by Stevens, GJ
I waited for her to offer out her name, despite not being able to bring myself to ask.
“Where do we go then?” I repeated, raising the volume, my head not turning away from the road.
She didn’t reply until I slammed on the brakes, rounding a corner to find the road blocked with sandbags and at least five rifles aimed in our direction.
“I don’t know, but I think they might,” she replied, her hands raising at her sides.
28
I killed the engine, raising my hands to match Toni’s stance and setting my mouth in a grateful smile while bunching my cheeks. I thought of Dan and Mike and the first tears began to drip down my face.
The soldiers didn’t move and the rifles stayed steady as I paid attention to each of their faces, looking for signs they weren’t the real enemy.
Each stared back, no doubt doing the same as I was, their weapons making them no less anxious. I saw enough pigment surrounding their pupils to slow the beat in my chest in time for the call from somewhere in their line.
A soldier in the centre turned at the command. I could see his reluctance as he looked back towards us.
Keeping his rifle high, a pasty white man side-stepped the sandbags and started the journey in our direction. He didn’t call out, didn’t shout commands, but as the young soldier walked, the aim of the other rifles drifted to either side.
“Open the door,” were his first words as he came around in a wide arc to the driver’s side. I knew his eyes should have remained fixed on mine, but he couldn't keep from looking down to the front of the van. His eyes twitched, travelling along the side. After longer than he should, his gaze snatched back and his aim snapped up from its fall.
“Do what he says, Jess,” Toni said.
I hated the way she could make me feel with just her tone.
I pulled the handle and let the cold air in.
“How d'you get out?” the young man’s voice called as I placed my bare feet to the cold tarmac.
“It was awful. Help us, please. We have to get away from here, where they can’t get us,” I said, pushing the emotion to catch in my voice.
He didn’t reply; instead, looked back, his eyebrows raising as he surveyed me, tilting his head up and down. I saw the same look I always saw in a young man’s eyes, in a man of any age’s eyes, as they caught my sight, but this time his mouth hung wide for other reasons.
I looked down my fluorescent yellow front, following the black lines running down the jacket and I turned as the white of the van caught my eye. It wasn’t white anymore. Most of the surface was flecked red, clots streaking down the dented, once pristine paintwork. Tattered remains of cloth and flesh hung where they’d caught between the bumper and the metal.
“We hid. Waited for it to all die down, then ran. Found this thing unlocked, the keys in the ignition,” I said, pointing over my shoulder. “It saved our lives. God only knows what would have happened if we’d not found it.”
“Ask her,” came the call from another voice. The young soldier’s gaze shot back to my face, running up and down the jacket before falling to the scratches on my legs.
“Were you bitten?” he said, his voice quivering as he spoke with his gaze locked to mine.
I forced myself not to flinch to my arm underneath the sleeve of the jacket and shook my head before shooting a glance back to Toni as he spoke again.
“Her?”
“No.”
“Take off the jacket. We’ve got to see,” he said, motioning with the rifle.
I paused before I replied. “I’m not wearing anything underneath.”
His gaze came up from my torso and he latched back onto my face, his head turning in Toni’s direction, glancing back quickly when I spoke.
“I got covered in blood when we were trying to escape. You’ve got to help us, please?” I said, biting down my annoyance at myself as I let the tears flow.
He paused, moving to look off into the distance as if leaving the conversation for a moment, then he turned back to the line before returning to stare wide-eyed in my direction.
“What is it?” I said, leaning towards him.
“They’re coming,” he replied, before the call from the group could shut him down.
“Private, stow that,” came the booming voice.
I turned back to him, almost putting a hand out in comfort as I realised he was yet to face the horror in person. His gaze was no longer on me, was no longer on the van, instead fixed across the horizon as he stepped backward to the roadblock.
“Get back in the van, Miss,” he said, as the distance between us grew.
I followed his gaze out to the horizon, but couldn’t see anything new. I turned back to the roadblock and saw the soldiers leaving their defences to fan out so they could see past the van.
“Miss, get back inside,” he said, but his eyes had never left the horizon.
“Get back in, Jess,” I heard Toni say. “Get in the van,” she said again, the words loud and controlled.
I turned and I felt the wind change. The foul stench of sewerage filled my nostrils.
I knew what it meant before I saw the two figures running down from the high ground; before I had a chance to tell if their stance was controlled enough. Not too animalistic. Too fast or too slow to confirm my fears.
They were still human and I knew what they were running from.
29
I watched in the wing mirror as the pair of soldiers ran with their wide expressions fixed forward, neither looking back as they hurried to cover the ground. Their hardened faces and the disbelieving look in their eyes told me they’d seen at least as much as we had. A breath pulled unbidden as I spotted the barrel of a long sniper rifle rising from behind one of their backs.
“It’s him,” I said, not turning to Toni.
She made no reply and I lost the train of thought as I turned to see a soldier shouting through my window.
