by Evan Currie
He went east, less concerned now with hiding than with making decent time. That wasn’t to say that he was walking out in the open, but sprinting from cover to cover with a big honking duffle bag slapping against his legs wasn’t precisely the best definition of stealth.
Speed could sometimes be substituted for stealth, however, especially when you weren’t planning on staying under the radar for long anyway. He didn’t particularly want to be spotted, but if he was, he could turn that to his team’s advantage in a pinch.
Where do I make my play? Where oh where?
Actually, there wasn’t much of a choice. He had to clear Ogrook Street and, as a bonus, he decided that he’d shake up Apayauk as well. He was only a hundred feet or so from the intersection, such as it was, and he could already see the figures moving around in the shadows cast by the lights of nearby houses.
Masters raised his Beowulf rifle with one hand and fired from the hip as he kept moving, aiming for groups so that his lack of precision could be somewhat offset by the target-rich environment.
The fifty-caliber assault weapon roared in the night, sending four-hundred-grain rounds down range. Designed for stopping vehicles at checkpoints in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Beowulf’s cartridges weren’t easily diverted from their path once launched. Masters hoped that the weapon’s nickname from its developing firm—“monster stopper”—would prove to be true in a literal sense
The first round slammed through one of the vampires just off center, high in the torso. It would have been a lethal hit for a human — the round from the Beowulf actually made a sizeable hole in the desiccated corpse it had struck — but the thing didn’t go down. It turned toward the source of the gun reports just in time for the second round to strike home, this time literally exploding the thing’s upper-right arm in a spray of flesh and bone. The remainder of the arm struck the road and flopped about briefly as its one-time owner began to walk toward the shooter, just as round three bore right into its chest, dead center this time.
The vampire dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, the big fifty-caliber round obliterating its spinal cord in one destructive instant, sending it into the slushy mud of the packed-dirt road.
Masters didn’t slow down as he continued firing, skidding out into the open and heaving his duffle bag to the ground in front of him. Now with both arms free, he grabbed the front grip of the Beowulf and began choosing his targets a little more precisely.
At point-blank range, there was no question of the outcome with this weapon.
Fifty-caliber rounds slamming through the vampires’ skulls and brain matter tore heads from their bodies with no strain whatsoever, dropping them in their tracks before they could do more than turn in his direction. He emptied the magazine in another six shots, dropping the empty mag with a push of his thumb as he smoothly seated another ten-round box in its place.
“Here I am, you sons of bitches! You want a meal? Come and get it.”
CHAPTER 10
This was his idea of a distraction?
Hale would have been swearing if he weren’t so busy. While he was packing his kit up in preparation to pull out, his attention had been diverted by the distant boom of gunfire. He paused briefly to check through his spotter’s scope, and found himself in something of a quandary.
On the one hand, he’d been ordered to retreat…that is, to withdraw from the area in preparation for a more effective offensive…and yet on the other, his damned fool idiot of a commanding officer was about to get himself literally chewed up and spit out.
Ugh. That’s a foul thought right there.
The moment of indecision subjectively felt like an eternity, but objectively it only took a passing instant.
Who the hell am I kidding? he thought as he dropped down again and slid his rifle out of the carry bag. Never was smart enough to know when to quit. That’s why Nanaja will never leave me be.
He uncapped the lenses of his scope and settled in for the long haul.
One little piggy…two little piggies…three little piggies…time to go to market.
The school rooftop shook with the report of the fifty-caliber BMG rifle.
* * *
Well, Masters, you wanted their attention. Now you’ve got it. Any other bright ideas?
The Beowulf roared its defiance in a slow and steady staccato beat, and with every bark from its muzzle another target hit the ground and didn’t move again.
Part of his mind realized that he was firing on American citizens while on American soil. The subtle nightmare of it was only beginning to dawn, however, and in the heat of the moment he could ill-afford to pay it any attention. That they were already dead was a technical point — hell, it was the honest truth — but the horror of it still gnawed at him. This wasn’t what he’d signed up to do; it wasn’t how his life was supposed to run.
Yet this was where his journey had brought him. And it was likely where he would end.
So be it.
He’d drawn a crowd, so much so that his steady shooting with the Beowulf had resulted in a literal pile of corpses that the other corpses were climbing over instead of going around. Unfortunately, there were more of the walking dead than he had bullets for in his rifle, and they were getting closer.
He had seated his last magazine into the receiver when a whining sound tore past him, accompanied by the fleshy splats of a heavy bullet hitting targets. The boom that followed quickly on its heels left no doubt as to the origins of the heavy round that had just felled three vampires in their tracks.
“Nathan, you damned fool.” Masters swore as he brought his rifle up again. “Now they know where you are. I told you to get out.”
He was just talking to himself, of course; he didn’t bother with his comm because it didn’t matter anymore. He knew his job; Nathan most certainly knew his. Orders were obsolete from this point onward — now they could only take things one mad minute at a time.
The Beowulf roared again.
* * *
“That idiot.” Alexander Norton swore under his breath, using several choice words and phrases that didn’t translate directly into English.
