Vampire Apocalypse: Fallout (Book 3) (35 page)

“I’ve found…”

He grabbed her firmly and forced
her to look into his eyes. “We have to go now!” he shouted each
word slowly so she would hear him clearly.

“No!” she screamed into his
face, “I have to find Mark…”

“Do you want to die here?” His
eyes burned with an intensity she hadn’t seen before and she
stopped struggling as his words began to filter through her crazed
mind.

“But…”

“I will find him and bring him
to you,” Josh continued, “but not now. Now we have these two to get
to safety before it’s too late.”

Tanya heard his words but the
image of Mark as an eight year old was burned in her mind and she
couldn’t leave him to the vampires.

“I give you my word, Tanya,”
Josh insisted. “But you have to come now. Can’t you see what’s
happening out there?”

He forced her to look through
the prison walls, and she was shocked to see the number of bodies
that littered the clearing.

So many.

She saw the vampires gleefully
swoop again and again into the fleeing humans, tearing and ripping
in a frenzy of violence and lust.
Oh my God.

“We have to go,” Josh insisted
again and then pulled her firmly as he pushed his way toward the
gate. Every instinct screamed at her to pull away and keep looking
for her son, but the shock of so many bodies had knocked some sense
into her and she knew that she had to save Emily for now.

I’ll come back for you, Mark.
I promise.
She didn’t speak the words but she hoped that her
thoughts would somehow cross the distance to wherever her son was
and give him some comfort. She would be back. If she had to walk
through hell to get here, she would be back. She would never rest
until she had her family back. She gripped her daughter’s hand in
hers and rejoiced on one level that she had found her. But her
thoughts were with her young son, and always would be until she
held him once again.

Josh finally pushed his way out
past the gate and into the clearing with a huge sigh of relief. And
then he remembered the vampires and he considered going back in and
hiding among the serum junkies.
Jesus, what am I doing?
He
scanned the sky. The clouds were still too heavy for the sun to
burn through and the vampires were revelling in their carnage. In
fact, the only thing that was in their favour was that the vampires
were lost to their lusts. They attacked their prey with no
conscious thought. They flew high in the sky and then dropped with
shouts of joy into the mass of fleeing humans.

He turned to Tanya and grabbed
her shoulders and forced her to look into his eyes. “Are you with
me?” She nodded but he held her firmly. “Tanya, are you with me?”
She nodded again, more slowly this time, and Harris could see that
the wildness had gone from her eyes. “Stay with me. I can’t come
back for you again, Tanya. This is our only chance. Okay?”

“I’m okay,” she whispered and he
could see the truth in her eyes. She was devastated in not finding
her son, he could tell but she was in control again. He nodded and
abruptly turned, picked the boy up into his arms and began to lope
toward their escape route. Most of the other humans had already
made it to the rubble that surrounded the huge clearing and the
space they stood in now was relatively empty. While this let them
make good time, it also made them stand out quite a lot as they
were heading in the opposite direction than everyone else. Would
they be seen…?

He heard a screech that sounded
far too close and he dived to the ground on instinct, twisting as
he fell to protect the boy. He landed hard but ignored the pain as
he felt, rather than saw, the vampire flash past where he had stood
a moment before. He rolled, letting go of the boy as he came to his
feet.

The vampire shrieked his anger
as he soared back into the sky before pivoting slowly and beginning
his approach again toward him. The vampires were fast as lightning
on the ground, but in the air, they still had to obey basic
physics. They could only drop as fast as their weight allowed so
Harris waited as the creature drew closer.

He could see the wildness in the
creature’s eyes as it drew closer, and, just before it tore into
him, he moved. The vampire shrieked in frustration and Harris
pushed Tanya and the others ahead of him. “Go!” he shouted. “Get
them to safety.” Tanya hesitated for a moment but then nodded and
grabbed Emily and the boy and began to run.

