Smithy was astonished. “Wait? Are you telling me you and David mix in the same social circles? Shit, you might have been Facebook friends in another life.”
The woman resumed her interest in Smithy. “Vamps and Aymun went into a Hell gate with a team. Their mission was to take the fight to the enemy. Soon after they left, the demons started to change. They stopped fighting.”
David had been crouched this whole time, but he now stood taller. “Crimolok prisoner inside Vamps.”
The woman was gobsmacked. “Wait? What? We didn’t even know if Vamps was still alive, but you’re saying he returned from Hell and took Crimolok prisoner at the same time?”
David nodded. “Yes, left Hell. Came back.”
“I didn’t know them,” said Smithy, feeling rather left out of the conversation. “They sound swell.”
The woman narrowed her eyes and lifted her shotgun, but not all the way. “Then who the hell are you? What are you doing here?”
“Dave and I crept into this barn last night to sleep. We thought the farm was deserted.”
“It’s not. There’s a group of people living here and they’re bad news. ‘Burning innocent people alive’ kind of bad. They have my friends – my boyfriend.”
Smithy put his hands up. “I swear, me and Dave have nothing to do with it. It was the middle of the night. I was tired. We just crept in here and crashed.”
“Smithy sleep with me all night,” said David.
Smithy winced again. “Seriously, will you stop saying it like that?”
David frowned. “It is truth.”
“Yeah, but still…”
The man with the shotgun nodded towards the door. “You should get out of here. The people who live here took our friends outside with hoods over their heads. We’ve been waiting for a good chance to strike, but it looks like it’s now or never. Leave, or you might get hurt.”
Smithy considered making a run for it, but it felt like another death sentence. He couldn’t survive out on the road much longer. He’d already beaten the odds. “Wait! Is it… is it safe where you people come from? You mentioned Portsmouth, right? I heard about there. There are still soldiers fighting?”
The man nodded. “We’re all soldiers at Portsmouth. All ten thousand of us.”
“T-Ten thousand? I didn’t even know there were that many people still alive on the planet.”
“A lot, yes,” said David. “Only a hundred at Kielder Forest.”
The woman stared at David, apparently now used to conversing with a demon. “What are you talking about?”
“A castle. Forest north. Many miles north. I remember all now. They fight demons. They close gate. Strong, but need help. Aymun and Vamps head to Portsmouth to tell about castle in forest. They—” David suddenly coughed and blood dribbled down his chin. “Am sorry.”
“Are you okay?” Smithy asked.
David nodded, but he suddenly seemed smaller. He half turned away and wiped at his mouth.
“We’re still in this fight,” said Smithy, feeling a massive relief to learn that he wasn’t alone in a world full of monsters and bark-chewing strangers. “Your friend Vamps is with another demon called Frankie. They’re after me. Please, take me back to Portsmouth with you.”
The woman shrugged. “Okay, sure. Everyone is welcome at Portsmouth, but there’s one rule.”
“What’s that?”
The man beside her pulled a knife from her belt and shoved it at Smithy, handle first. “Everybody fights.”
Mass crawled to the edge of the pit and tried to reach his men – but they were too far down. The demons didn’t swarm like they would’ve several months ago, but they could still kill if given the chance. Even now, they glared at the men in the pit with hungry interest.
Tox was on his feet, swinging his fists at whatever came close. One of the other men was injured, having fallen badly on one shoulder, and he lay in the mud while Tox fought to protect him.
Mass could do nothing up top, so he did the only thing he could think of – he threw himself forward into the pit. He landed hard on his side and lost his breath.
“What the hell are you doing?” said Tox, dragging Mass to his feet. “We’re going to die down here.”
“No, we ain’t.” Mass was still groggy from the whack to his skull, but he put his brute force behind a punch that collided with a nearby demon and sent it cartwheeling backwards. Mass could fight, but he was too weak to kill. The paring knife he had taken from the kitchen was now lying somewhere in the grass up top.