“Move it,” the tall man called, his top lip consumed with a bushy moustache. His confidence, more than the stripes on his chest, told me he was in charge. With breath misting against the window, he pointed to the left side of the roadblock where two soldiers were pulling down the sandbags while another revved the engine to move one of the two Land Rovers.
By the time I’d turned my back he raced up the side of the hill to meet the pair. He turned only when they didn’t wait, running at their side as they shouted their report.
I turned the ignition, wheeling the van up the first of the incline, the tilt unsettling as I leant in the opposite direction with my hands correcting the steering left and right to miss the remaining sandbags. As the wheels settled back to the tarmac, I pulled open the door and jumped out onto the road while not listening to Toni’s calls for me to get back in. To stop being so stupid. To get us away from the danger.
The words disappeared as my door slammed shut.
“Give me a pistol,” I shouted to the three soldiers settling back behind the roadblock. None looked up from their rifle sights as they knelt against the sandbags. “Give me a gun,” I said, nudging the closest at his shoulder.
He looked up and shouted across to the three returning.
“Sarge,” he said, flicking up a look in my direction.
“Hundreds,” said the sniper, as he swung the long rifle from his shoulder, the deep blue of his eyes lingering on mine for more than a moment.
Jumping over the roadblock as he broke the connection, he gave me the slightest of nods before running to the back of the closest of the Land Rovers without a chance for me to reply.
The stench caught in my nostrils and I looked down the road, watching the valley cut between the hills as it wound out of view. The sergeant stood at my side as he looked, stone-faced, in the same direction.
“Give me a pistol,” I said. “I trained in Israel. I may not be able to hit a bull’s eye on a target, but I can bring the odds a little more in our favour.”
The sergeant double took, looking down across
my spoilt front and turned to the van before snapping back in my direction.
“Get in your vehicle, Ma’am. Get in the vehicle and get the fuck out of here,” he said.
I turned to the van, saw Toni’s stern wide-eyed command repeat his words, her head leaning out of the open driver’s window.
I bit my lip, her scolding look only deepening my resolve as I told myself she had no control over me.
“Where do we go?” I replied, folding my arms in the cold.
He double took again. “You know what’s coming?” he said, looking down the blood stains across my front again.
I nodded.
“Then get anywhere. Get as far away as you can. What you see…” he said, looking back to his men. “What you see is everything, you understand? There’s a hundred or more of those. I don’t know what they are, but they were my regiment and they’re coming here with one thing on whatever remains of their minds. I don’t have to tell you what will happen. Now go,” he said, his voice raising. “Or do I have to waste one of my men forcing you back inside?”
They had no chance. Their colleagues had been overrun with such ease. One minute they were jumping from their trucks, the next they’d joined the ranks of the dead risen up.
I could use a gun. I wasn’t the best shot, but maybe one more bullet could be the tipping point.
“Toni,” I shouted, remembering how she handled the rifle.
Despite knowing I should run, knowing my job was to get the story out, still I stood my ground as he turned away and watched him raise his rifle and peer through the sight.
I flashed a look down the road to see the tarmac clear until I blinked. The moment my eyes opened I saw the first movement, saw the camouflaged legs, looked up the body and half an arm hanging loose at his side, swinging in time with its slow, casual stroll.
I jumped as a bullet leapt from the long rifle, snatching a look to the sniper crouching to my right, the double legs of the long gun leaning on a sandbag.
I turned back to the road and watched the sea of legs trampling over the fallen figure. With the awful creatures in view, the stench felt like it poured from the sky. My heart raced, but I couldn’t just walk away. Toni needed to know where her mother was if there was any chance she could stop me from being consumed by what had taken over those creatures. I wanted her for another reason altogether and I couldn’t let this pass by.
The rifle snapped over and again, my body’s reaction lessening each time. Each time a hit. Each time a kill, despite my mind’s trouble with those words. Ten, maybe more, fell down, but still they continued on, stumbling over their fallen.
Some veered up the hill, nudged by the piling bodies before falling back, drawn down by the incline, funnelled by the valley back to the road.
This was a stand. This was where history could be made. If they broke through here where would the next be? From here they could move out into the open and I’d seen too many movies to know how this would end.
I thought of my parents and my friends. I thought of Jamie and his kids. I thought of the villages, the towns, the cities. The people. The children. The lives to be lost. The lives that would live again and add to the battle that would have to be fought.
I couldn’t run. I walked to the back of the van, avoiding Toni’s eyes and the scorn I knew would be pouring out of her. I pulled the rear doors open to the sound of the dried blood cracking and took the empty gun from the floor. I shouted just as the door slammed.
“You go. The keys are in the ignition.”
Moving to the rear of the Land Rover, I took a magazine from an open crate, pushing it into the base of the pistol and re-joined the line as the sergeant gave the order to open fire.
30
The machine gun jumped to life, hot lead spraying in a furious chatter, consuming the belt of finger-length bullets as the soldier swept it across its wide arc. The first shots were too low, the bodies rattling with each impact, but as the spray moved across the line, skull and brain erupted under its power.
