Death Tide

by Devon C. Ford

  Still no response, so he waited.

  As soon as the deep voice rang out from downstairs, Amber’s fingers dug into Peter’s hand and her breathing doubled in panicked intensity. He squeezed her hand back, trying to convey through touch that it was okay and that he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her, just as the words the big, deep voice of the man used wormed into his brain.

  They’re army, he thought with sudden elation, but if they really are from the army why aren’t there more of them? Where are their tanks?

  As these conflicting thoughts bounced around his head the voice called out again.

  “I’m coming upstairs,” it said loud and clear, but careful and somehow soft at the same time, “I’m not going to hurt anyone, you have my word.”

  Both Peter and Amber were breathing hard now, and the boy’s sweaty grip tightened in waves on the spike gripped in his hand as his pulse surged through his adrenaline-flooded body. The footsteps sounded, louder this time, and making Peter think of a giant bearing down on them. He had nothing left to do, nowhere to go, and for the briefest of moments he became the scared child he had been before everything in the world had changed.

  Screwing his eyes shut tightly, he pretended that he wasn’t there, as though the childish belief would protect him. When the footsteps stopped outside the door to the airing cupboard and a large shadow passed by, Peter felt a coolness descend on him. His breathing became controlled, his senses sharpened, and his body stopped trembling. He didn’t understand the physiological responses to adrenaline, but he didn’t need to; his body was saturated with the natural drug, and he levelled out at the point where he was in the most total control of himself he had ever been. Eyes narrowing, he shook his hand free of Amber’s, kicked his feet out to open the door and dropped onto the carpeted landing in one movement. His body had faced the choice of fight or flight, and his body had chosen the former.

  Johnson, his hands up and open and the gun dangling just above his waist and bouncing gently from leg to leg, bypassed the airing cupboard in favour of clearing the bedrooms first, and froze as a sound behind him ripped the air. The sound made him think that it was involuntary, as though the person making it was simply so scared or angry that it came out of their mouth unintentionally. He whipped around, hands reaching for the grip of the weapon instinctively, but abandoning the move and making to raise his hands again. He stood up straight again after having moved into a crouch when threatened by the noise, when he saw his attacker.

  The boy was unkempt, even if he was clean. His hair was too long and scruffy, the clothes he wore were ill-fitting and obviously scavenged, and in his hand was what looked like a home-made ice pick. The boy drew back his teeth in an animalistic snarl of rage and raised the weapon like the shower scene in Psycho.

  Johnson reached out, grasped the wrist as easily as if he were picking flowers, and plucked the weapon from the weak hand as though no resistance was offered. He kept hold of the wrist, not gripping it painfully but holding on enough that the boy was on tiptoes and off balance and spoke to him.

  “It’s okay,” he growled over the effort of dangling the feral child, “it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  The boy grunted with the effort of trying to break free, reaching up with his left hand to try and prise open the fingers as wide as sausages and as tough as leather. He even tried to haul himself up to bite the hand, but lacked the reach. Johnson tried patience, but his aching body and lack of experience at having his instructions ignored snapped something inside of him.

  “That’s e-bloody ‘nuff!” he barked, seeing the boy freeze and stare at him, “we’re not here to hurt you, I said, now pack this in,” he continued in only a fractionally softer tone before lifting the boy slightly and releasing his grip to see him fall down to the carpet.

  The boy spun and fixed him with a look of rage, then the eyes seemed to change. They lost their murderous fiery intensity and flashed instantly glossy to show where the tears pricked at him. Johnson didn’t know if it was anger, fear or even relief but the sight of it made him soften.

  Peter’s sudden aggression abandoned him as quickly as it had taken over. The man wasn’t a monster, and he wasn’t one of the ones who had dragged away Amber’s mother.

  He doesn’t look like one of them, anyway, he thought.