The demons formed a huddle at the other end of the pit. They eyeballed their prey but didn’t attack. Not yet. They were working up to it.
Tox moved everyone to the back of the pit. The demons, although wary, moved with them, their contorted faces and sinewy limbs even more nightmarish while covered in mud and the dried blood of previous victims.
Mass clenched his fists. “We fight until we’re dead.”
Tox took a deep breath and nodded.
The demons approached, salivating as they drew nearer. Too many of them for four guys to fight. Vamps had sacrificed himself to strike a blow at the enemy, but Mass was going to die in a muddy hole in the ground.
I’m sorry, man. I let you the fuck down.
The edges of the pit were eight feet high, at least. No way to climb out. If they tried, the demons would attack as soon as they turned their backs.
“Shoulder to shoulder, lads,” said Mass. “Don’t let anyone get dragged down.”
The demons finally launched their attack. Mass watched as two of his men died in seconds, their throats slashed open by deadly claws. That left Mass and Tox standing alone, throwing punches while dodging deadly swipes from demon claws. Mass headbutted a demon in the face and sent it back, but as soon as it stumbled, another monster took its place. He could already feel himself growing tired. The bloody bandages around his throat had come away. His exposed wound seemed to arouse the demons.
“Let us the fuck out of here!” Mass shouted up at the edge of the hole, hoping someone with an ounce of sanity would put a stop to this madness. “We’re human beings!”
No one answered – but then a sharp snap of lightning sounded. Voices erupted and angry gunfire rattled.
“There’s a fight going on up there,” said Tox, dodging backwards to keep from being sliced open. He was right. A fight had broken out. Someone was shooting.
“Help!” Mass shouted. “Help us!”
More gunfire. More shouting. Fortunately, the demons were equally confused by whatever was occurring up top and they paused their attack. But the gunfire grew distant, the fight moving away. Mass despaired. Whoever was shooting wasn’t there to pull them out of the pit. Did they even know Mass and Tox were down there?
A demon leapt to attack, but Mass smashed it in the face with a hard right hand. With the other demons distracted by the gunfight, he tried climbing the muddy sides of the pit. It was useless, but it was all he could think to do. Digging in with his fingers, he hooked onto some buried roots and pulled himself up more than expected. Suddenly, his body rushed with adrenaline as he contemplated getting out of there. Then he looked down and realised he would be abandoning Tox. His man – and friend – was now battling with two demons. He’d already been sliced open by one.
Mass could get out of there if he just focused on making it up those last few feet. Freedom was in reach. He could do it. Except he couldn’t.
“Goddamn it!” He leapt off the wall and landed on top of one of the two demons attacking Tox. He kicked it hard enough to launch it right into the other, and both monsters hit the mud wall.
Tox grabbed Mass’s belt and hauled him to his feet. “You should’ve gone, man.”
“Don’t want to live that way.” He put his fists up. “I would rather die this way.”
The demons regrouped and approached again. The more the fight went on, the more they seemed to wake up and rediscover their vicious instincts. Meanwhile, Mass and Tox were only gett
ing weaker.
Tox pressed up against Mass, shoulder to shoulder. “Urban Vampires for life, mate.”
Mass nodded. “Urban Vampires for life.”
The demons snarled, reared back, and pounced.
A shotgun blast filled the pit. Light and noise echoed off the mud walls and caused Mass and Tox to close their eyes and cover their ears. It was like standing inside a broom cupboard with a lit firework.
“Come on!” someone shouted.
Mass looked up, expecting to see a familiar face – Addy or London – but it wasn’t either of them. A stranger. The young lad had a shotgun set on the ground beside him and was dangling a horse’s bridle over the edge of the pit. “Come on, before they all come back!”
Mass wanted to know who was rescuing him but decided to leave the questions until he was safely out of the hole. He shoved Tox against the wall, then used his muscles to shove the man upwards. Tox grabbed the bridle, and the stranger grabbed his shirt, pulling him to safety. Immediately, Tox grabbed the shotgun and fired it into the hole, taking out a demon right as it was about to pounce on Mass.
