Chương 106: 3.30 Remains - Volker Bertelmann (2:58)

Z3ke (Original Poster) The battlefield was quiet. There were engines idling and I could hear the panicked breathing of Pale Regiment soldiers all around me, but other than that… silent. All the noise and chaos that had reigned for the past five or ten minutes - or however long we'd been fighting - was gone. No one was shooting or shouting or talking or even willing to blink.

Hundreds of people were frozen in the abandoned loading yard, staring at the monstrous horrors who'd just walked through the dirt and sand and wandered onto the battlefield, trying to understand what exactly was happening. The Black Teeth, the mercenaries, the Pale Regiment and the Shard Choir, all four groups, had collectively come to the same conclusion.

Whatever the Eaters were, the fact that a bunch of nightmare entities were strolling towards us was way more important than the battle we'd been fighting five seconds earlier. We were all trying to do the calculus of what that meant. Now that I write this, I know there's gonna be a bunch of pissy people on this forum who are going to bitch at what I'm about to say.

There were maybe a dozen different useful things I could have been doing while the battlefield was quiet, and I'm sure you'll all point them out and call me an idiot for just standing there. There was a lull in the fighting which would have been incredibly useful for us, the defenders against three major groups. We could have pulled the wounded back to the center or redistributed ammo or reinforced weak points in the perimeter.

Better yet, I could have figured out some way to extricate myself from the oncoming shit show. It was the perfect moment to grab Jackie and Elnor and toss them in the jeep and just go. I wish I could say that I was running through the options… but hells no I wasn't. I was shaking. I was more terrified than anyone else on that battlefield and for a very good reason. Unlike all the rest of them, I'd already seen the Eaters. I knew them. They'd hunted me across the Glens in some sick game they were playing.

They'd stormed the train I'd been on and butchered almost everyone. The last time I'd been anywhere near them, I'd hoped that I'd never have to see them again. There wasn't any panic or urgency in the way they walked towards all of us. They just walked with this awful confidence that made my skin crawl, like they knew they were bigger and stronger and meaner than anything around and they didn't have anything to fear.

The silence of the battlefield lasted for about five seconds before the Shard Choir finally cracked. Another quiet chant started up in their ranks. At first it was only a handful of voices since most of them were seemingly too dumbfounded at seeing the Eaters to do anything. But more and more voices added in until the whole of the Choir was chanting in perfect harmony. The sound of it filled the loading bay and had slowly turned into a triumphant roar. They dropped their weapons in the dirt.

Clubs clattered to the floor and rifles fell to the ground and the cultists stumbled towards the Eaters. It was almost hesitant the way they moved, not because they were afraid though. It was the type of hesitancy you see in people who have found something they've yearned for for the longest time, and they can't believe that it's finally happening. The men and women of the Shard Choir spread their arms wide and slowly moved towards the Eaters. Well, I say slowly, but it quickly became a full-on sprint at them.

I saw their faces as they were running and their smiles were so broad and wide that their faces looked like they'd split apart. One of the cultists outpaced the rest, his long legs eating up the ground and placing him in front of the Eaters within seconds. He bowed his head and stretched his arms to the side and came to a dead stop. The closest Eater raised an impossibly long arm at the man and the man's smile widened.

"You have seen me!" he shouted without a single trace of fear. The Eater reached out a hand to the man's chest and long strips of skin flaked from his body, looking like invisible hands were stripping him layer by layer. A pale blue wisp drifted up from his chest and rose like smoke before curling obediently into the waiting palm of the Eater. The sight of it had the cultists cheering.

Their voices broke into ecstatic laughter and they threw their hands into the air and praised whatever twisted gods they worshipped, the two deaths of the cultists convincing them that what they were seeing was something sacred instead of horrifying. If it had been me standing there, or really anyone sane, I would have been sprinting as fast as possible and as far away as possible from the Eaters. But no. These dumbasses were running towards them.

They shoved each other aside, desperate to be the next person the Eaters touched. Desperate to be the next victim chosen. Desperate to, I don't know what they believed in… ascend? All I could do was sit there and watch as grown men and women fought over the privilege of being killed. I wasn't the only one stunned at the sight.

The Black Teeth and mercenaries were watching too, and they weren't doing anything until one of the Black Teeth gunners finally decided he'd had enough of standing around and waiting for the nightmares to do whatever the hell they wanted to do. He raised a gun and squeezed the trigger and the sudden roar of gunfire echoed across the battlefield, making me instinctively flinch. The rounds slammed into the closest Eater, punching fist-sized holes into his rubbery flesh and tearing chunks from its chest and shoulders.

