Toy Soldiers Box Set | Books 1-6

by Ford, Devon C.

  They clambered up the front of the tracked vehicle to bottleneck at the hatch before Enfield took three more rapid shots to expend the remainder of his magazine and then he too dropped inside. The interior, as cramped as it was with the four of them previously, now seemed uncomfortably claustrophobic. Duncan had abandoned his position at the pintle-mounted gun to settle himself behind the driving controls and to fill the empty air around them with the sudden bark of their loud exhaust.

  They rolled away, abandoning the car with the doors open in the centre of the road.

  “Where did they come from?” Duncan shouted back from the forward section. “We haven’t seen any for days—weeks even—why now?”

  “Stragglers from that swarm is my guess,” Hampton yelled back before asking the next logical question. “So where did the bloody swarm come from?”

  FIFTEEN

  For all their secrecy, for all their ‘need to know’ attitudes, the CIA put things in place with such rapid efficiency that the time from theoretical concept to practical application elapsed in under forty-eight hours.

  The cargo plane that brought the experimental Psy-Ops weapons had been loaded almost immediately after Fisher’s phone call back to Langley, and the engineers required to reprogram the devices had taken only six hours longer to locate. The helicopter and crews assigned the task of delivering the payloads were already in-theatre, so weren’t difficult to find, but the clandestine feel of their orders to land on the Isle of Skye, where they would be briefed in person, rippled around the crew of the US aircraft carrier like a rumour.

  The chief engineer, a sullen man with drooping cheeks and permanent bags under his eyes, neither offered his name nor did he engage any of the scientists or soldiers when he was escorted to the facility to test a scaled-down version of what he had created. Staff sergeant Yates, rivalling the engineer for the title of world’s most annoyed man, cleared the area and stood his team on alert with express orders not to fire unless he gave the order.

  Standing in front of the four occupied cages—with three more subjects brought in during daylight, courtesy of the unfriendly SEAL team—the engineer flipped a switch on the briefcase-sized contraption he had brought with him. As the almost imperceptible, low hum filled the air, all four zombies went apoplectic with an insane rage that caused the living people to take involuntary steps backwards.

  “That’s enough,” Yates growled, just as the engineer had evidently reached the same conclusion and killed the device.

  “What’s the range on it?” Professor Grewal demanded, haranguing the engineer before he had even closed the lid on his case.

  “On this?” he glanced at Yates, who sighed and gestured towards the exit. He took the case a full fifty paces to the house, where he flipped open the lid and activated it again. Almost immediately, Yates began hollering for him to shut it off. They tested it out to a range of almost two hundred paces before the results diminished even slightly. The engineer walked back; eyes cast down as his lips moved in silent calculations.

  “Power on this is about one percent of the main device,” he explained. “Assuming the same rate of fall-off, you’re looking at around eleven miles minimum.” Grewal nodded, turning to catch the eye of the quiet and unnerving leader of the team assigned to risk their lives and bring him test subjects.

  “Mister Miller?” he said, hoping the man wouldn’t berate him for not using his correct military rank as Yates had. He spoke fast to fill the pause that could be filled with derision and abuse. “Would this device be useful to you? A means of attracting them perhaps?” Miller smirked and shot a sideways glance at one of his team, who looked embarrassed. He turned back to the engineer and raised his eyebrows as if to ask his permission. The engineer shrugged as if it was no matter to him.

  “I only threw that together to test the frequency,” he said. “You’ll need batteries for it but I’m sure you’ll manage just fine.”

  “We will,” Miller said with a nod, accepting the case and handing it off to one of his men. “We’ll call it the ‘Yo’.” Sniggers rippled out of the shadows where the rest of the bearded men lingered. Miller offered no further explanation and led his men out of the building.

  “Before you go, Mister Miller?”

  “It’s ‘Master Chief’ to you,” one of the other SEALs said with evident hostility.

  “Master Chief Miller,” Grewal said in an apologetic tone, “I appreciate that your job is a very dangerous one and we appreciate everythi—”

  “Get to the point, Professor,” Miller interrupted. “I don’t need my ass kissed before someone gives me shitty detail.” Grewal straightened and cleared his throat.

  “Very well, we need one of the faster ones for testing. I need to see how—why—the virus has produced different results in them…” Miller kept his cold stare firmly fixed on Grewal for a few seconds past the point of it being uncomfortable. He let his breath out through his nose, before nodding once and turning away. Grewal watched them go, stifling the shudder he could feel threatening to travel down his spine like electricity, before turning back to the engineer.

  “How long before you can have the bigger device ready for testing?” The engineer frowned at him and took a step away towards the door.

  “Last I checked, I didn’t work for you,” he answered. “I only came to make sure it made those… things pay attention. You stick to your job and I’ll stick to mine.” He left, not giving anyone there a second glance in his haste to be far away from the infected, who gnashed and snapped their teeth at him from inside their cages.

