Mass moved his team deeper into the city, trying to keep to alleyways and overhangs whenever possible. The quieter they could be, the fewer demons that would notice them. Ammunition didn’t grow on trees, although Smithy acted like it did. So far, he had performed a majority of the killing. There were Vampires on the team who hadn’t even fired their weapons yet.
“We’re almost there,” said Addy several minutes later. “Let’s keep our heads down.”
Mass nodded. “I hear machine guns. They’re still fighting at the fort. Come on.”
They hurried through the ruins, mindful of every corner or potential hiding place for a demon, but they found the way ahead clear except for demon corpses littering the road.
“I think I see the fort,” said Smithy, pointing a handgun. “Is that it?”
Mass peered ahead and saw the red-brick fortification cutting into the hillside in a harsh V-shape. “Yeah, that’s it. Reckon we should knock on the front door?”
“You guys have never met, right?” said Smithy. “I mean, Thomas has never seen you before? Why don’t you just pretend to be someone else until he lets us inside?”
It wasn’t the worst idea, but it was still too risky. “Even if he doesn’t recognise me, others with him will. If we lie, he’ll have even more reason to shoot at us. Our best bet is to be honest. From what I’ve heard about General Thomas, he’s a politician. He won’t murder us in front of a thousand men if he doesn’t have a good reason.” Mass took a few deep breaths, giving it some final thought. “Okay, we go in peace and play dumb. He won’t shoot us with our hands in the air.”
“You hope,” interjected Addy. She held up a radio and waggled it. “What about Cullen’s team?”
“Tell him to set up nearby and stay concealed. We might need backup if things go south.”
Addy made the call.
Smithy twirled his handguns like an old-fashioned gunslinger. “Ready, boss?”
Mass nodded. “Follow me.”
The team spread out in a line and headed across a main road choked with wreckage. They quickly stepped onto an overgrown verge that led up to a steep embankment. Up close, the looming fort was massive: three storeys high and stretching off to the east and west. Muzzles flashed from a dozen places inside, lighting up the shadows inside the many windows. Machine-gun fire chattered nearby.
“What are they firing at?” Smithy aimed his handguns but found no enemies. “The demons here are all dead.”
“The demons must have got inside,” said Mass, deciding that was the only explanation. “We need to go and help. Come on.”
They hurried up the hill, making use of the paved road that led to a small car park in front of the fort. Several cars were parked there, as well as a large green double-decker bus. The bus was full of petrol and supplies, still roadworthy and well maintained. Mass knew because he had parked it there himself in the early days of the war. It was an escape vehicle for those camped out at the fort. It didn’t look like anybody had made use of it though.
The fort’s front entrance was managed by a turnstile set into an archway. Mass marched up to it and grabbed the bars. They were locked in place. “Damn it.”
“Should we try the back door?” asked Smithy.
Mass cupped his mouth with his hands. “Hey! Hey, anyone around?”
No answer at first, but then: “How’s it going, geezer?”
Mass stepped back. “Damien? What…? How did you get inside there?”
“I have my ways, innit? Heard General Thomas was around, so thought I’d see what the bloke was all about.”
Smithy shook his head and grinned. “What did you do, man? Just stroll through the city like there isn’t a war going on right now?”
Damien shrugged from the other side of the bars. “The demons don’t pay me much attention. Guess I’m too much like them. Dead, remember?”
“You’re serious about that shit?” Smithy tittered nervously, looking between Mass and Addy as if to check to see if their reaction matched his. “Did you come out the gates with the rest of them?”
“No. I wasn’t in Hell, but I am dead. If it lends me an advantage, I’m all for it. You guys want to come in?”
Mass nodded. “Yeah. Do you know what’s happening inside?”
“Demons got in around the back, but not enough to worry about yet. Won’t be long, though, before this place is overrun. Demons don’t stop when there’s good eatin’ to be had.”
Smithy winced. “Dude.”