  His claims to be from the army seemed true enough, as the man wore the right equipment and had rank badges on his sleeves, and something about his equipment made Peter feel certain that it was well-worn even before everything started. The man spoke to him again, more calmly this time, and repeated that he wasn’t going to hurt him. He seemed to deflate as he spoke, seemed to get smaller and appear less threatening, like he was changing modes or something.

  “What’s your name, son?” he asked.

  Peter, sat on the floor, looking up at the huge man who he realised was bigger, much bigger than his father, and for some reason, he couldn’t make his mouth work to form words. Noises behind him made him jolt, and he saw two more faces on the staircase; one bearded and wild and the other angular, fair and framed by blonde hair tied up loosely. He turned back to the first man and found his voice.

  “You promise?” he croaked, throat dry from the adrenaline.

  “We promise,” answered the blonde woman in a voice that sounded strange to Peter’s ears, “we won’t hurt you.”

  At the sound of her voice a stifled cry came out of the partly open airing cupboard and all eyes except Peter’s shot to stare at the gap. He slowly rose up from the floor, fearfully regressing weeks to worry that being in close proximity to adults would result in renewed casual violence towards his small body, and he switched his anxious gaze between them as he reached back inside their hiding place.

  “It’s okay,” he said softly over the muffled sounds of protesting squeaks, “it’s okay, come on.”

  Peter half pulled, half helped her out of the slatted wooden shelf and heard gasps from behind him. She came out, gripping her small arms around his neck and burying her face into his neck so as not to see the new people they had run from.

  “I’m Peter,” he said quietly as he stared at one spot on the wall to overcome his conflicting feelings of defeat and relief, “and this is Amber.”

  “Is she your sister?” the big man asked him gently.

  “No,” Peter said, turning to look at him and wrongly direct some pent-up anger in his direction, “she was left alone after people broke into a house and took her mum away,” he said in a tone that sounded like more of an accusation than he intended. His eyes stayed glued to the man’s, watching the anger and indignation mirrored in his face, and communication something verging on mutual happened between them.

  “Come downstairs with us?” the woman said in her curious voice, “and tell us what happened?”

  They did. Peter collected his weapons and bag from where he had left them and none of the others tried to take them from him. They sat down, giving the children space and time to relax around them, but Peter’s eyes were constantly drawn to their weapons. He checked them all in turn; the big man he had first tried to attack with his spike, the bearded man who might have looked like a circus strong man if he hadn’t been dressed in black and carrying weapons; the tall and almost ghostly man who was much younger than the other males who had broken in to their hiding place, and who seemed to drift instead of moving, even with the massive rifle slung over his back like some kind of Robin Hood. He unnerved Peter a little, but he got the impression that he and Amber unnerved the man in return.

  What surprised the boy was Amber’s behaviour; she had emerged from his neck with a red, wet face to stare at the blonde woman and wear a strange hint of a smile.

  “My name is Squadron Sergeant Major Johnson,” the big man said before he seemed to wince and decide to start again, “my name is Dean.”

  Peter nodded at him.

  “This is Sergeant Bufford,” he said as he indicated the bearded man and realised that he knew nothing else about
him other than his unit.

  “Alex, but call me Buffs,” the beard said, cracking in half with a smile.

  “This is Marine Enfield,” Johnson went on as he gestured towards the younger man, “he’s a sniper.”

  Peters eyes went wide with boyish adoration, but he quicker contained himself.

  “And I am Astrid,” said the woman before she could be introduced. At the sound of her voice Amber tensed a little, turning back into Peter’s neck. Interpreting her reaction to mean that she wanted to know more about the woman, Peter asked her a question.

  “Are you in the army too?” he asked, having taken in her equipment and sensed something about her mannerism that said she was indeed some kind of soldier.

  “Yes, but in the armed forces of Norway. Do you know where that is?” she responded. Peter shook his head.

  “Go to the top of Scotland,” Enfield interrupted with a small smile and the bitterness of a marine forced to train for arctic warfare in sub-zero temperatures, “turn right and stop when you’ve found the coldest place on earth.”