Every round that hit the creature rocked it backwards. Bits and pieces of whatever it was made from - because it sure as shit wasn't flesh - splattered across the concrete as fresh holes appeared all over its body. For the briefest of moments I allowed myself to hope that that was it. The fight was over. The Black Teeth would turn their aggression on the Eaters, and they'd wipe them out, and then the battle would reset and we'd all go again. The Eater straightened and turned to the raider who'd just fired at it.

And as it stood, the holes in its body started to close. Torn flesh folded back together and the missing bits of itself pulled themselves back into place. About three seconds after the first bullet hit, there wasn't a single mark on the Eater's body. It was almost as if reality itself had decided to rewind the damage. My mind jumped back to the train and the Glens and the ambush by the Eaters. They'd poured through the windows and tore through the frightened and panicky passengers.

There'd been a woman on board the train. I never got her name because Asshole had decoupled the cars and left her to die before I could ask. She'd saved my life by fending off the Eaters. One of them had got a hold of me and she had cracked it upside its head with that staff wreathed in flames she was carrying. The same one you all were geeking out about. When she hit the Eaters, they had actually reacted. They staggered back and hissed at her and she was able to hold the line.

I didn't really think much of it at the time. It was just one strange event that was happening in the middle of a very strange couple days. But now? Seeing the bullets from the Black Teeth doing absolutely nothing, and remembering the look of fear on the Eaters' face when the woman was swinging her staff, the thought of it all stuck in my head. I couldn't tell you if the staff was what hurt them, or maybe it was a skill she had. Was it some ridiculously high-ranked ability that let her fend them off?

Whatever it was, she had something that the Black Teeth didn't. They had guns and motorcycles and technicals and enough ammo and anger and daring to beat down anyone and anything they faced. But none of that mattered to the Eaters. None of it meant a damn thing if they couldn't actually harm what they were fighting. Guns are great. They are amazing. But can a bullet carry a skill? If whatever allowed that woman to hurt the Eaters came from a skill instead of the staff she was using…

then all the Black Teeth were doing was throwing led at something that existed outside the normal rules. I could see the realization of that slowly spread across the battlefield. Oh. This isn't something we know how to kill. That seemed to snap the Black Teeth out of whatever stunned silence had settled over them. Engines roared back to life as motorcycles and dune runners and technicals lurched into motion. The hesitation from before disappeared beneath an explosion of violence.

Technicals, with their mounted guns, hammered at the Eaters. Motorcycles swept the edges of the Eater contingent, their riders firing wildly as they looked for any angle that might help. Raiders spilled from the backs of trucks with their axes and machetes and sledgehammers, and they charged at the Eaters with the same confidence they'd shown against us, convinced that these new monsters were just like any other enemy that would fall to enough violence.

As far as the Black Teeth were concerned, everything bled eventually. They could be hunted and killed and made to fear the wrath of the Black Teeth. If only enough raiders attacked together, then the Eaters could be overwhelmed through sheer brutality. It was a stupid idea. I think even the Black Teeth knew that. It's just they didn't have a better one. The Eaters tore through them. Their arms unfolded and stretched and those long rubbery hands settled against chests and shoulders and faces.

Wherever the Eaters touched, bodies split apart. Blue wisps drifted lazily upwards into waiting hands while empty corpses folded in on themselves and collapsed to the concrete like wet discarded clothes. One of the Black Teeth charged in and swung his machete with both hands. He cut straight through one of the arms of an Eater and the limp slapped onto the concrete. The Black Teeth raider grinned and I could just imagine what he was thinking. The bullets hadn't worked, but the machete had.

The severed arm twitched and flopped and the fingers flexed before digging into the concrete of the ground and dragging itself at the raider. It crawled straight at him and, when it got near, wrapped itself around his ankle. The raider barely had time to scream before the arm yanked him from his feet and the rest of the Eater reached him an instant later. Another Black Teeth raider launched himself from the roof of a truck that was still bouncing over the broken pavement, and landed straight onto an Eater's back.

I couldn't help but think it was the dumbest thing I'd ever seen. The raider wrapped an arm around the creature's neck and started stabbing with a rusty hunting knife as fast as he could. He drove the blade into the creature's chest over and over and over again, putting everything he had into each strike. The Eater barely noticed the attack. Every stab sank into the strange, rubbery flesh without drawing so much as a single drop of blood. It didn't flinch and it didn't stumble. It just stood there…

and then bent backwards farther than any living thing should have been able to bend. Its spine kept folding farther and farther back until it was bent almost completely in half. The raider found himself hanging upside down, still clinging to the Eater's shoulders, while that smooth, featureless face slowly turned until it was only inches away from his own. Neither of them moved for a split second, and then the Eater reached up with both hands and grabbed the man by the throat and then pulled.

