Toy Soldiers Box Set | Books 1-6

by Ford, Devon C.

  “You okay, son?” Johnson asked him quietly, seeing the odd look in his eyes and voicing his concern.

  “Yeah,” he replied between rapid breaths. “Fine.” He hefted his sticker—the pitchfork he had adapted for his size to make it the best weapon for killing zombies—which seemed to signal the end of their conversation; he was ready to work.

  “Clear that barn,” Bufford announced firmly but quietly, “secure all the exits and back the tank in. That’s our emergency exit if we need one.”

  Nobody disagreed with the plan, nor did anything need adding to it. They formed up, going about their work as required. Johnson thought of asking Peter to guard the rear of their Warrior with Kimberley, but decided that he wanted to keep the boy close, given his uncertain mood.

  The two Special Forces trained soldiers moved in, fanning left and right through the wide entrance to the dry, musty barn to clear every corner of it and search every nook and cranny that could hide a human of any size.

  They swept the lower floor, finding it clear of other exits or entrances and blessedly free of Screechers.

  “Upstairs,” Bufford called out, indicating the narrow wooden stairs leading up to a timber mezzanine with a low head clearance. Johnson raised the muzzle of his suppressed MP5, a gift from Larsen with the ominous words that it had belonged to a friend of hers, but Peter placed a small hand on his arm. He looked down at the boy, who shook his head. He followed Peter’s gaze and saw how thin and fragile the dry wooden slats of the steps seemed, and understood. Johnson nodded back, lowering his gun and holding out a green torch to the boy, who accepted it and slipped his slender shoulders out of the straps of his bag to do a swap with the big man.

  Johnson watched him go up, red glow of the torch radiating out ahead of him as he advanced up the stairs, the point of his pitchfork held ready. He felt no shame at letting a child face danger in his stead, he realised. That in itself was bizarre, but not as abnormal as the fact that the kid had seen the danger and offered to face it as the best weapon their group had in that situation. His own small weight bowed the steps dangerously, so much so that Johnson was certain he’d have fallen through them before he’d even reached halfway to the mezzanine. When Peter went out of sight at the top and the only indication of his safety was the red glow from the torch sweeping left and right, he held his breath until a little voice called down to them with all the military gusto his declaration deserved.

  “Clear,” he said, letting them all relax as he clicked off the light and carefully climbed back down.

  Johnson quickly backed the Warrior inside, and then it took all of them to force the seized runners of the heavy wooden doors to move. Eventually, after much swearing and grunting, the two doors almost met in the middle and were secured with a loop of heavy chain.

  The barn, judging by the oily smell of old spilled diesel, had been used as a tractor shed to save the valuable machine from braving the worst of any seasonal weather outside. Now, the mighty machine replacing the tractor’s parking spot was opened up as they spread out and got comfortable for the night.

  Larsen ignored the priority of food and drink, instead searching the shed until she found a tub of thick paint and a stiff brush, which earned her a quizzical look from Kimberley.

  “What’s that for?” she asked.

  “I swear,” Astrid told her, “if I have to watch that fuel moving around like the waves of the ocean for even one more kilometre, I will be sick all over the other people.”

  “Oh,” Johnson said, shocked by the quiet woman’s outburst. “Not very comfortable, then?”

  “It is the right fucking bastard,” she snapped back, betraying how much the motion sickness had affected her, and also how much time she’d spent in the company of the men of Her Majesty’s armed forces.

  Johnson, after ten minutes of trying, finally got Daniels back on the radio. His face when he returned to the others told the story before any of them had the opportunity to ask.

  “They’ve been forced to abandon the place they were living in,” he said quietly. “They’re on their own now, just like we are.”

  “Your man Daniels tell you that himself?” Bufford asked. Johnson shook his head.

  “He was driving. Looks like he’s trained himself a young apprentice.” At those words he couldn’t help but feel his eyes drawn to Peter.

  NINE

  “They don’t believe us,” Daniels half screamed with the sheer frustration of it all.