“While I’m not disagreeing,” Jack Nelson growled, “I’m pretty sure that’s the distraction we were ordered to move on.”
“Go. I’m going to see if I can get the fool out of the rat trap he just tripped on himself,” Norton said, sounding more annoyed than anything else.
“We have orders,” Nelson began, only to be cut off.
“Don’t.” Norton shook his head. “I’m not one of you. I’m a civilian, and the reason I’m here is because I know more about this sort of shit than you ever could in your worst nightmares. So you go follow your orders, and I’m going to go see if I can keep a friend from being turned into a snack food. To each his own, yes?”
Alex straightened up, walking away from the group with a calm, casual manner that just seemed so wrong given the situation. Nelson swore, but finally just shook it off.
“Fine. The rest of you, move!” he growled, pointing north, up the middle of a cluster of houses. “Double-time. Go.”
Derek Hayes and Mack Turner nodded, gathering up an increasingly shell-shocked Judith Andrews between them as they followed Lieutenant Nelson. Behind them, however, Eddie Rankin hesitated and cast a glance after Alexander Norton and the distant flashes of gunfire in the night.
Hesitation turned into motion, and in an instant he was off after Norton. Nelson noticed him go, but suppressed the urge to order him back. He doubted it would do any good, and if there was one thing he’d learned about command, it was that you never gave an order you didn’t expect to be obeyed.
Not only was it pointless, but it literally destroyed discipline when the troops saw you standing around like a schmuck with your thumb up your ass while the person you were trying to command flipped you the bird.
* * *
Alex ambled down the slush-and-mud-covered road, not breaking stride for anything. Rankin caught up with him q
uickly, but the man in black barely glanced at him.
“You have a plan?”
Alex shook his head. “Not even a ghost of one.”
“Good. At least it’s not just me.”
“Hold that thought for a moment, will you?” Alex asked as he paused at a driveway. He turned and walked over to the house’s door, waving over his shoulder. “Be just a minute.”
Rankin watched nervously, checking around to see if they’d been spotted as Alex fiddled with the locked door. In a matter of seconds, he opened it with a flourish and disappeared inside. After a few moments, he was back, walking toward Rankin with a couple of objects in his hands.
He tossed one to Rankin, who caught the crucifix on reflex and goggled at it.
“You must be joking.”
“Nope,” Alex said cheerfully. “A vital part of every vampire hunter’s kit.”
“I never took you for a Christian, Alex.”
“Oh, gods forbid.” Alex rolled his eyes. “It has nothing to do with that.”
Rankin hefted the cross in his hand. “How do you figure?”
“The cross is what makes the difference, my friend, not the crucifix,” Alex chided him as he gestured down the road. “Shall we?”
“What’s the difference between a cross and a crucifix?”
“A cross is the ancient Celtic symbol for the sun,” Alex told him as they walked, “and a crucifix is how Romans murdered the filth of their empire, a few potential exceptions aside. Which of those do you honestly believe is likely to have a more profound effect on a vampire?”
He checked the cross in his hands again. “So it’s really a symbol of the sun?”
“Really.”
“Huh. I guess you learn something new every day.”
“Quite. Now, I believe we’re about to become busy.”
Rankin scowled as several shapes lurched out of the shadows in their direction. “How effective is this thing?”
Alex shrugged, tucking his own cross into his belt. “Honestly? I would lead with the gun.”
“Speaking my language.”
Rankin followed Alex’s example, sliding the cross into his belt before adjusting his grip on his Beowulf, bringing the weapon up to his shoulder. The big rifle roared, its recoil a satisfying comfort against his shoulder as he and The Black walked into the night.
* * *
Out!
Masters tossed the Beowulf aside, the big-hero gun spent now. He drew his Smith and Wesson 500 in the same motion, thumb cocking back the hammer on the five-round revolver.
One-handed, the big gun was hardly an ideal weapon, but the half-inch-diameter rounds packed enough power that he was willing to forgive the hammer-blow recoil and blowtorch cylinder exhaust. All the more so when the first round out of the heavy pistol split the skull of his target with almost the ease of the Beowulf.
It was unfortunate that he could only do that four more times.
Time to break out the big guns.
He knelt down, firing another round out of the pistol as he pulled open the zippered section of the duffel with his off hand.
His third shot, a little low, tore through a vampire’s jaw and effectively decapitated it, though the head was still technically attached when it fell to the ground.
Masters switched to a Weaver’s grip on the pistol, emptying it with two more rounds placed as fast and precisely as he could manage considering the recoil, and then the Smith too hit the ground, abandoned after it had served its purpose.
His hand closed around the synthetic grip of the gun in the bag and he drew it out as he rose to his feet, exposing the AA-12. The Auto Assault–12 had a thirty-two-round drum magazine already attached, and the only regret he had about lugging the damned thing around all this time was the fact that he hadn’t loaded the drums with slugs.
Alas. Luckily, it’s not going to make one ounce of a difference at this range.
The full-automatic shotgun roared to life as it came up to his shoulder, and the night was filled with fire and rage.