Damien chuckled and moved out of sight. Nobody knew what he was doing until a metallic clunk led to the turnstile hopping in its grooves. Mass tried the metal bars again and the whole thing swivelled.
They all pushed their way inside.
Damien was leaning up against the wall to their right. He pointed up at one of the long, narrow buildings that ringed the central courtyard. “Thomas is up there with a shitload of men. Most of them are injured. Without help, they’re gonna die of exhaustion before the demons ever get to them.”
Mass eyeballed Damien. “How’d you manage to find all of that out without being discovered?”
“There were some guys already defending this place when Thomas arrived. He assumed I was with them. I was planning to kill the old bastard and do you lot a favour, but… well, it didn’t seem right.”
Mass frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll see. Anyway, you can get inside the building over there.” He pointed to an archway at the bottom of the building about thirty feet away. “I’ll be around if you need me.”
“All right, cheers.”
As the team hurried for the archway, Smithy whispered to Mass, “That dude freaks me out. You ever get the impression he might just decide to kill everyone for the fun of it?”
“I think he’s hot,” said Addy.
“He just about qualifies as a good guy,” said Mass, “but I don’t trust him. He plays by his own rules.”
Smithy nodded. “Yeah, the dude’s playing Jenga while the rest of us are playing KerPlunk!”
Mass ignored Smithy and eyeballed his team, one after the other. “Everyone be on your guard.”
He pulled open the rickety iron door inside the archway Damien had pointed out to them, and then waited for his team to go inside. They entered a cramped alcove with a staircase in it. The stone steps had been augmented with a steel handrail and rubber slip-guards – remnants of a world where health and safety regulations mattered. Mass took point with his shotgun, leading the team up the stairs cautiously, rounding each corner, ready to fire upwards. They passed the first landing but kept on going. Thomas and the others would be higher up, firing from the best vantage point they could gain.
The stairs ended on the second floor, leading them to a dank corridor. The sound of gunfire was deafening, echoing off the brickwork. The fort was a strange mixture of modern and old; not ancient like a castle, but not new either. A couple of old cannons were perched beside window ports, a wooden information board explaining their history.
“This place is pretty cool,” said Smithy. “You reckon those guns work?”
Addy tutted. “You see any cannonballs around? Of course they don’t work.”
Smithy’s enthusiasm was undeterred. “Hey, did you know the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty is actually about a cannon? Absolute truth, I swear.”
“Shut up,” said Mass. “Shut up and follow me.”
They headed through the draughty corridor, seeking company. A few rooms on the upper floor were occupied by soldiers firing rifles from the windows. Others were being used as infirmaries, containing men moaning and crying out for help. The room at the end of the corridor was the largest, packed full of men and women. Only half of them were armed, and when they noticed Mass and his team they stared blankly. Then others began murmuring and whispering. Those who recognised Mass acknowledged him. A few moments was all it took for a hero’s welcome to begin.
“You’re alive. Of course you are. No one can kill Mass.”
“The Urban Vampires are here!”
“Thank God, we need help.”
“It’s Mass!”
“Looking good, Addy.”
Mass shoved his way through the welcome party, taking in all the faces. For a moment, it appeared as if he was surrounded by friends, but then it became clear that they had merely moved to the front of the room to greet him. Two-thirds of those further back were strangers, and they were the ones with most of the guns. “General Thomas?” Mass enquired. “Where is he?”
One of the men Mass knew nodded to the far side of the room, where there stood a group of men in fatigues, huddled together and seemingly deep in conversation. One of the men was older, with a head of shocking white hair. The others looked to the older man whenever he spoke. It was Thomas, no doubt.
Mass kept his shotgun low but at the ready. Even now, this close, he didn’t have a plan. Did he raise his weapon and shoot, consequences be damned? Or did he try to handle things another way? He didn’t like having to think.
