Vigil (15 page)

Chapter Thirty-Four

Kappa put his rifle to his shoulder and took aim as the first vampire came through. His shot took the vampire in the shoulder. The vampire merely shrugged and shouldered its own weapon. It took its time aiming. The creature took another slug in the leg, and then Samson’s silver-tipped bullet removed its head.

             
Then the vampires flooded through the entrance. Bullets flew everywhere. They pinged off the steel corridors and ricocheted down the long hallway. Kappa’s team had had long years of practise with their weapons, but the vampires were working in unison now. Kappa’s team had little experience facing determined well-schooled vampires with weapons.

             
Suddenly, the game had changed. Kappa's team were hunters. Now the game was war.

             
Kappa had lived a long time, though. He knew how to adapt.

             
He took his shots carefully. He aimed for the head. Most he hit. The ones he missed took up defensive positions and pushed forward, holding the entrance.

             
‘Grenade!’ called Samson. He threw long, the metal explosive tinkling against the steel floor as it rolled toward the forerunners of the vampire force. The explosion burned them and blinded them for a moment. Kappa motioned his men forward and they stepped up to their barricade.

             
For a few moments they had a free field of fire. The vampires did not return their fire. At least six were down, but two of them had only lost legs. They would be up again, and soon.

             
Then a team of vampires wearing flak vests and helmets stormed through the entrance. One of them carried a rocket launcher. He took a knee and prepared to fire. Kappa shot him in the head and he fell back, launching the missile into the roof.

             
The explosion was deafening, far louder than even the boom of the grenade. Shrapnel from the missile and flame rained down through the corridor. A shard tore through the man next to Kappa. The man dropped dead, a smoldering hole in his forehead.

             
Kappa’s eardrums were broken. He could no longer hear his team through the earphones.

             
He wiped his eyes, which were watering from the smoke, and laid down covering fire. Through the smoke he could just make out more vampires coming in through the haze.

             
His team opened fire with everything they had, but the vampires gained the first corridor. Now they had cover of their own. From round the corner they fired a barrage at Kappa and his team.

             
Another man went down, blood pumping from a wound in his neck. Kappa tried to take the man's arm and pull him clear of the battle, but a bullet broke Kappa's elbow. His arm flopped stupidly, but there was no pain, yet. The adrenaline was taking care of that.

             
‘Fall back!’ he shouted, his voice strange and muffled as he could only hear the vibrations. His team heard him and they armed the claymores at their feet, then ran around the corridor to the elevator. The elevator could be shut down from below, but they wanted to buy more time. Jean had told him they had a chance, and to buy as much time as he could. He knew his team would not make it. They all did. But at least now they had hope that the vampire’s attack would be in vain.

             
They all knew the stakes.

             
They ran around the corner and took up positions behind the second barricade. A vampire peered round the corner. Kappa took its head off with a single shot, holding his rifle in his good hand, his left arm a useless lump.

             
Then there was another explosion from down the corridor. Pieces of vampire soldiers splattered against the steel wall.

             
Kappa held up his hand for them to wait. His men held their fire. They didn’t want to waste ammunition. Kappa knew they would be dead before they ran out of ammunition. His men knew, too, but Kappa wouldn’t insult them by saying it out loud. They all chose to be on security detail. They all knew it could come to this. But then didn’t everybody living after the fall? Humans were all living on borrowed time.

             
A second claymore exploded, firing ball bearings into the unprotected legs of the vampire kin, cutting them down.              

             
But it wouldn't be enough to stop them.

             
Kappa grinned, nonetheless. Half blind from smoke and completely deaf, he grinned wide and opened fire yet again when the next vampire soldiers charged down the steel corridors.

*

Chapter Thirty-Five

A vampire walked up to one of Kappa's team and pulled him to his feet. Blood pumped from a wound in his neck.

             
Kappa had thought him dead.

             
The vampire could smell the fresh blood. It was infuriating, but he was not wounded. He longed to feed, but if the commander found out he had fed and let one of his men die he would tear his head from his shoulders.

             
He pulled the bleeding soldier along the bloody floor and laid him in front of one of his men with a leg missing, the nub already growing back.

             
His man fed until the life blood stopped flowing and the quick beating heart stilled.

             
The leg grew back. He stood on it and nodded to his captain.

             
Then the captain motioned the man forward. The vampire, his leg stripped of soldier's fatigues, the skin puckered, still, and almost alabaster it was so white, picked up his dropped weapon and moved on, limping, but only because his boot had been blown to pieces with his leg.

*

Chapter Thirty-Six

Kappa’s men made a good account of themselves. They fought all the way back to the stairwell. He hadn’t been sure they would make it. The vampires brought rockets and flamethrowers, but Kappa never let them get close enough.

             
Still, his men had fallen. They had died well. They had destroyed at least thirty vampires.

             
It was a good tally. A good tally to take to the pearly gates.

             
Kappa nodded to last two of his men. This was the last stand.

             
There were five pounds of C4 set up in the stairwell. The last man would blow it.

             
He knew he wouldn’t be the last man.

