Kenopsia (Book 1 of Pandora's Wake: The Nomad Chronicles)
The Road to Hell

Doctor Allmendinger gazed out of the window with increasing concern. She should be able to see the lights of the town of Bex by now. Unless her sense of where she was had failed her utterly, of course, and they were further away than she remembered. She knew it was possible. People sometimes found it difficult to judge distance or location as precisely in the dark as they could in the daylight. Nonetheless, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Even accounting for the fact that the national grid was largely a memory since the Event, most towns ran generators to keep some light at night - even if only for the sentries to see by.

Maybe that was it, she had been looking for the lights of a pre-fall town, rather than the much more modest lighting a post-Event town could afford to keep running. After all, generators needed fuel and fuel was becoming increasingly hard to come by. Yes, that must be it, she reasoned. Then again, what about gas lamps? burning torches? wouldn’t they be using those? She wasn’t sure, even those things would be limited, they would run out of gas or oil, even burning brands were a resource that would eventually grow scarce. Perhaps the survivors at Bex chose to conserve such resources and operated a curfew?

Her mind racked with doubt and uncertainty, doctor Allmendinger turned to Cherubin, about to ask his opinion. She didn’t need to, his hands grasped the steering wheel far more tightly than they needed to as if he were clinging to it for dear life. His furrowed brow and dark eyes seemed to reflect her own worries.

The two companions exchanged troubled glances.

“Thor, this is Mjolnir, come in please, over.” Knut almost laughed with relief as officer Mathias’s voice cut through the static on the radio. The signal was weak, but it was him.

“Mjolnir, this is Thor actual. It is good to hear from you, we were getting worried! Over.”

“Copy that Thor, we had to leave some of our vehicles behind - a close encounter with some unpleasant guests - long story. Will tell you in person. The primary target was destroyed, we have one casualty. Injuries are serious but not critical at this time. Suspected broken ribs and nose, suspected limb fractures. Over.”

“Understood Mjolnir. We will arrange treatment when we arrive in Bex. Our ETA to destination is now under ten minutes. Be advised you will encounter a destroyed UNCAIF column on the main road, advise against stopping. Possible lingering danger, details in person. Over.”

" Copy that Thor, we will proceed without stopping. We are making good time and travelling at high speed, ETA Bex. Now just 25 minutes. Over.”

“Message understood Mjolnir. Thor out.”

Weariness ate away at Joanas. His chest ached, his eyes burned and he could hear himself wheezing as he breathed. A combination of lack of sleep and the effects of the alien fungal spores in his lungs made each metre of the road a struggle as he drove the massive armoured vehicle at the front of the column. Behind him, he heard Kurt was not having it any better. His corporal was coughing with increasing frequency and each fit seemed to be more violent than the last. He dreaded to think how the other nomads were fairing. Few were in quite the peak physical condition he and Kurt had been at the beginning of the end of human civilisation. Weeks on the road with carefully rationed supplies, limited sleep and in a constant state of heightened tension and awareness had drained everyone.

Despite his best efforts, the soldier’s concentration drifted. He imagined reaching Bex and trading something for a bed and a bath and if possible a meal that wasn’t military issue MRE’s. The Meals Ready To Eat were well balanced, but you soon craved something else. What he wouldn’t give for some good Bavarian smoked cheese and decent sausage about now – not to mention something strong to drink that didn’t taste as if Magda had distilled it from diesel fuel.

In his mind’s eye, he saw himself biting into some fresh fruit, the juices running down his throat – he missed it so much.

Up ahead the headlights picked out something on the road, fist-sized debris, scattered across it in seemingly random patterns. For a second his mind, made sluggish by the difficulty he was having drawing breath, puzzled over what it might be.

“Shit!” he swore suddenly as the first in a series of potholes in the road loomed up in front of him. Jerking the steering wheel he narrowly avoided it, only to replace himself having to pull the wheel hard down the other way to avoid the next crater in the surface of the road. The MRAP bounced and careened dangerously as the road turned into a slalom of potholes and debris that had been blasted from the road by some form of explosive device.

