Trail of Tears

by Derek Gunn

  His heart skipped a beat. They don’t want us to come this way, he thought. He had made good time up to the border but the storm had come from nowhere and the snow and ice had begun to slow the heavier vehicles and the tanks. Rather than slow his entire force, he had left the slower moving vehicles behind, instructing them to follow as quickly as they could. He had taken what jeeps and troop transports he had and forged ahead. Once they had crossed the border and had come ten miles into Nero’s territory without seeing evidence of any thrall presence, let alone any guards or roving patrols, he had gotten the feeling that speed was now of the essence. Something was urging him on, some feeling that he was nearing the end of a very long journey. His excitement was barely contained as he imagined catching the humans unprepared and helpless.

  Even among his faster moving force he had urged the jeeps and trucks to greater speeds and his column had stretched out further with the half-tracks falling behind. He didn’t care. He was convinced that a clock was ticking down somewhere and, if he wanted his revenge, he would have to take the risk. The more he thought of his last encounter with the thrall force the more he was certain that he had been played. He was so certain he was willing to bet his life, well the lives of his men anyway. The only thing he knew for certain was that something had happened to his patrol and, while it was possible that Nero’s forces had taken them out, it was unlikely. If Nero’s forces were still in control then more of his patrols would have failed to return or at the very least would have seen other thrall forces. Yes, the patrol that had disappeared had been the furthest into Nero’s territory, but something told him that they had found the humans. Somehow they had managed to defeat Nero and maintain the impression that the territory was still under his control.

  If he didn’t need their remarkable weaponry so badly he would enjoy talking to these humans, before he killed them of course. Once he had reached the city limits they had found the way blocked a number of times, forcing them to go around the ruined streets and adding to his unease. Some of the streets had been completely blocked by fallen buildings, their steel girders and wooden supports poking from the rubble like a mass grave of bodies. But some of the streets had appeared somewhat contrived. Like this one.

  Up till now, they had diverted around obstructions but Carter had a feeling that something was up. The only reason he could attribute to these blockages was that they were here to buy time. And that suggested that something was happening that required time to finish.

  “No,” he stated suddenly. “We’ll push through. Send out a patrol to move the cars.” He paused for a moment and then a thought struck him. “Make sure there are no traps, these humans are sneaky. Something about this whole setup seems wrong.”

  Carter watched his men approach the wrecks cautiously and forced himself not to fidget. He had briefly toyed with the idea of letting his men find any traps the quickest way, by setting them off, but there was still a long way to go and he might run dangerously low on troops by the time the others caught up. Besides, if they thought he was looking out for them they would obey his orders without thinking when that blind obedience might be needed.

  “You were right, sir.” One of the thralls waved his hand and brought in the experts to disarm the device. Carter felt his heart begin to pound in his chest. The fact that there were traps at all confirmed that the humans had set them. What would Nero’s forces need booby traps for? He watched his men slowly disable the bomb and then grind the wrecks to the side impassively, but inside he urged them to hurry. Something was surely happening somewhere in this city. Something that the humans thought important enough to set crude traps in order to slow him down, but why had they not set up an ambush as well? He forced himself to remain calm but he felt his heart thump in his chest. He was so close.

  He indicated for the truck behind him to pull ahead and take point. If there was a second trap, more cunningly hidden, then he would allow his men to discover the threat. After all, there was only so far he would go to protect his thralls.

  * * *

  Tanya Syn watched the plume of the approaching vehicles as the knot of anxiety in her stomach twisted another notch. The patrol was later today and already the light was bleeding from the sky.

  “I don’t like it,” she heard Josh mutter.

  “Maybe they’re trying to throw us off by mixing up the schedule,” she heard John Hammond whisper, though why he was whispering was beyond her. The patrol was still miles away.

  There were twenty one of them in total on this raid. Most of them were well armed with an assortment of weapons they had picked up from their previous raids. They had plenty of ammunition but little in the way of heavy ordinance. But it was skill that they were most lacking in. The men who sat ready to take out the thralls were ordinary people. None had military training that she knew of. The oldest among them was fifty-four and the youngest a mere seventeen. It wasn’t that they could not handle their weapons, of course. Most had owned guns before the fall of civilization so they could all shoot to a certain standard, but none of them could plan these sorts of operations with any real conviction. Even Josh was just feeling his way.

  It had seemed common sense to put men on each side to catch the thralls in crossfire. However, there was also the risk that they might hit each other as the thralls spread out after the initial engagement. Josh had warned everyone to keep their fire low and not to follow targets blindly up the slopes where their fellow attackers were. But in the heat of battle anything could happen.

  Her eyes strayed to the road. This time they had chosen a stretch of road on a slight bend. There weren’t a lot of places to attack such a patrol, a fact the thralls were only too aware of as well. They couldn’t attack too close to either camp or they would risk reinforcements catching them before they could get away. But, the further they allowed the patrol to travel the longer it took them to get back to the safety of their caves. Added to their problems was the terrain itself. It was pretty flat. The thralls tended to travel along open stretches of road where they could see as much around them as possible. Their route changed each time but Josh had managed to limit their options by closing some routes with rotting vehicles or digging up the surface. The trick, he had told her, was to try and make each new collapse appear as natural as possible. There were effectively five routes still open between the camps. Three of them had to be chosen early on in the journey and then it was blind luck if they set up in the right place for the last two.

