“But whatever you choose—” Billy added, loading shells into a sawn-off shotgun’s breach, then laying it aside and taking a fragmentation grenade from his pocket, arming it and thumbing down on the sprung safety lever while gauging the distance, “—you’d better make it quick, ’cause here they come!”
“I’m no…no coward,” said Carter, shaking his head. “I’m just… It’s just that I’m scared!”
“So, welcome to our world!” said Eric Davis. But even as he spoke Carter was gritting his teeth, taking up his weapon again and saying:
“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 inhuman 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.