Death Tide

by Devon C. Ford

  “I say,” he said more insistently, his nasal voice cutting the air at the perfect tone to whip Kimberley’s head around to look at him. Lieutenant Palmer flinched in fright at the speed that the face turned and seemed to look directly at him. Logic cut in on the dance between sense and fear skipping fast through his mind, and it reminded him that the Screechers didn’t carry weapons and walk low to the ground to hide their presence.

  He waved them over, seeing the few become over twenty.

  “Lieutenant?” Kimberley asked, recognising the shape of the man and his voice even though the gathering dark prevented her from making out his features in any great detail.

  “Indeed,” Palmer replied, “get your people under cover and keep them quiet. We will have to move shortly.”

  “My peop…” Kimberley started to say before she was cut off.

  “We are heading for the landing area. We at least have one helicopter left and I’m hoping that we can get as many of us off this cursed rock as possible.”

  With that, he turned away from her and left her to repeat the whispered message to every third person that slunk past her.

  “Stay hidden. Keep quiet; we’re getting out of here.”

  Lieutenant Palmer, pulse racing and the weight of command pressing down heavily on his shoulders, took three soldiers at random to accompany him and for the first time in his brief military career, he wished that he had taken the time to get to know the names of the men under him. At least he did, now that he had to rely on them to save his life if the need arose.

  He moved low, ignoring the trained cautions that the more experienced soldiers had ingrained when it came to exposed areas and corners. Palmer’s lack of military experience made his progress faster, and ultimately safer as this new enemy did not set up ambushes or use ranged weapons. The key here was speed and stealth, weighing up one against the other to remain undetected. He was certain that none of them had infiltrated this high up the hill, but the sounds of gunfire from below grew steadily louder as that fight headed unavoidably upwards. The hulking silhouette of the ungainly and bulbous helicopter tickled the skyline ahead of him, lit by occasional flashes from behind him, and set against the lighter sky over the sea. The sound of a weapon cocking rang out at the same time as a challenge pierced the air a little louder than was necessary.

  “Put that down, man!” Palmer snapped at Brinklow, the loadmaster now famous thanks to his musical escapades at the first battle for the island, and who had already been serving in the Royal Navy when the officer was born.

  “Sorry, Sir, Mister Barrett and Mister Morris are ready to start pre-flight,” he said, turning to point uselessly into the dark. As soon as he had said this, the pilot appeared and called out to see who it was.

  “Lieutenant Palmer, Sir,” Palmer said respectfully, almost pronouncing the slight bow of aristocracy in his DNA, “We have almost forty people not far away; soldiers and civilians.”

  Lieutenant Commander Barrett was silent for a moment before responding.

  “Depending on how far we evacuate, we can take thirty at a time, just so long as they aren’t carrying too much equipment,” he said after the brief mental calculations.

  “Where to, Sir?” Palmer asked.

  Barrett didn’t respond, merely climbed back aboard the aircraft. A pregnant pause of no more than twenty seconds elapsed, then a loud noise made them all flinch in the dark as the helicopter’s engines sparked into sudden, raucous life. Barret dropped back down and ran over to put his mouth to Palmer’s ear.

  “Get everyone up here,” he said, “we’re going to rendezvous with the remainder of the armour that went to London.”

  Palmer nodded and turned away, his mind registering but ignoring the comment about his brother’s column only having a remainder of its original strength.

  Barrett climbed back into the fuselage and settled himself into the figure-hugging seat high up in the cockpit. He lifted on his headset and listened in to the end of the conversation his co-pilot was having with the older brother of the army officer he had just sent away.

  “Roger,” Morris said over the radio, “Ghostrider, out.”

  “I do wish you wouldn’t call us that, Morris,” Barrett said in mild annoyance as he strapped in and flicked switches. “Where are they?”

  “Not sure, precisely,” Morris responded as he worked his own controls, “but they have given us an RV point to start dropping people and they’re on their way as we speak.”

  “Did they say why?” Barrett asked.