Kurt fell hard into the back of the vehicle, letting loose a string of curses in German before he remembered he was speaking to his sergeant.

“Sorry Oberfeldwebel!” Kurt spluttered a note of pain in his voice.

“Are you alright Balchmire?” Joanas called over his shoulder as he struggled to negotiate the ruined roadway

“Ja, I just hit my elbow and shoulder, what is going on?”

“Warn the rest of the column, this road is in ruins, craters and rubble everywhere!” Even as Joanas gave the order he could hear the screeching of tyres and brakes behind him. Too late, the rest of the column had hit the start of the devastated road.

Kurt scrambled over the seat backs and climbed into the front passenger seat.

“Mein Got! It’s like a battle zone! Are those... are those mortar impact craters?” He asked, agape.

“I’m not sure. They may be.” Joanas answers as he struggled to manoeuvre the massive vehicle between craters and debris, slowing it down to improve his control and praying no one else hit the back of the MRAP as he did so. The column’s formation had been tighter than he liked, but civilian drivers lacked the discipline of trained soldiers and nervousness has made many of the nomads bunch their vehicles.

“This is fiendish!” Joanas spat, as he swerved to avoid what appeared to be the wing of a car, lying in the road, buckled from some savage impact, “What the hell happened here? Those infected Spaniards again, do you think?” the question was only partly rhetorical.

From somewhere outside and behind them came the sound of screeching brakes, squealing tyres and then a bone-crushing impact of metal on something solid and unyielding.

“Shit! I think someone hit something!” Kurt yelled as the radio crackled into life.

“Knut to all ears! We have a vehicle off the road, pull up and prepare to assist! Over.”

“Goddammit!” Joanas swore as he pulled the MRAP over to the side and slowed to a stop. “Kurt, get on the 50 calibre and cover us, I’ll help with the rescue!”

Father Businger muttered prayers under his breath as he tried desperately to manoeuvre the bus through the maze of potholes and debris. He had slowed as much as he dared, with other vehicles coming up behind him. Each of them had also slowed in time to avoid disaster. He could see in his mirrors that they were having less difficulty than he was with the ruined road. Their smaller size and greater manoeuvrability made them more nimble than the several tonnes of airport bus he was driving.

In the back, Madame Monnier tried to calm her two terrified youngest children. Her elder daughter, Delphine was a teenager who should by rights have spent the last year discovering boys and deciding what she wanted to do with her life instead of watching her father die and spending her days avoiding deadly alien animals. Delphine turned white with terror but somehow comforted both her younger siblings and her mother. Not for the first time Father Businger was struck by just what a remarkable young woman Delphine was. Her highly strung mother had been on the verge of hysteria since the Other-Verse came, but always Delphine mastered her fear and conquered her doubts, holding her mother together with a strength of character rare in one so young. The nomads would be glad of the level-headed French girl before it was all over, he had no doubt.

Up ahead other vehicles were struggling to negotiate the dreadful road, slowing as they tried to avoid disaster.

Then it struck.

One of the larger vehicles – Ember’s truck he thought, swerved, almost losing control but not quite. Its rear tyres threw something, he couldn’t make out what, up into the air, striking the windshield of the car behind. The world seemed to slow as Father Businger watched the car begin to swerve. It struck one of the pot-holes with bone jarring force as its driver wrestled in vain to regain control. It bounced across the road and slammed into the barrier, its front end beginning to crumple as its rear end bucked into the air, then came down heavily.“Oh, God! It’s the Elbers,” the priest gasped as the column stopped, nomads, leaping from their vehicles to run to the aid of their stricken friends. Up ahead the giant armoured vehicle that led the column came to a stop. The figure of one of the German soldiers appeared from the hatch in its roof, manning the 50 calibre gun on top to give the column cover as they tried to execute a rescue.