  Today they had chosen the right route and they had prepared the road.

  They weren’t all here for her, she knew. The supply patrol was their only source of food. There was some wildlife in the area but they hadn’t managed to catch any as yet. There were no crops either. No one had tilled the soil around the city for years and, even if they had, the ground was covered in snow so nothing could grow. The only sources of food were the crops grown by the humans in the camps outside the city. They were heavily guarded so, until they could swell their numbers by a large margin, attacking such a camp was impossible. Even if they had the numbers they couldn’t take or hope to hold such a camp. There was no way they could fight off the vampires if they knew where they were.

  Until they could come up with their own food source these patrols were the only answer. She knew that she was taking food from the other humans in the thrall camp, making their lives even more miserable, but if they didn’t pull some of the guards away from the main camp they would have no hope of freeing the remaining captives.

  “Could be, Ham,” she started as Josh answered but his tone belied his agreement. He looked up at the sky. “It’ll be dark in a half hour. The patrol will take twenty minutes to get to us. That leaves us only ten minutes to take it out and get to safety.”

  Tanya sat and forced herself to stay silent. She wanted to attack the patrol, despite the risk. It was the only way to pull the resources from the main camp and allow them a chance of freeing Mark. But she hadn’t earned the right after her previous behaviour
so she kept silent, the anxiety in her stomach growing more painful.

  Josh sighed and she could tell he wasn’t happy with his decision.

  “Take your places. We hit hard and fast. Remember, three round bursts. Don’t waste ammunition.” His voice carried easily to the others huddled in their positions.

  * * *

  The lead truck was a large Dodge with more rust than the original blue on its surface. Heavy sheets of metal were strapped to its grill and its sides and Tanya could hear the engine labouring under the added weight. Two thralls sat in the front and five others in the bed behind them. The truck was followed by three large vans with their windows boarded up. Behind them there were three other assorted vehicles with at least another nine thralls sitting in various positions. A tenth thrall manned a large .50 calibre machine gun mounted on the truck directly behind the vans.

  Her eyes strayed back towards the vans. Something was nagging at her that she couldn’t quite bring to her conscious mind. Something about the vans…

  She felt a cold hand grip her heart as it suddenly struck her. She reached out to Josh, to call off the attack but the signal had already been given and she saw the grenades already flying towards the lead vehicle.

  “The third Van...” she shouted and Josh looked over towards her. “The lead van isn’t as low to the ground,” she managed before the grenades exploded and the Dodge lifted into the air and tumbled three or four times before finally coming to a halt blocking the narrow road. For a moment a silence descended upon them that was eerie, and then the heavy chatter of the .50 calibre boomed into life and it was already too late. They were committed.

  * * *

  Josh looked at Tanya as she screamed something but the noise of the heavy machine gun was too loud. Something about the height of the van he thought she had said. He looked along the line of vehicles as fire erupted from everywhere. He should be adding his fire to the chaos but something about the look on Tanya’s face stayed his hand.

  The first two vans looked normal enough, though the blackened windows were new. Both vans rode low to the ground. The third van, though, rode higher than the others. A lot higher. As if it was empty.

  “Oh shit,” he cursed as he looked from the van to the darkening sky. “They wouldn’t …”

  He began to pour fire on the thralls when he saw them make a break for cover. They had to retreat. If Tanya was right they would all be torn apart.

  “Tanya, get the others and pull back.”

  She nodded quickly and began to shake the shoulders of the men firing down at the convoy. He could see them look at her with confusion and more than a little anger but she stood her ground and pulled them back from the main line.

  The sudden reduction in fire allowed the thralls to advance and Josh paled as he saw the line of thralls move quickly towards him. He plucked a grenade and threw it. He saw the thralls throw themselves to the ground and then they laughed as the grenade went high over them. They rose quickly, encouraged by his inaccuracy and Josh fired, taking two of them out before the others made it safely to cover just below him. The grenade blew as it rolled under the last van. The explosion blew the back doors off and lifted the vehicle up a foot or so before it slammed back down.

  Some of the metal around the door had peeled back from the blast but the main body of the van was undamaged. Gunfire continued from the far side but the vehicles were in the way. There wasn’t any help coming from that quarter. There was still enough light coming from the dipping sun to hurt the vampire he was certain was inside the van but the creature only had to wait a little longer. He had to do something.

  He had one grenade left but it would be a hell of a throw to get the grenade into the van from here, especially with the .50 calibre tearing up the ground around him. The first of the thralls suddenly appeared over the lip of the rise and he blew its head off with a sustained burst. His shock had kept his finger on the trigger and the weapon clicked empty as another thrall appeared. He automatically removed the cartridge and was already reaching for another, but he knew there was no time. He tightened his stomach muscles waiting for impact when the thrall suddenly jerked as three bullets tore into its chest.