The first in line were down, with rifles picking off those missed in the rain of metal. The soldier’s pause caught us all by surprise, their gazes catching on the next targets stumbling through the red mist as the wind added a thick metallic hint to the acrid swirl around us.
“Fire,” the sergeant screamed and all rifles joined the chugging rhythm of the machine gun. Shot after shot, round after round exploding flesh as they hit their targets.
Dead flesh sprayed to the ground. Blood and guts showered the air with gore. Slowing their advance, they stumbled, moving to their hands and knees, if they still had them, to cross the carpet of bodies, only to be cut down.
Shouts went through our line, an excited rumble of voices as the bodies piled ever higher. The gunfire fell quiet when all movement stopped, the masses unable to cross the hill of camouflaged bodies.
Weapons reloaded as the rifles went quiet. Voices died to nothing with the slap of metal against metal.
The sergeant called the line to order and silence surrounded to let us hear the low rumbling chorus of moans in the background.
A chill ran down my spine and I let my gun drop without a round being fired. I knew my limitations and was pleased enough the advance had halted beyond my useful range.
I turned as the van’s engine sprang to life at my back, smiled to Toni in the driver’s seat as she peered out, beckoning me toward her with her head shaking.
I pushed my hand to the air, gesturing for just a few minutes more.
The soldiers were talking amongst themselves, their voices high, excited at their easy victory. Not even the sergeant held the rise of his bushy moustache as his mouth parted in joy.
Until the first screams brought back their silence.
Only two remained calm, their heads not snapping sideways; their mouths not hanging down, eyes not wide with questions.
The sniper and his companion had seen it before. They’d taken them down and had saved our lives.
The wretched calls were more distant than we’d heard before, but were no less terrifying, forcing the cold into my bones.
“Get ready,” came the sniper’s voice, not turning to the faces who didn’t know what would happen next.
I levelled the gun, trying to ignore as my arms refused to steady, the shake of my hands only pronounced by the cold. I knew before the first of the dark shapes sprung high from behind the line my gaze would catch on a second as the first landed.
In a tattered orange jumpsuit, the colour only showing between the dark patches, his legs bent like a gymnast dismounting from a pommel horse. His face as dark as oiled hardwood, thick black lines spidering across. A beard of dried blood matted the skin around his jaw. His left ear was missing; so, too, was the skin on the top of his head. With it went the long hair covering the other side, brown locks matted and clumped like dreadlocks.
For a moment I wondered if it was how I would end up.
A single shot pierced the air, the sniper the only one not paralysed with fear, but his bullet went wide, thudding a red spray out from the pile of bodies at their backs. The leap of the second, his pasty naked form riddled with the dark lines like roots through snow, took his attention.
Silence returned as the shot’s echo fell. Even the moans in the background seemed to pay their respect and quiet. The pause felt as if it lasted for an age. The only movement came from their jaws, slow and considered as they opened and closed in time with each other to the metallic click of the new round worked by the rifle’s mechanism. With the orange jumpsuit’s single step, the pause ended, its companion back in the air and surging forward.
The line of fire lit the space between us. Hurried shots flashed against the barricade of bodies, ripping flesh from bone and shattering each form, but not those racing towards us. The sergeant screamed for focus between each of his shots as he stood, calling for concentration of fire, splitting the squad.
The first three pumped their shots to the crazed creature on the ground,
whose distance had just shortened enough for me to open fire. The second group, of which the sniper joined with his sidearm, aimed to the target high in the air, his form only just falling back to the ground in front of his companion.
Firing continued until the explosions were replaced with well-drilled shouts at each position as they hurried to reload and retake up the battle.
“Bayonets,” came the next call, his voice breaking, but there was no time. Despite the near continuous fire, the expert shots falling to their targets, the rest of the pack were on us, the numbers just too great and were just the other side of the short defences.
The knives were taken in hand, the sergeant jumping the barricade, the blade held in his fist with a great warrior call as he ran forward. Leaping across the sandbags, he led with the sharpened metal.
I stayed my shots, forgetting how many I’d taken as his knife hit high, the creature only catching the advance when it was too late; the blade already through its temple. A panic descended across our group, heads twitching as we searched for the second enemy.
We didn’t find it. It found us. It found the last on the line; the young soldier who met us as we arrived. His screams turned our heads, the blood pumping from his neck turned me away, but not his friends, not his colleagues. They stayed true to their calling, pouncing on the attacker. Climbing up with pistols, blades slipping in and out of the monster’s skull as the soldier’s heart pumped a fountain of blood over each of them.
The creature slumped down within a moment, but with the damage done, the warrior’s frenzy replaced with a furious activity of hands on the wound. Red palms fell to his neck, until after not too long it was obvious there was no hope.
I turned away with my eyes closed, the sound of the horn bellowing at my back spinning me around.
Toni’s outstretched arm pointing out turned me back to the battle and I watched as the dam of bodies collapsed either side. The walking corpses streamed around the edges, massing in the centre.