The vampire wasn’t so far gone
that he didn’t realise that he would not catch his prey from the
air. He flowed gracefully back to the ground and Harris watched in
amazement as the creature morphed. Wings folded neatly behind him,
arms seemed to shimmer and grow from the stumps of its wings.
Muscles and bone cracked and broke as the creature regained its
human form, and then, in a blur, it was suddenly beside him and
smiling wickedly at him.

Harris felt himself flying
through the air and, by the time he hit the ground, the vampire was
there again, laughing at him. It picked him up again and threw him
further back the way he had come. He hit the gate of the prison he
had exited only a few minutes ago. Serum-controlled humans still
wandered aimlessly around him, seemingly oblivious to what was
happening. He rolled away from the gate and cried out as a shard of
wood cut deeply into his back.

The vampire strode toward him,
laughing. On one level his mind thought about why the creature
would play with him like this. Had it never seen a movie? The hero
always won. He laughed as he struggled to rise and then collapsed
again as the pain sapped at his strength. The creature loomed above
him and Harris had just a moment to see Tanya and the children
disappear over the rubble mountain in the distance.
At least
they made it
, he thought. He felt the vampire grab him but his
mind still worked furiously. There was something about the fact
that he could see Tanya at all but …pain suddenly exploded in his
back as the shard tore from the gate was driven deeper into his
flesh.

He struggled to hold onto
consciousness as the waves of pain washed over him, but agony gave
him something to focus on and he grabbed at it in desperation.
Something was niggling at his mind, something important, but the
pain was just too much to concentrate…

Then, suddenly, his mind
cleared.
The light. Shit, if I can see Tanya…
the clouds
above began to break apart and the sun’s light filtered through
like small lasers, stabbing down and illuminating the carnage
around them. The vampire hesitated for a moment as he saw the light
and Harris groped at the shard in his back. He missed it the first
time as his hands slipped on the blood-soaked wood, but he kept
trying. Finally, he managed to get a grip on the sliver and he
screamed as he tore the wood from his body. He almost lost
consciousness but somehow managed to hold on. The vampire returned
his attention back towards him and its mouth seemed to grow huge as
it prepared to tear into his throat.

Harris screamed as he drove the
wood into the vampire and felt himself falling. The vampire laughed
as it looked down at the shard. It had dropped him more from
surprise than injury and it plucked the small shaft from its
stomach and grinned.

“Did you really think…” it
began, but then the clouds above suddenly broke apart and light
washed over them. It was weak and there was no heat in the pale
sun, but the effect was instantaneous to the vampire. It shrieked
and launched itself into the air, changing as it leapt. Flesh began
to burn as it flew; boils appeared and burst, only to appear again.
The vampire shrieked in pain but it soon flew into an area where
the sunlight had not yet reached and it began to heal almost
immediately. Harris struggled to his feet and looked up at the sky.
Clouds roiled above him like agitated water. There was still no
certainty whether the clouds would work for or against him.

He had a reprieve; that was all.
He began to run as fast as his wound would allow him, but the
vampire dogged his every move. He remained within the light but his
route would take him back into a large area of cloud cover soon and
the vampire would have him then. He stumbled and fell into the snow
and the sudden cold on his wound made him cry out. He pulled
himself to his feet and felt the colder air as he passed from the
pale light into the cooler shadow. There was still enough light
around him to keep the vampire away, but only just, and the rubble
in the distance was like a dark mountain in the gloom ahead of
him.

There was no way he could make
it. The vampire shrieked again, and he was about to curse it for
its taunting when he realised that it sounded in pain.
Was the
sun burning it again?
He looked up and stopped in shock.
Another vampire was attacking the first. He watched in fascination
as the second vampire repeatedly attacked the first with a
sharpened pole. The vampire who had stalked him turned in the air
to defend itself but the second vampire had the advantage and it
pressed it home relentlessly. It didn’t take long before the
vampire fell from the sky and landed in a heap on the ground.

