Toy Soldiers Box Set | Books 1-6

by Ford, Devon C.

  One of these deactivation projects appeared in Enfield’s hands on his last foray into the storeroom, and on a hunch, he flipped open the cardboard lid of a cartridge box and began to load the red plastic ammunition into the weapon he was holding. Expecting to be prevented from loading more than two, his eyes widened when he managed four and then slid open the breech to seat a fifth ready to fire.

  He handed it to Johnson without a word, leaving him to marvel at the Remington pump action in his hands. It had no stock, instead ending in a pistol grip which sprouted a short loop of canvas strap to be slipped over his torso.

  “Close encounters,” Buffs said quietly, unwittingly echoing the words of their estranged SAS counterparts.

  They carried everything back to their van, not bothering to take anything new except the shotgun which hung from the sergeant major, and they filed onwards to clear out the small convenience shop of everything they could find.

  Clearing it for danger, of which there was luckily none, they filled plastic carrier bags with the remaining tinned food, as the smell inside the shop told them all they needed to know about the fresh produce. As they walked quietly and alertly back to the van, the noise of an engine widened their eyes.

  Sounds from further into the town echoed along the eerily quiet channels between the buildings before another sound chattered into booming life; that of heavy gunfire.

  “The others! The rest of your lot,” Buffs said excitedly, seeing only dark looks on the faces of Johnson and Enfield.

  “No,” the bigger man said as his attuned ears recognised the difference in an instant, “that’s thirty-cal.”

  Bufford looked at him uncomprehendingly until he explained.

  “Ours only had gympies. Seven-six-two. That’s not ours.”

  Bufford thought for a second before providing another explanation.

  “What if they got one on resupply at the base?” he offered.

  “What if they didn’t?” Astrid countered, prompting the four of them to regard each other with something bordering on uncomfortable fear and a desperate hope.

  “I’ll go and check, then,” Johnson said, taking a step forward and instantly wincing as he put pressure on his strapped ankle.

  “No, you won’t,” Enfield said, ridding himself of any additional weight that could slow him down, which included the SA80 rifle as he unslung the Accuracy International. Buffs drew and offered him the Browning Hi-Power sidearm from his holster. Enfield shook his head to refuse it, tapping two fingers instead on the bayonet sheathed on his webbing, then doing the same to the large scope on his rifle.

  “I’m not planning on getting anywhere near them, just going for a look.”

  The gunfire continued in disciplined bursts before two pauses and two longer salvos signalled the end of the one-sided gun battle, finishing with a final rattle of a few shots. Half a minute later, as the last clattering sounds of gunfire still echoed through the town, Enfield returned via an alleyway between two shops at a dead run, recklessly flying towards them in an awkward run as he pumped one arm, with the other clamping the rifle to his back to stop it bouncing. Needing no further explanation, they all piled into the van to leave in as much of a hurry as the slippery road allowed.

  SIX

  Nevin locked the hatch, pressing his face up to the viewport in time to see that the doorway was already piled up with the twice dead bodies which possessed the smell he still had in his nostrils. A kick to his shoulder between the bursts brought him back to his senses, making him put the headset back on in time to hear the voice of Michaels sounding every inch the Troop Sergeant he remembered.

  “…cking brain in gear, you dozy wanker!” the voice said through the headset.

  “What?” he answered.

  “I said,” Michaels growled as though the annoyance of repeating himself promised more peril to his driver than the dead outside their armoured ride, “push forward ten yards.”

  Nevin didn’t respond, but he did as he was told and rolled the Ferret ahead in a straight line as instructed. The fire above him intensified as the bursts became longer. Michaels had rapidly filled the double doorway with dead and needed a change of angle so he could fire directly inside to hit the remaining zombies without wasting bullets by firing into the massed pile of meat. This continued for another eight or nine seconds until the firing stopped. A pause of the same time and another long burst opened up, making Nevin think that signalled the end of the engagement, before a final ripping period of sustained fire tore out.

  “Go and check,” Michaels said bluntly.

  “Check fucking what?” Nevin snapped back, his voice an octave higher than normal.

