The compound resembled a scene from Dante's Inferno. Bodies littered the ground and moans filled the air as Harris walked through the carnage. The many fires that still burned throughout the camp illuminated the true horror of what had happened. In the centre of the camp he could see Sandra Harrington and Scott Anderson helping the survivors into waiting trucks.
"We all set?" Harris asked. He was shocked at how tired Sandra looked. Her face was drawn and her eyes had retreated deep into their sockets. The strain of the last few months had really taken their toll.
"These are the last," Sandra replied and smiled weakly. "Scott and I will travel with this lot and we'll meet up with John at the transfer point. We're due to meet Pritchard there. He and I will lead them to the Cave while the others dump the trucks."
Harris went over the plan in his mind and nodded. They had prepared their new home as best they could for the influx of guests and they were as ready as they would ever be. They had hoarded as much food and blankets as they could over the last few months. Water wouldn't be a problem due to an underground spring.
To call it a cave was a misconception though. The facility was actually built half over and half underground. Pritchard had found the complex about two months before while scouting the area and they had planned for this day ever since. It consisted of a two-storey brick building above ground that stood within a walled enclosure on five acres. There were two more levels below ground, cut into the bedrock itself.
The Cave was situated ten miles from the city at the foot of a large hill and was surrounded by forest behind and to the east of the complex. A small river ran from the forest all along the west side of the complex, and a dirt road ran from the front of the building in a winding route to the main road. The rooms below ground were grey, lab-like and cold, and it was this that led the group to dub it the Cave. No one knew why it had been built, but it was generally assumed to have been military in nature.
"Okay, take care and watch for patrols. We can't let them find the Cave."
Sandra Harrington smiled. This time it reached her eyes for a brief moment and her whole face brightened. "Don't worry, we'll be careful," she said, and then touched his arm gently before she jumped into the back of the truck.
Harris watched until the vehicle disappeared from view and then turned back to the carnage.
"Harris!"
The shout exploded across the courtyard and shattered the relative silence in the enclosure. Harris snapped his head toward the sound and saw John Stone gesticulating madly over by the armoury building. He broke into a run and, on arrival, was all but dragged around to the back of the building.
"Quick, follow me. You'll never believe what we found." Stone pulled Harris behind him and then suddenly stopped in front of the back door. He gestured for Harris to precede him into the building. Harris was amused, but he moved past Stone and entered the building only to stop dead in shock.
Lying on the ground in the middle of the room was a vampire.
Planks of wood and pieces of mortar surrounded the creature from where he had crashed through the roof. His body was pin-cushioned with stakes from the surprise aerial attack, but none had pierced his heart. Normally a vampire would be able to survive such an attack and walk, if not actually fly, away, but the group had long ago learned a few tricks when dealing with vampires. All the stakes were tipped with silver, which seemed to act as a poison to the vampires. While it didn't kill them, it rendered the area around the wound immune to the vampires' virulent healing abilities. This resulted in a wound that never fully closed and caused constant pain.
This vampire, however, was going nowhere. Harris counted seven stakes from where he stood, and he could see the creature was in terrible pain. The vampire could barely move as the silver coursed through its body and fought and easily overcame its immune system, if the number of open and suppurating wounds on its body were any indication.
"Get a container and soak up as much of that blood as you can so we can test it later!" Harris shouted the order while his mind raced with the possibilities. "We might find something that'll kill these bastards without having to face them directly."
They had been trying for months to get fluids from the vampires but once dead, the creatures' fluids tended to reduce to a sizzling goo that proved useless for analysis. Nobody in their right minds approached a vampire that was not dead, so this was the first chance they'd had to get a live creature's blood.
"What do we do with him when we get the sample?" Stone asked.
Harris looked up at the brightening sky. "Leave him to enjoy the sunrise."
Harris left the armoury building. Most of the group was gone and an eerie stillness hung heavily in the air. The stench of fuel and burnt flesh hung over the whole complex like a blanket and Harris" throat was brittle as he called at those remaining.
"Come on, hurry up. We've got to go before those bastards get here."
The group's plan allowed for twenty minutes between the first shot and the first response from the nearest thrall base in the city. Seventeen minutes had already lapsed and it was past time to be gone. In the middle of the courtyard Harris saw a hunched figure he recognized as Dan Harrington. He walked over.