His throat was torn free like soft taffy. I heard a wet tearing sound that I'll remember for the rest of my life as the skin and muscle was ripped free. The raider was screaming until another blue wisp floated lazily up and was consumed by the Eater. Except, it didn't take in the wisp through its mouth - which it didn't have - but through its empty eye sockets. The blue wisp leaked into the eye sockets and disappeared and the raider slumped to the ground. That was what finally broke the Black Teeth.

I'd just spent a whole day running from those assholes. I'd watched them laugh while people shot at them, and slam vehicles into our convoy without caring whether they survived the crash or not, and charge into fights that any sane person would have run from. They honestly believed they were the most dangerous things wandering through the Deadlands. But now they'd met something that didn't care how fearless they were… and they couldn't understand what to do with that.

Motorcycles started slowing down instead of accelerating past. Raiders who'd been charging a few seconds earlier suddenly stopped in their tracks, and others actually began to back away from the Eaters with their weapons still raised. It wasn't a full retreat yet, but it was the first time I'd ever seen genuine fear in the faces of the Black Teeth. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Across the loading yard, the Alderman was absolutely losing his mind.

He was in the middle of his mercenary crew who'd all had their own moment of fear as they took in what was happening with the Black Teeth. The mercs were keeping their rifles trained on the Eaters, but it was obvious that they didn't want to be there. They'd just watched an entire barrage of bullets accomplish nothing, and they were trying to figure out what they should be doing.

Some of the older mercenaries were already waving people back to the trucks, trying to organize some kind of withdrawal before the monsters reached them, but the Alderman wanted none of it. He was standing there, pointing furiously towards us like the Eaters weren't even there. Even over the engines and the scattered gunfire and the screams I could hear him shouting, demanding that they keep advancing and finish the attack and break through our defenses before they lost their chance. But nobody was listening.

They kept backing away, moving in short and cautious steps while never taking their eyes off the Eaters. It wasn't a clean withdrawal and it definitely wasn't disciplined, but every single one of them had apparently decided they weren't getting paid enough to fight whatever those things were. The Alderman snapped. He grabbed one of his own men by the front of his shirt and physically tried to shove him our way.

When that didn't work, he shoved another hard enough to knock him onto the pavement, screaming himself hoarse as he demanded that they obey him. He was screaming and grabbing and trying to physically shove his own men. One of the mercs ripped free and ran, simply ignoring him. The entirety of them collapsed away from him, not caring what the Alderman wanted anymore. They cared about getting away from the monsters who had been systematically dismantling the Black Teeth.

They advanced at the same, slow steady pace they'd had since they first appeared, and I understood why Mike Myers was terrifying in Halloween. Was it Halloween? Honestly, now all I can think of was when he was driving that station wagon, and that wasn't terrifying. But there is a type of fear that gets in your bones when you see something walking towards you, taking its time and just strolling your way because it knows there is nothing you can do about it. The Eaters didn't hurry and they didn't charge.

They simply walked and everything in front of them either fled or died. The Alderman didn't notice the one that reached him. He was still pointing at us and screaming to attack when one of those long arms unfolded beside him. A hand settled against his shoulder with an almost casual indifference and the Alderman froze in the middle of another order. His voice stopped and his body started to peel apart. His skin separated into thin strips that fluttered in the breeze like old paper.

A wisp drifted out of his chest before being sucked in by the Eater. None of the mercenaries tried to save him. They just watched, in horror, as the Alderman dissipated into mist. And then they ran. I turned away and searched for Jackie and Elnor. The last I'd seen Jackie she'd been helping move ammunition between the firing positions. I found her there, shock writ plain on her face as she saw looked at the battlefield, and I grabbed her arm and turned her towards me.

"We need to get the jeep," I screamed.

"Right now." She looked at me like I'd completely missed the point which…fair.

"And go where?" she asked. I opened my mouth and then shut it as I realized what she was saying. The jeep was still parked inside the Pale Regiment perimeter, boxed in behind the trucks that had been parked close together to provide a defensive barricade for the battle. Even if we got in the jeep, there wasn't a clear road out anymore.

We would have to get through the Pale Regiment trucks, and then between us and freedom were the Eaters, half the Shard Choir lying face-down in worship, the Black Teeth fighting for their lives, burning vehicles, and enough wreckage to turn the whole of the loading yard into a maze. Jackie followed my gaze towards the trucks and beyond.

