“She’s hurt,” said Mass, seeing blood on the woman’s blouse.
Honeywell raised a suspicious eyebrow. “Is she?”
The woman stumbled towards them. She appeared alone, and was apparently unarmed, but she was also a survivor of the apocalypse. They couldn’t take her lightly.
Mass turned to his men. “Take cover. I’ll meet her.”
Honeywell and the others filtered to the side of the road and went prone while Mass marched down the road to meet this mystery woman. Fifty metres lay between them, but he closed thirty of them himself by jogging, then stopped to allow the woman to walk the rest of the way. There were no buildings nearby. No hills or blind corners. It didn’t seem like an ambush.
“They hit him,” said the woman, a blubbering mess. “They ran him over.”
Mass studied the woman. The blood on her blouse might not have been hers as she had no visible wounds. “Who did?”
“The people on the bus. They ran over Bobby. Please, I need you to help him. He’s hurt so bad.”
Mass stared down the road. The screaming had stopped. A bad sign if someone truly was hurt.
“Please, you need to come with me. You need to—”
Mass grabbed the back of the woman’s head and threw her to the ground, then pointed his Uzi right in her startled face. She had reddish-brown freckles matching the colour of her hair. “Where are your people? What game are you playing?”
“W-What? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please, I just need your help.”
“I don’t like liars, so say goodnight.”
The woman screamed, utterly terrified.
Mass removed his Uzi from her face and let her get up.
“P-Please don’t kill me!”
“I’m not going to. Take me to Bobby.”
The woman scurried
away, afraid but still wanting his help. “This way. Bobby’s just down the road.”
Mass watched the hedges on either side as he followed the woman. Again, he saw no one hiding or any obvious signs of an ambush. When he spotted the man lying in the road ahead, he grew confident the woman was telling the truth. Someone was hurt. He caught up and walked beside her. “You say Bobby was hit by a bus?”
“Yes. A white coach full of people. It had writing on the side.”
“Did you see anyone being kept on board against their will?”
“I’m sorry. It was moving too fast.”
Mass grunted and hurried to the man lying at the side of the road. The blood had come from him. His head was bleeding and his right leg bent almost sideways. He might’ve had more injuries, but he wore a thick duffle coat that made it hard to tell. Mass hissed through his teeth. “This is bad.”
Tears filled the woman’s eyes, and she nodded to show she understood her friend was dying.
“Who is this man to you?”
“My husband.”
Mass winced. The pressure to help the man increased. “We have doctors back at Portsmouth, but our vehicles are damaged. Do you know anywhere we can get a car?”
The woman shook her head. “There’s a farm nearby. We were searching it for food. I think, maybe, there were a couple of tractors there. If they work, you could use one to carry Bobby.” She sounded hopeful.
“Okay, if we can find transport at the farm, I’ll have my guys drive you and Bobby to Portsmouth.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Don’t mention it. I must ask you more questions about that bus though. Our friends might have been on board.” He moved away from the woman and waved a hand to the others still taking cover fifty metres away. Honeywell emerged from the bushes and started bringing the line cautiously forward.
The injured man’s head wound was severe, blood pouring out onto the road. His leg was also a gory mess, with a snapped shinbone poking through the flesh. How on earth were they supposed to move him, let alone help him?
Honeywell arrived before the others. “Is there anything I can do?”
Mass shook his head. “This is Bobby. We need to get him to Portsmouth.”
“How?”
Mass looked at the trembling woman. “What’s your name, love?”
“Gemma.”
Mass looked back to Honeywell. “Gemma says there’s a farm with some tractors nearby. If we can get one of them running, a couple of us can head back to base and take Bobby to the docs.”
Honeywell sighed. “I don’t like this, Mass. Too much is happening all at once.”
Mass had a bad feeling too, but Bobby needed help. “Tox? Take two guys and head with Gemma to this farm. Get back as quickly as you can, understand?”
Tox shouldered his rifle and nodded. “I’ll see if there’s a trailer we can hitch to the back. We can move him that way.”
Mass nodded. “Good thinking.”
Tox took two guys as commanded and hurried away with Gemma. Mass returned to attending Bobby, patting him down for injuries, but he realised he had no idea what he was doing. “Rich? I think you need to take this. He’s hurt bad.”
Honeywell was their unofficial medic because of him having received extensive first aid and trauma management training during his decades as a police officer. “Okay, give me some space with him. I’ll see what I can do.”
Mass moved out of the way. The others huddled nearby, scanning the road for threats. Addy stood on her own, staring into the distance. Bobby moaned and seemed to regain a modicum of consciousness. Blood burbled from between his lips and cascaded down his chin. The gore was making Mass lightheaded, so he moved away to get some air, joining Addy over by the hedges. “You okay?” he asked.
“I need a cigarette.”
“Thought you’d quit.”
“Not by choice. Seems like everybody’s first idea when Armageddon hit was to stockpile all the fags. I’m okay, I’m just—”
“Worried about Gross. Me too. We have a lead though. A bus hit Bobby. It has to belong to the group that took Gross. We’ll find him.”
“We’re seeing each other,” said Addy. Her expression remained the same, but she looked him in the eye briefly. “We’ve been meaning to tell you, but… I don’t know, I suppose it scared us. Saying it out loud would make it real, and real things don’t last in this world any more. Things have a habit of turning bad.”