* * *
Fifty-caliber BMG rounds were the size of small flashlights, they could blow through lightly armored vehicles with ease, and the report they made when fired was loud enough to figuratively wake the dead. That was one reason why a sniper like Hale always preferred to work with a spotter he could trust; otherwise it was so very easy to become lost in the narrow arc of your scope and forget about the world directly around you.
Hale was a pro, however, and he’d done the solo thing once or twice before. So when he heard — no, when he felt the movement of something behind and below him — he didn’t question it. He just acted.
Abandoning the Barrett for the moment, Nathan rolled off the peak of the roof just as a body slammed down on the spot where he’d been. He had to scramble at the roofing to keep his balance, sliding toward the edge until he managed to slow his descent enough to dig his feet in and look up.
“You’re one ugly bastard — you know that, right?” he asked the thing above him, the question as rhetorical as they came.
There was no response, of course, but that was fine. The creature turned to bare its teeth at him, gleaming white in the cold night air. This one had taken care of its chompers before its blood had been drawn from its body, turning it into the mockery he was looking at now.
Nathan reached over his shoulder, grasping the hilt of the sword that was never far from his reach, and pulled the blade free. It too gleamed, but it wasn’t the silver glint of steel — no, the weapon shone with an almost buttery glint that was nearly a match for the finest polished gold. The bronze blade was part of him and had been at his side ever since he’d crossed over the invisible line that divided the real world from the world in which the majority of humans lived.
With his blade in hand, Nathan didn’t bother with any more words. He bared his own teeth at the monster before him and, while mentally offering up a prayer for the departed soul of the person who had once lived in this husk, he charged up the roof even as it charged down.
He twisted to avoid the creature’s lunge, slashing his blade hard as he did. The bronze weapon was of an ancient design that put a little more weight in the tip than comparable modern swords. It bit into the dry, cold flesh of the monster with an ease that always surprised Nathan, slicing the vampire nearly in two as he and Nathan moved in separate directions across the roof.
Nathan glanced around as his foe hit the ground below with a resounding thud, wondering if he should push his luck and try for a few more shots.
No. I’ve already spent too much time here. Time to move.
Old lessons and hard lessons stick best, and Nathan quickly began to pack up his kit. He had to leave before anything else found its way to his hide.
* * *
The steady boom boom boom of the AA-12 was a beacon for every vampire for a little over half a mile around, but it also threw up a wall of steel around Masters’s position as he held the intersection against all newcomers. More than that, the sheer volume of death the weapon pumped out had created small mountains of bodies that his enemies literally needed to climb over in order to reach him, pushing the line back with every salvo.
Of course, he only had four loaded drums, and two of them were already gone.
When those went dry, it was all over save for the screaming.
His screaming.
Looks like I won’t get to kill that fucking sea beast after all.
Ever since that night he’d crossed the veil, that dismal night that still haunted his nightmares, he’d been planning, dreaming, fantasizing — all about how he’d gut the damned overgrown chunk of calamari that had taken out most of his team and an entire destroyer in just minutes. The only reason he’d come back was to get that chance, and now what? First mission out, and he was about to be eaten alive by a bunch of B-movie rejects.
The third drum clacked as the last round exploded from the barrel of the AA-12, causing him to hit the release reflexively and drop to the groun
d to pick up the fourth and final loaded drum.
There was a certain calming, Zen-like quality to this moment, he found to his utmost surprise. The roar of the automatic shotgun faded into the distance, like it was something happening in a dream, and the rest of the world sprang into vivid relief. He could hear the monsters’ joints crackling as they tried to climb over the veritable mountains of their own dead; he could see the ghostly fog in their eyes, which had no place in the living. For those few seconds it was like he’d surpassed anything he’d ever known, reached beyond his greatest previous pinnacle.…
And then it was gone.
The shotgun slapped open on an empty space, and he was out of ammo. Masters shrugged it off, dropping the AA-12 to the mud in front of him, and drew the kukri he’d stolen from his would-be assassin.
I hope the others got clear.
It really was shocking just how fast the things, the vampires, could move. Once the wall of steel fell, it was only seconds before the creatures in the lead had surmounted the bodies of their fallen comrades — some of which, Masters was chagrined to see, weren’t as dead as he’d hoped — and made it within striking distance.
He shifted to face the closest, and was cocking his arm to deliver a strike with the kukri when a roar from behind him shocked him from his combat trance. The closest of his foes was blown back with a large chunk of its skull missing.
He looked over his shoulder to see Rankin and Norton standing behind him, a smoking Beowulf in the master chief’s hands.
“I told you to get out of town,” Masters growled, dropping his arm and turning toward the duo.
Rankin shrugged, shot another of the attacking monsters, and looked at him with a bored expression. “Sorry, bro, we must have misunderstood.”
“Right.”
“Yes, yes, you’re both so very cool,” Alex muttered. “Could we consider moving along now? While you’ve managed to accumulate a terribly impressive body count, dozens I’d say, I’d just like to remind you that we’re in a town of thousands.”
Knowing that he was right, Masters knelt down to retrieve the AA-12 and the empty drums.