Mia Elber groaned. The world seemed soft and fuzzy as she tried to make sense of what had happened. Her husband had been driving when something shattered the windscreen and sent them into a spin. After that everything was a blur. She fought to stay conscious as the air bag enveloped her in its protective embrace.

“Jakob1” she called weakly, with no response. Panic began to spread through her.

“JAKOB!”

This time she was rewarded by a faint groan.

“Are you all right?” A momentary pause followed by a pained groan.

“I’m... I’m hurt, Mia. My head.” His voice was strained, faint, muffled in part by the two air bags that had deployed.

“Hang on Jakob, the others are coming. Stay awake!” Her heart hammered in her chest. Whatever hit them had struck the glass right in front of her husband’s face. She could feel several cuts and grazes on her own skin, how much worse had he suffered? Struggling to wriggle free she jumped, startled, as her airbag burst with a sudden and unexpected bang. Twisting in her seat, she could see Jacob, slumped into the airbag, his face a mask of pain and slick with a red wash of his own blood. She stifled a gasp as she noticed the savage gash in his head, the blood staining his airbag. Shards of glass littered the inside of the car.

A pale, worried face appeared at the window,

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Oh god are you all right in there?” Ember gabbled, her guilt at the accident reducing her to near hysterics.

“It wasn’t your fault!” Knut’s voice drifted in from the darkness. “It couldn’t be avoided. Let’s get them out so Dr. Allmendinger can take a look then we will see if we can salvage the vehicle.”

In an instant, the world became loud and confusing as a dozen nomads arrived to help.

“MEDIC!” someone else screamed into the night “We have a head wound here!”

“Let me through! Let me see!” Dr Allmendinger wheezed as she pushed the others out of the way. “I might have to get at him from the other side? Mia, can you get out? Are you okay?”

“I... I think so. Yes,” Mia tried to scramble out of her door, but something kept pulling her back into her seat. She snarled in frustration, what was she caught on? Doctor Allmendinger appeared at her door,

“Your seat belt, Mia, you still have your seat belt on.” The doctor’s voice was calm, reassuring.

Mia laughed bitterly. In her confusion, she had forgotten to release it. She released the clip and slid out of the door, helped by Doctor Allmendinger,

“Come with me, I’ll take a look at you.” Cherubin smiled comfortingly,

“The doctor will see to Jacob.”

The large arms of the Belgian-Congolese nurse enveloped Mia, helping her from the wreckage and she sagged against him, glad to have someone take some of her weight. She was shaking almost uncontrollably and felt as if she would be sick at any moment. Behind her, doctor Allmendinger slid into the passenger side and got to work.

Ember groaned inwardly as she examined the stricken vehicle that the Elbers had been driving. Sliding out from under it, she took the torch out of her mouth and stood up, wearily. Her chest hurt and it felt as if she was breathing treacle.

“Front wheel is buckled, I think the suspension is shot, and it’s leaking oil.” She grumbled at Knut. “It’s all repairable, given time, the equipment and a body shop. Now the equipment I’ve got, but the time and the shop...” she shrugged, letting her sentence hang in the air. Glancing over her shoulder she saw Jakob’s pained, white face through the car window. A number of nomads had gathered by the driver’s door and doctor Allmendinger seemed to be busying herself inside, tending to his injuries. Ember flushed,

“How is he?” she asked, her voice tinged with guilt. In focusing on the vehicle, and if it could be salvaged, she had almost forgotten the injured man in the driver’s seat above her.

Knut smiled comfortingly, perhaps reading her thoughts on her face,

“He will be fine. They are just preparing to move him. The doctor is making one last set of checks to be sure that moving him will not do him any more harm. We have no ambulance, so he will have to go on the bus with the children. I hope they will not be too frightened, but there is no choice.”

The other vehicles had been drawn up in a semi-circle to provide a defensive perimeter as best they could. The stricken car was too near the edge of the road to let them surround it completely. Beyond the crash site, the road gave way to forest and a rough incline that ran down the hillside. Behind them, on the other side of the road, was more forest and an ascending slope.