  “None of them?” Jessica asked him as she looked up from the bag she was re-packing on the hull of the Sultan. “Not even the army ones?”

  “Some of them do,” Daniels admitted as he checked over both shoulders to see if anyone could see how much ammunition he’d swiped from the room designated as an armoury, after collecting his Sterling. “But even those who do believe us don’t think we should follow the others. They probably don’t want to be back under orders. Makes you wonder what kind of people chose to stay…”

  Jessica acknowledged that with a grunt, stopping what she was doing to look up at an approaching figure. It was Ellie, the young woman she had run from their hilltop prison with. The two were locked to one another, intertwined by shared experiences and by similar losses in their lives. She was hurrying over carrying a large bag, but her face registered more anger than fear. She threw the bag up at the girl ten years her junior and stormed to the front of the vehicle to clamber up.

  “You’re sure?” she snapped, sounding annoyed with the girl.

  “Don’t ask me,” she answered with a shrug, nodding her head down at Daniels.

  “You’re sure?” Ellie asked again, directing her question at the soldier juggling an armful of loaded magazines.

  “Yes,” he told her, “I’m bloody certain of it. Which means we need to be gone from here, either east or west but preferably west, sometime in the next ten minutes.”

  “Hold on,” Jessica asked as she stood up from her packing as if struck by a thought. “Are they going to just let you take this?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What does ‘not exactly’ mean?” Ellie grilled him.

  “It means there’s nobody left to ask. Not really.”

  “Not really?” Jessica needled him, knowing him well enough by now to know he wasn’t being entirely truthful.

  “It means that I’m technically the highest ranking soldier here, and I’m just a Corporal.”

  “But there are more of…” Ellie waved her hand irritably towards the house behind him. “…them than you, and they might not like the idea of you taking your tank away.”

  “Armoured vehicle,” Daniels corrected her peevishly. Ellie ignored the comment.

  As if to underline the point she’d just made, two people came from the house and headed in their direction, one clearly carrying the unmistakable profile of a shotgun.

  “Look alive,” Daniels told them, as if either understood what he expected of them. He let out a sigh of exasperation and turned to face the approaching men as he held the sub machine gun casually in his right hand.

  “Fellers,” he said as they approached.

  “You ain’t fucking taking that,” one of them said, the one not holding the shotgun, before Daniels could say anything else. “It doesn’t belong to you.”

  “No?” Daniels asked, still keeping his hand holding the gun very still, but his eyes focused on the twitching man behind the speaker. The man was shifting his grip on the shotgun nervously, as though his palms were slick with sweat that was preventing him from holding it steady. Daniels recognised that as a bad sign.

  “Who does it belong to then?”

  “Her Majesty the Queen,” the speaker sneered with sarcastic nastiness at him, as though invoking royalty made his point any more valid.

  “Whom I serve,” Daniels answered calmly. “Do you?” The man bristled, nostrils flaring as his own argument was turned on him in an instant.

  “I’ve paid taxes all my life,” he snarled. “What about
you, Mal?”

  “Yep,” croaked shotgun man from over his right shoulder.

  “So, we’ve probably paid for that over the years, along with whatever pittance you earned driving it.”

  “First off,” Daniels said as a flutter of movement caught his peripheral vision. The two men saw his reaction and began to turn to look, so he spoke louder to get their attention back.

  “First off,” he said louder, earning stares from both of them, “I’ve paid more tax than they’ve paid me.” That was a clear lie, but it never helped to let on how much his second career was worth back in the world. “So, I’ve paid for it too, if that’s your way of thinking.”

  “Pfft,” the speaker scoffed at him, as though the childish dismissal of his logic would win the argument. “You’re not taking it, anyway.”

  “Yes, we are,” Daniels said, still cool. Shotgun man, his nerve breaking as his minute vocabulary was already exhausted, growled and raised the gun to point it at him. Daniels smiled and took a pace to his right, putting the speaker directly in between him and the gun. Both men opened their eyes wide in surprise at being so easily thwarted, and both recognised that they were in water beyond their depth.