  “Remember, three round bursts,” Tanya mimicked his own gruff admonishment from earlier and he was too relieved to argue. He reloaded and together they poured fire into the last two thralls coming over the lip. The heavy chatter from the .50 calibre finally stopped and he realised he could hear again.

  “The others are gone on. We should get the others,” Tanya said and was already moving past him before he could argue. He shook his head as he leaned down and stripped a grenade from the thrall’s body and then followed her.

  There were thrall bodies everywhere and he could see five of his team moving from cover, whooping in joy at another successful raid. One of the men, Al Reid, came towards him with his hand raised for a high five salute. Josh ran past him, pulling the pin on the grenade and throwing it into the van. The explosion was muffled by the walls of the van and his team looked at him in confusion.

  “Get out of here,” he shouted and they stared at him as if he had gone mad. “Go,” he screamed. “There’s a fucking vampire in there.” That hit a chord and the men moved quickly. Slowing only to help any wounded. For a moment the side of the road fell into silence and he hoped that the grenade had been enough.

  It hadn’t.

  The right side of the van suddenly peeled back like paper and a vampire stood looking out. His clothes were ruined and the flesh on his face and hands was shredded, though the wounds did not bleed. The vampire looked uncertainly at the fading light. Thin tendrils of smoke spiralled from the creature’s face as the weak sun burnt the exposed skin, but it wasn’t strong enough to give him pause. The vampire smiled and its teeth looked like those of a shark.

  There was a loud ratchetting sound and the creature looked around to see Tanya pull back the slide on the .50 calibre. The noise was impossibly loud and Josh cringed as he felt the throb beat at him. The heavy bullets struck the vampire before he could move and each round tore chunks from the creature and sent it reeling back into the ruined van. The vampire struggled to rise but Tanya held the weapon steady. She looked tiny up there in the bed of the truck and she shook with the recoil of the weapon but, somehow, she managed to keep the weapon trained on the creature.

  For a moment Josh felt hope surge in his chest but almost as soon as the feeling grew the gun stuttered and died. He saw Tanya struggle to clear a blockage but the casings were too hot to touch and she was slapping at the mechanism furiously. The vampire was getting to its feet. It looked shocked from the damage it had sustained but the flesh was already healing. Josh saw it stand and then, suddenly, it was beside Tanya. She yelped and the creature slapped her from the bed of the truck and she fell awkwardly to the ground.

  Josh ran towards her firing his XM8 as he ran but the creature had already moved again and his bullets flew wild. Suddenly Josh ran into the vampire. They were so damn fast. The vampire merely looked at him and grunted in amusement.

  “Is this it?” It hissed through the mess of teeth and ruined flesh. “This is the pathetic resistance that I had been sent to destroy. Where are the others? There must be more of you.”

  Josh felt the creature’s hands grip him around the throat but it was the smell of decay that made him retch. Bile surged up his throat but couldn’t clear his constricted neck and it was forced back down. His lungs tried desperately to suck air but nothing came. He felt his head swim and consciousness began to slip away.

  He thought he heard something loud but couldn’t be sure. Suddenly his throat was free and bile spewed out. His lungs immediately sucked in air but some of the bile came with it and he fell to his knees coughing and trying to breathe. He looked up to see the vampire spin to the side with a large hole in its stomach. The bullets might not kill the bastards but each wound hurt them and the vampire screamed in pain and rage.

  Josh looked up to see Hammond struggli
ng to hold the .50 calibre in place as he sent round after round towards the vampire. A bullet struck the vampire in the shoulder, tearing a chunk of flesh with it but the momentum sent the vampire behind the destroyed van and out of sight of the heavy machinegun. Shit, it wouldn’t take long for the vampire to recover.

  Josh forced himself to rise but as he made it to his feet he saw that the vampire was already beside Hammond. Ham turned, trying to bring his hand up in a fist but the vampire ripped its claws along his stomach. For a moment nothing seemed to happen and then Hammond clutched at his midsection. His face went white and he fell to the ground with his hands trying to hold his guts inside. It didn’t work and the slippery organs spilled to the bed of the truck.

  Another gun erupted and smaller wounds appeared on the vampire’s torso. Tanya stood defiantly off to his left and she screamed as she emptied the magazine. Each impact hurt the vampire, he could see the set of the creature’s jaw but it stood there regardless and soaked up the damage in an awesome show of the futility of what they were trying to do.

  “Do you really think you can win against us?” The vampire was genuinely puzzled. Most of the bullet wounds had already healed and the hole in its stomach was rapidly closing. “It really…”

  The vampire suddenly stopped talking and Josh could see something move inside its stomach. He frowned as it moved again. His attention was on the wound and he didn’t notice Hammond rise up behind the creature until he realised that the movement was caused by a human hand. The vampire tried to turn but Hammond clung to him with everything he had. His suddenly wrenched his hand up into the vampire’s chest cavity and then something burst inside the vampire’s chest and its rib cage exploded outwards, its heart totally destroyed by the blast.