A few minutes ago call sign Mjolnir had caught up to the column and taken their places. They had brought with them a casualty of their own in the form of Magda, who was even now being attended by Cherubin in the airport bus, which seemed to be doing double duty as a kindergarten and a field hospital.

“Kurt to Knut, I’ve got movement in the tree line about 20 meters out. Multiple contacts, but I can’t get a good look at them! Over.” Kurt Balchmire’s voice drifted from the radio,

“Confirmed here,” Joanas’s voice joined in the radio traffic, “I can’t be certain but I think they are some kind of large canine? Over.”

Knut’s head sagged as he ran his hand over his face and balding head before wearily calling into the radio,

“Does anyone else have a visual? Over?”

“Roger that Knut.” Mathias Forrell answered. The policeman had insisted on joining the security perimeter immediately after returning from the mission to destroy the fungi. “I can see movement in the tree lines, but they seem to be holding position, just watching. I can’t confirm numbers, over.” Forrell lacked the night-sight goggles that Kurt and Joanas were using.

“Keep a close watch on what you can see, and prepare to fire if they get too close,” Knut began, just as he was distracted by the excited chatter of the nomads closest to the car. Glancing round, he saw they had begun to remove Jakob from the wreckage. Doctor Allmendinger had left the car and was now overseeing the removal of her patient. Dmitri, Ronan and several others carefully hauled Jakob from the vehicle and laid him on a hastily constructed stretcher, made from branches and blankets.

“... erm... Over” Knut spoke into the radio as he stepped aside to give the nomads room to move the make-shift stretcher past him.

“INCOMING!” Someone screamed into the night air which suddenly came alive with the flash of weapons fire and tracer rounds, and the sound of gunshots.

“CONTACT!” Kurt’s voice burst in over the radio swiftly joined by that of Joanas,

“All stations we have contact. Multiple hostiles closing from the north and north-west through the tree line. Aim low and provide suppression fire into the trees and covering fire for the stretcher team. Out”.

The rattle of weapons fire intensified as several dark forms burst from the tree line onto the road, tearing towards the exposed stretcher team and the wounded man.

Time seemed to slow down for Ember. The night descended into a chaos of screaming, running nomads and gunfire. Muzzles flashes and tracer rounds combined to create a ghastly strobe effect. Dark forms, only partially visible, raced from the tree line into the withering gunfire, only to burst apart in a shower of bone and gore. Yet despite the carnage, the things kept coming. Half a dozen must have died already. Ember couldn’t see them clearly but they seemed like some kind of large canine.

In front of her, Ronan and Dmitri broke off from the stretcher party and turned to face the tree line and the attacking monsters. Two other nomads, Dr Allmendinger and the Irishman, Shamus Harper, took up the stretcher and ran for the safety of the airport bus.

“They’re inside the perimeter!” Joanas’s voice called over the radio.

“Shit!” Ember snapped out of her stupor and readied the crossbow she carried in a sling across her back. Taking Knut’s elbow in her left hand she said,

“We have to get to one of the vehicles!”

The nightmarish apparition that lunged out of the darkness reminded Dmitri of a large dog that someone had flayed alive. The monster had no fur, and if it had skin at all, Dmitri couldn’t see it. A crimson ichor covered the entirety of its body. Dripping off it in oozing, gory globules. Its muzzle was split by a mouth filled with savage fangs and canine teeth. From strange, blister-like structures above the creature’s front shoulders grew long, thrashing, tentacles. The sight was enough to all but turn Dmitri’s stomach.

All this, Dmitri observed in a fraction of a second as the abomination landed on the road only feet from him. The creature seemed to sag down onto its haunches, preparing to spring forward, its savage maw snarling at the terrified man.

Dmitri raised his pistol and fired as the creature leapt at him.