"I can't drive through that." I looked around at the Pale Regiment soldiers scattered behind the barricades. Their porcelain masks hid their expressions, but I could see they were glancing at the trucks the same way I was. I knew they had the same thoughts: should we make a run for it? Should we just pile into the trucks and floor it? But none of them was moving. Neither Haynes nor Vicks was giving the order. I don't know if Haynes believed that they still had a chance here or maybe he just couldn't see a way out.

I don't know. All I knew was that every second we were sitting there, the Eaters were getting closer and I had no intention of dealing with them a second time. While I was panicking and thinking and plotting - and doing it all poorly - something changed. The Black Teeth had abandoned any pretense of bravery. Their machine guns kept hammering away, but they knew what the end result of all that would be. The bullets went through the Eaters and staggered them for a second, but their wounds were closing.

Finally, one raider did something different. I saw him fumble frantically through the back of a truck before pulling out a blue glass bottle. It wasn't a molotov or anything, just a simple glass bottle filled with blue. He hurled it at the nearest Eater with everything he had and the bottle shattered against the concrete. Glass burst across the pavement and a cloud of shimmering blue dust billowed upwards, swallowing the Eater almost immediately. The color hit me before my brain caught up with what I was seeing.

I knew that color. I knew that dust. I'd been covered in it for… a week? Veylstone dust. It was the same dust from the Chapel Pit. The same dust they'd been forcing all of us to mine. The same dust that made your thoughts feel wrapped in cotton and cut you off from whatever strange powers this world ran on. The Eater screamed and it wasn't a human scream. It soaked into my bones and tore through the loading yard. Everyone felt that scream. Not heard it. Felt it.

There was the high shriek of the scream and everyone stopped what they were doing and looked. The Eater staggered back and it clawed at its own body as cracks spread beneath its rubbery skin. Thin blue veins raced through it and it twisted in obvious pain. The entire battlefield saw it. For the first time since they came to the loading yard, the Eaters had reacted to something. The Black Teeth saw it and someone screamed "more dust!" The panic that had been driving them only seconds before transformed into purpose.

Raiders dove into trucks and ripped open crates and dug through supplies as if they'd suddenly remembered that there was salvation hidden inside the trucks. More blue bottles appeared and more glass containers changed hands. They threw and broke on the concrete and shimmering clouds of Veylstone dust began blooming all across the battlefield. It filled the loading yard with a drifting blue haze as the Black Teeth threw everything they had at the advancing Eaters.

Every new cloud was followed by another shriek that told everyone that they could be hurt. A voice came over the radios that were scattered about our position, calm enough that it surprised me. It was Haynes, and I turned to see him standing with the wounded in the center of the area.

"Hold your fire. Conserve ammo. Let them fight each other." No one argued because I think everyone reached the same conclusion at the same time. There was finally something that the Black Teeth were terrified of. There wasn't any reason to waste ammunition shooting at monsters that barely noticed bullets when another army had suddenly volunteered to do it for it. We should just sit there and wait. The mercenaries were routed, the Black Teeth and Eaters were killing each other, and the Shard Choir were just…

batshit insane and they'd be throwing themselves at the Eaters, wanting to be sacrificed for a "higher purpose." All we needed to do to win this battle was to wait. The battlefield unraveled. It wasn't one single battle but more three different wars all happening on top of each other. Every faction had seen the same thing - the Veylstone dust hurting the Eaters - and had come away with a completely different idea of what needed to happen next.

The Black Teeth raiders were shouting to one another, waving motorcycles and technicals into new positions as they tried to herd the Eaters into the growing clouds of blue dust. Glass bottles sailed through the air, one after another, as they expanded on the shimmering clouds of Veylstone. Whenever an Eater was caught in one of the clouds, the Black Teeth unloaded everything they had.

Machine guns fired and rifles barked and motorcycles circled around behind the Eaters, trying to keep them trapped inside the drifting blue clouds while everyone else poured round after round into the cracking, screaming monsters. The Eaters were maybe dying. They were slowing down, that's for sure. Their movements were jerky instead of fluid, and those horrible screams echoed through the warehouse every time another cloud wrapped around them.

Blue veins spread beneath their rubbery flesh, and every second they stayed inside the dust seemed to make them weaker. The Shard Choir took one look at what the Black Teeth were doing and collectively lost their shit. They didn't see people fighting monsters, they saw heretics attacking something sacred. The chanting stopped almost instantly. Then the last bit of cultists alive turned to the Black Teeth, their faces twisting into expressions of genuine outrage.

