huge guy who served me from the cafeteria came barrelling through them, not into, through the hunters, his arm acting like a hot knife while the hunters played the role of butter. He looked up as he flung his arm down, splattering the floor with blood.
“That’s one you owe me Prince!” We shared a laugh as I closed the distance between us. But he stopped as a bullet tore through his head, turning his smile to confused pain as he fell to the floor. I ripped the knife from my back and sent it into his killer’s throat that was revealed behind him in the fall that seemed to last hours.
“Kate! Help me, now!” I ran and slid on my knees to his side. His big blue eyes locked on the ceiling, I could hear Kate’s footsteps approaching. I didn’t even know his name, why was this death so significant to me? I’ve seen thousands die, at that point I’d watched fleeing people shot in the back not thirty seconds prior. Why did this man’s death mean so much?
Kate had reached me and was dragging me back. I watched his wound heal over and his eyes shut. Another part of being a vampire, in death we have a healing process; a sign that the body is firing off a final signal, like an arm jerk.
I pulled myself to my feet, “Let’s get upstairs.” My words came out cold as we ran for the stairs. Gunfire resounded through the stairwell, deafening in the highly acoustic environment. But we forced ourselves to leap up the stairs.
I smashed through the third floor door revealing a familiar corridor. We went left toward the sound of a shotgun discharging. When we reached a corner we stopped. I peeked around, there were twelve hunters firing into a room. Which I recognised as the cafeteria, a large, black crate overflowing with ammunition sat behind them.
We were screwed, no way could Kate and I take them head on. I looked over to her, blood dripping from a gash on the side of her head. Her face showing only rage, no fear, no sadness, just pure anger. I cupped her head in my hand and brushed some of the blood away, “You ok?”
She nodded, “I’m fine, one of them got a lucky shot, what’s the situation?” I frowned, partly because I was pretty sure I was about to die, for the second time in the past five minutes.
Partly because I was worried about her, how she was going to cope with this if we got out. “There’s twelve of them, one loaded ammo crate behind them. They aren’t running out any time soon, and I’m all out.”
She checked the pistol in her hands, “I’ve got one round, swap with me.” Before I could make a confused face she’d pushed me out of the way, and was checking around the corner herself. “There’s a grenade visible through the slit in the crate, if I can hit it we’ll be home free.”
I was concerned, “And if you miss?”
She turned and smiled at me. “Then I’ve had one Hell of a life, how about you?”
She didn’t give me a chance to respond; she popped around the corner, took a deep breath and pulled the trigger. I grabbed her arm and pulled her back to me, the explosion rattling around my brain which was quickly combined with immense amounts of gun fire.
I’d figured the explosion hadn’t done much damage and now they were going to kill us. But they never came, the bullets hitting the wall ahead of us and just about everywhere else. I covered Kate’s ears and she covered mine. I felt a warm sensation as her hands touched my face, ‘is this what real love feels like?’
I let myself brew on that until the shooting stopped, and came to the realisation that it wasn’t. My ears were bleeding, the way she took care of me as I took care of her felt good though.
We waited another few seconds before going around the corner. The crate was torn to bits, the clean hall I first walked through was now coated in fresh blood and bullet holes.
The hunter that had been closest to the box was missing the majority of his lower half. The rest were riddled with bullet wounds in their charred and burning mesh of armour and flesh. We stepped over the corpses and into the cafeteria, Minks was dirty, his hands covered in a thick layer of blood.
“Thanks for the assist sir, we sent someone down to give you a hand before they showed up, you see him on your way up?”
I shook my head, “He saved my life… he got shot down before I could get to him. Where’s Steve and Wolf? Anyone else make it here?”
He ran his hand through his hair, “Wolf is locking down the courtyard main entrance. I’ve got about fifty out the back, Steve and Mike included, Steve isn’t looking too good. Come on.”
We walked past the counter and into a massive kitchen. People were scattered in small groups, some crying while others seemed to be strategizing.
At the back, on a bench laid Steve, Mike holding his hands down on a blood soaked stomach, tears welled up in his eyes, “You stay awake, you don’t get to leave me here.”
