Mass pivoted and sprayed a pair of burnt men reaching out for him. Tox placed a hand on his shoulder, using him for balance, and kicked at a third. Miraculously, they managed to gain enough space to make it up the hill.
The three men fought their way up the clumpy, uneven slope while the demons stumbled around in the ditch below. Before long, they had made it to the road. They were all hurting from the coach crash, covered in bruises and cuts.
The women huddled together like sheep while Addy circled them like a border collie. When she saw Mass, she nodded.
Good work.
They had made it out of their coffin in the ditch, but the demons were quickly recovering. Whatever powder had come out the fire extinguisher was unfortunately harmless.
Mass clenched his fists. Pity it wasn’t full of acid.
Smithy searched around. “Now what?”
“We make a run for it,” said Tox. “It’s the only chance we have.”
Mass shook his head. “We’re hurting, and the women will slow us down even more. The demons will hound us until we drop.”
“But we can’t fight them,” said Smithy, still holding his gore-encrusted rock. “Caveman kung fu will only get us so far.”
Mass reached to his belt and pulled out a heavy knife he’d taken from the body of a dead soldier he’d found slumped on the stairs of a supermarket’s escalator. “If we rely on guns to save us every time, what’re we gonna do when the bullets run out?”
“They already have,” said Tox, pulling out his own knife.
Addy grabbed hers next, a machete longer than the others.
Smithy peered down at the bloody rock in his hand. “This is gonna suck.”
The demons climbed the hill, using their claws as anchors in the mud. Some were still disorientated from the powder, but others growled like hungry wolves.
Mass rotated his wrist, getting a feel for the weighty combat knife in his hand. “Addy, get the women back.”
“No way! I’m in this fight too.”
“Move them back and come join us.”
Addy corralled the women to the far side of the road. They were a burden, unable to focus on anything besides their own fear. Addy, though, was a woman as tough as any man – probably more so. Would she have turned out differently if she’d spent the last year at Nas’s farm instead of becoming an Urban Vampire? Was there any hope for the women they’d rescued?
Addy rejoined them in the centre of the road, machete at the ready. “Let’s get to work.”
They lined up, shoulder to shoulder, as Smithy shouted, “Sparta!”
Addy rolled her eyes. “You’re such a pain in the arse.”
To perhaps dispel the notion, Smithy was the first to attack, lunging in with his rock and braining a burnt man in a ragged yellow T-shirt. It acted as a starting pistol, and Addy, Tox, and Mass joined the fray, slashing with their knives and throwing punches against mottled demon flesh. Their enemies bled, but nothing short of death would deter them from attempting to fall upon their prey and trap it in an unholy embrace.
Mass grabbed a burnt man around the neck with one hand so he could plunge his knife into its eye socket with the other, but when more demons came up the embankment, his courage suddenly wavered. After so long fighting, he was rapidly reaching a point of mental and physical exhaustion. The effort of lifting his fists was becoming too much. Even so, he managed to swipe his knife and slice open a demon’s face. It wasn’t a killing blow, but it crippled the monster’s eyes and sent it away blind.
“There’re too many,” said Tox, clutching his ribs. “We can’t take them all.”
“We have no choice,” said Mass. “We’re in no fit state to run.”
“We’re in no fit state to take on a dozen demons with three knives and eight fists.”
“Don’t forget my rock,” said Smithy, bashing it against the skull of another demon. “And there’s one less now.”
Addy gritted her teeth and slashed her knife. “No more talking. If we live, we’ll have a story to tell our grandkids.”
Smithy chuckled. “That’s some wishful thinking, Addy.”
“Better than complaining.” She side-eyed Tox and then threw herself forward in a scissor kick that caught a child-sized demon right in the face. She landed awkwardly, left ankle twisting and causing her to stumble right into a demon’s grasp. She cried out as its decaying jaws clamped around her forearm and her machete fell from her grasp.
“Addy!” Tox buried his own blade so deeply in a nearby demon’s temple that it wouldn’t come out again, so he shoved the dead monster aside and abandoned the weapon. Unarmed, he threw himself in Addy’s direction, grabbing at the demon that was trying to eat her arm. That left Smithy and Mass outnumbered as three demons attacked the two of them.
Smithy didn’t have a knife, so Mass stepped up and tried to take the demons out by himself. He buried his knife in a burnt woman’s throat and twisted. Chunks of dried blood erupted and spattered his face. A piece went in his eye and affected his vision. The other two demons grabbed him, their weight bearing down from either side. He pushed back with his forearms, trying to keep from being bitten, but they overwhelmed him. Smithy attempted to peel the demons away, but one of them swung around and smashed him in the face with a bony arm. Smithy hit the dirt.
Mass tried to retreat, but his legs twisted and he went down, both demons landing on top of him. He cried out as piercing needles tore into his trapezius muscle, and the pain travelled right up the back of his neck. He tried to shove the demon away, but his arms were pinned. Rotten teeth sank deeper and deeper, extracting a bellowing scream from his lungs. This was it. His death had arrived.
I didn’t want to die screaming.