  “Indefensible position, I should imagine, but they didn’t specify,” Morris responded and kicked the engine speed up a little further.

  “Gary?” Barrett said into the microphone attached into his helmet, speaking over the operational open-mic for their crew.

  “Go on,” Brinklow said.

  “Prepare to load thirty at a time and make sure you make the first batch heavy with soldiers to secure the RV.”

  “Understood,” Brinklow answered.

  “Flight time?” Barrett asked Morris.

  “A little under five minutes. I’d estimate a fifteen-minute turnaround, tops.”

  “Okay, first load expected any time soon. Let’s get them the hell out of here.”

  “Okay everyone,” Palmer announced peevishly, “follow me, if you please. We will get you all evacuated in batches, so I ask that you not push one another, and follow instructions.”

  He turned to lead them away, hearing the muttered insults aimed at his back and chose to pretend that he didn’t hear them. One man, however, stood tall and spoke at a normal volume, which earned hisses of shushing from everyone in earshot.

  “Me and my wife have to be on the first flight,” he began, prompting even the seemingly-arrogant Lieutenant Palmer to stare at him in shock, “my wife is pregnant,” he insisted, with a face that not even he could keep straight.

  Palmer glanced at the woman, clearly more than double the officer’s age and with a noticeably flat stomach, as she tried to pull her husband’s arm away, looking at the man with an incredulous stare of mixed disgust and horror.

  “Madam,” Palmer said, echoing some of the exquisite manners and gallantry of his older brother, “my congratulations to you and your husband, but please be patient with our efforts to evacuate everyone.” With that, he turned away and called for a sergeant to relay his instructions. Those instructions were accepted and followed, leaving him almost shocked that assuming control of the men was so easy. His mood dropped instantly, knowing that the two intimidating sergeants in his squadron weren’t present, not to mention the SSM or Palmer’s own brother, who he knew the men would follow without question and with something bordering on adoration. The knowledge that he was the best choice for leadership in a pool of one left him a little soured, but he knew he had no time for self-pity.

  The group made their slow progress uphill, unimpeded by the undead that tore the lower slopes apart in their unending quest for living flesh. The first thirty bodies were loaded onto the helicopter and the door slid noisily shut before the engines screamed intensely as the wheels squeaked on their suspension shocks in take-off. The noise was incredible, making everyone duck their heads low as the sound of the helicopter faded away to leave them in the relatively quiet darkness. The gunfire still sounded loudly from below them as they began their agonising wait for the aircraft to return.

  “I’m out!” shouted a marine desperately from Lieutenant Lloyd’s right side.

  “Here, lad,” came his sergeant’s implacable voice, “don’t bloody waste ’em.”

  Lloyd smiled despite the situation, ever grateful for the squat and seemingly indestructible NCO who kept his men in top condition at all times. He knew that the fatherly sergeant would have a number of spare items on or about his person that the lads would either have a habit of losing or forgetting. He had probably stuffed a half-dozen spare magazines for their rifles down the top of his camouflaged smock, on top of the full pouches he had. At any one
time the man probably had the equipment of two marines in his possession.

  “Civvies on the left!” came another shout, making their officer turn to face that direction. The twenty men he had under his unorthodox command were roughly half and half marines and army, and of the latter he could only tell who was who due to their different weapon reports. The front door of a nearby building was open, showing two frightened faces in the light of their sporadic muzzle flashes.

  “Split!” Lloyd called out, pushing his way into the outer rank to force a gap and began waving the survivors out of their hiding place and towards the dubious safety of his flock of armed sheep. They ran, no hesitation or delay, and piled into the formation only for it to close up like some previously unknown single-celled organism. They had almost the same number of civilians huddled together in the middle, and the majority of the fighting was directed back downhill where a loose gaggle of zombies advanced well ahead of the tidal wave still pouring from the now open beachhead.