             
Samson grinned at him.

             
Crazy bastard,
thought Kappa. He was actually enjoying himself.

             
‘Fuck you, Samson. What have you got to be happy about?’

             
‘The end, Kappa. It’s about time we met our maker. You want to live forever?’ The words sounded strange to Kappa. Blood poured from his wounded ears, but he could make out the words well enough.

             
‘And be like them? No.’

             
‘Well, then. Let’s go out like men, and fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.’

             
Kappa smiled, at last.

             
‘Fuck ‘em,’ he agreed.

             
‘John, go on. Go and blow it.’

             
‘No way Kappa, I’m not a sissy.’

             
‘Just fucking do it. Me and Sam, we’ve got business.’

             
John looked at him, slapped them both on the shoulder.

             
‘God bless.’

             
Then he ran through the stairwell door.

             
Kappa nodded to Samson.

             
The vampires came streaming round the corner. The smell of their blood must be urging them on. It must be driving them crazy. Many were wounded. They needed fresh blood to heal. Kappa would be fucked sideways before he gave it to them.

             
‘Shall we?’

             
Samson nodded. ‘Let’s do it.’

             
They were out of ammunition, but they still had a belt of grenades left.

             
The C4 went off in the stairwell and they nodded.

             
Then they ran round the corner into a hail of fire. Both men stumbled and fell, their hearts still beating. The front ranks of vampires fell on them and began feeding. Then Sam, Kappa, and the frenzied vampires were vaporised.

*

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Marie shook her head and took the earphones off.

              Tom turned his attention back to Jean. He didn’t have time to mourn. He’d liked Kappa, but he had to hope he hadn’t died in vain.

             
‘They bought us some time, Jean, but we can’t afford to waste the little time left to us down here.’

             
‘So you think your father wants to use the gateway?’

             
‘I’m sure of it. This is Hub One. The others must be online. This gateway is the only one. It’s here. Nothing living can get through, but a vampire?

             
'Maybe. It’s a long shot, but father has had decades to think about it. I’m sure he knows what he’s doing. He’s sure of it. We can’t reason with him, or turn him aside.’

             
‘How can we stop him?’

             
‘Blow it.’

             
‘Jesus, Tom. That would kill us all.’

             
Tom looked round to make sure nobody else was in ear shot. It was just him, Jean, and Marie. It was time for all or nothing.

             
‘We’re already dead, Jean. You know it as well as I do.’

             
Jean slumped in his wheelchair.

             
‘It’s all been for nothing. Mankind. We could have touched the stars. We harnessed the power of the atom, cured cancer and heart disease. We went to space, Tom. Landed on the moon. All of mankind’s achievements and it’s all been for nothing. We just blow ourselves up and the vampires win. They rule the earth.’

             
‘But it doesn’t have to be in vain, Jean.’

             
‘I can’t see any way out of it. We blow it. You’re right, Tom. We blow it.’

             
Jean picked up his walkie talkie and depressed the button to speak. Tom knew he was going to call in the second security team.

             
Tom put his hand over Jean’s.

             
‘Jean, wait. It doesn’t have to be in vain because we can use it.’

             
Jean just stared at Tom. ‘We can’t, Tom. We can’t because nothing living can survive.’

             
‘But vampires can survive.’

             
‘So what, we let them turn us and we all step through to whenever, wherever this gateway takes us?’

             
‘No, Jean. We have an inhibitor. It doesn’t work on a vampire that’s already changed. But I think we can immunise against the infection.’

             
‘We can hardly ask them to wait until we’re immunised, then bite us…’

             
‘No, Jean. If they know what we’re going to do they will destroy us. They’re going to kill us anyway. But we can beat them to it. We make one of us into a vampire, and go through. It’s a gamble, but what else have we got?’

             
‘Who the bloody hell is going to let us do that? We don’t even know if it will work. The last vampire you tried the inhibitor on melted.’

             
‘I have an idea about that. I think it can be done.’

             
‘But that doesn’t answer the question, Tom. Who would risk their life on a guess?’

             
‘As I said, Jean, we’re all dead already. We might be living and breathing, but it’s just a matter of time. The collapsed stairwell won’t hold them for long. We’ve got to do it now, before they know what we’ve done. We’ve got to send someone through, then blow it. We’ll never know if it works, but if I’m right we might be able to go back in time and stop this from ever happening. We might be able to change the course of history, Jean. Just think of it, we could stop the vampires from ever existing. We could ensure that mankind would always survive. Stop my father before he ever thought of the particle accelerator, stop Fallon Corp. It’s mankind’s only chance.’

             
‘Jesus, Tom, it just sounds like nonsense.’

             
‘What have we got to lose? Marie?’

             
‘I agree. We’re dead anyway. Why not try it?’

             
Jean shook his head sadly. ‘I can’t believe this. I can’t believe what we’ve come to. Who do we inject? Who would risk their lives on this idiocy? Jesus, Tom. What the hell are you asking me to condone?’

             
Tom smiled sadly and took Marie and Jean’s hands. ‘Me, Jean. There is no one else. Inject me.’

*