Across the room Sol moved towards the window. He was silent, almost eerily so. Ben wanted to warn him not to move but he couldn’t bring himself to speak.
The boy leaned over the sink and looked up. The boat beside them was a big one. Painted deep brown and glossy it towered over their little vessel.
Above he heard footsteps and he flicked the safety off his gun. He looked up and followed the steps over his head.
On the other side of the room Sandra had her arm around Kris who appeared to be shaking. Anthony was looking out of the front windows.
He never knew who fired first. No one owned up to it. What he did know was that someone had climbed onto the front of the boat. Two figures dressed in dark clothes holding heavy looking machine guns. The windows were broken by gunfire and therein lay his only clue as to who started the fire fight: when it was all over they found no glass on the inside of the boat.
A bullet tore through the air close to his head. He heard it go through the wooden wall behind him. Somebody screamed, he thought later that it was probably Kris. One of the dark figures on the back of the boat flew backwards, a trail of blood exploding out of his chest like a boats wake. He seemed to hang in the air for an age and when he hit the water he seemed to float there for a moment before sinking like a rock beneath the surface.
Time froze.
He could hear the air pulsing inside his ears as he stood alert for movement. He swallowed sticky saliva and almost choked. Killing a human was not the same as killing a vamp, he knew that. He had never done it before and he wasn’t sure he would be able to, even now.
Gunfire tore through the air. He watched Anthony dive to the floor and thought for a moment he had been hit. Then he started to crawl towards him.
“Get down,” he shouted but Ben could only see his mouth move over the sound of guns firing and wood exploding. The air was filled with smoke and splinters and the sound of rapid fire machine guns.
He threw himself on the floor next to Anthony just in time. The door at the end of the boat exploded open and the sheet of metal flew across the room and shattered another window.
Two men came through the smoke firing their machine guns indiscriminately around the boat. There was more screaming, blood joined the smoke and sawdust in the air and someone fell down but Ben couldn’t see who it was.
Anthony fired and Ben found that he could shoot at a human. He aimed at the figures approaching and squeezed off two quick shots. The gun recoiled like an angry dog in his hands. The first shot went wide and hit his target in the shoulder. The second found its mark and the head shot dropped him.
He shook as if he was the one who had been shot. Beside him Anthony fired and took out the other man. Two more followed and they fell as well.
Ben tried to get up. A sudden and overwhelming need to get away had come over him. He needed to be somewhere else. A hand on his back kept him down and he turned to see Anthony scowling at him. He wanted to punch Anthony but he couldn’t move.
“Keep your fucking head,” he shouted and Ben heard that loud and clear. They weren’t safe yet.
Another figure appeared at the door but they didn’t come in. He threw something down the stairs. It hit the floor and rolled to the middle of the boat.
Anthony looked over the chair that they were hiding behind to see what it was. “Oh fuck!” he said.
Ben was hauled to his feet. He didn’t understand what was happening but gladly deferred to Anthony. They ran towards the front of the boat and other people were running too.
Seconds passed like minutes. All of a sudden the air was gone and Ben felt his feet leave the floor. He flew through the air without grace or control and all of a sudden the river, rather than the boat, was below him.
Up and up he went. He could feel heat like a fire behind him and thought that he was being cooked alive.
Then he started to fall and time snapped back at double-speed. The water coming towards him too quickly, he put his hands up to shield his face.
The oily green river engulfed him and turned black. He sunk towards the bottom and couldn’t slow his momentum. He forced his eyes to open but could see nothing through the murk. He hit the ground with a thump that shook his skull and surprised him so that he opened his mouth to cry out and swallowed water.
A hand waved around in front of him. He didn’t care whose it was. He grabbed hold of it and felt himself dragged along the river, slowly upwards and away.
Heavy objects landed all around him, imbedding themselves in the bottom of the river and very nearly taking off his head. He stayed below the surface, even when his lungs began to burn and he wanted nothing more than to swim up for air.
When he broke the surface the noise hit him like a second explosion. People were shouting, guns were being fired, someone was crying. He looked up and saw Anthony ahead, scrambling up the mud slick bank. He collapsed on the grass and Ben followed him.
“Anthony!” he shouted but he could barely hear his own voice above all the noise. He grabbed his shoulder but Anthony didn’t move.
He looked around. Kris was crying but managing to lead Sol out of the river. He was clutching his blood soaked shoulder, his face caught in a grimace. Ben couldn’t see Aaron or Daniel but gunfire still came from both sides of the fight.
Ben ran down to the bank and gave his hand to pull Kris and Sol out of the water. He pulled them along the bank and Sol collapsed on the floor next to Anthony. Ben felt a ridiculous sense of guilt that he hadn’t been shot. It was the only thing he could later blame for what he did next.
Wired with adrenalin that allowed him to ignore the aches and pains, he didn’t feel like he could just stand there doing nothing. Kris had started to cry again and at first he thought it was just shock. He tried to comfort her, put an arm around her and told her everything would be alright.
She pushed him away. “She’s dead,” she said and he didn’t need to ask who she meant.
He looked back at the two boats. An undamaged hulk towered over the remains of their little narrow boat. Men in dark clothes stood on the deck firing their guns, the return fire came from behind the trees on the opposite bank.
Ben made his decision. “Wait with them,” he said.
Kris looked at him blankly but he decided she wasn’t going anywhere. He would have taken her gun but he didn’t want to leave her unarmed. After a final look over them he started to run back towards the boats, ignoring the pain in his ankles.
He could almost feel the adrenalin coursing through his veins and a part of him was aware that he would pay for it later. But that didn’t seem to matter now. This was exciting, thrilling even. He gripped the gun tightly and came to rest just short of the hulk on the opposite side of the river to Aaron and Daniel.
He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. He tried to forget that he was shooting at humans rather than vamps. What they wanted didn’t matter: they were trying to kill him and his people and that was enough.
When he opened his eyes he extended his arm and aimed at the boat. He could see three figures standing on top, facing away from him towards where Aaron and Daniel stood. Ben aimed for the head and waited. His heart continued to hammer in his chest and he squeezed the trigger.
The man crumbled and suddenly there were more people on the roof of the hulk and some of them started firing in his direction. Bullets scorched the ground a few feet in front of him and he rolled calmly behind a convenient tree. Pieces of bark flew off but he was safe for now.
When he had calmed down enough to believe that he could shoot accurately he looked around the far side of the tree, aimed his gun and fired off six quick shots. Two more people fell down. Across the other side of the river Aaron and Daniel were moving towards the boat but he stayed where he was; they could take cover behind broken pieces of their own ship but if he stepped away from the tree there was nothing for him to hide behind.