  “Ah, so you have been to my country?” Astrid responded gently with a chuckle.

  The conversation stalled until Johnson spoke again.

  “I think we’ve accidentally taken over your house, Peter,” he said, seeing the answer clearly on the boy’s face, “and eaten some of your supplies, not counting what you had in the cart ready to go. Very clever that, by the way.”

  Peter smiled at the compliment despite himself, giving him the confidence to ask a question of his own.

  “Did you use all of the hot water?”

  Guilty glances among the four newcomers confirmed that they had.

  “It’s okay,” Peter said, “it’s sunny so it will fill up soon.”

  “Solar panels?” Astrid asked, “I didn’t think you had them here yet?”

  “Yes,” Peter told her before changing the subject, “so do you have a camp or something?”

  More glances bounced around the room until Johnson spoke again.

  “We did have, twice actually,” he said in a low voice, “but we got separated after a helicopter crash. A lot of people…” he trailed off after a subtle throat-clearing noise from Astrid, “a lot of people didn’t make it. There are two more of us, another man and another woman, in the other house. Will you come back with us?”

  Peter looked at Amber, who stared right back at him and shrugged her little shoulders as if to say that it was his call. That he could decide their fate. That the boy who had such a biologically ingrained fear of adults could choose for not only himself but for her, too.

  If it hadn’t been for her, if he hadn’t thought that he could provide for her and keep her safe, he probably would have chosen differently.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The flight over the island was a depressing one. Hundreds of zombies wandered around looking for anything to spark their interest. Morris’ focus was drawn inexorably out of the cockpit window towards what could only have been one of the faster ones wearing a blood-blackened military uniform and making leap after desperate leap at a small flock of white gulls. They evaded the jumps easily, always flapping their wings and skipping clear of the lunging attacks to disperse and dart back to peck at the food source they were unwilling to give up. Feathers swirled around the display, making it clear that at least one of them hadn’t been quick enough or lucky enough.

  The island was totally overrun, teeming with Screechers and making any attempt to rescue the ammunition or fuel left there simply too dangerous. Worse still, there was no sign of the helicopter there. Following the flight path they had done on so many relay trips previously, Barrett moved the helicopter at less than half the speed he had before to allow more eyes to cover more ground. Morris pointed ahead and far off course to their right, indicated a lazy spire of wispy, black smoke for Barrett to wordlessly bank the aircraft and point the bulbous nose in that direction. A little over a minute later they were in a hover at a hundred feet up, looking down on the charred and twisted remains of their sister helicopter, which had merged with the scorched stone of the church it had crashed into. Bodies were strewn around the wreckage, one of them being fed on by a young man wearing filthy blue jeans and a torn shirt as he craned his neck up to reach for the spinning machine far out of his grasp.

  They turned away, the tail of the aircraft spinning around, to aim their nose in the direction of the base, and dipped forwards to leave the site of the crash without noticing the trail leading away through the long grass. Their heading led them directly towards another pillar of smoke.

  The base, even after the daylight horror of the island and the crash site, made their hearts drop in their chests. The side of the base, which had been previously untouched, with the exception of a couple of downed sections of fencing, now looked like a burning, wrecked ant farm. Screechers pinged aimlessly about, pulled in all directions by the sounds and smells of the recent warzone to have erupted there. The building containing the vehicles pulsed thick smoke out of the large hangar doors and all around there were smears of blood, scorched patches of ground and groups of zombies feeding on the bodies of those too far destroyed to turn and join the ranks of the enemy. Silence reigned inside the helicopter, even as the SAS men leaned out of the doors to look at the horrors below. Barrett eventually decided that they had seen enough and turned to head for their new base.

