The Fly-By-Nights (24 page)

“When my ammo is done so am I, I guess. But until then I’ll go out fighting.” And to his boss: “Garth, where should I aim?”

“Aim at their heads,” Garth answered gratefully. “At their burning eyes. But before you start—” (he had heard the metallic
ch-ching
as Billy released the safety lever and knew that he was about to hurl the first of his grenades) “—just wait until the smoke clears!”

“Fire in the hole!” yelled Billy, as his throwing arm swung forward and he released his deadly egg. And his timing was near perfect. The head of the snaking fly-by-night column had advanced off the bridge onto the access road where it was now little more than one hundred feet away. And far more than the phosphorescent corruption of their eyes, the individual creatures themselves were now plainly visible.

They came like a wall of mist: drifting, swirling, reaching with hands and taloned fingers on incredibly long spindly arms. Solid in their weird, insubstantial way—yet seeming at times to merge with each other, only to separate again like grotesque manlike amoebas—they didn’t appear to have seen Garth and his team behind the tumbled, creeper-clad wall of a centuried brick dwelling; nor did they take note of the metal missile that fell among their forward ranks…until a moment later.

Behind the wall Garth and his people had ducked their heads as shrapnel flew overhead and the blast reverberated across the valley and back. In that position they didn’t see the brilliant flash of light, feel its heat or suffer its disruptive power—but the leading ranks of fly-by-nights had seen, felt and suffered all of that! Filth rained from above as Garth and the others lifted their heads. Out on the overgrown access road, shattered fly-by-nights—
pieces
of pulpy bodies: limbs, heads, and less easily identifiable portions—were still flying in every direction. But the head of the snake had been split in two, and the advance of the creatures had slowed down as they turned aside, spreading out to north and south along the riverbank.

All
well and good!
thought Garth. Except now the misshapen, long-jawed heads of the corpse-like things were uniformly turning, their ravaged nostrils sniffing, and burning eyes staring in one direction: toward the ruins, where Garth and the others were repositioning, spacing themselves out behind the old wall. For over and above the acrid pulp-and-cordite stench of chemical fire and shredded undead plasm, the vampires could now
smell
their prey and knew where they lay in ambush…knew also that
this
prey, this small group of human beings—this food for the
in
human things they had become—would fight back!

There were almost two hundred of the monsters, though their numbers were hard to gauge with any accuracy; of which the last two dozen or so were only now filtering to left and right, away from the access road and along the ruins of the road that paralleled the river. But to both north and south the furthest creatures were already moving forward off the road into the cover of the denser shrubbery and scrub; and by doing so—whether deliberately or unintentionally, unconsciously—they were quickly fashioning themselves into a pincer formation.

Seeing what was happening, Garth called out, “Billy, Eric—save your grenades for later, when the fly-by-nights come at us from the sides. And Gavin: you can start firing just as soon as you like, at
any
of these monsters that come at us head on; the same goes for all three of you. Just tell yourselves this: that while we daren’t let them get too close, the closer they are the easier targets they’ll make…and in any case make every shot count!”

But already Garth knew that this attack was very different. For where was the deranged frenzy of berserk bloodlust that had featured in every previous confrontation in which he’d been involved? Where the lunatic savagery that was the very definition of fly-by-night “tactics?”

Garth could see that the vampires directly in front, where they had come together to close the gap blown in their ranks by Billy Martin’s grenade, were now advancing with what could only be described as stealth—which was something that was more or less unheard of!

Oh, their eyes dripped sulphur as before, and their too-long arms reached out in front just as horribly; but their movements were cautious and even sly. Because now they hunted with malice aforethought: a previously unimaginable,
conscious
and
intelligent
fly-by-night activity!

No mere accidental or coincidental confrontation this, but an ambush laid with a skill foreign to the usual vampire vacuity, though perhaps not
entirely
unheard of. No, for the exception that proves the rule had established itself long ago in the shape of a certain Jack Foster: a scav taken by fly-by-nights, changed, elevated, and finally returned…as the leader of a swarm, a small army of the undead!