  Shotgun man was saved from having to make any decision by the hollow, sickeningly solid-sounding clunk of wood striking bone. Daniels leaned past speaker man, who had whipped around at the alien sound, seeing the shotgun fall to the grass as his bodyguard’s eyes rolled back in his head. Toppling like a felled tree to thump into the damp earth at his feet, he dropped to reveal an angry and impatient Ellie, who appreciatively weighed the pick-axe handle in her hand, suggesting that she could get used to the feel of it. Her eyes snapped up to offer speaker man a slow, wicked smile.

  Daniels tapped him on the shoulder and cleared his throat, asking him if he wouldn’t mind awfully fucking off.

  Two minutes later, long enough to retrieve the shotgun and the belt of cartridges to accompany it, the corporal and his two young female companions rolled towards the exit of their country house and towards the lonely sentry who faced a choice of whether to attempt to accost them or not.

  He evidently decided against it, instead choosing to melt away into the shadows, no doubt to claim that he hadn’t seen them leave. Daniels drove, seeing as the teenage girl would never be let loose on the controls for anything other than pretend, and the scowling young woman, Ellie, showed no inclination to do anything other than sit in a canvas seat and wait.

  “Stop,” Jessica yelled over the sound of the barking, whistling engine. She repeated it, louder this time, until Daniels heard her and eased off the throttle. What she’d seen from her elevated position behind him, with an infinitely wider field of view than his own, was obviously beyond his vision and he trusted her enough to slow to a dead crawl.

  Over the quieter sound of the vehicle rolling forwards, he heard a new voice shouting.

  “Wait!” it yelled; desperation conveyed through the single, shouted word. Unable to see clearly to the right side of the Sultan, he popped open the forward hatch and tried to lean out enough to see a young man running towards them with his arms full of clothing and possessions which he was trying and failing to shove into a backpack affixed to a metal frame. Jessica, self-appointed as the gatekeeper for their escape, called down to him.

  “Who are you?” the words sounded blunt and judgemental, hasher than Daniels knew was actually the girl’s personality.

  “I’m coming with you,” the man said, running towards the front of the rolling vehicle and shouting at the driver.

  “Charlie, stop for fuck’s sake!” At the use of his first name, Daniels hit the brakes to bring the Sultan to a creaking stop.

  “Who’s that?”

  “It’s Steve! Steve Duncan,” the man yelled back, lobbing his half-packed bag up on the front of the vehicle and clambering up behind it. Daniels hadn’t worked with the man directly, but he knew him well enough. He was originally from the admin troop of their now scattered squadron, and hadn’t been with them long, having only recently come through the basic training courses to be attached to their reserve unit.

  “Where’s your weapon?” Daniels asked him, seeing the man was wearing his webbing over civilian clothes but not finding the shape of the sterling sub machine gun he should be in possession of.

  “Still in the armoury,” he answered. “Some wanker’s there blocking the door and mouthing off about having you arrested for assaulting someone.” He dropped inside the hatch to follow his mess of kit and seemed shocked to see the two female occupants. He nodded and smiled at Jessica, who smiled back and waved. Then he turned to do a double-take at Ellie, colouring up slightly as he mumbled something which was drowned out by the revs building back up to lurch them onwards away from the house.

  Duncan sat at Daniels’ usual seat, lifting the headset to speak more clearly to him.

  “Getting clear and heading west?” he asked.

  “I reckon so,” Daniels answered. “No chance of getting west ahead of them with the bridge out. And besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were already this side of the main road.”

  “Exactly,” Duncan answered, “why the hell didn’t anyone else believe the report?” Daniels’ reply made him tick off the reasons in his head, which all made sense.