  Flying slowly and not too high, Brinklow looked out of the side door in a daze. One hand rested on the fixed gun and one gripped the fuselage as his brain tried to make sense of what he had seen. There were no answers, at least none that explained the obvious carnage, and his rage grew with each feature that blurred by below him. He could feel himself building up with each tree or building that passed until the shambling, loping line of corpses he saw in one field finally made him snap.

  “Slow it down,” he called into the mic savagely, hauling back on the action of the gun and bending into it. The helicopter slowed, and he began to go to work on the rearmost zombies in the group, cutting them down with efficient bursts of fire. He fired four, five, six bursts with the last one cutting down a small knot of three. They all appeared to be moving in the same direction with purpose; no deviation or wandering off after wildlife or other distractions, and just as Brinklow pointed the barrel ahead, he understood why.

  “Fuck me,” he shouted, startling them all, “get ahead of these bastards and set her down. Now!” he yelled. At the tone of his voice the SAS men sparked into life, not knowing what, but still knowing that something would require their attention. Barrett complied, not focusing on what Brinklow was shooting at as he battled his own dark thoughts, but now he surged ahead and swung the tail around to show the open side door to the advancing line of enemy.

  “Come on!” Brinklow shouted, waving desperately as the beleaguered soldier staggered forwards near the point of collapse. That was what Brinklow had seen, they now knew, the Screechers were following a meal and had so very nearly caught up to their running buffet. The ones trailing back were the slower ones, but the faster ones, the Limas, were so close behind him that he could probably smell them.

  Brinklow found himself pushed bodily aside by Dezzy, who made an exaggerated hand gesture whilst shouting, “Drop! Get Down!”

  The soldier understood, throwing himself face-first flat into the long grass. As he did, Dez unleashed a torrent of automatic fire at head height just where he had been a fraction of a second before. The three faster ones, who were no fewer than ten paces behind the man and gaining, were decapitated in a flash, their heads erupting in clouds of pink mist as their lifeless, or more appropriately inanimate, bodies dropped like sacks of potatoes.

  “Come on!” Brinklow roared, having moved around the machine gun to stand in the open doorway as the man struggled to his feet and half fell the remaining distance to safety. Brinklow grabbed both of his outstretched arms and hauled for all he was worth, sliding the man bodily about as he shouted, “Up! Up!” into the mic. The pilot
responded, the aircraft surged sickeningly into the sky, and they were away.

  “Hey!” the loadmaster shouted in the man’s face as another headset was forced over his ears, “What the fuck happened?” The man’s eyes fluttered, and his answers came with the heavy expulsion of each laboured breath. He had clearly been running for miles, pursued every step of the way until random chance conspired with fate to save him.

  “Attacked,” he gasped, “whole fucking… herd of them… in a building…”

  “So what happened?” Brinklow snapped.

  “Fucking… Nevin…” the man said, “bastard left us… there to… die.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  “Let’s go then,” Sinclair said, his voice sounding weak to Nevin in his intentionally chosen position of the least responsibility and danger. He ran forward with them, never pushing to the front or dropping to the back in case they were attacked. He hung back tactically, again to avoid anything resembling hard work, as the stiff handles employed to wind open the hangar doors were ratcheted around to inch open those doors bit by bit. Nevin cowered in cover, protected by everyone and never placing himself in a position where he would have to fight. As soon as the doors were open enough, he let three others slip through the gap first as the handles were continually wound for the gap to grow wider. When no sounds of alarm or gunfire came from inside, he slipped out of the sunshine and into the cool, dark interior lit only by the weak bulb lining the walls above head height. He blinked and let out an involuntary shiver at the change of environment.

  “Nevin,” snapped the voice of a corporal, “don’t just stand there like a fucking ornament; get working, you bellend!”

  Nevin’s hand slipped inside the pocket where the old revolver sat, touching it briefly for reassurance before he ran off to start working; only his agenda was different. He planned to get himself alone in a vehicle and as soon as they were out of there, he would break away and do his own thing. He would desert from the army, what was left of it, and he would never look back.