Judgement (The Twelve) (53 page)

The sold
i
er glanced towards him, then to his right. He didn’t need telling twice and slammed shut the hatch, just as several Shades swarmed over the turret.

Simmons slapped a sold
i
er on the head, “
Pick f
ive men
and
get them off that bloody tank.”

‘My God, it’s taking at least a dozen rounds to blow th
o
se things apart.’

A Shade came up behind him
, “
Jesus were the hell have you sprung from
!” He opened fire point blank range on full auto. Each round hit the Shade, ripping into its grey slime covered body
, z
ipped the bloody thing right up the mi
ddle, three rounds to the head, with
shots pinging off the bridge supports.

The thing exploded and he nearly jumped out of his skin as his regimental drill sergeant spoke calmly in his left ear, “Control your shots sir! You’re firing like a bloody recruit.”

A huge man, one of those damn security people appeared at his side. He held a
Manville Projectile Launch
er
, a
huge barrelled gun with a 25mm rotating drum.

He smiled at the Captain, “Fuckin Irish, a load of pussies!”

He aimed the weapon over the heads of the prone solders, “Fire in the hole!”

Each high explosive round was an invention of his own
, the
compressed explosive was five times stronger than standard C
4
, u
nlike the mini guns, which hadn’t had time to
be
bless
ed or the round to be
dip
ped
in holy water. ‘
Boom Boom
’ had taken the time to dunk each
and every round in a local abandoned church font!

‘
I may not be this Priest geezer but holy water’s holy water’
he’d thought.

The first round blew ten Shades to kingdom come as he emptied the weapon in a spreading field of fire.
Several prone solders glanced over the shoulders to see who was firing. Shades exploded along with bits of road, pavement and even an old fashioned telephone box.
His grin however faded as a hundred giant Shades lumbered into view. All appeared to be wearing metal body armour
, that looked like rusting steel plates, pop riveted to there bodies!
E
ach one carried a massive spike
d
mace.
‘Boom
’
let fly
with
a round that landed right amongst them. Several staggered but none went down. “Shit!”

One of the creatures let fly with its home made mace. Spinning through the air it blasted a furrow through the solders, killing five instantly and wounding as many more.

The sold
i
er manning the tanks interior machine gun was firing blind
a
s he had a monsters face, or what appeared to be a face, spread across the thick armour
ed glass panel above the weapon looking in at him.

He shouted to his boss,
“Lieutenant Winters Sir can’t see for shit!”

“Damn it
,
cease fire.”

The main gunner managed to get a brief view of the scene before him and saw the giants lumbering across the street, seventy feet away.

“Target acquired!”  He shouted

Winters thrust his head down, “What target?”

“Fuckin big ones …sir!”

Winters swore under his breath,
checked himself and made a command decision,
“ HE up and fire!”

“Away!”
the gunner bellowed.

The tank recoiled as the high explosive round covered the distance in the blink of an eye. He scored lucky, the round hi
t
one of the monsters in the head and blew it off. The thing fell apart in a shower of sparks and ash. The steel plating fell with several clangs to the ground.

Simmons was fighting for his life, several Shades had jumped over the tank and where coming for him and the few men he held in reserve, all were firing on full auto but they still came on. ‘
Boom Boom
’ glanced to his left and quickly spoke into his concealed throat mike, “One shot!”

‘
Boom Boom’
pointed a finger towards the approaching Shades.  Harrison raised a thumb then stabbed it downwards.

‘
Boom Boom
,
’
 
“Shouted
in his best drill sergeant voice
, “Captain
Sir,
incoming
! H
it the deck
now
!”

Simmons was to good a sold
i
er to hesitate, “Down flat!” He bellowed at the men around him. All obeyed without thinking, which was just as well, for  Harrison swivelled the mini gun sideways and opened fire. Even though not blessed, the lethal discharge of hundreds of rounds per second at close quarters turned the Shades to pulp, then ash. Harrison gave the tank a quick spray before turning away with a quick wave towards ‘
Boom Boom’.

For those inside the tank, it sounded like giant hail stones were pummelling them senseless.
The gunner had both ears covered, “Bloody hell fire.”

Winters knew
they’d just been cleansed with machine gun fire
, “That’s exactly right Jimmy. Gunners find a target!”

The machine gunner had a clear field of fire and opened up on those grey monsters.
Jesus look at those big buggers.

The main tank gunner loaded another HE round  and not only blew one of the giants to ash but the round took out the entire left side of another that tried to carry on walking!