  “Because it came from me,” Daniels told him. “Because it was based on a report from the Yanks, and because people are comfortable so they don’t want to believe it.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?” Jessica’s voice cut in on their conversation. Duncan spun to look at her, seeing her holding the large earphones over her head and her eyes burning into him for an answer. He opened his mouth to speak, feeling more than a little nailed to the spot by the forthright girl, but Daniels saved him from responding.

  “They don’t want to believe they aren’t safe there,” he explained. “They like their little slice of freedom and they don’t want the status quo to change.”

  “Status Quo? What’s the band got to d—” Jessica began, stopping herself before she asked the embarrassing question.

  “The people who stayed,” Ellie explained, her own ears covered with the headset normally reserved for the vehicle commander, “were the ones who didn’t want to leave with the army. They don’t like other people making rules for them to follow, so they’re not going to give up their new life now.”

  “Even with the chance of a horde of those things bearing down on them,” Duncan added, glancing at the woman and locking eyes with her to show he understood her perfectly.

  “So they don’t want to believe they’re in danger because it doesn’t fit in?” Jessica asked.

  “Yeah,” Duncan said. “I tried to tell them, even the other lads,” he said to mean the few remaining squadron men who hadn’t left under orders, “but nobody wanted to listen.”

  Silence filled their earphones as all four of them were left in quiet contemplation.

  “Speaking of listening,” Daniels said as he turned the nose of the Sultan to head north up a farm track, instead of driving towards the main road where he half expected to see the leading ranks of a detachment from the dead army approaching, “get on that radio and call up the SSM.”

  “I can do it,” Jessica said excitedly, clawing her way through the interior to get to the seat beside their newest crew member, “Charlie taught me how it works.”

  “Foxtrot-three-three-Alpha,” she said into the radio, her lips forming the words in their uncommon combination with concentration.

  As the sun began to sink to their left, the leading edge of the swarm found themselves suddenly dropping from their path as the roadway under their shambling feet fell away to nothingness.

  The rubble below in the narrow, muddy creek bed was rapidly added to with the writhing mess of twitching, moaning bodies, and the inexorable flow of dead followed the precise course of action that corporal Daniels had predicted. Even though they were dead, they still followed the same generic behaviour of living humans
and inevitably followed the path of least resistance. Much in the same way that water always flowed in the easiest direction to follow the unbreakable laws of physics, they spilled out of the small riverbed and poured down the slope in the general direction of the low rise hiding the large country house from sight.

  Nothing from that direction overtly attracted them; there were no smells or sounds that could carry that far to serve as a lure. But the swarm was so inexorable, such a self-perpetuating phenomenon, and the noise the leading rank made attracted more behind them. This pushed them onwards, making more noise which, in turn, brought on more from the creek bed and road, the slowest of which were in danger of being left behind, without a reason to go on. These stragglers were abandoned to wander in response to the flutter of a bird’s wings or a gust of wind rustling the first early leaves on a tree.

  That momentum gathered, sparking the small percentage of Limas in their midst to surge ahead, to leap and climb over the slower-moving bodies of their subordinates and force their way to the front where new sensations piqued their primal instincts.

  Smells, brought like the ghost of a whisper on the wind, turned their heads to the large buildings on the lower ground. Their direction of movement was followed when the rest of the swarm, as if sensing the excitement of their front runners, sped up their own advance and began to moan and issue occasional shrieks. Those noises quickened the pace of those behind, setting off the chain reaction that would whip the thousand former people into a frenzy which the unprepared and hopelessly under-equipped residents of the big house could never hope to defeat. Vehicles fled not long after the first ranks appeared on the horizon, but the exodus was too little, too late. Some of those vehicles caused a large mob of the main assault to break away and follow the sounds of revving engines north, sparking off another chain of events that would prove catastrophic.

  The unorthodox crews of two armoured vehicles settled in for the night; one fully closed down in the open and the other shut inside a large farm shed. They all heard the faint sounds of heavy gunfire in the distance, denoting a desperate defence which they all hoped would be successful, even if they knew deep down it would not be.