  A loud, slow, almost sarcastic clapping began from the upper level, where the big machine gun was set up pointing at the cages. All eyes turned to see Fisher smiling down at them, a heavy black coat zipped up tight under his chin. He stopped clapping after a few seconds and spoke loudly as he also turned to leave.

  “Couldn’t have put it better myself. Where’s our cure, professor?”

  Grewal mulled over the best delivery method for the serum. Chambers had shown him how all of the lab tests had been successful, in that the chunks of infected flesh cut from their subjects had all haemorrhaged their fluids to leave a gelatinous mess in the sealed dishes.

  He had opened his mouth to say that the serum might work on necrotic flesh samples, but it couldn’t be certain to work on a live subject, before he shut his mouth, recalling that the subjects weren’t ‘live’ and were essentially also necrotic flesh. A thought hit him and he turned to find the man he needed.

  “Sergeant Yates?” Yates looked up and pursed his lips at the annoying interruption to the nothing he was doing before. “Sergeant, what would be the best way to infect people with a virus? Militarily speaking, I mean.” Yates seemed to consider his question for a few beats before deciding to give him the sensible answer.

  “I’m not sure I know about that,” he said carefully, “perhaps your CIA man could answer better. The scenario we most suspected the Russians would use against us was a liquid, spread through either a direct attack on our water sources, or an airburst device if the attack was overt.” He stared at Grewal, sighing when the man showed no obvious signs of having understood him. “A bomb,” he explained. “One that scatters the infectious substance in the air over a large area.”

  Grewal tapped the tip of the pen he’d been holding against his teeth as he thought, surprising the few people close by when he launched himself from the seat he was occupying to march to the fridge and pull out a vial of clear liquid. Then he shrugged off the coat he was wearing to begin fighting his way into a hazardous material suit.

  “Clear the room,” Yates barked, looking up to shoot a few hand signals at his people on duty behind the safe end of the machine gun, before climbing into a suit himself. Grewal said nothing, correctly assuming that the man wanted to keep a close eye on what he was doing.

  Suited, he used his ungainly gloved hands to pour the contents of the vial into a contraption that resembled something a person would use to spray w
ater on a plant. He approached the nearest cage, glancing at Yates with a look that seemed to convey a, ‘Here goes nothing’ attitude, and stepped closer to the cage to spray the zombie in the face twice. He sidestepped to the next cage and repeated the process before backing off.

  Neither zombie showed any signs of having been affected by the light mist falling on its dead face and both continued to rage at the mesh which denied them the warm, fresh meat that came so tantalisingly close. Grewal stripped off the mask of his suit and turned to Yates with a smile. He saw that the sergeant had the heavy pistol still gripped in his right hand and was keeping one wary eye on the cages.

  “What now?” he asked after nothing happened.

  “Now we wait.”

  They didn’t have to wait as long as Grewal had thought. He’d taken himself back to the house to wash and eat something, realising he’d gone straight through lunchtime without noticing. He was therefore understandably annoyed that he didn’t even get to take a bite of the sandwich he’d made for himself when the door burst open and one of the soldiers told him with wide eyes that he had to come quick.

  His annoyance evaporated when his mind caught up with why his presence might be required in such a hurry. He ran the short distance to the makeshift lab, slipping on the smooth stones twice and cursing the infernal Scottish weather for raining almost constantly. When he arrived in the large shed, the noise assaulted his ears painfully. It was the same ungodly shriek they let out when sensing an imminent meal, only somehow different; as though the shriek was their only medium of communication, like a baby crying, and right then, they were trying to communicate fear and pain.

  He ignored the offer of the rubberised suit thrust out towards him, walking towards the cages where two of the zombies were moaning and pressing their faces into the metal to get to him. The others… weren’t. They were standing and swaying, staggering even as their raw vocal cords played a tortured symphony of uncomprehending pain. One turned towards him, dark, almost black blood leaking from the eye sockets around the blind, milky orbs that seemed to stare at him pleadingly. It opened its mouth again to gargle another hideous sound, but viscera poured from its open maw as it pitched forward to slam its face off the mesh and leave a streak of gore on the metal. It sank to the hard ground to convulse and jerk like an eel, blood beginning to ooze from every visible patch of exposed skin. Before his eyes, the active and very lethal infected person became increasingly still as the vile puddle it converted itself into grew outwards and threatened to touch the toes of his boots. He stepped back in a daze, looking to his left as the second subject fell backwards like a felled tree, gagging and gargling. As both creatures treated with the serum grew still and silent, the absence of their sound was replaced by a ragged cheering and applause from soldiers and scientists alike.

  “You think this solves anything?” Grewal roared, turning to stare down everyone in the room and silencing them in a second. “You think this undoes any of the damage we’ve done to humanity? This solves nothing!” He paused, breathing hard as even he was surprised by his outburst. He continued in a quieter but still angry tone. “Even if this works on a massive scale... even if we kill every one of the infected, that’s still a human life lost. You think we’re winning?” He scoffed, “We’ll be lucky to scrape our way out of this shit as a species.”

