She shook her head. “It’s nothing. Just one of the others. Dead,” she said.
“How?” asked Sam but he already knew.
“Plague. She must have died during the night.”
Sam said nothing. What did you say at times like this? For all he knew, Olivia and this nameless victim of the bubonic plague had been friends or family. But he didn’t have time for that now. “Sorry, you’ll have to leave her. The guards won’t allow the body onto the base in any case.”
The words sounded harsh even as he said them. He caught Olivia frowning at him but he didn’t have time for that.
He darted over to the main depot doors at the rear of the building. The massive roller door looked like it was usually controlled electronically. No good. This building hadn’t had power in years. He inspected the area around the door with as much haste as he dared. Then he saw it. There was a chain dangling in the corner, used to manually open the door. Unlocking the door at its base, he yanked on the chain. Painfully slowly, the door edged upward. He pulled on the chain harder, again and again. When it reached the point where Sam thought the truck would clear the opening, he stopped. Outside, beyond the wire fence, he could see Lemure gathering. But he also saw something else. A fuel pump.
Mike and Olivia were already in the cab. Sam could see Mike struggling with something. He raced over.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
“I think I’ve flooded it,” said Mike, his voice strained.
“Has it got gas?”
Mike nodded. “A bit.” Sam watched him turn the ignition. The truck gave a sick cough but the engine didn’t turn over.
“Try it again,” said Olivia.
She sounded as tense as Mike and Sam knew why. Heard clearly throughout the depot were sounds of frantic scrabbling against the main doors. These were interspersed with louder, heavier thuds. One of the Horned demons had reached the building. The door wouldn’t hold out for much longer. In the compound, the Lemure were stacking up, piling on top of one another. Soon, they’d be level with the top of the fence and be able to trickle over. That trickle would quickly turn into a flood.
Mike closed his eyes, took a deep breath and waited for a moment. Time seemed to drag; everyone in the depot seemed to hold their breath. Then Mike turned the key. The engine coughed again, louder this time, and roared into life. Sam heard several people cheer.
“Over here,” he yelled over the engine. “The pump’s over here.” Sam guided Mike over. The pump was locked of course, but Sam made short work of that with his Wakizashi. He thrust the nozzle into the truck and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.
Mike poked his head out the window. “It needs electricity to run but there should be a hand pump.”
Quickly, Sam checked the other side. There was a rotary handle, also locked, which Sam cut through. He wound the handle and was rewarded with a splutter as diesel began to dribble out. He could feel it through the pipe. He wound harder and now the diesel began to flow. Mike kept the engine going. Inside, he heard a crash and a tearing sound. If Sam didn’t know better, it sounded like the door had just been torn off its hinges.
A terrible cry sounded from above. Sam looked up to see an Astaroth was descending. The nine people in the back were heedless of this. Sam shouted a warning but it was too late; the Astaroth tore out of the sky and hurtled down to the rear of the truck. It grasped one of the women in its leg talons and shot back into the sky again. She screamed in shock and terror. Sam could see her face clearly but knew there was nothing he could do for her. Several people raised their guns but there was no way they could fire for fear of hitting her. It would’ve been a mercy though. A fate worse than death awaited her.
As the Astaroth and the woman disappeared into the night’s sky, her screams drifted back to them on the warm breeze. The action seemed to act as a catalyst for the others. They began to scan the skies, moving their weapons around nervously.
Several things then happened at once. Sam heard the thud of enormous footsteps, and he looked up to see a massive Horned Demon at the door of the depot. It saw them, raised its huge stone mallet and charged. At the same time, the wire fence, incapable of maintaining its integrity any longer, collapsed under the weight of the mass of Lemure pressing up against it. They also surged towards the truck. Sam yanked the nozzle out and dropped it on the ground. Without him turning the pump, the flow of diesel dried up. He jumped into the passenger side of the cab next to Olivia.
“Go, go, go!” he yelled. “Drive.”
Mike didn’t need to be told twice. He revved the engine, and the truck sprang forwards, charging straight towards the horde of Lemure descending upon them. Mike didn’t bother to swerve. The truck itself weighed several tons. Combined with the plough at the front, it was almost an unstoppable force. The Lemure didn’t stand a chance. They scattered in front of him; any caught head-on were scooped up by the plough, most falling under the wheels of the truck where they were flattened. Many would have suffered injuries but most wouldn’t have been fatal. Only cold iron had the power to do that.
Behind them, the Horned demon bellowed in frustration, built for power, not speed and unable to keep up with the truck. Sam turned and saw several of the survivors firing at the demons, keeping them off the truck.
Mike sped on through the flattened remains of the gate. He swerved wildly, guiding the truck onto the main highway, smashing his way through two abandoned vehicles. At last Sam turned around to face the front, satisfied that they would make it out safely. He could see Olivia’s expression and Mike’s face. Both were flushed with victory — but at what cost? Sam had already lost one of the people he had rescued, and another had died. How many would be left by the time they got to Columbus?
Sam needn’t have worried. The rest of the trip passed rather uneventfully. The snow plough was easily capable of smashing aside any obstacle. The Lemure struggled to get a grip on the on the solid metal sides, especially when they had to deal with a lethal barrage of fire from the gun-wielding occupants in the back. The only obvious weakness was from above but Sam kept a close eye on the sky and warned everyone when an Astaroth was near. A few of the great demons tried an aerial assault but had been driven off by the iron rounds. One Astaroth had even been destroyed.
Mike had been reasonably confident that they’d have enough fuel to reach Columbus. Even though Sam hadn’t had much time to fuel up the truck, it seemed that it already had some to begin with. Luckily. Mike was right, but he’d slowed down to conserve fuel as they neared the outskirts, just to be on the safe side.
In the back, the others had satisfied their hunger, using Sam’s pocket knife to open cans of beans and other assorted fast food, eating it cold. Despite the fact that they had lost two of their number, there had been almost a party atmosphere in the truck, a feeling that Sam hadn’t shared. He’d become somewhat pessimistic over the years with the belief that things seemed to go wrong, in spite of his best intentions and planning. Experience had taught him never to assume and he didn’t feel any sense of relief until they had actually reached the outskirts of Columbus.
It was almost dawn when the gates of the National Guard base reared up in front of them. The streets of Columbus were completely deserted. Apart from a few determined survivors, the only living humans in the city were in the base. A few demons, clearly wary of the Army base, made a half-hearted attack on the truck as it passed but Sam could see that they were too occupied with the coming dawn to pose any great threat. As soon as the truck was in range of the bases’ defenses, the demons drew back.
Sam got Mike to stop a hundred feet from the main gates. Spotlights played upon the truck from towers dotted around the perimeter. Sam walked towards the gate, hands above his head, passing a sign with ‘Beightler Armory’ written on it. Even though it had a fine layer of dust covering it, Sam could see that someone had made a recent effort to clean it.