“Jimmy you see that?” he called

Jimmy had and finished the creature off with a .50 round burst that
first
blew its other leg off,
followed by
an
arm
and
finally the head which finished it off. He grinned
. It
reminded him of the famous black knig
ht scene in a Monty Python film when one by one the knights limbs were cut off. Finally just its head and shoulders remained as it shouted,
‘Tis nothing but a flesh wound
.’

“Flesh wound that, you sod!”

The Shades had been halved in number but still they came on. Any second and it would be hand to hand combat.

Simmons could think of but one order and it certainly wasn’t going to be retreat, “Fix bayonets!”

The mini guns had ceased firing. They
’d
overheated and needed time to cool down. Harrison wasn’t going to wait instead he climbed up on top of his
vehicle
with his second favourite weapon, a grenade launcher. A giant
Shades
mace fl
e
w through the air, hit the back of Harrison’s Range Rover, ripped off the door, smashed
the
mini gun to pulp along with a security agent, ricocheted upwards and sent Harrison flying backwards together with a section of the roof.

Twenty Four

B
ack in the sewer,
Chris followed Anvil along the narrow ledge as the sewer grew narrower. The others followed behind him, silent and deadly.
Anvil stopped next to a wide rusty iron ladder leading upwards to a ledge some fifteen feet above
. He gently tapped the ladder, it sounded solid enough, Looking down he saw a fresh pile of rust on the concrete floor.

Huntress stepped up, bent down and fingered the rust, “Someone’s climbed this ladder not to long ago.”

Bulls Eye and Heartless looked upwards, “
I w
onder what’s up there
besides that street grid?
” Heartless asked.

Slash gripped the ladder with his
one good hand
, “Only one way to find out.”

“Bugger I hate climbing!” Priest muttered.

Patch giggled, “Isn’t buggering a no
,
no
,
Priest?”

He turned bright red, “Right you are. Score one point to you.”

Anvil tapped Slash on the shoulder and pointed upwards, “Wait on the ledge above.”

Slash climbed first, followed by Bulls Eye and Heartless.

Heartless whispered down that it was all clear but not much space for any more. He explained that there was a walkway
running
along a narrow tunnel with
a
low
head space, “The good news is I don’t think it’s a sewer. The bad news is I can’t see how far it goes.” He glanced up at the sewer grate above his head, “Do we go up?”

Chris climbed the ladder to check, he hung there staring into the brick walled tunnel for some time. Finally he called out to everyone, “
This leads to the graveyard
but it’s going to
be about
a
half mile
walk m
with branches running off every now and again that will lead to other sewers.
”

Priest had heard of this tunnel, “
We need to stay
o
n the
main
walkthrough as it used to be called in Vict
orian times.”

Climbing back down,
Chris
whispered to Anvil, “Actually It’s
at least
eight miles of twists and turns. Some parts have heavy concentrations of Methane gas. I need to take everyone into the In-B
etween place to get us through and that will include Jennings and his men.”

Anvil glanced upwards, before looking back along the tunnel to Jennings and his people. “You can take them all?” He asked
.

Chris nodded, turning he called to Jennings, “
I haven’t time to explain. I’m just going to make the trip seem…quicker and quieter.
You
will
experience a change in the colour around you. Everything will appear in black and white and you will experience a feeling of moving very fast whilst you’re walking normally. Just try and relax.”

Jennings
called back, “Care to explain that?”

Chris answered, “I haven’t got time just trust me. It won
’
t hurt you.”

Judgment guided
Chris
who
concentrated and Anvil felt Chris envelope everyone in some sort of invisible blanket. Then with a slight pop he found himself in the familiar In-Between place.  He was
really
impressed,
normal humans shouldn’t be able to move into the In Between.
Chris was fast becoming the master here.

Without a word, for Chris needed to concentrate, he set off with the others following behind.  It only seemed like a few minutes had passed when Chris called for a halt. In reality Anvil knew it would have taken them hours in normal time to get here.
If in fact they ever did, for he sensed them passing through at least three small deadly methane pockets and realised Chris had actually trapped clean air in with them as they moved.

Chris stood upright in a much
larger open
chamber,
with dozens of very small pipes running off in different directions. An old mattress lay in the corner with a wooden crate next to it. Several old burnt down candles lay on the crate together with an old comic book and a very mouldy half eaten sandwich.

Bulls Eye looked around the cramped area, “Nice place to live.” He smirked.

Chris smiled faintly, “I thought so.”

Patch caught her gasp just in time, “You lived down here!”

Chris nodded, “Before cardboard city I tried several places out. This was just one of them. I thought I recognised the tunnel.
Could only go
along it a short distance though
, the gas got pretty awful and the air got very bad but I
somehow
sort of recognised the
tunnel even from the opposite end.
I think I can thank Judgement for that.
”

Huntress called from back in the narrow tunnel, “Don’t want to hurry you up but
my
back
is
killing
me
back here!”