The old man turned, alerted by the chatter rising in the room. What Mass saw was not what he expected. General Thomas appeared weak – ill even. His grey eyes were sunken. His bottom lip was split open and bleeding. His right arm hung limply by his side, his sleeve soaked red. “How goes our defence?” the man asked haughtily, although there was a hint of pain in his voice.
“You’re still alive,” said Mass, “so I’d say it’s going better than expected, wouldn’t you?”
Thomas scowled. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Mass, and I ain’t no soldier. I’m a Vampire.”
The men either side of Thomas went for their sidearms, but Thomas stopped them. He looked at Mass as if he were a ghost. “That’s a surprise, seeing as I was informed you were dead.”
Mass went to ask about Tony’s whereabouts but realised he would be breaking the man’s cover if Thomas didn’t yet know he had helped Mass. It was worrying that the colonel wasn’t present. Mass hoped he was still alive.
Thomas scowled. “Did you hear me? I said, you’re supposed to be dead.”
“Ain’t you heard? I don’t die, mate.” Mass didn’t think, he just acted. Throwing the punch was the stupidest thing he could do, but it was also the only thing too. The right hook crunched against the old man’s brittle jawbone and it was only the men standing beside Thomas that kept him from hitting the ground.
Mass rubbed his fist. “That was for Amanda Wickstaff.”
Safety levers clicked off all around the room as dozens of automatic rifles and handguns pointed at Mass. He didn’t care though; he’d lost too many people to care. His team pointed their own shotguns and rifles, outmanned four to one. Smithy thrust his handguns either side of him like a character in a Tarantino movie. Addy did the smart thing and aimed only at Thomas. If shots got fired, Thomas was going down first.
Thomas rubbed his jaw, eyes open wide. “W-Why are you here?”
Mass shrugged. “To rescue you.”
“W-Wanstead sent you? He sent you?”
“Another surprise I’ll bet.”
Thomas pushed himself up straight, removing the helping hands that had been keeping him from falling. When he spoke, it was like he was talking to himself. “I led an army – a great army – to destroy our enemy, and instead it destroyed us. A man I thought dead turns up and claims to want to rescue me. He acts like he wants to do the opposite. What did I do to deserve such unpredictable madness? Where did I go wrong?”
Mass growled. “Sort it out with your therapist. I’m here to get you and your boys back to the docks.”
Thomas seemed to snap back to reality. He looked at Mass and nodded. “These men are all I have left. We are wounded and poorly armed, so if you’ve come to rescue us, I thank you.”
Mass glanced back at Addy and Smithy, but neither gave anything away. Once again, Mass was out of his depth. Part of him still wanted, more than anything, to just blow this old fucker away, but that would mean killing a wounded man in cold blood. He realised now why Damien had refused to do the deed. There was a line between a soldier and a killer, and Mass wanted to stay on the right side of it. “The city can be navigated if we stick to the side streets. The demons are mostly moving down the main roads towards the docks. If we move fast, we can get back behind the walls from the south before the main invasion begins.”
Thomas reached a trembling hand to his waist. At first Mass feared the old man was going for his gun, but he merely lifted his shirt. Underneath was a blood-soaked bandage. “One of the buggers got me quite badly, I’m afraid. We were right outside the city – home free, I thought. It seems I was mistaken. If I can get my remaining men to safety, perhaps I can atone for some of my failures.”
Mass thought about Amanda Wickstaff and shook his head. “You can’t, but at least no more men have to die because of your arrogance.”
Thomas swallowed, but Mass wasn’t sure if it was guilt or something else. He detected a hint of aggression in the wounded old man. “Yes, well, I suppose war makes monsters of us all.”
“Sometimes it makes heroes. Okay, what are we dealing with here? I saw rooms full of injured men and women. Can any of them walk?”
“I would say most of them can if there’s a promise of safety. Those mortally wounded collapsed on the road before we made it here.”
“And how many of your people are armed?”
“With ammunition? I would say perhaps three hundred. We were forced to retreat with what we had on us. Most of our ammunition is lying in a field in Winchester.”