I ran to his side, “Steve… what happened to him?”
Mike looked up at me, “One of those fuckers got him, but he’s going to be alright,” He turned his tearful eyes to Steve, “Aren’t you mate? You don’t get let off that easy, we got a job to do.”
Steve looked up at me and smiled, “You’re a good man John, take care of this guy for me?”
I pushed a now sobbing Mikael aside and pulled Steven up by the collar, “No.”
I sunk my teeth into his neck, he struggled against me while other hands tried to rip me off him. I could feel the blood rushing from his body, his struggling easing off as he fell asleep. He’d already lost a lot of blood from the wound, I let the hands pull me off. Watching as Steve’s pale body hit the bench, hard hands slammed me into the wall.
The face of Jason Minks obscured my view, “That was NOT your call to make!”
I pushed him off me, “He’ll live now, when we get this place back he’s going to need the infirmary for a few days, he won’t be waking up any time soon, you know, the effect of almost dying!” Jason took a further step back and leaned on the bench next to Steve. Kate and Mike wandered off to one of the groups that were working on ideas to fight back.
No-one agreed with what I did but me. I’d made those decisions before. They’d learn to live with it I told myself, ‘one day they’ll thank me.’
Everyone was walking and talking, I couldn’t stand it. If no-one wanted to talk to me there was no point in me being there. I slipped back into the cafeteria and started searching the hunter’s bodies. I found a carbine rifle with a half full clip on one of the bodies and a .44 magnum locked in another’s hand.
Slinging the rifle over my shoulder and holding the hand cannon I began to stalk the halls. Searching for a sign that would lead me to the courtyard, I had no idea where I was. I wanted something to show me where to go, then it hit me, “OLHUD, activate,” The map lit up in the corner like last time, I must’ve somehow turned it off when I got out of the car and not noticed, “Locate Wolfgang.”
The map took up my entire field of vision and a green dot flashed at the far right corner. It was maybe three hundred metres away, “Set a way-point and open commlink with him.” There was a crackle in my ears which was quickly enveloped by gun fire, “Wolf! Can you hear me?”
I started running toward the green arrow now in front of me, “Affirmative, where are you?”
I took a left turn, one hundred metres out, “Just coming from the cafeteria, not far. Kate, Jason and co, other than Gabe, are holed up there.” I leaned around a corner and could see Wolf on the other side of the hallway. Hiding behind an overturned table with someone next to him out of view, at which point the way point disappeared. “I have eyes on you, can you and the rest make it here?”
I saw him fire over the top of the makeshift barricade, “No other survivors, only me and Gabriel made it out, barely, there’s thirty at the end of this hall,” Gabe fired one shot over the wall, “Nice, twenty nine, an assist from you might see this area clear.”
I looked at the way I came, clear, “Yeah, I’m coming over.” I sprinted to them and hugged the corner next to the table, “How much have you got?”
Wolf threw his AK over the table, ?
??Empty, what about you, Gabriel?”
He clicked his rifle’s magazine out, “Fourteen. I’ll be alright with that.” I nodded and handed Wolf the magnum and unslung the carbine.
Wolf admired his new gun, “Very nice, well, let’s get to it.”
Gabe blind-fired over the top, “I never stopped, twenty eight.”
I peeked around the corner to see a hunter drop to his knees, another ran over to drag him back. But before his hands touched him I’d sprayed the wall with his blood and was lining up another target. “OLHUD, how many hunters left in the facility?”
A beep went off in my ears then a soft voice poured out, “Please scan target group.”
Wolf fired the magnum down the hall, “Lucy! Transfer target visual to John Prince, tag as hunter mark three.” An image of a hunter popped into view and was quickly replaced by multiple sequences of security camera footage which shut off after a few seconds, “Eighty seven hunter mark threes in facility. Three hundred and thirty two of five thousand and twelve base personnel remain. Two hundred and five vampires, one hundred and six have had extensive military training.”
I fired around the corner and hit a wall, four thousand, six hundred and eighty people dead. In one night the population of a small town had been eradicated, how do you keep this quiet? What of the families?
Then another horrific thought went through my mind, “Lucy, of those