Chris pointed to a
ladder set in the far wall, “That way leads up and out into a crypt. The place was covered over but was unearthed when the council started to
flatten
the
land at this end. They didn’t know about the crypt, it shouldn’t really be here.
As my father explained, the p
eople found out the lands true origin and blocked the council building on it. I foun
d my way down into the tunnels, via the collapsed earth around the remains of the crypt.
It was my home until the council
security guards
found me
. They gave me a beating
and threw me out.
They use the land as a council
storage area
for bio waste and
a few
out of service buses, street repair and maintenance vehicles
.
”

Jennings glanced back at the faces of some of his startled men and women,
‘
Did he say a bloody crypt?’

But before he could ask, Chris was leading the way up
. ‘His people didn’t even look surprised when he said crypt for Gods sake!’

Chris was true to his word and led them
into a musty dry crypt which had several mattresses and camp cots placed around an old paraffin heater. Old clothing, some covered in mould spores lay littered around the floor.  Weirdly enough a large antique looking free standing mirror, stood off in one corner next to a proper oak framed bed.

Anvil was instantly on his guard, “We’ve come up right inside The Darks home. Trust them to use an old crypt.”

Priest touched one cold moss covered block stone wall and hastily withdrew it, “Not sanctified or blessed. Whoever built this did so without the blessing of the church or God.”

Heartless looked around, “Some dead whores wealthy sugar daddy maybe?”

Bulls Eye had both weapons out and ready, “Lucky no ones at home.”

Priest pointed out the mirror that Patch was admiring herself in, “I think that belongs to Coffee, as does the bed.”

Patch drew her sword and raised it to smash the glass. Speed tut tutted, “Seven years bad luck.”

Anvil looked to Chris, “Best check out the area so we can prepare an ambush.”

Chris nodded, “This way is out, be prepared.”

‘Out’,
led
them
into a
fairly
large
undulating bulldozed area. It was raining heavily as they checked out surrounding hillocks of different sizes and shapes, all made from rubble clay and rain soaked earth covered in weeds and the occasional bush or shrub. Ditches ran here and there
all
filled with rain
water. Old council vehicles lay dotted around the area, abandoned in small bulldozed flat areas with a winding pathway that led to a
steel mesh fence
and a big rusty Iron gate covered in different coloured bunting, all faded with age as well as
ivy, ribbons, flowers, feathers, jewellery and other curious totems
.

Priest instantly knew where he was, “The place where the outcast dead
rest, or at least there spirits,
poor souls.”

Jennings was a Lond
o
ner
but still was none the wiser
. Priest crossed himself as he climbed out into
the blood red light
and explained to Jennings and his people
. “
T
his is the Cross Bones Graveyard. It was called something different
way back when
. They used to bury the plague victims here, along with dead whores. I think this was the resting place for over fifteen thousand souls.”

One of Jennings people, Jenny White a black girl from Newcastle and an ex corporal from the military police spat to one side, the rain running down her face from her close cropped black hair cut. “This don’t look like no graveyard to me, me respect going on here man.”

Priest nodded, “The church owned this land for centuries, hid the fact they allowed whores and plague victims to be buried here. Sold it off to the council but people found out, couldn’t build on the land. I think those ditches were dug by archaeologists who excavated some remains to examine those that died from the plague.
Land still hasn’t been blessed damn them. Council use it for storage.”

Jennings pointed to the
double
Iron
entrance
gate
s
,
festooned with flowers and faded coloured ribbons,
as h
e ordered his
men
to fan
out, weapons at the ready, “And that?”

Priest
looked, “Oh
that’s the work of
the locals
. Every year they leave a
memorial to the dead
on the gates.
”

Heartless
had reached into a sheath hanging down his back and withdrew a wicked looking curved blade attachment.  He fastened it into a slot running along the
in
side of his metal hand, “Good place for an ambush.”

Anvil pointed left and right and without being told what to do, Heartless went right up a slight muddy incline and around a twenty foot mound of rubbish. Slash moved left jumping a ditch, he slipped in the mud, cursing as he fell to one knee but recovered well and moved on towards an old council van lying on its side. Huntress started to climb the nearest hillock just off to her left and twenty feet ahead of her. She needn’t the high ground. A few bushes growing on the top would make for some form of cover.

Anvil was
still
looking around, something didn’t feel right. He looked
at
two old double Decker
buses parked
at an angle, nose to tail, on either side of
the dirt track about a hundred feet ahead of them.
Even at
that distance
he could see that the windows were blacked out. Who would black out
the
windows
on old buses
?
A good place for an ambush!

“I think….”