CHAPTER TWO

NEMESIS

  With millions dead, buildings burned out and garbage uncollected and littering the streets, the city had a stench that had an almost physical force. Even though they travelled through, the survivors couldn't get used to it. At least a heavy shower in the night had prevented the fires spreading, but eerily, it had produuced a fine mist, and it made them all think of the invisible clouds of bacteria, thick in the air...wondering who would catch it next, whose skin would erupt with lesions and growths, who would bleed to death....
Most macabre of all was a church bell, tolling every so often, echoing off the silent streets. Even the soldiers, trained and bloodied, tensed every time it struck.
"Though he may be one of my brethern, perhaps calling fellow survivors to come seek shelter, I do wish he'd STOP RINGING THAT DAMN THING!!" Father Anderson exclaimed with a grin, though he was really trying to calm their nerves, cooped up as they were in the APC. Some of them managed a grin.
"Ah screw this! I got an idea!" The driver swore, and popped a CD into the music system he'd rigged in the vehicle, totally against orders, but, so what? "Hell's Bells" by AC/DC pounded out of the external speaker....
"What the FUCK do you think you're doing, Corporal!" Snake demanded from the tank just ahead. "Shut it off! Ye're letting every dumb son'bitch in four blocks know we're here!"
"Eh, sorry sir, but they already KNOW we're coming! The Abrams makes more noise than the music!" Well he had a point, the tank's tracks and turbine rattled the windows of buildings. "And I thought it may bring some more surivors to us?"
Well, it was, perhaps, a good idea, they were going slow anyway as there were so many wrecks and debris on the roads. Least it cheered the men up, so the music stayed, and drowned out that damn bell.
Quite a few of the corpses they past hadn't died of plague, bullet holes and flayed skin showed the cultists had rampaged across the neighbourhoods. Over the next few hours, five more people joined their group, seeking sanctuary behind grim-eyed killers who at least had some idea of decency.
"Lady, I'd have stopped the President's frikkin' limo for you!" Angel grinned at the gorgeous red head who got in the APC, he was now forced to sit on the roof of the vehicle to make space, so the least he could do was enjoy the sight of a woman before he died. She was too shocked to respond to his remark, and beside, his words were friendly, and oh God, that made a change from demented screams and the cries of the dying!
Much of the road ahead was choked with smashed cars, and bodies littered the crossroads like ticker tape. The bridge out of the city could be seen beyond it.
"Ah don't like that, not one bit!" The Major spat to clear his dry throat. "Hey Blade, you know this city better 'n me, see ahead? Looks like someone had a pretty good fire fight! I don't know if it was our boys or not, have a look see, huh?"
After looking out one of the vision ports, the SWAT officer agreed with the Snake's distrust of the area. He got out and asked for Angel and two soldiers to back him up. At least he carried a decent rifle, his own custom FN FAL, a paratrooper version--it was light and could be folded up, but had a telescopic sight and it's 7.62 mm ammo was a hell of a lot more potent than that fired by the army's M16's.
   Used to skulking around the streets, more so than most of those he used to track, Angel carried a .45 automatic, which to those who knew, was a more lethal weapon than a .44 magnum, it made law suits from injured felons few and far between as they rarely survived the injuries inflicted by the huge bullets.
A young girl, barely in her teens had a gaping wound in her neck, but was untouched by the plague: she may have survived if some lunatic hadn't killed her! It looked like the injury had come from a weapon fired from above, so Blade was scanning the upper storeys as the others moved on. BAK-BAK-BAK-BAK! The umistakable sound of a Kalashnikov rattled from a jeweller's doorway, and one of the soldier's had his weapon and right arm smashed!
Diving behind an over turned truck, Angel opened fire, his marksmanship with a pistol was impressive and despite the distance he nailed the attacker, who was wearing some kind of orange coloured robe, like a karate suit. The man's shoulder sprayed over the doorway in a splash of gore and shattered bone.
And then at least five more Kalashnikovs opened up from surrounding shops! The tank was of course, immune to this, Snake spun the turret and opened fire with his heavy machine gun, glowing ricochet's bounced off walls but some went straight through the walls, and at least one of the enemy was silenced. Cannon fire from the two APCs joined the hellish thunder.
And then, like a streaking comet, a projectile hammered into the tank! The explosion blew windows in all around.