  “Check that there aren’t any more coming out. See if I’ve just blocked the door or if they’re all dead. I can’t see all the way inside.”

  Nevin swallowed, his devious mind already imagining a life without someone telling him what to do, but he popped the hatch and took his submachine gun to climb down carefully and walk towards the building, without once taking his eyes off the pile of dead at the doors.

  He stepped as close as he dared, seeing no movement and hearing no tell-tale sounds of any of them still mobile. He ran back to the Ferret, climbing up and closing down to lock the hatch again as he sat and shuddered.

  “Well?” Michaels asked in a voice no longer edged with scorn.

  “All dead.”

  “Good, drive on to the other end of the High Street. We’ll wait for the others, then strip this place cle…”

  “Ahead, movement,” Nevin barked, cutting Michaels off. Both men looked ahead, seeing a flash of movement beside a building as a shadow ducked out of sight. While the person was no longer there, both men were left with a snapshot image of a shape pointing something in their direction. The something in question was undoubtedly a long rifle, and both men knew that the dead retreated when spotted about as often as they used weapons. The turret moved, and flame spat from the end of the barrel to erupt dust and chunks of brick from the corner of the wall where the person had disappeared. Michaels was no fool, and instead of firing at where the shape had been, he stitched a burst into the wall, knowing that they would over-penetrate and come out into the blind spot where the runner would likely be.

  Nevin drove forwards to stop level with the alleyway as the turret rotated again to point directly down it. Nothing. Sure enough, the last rounds Michaels had fired had torn chunks through the soft obstacle of the brick, but no body lay on the ground.

  “Who the fuck was that?” he asked Nevin.

  “No idea, but the bugger was alive. And armed.”

  “Sod it, carry on,” Michaels told him.

  Nevin did as instructed again, the last incident all but forgotten but with a question rolling around in his head. He reformed the question before he asked it.

  “They were shut in,” he voiced, “Why bother?”

  “Why bother wasting the ammo?”

  “Well, yeah…”

  “Nevin,” Michaels said in a wistful tone, as though he was imparting some sage nugget of advice, “never leave an enemy in your rear. Ever.”

  “It was your man,” Enfield said, breathless from his sprint and raising his voice for the others to hear while he stared out of the rear window of the van. Johnson was driving as fast as he could safely, keeping the truck in low gears to prevent the wheels spinning while he tried to keep the revs low and reduce their chances of being detected.

  “Who?” Astrid asked from her position beside him as the others rode in the front, “Whose man?”

  “One of the tankies,” he said, eyes still glued to the road behind them and brick dust adorning his helmeted head like snowflakes, “that one who got the bloke killed, pissing about when we were getting supplies for the defences on the island. The one nobody liked.”

  Johnson’s heart dropped, rising back up as though it was riding the crest of a wave of hate.

  “Exactly what happened?” he asked loudly and carefully.

 
“Armoured car. Little one, like a Ferret but with a mounted HMG,” Enfield recounted, “It rolled in and took out a load of Screechers coming out of a building, then your chap got out to check. He wasn’t in uniform. Must have seen me, because they fired through the building line to where I’d been watching from.”

  Johnson’s mouth set into a tight line, the blood draining from his lips as he squeezed them tight and gripped the wheel hard to make his knuckles do the same.

  “It probably was a Ferret,” he said, “with a turret-mounted thirty-cal. Rare as rocking horse shit. But if he was getting back in it, who fired on you?” he asked, knowing from experience how desperately cramped and claustrophobic the interior of those vehicles was, and certain that the gun would have to be manned to be driven and fired at the same time.

  “Fuck knows,” Enfield said, leaving relative silence inside the van until it was broken by Johnson’s savage outburst that seemed to rise from his belly, until it poured from his mouth like so much vomited hatred, and it grew louder with each word.

  “Fucking Nevin. That bone-idle, useless, thieving little shitbag, fuck!”

  Silence returned as their driver’s breath came in growls.

  “Mate of yours?” Buffs asked in a light tone.

