Parchman, стр. 29
His fist made contact with the one of the monstrosities and its neckcrunched to one side. It shook its head desperately to click it back to howit should have been. Glistening teeth were everywhere, and he felt thempenetrate his body and legs.
The weight of the numerous fiends upon him crushed him against the stonestairs and barely alive he could still feel teeth tearing into him.
Xander shouted out to Max but it was too late. There was nothing he coulddo. Max’s body fell away from the Savages and over the side of the stairsout of Xander’s view. Xander pushed Scott and Seth upwards towards thetop of the stairway and onto the battlements.
‘Logan,’ he yelled. ‘They’ve breached the courtyard and are heading up the battlements. They’ve killed Max.’
At that exact momentLogan didn’t know what to do or say. ‘But how?’he looked around and watched the Savages crawling up the walls likespiders.
Professor Brittle pulled Logan around to face him. ‘Get your boys to aimat the walls. I’ll getsome of the others to start firing into the courtyard.’
‘But they might hit our own men?’ said Logan with panic in his voice.
‘We don’t have a choice son. They get up here then we’ve lost ouradvantage and these men have died for nothing. We’re not done yet,’ hereplied.
Logan looked to his group of teenagers. ‘Aim for the walls. Pick them offone by one. Make each shot count.’ The sound of gunfire rang out behindhim as the other men on the battlements started shooting into the yard.
Logan was scared. They were losing and he knew it. Max was dead andthe prisoners were being torn apart bythe Savages. ‘This is it,’ he thoughtto himself inhaling then breathing out. He pulled out both the guns he hadon him and started aiming towards the walls.
The Savages dropped from the walls as each bullet made contact.Sometimes the wound was fatal but other times only served to slow themdown before they got back up and started to climb the walls again. Logan was reminded of a story his father used to read to him and Dannyabout Robert the Bruce and the spider. The moral being that however manytimes the spider fell it never gave up. If these Savages could do the samethen why couldn’t he. He screamed at the top of his voice and startedshooting at the Savages on the walls, this time making sure every shot wasfatal and that no spider would be coming back up that wall.
The boys drew their strength fromLogan’s renewed vigor and threw alltheir anger and fear into making sure they stopped these wall climbers,whilst taking comfort in watching them drop to the ground dead.
The courtyard was complete carnage now. The prisoners fought on witheverything they had and still the Savages came at them. Guns and knivesversus teeth and claws. Brittle oversaw the battlement firing squads toensure no prisoners were hit in “friendly fire”, but over the mass ofentwined bodies it was impossible to say where the prisoners started, andthe Savages ended.
‘Use the smoke bombs,’ said Brittle to the man nearest to him.
‘But that will take out our visiontoo,’ replied the man. The penny droppedand the man understood the Professor already knew this but realized thathe had little other option. He nodded and shouted the command down theline to the other men on the battlements.
The explosion of the smoke bombs shook the walls and Logan lookeddown to see what was going on. The courtyard started to fill up with smokeand he could no longer see or hear anything below.
In the courtyard the prisoners and the Savages had little to no vision untilthey were right up upon each other. Then when they were it became abattle of hand to hand combat, up close and personal, which the Savageswere more than capable of winning against the inmates.
It became silent again as no-one could see through the smoke and weregaging their bearings. Other than the odd gunfire shot as the boyscontinued to shoot the Savages climbing the walls or a scream from belowas a Savage or prisoner was killed it was eerily quiet. Everything andeveryone moved slowly now measuring every movement based on a lifeor death decision.
Logan could even hear the Commander General and his soldiers talkingover what was happening down below. He heard raucous laughter andlooking over saw the CommanderGeneral sat at a table with hislieutenants eating lunch. Lunch!
It was over. Logan knew it and the Commander General knew it. Even thesoldiers were no longer in their ranks and were sat down awaiting theclean-up mission once the Savages had worked their way through theprison.
Whilst observing the Commander General sat there gloating Loganwatched as one of his soldiers ran towards him and handed him whatlooked like a walkie talkie. The Commander General jumped to his feetand started clearly shouting at his lieutenants to move. Logan curiouslywatched them rush back to their squads and hurry them to attention.
‘What was going on?’ Logan then started to hear noise from the courtyardagain. It sounded like the swishing of a blade through the air. Then singlegunshots every few seconds. Then there was a murmur below him, and thesmoke slowly started to clear. Logan looked to the boys who had stoppedshooting and then at the Savages on the