With which thought, as suddenly and surely as he recognized this
second
exception for what it was—that the so-called “rule” was once again being proved or broken—Garth also accepted that for the moment there was nothing he could do about it. No, for in order to do anything he must first survive!

The dust and loathsome debris thrown up by Billy’s grenade had settled; its yellow smoke had drifted away, taking some of the stench with it. And now while Garth searched in vain for a way around his team’s deadly predicament—some manoeuvre that would allow them to back off while yet holding the vampires at bay—his three had commenced picking off the central mass of oncoming fly-by-nights shot by shot, head by exploding head.

But while there was no obvious alternative to the measures that Garth and his men were taking, still his brain was feverishly active as he quit looking for nonexistent solutions and wondered instead what was happening back there in the camp under the great trees only two hundred yards away.

There had been no whistled warnings from his team—which in any case would have been superfluous—but the blast of the grenade going off, and now the sharp, rapid-fire
crack! crack!
of gunshots would certainly have got everyone up on their feet, preparing for an attack; and it was more than likely that reinforcements were on their way right now, coming at the run or as quickly as possible through scrub and underbrush, hearts racing and weapons at the ready. Garth was sure it must be so, but…would they get here in time? And even if they did would it make any difference against this horde?

The fly-by-night pincer was steadily closing in from north and south, and while Garth and Gavin Carter carried on pumping off shots into the advancing main body—now dangerously close—Billy Martin and Eric Davis were arming and steadily hurling their pitifully few grenades at the vampires that came creeping in from the sides. Their explosions split the night, until finally:

“All done with the grenades!” Billy’s voice called hoarsely from where he crouched at the northern end of the old wall. And following one final flash of light and deafening blast from the south:

“Me too!” Eric’s wavering cry rang out.

“Get over here!” Garth called in the momentary silence. “To me, where we can form up back to back. We’ll keep on firing until these devils are coming over the wall, and only then make a run for it—”

“—
If
we have to!” Billy’s yell cut him off, as he and the others closed with Garth. For now they could hear shouting from the direction of the encampment, and the weak beams of electric torches were cutting individual swathes through the smoky darkness, directed by a dozen or more desperate human figures where they came crashing through the scrub heedless of life and limb.

The vampires had also heard the rallying, querying cries of the reinforcements; and now, having come almost within reach of the wall, their advance had slowed to a virtual standstill. But it wasn’t just the headlong approach of the men from the camp that was giving them pause; it was the brilliance of
other
lights, three sets of paired headlight beams, that came searching from the north and along the river road: the blinding headlights and the men on foot—Garth’s other team from their vantage point at the northern bridge—half-running, half-riding, even seeming to fly, where they clung to the sides of the thundering mystery vehicles!

But…flashing lights and thundering engines? Garth’s mind whirled in circles! What was it Bert Jordan had reported seeing and even hearing: lightning,
or
lights,
over the great forest’s northern canopy, and
thunder
from that same direction?

No, not at all! Thunder and lightning? Never! Garth laughed out loud; he shook a fist at the night and shouted at his three where they clustered close to him, bewildered but still breathing, still alive: “Why did you stop firing?” he yelled. “They’re not through yet, these damned things—but neither are we—so give ’em all you’ve got!”

Mechanical thunder and jouncing lights, yes, as these magical, wonderful vehicles came lurching over broken concrete and scattered, fragmented tarmac; bursting through uprooted shrubs and wrenched-aside saplings. And now the breathless men of the clan forming up to left and right, with Garth and his three in the middle of a semicircle, and every man of them blazing away at the fly-by-night horde.

And the vampires themselves, blinking their yellow, phosphorescent eyes—blinded and lost in the glaring headlight beams—crumpling like so many rotten mushrooms under a sleeting rain of lead…and worse yet coming their way.

But Garth couldn’t feel sorry for them—not even an ounce of pity—as the three squat kindred vehicles halted in a line abreast and opened up with fifty-foot lances of flame from nozzles in their caged-in prows. Like chemical scythes, these spurting, shimmering jets of incendiary heat were a translucent blue in their outer shells and a searing white in their molten cores. Gnawing into and through everything they touched, these roaring tongues of fire left nothing but red-glowing ashes and slumping piles of cinders in their wake. And the monstrous vampire horde simply melted away under their furious heat and light.