His first round grazed the monster’s foreleg, sending a slurry of crimson ichor into the chill night air, and then it was upon him. The sudden, crashing impact sent Dmitri sprawling to the ground, pinned beneath the monster. Where the red ichor which covered the creature touched his flesh it stung, burning him uncomfortably. Teeth snapped together only centimetres from his face as he struggled to bring his pistol up, but one of the flailing tentacles caught his wrist, pushing it away. Swearing under his breath Dimitri thrashed beneath the beast, desperately trying to free himself as death seemed moments away. A second creature joined the fight, fastening its teeth into Dmitri’s leg and sending shock waves of pain lancing up it. Screaming, Dmitri fought to free himself from the first assailant as the second began to worry at his leg, ripping chunks of bloody flesh from the wound.

Without warning, the head of the first creature disintegrated, showering Dmitri in blood, gore, bone and the painful, stinging red ichor that coated the creature. Struggling to free his arm from the tentacle of the now dead alien monstrosity, Dmitri kicked out at the second assailant. A shot rang out from Ronan’s shotgun, shattering the body of the second monster just as he had blown apart the skull of the first in an attempt to rescue Dmitri.

“You okay?” Ronan called as he leant down to try to help Dmitri disentangle himself from the bodies of the two dead alien dog-things.

“My leg’s badly torn up, I don’t think I’m going to be able to stand.“. As he spoke, pain lanced up through his thigh.

Nodding, Ronan assessed the situation, “I can carry you,” he said in a tone that would brook no argument.

“Look out Ronan!” Embers voice was barely audible over the din of battle, certainly, Ronan hadn’t heard it, but Dmitri had. Twisting his head around his eyes widened as he saw the dog-thing on the boot of the damaged car, about to spring.

He raised his pistol for a shot as one of Ember’s crossbow bolts thudded into the monster’s side, eliciting a yelp. Its flailing tentacles wrapped themselves about Ronan and picked him off his feet, hauling him backwards through the air.

Cursing, Dmitri tried in vain to get a clear shot, but couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t hit Ronan instead. A sudden weight landed on his chest, claws scrabbling into him. He screamed and tried to fight off this new assailant. Fangs sank into his neck and he could feel a hot wash of liquid burst forth, down over his neck and chest.

“Shit!” he thought as his throat tore loose in the creature’s mouth. Realising he was dying, Dmitri managed to bring up his pistol and fire three rounds into the creature’s head, point blank. As his vision fogged the last thing he saw was the skull of the creature that had killed him burst apart.

Ember braced her crossbow on the car door and fired again. This time her shot went wild, over the head of the monstrous thing attacking Ronan. Cursing, she reloaded and took aim again. By now the creature and Ronan seemed locked in a life or death wrestling match. He’d managed to jam the stock of his shotgun into the creature’s jaws and was trying to twist it to break the animal’s neck. The dog things tentacles wrapped about Ronan and was squeezing, trying, so Ember assumed, to make him break his death grip on the weapon. Powerless to help, Ember watched for a clear shot as the two struggled. If she fired now, she risked hitting Ronan.

As she watched, Shamus came out of nowhere. Leaping through the air with what looked like an entrenching tool, he brought it down on the creature attacking Ronan. The sharp edge bit into the creature’s neck, and Shamus’s full weight came down with it, almost severing the head. The creature’s jaws flopped open limply and Ronan retrieved his weapon, as he and Shamus tore at the creature’s tentacles, which were still locked around Ronan.

Ember breathed a sigh of relief. The stretcher party must have reached the safety of the airport bus with Jakob, and Shamus, seeing his fellow Irishman in trouble, had come rushing back just in time. Remembering that a battle still raged all about them, Ember tore her eyes from the sight of the two Irishmen wrestling the dead monstrosity off Ronan and turned her attention back to Dmitri.

“Oh, no!” she muttered softly, “God no. Not Dmitri!” Her eyes began to tear up at the sight of her friend lying dead in the road. His throat was torn out and the shattered remains of the creature that had killed him slumped across his body. There was a rapidly spreading pool of blood spilling across the surrounding tarmac, man and monster’s life-blood mingling in death.