  “Mark your shots, boys,” Lloyd called out to reassure them, only to be heard so that they knew they were still led by someone confident. Their slow retreat moved at the same speed as the mass of the main advance, and soon their only contact was with the surprise arrivals of people who used to be their own and the few faster ones. Lloyd was reminded of that additional danger by a shout from their front rank facing the main assault.

  “Lima breaking out!” came the shout, “and it’s bringing more with it!”

  Lloyd was preparing to call a halt and drop his front rank to their knees to meet the renewed foray, but another voice called over the din.

  “Keep going, I’ll get the fucker,” said Enfield, his cool-headed sniper, who pushed ahead and sat back on his right foot with his left knee up to steady the long barrel of the big rifle he unslung from his shoulder. His spotter and constant shadow advanced a few paces with him, also dropping down to kneel and scan his weapon over his sniper’s head to deal with any threats that presented themselves to them.

  Over the tumult of noises, a single, booming report echoed over the rest, followed by a crisp shout of, “Lima down,” as the two men jogged back to the safety of the huddle. Looking ahead to the area lit by the raging fire, Lloyd saw that the vanguard that had flowed out of the main group, hot on the tails of their leader, now faltered and milled about. Around him, the firing had ceased and was replaced only with the crying of the refugees and the clicks and scrapes of weapons reloading.

  “Keep moving!” he called, just as they noticed the growing sounds of a rotary wing aircraft surging back over their heads to flare in high above them to land on the island.

  ELEVEN

  The first load to disgorge from the belly of the aircraft spilled out into the darkness, led by Sergeant Rod Sinclair and half a dozen of his troop, to spread out and adopt defensive positions as the unarmed civilians huddled together. Satisfied that the area was clear after the silence resumed from the harsh invasion of the helicopter, he sent three of his men to open and clear a large, low hangar building, as others activated a few flares so that the returning helicopter could find them easily.

  Alone with only what they carried on their backs and feeling abandoned in the dark, they prayed for the aircraft to return soon.

  “I hear them,” a trooper said beside Lieutenant Palmer, who craned his neck up to concentrate on the sounds in the air until he could hear the thudding whine of the rotors at the edge of his hearing. He turned to the group, guessing he had maybe two more loads until they were safely away from the infected and cut-off island. He had heard the battle below them appearing to grind to a halt, and the cessation of regular gunfire, and had assumed that whatever resistance still lived down there was overrun by now. As the helicopter flared and touched down, he counted off another thirty as he slapped their backs and shouted the number out loud. He got to twenty-five and held up an arm to stop the civilians advancing, nodding to a group of soldiers standing ready to climb aboard. The man he had stopped pushed him off balance, shouting. Palmer righted himself and pushed back, finding himself outweighed and shorter than the man. The helicopter took off, leaving him with only a handful of soldiers at his disposal as the man surged forward to push him again.

  “We should have been on that helicopter!” raged the man, “my wife is pregnant!”

  “No, I’m not, Gordon,” snapped the woman beside him as she tried to pull his arm back. He shook her off angrily, raising the back of one hand towards her in the dull glow of a light bathing the landing area in a weak yellow. His wife shrank back instantly and cowered, displaying the measure of a man her husband was in front of everyone watching. Palmer drew himself up and spoke loudly.

  “Now, look here, Sir,” he said haughtily, unable to get another word out as the man punched him squarely on the nose and felled him like a small tree. Screams erupted from the group in response, and the injured Graham Ashdown limped forwards to stand between the young officer and his attacker.

  “I know you’re scared, mate,” he said with his hands held out, “we all are, but there’s no need for that.”

  “You can fuck off, too,” snarled the man as he stepped forwards and snatched for Ashdown’s gun and knocked him down on top of Palmer, making both men cry out.

