Knights of the Apocalypse (A Duck & Cover Adventure Post-Apocalyptic Series Book 2) (22 page)

TWENTY-FOUR

Her name was
Kára. She had died once before. Her name was Sirún then, and she had died of
sadness after losing a true love. Her name now meant the wild, stormy one, and
nowhere was this more evident than in her eyes. They burned blue like the tail
of a comet screaming across the heavens. They raged as she fought back the
beasts of legend and myth with a mighty sword and lethal whip. She had stood
for many years, but she was about to die again. This time it would not be from
the sadness of a cursed and lost love. This time a desperate man was going to
ram a train into her tits.

Five hundred
yards of open field separated the forest and the gaudy gates of the kingdom.
Jerry had stopped the train a mile before and let the army off. They moved
silently into the woods and made their way to the edge of the forest where they
would wait for the most obvious signal ever devised.

Only Jerry,
Kyle and JJ stayed on board the train as it built its speed back up. At full
throttle the smokestack blew soot, ash and steam three hundred feet into the
air and the whistle blew louder than they had ever heard it. And ahead of it
all, the steel blades of the rotary plow spun at a blinding rate and led the
charge toward the castle.

The plow itself
looked like a train with the mouth of a caterpillar. Designed to eat snow too
deep for a blade, the locomotive was given teeth by a power driven ten foot
steel disk. With this monster, followed by the weight of a locomotive and an
entire train, Jerry was sure they could get Kára’s bra open.

The plan was
that simple. Steal a train and run it through a castle wall. The three men in
the cab would jump clear of the inevitable carnage as the army charged across
the open field in the resulting confusion. They would then all pass through the
Valkyrie’s cleavage and take the castle back from the evil prince, and he still
couldn’t believe he had to make a plan like that.  

The train burst
from the edge of the forest at a speed the engine had never seen, and Jerry
pulled on the whistle for several long blasts. He smiled at Kyle who was not
amused. “You’re acting like a child.”

“Fine,” Jerry
said and stepped aside. “You can have your turn.”

Kyle chuckled,
“Thanks,” and pulled on the whistle. A smile grew across his face.

“My turn next,
Kyle,” said JJ who rang the bell while he waited for his turn.

“It’s important
to enjoy your work,” Jerry said as he leaned out the door and looked at the
castle wall through a pair of binoculars he had retrieved from the truck when
he went for the weapons. He smiled. The confusion was beginning to take hold.

Knights lined
the walls, shouting and pointing. There was no patterned movement. None ran for
the mounted crossbows that lined the wall. A few unslung their rifles but
looked to another knight to see if they should fire. Jerry smiled. It was Sir
Erik.

They were two
hundred yards out when the shooting started. It was hurried and didn’t last
long before the men started scrambling from the wall. The shots never even
touched the steel plate of the engine.

Jerry tapped
Kyle on the shoulder and yelled over JJ’s turn at the whistle. “Time to go!”

Kyle tapped JJ
on the shoulder to pass the message on.

JJ yelled at him.
“It’s still my turn, jerk!”

“It’s time to
jump, idiot.”

“Oh.” JJ gave
the whistle one more blast and stepped to the door.

Jerry handed
each a rifle as they stepped outside. He followed out into the cold.

When he looked
at the ground, it was clear that the train was going faster than he had
thought. It hadn’t seemed so fast on the High Line, and he had figured a little
more speed wouldn’t be too bad, but now he really, really didn’t want to jump.

“You sure this
won’t kill us?” Kyle screamed over the wind.

“No,” was all
Jerry could answer. He pointed to the gate, “But I’m sure that will.” He took a
long step and aimed for the softest piece of snow he could see in the blurring
landscape.

The landing
hurt like hell. The snow didn’t help as much as he hoped it would. He dropped
the rifle as his feet hit and did his best to roll off the momentum. He found
several rocks hidden by the snow. They bruised his arms and back and legs. The
snow eventually stopped him and he sat up to look for the other two men.

JJ and Kyle
were limping towards the holes in the snow that hid their guns. Relieved that
everyone had lived up until this point, Jerry high-stepped back through the
snow to his own rifle. In the distance he could see his army making their way
up the tracks.

He turned back
to the castle just in time to see the train plow into the Valkyrie’s chest.

Sparks flew
fifty feet in the air and the steel of the plow scraped against the shipping
containers. The flying white tigers bearing the Valkyrie were erased in that flash. 

The engine
steamed on and the containers buckled. Physics took over from there and the
entire wall shifted as forty cars worth of force plowed through. The lower
containers buckled. The wall collapsed towards the train, covering the wreckage
and preventing any kind of entrance.

The knights
climbed back on to the wrecked wall and began to seek defensive positions.
Jerry could see Sir Erik issuing commands. Carter and the unnamed knight from
the bus were a part of the loyal guard.

“What the hell,
man?” JJ yelled. “It didn’t work.”  

“It should have
worked,” Jerry said. Sure, he didn’t know the math, but he figured one train
would be able to take out one measly wall. But now that train sat beneath the
wreckage.

“You told us
you’d get us in!” Kyle screamed. “We believed you!”

“It should have
worked!” Jerry screamed back as the bullets began to fly their way. How had a
damn train running at full speed not open the gates? How would he get to Erica
now? The snow jumped around their feet in tiny bursts just before the boiler
exploded with the force of more than a ton of dynamite.

The blast
knocked the three men off their feet and back into the snow. Wall and knights
scattered away from the explosion and the bullets stopped.

Parts of the
kingdom’s unbreakable defense began dropping in the snow between them and the
town.