Disorientated from the noise, Mass took a wobbly run-up and hopped off the mud wall, giving himself a three-foot boost. He grabbed a hold of the bridle and heaved. The stranger grabbed a hold of his arm and yanked. A demon grabbed hold of his ankle and tugged. For a moment, he feared he would fall back into the pit, but he threw out a kick and freed himself. He rose quickly out of the hole and was back on solid ground.
Thank fuck!
The people who lived at the farm had scattered, firing at a distant target on the hill. From the sound of the rapid return-fire, it could only have been Addy or London with the LMG. A dead man lay bullet-ridden in the grass nearby, but everyone else had moved into the adjacent fields.
The stranger helped Mass get moving. “Your people drew them all away,” he said, “so I could sneak up and get you out of this hole.”
“Who are you?”
“Smithy. You’re Mass, right? Addy said to look for a big muscly guy. Thought you’d be bigger, to be honest.”
Mass shook the lad’s hand more vigorously than he had ever shaken any hand. “You just made yourself a new best friend.”
“We need to go,” said Tox, checking the shotgun for ammo. “Addy and London won’t be able to hold out for long. Eventually, that LMG will run out of teeth.”
Despite the gunfight taking place elsewhere, there were other people still in the paddock. Mass went over to the anxious women in the containers and told them to get out of there. “Quickly, before those bastards come back.”
The women stared at him as if they didn’t even understand what he was saying, more like startled rabbits than people.
“I don’t get it,” said Tox. “Why aren’t they moving?”
Mass felt sick to his stomach. “Because they’re terrified. They’d rather live in a harem than be alone.”
“We need to get them to Portsmouth,” said Tox.
“First things first. Smithy, what did Addy ask you to do once you’d rescued us?”
“She said to meet back at the gravel car park. Said you’d know where that was.”
A good plan, thought Mass. It was the only place nearby that all of them knew. The place where all this had started. “Okay, let’s move.”
“Not so fast!” Gemma appeared from amongst the women in the container. She brandished a shotgun and a pissed-off snarl. “You killed two of my friends last night. You think you’re going to get away scot-free? Naseem might want to test you, but I just want you dead.”
“You started this fight,” said Mass, “but I promise we’ll be the ones to end it.”
Tox levelled his shotgun. “Too right.”
Gemma pointed her shotgun at Mass. “You shoot, I shoot. Want to play?”
Mass rolled his eyes. “Pull the fucking trigger, Tox.”
Gemma shook her head and sneered. “Idiots. You think I’m joking? I fire this thing and it will take the three of you out. Give yourselves up and I might—”
Gemma’s eyes went wide and she dropped like a sack of potatoes. A woman appeared behind her, clutching a large tin of chopped tomatoes in her trembling hand. Mass wasted no time and grabbed Gemma’s shotgun. The 12-gauge was heavy, but it had five spare shells racked along the top of the barrel and three more in the chamber. Apocalyptic fried gold. “Now we’re talking.”
The woman with the chopped tomatoes was panicked as she spoke, but her words were defiant. “That bitch helped trick every woman here. She and Naseem deserve to burn in Hell.”
Mass reached out a hand cautiously. “You’ll be safe with us. We’ll get you out of here.”
“The other women won’t come,” she said flatly. “They’re too afraid. Some of them prefer it here to what they went through before.”
Mass looked over at the containers and watched the women retreat back inside. The sight of Gemma unconscious seemed to frighten them, as if they feared repercussions. “We’ll come back for them, but first we have to make it out of here alive. My people are meeting us back at a nearby car park.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “Do you have a lorry parked there?”
Mass nodded. “Yeah, we do. Although it isn’t going anywhere without four new tyres.”
“You need to avoid it! I heard Naseem order some men to go back and siphon whatever petrol is left in the tank. They took guns.”
Tox swore. “If Addy and London make it back before us, they’ll be ambushed.”