Mass shook his head. He wanted to condemn the old man, but he had experienced his own set of failures recently. Being in charge was a thankless task, and blaming Thomas wasn’t going to help anything right now. “Okay, Thomas, you have your radio?”
“I do.”
“Then put in a call to Wanstead. Tell him we’ll be coming in from the south-east. We’re going to move wide around the city, avoiding the demons heading directly for the docks. Also, call the boats and have them clear us a path. You still have the authority to call in artillery, right?”
“Of course. I might be at death’s door, but I am still the ranking official in Portsmouth.”
“Not in my eyes you aren’t. Tell your men we’re falling out in one hour. Anyone too injured to move is going to need a pair of buddies to carry them, or they’ll have to stay here and pray there’s someone left alive after all this to rescue them.”
Smithy stepped forward. “Um, shouldn’t we just stay here? I mean, this place is a fort. Will it really be that much safer back at Portsmouth?”
“This place is a tourist attraction,” said Thomas. “The main buildings can’t be secured. There are hundreds of windows filled with nothing but air. We can’t defend this place.”
Smithy nodded. “Yeah, okay, fair enough.” He then gave an awkward salute.
Mass turned to Addy. “Put in a call to Cullen and tell him to get back to the docks. We might need help getting back inside if the demons get too thick at the walls.”
“You sure you don’t want him to join us and help us get these people back?”
“We’ll be moving a thousand people with three hundred guns between them. Cullen and a dozen Vampires won’t add much to the mix. I want them back at the docks where the real fighting is going to be.
“Understood.” Addy moved away, lifting her radio.
Mass looked back at Thomas. “One hour.”
The hour passed like seconds, and before long, a thousand men had filtered out into the courtyard, packed in almost too tightly to move. Those unable to travel had propped themselves up against the upper windows, firing at the demons that were still assaulting the fort’s west wall. The crack of nearby rifle fire was a constant noise.
“We need to move,” said Addy, “before we miss our only chance.”
Mass turned to the army assembled behind him, wondering if they would listen to him. Thomas remained quiet, clutching his wounded torso. The old
bastard was dying.
Good.
Mass addressed the army. “All right, you lot. We’ve already beaten the odds by staying alive, so there’s nothing to lose. The enemy is everywhere, but that’s a good thing. It means there’s plenty for us to kill. Every dead demon pushes things a little more in our favour. This is our chance to be heroes. Let’s fight our way back to the docks so we can get behind the walls and help our friends stay alive. They need us.”
The men didn’t cheer, but a majority of them nodded and made the right kind of noises. Mass wasn’t going to inspire them any more than that. They weren’t his people. He didn’t have their hearts and minds, only a modicum of their trust. He had to make the most of it.
“Everyone move out. Follow your sergeants, and don’t stop for anything. If we bunch together and try to form a line, we’ll get bogged down. We move, we live. Protect one another, but don’t fight for lost causes. Some of us are going to die. Now move!”
Everyone rushed for the turnstiles, which a team of men had managed to remove minutes before for easier passage through the archway. The army filtered through in pairs a half-second apart. It was going to take several minutes to get everyone through.
“This is a farce,” said Thomas, unhelpfully. “We’re sitting ducks out here. Was this your best plan?”
Mass snarled. “From what I can see, the only other exit is over there. You think that would be better?” The area Mass was talking about was at the west of the fort. A large metal gate there had burst open and demons were spilling through from an access road. The soldiers in the upper windows had concentrated their fire on the entryway, and so far they were keeping the horde at bay. Eventually, the demons would make it through though. Mass grabbed a nearby sergeant. “You! Form a rearguard with thirty men. Do it fast.”
Whoever the sergeant was, he did what he was asked, rushing to gather a group and form a rearguard. In less than a minute, thirty men were firing at the demons entering through the rear gate, helping to keep them back. It would buy them a little more time.
Hell On Earth (Book 6): Rebirth Page 24