Ember’s fingers were numb with the shock, her eyes filled with tears. They had all lost so much since the Other-Verse burst through from whatever nightmare dimension it belonged to and washed away human civilisation. So many millions were dead. Almost everyone Ember had ever known, but it didn’t seem to get any easier. Here, in a cold, Swiss night, the sight of Dmitri lying dead in the road, his flesh already turned almost white from blood loss, Ember found her grief growing into something new, anger. A fury boiled up inside her as she loosed the crossbow bolt she had loaded on the next dog-monster she saw and loaded it again. Load and shoot, load and shoot, she worked furiously, sending quarrel after quarrel into the night, screaming an incoherent battle cry that gave vent to all her rage. She lost track of how long she fought, loading and shooting until she had no more quarrels.

Slinging the crossbow into the car she slammed the door shut, drew her knife and strode into the midst of the chaos, snarling almost as savagely as the alien dog-monsters.

Mathias Forrell pumped his shotgun again and pulled the trigger as the hell-hound bounded up the length of the vehicle he had been stood on during most of the battle. Spent shotgun cartridges littered the roof of the car and the road around him. Nothing happened. The former policemen cursed under his breath. The shotgun was empty again, now of all times. He dropped flat to the car roof, letting go of the shotgun and drawing his police issue handgun as the creature leapt for him. Taken by surprise by its prey’s sudden collapse, it leapt over him as he fired three rounds into its body at close range. Gobbets of the red gore that clung to the creature’s outer surfaces fell onto his uniform and fizzed slightly where they touched, leaving the material blackened and burned. The creature hit the ground behind the car with a heavy thump. Officer Forrell sprang to his knees, spinning round to get a look at its broken body where it lay gasping and flailing on the tarmac. He fired twice more into its body and the monster fell silent.

Ronan clambered to his feet, finally free of the tentacles of the dead dog-monster. Reloading his rifle, he turned to replace the next threat. With Shamus standing at his back, the two Irishmen surveyed the scene. Among the chaos were the bodies of more than a dozen of the alien monsters, maybe as many as two dozen. The roar of gunfire had fallen to just an occasional rapport,

“You see anymore mate?” Shamus yelled,

“Nup!” Ronan confirmed although he kept a sharp look out. He’d seen Dmitri’s death but couldn’t afford to dwell on it now. Ember was kneeling by the dead man, her face and hands covered in blood, a large, bloodied knife hanging limply from her fingers as she wept. She could do his grieving for him, Ronan decided, that way he could pretend he had dealt with it.

“The survivors are fleeing through the trees to the north. Looks like they have had enough, Over.” Joanas called into the radio as he surveyed the trees through his night-sight goggles.

“For now. They may be back, Over.” Mathias Forrell’s voice came back.

“Agreed. Looks like we are leaving the damaged car where it is, retrieve what you can, get our wounded and dead rounded up and then we go. Over.” Knut’s voice now.

There was a pause as everyone took a moment to come to terms with what had happened. On the road, several nomads vomited the last of their adrenalin onto the tarmac as the orders spread.

“Forrell here. What do we do with our dead?... Over.” he asked over the radio. Joanas could see him now, standing over the body of a downed nomad. Others had gathered around the body as well. From here, Joanas couldn’t tell who the dead man was, but the others looked like Ember and the two Irishmen. He cursed silently, there were so few of them that every loss seemed like a personal affront to him now.

The radio was silent for what seemed like an age before Knut answered.

“Put them in the bus. We’ll have to move the children out of there though and replace them a car to ride in till we get to Bex. Over.”

Another pause,

“Affirmative. Over” Forrell’s voice seemed tired, forlorn.

“Who...” Knut’s voice cracked a little and he paused, “Who didn’t make it? Over.”

“Dmitri.” The former policeman’s voice answered, “Dmitri is dead. We have a few wounded, nothing else too serious though. Over!”

“Understood. Out” Two words, but Knut’s tone held a gravity to it that left no-one who heard it any doubt that the old man had taken the news very hard.