Harris watched in awe as the
second vampire landed close by and then slowly approached the
injured vampire. It looked over at Harris but ignored him. Instead,
it walked over to the wounded vampire, raised the pole and drove it
firmly down into the creature’s heart.

What the hell is going
on?
Harris thought as he watched the victorious vampire. For a
moment it seemed to consider coming after him but then the sun
broke through again and the moment was gone. The vampire launched
itself into the air and disappeared into the darkness.

Harris looked at the dead
vampire in confusion. A war between the vampires was just what they
needed to take the heat off them. He began to stumble toward the
rubble again while his mind churned with the implications of this
development. He had no idea what was going on, but anything that
distracted the vampires was good news for them.

He looked back toward the pens
that were still filled with drugged humans and took note of the
many bodies that littered the snow-covered ground. Each body was
surrounded by a vibrant splash of red that was impossible to miss,
even in the dull light. They would return here, he vowed, and when
they did it would be the vampires they would leave helpless and
bleeding.

Chapter 22

“An explosion?” Carter glared at
the thrall with a scowl that had the soldier shaking. “But that’s
impossible. Von Kruger wouldn’t…Shit. It hadn’t been the vampire at
all; it had been the humans who had attacked the convoy.” The
sudden realisation struck him like a slap and his mind struggled to
consider the implications.

Fucking humans,
he raged.
Everywhere I turn those damned bastards are there before me.
He forced himself to calm down as he dismissed the hapless
messenger who bolted gratefully for the door. Okay, he calmed as he
thought through the situation. If the vampires weren’t involved,
then it was probably safe to assume that there would be no attack
after dark. That was a relief. The waste spill was still a major
issue, but at least he didn’t have to worry about the fucking
vampires, as well.

The pilot had reported that the
explosion had ripped the waste container to pieces so it was safe
to assume that the radiation was already airborne. It had begun to
rain heavily over an hour ago but there was a strong westerly wind
to consider as well. That would carry the cloud right over them. He
just didn’t know how far the waste could spread in such weather.
Was he already dying of radiation or would the rain keep it
localised around the crash? He just didn’t know. He put the
thoughts of radiation out of his mind for now. He could address
that problem only when he had enough information. For now he had to
deal with the humans.

The helicopter was being
refuelled so he would leave on it as soon as it was safe to fly in
this storm. He had to get away from here as soon as he could. He
would, of course, leave his guards here. He could always replace
them, but the plant was critical to his power base so he had to
keep it protected. The humans would be long gone as well, so it
looked like it had been a wasted trip after all. He really had to
find the humans, though.

He would devote all his
resources when he returned. They were proving far too resilient and
troublesome. The thoughts of radiation poisoning again came into
his thoughts and he shuddered at the scenes he had seen in movies
of the damage it could do. He shivered as he imagined the invisible
death that could already be all around him. He called for the pilot
and the thrall rushed back into his quarters. He would have to
leave here right now, even if it meant taking some risk in the
storm.

Peter Harris strained his eyes
as he peered through the sheets of rain at the nuclear plant in the
fading glow of the afternoon sun. It had taken them longer than he
had hoped to get here, carrying Atkins under the deluge of rain
that had started some time ago. It was late afternoon and the sun
was already beginning to sink back toward the horizon. He scanned
the plant with his binoculars and cursed.

“There’s more than before,” he
said and offered the binoculars to Warkowski. The helicopter
squatted in the centre of the parking lot and he could see a thrall
lifting a heavy barrel from the fuel depot toward the aircraft.
That would have taken three men to lift,
he thought as he
marvelled at the thrall’s strength. He continued to scan the plant
as he desperately tried to think of a plan that might have some
chance of success.

“Okay,” he turned to the other
three, “Philip,” he nodded toward Warkowski, “I need you to take up
position so that you can clear a path for us.” Warkowski was about
to argue when a deep rumble of thunder drowned him out. “I need
your eyes and your skill, Philip,” Harris insisted and the big man
merely nodded. “Hopefully the storm will drown out the sound of the
gunshots and we might just make it in without being discovered.