William Cooper Pov

I stared across the snowy field in front of me, my breath misting in the air as I strained to see anything in the moonlight. I could hear my brother soldiers moving around behind me. Assuming positions, reinforcing the line, restocking ammo and tending the fires that struggled to keep the chill at bay. Runners had brought word half an hour ago that movement had been spotted across the line.

I reached my trigger hand down to the small brazier hanging at my side. A handful of hot coals and smoldering slow burning feed kept it producing just enough heat to keep my fingers from freezing. Then the yelling began, someone had spotted something. Flares were launched and the night turned into a false daylight. Nothing appeared on the fields for a moment before me, and then a figure charging across the field, dozens of them. Thunder answered their charge.

My rifle joined the dozens of others firing shots at the beasts charging us. Aim. Fire. Pull back the bolt to eject the shell. Insert a new shell. Aim. Fire. Repeat. Again and again as fast as we can. The shoulder padding I wore did its best to absorb some of the recoil of my gun. Then one of the figures stumbled, spinning head over heels and crashing along the ground before it rose, now identifiable as a nightbeast hound. A dozen rifle rounds pounded into it, and then a half dozen more, it fell, still moving, still alive, but too wounded to move. But in the time it took for it to fall the others crossed the halfway point of the line. And the thunder of rifles became a scream of death as the machine guns opened up.

I glanced to my left where the MG nest was, and then back to watch as even a pack of nightbeasts fell. I grimaced as some still moved after the first pass of the gun brought them low in a hail of lead. But another stopped all motion from the attacking pack. Something was off though, I looked down the line left and right, and my heart went cold. There were more packs, further along on both sides. That meant this wasn’t a hunting pack. My grandpa had told me stories, and those stories…I loaded my gun again and rested my hand by my brazier, one eye shut.

When the flares went out, I opened it quickly, doing my best to see in the dark. In that moment when the flares went out and the battlefield was once more dark. The forest moved. More flares rose into the sky, and my rifle fired. There was no need to aim, there was no way I would miss. I could not even see the snow for the number of nightbeasts charging towards us. This time the machine guns did not hold till the enemy was halfway across the line. Orders were yelled up and down the line, I listened with half an ear, but none of them mattered.

Open fire? Already shooting. Hold the line? Where would we run? How could we run? My grandfather knew. Nightbeasts can run a man down, and then do it again and again for an entire night. If they reach us, many would die, even with our training it was not meant for this. I slowly inhaled and exhaled. Reload. Fire. Reload. Fire. Focus on the front line, let the fallen slow the ones behind, just a little more. Another second. Another moment. Another instant. Another round to fire.

My body did not seem to belong to me. At first my shoulder was sore, then screaming, then numb. But I still fired. I wasn’t sure if I was doing anything, the line of charging monsters only seemed to fall back under the glare of the gunners nest. Only when they strafed across the line would it waver and break for a moment. I reached into my ammo pouch, and touched the bottom for a second I froze, and then the world seemed to come back to screaming reality as I reached for my second pouch. Always have a backup grandpa said. And then I heard the yelling.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“TO NEST 13A TO NEST 13A THERE IS A BREACH, HOLD THE LINE!”

If my blood was not already frozen, those words would have turned it to solid ice with dread. Gunners Nest 13A, the nest to my left, the nest that was holding the horde at bay, was under threat. Whatever had breached the line had to have come from the other side of the nest from me. But if the nest went down, we were all dead. I drew my bayonet and slotted it onto the tip of my rifle, wincing as my chilled fingers touched the hot barrel of the rifle. I hadn’t been able to warm them in a while. Or maybe the barrel was just that hot? I didn’t have time to think about it as I joined the stream of soldiers charging towards 13A.

It was less than 40 feet from my position, and I could smell the blood before getting halfway there. The sound of rifle fire and screaming came from ahead, my vision blocked by the man in front of me, before we reached the area right behind the nest. No longer in a narrow trench, 13A was a nice spacious area, filled with ammo, supplies and even cots and campfires. Now all of that was red, a figure drenched in blood laughed, as it threw the upper torso of a man aside. The man's rifle went through the head of one of the men charging ahead and to the right of me, and the chest of the man behind him. The guy directly ahead of me dove to the side against the trench wall, trying to take cover as he opened fire.

It dodged him, It dodged me too. But unlike him, I kept charging. We couldn’t let it get to the nest, we HAD to hold the line. We had to, I stared at the moon above, trying to remember what happened. I had tried to stab him with a bayonet, and then everything spun and…then I was looking at the moon. It was cold. So cold. But was that death? Or just the cold? It was just the cold, I couldn’t die yet. The machine gun was still firing. As long as it kept firing we could hold the line. We had to hold the line. We couldn’t let them by, or we would all die. Something flew over me where I was lying, for a second the moon's light was covered. For a second I thought the monster had charged into the gunner's nest, the gun stuttered, but did not stop.

It hadn’t gone in. I forced myself up and looked for the monster. There, still laughing. But there was no one attacking it as it slowly crushed someone beneath its foot. Where was everyone else? Why was no one shooting it? Charging it? We had to hold the line. I forced myself up, something inside me shifted in a way that was not pleasant, but…I could stand. I stood, and the world shook. I was so cold. So cold. But I drew my knife and charged, I didn’t yell. It was too hard to move, yelling was just more work. But there was no way it wouldn’t hear me, grandpa had said they can hear the beat of a human heart if they listen, the rushing of blood in a man’s veins.

My knife never had a chance of reaching him. I choked, my legs twitching as he held me by the neck, my hand broken by the casual slap he used to disarm me of the knife. Grandpa had been right. Nightbeasts hunted in packs, but if there was more than one pack, that meant it was a big deal, and there were probably vampires around. I gazed into the red eyes and cruel smile of a vampire right now. He also told me no mortal man can kill a vampire, not unless they do it just right. He was right. There was no way I could kill this. My hand broken, being choked as it gloated at me, so many soldiers casually torn apart. The scent of blood filled my nose. Black grew at the edges of my vision. And it was so damn cold.

I think grandpa would have been proud.

I pulled the trigger on his old pistol, retrieved from where I kept it, always loaded in a holster over my heart. A pistol he told me to never use unless I was sure I could make the shot count. I felt my arm twist and break from the force of that shot, I felt the pistol break my fingers as it flew out of my hand. And I felt the cold ground of 13A slam into my back as the vampire threw me. And I heard the scream of pain from it. As my vision faded to black and the cold seeped in.

I heard the fire of the machine gun still going. I heard the sound of rifles firing. And then…silence.