"Sandra got off ..." he began to say to ease her father's mind, but his voice faltered when he saw the body of Tyrone Johnson in the man's arms. In all the excitement Harris had forgotten about Johnson and he immediately felt a terrible guilt for his failure to remember the man's sacrifice.
Harrington looked up at Harris. "Was it all worth it?"
Harris paused and knelt beside the body. "I think you know the answer to that," Harris replied with a deep sigh. "We saved one hundred and seventy people tonight. I don't know about you, but that'll do me for an epitaph."
The two men locked eyes.
"We really must go, Dan. The first response team will be here any minute," Harris pressed gently.
He picked up a stake from the ground and handed it to Harrington. With a sigh Harrington placed the point of the stake over Johnson's heart and leaned heavily on it until the point pushed through the heart and into the soft earth below.
Harris looked up when he heard the first sounds of a helicopter in the distance. Both men stood and melted into the few remaining shadows of the surrounding forest.
The four trucks raced along the road. Jack Ryan drove the lead truck with wild abandonment and grimaced every time he missed a gear and the engine screamed in protest. His heart still beat like a jackhammer from his encounter with Nero. The master vampire had limped back to town and stormed into the thralls" barracks. Ryan had been there with his commander when the door literally burst open and flew across the room.
"What are you doing sitting on your arse?" Nero spat the words at the commander. "Didn't you see what happened?"
Nero had reached the commander's desk in two strides. He leaned over, grabbed the commander's shirt and lifted him clear over the desk with one hand.
Ryan had fallen off his chair when the door had burst open and he sat sprawled against the wall while the scene played out in front of him, too petrified to move and announce his presence.
"My Lord," the commander stammered, "we have already sent the helicopter and I have a truck being readied at this very moment."
"One truck!" Nero snarled and then without warning he ripped the commander's head clean off.
Ryan shuddered as he remembered the scene. The master vampire had seemed to place his hand on the commander's head in a patting motion, as if the information had placated him. Then suddenly the commander's head was in one of the vampire's hands and the limp torso in the other. He had thrown the body across the room and the next minute he was looming over Ryan.
"I want you to round up every thrall in this base, pack them into every truck you have and get up to that compound." The creature spoke calmly, even reasonably, but Ryan saw the wildness in the creature's eyes. "They can't have gone too far. Find them and you will be well rewarded. Fail and you will join your colleague."
Ryan had scrambled to his feet and ran from the office in a panic. He screamed orders at the startled thralls and, in less than five minutes, had assembled the convoy and set off for the camp.
When Ryan finally saw the compound gates up ahead, he relaxed and eased off the accelerator. Just then he heard a loud blast and the base of a tree to the side of the road exploded. Splinters peppered the truck and bounced off the glass and then the tree began to fall forward and Ryan had to swerve to avoid it. He wrenched the wheel hard to the right, but the truck had been going far too fast for such an old road. Too much dirt and debris had been allowed to gather on the unused road and the truck's tyres couldn't get any grip as its momentum carried it towards the forest on his right. Ryan lost control completely when the front tire burst and sent the truck tumbling off the road.
The thralls in the back of the truck were thrown violently from side to side in a giant parody of a washing machine as the vehicle continued to roll through the light foliage that edged the road and then it suddenly stopped as it slammed the truck of a thick tree. Screams drowned out the other explosions as ten more trees along the route exploded and fell onto the road. Ryan had just enough time to scream before the first tree crashed down and split the truck in two.
The other trucks stopped when they saw the lead vehicle veer madly and shoot off the road. Men poured from the back of the vehicles and spread out to investigate. Suddenly, there were multiple explosions all around them. They froze, looking around in confusion at the sudden attack, and raised their guns to cover the forest as if they expected a horde of attackers to emerge. Instead, the forest itself seemed to loom closer toward them. Wood creaked and groaned in protest. Huge branches swayed dangerously above them before they began to fall. The trees decimated the entire area. Metal and flesh were crushed with equal contempt. Their screams were drowned out by the thunderous cacophony of trees crashing to the ground. The many broken branches that fanned out across the area impaled any thralls that were not crushed.
Five minutes after the first explosion the dust settled on the clearing. The four trucks were completely demolished and the mangled remains within would sicken even the strongest stomach. Of the thirty thralls that had been sent on the mission, two were still alive when night came and the vampires arrived at the scene. Their pitiful pleas stopped abruptly when the vampires ripped their throats out and then took to the air in search of the rebels.