  “Mate? Fucking mate?” Johnson snarled, clearly feeling that it was too soon for levity, “He shirked off at every opportunity, started a pub brawl with our own fucking side when all this was going on, got a decent soldier and a good man killed by fucking about instead of doing his job, left his post to go looting and now, fucking now, he looks like he’s gone fucking rogue…”

  “Definitely not a mate, then,” Buffs said, as though Johnson had helpfully cleared up the matter.

  Almost under her breath, Astrid asked a rhetorical question of Enfield.

  “Why does he always use this bad word like it is a comma?”

  Enfield ignored her, keeping his eyes glued to their retreat for any sign of pursuit.

  “No,” came the growled response from the driving seat, “definitely not a mate, and whatever that little prick is up to, you can guarantee it’s not good.”

  “Whoever it was,” Michaels said in a voice that was clearly pissed off but tinged with a kind of wary respect for the mysterious person he had tried to kill, “they’ve done a decent job here.” He turned to address the nervous gaggle of followers who darted their eyes everywhere as though they expected some undead abomination to emerge from a side street at any moment. “Come on in,” he called to them, seeing the collective flinch at his raised voice, “grab everything and load it up.”

  He wandered outside, seeing the flow of his small crowd of followers part around him like water repelled by compressed air, and Nevin followed as his self-appointed right hand.

  “Your old lot?” he asked his newest recruit and fellow deserter.

  “Could be,” Nevin said, “but I doubt it. If it was them, I’d expect more. They’d have a lot of the troopers on it, not to mention the bloody bootnecks and the Sass blokes.”

  “Hmm,” Michaels growled ambiguously, not making it clear whether he understood Nevin’s points or whether he was just concerned at having elite soldiers knocking about near his patch.

  “I reckon they lost nearly half of the fighting men when I got away,” Nevin opined, “and they weren’t supposed to be heading this way, but further inland towards the north west.”

  “Hmm,” Michaels growled again, more thoughtfully this time as he turned away and scanned the ground for something he didn’t seem to feel like sharing just yet. He walked slowly, his head sweeping back and forth as he crossed the road, with the smallest of glances to either side which, as unlikely as traffic was, still demonstrated how ingrained some behaviours were in most humans. Nevin followed at a wary, respectable distance until he saw the man stop and stoop to the pavement. Nevin followed, leaning over the crouching man to see the trampled remains of a children’s treat in his hand. The colourful foil wrapper had merged into the soft chocolate interior and all of that moulded to form a crust over the plastic capsule inside as it set harder in the chill temperatures.

  Wordlessly, Michaels stood and dropped the detritus as though dismissing the clue as irrelevant.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said as he turned and strode back to the gun store, “Half the people left won’t survive this winter anyway.”

  He chivvied their efforts, doubling them almost by his presence alone as the unspoken fear of his displeasure radiated outwards. They made no effort to sort or select anything, merely took the entire contents that weren’t nailed down too securely, before loading it all into a van to be sorted when safely back on their hilltop. He led the way personally into the large freezer store, gun up and eyes narrowed, dispatching two of the things which were mostly dormant in a darkened rear stock room, before pulling shut the open door leading to the loading bay, and ordering everything to be taken. The restaurant part of his new home, taken by the threat of force alone against the unprepared and unsuspecting occupants, had a large walk-in freezer which could cope with most of what they took. When the vans were full, he ordered the place locked up again for a return trip when their supplies ran low. He knew that there would be fresh supplies coming each month from the survivors he intimidated but relying on other people wasn’t something that the former sergeant did any more.

  SEVEN

  “Chop, chop,” Nevin crowed petulantly at the human chain of ‘volunteers’ who had been ordered out into the cold to unload and sort the scavenged food on their return. He, like Michaels, believed in a hierarchy which dictated that the fighting men such as himself did not need to undertake the lowly tasks of cooking and washing clothes, as the ungrateful people under their protection should earn their keep. He stopped at a girl, thirteen or fourteen years old maybe, and grabbed her slender wrist after she had struggled to pass on an armful of frozen potatoes. His grip was too strong for her to pull away, so she froze still, her body weight leaning away from him in protest as she was powerless to resist any other way.