Whatever prayers they'd been whispering turned into furious screams as they charged the Black Teeth instead. It was a holy crusade. That's what I can say about it. It was a religious movement which saw the cultists throwing themselves at the raiders with no concern over whether they lived or died. Clubs rose and fell. Rusty knives flashed through the air. Cultists ran at the trucks driving through the battlefield and they jumped on the hood and the roof and they attacked the windshields to get at the drivers.

One of the Black Teeth buses sped through the middle of the Shard Choir. The driver must have figured he could simply plow straight through the crowd and escape, and he was partly right. The front bumper sent bodies flying, but more and more cultists latched onto the bus and stayed put. I watched as cultists swarmed across the hood while others grabbed onto the sides of the bus.

They were beating on it with clubs, smashing fists against the windshield, and even slamming their own foreheads into the glass hard enough to leave blood streaks behind. The windshield cracked and shattered. Hands reached through the opening and grabbed at the driver. I only caught glimpses between all the bodies but I saw him disappear out through the broken windshield before the bus lurched sideways and slammed into an abandoned loading dock with enough force to shake the ground.

The mercenaries had reached a completely different conclusion from the Black Teeth and Shard Choir. They wanted absolutely nothing to do with this battle. Unlike the Black Teeth, they weren't trying to harm the Eaters. They didn't have the Veylstone dust. What's more, they'd just seen an Eater devour the man signing their checks and they were just done with everything. They weren't looking for glorious martyrdom, they simply wanted to survive long enough to get paid by someone else another day. They ran for it.

The poured into their trucks and drove away. Their trucks tried to turn around and drivers fought one another for room in the escape and more than one transport slammed into a Black Teeth vehicle. Every now and then one of the mercenaries would stop long enough to fire a few desperate shots towards an approaching Eater before climbing right back into his truck and continuing to flee. A few moments after the first Veylstone bottles had been thrown, everything was tinted blue.

The dust drifted through the air and I found myself thinking that it would have been beautiful if it hadn't been settling over hundreds of bodies scattered across the battlefield. I just stood there with my guitar hanging from its strap. Part of me kept thinking that maybe I should play something. Was there anything I could do to help the Pale Regiment? But no. The battle didn't need me. I could spend my time just watching and getting ready for whatever happened next.

Three armies were destroying one another right in front of me. Somehow, I had become a spectator to the whole thing. Twenty minutes earlier I'd been convinced we were all about to die but now everyone was too busy killing each other to remember we existed. Finally, Haynes gave the order that I was waiting for.

"Mount up. Reload. We move the second we've got a lane." The Pale Regiment soldiers snapped into motion. Fresh magazines were massed around and ammunition crates disappeared into trucks while medics hurried the wounded into whatever space was made available. Soldiers climbed aboard the transport and I noticed more than a few of them watching the chaos outside the perimeter like they wanted permission to finish off whoever survived.

"We're leaving," Haynes shouted.

"This isn't our fight anymore." Which was the best order I ever heard him give. Jackie grabbed Elnor by the shoulder and jerked her head towards our jeep and the three of us jogged to where it was parked. I climbed into the back seat and found myself remembering what Castellan had written. This was the moment he'd been talking about. Maybe. The Pale Regiment had carried us as far as they could. If everything fell apart again, this was probably our best chance to break away and make a run for it.

I was already rehearsing how I'd tell Jackie to floor it the instant a road opened up. Then I looked back towards the Eaters and the thought died in my throat. Splitting off from the Pale Regiment seemed like the worst idea I could have. Running away from the Pale Regiment was one thing. Running away from the Pale Regiment while those things were still wandering freely through the Dead Corridor was something else entirely.

Whatever happened next, I'd rather have a few dozen trained soldiers between me and the monsters than trust our luck alone. The engines roared to life. One by one the Pale Regiment trucks pulled away rolled into the battlefield, picking their way through the sides where the fighting was calmest.

We left behind the vehicles that couldn't start and a bunch of the soldiers who'd been killed by Black Teeth gunfire and enough equipment that I knew the Black Teeth would never have willingly abandoned under any circumstances. Our convoy was so much smaller than the one that had left Devro. Back then we looked like an army on the move. Now, there were empty spaces where trucks used to be. There were missing vehicles and jeeps that had been scarred by bullet holes and collisions.

We'd lost people and supplies and any illusion that this retreat had gone to plan. But as we peeled away from the loading area and the warehouse where we'd thought we were making a last stand, I could finally breathe a little bit easier. Behind us the Black Teeth were still locked in a deadly fight with the Eaters. The Shard Choir was throwing itself at anyone who would stand between them and their twisted miracle.

The surviving mercenaries were disappearing into the industrial maze as fast as their trucks could carry them. While the other armies in the Dead Corridor were tearing themselves apart, we were driving away.