“I know you two are together, Addy. No big deal. And real things can still last. That’s what we’re fighting for.”
She nodded to Bobby, still moaning in pain. “Is there any chance we can even help this poor sod?”
“Gemma is his wife, so we’re going to try. Let’s give them a long and happy marriage.”
Addy smiled glumly. “That would be nice.”
“G’away!” Mass turned to see the injured man trying to move, swiping at Honeywell and slurring. “G’way fra’me.”
“Calm down,” said Honeywell. “I’m trying to remove your coat. You’re hurt, but you’re going to be okay. Just let me help you.”
“No! No, g-get away fra’me! G’way!”
Addy and Mass shared a look of concern. Mass took a step forward to help, but froze when Bobby’s duffle coat fell open and revealed something underneath. Pipes and wires.
Mass’s stomach hit his shoes. “Shit, it’s a b—”
The air thudded and a blinding light tore the world apart. A gale erupted, a blast so fierce it lifted Mass off his feet and threw him backwards. For a stretched-out second, he was weightless. Then his skull hit the road and his vision whirled. A high-pitched whining filled his ears.
I can’t move. I can’t move.
He lay there, terrified, sure that this was the end. His broken body would remain there on this road, rotting in the sun and pecked apart by birds.
Seconds passed by like hours.
Addy appeared in the narrow portal of his blurred vision. Blood coated her face, and what looked like a nail jutted out of her cheek. She grabbed Mass by the shoulders and shook him. Her mouth moved, but he heard nothing besides that endless high-pitched whining. He turned his head and saw Honeywell. The police sergeant lay on his side, half of his face shorn away by the blast, his eyes bloodshot and still. Dead eyes.
No.
Rich… No…
Addy shook him again and his ears popped. Sound came rushing back, but too much of it. Addy yelling. Someone screaming. Birds squawking. Beneath it all was the gentle hiss of the wind. It overwhelmed him and made him want to vomit. He felt his foot move and almost cried with relief. Slowly, more of him came back to life.
“Mass, get the hell up.” Addy continued pulling at his shoulders. “Get up!”
He got to his feet but stumbled drunkenly. Everywhere he turned, he found death. Honeywell had caught the worst of it as he’d been leaning over Bobby. Both of their bodies were now in pieces, blood gushing from dozens of different wounds. From the state of Honeywell’s face, he must have died in an instant.
No last words, not even any last thoughts. Just gone. Fucking gone.
The men nearest had caught the blast too, and crude nails and bits of steel riddled their bodies. Jugulars spurted and legs kicked, but they were beyond helping. Only those furthest away were still conscious. Bride and London were alive but injured. Bride, in particular, had a long nail buried deep in his left biceps and another one right in the side of his skull. He moaned quietly, like he was singing a lullaby only to himself. London moaned louder, torn up in a handful of places and in obvious pain. His worst injury was to his left hand, which dripped blood into his lap like an open tap. Then there was Mass and Addy. If he hadn’t gone to check on her… If he hadn’t asked Honeywell to take over…
I killed him.
No. That bitch did.
“This was all a set-up,” said Mass. “Gemma set us up.”
Addy grabbed him and yelled into his face. “Tox and the others went
with her to that farm.”
Mass searched for his Uzi but couldn’t find it, no matter how hard he tried. Had he dropped it into the thick hedges when he’d been lifted from the ground? Honeywell’s shotgun lay next to his body, so he picked it up and checked it was loaded. It was. Now it was his shotgun and he intended to use it. “The plan was for us all to die, and if Honeywell hadn’t been shielding Bobby, we would have. That means they won’t be expecting it when we arrive at that farm and start cutting them down at the knees.”
Addy grinned maliciously. She had somehow kept hold of her shotgun, and she looked eager to unload on something. The nail still poked out of her cheek and made her look demonic. He wondered if she even knew it was there.
London dragged himself up and wobbled on his feet. “I-I don’t understand what happened.”
“We got fucked,” said Mass, “but not hard enough to keep us down. We need to move. Help Bride get to his feet.”
Mass stared down the road, wondering how far this farm was – or if it even if existed. Were Tox and the others still alive, or had Gemma detonated another bomb strapped to her torso? Were these people all suicide bombers?
No, Bobby tried to warn us. He was a victim.
But a victim of who?
London cleared his throat. “Boss, Bride can’t get to his feet.”
“Why not?”
There were tears in London’s eyes as he spoke. “Because Bride is dead.”
Bride had slumped forward like a sleeping Buddha. The nail in his skull had finally done its job. Another man dead. Killed by a stranger for no reason. A human being, not a demon.
Mankind hadn’t lost its talent for murder.
Maddy helped Wickstaff move into an office beside the Mary Rose Ship Hall. The touristy area of the docks around the half-ruined HMS Victory, battered during the battle with Lord Amon and his forces, was quieter than the warehouse section, where people lived, worked, and trained. Maddy wondered if Wickstaff was glad to move away from the hustle and bustle. Since stepping down as general that very afternoon, the woman had gained a spring in her step. She seemed lighter.
Hell On Earth Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 118