“He was right,”
JJ said. “It worked.”

“May have been
a little overkill,” said Kyle.

There was a
cheer from behind them as the army rushed forward into the breach. They met no
resistance and moved into the town. Jerry and the two mountain men who were
supposed to be the first inside ran to catch up. 

They hadn’t
looked like much on the train. They hadn’t looked like much in the woods. But
given the right motivation, a half-starved band of refugees made for a pretty
impressive sight.

Jerry crossed
through the wreckage of the train and the castle gates to see the army of
mountain men earning the reputation the king had created for them. They fought
like crazed woodsmen. They fought like cannibals.

The citizens
ran. They had never been forced to fight for themselves before and they weren’t
about to ruin a perfect record. Men and women fled from the streets. They ran
into their homes and hid behind locked doors and drawn curtains leaving nothing
but the knights to protect them.

Jerry was
relieved to see the cowardice of the citizenry. Fewer people in the streets
meant fewer casualties. Only the knights were left to face the rage of the
woodsmen.

The king’s men
met the invaders willingly. The knights fired from defensive positions designed
to protect food stores, armories and the noblemen of the town. They found
themselves frustrated in this as the army of woodsmen refused to play along.

Whenever the
mountain men ran into guarded opposition, they simply moved on and found
something else to shoot at. These invaders had no objective. They were storming
the keep as expected. They weren’t targeting the warehouses. Their goals were
chaos and confusion and they found it everywhere.

There was one
target. If they could take the king, whoever he happened to be at the moment,
the men beneath him would collapse. Jerry was sure of this. The king was all
that mattered. But if he saw the Dog or Sir Dominic, he was going to shoot
them, too.

The three men
had stayed on the outskirts of town and worked
their
way north through the kingdom’s neighborhoods until they reached the edge of
Cement Creek and were forced closer into town. Gunshots rang out two blocks
over as the battle raged, but all was quiet for them. He’d been relieved that
they made it this far into town without having fired a shot, but he could tell
JJ was disappointed.

Jerry dropped
behind a fence and peered around the corner. There was a tap on his shoulder
and he turned to see JJ with a furled brow. “What is it, JJ?”

“You told me I
could shoot things.”

“You will.”

“I’d better.”

“You’ll get
your chance in a few minutes. Look around this corner.”

The large
woodsman peered around the corner. “What am I looking at?”

“Do you see the
bell tower? That’s where the king is holding up. It will be well guarded.
There’s going to be plenty to shoot at.”

“Then let’s go
kill us a king.” JJ stepped around the corner.

Jerry grabbed
him by a long scarf and pulled him back. “Not yet.”

JJ turned and
knocked the rifle from Jerry’s hand. He threw the man against the fence and put
a shotgun barrel under his chin. “I’m getting a lot of mixed signals from you.”

Kyle threw up
his hands. “You see, JJ. This is why no one likes you.”

Jerry looked at
Kyle. “This happens a lot, does it?”

“Well,” Kyle
said, “stuff like this.”

Jerry looked JJ
in the eye. There was a focus in an intelligent person’s eyes—a degree of
sharpness that was directly related to how well they saw and understood the world
around them. It told him how much a person would be willing to believe. He was
pretty sure he could promise JJ a puppy and it would be enough. But it would
seem mean. “You’re going to have to trust me on this, JJ. I’m really good at
this kind of thing.”

“You just seem
like a lot of talk so far.”

Kyle tapped JJ
on the shoulder. “Um, JJ, he’s got a gun pointed at your stomach.”

“The hell he
does,” JJ said. “He hasn’t moved.”

“And one at
your junk.”

JJ looked down
and saw the twin Colt .45s aimed just like Kyle said. He lowered the shotgun.
“Please don’t shoot my junk.”

“I don’t want
to shoot anyone’s junk. It makes me uncomfortable to even talk about it.”

JJ backed away
and Kyle tried to change the subject back to overthrowing the kingdom. “So what
do we do?”

Jerry leaned
back around the fence and surveyed the area. There was a garage across the
street from the courthouse that housed old construction equipment. From there
they would have to cross the street and the courthouse lawn
,
which meant spending a lot of time as a
target.

JJ whispered,
“I think he was really going to shoot my junk.”

Kyle shushed
him. “I think you’re right.”

JJ stayed
shushed for only a second. “I like my junk.”

“Don’t we all?
Now shut up.”

“You like my
junk?”

“No, I mean I
like my … shut up, JJ!”

Jerry ducked
back behind the fence. “We’re too exposed here. There’s a building complex
north of the courthouse. We should be able to get closer from there. If we get
in the creek and stay low and close to the bank, we should be able to get there
without being seen. From there we can storm the castle.” Jerry hung his head.
This place was so dumb. He couldn’t wait to get Erica and get out of there.

“Then shooting,
right?” JJ asked.

“Then shooting,
JJ.”

The three men
worked their way back to the edge of Cement Creek and stepped down the shallow
bank. It wasn’t much to hide behind, but they stayed as low as they could and
made their way upstream.

The creek
passed under a bridge. From there they could see the courthouse and some of the
fight being waged in the street. Several of the king’s men were firing down
Elias Street from behind an overturned car.

JJ smiled and
climbed and readied his gun.

Jerry shook his
head.

“But, they’re
right there. And they’re not even looking.”

“You’re going
to shoot them in the back?” Kyle asked.

“I’m not going
to ask them to turn around.”

“You can’t kill
them,” Jerry said. “They’re too far away.”

“No shit.
That’s what the gun’s for.”

“You’d want a
rifle for that, JJ.”