Chapter 69

December Twenty-fifth 8:00 p.m. EST

The Apache attack helicopters came first, as Arthur had known they would. Traveling low and fast, eight of them flew in loose formation along the path of the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Bridge. When they reached the bank of the Potomac, they split off in pairs and vanished into the interior of the dark city.

Within moments of their passing, Arthur heard the roar of nose cannons as they had their first encounters with the loose packs of ferals that roamed the city's streets. As the minutes rolled by, the sporadic gunfire continued but faded with distance. Arthur didn't think there would be much for them to find. Most of the ferals would be inside buildings, rooting out the pockets of survivors who had been foolish enough to choose barricades and locked doors over fleeing the city on foot during the day.

He heard the approach of the armored columns long before they came into sight: the low rumble of powerful diesel and gas turbine engines; the screech of tortured metal; the shattering of glass; and loud splashes as wrecked and abandoned vehicles, some with drivers and passengers still sitting cold and stiff inside, were toppled over the sides of the bridge into the river.

He felt it next, a deep, thrumming vibration that carried from the metal and concrete of the bridge into the small triangle of grass, trees and snow in which he lay in wait like a spider.

And then he saw them, lines of men and vehicles approaching on both sides of the seven lane span. Leading each was a massive contraption that looked like a turretless tank with a fifteen-foot wide plow attached to the front. Although the metal behemoths easily pushed aside cars, the ubiquitous SUV's so popular as status symbols in the city, and even the occasional tractor trailer, they ground to a halt at the sight of the bodies that were thickly strewn across the highway just past where it crossed over the Rock Creek Parkway. As predicted, the operators were squeamish about crushing the bodies of their countrymen beneath heavy metal tracks.

In less than a minute, soldiers started to pour from the numerous Bradley fighting vehicles, Humvees and the few Strykers that followed behind the tanks in the cleared lanes. The fortunate ones who arrived first formed a firing line, pointing their weapons at all possible points of approach. The ones who were slower or had farther to run were left with the distasteful task of clearing the stiff, frozen corpses from the road. Focused on the bodies that blocked their path, they paid little attention to the far more numerous ones that were heaped along the sides and median. Exactly as intended.

Some of the soldiers came close enough that Arthur could have reached out and touched them if he wished, but he remained completely motionless, not even blinking his eyes. Night vision and infra-red optics allowed his kind to be easily picked out from crowds of the living, but could do nothing to distinguish them from the truly dead. Burrowed in a snowbank among mounds of corpses, many not quite as deceased as they appeared, Arthur was all but invisible.

When only half the original number of bodies remained on the highway, Arthur delved into the dark corners of his own mental basement, dredging up memories of his life. Over the next few seconds he relived sea battles, the deaths of friends and lovers, skirmishes fought with knives and fists in the twisted alleys of foreign ports, and his imprisonment in New Jersey. The surge of grief, fear and despair - emotions that were normally all but alien to him - through the bond would be Huffhamner's signal - one that could not be detected or intercepted like that of a radio or satellite phone - to initiate the first stage of the ambush.

Huffhamner, another of Arthur's direct fledglings, and a hundred others chosen at random had captured, confined and tormented as many people as they could find in two locations, one a mile north from the bridge, the other a mile east. At Arthur's signal those hapless civilians were pushed out into the street with a suggestion of where they might be able to find rescue - if they hurried. Arthur smelled their terror shortly before the first cries of dismay rose from the soldiers.

Arthur wasn't the only vampire to catch the delicious scent. All along the paths of flight, ferals raised their heads and sniffed at the air. Howling their rage and insatiable hunger into the night, they quickly closed the distance to their prey.

The vehicles in the columns disgorged their remaining passengers who quickly ran forward to join their fellows in milling, packed ranks. There was little they could do but shout out in encouragement to the civilians who were running towards them. A number of ferals had caught up to the frightened, fleeing herds, and predator and prey had become so mingled that there were few opportunities for clean shots.

As the mixed packs moved closer to the lines of infantry that stretched across the northern and southern exits from the bridge, the numbers of the living dwindled enough that a few soldiers fired their weapons. The volume of gunfire rapidly increased until all opened fire when the last of the runners was brought down within fifty yards of perceived safety.

The first deviation from Arthur's expectations occurred when hatches on the tops of the tanks with plows - he had heard several soldiers refer to them as Assault Breacher Vehicles - lifted with the hum of hydraulics. Rockets trailing ... something ... took off on pillars of smoke and impacted with the ground well past the packs of ferals. With a deafening roar, the cord that connected the ABVs to the fallen rockets exploded. He heard several of the soldiers let out cries of dismay and disgust as bloody chunks of the ferals and their victims rained down upon them.

When the smoke cleared, the roads ahead were clear of vampires, corpses, derelict vehicles and snow. The streets themselves were marred with meandering craters that marked where the cords had lain. After using advanced optics to make a quick sweep for motion, vehicles lurched forward as they prepared to renew their advance.

Although the distraction provided by the ferals had been dealt with far more quickly than expected and they had not inflicted any casualties among the infantry, they had served the purpose of bringing the majority of the soldiers to the front of the columns. Right where the bodies lay thickest. The next step was to cut away their support and send them to the ground.

Arthur slipped unfelt into the mind of the gunner in the Bradley directly behind the northern column's ABV. Troops scrambled for cover as he forced the soldier to open fire on the rear of the massive tank-like vehicle. Noting that the twenty-five millimeter rounds seemed to have little effect on the thick reactive armor, Arthur skimmed through the gunner's memories for a solution and found it. Following the impact of a TOW missile, the ABV's fuel tank went up in a ball of fire.

By that time, the shock and confusion of the gunner's crewmates had worn off. Arthur didn't try to fight the men who came to pull the gunner from his station, having learned long ago that engaging in second-hand unarmed combat was as futile and frustrating as trying to perform brain surgery using a marionette. Instead, even as the man he dominated was being pulled away, Arthur forced him to hold down the trigger while turning his gun in a wide arc. The few rounds that hit the mechanized infantry units in the opposite column did only minor damage, but they did increase the heart-rates and adrenalin levels of those inside the stricken vehicles.