  Another noise cut over those sounds and brought with it a stunned silence. The sound was a strangled cry, punctuated with a gasping choke and an unmistakable whimper of terror. Palmer and Ashdown righted themselves and looked up to see the man on his knees with eyes as wide and bright as headlamps on a truck. The only thing brighter than those eyes was the slither of sharpened metal at the edge of an axe blade which was hooked around his windpipe and forcing him to remain very, very still. Kimberley tossed her hair out of her face, for the first time revealing the entirety of the scar running into her hairline and distorting the shape of her ear. She leaned down and whispered in the man’s ear, making his eyes widen that little bit further. Without another audible word, the young woman straightened and released him by removing the weapon. The main put both hands to his throat and got unsteadily to his feet to stagger away to the back of the group, as Kimberley took his wife gently by the arm and deposited her with Denise and the others of her original group. Returning to Ashdown, she helped the injured man to his feet and then looked down to extend a hand to the young officer. Taking it, he was shocked to feel the strength in her grip as she hauled him up, looking him directly in the eye as she spoke.

  “There is only one way to deal with a bully, Lieutenant,” she said with edged steel in her voice, “and that is to scare them more than they scare others.”

  With that unexpected advice given, she turned away and walked tall back to her small huddle that was comforting the woman she had just publicly removed from her abuser, to wait in silence for the last ride out of that hell-hole.

  “On the right!” called out an RMP, his scarlet beret still sitting atop his head perfectly above a stained face that looked calmly over the long barrel of his heavy rifle. Lloyd followed the sound of the voice and looked beyond, seeing a small crowd of bloodied uniforms mobbing something or someone.

  “Hold!” he bellowed, feeling the formation halt awkwardly.

  “You, you and you,” he said, slapping the backs of the nearest soldiers, of whom only one was originally his own, “with me. Spikes only unless you absolutely have to,” he finished, telling them to use their bayonets and not to fire and attract attention unless it was vital.

  They advanced, still unnoticed by the small mob of former colleagues and civilians who pushed at a door hungrily. The door was not barred or closed, and each surging attempt to gain entry was rewarded with a flash of light from within. Lloyd looked at his three soldiers, his own eyes trying to radiate calm when theirs were wide in terror, and he pointed to the bayonets on the end of their guns, then to the base of his neck and to the backs of the zombies who were still unaware of their presence. They nodded and the four of them advanced in a cautious line, just as the door was ripp
ed inwards and two bayonets were thrust forward to spear the faces of the leading zombies. The two crowding behind them eager for fresh meat fell inwards to sprawl on the floor, and they fell to the blades as they punctured the skulls of the downed enemies. To Lloyd’s total surprise, a tall man with a shock of white hair emerged from the doorway wielding the most unexpected weapon he had seen used in his life.

  Colonel Tim lay waste to three zombies standing before him with the heavy Scottish claymore blade, severing two heads with clean swings and driving the wide point straight through an eye socket to burst the blade out of the rear of his attacker’s head, with a shout of pure rage to kill the last of the group.

  Seeing the four men with raised weapons ahead of him, the rictus of war left his face almost immediately as his genial smile returned.

  “Bagged two brace of the blighters now,” he said gleefully, as though proud of his achievements on an organised hunt, rather than fighting for the survival of the human race against the undead. “Still, I imagine you chaps have plenty under your belts by the look of you?”

  “Er, yes, Sir,” Lloyd said, “would you come with us, Colonel?”

  “Of course. Good idea, er, Lieutenant?”

  “Lloyd, Sir,” he replied, disbelieving even his own polite words in the midst of what they were going through, “if you wouldn’t mind?” he said, gesturing for the senior officer to accompany him back to the loose rally square on the main street.

  “Come on, you two,” the Colonel announced over his shoulder to the two privates assigned to keep him out of trouble. They stooped to pick up bags, no doubt the Colonel’s chess set or fine china instead of anything useful, and they re-joined the group.

  “Fine show, boys!” the Colonel announced as he smiled at the terrified faces, “top shelf!”

  Chuckles rippled through the loose ranks in spite of the gravity of the situation, and Lloyd swore he could have heard one of the reservists mutter, “Typical bloody Rupert. There should be one of them puppets of him on that Spitting Image on the telly.”