Some few dozens of the swarm fled back the way they’d come, along the access road and out across the half-submerged bridge; but a majority wafted wraith-like along the river road, followed closely by three merciless vehicles that burned their flamethrower fuel till nothing was left, then opened up with automatic gunfire. But in a while even that ceased, leaving the night full of smoke and stench and disbelieving, occasionally stumbling clansmen.

Then in the astonished silence—as the rumble of kindred vehicles died a little, fading with distance where they continued to pursue the fly-by-nights—suddenly men were embracing; but as much for physical support, to keep each other from falling, as in celebration of a victory!

And just when Garth felt his shoulders starting to slump a very little, as he was beginning to surrender to mental fatigue and physical weariness both, then out of nowhere—

—Someone sniggered?

But someone…or some
thing
?

For this sinister “sound” was by no means real or physical; Garth had experienced or “heard” such before and knew it hadn’t reached him through his ears only through his mind! And:

Ahhhh, ’prentissss!
That sibilant voice “sounded” yet again in his head, audible to him alone.
Lured you away, have they—know-it-all ‘pup’
that you are? But did you and all
those other clan bastards think to get the best of Ned
Singer? Well, who’ll get
the
best now, eh, ’prentissss?
Ned, that’s who!
Perhaps not the best of you—but the best of your old cripple of a father, aye—and for sure the best, and the juiciest, of Layla Morgan!

Garth reeled, staggered like a drunkard, as from the encampment in the forest the first hoarse shouts sounded, the terrified screaming, and the half-hearted (or so it sounded to Garth) sporadic crackle of gunfire. But of course it was sporadic—he told himself, as his legs unfroze, beginning to propel him back through the trampled shrubbery toward the dark blot of the forest’s fringe—because the majority of clan ammunition was all but used up! And:

“Layla!” Garth gasped, his heart, lungs and legs beginning to pound. “Layla! Father!”

Layla—yessss!
sang that awful, hateful voice in his mind.
And Zach yessss! Ha-ha-haaa!

Not knowing what was happening—only now beginning to react to the cries from the camp—the other clansmen at the road junction had been left behind as Garth, now totally galvanized, hurled himself through the night. He forced his body on, faster and faster, yet felt that he moved in slow-motion! It seemed to him that gravity had failed, as if he drifted through the darkness as insubstantial as a leaf, with each frantic leap lasting twice as long as the last one before bringing him down again on slippery creepers and humped roots!

And now from the encampment—staggering and almost falling, fleeing on rubbery, spastic legs from the wraith-like thing that wafted close behind, its elastic arms outstretched and reaching—came someone whose voice Garth knew at once despite its whimpering tone.
“Help!
” the scar-faced Arthur Robeson cried, thrusting his flapping arms out before him, and clutching at thin air in a manner that might seem in certain ways similar to the creature with burning eyes that came floating after him, but which was entirely different. “Somebody,
anybody,
please help me!… The fly-by-nights, coming down out of the trees!… They were hiding in the high canopy, and now…now they’re in the camp!…
For
God’s sake, can’t someone help me!?”

But too late! Robeson’s pursuer was upon him!

At the last moment the terrified man had half-turned, tripped, toppled over backwards as the monster leapt on him, straddled him, opened its jaws impossibly wide…then clamped down and covered his screams and entire face with them! There followed a terrible wrenching, a leathery tearing, before the vampire sat back, its scarlet mouth full of flesh and blood; at which a veritable
fountain
of blood erupted, hurled aloft on Robeson’s bubbling, gurgling shrieks!

Garth choked back his horror. But even desperately afraid—for himself certainly, but mainly for Layla and his father—he had not been so wildly panicked as to fling himself through the underbrush and the night without instinctively lighting the way ahead with the torch taped to the barrel of his rifle. And now, as his forward rush continued unabated, that weak beam of light showed him the final awful details as the horror seated astride Robeson’s jerking, vibrating body opened wide its bloodied jaws a second time, dipped its head and tore the man’s throat out!