  Pausing only long enough to eyeball all of them in turn, he fought down his body’s treacherous urges to cry in response to the surge of adrenaline and the sinking feelings of guilt he suppressed so well every day, and he stormed out of the building.

  He found Fisher leaning against the wall by the back door to the house they had commandeered. The man was smoking, still huddled inside his large waterproof jacket, and seemed to find the agitated state of the scientist amusing. Grewal was spared having to either appear rude or attempt small talk.

  “The engineer’s just gone,” Fisher said as he dropped the butt to grind it out on the wet cobblestones with the toe of his boot. “Reckon we’ll be good to go tomorrow.”

  “Good to go on what, precisely?” came the retort in a voice that still shook with guilt and anger.

  “The testing phase of the lure device.” Grewal relaxed slightly.

  “For a terrible moment there, I thought you were going to say you wanted to deploy the serum.”

  “It works, doesn’t it?” Fisher asked with raised eyebrows. “What else would you have to cheer about?”

  “It worked on them,” Grewal answered sourly, jerking his head back over his shoulder towards their makeshift lab. “There’s nothing to say it’ll work on the adapted strain.” At the mention of this, Fisher’s eyes seemed to glaze over, just as they did when he was faced with something scientific that he either didn’t want to be burdened with or else just felt bored with. Grewal had tried, on more than one occasion, to explain why the variations in behaviour of a small percentage of the infected was so important. Fisher, increasingly under the gun from his masters back in the States, needed answers and solutions instead of more questions and problems.

  Fisher watched as Grewal stormed off inside, no doubt to work out his emotions in private, and went back to the room he was using to pick up the radio set and place a call to the other side of the island.

  He gave orders for the device to be made ready and deployed as soon as possible, before leaving the house and climbing back into the passenger side of a military off-road vehicle. That was, after first absent-mindedly trying to climb in on top of his driver and muttering angrily about the steering wheel being on the wrong side.

  Back at his headquarters, he ordered up some coffee and waited for it, grimacing as all caffeine-addicted professionals did when presented with a beverage they weren’t accustomed to. He closed the door to his room and placed another call on the satellite phone to order the AWACS be diverted to monitor the activity of the infected after they had dropped the device, along with the mass production of serum for immediate transportation over the Atlantic.

  SIXTEEN

  Johnson drove in a noisy stop/start game of Screecher destruction.

  The first mile of flight had seen the gun run dry and he couldn’t spare the time to stop and reload it, nor could he divert enough concentration to accurately explain to Bufford how to do it. Instead, and much against his better judgement, he grudgingly allowed the SBS man to fire the big 30mm cannon into the largest concentrations of undead.

  In the rear section, Kimberley was beside herself with guilt and grief because she had fallen asleep when it was her turn to keep watch. But the real heartbreak came when Amber realised why the adults were so upset. She screamed and pounded her tiny fists against the inside of the armoured door, demanding to be let out and sobbing for the boy who she had grown so attached to, as she screamed his name over and over. The sound of her cries broke their hearts and renewed Johnson’s hatred of the creatures for all that they had taken away from so many people.

  “Cease fire, cease fire,” he growled into the microphone of his headset, using the growing light to line up a knot of approaching Screechers to mow them down under his left-side tracks. Then he crunched into reverse and repeated the process until the road ahead was clear.

  The muted banging on the thick armour to his left told him that more had fallen upon their inedible transport from the foliage on their flank, and he calmly reversed the Warrior once more to repeat the process.

  “I’ll go back for him,” Bufford said as he tried to work out the overly complex reloading procedure for the chain gun.

  “We don’t separate,” Johnson answered, still repeating his reverse and advance crushing manoeuvres.

  “But the lad’s on his own—”

  “He was on his own before we showed up,” Johnson snapped back, “and he was doing just fine. Don’t underestimate him; he’s probably safer without us attracting all this attention.” He felt callous as soon as he had uttered the words, clamping his mouth shut and concentrating on his task. All around them, more palsied hand
s clawed at their hull, forcing him to back further away from the farm until he could no longer even see the approach road to it.

  “Where the hell did all these bastards come from?” Bufford snarled as he fought with the machinery. “We haven’t seen these kinds of concentrations for months, and now all of a bloody sudden they start protesting again? What is it, another fucking miner’s strike?”

  “Are we clear of the herds?” Larsen’s voice cut in sharply. Johnson gave her a quick ‘stand by’ before spinning the Warrior in a full three-sixty to check.

  “Seems clear at the moment,” he reported, “I’ll wait for more to catch up with us an—” The sound of the rear doors opening cut him off, prompting an outburst from both him and Bufford so that neither of them had their words heard.

  “She said,” sniffed Kimberley’s voice over the vehicle intercom as the door closed again. “She said to clear them out and come back for her.”

  Johnson hesitated, feeling the blood rise in his face until he breathed out to stop himself from bursting. As much as he hated it, as much as he couldn’t stand not being in control, he had to trust both the young boy and the Norwegian commando to handle their own business.

  Selecting reverse again, he set his face and went about handling his own.