14.8

Simon looked around the inferno that was now the Freelands.

‘Fear not, dear guardians of Serenity,’ he announced through his loudhailer. ‘We shall survive this hell on earth and purify the souls of the sinners that dwell here.’

‘Amen to that,’ Preacher Kelly said, bowing his head in reverence for a second.

They looked around, their view to the horizon a vast sea of flames. The Grims that had occupied the Freelands were dead or dying.

‘The devil is strong in these heathens,’ Cross said, shaking his head sternly. ‘They lie, dying in the dirt, consumed by flames. Some of them are missing parts of their bodies. Yet still they smirk and giggle like Satan himself.’

Preacher Kelly took careful aim and put a bullet through the skull of a female Grim who was letting out a shrill laugh that was audible even over the screams of some of her fellow Grims.

The back of her head spattered all over the face of the grinning man beside her. Still he chuckled away as though he’d been told the world’s funniest joke.

‘May the Lord have mercy on your souls, Godless ones,’ Simon said, making the sign of the cross in the air with his rifle.

A second later, his bullet took off the top of the laughing man’s skull.

His eyes scanned around for King Solomon. He could see they weren’t far from the central section of the Freelands, but the maze of log fences was disorienting him. It was extremely hard to figure out a path.

‘The Devil may place obstacles in our path, but God has the power to remove them for us,’ he grinned.

A mortar flash went off far to their left, sending billowing clouds of flame flying up over the tops of the fences.

‘This unholy place shall burn to the ground, just like Sodom and Gomorrah,’ he beamed. His dozer bucked as it rode over the body of a Grim who was lying screaming in the dirt.

There was a sickly squish and blood soaked the treads of the dozer.

Cross looked around and saw that there were no Grims in the immediate area.

‘Stop the dozers. Attach the chains.’

Preacher Kelly nodded, waving at the dozers to the right and left of them.

A man descended from each dozer, uncoiling thick coils of chain with fast hand over hand motions.

The gunmen on the huge machine guns mounted on top of the dozers spun fast, making sure no one was around to intervene.

The men hooked the chains around the largest fencepost and ran back to the dozers. It was slick, they moved in unison as though they were smaller parts of a larger whole.

Cross raised an ash- and blood-smeared hand and thrust it in the direction away from the fences.

The dozers began to move, slowly at first. The chains clanked, pulled tight.

For a moment it seemed the fences would hold, but then they gave with a sickly splintering sound. They fell like dominoes in a perfect line.

‘To the next layer,’ Cross grinned.

*

Their machine guns spat fire, tearing holes in anyone brave or stupid enough to get in their way.

As they breached another of the internal walls, a line of battle-scarred Grims held up machine guns.

‘For the Freelands! For King Solomon!’ they bellowed as one.

They fired roughly five rounds each, narrowly missing Cross and Preacher Kelly and winging one of the men with them. Blood from his arm sprayed Simon Cross’s face.

Then the defiant grins on the faces of the Grims turned first to confusion and then to terror as they realised their guns had already fired their last bullets.

The machine guns mounted on the dozers tore their bodies off at the waist. They lay, twitching and screaming, in growing puddles of blood.

The dozers put them out of their misery with sickly crunches and pops.

‘See, my brothers and sisters in arms, the Devil has made their spirits weak,’ Cross beamed. ‘God is on our side in this holy war and he shall not let us taste the bitterness of defeat.’

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‘We’re not far now,’ Preacher Kelly said, pointing to the central area of the Freelands.

‘I can see, my child.’ Cross put a comforting hand on his shoulder. ‘My brother’s death shall not be in vain.’

*

The next half a dozen rows of fences fell as easily as the first had.

It seemed no time at all before their dozers were in the central compound.

‘He’s gone, Reverend,’ Preacher Kelly said.

Cross took the news better than he’d expected; nodding solemnly instead of ranting and raving.

‘And lo, the fires of hell shall rise and consume this Godless place,’ Cross grinned.

The men in each dozer launched a wave of fire bombs at the wooden shacks.

They immediately caught fire, the rush of heat hitting Cross and his men hard in the face and searing the breath from their lungs.

Cross watched the flickering flames for a second, savouring the smell of the smoke that raced towards him.

‘Onward Christian soldiers,’ he began to sing down his loudhailer.

His grin of triumph faded slightly when he heard a cacophony of voices from their left.

*

‘What in God’s name is that?’ Cross said, terror momentarily dashing across his features.

‘I’m not sure, Reverend,’ Preacher Kelly said.

Darren Anderson carefully climbed on top of the machine gun mounting and put his rifle scope to his eye.

‘There are a load of people over there,’ he said, his shaking finger pointing to the source of the sound.

‘Grims from the Freelands?’ Cross said. ‘King Solomon’s men?’

Darren shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. They look skinny and crazed. Like they’re possessed or something.’

Cross climbed up onto the mounting himself and scanned the scene through his scope.

‘Ah! It is the cattle from King Solomon’s warehouses,’ he said, as if this suddenly made sense. ‘Rain the cleansing fires of God down upon them, my brethren.’

Screams and pained cries echoed from the other side of the fences.

The fences began to creak under the weight of the bodies surging against them.

‘We need to retreat,’ Cross said, noting the distinct lean to the fence.

The dozers began to edge away just as the fence toppled.

‘My name is legion for we are many,’ Cross said.

The gunners began firing in unison, decimating the advancing horde.

‘Going to a better place now,’ Preacher Kelly said to them, making the sign of the cross in the air.

Cross’ dozer was first out and the other three quickly followed.

The final dozer was wedged against a large boulder that had been used to fortify one of the fences adjacent to the one the cattle had knocked down.

The man on the machine gun of the stuck dozer fired into the surging crowd.

Cross and the other dozers opened fire, tearing into the emaciated, corpselike bodies.

But there were just too many of them.

They were up on the dozer, clawing at the gunman’s face.

The gunman spun in horror, his finger depressing the trigger.

A burst of rounds clanged off the paintwork of Cross’ dozer, whistling over Simon’s head as Preacher Kelly grabbed his shoulder and pulled him down.

If he hadn’t done that, Cross would have been decapitated by the high-calibre rounds.

Still, one of the bullets found its home in Cross’ left arm blowing the limb off roughly halfway down his forearm.

The pain was searing, but he had faith that his God would not abandon him now, when he needed him the most.

The gunman ceased firing as the horde pulled him off the dozer and began greedily devouring him.

The other men on the trapped dozer were soon hauled down and consumed too.

‘Drive,’ Preacher Kelly bellowed.

He pulled the strap from his rifle and bound it tightly around Cross’ bicep.

‘I will not allow Him to take you from me,’ Preacher Kelly said, looking upon Cross with adoring eyes.

Cross said nothing, just grunted with the pain.

The horde was advancing after them, hunger and bloodlust manifest on their faces.

‘Back to Serenity,’ Preacher Kelly bellowed. ‘The Reverend must be saved.’

The machine guns tore the horde to pieces, but still they advanced.

They were relentless, like the tides of the sea.

The dozers slowly left them in their wake as they retreated.