  “What have you done here?” he asked, looking at the bright red skin denoting the fresh scars on her wrists, “Tried the coward’s way out, did we?”

  The girl summoned all of her strength to pull her arm away as her eyes flashed with bright, wet hatred and embarrassment. Nevin saw her doing this, and just as she set her stance to wrench her hand free, he let go of her, laughing as she fell heavily onto her backside to writhe in pain at the impact of her unsuspecting arse-cheeks hitting cold concrete. She stared back at him with undisguised hatred, her breath coming rapidly and raggedly through her nose as her mouth was set into a tight grimace to keep the tears of anger at bay. She found her feet as a kindly woman stepped directly in front of her.

  “Go and help Ellie stack the freezer,” she said, before adding a whisper of “now.”

  The girl went, without a backwards glance at the woman who had diverted her rage, or at the bastard who had invoked it.

  The woman, Pauline, the original occupant of the historical site which had been preserved only through investment to turn it into a hotel and restaurant, went back to her task without saying anything to him, even though she desperately wanted to let her thoughts spew out in a torrent of indignant rage. She had taken the girl under her wing, much as she had with the older woman she had sent her to help after the bastards had dragged her away from her daughter to leave the little girl to a gruesome fate. That young woman, Ellie, had been deposited with Pauline, and she had looked after her as well as she could, even though the loss of her daughter left a gaping, ragged hole in her heart, which wasn’t soothed at all by the tears she shed every night as she lay in bed thinking about what had happened to her.

  Eventually the exhaustion of the thoughts combined with her tortured insomnia to render her into a state of unconsciousness more than sleep, and each morning she woke, having had a few precious moments more rest, she became able to function a little more every day.

  She had resigned
herself to her brutal and tragic loss now, seeking a reason to go on living after the certain knowledge of losing her baby girl had finally sunk in, and just when she was considering walking off the cliff, one of the raiding parties, as she thought of them, returned with fresh recruits to their community.

  When Jessica had first been dragged away in the ambulance from her unhappy home life, she had fought hard against her lawful abductors. She tried to refuse the tablets they gave her, saying that she felt fine and didn’t want to have anything to help her relax. The two nurses in white uniforms had held her down then, forcing open her mouth with something like a wooden spoon, and dropped two blue pills into her mouth. They tasted bitter, and she fought hard to spit them out, but her mouth was held closed, until her body betrayed her, and the natural swallowing reflex happened. The two still held her down as the ambulance leaned away from the bends in the road, for what seemed like mile after mile, until her arms and legs lost the power to push against them. It felt as if her whole body was numb, inside a bubble where the sounds and sensations of the outside world were muted and slowed somehow. She tried to speak, to curse them and demand to be let go, so that she could walk back and protect her little brother from the hell he had been left in. She couldn’t speak. It was as if her lower jaw had been paralysed, and she was just drooling past her numb tongue when she tried.

  Hours went by in that state when, unknown to her, it had been far less. The slowed passage of time in her drug-induced condition messed with her perception, giving her a sense of days passing with each minute. She was wheeled out of the ambulance after it stopped, reversing to bump the rear wheels against an unseen kerb. Somehow, she knew this; could picture it as though experiencing the end of the journey from an outside perspective. She fell further into that thought, allowing her mind to distance itself from her body as the wheels of the metal trolley she was strapped to clattered and bounced down the ramp and into the cooler dark interior through double doors. Strip lights flashed above her intermittently as she was transported deeper inside the white-walled interior, until she was left alone on the trolley directly under one of the lights, and she could hear voices that sounded muffled coming from a nearby room. One light, the one on the right to her perspective, flickered almost imperceptibly as though it kept phasing in and out so fast that nobody could see it. She could. She could see it clearly and even began to be able to predict when it would happen at irregular intervals. It blinked out for a long second, flickering back to life and radiating its yellowy glow outwards before anyone but her noticed. She began to think it was talking to her; like it was trying to communicate in some way to only her, as if they were both prisoners in this place, and neither could speak freely for fear of the nurses overhearing them and foiling any plans they might make together.