Day of the Damned Read Free

flicker behind those eyes.
    ‘Sven,’ Anton says.
    ‘I know what I’m doing.’
    ‘Hey,’ says my gun. ‘Always a first time.’
    We’re circling, the fury and I.
    It lunges and I block its wrist. Like being hit with a steel bar. Next time I’m going to use my combat arm. I step sideways and it steps sideways. Not sure this thing is alive in a sense I understand. But it mimics my steps perfectly.
    And it’s going to be a bastard to kill.
    It lunges, I block.
    When it makes its fifth or sixth lunge, I step into it. And feel the creature’s fist crack open my chest. Bones break and ribs are forced apart as it reaches inside.
    Hurts like hell.
    That is where the fury comes unstuck. Its skeleton might be metal. But so is my combat arm, which is piston driven and twisted with braided hose. Plus I kill on instinct. Now I might have learnt to keep that under control . . .
    . . . But everyone’s allowed a day off.
    Gripping its wrist, to stop it reaching my heart, makes the fury raise its head and hiss at me. So I tighten my own fingers and twist. Bones break somewhere under that leathery skin.
    ‘Earth to Anton,’ the SIG says.
    I’m getting there.
    Ramming my gun against the creature’s throat, I pull the trigger and watch bits of steel spine, wire and withered flesh exit through the back of its neck. Hollow-point, got to love it.
    ‘Throat?’ Anton says.
    Obviously. I doubt if it has a brain worth shooting.
    Man down. Anton kneels at my side as blood pools in a fuzzy-edged circle round me. Darkness is here and the night goggles he’s slipped over my eyes make my blood look almost fluorescent.
    ‘Sven . . .’
    ‘I’m fine.’
    He stares at me.
    ‘Go get the buggy,’ I tell him.
    Flicking up his own goggles, he examines my face. Not sure what he expects to see without night vision. ‘OK,’ he says. He wants to say something more. Goodbye, probably . . . Idiot thinks I’m dying.
    He’s right, of course. Only my metabolism isn’t that simple. Already I can feel flesh closing and bones beginning to heal.
    ‘Sven,’ he says.
    ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It hurts. Now fuck off.’
    He leaves without looking back. Sir Anton Tezuka, armiger and trade lord . . . Walks away, with his head up and shoulders back. Losing himself in the darkness to give his friend space to die with dignity.
    Shit, you’ve got to love the Tezuka-Wildeside.
    They’re screwed to hell. But they know how to behave.
    Reaching into the gash in my chest, I find a cracked rib and pull it straight. The broken ones are trickier.
    There are three of these. Two have simply snapped, but the third is smashed in two places so I deal with it first. Feeling for the sharpness of broken bone, I slot the section into place. Hurts like fuck, again.
    Always does. Every single time.
    That’s why I sent Anton away. Don’t like showing pain, and sometimes, like now, it’s impossible not to. Blood from a bitten lip drips on my jacket. When the ribs are done, I settle myself against a rock and wait.
    Anton isn’t getting the buggy. He’s gone to fetch a burial party.
    Dumb bastard.
    It’s almost daylight before I hear a vehicle in the valley below. It’s not the buggy. An ex-militia scout car to judge from its camouflage. Painted-out numbers are just visible on the turret. A whip antenna flicks in the breeze.
    Gears shift and the scout car begins its climb.
    Fat-wheels lurch as it bounces over rock and slams down again. The reconnaissance vehicle isn’t fast, but it’s powerful enough to grind its way up this slope.
    I can hear it change gear, the wild dog that has been watching me can hear it change gear, and so can the buzzards circling high in the pink sky overhead. Guess Anton reckons that if Horse Hito is out there he’d have attacked already.
    First out of the cab is a blonde-haired girl, who runs towards me, loses her nerve and slides to a halt, face twisted with misery. About a year back, the first fifteen years of Aptitude’s well-ordered life