“We have no choice then,” said Mass. “We dig in here and fight. If Addy sees us staying put, she’ll come back to provide cover. She won’t retreat without us.”
The woman began to shake her head. “There’s too many of them. There’re twenty men staying here.”
“But you said four have left to go steal our petrol. Those plus the one I killed last night and the guy next to the pit leaves fourteen. Fourteen piece-of-shit scumbags versus four Urban Vampires – and my friend Smithy here. I like those odds.”
“And Dave,” said Smithy.
Mass frowned. “Who’s Dave?”
Smithy shook his head. “Never mind. Now ain’t the time.”
“You people are crazy,” said the woman. “We need to get out of here before they come back and kill us. They’ve turned this place into a death trap. The farmhouse’s basement is stacked with enough weaponry to blow up the moon.”
Hearing that caused a grin to spread across Mass’s face. Tox was smiling too. Mass turned to the woman in all seriousness. “What’s your name, love?”
“Harriet.”
“Okay, Harriet. I need you to show me that basement.”
Seeing Gross take a shotgun blast to the chest had been too much. Addy should’ve acted sooner. Now, the most important person in her world was dead. If only she hadn’t delayed, waiting for the right moment.
She set up the LMG on the hill and prepared to start taking lives. Human lives. Her moral reservations faded. This entire operation had been a fuck show. After months of fighting demons and taking zero losses, they had lost most of their unit in a day. All she wanted now was to make these people pay. Her first shot from the LMG went wild, but it helped her find her aim. The next barrage took out two bewildered gunmen standing in the fields. Then she took out a third standing by the containers in the paddock.
The people at the farm scrambled in a dozen directions. London and the demon, David, were with her, but neither had weapons. London had given his shotgun to Smithy in case he had needed firepower during his mission to rescue Mass and the others from the pit. They both began spotting targets for her, helping her suppress anyone trying to climb the hill.
But she was already running out of ammo.
The LMG could spit seven-hundred rounds per minute, but it wasn’t accurate, and all the bodies buzzing around below made it difficult to see if Smithy had got Mass and the others out of the hole. The last thing she needed was to shoot them accidentally. “I don’t see them,
London. Did they get away?”
London came back up the hill. He’d descended as much as he safely could. “They ran into some trouble, but they got away. Tox, Mass, Smithy, and some woman who helped them escape.”
“A woman?”
London shrugged. “Looks like they found support on the ground.”
“Then Smithy will have told Mass about the rendezvous. We need to fall back and make it to that car park. We can’t win here.”
London agreed. “Let’s make tracks. Hey, where’s that demon got to?”
“I am here,” said David, appearing from further down the hill.
“We’re leaving,” said Addy. “Are you coming with us, um, Dave?”
“No, must aid Smithy.”
London raised an eyebrow. “He has all the help he’s going to get. The plan is for us all to meet back at the car park. You’ll be safer with us.”
The demon was conflicted. It glanced down the hill to where men were now cautiously advancing. “Something feels wrong.”
“No shit,” said Addy. “That’s why we’re retreating.”
Gunshots cracked below, but not aimed at the hill. It seemed to come from the farmhouse. Addy dropped back down and got on the LMG, squinting to find a target. She fired off a barrage, almost emptying the weapon, but bought herself enough time to make out what was happening below. “They’re not leaving. They’re heading for the farmhouse.”
London crouched to keep his cover on the hill. “What? Why?”
Addy scanned the farm. A dozen men dove into cover, not knowing whether to continue attacking the hill or to head towards the farmhouse. “I don’t know what’s happening, but if they’re in trouble, we can’t leave.”
“Something isn’t right,” said David, but he went ignored. Addy didn’t have time for the demon and his nonsense. She needed to cover her squad mates.
Mass was cutting between the barns and heading for the farmhouse. He must have thought it was the best place to find cover, but once he entered there would be no getting out again. The enemy would surround the house.
Hell On Earth Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 124
