Extinct

by RR Haywood

  More come in and he guns them down too. As soon as that wave is down he staggers out to drop and crawl, smearing blood over his face, then screaming out in pain while pretending to scrabble away. More soldiers come, seeing the awful slaughter and the blood spatters over the walls and floor.

  ‘Where is he?’ one asks, grabbing to heave Alpha across the floor towards the door.

  Alpha screams and pretends to cry at the pain caused by being dragged, his face covered in blood, twisted in agony.

  ‘He’s in there . . . get in . . .’ a voice orders, the hard voice of an officer. ‘My god.’ He balks at the sight of Alpha, shaking his head in anger. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Sir . . . I don’t know . . . I don’t . . . I’m sorry . . .’

  ‘It’s okay, get him back . . .’ the officer orders, patting Alpha’s shoulder. ‘Damn war . . . GET GRENADES IN THERE . . .’

  ‘Our men are injured in there . . .’ someone shouts back.

  Alpha rises heroically to his feet, staggering and confused, crying and weak, but shuffling down the street as more soldiers run past him. Explosions behind. Grenades being thrown about. Gunshots, shouts, confusion and chaos. A battered old tank chugs into view, trundling over rubble and debris as the officer orders his men to make clear so the tank can join in with the absurd level of overkill.

  ‘I WANT HIM ALIVE . . .’ a man in black uniform with a peaked cap bellows while striding past Alpha. ‘I SAID ALIVE,’ he roars, setting off at a run when the tank booms a shot at the house, blowing chunks of masonry and brick out that pepper the soldiers nearby. He aims for a junction, running out to gawp in horror at a heavy truck trying to turn at speed as a grenade explodes, sending the truck slamming onto its side at Alpha, who vaults a wall to get clear.

  If they survive they will speak of this for years to come. That they, two agents in the British Secret Service, defected to the enemy and ended up in a firefight against Nazis in Berlin with Mad Harry Madden and Safa Patel.

  ‘Drop,’ Harry orders as they reach the end of an alley. They go flat, scooting over out of sight and waiting for the first soldiers to go sprinting past. Safa aims to fire, but Harry lifts a hand, telling her to wait and letting more come because this is what Harry does. This is where the big man made his name, by using the size of overwhelming forces against themselves.

  ‘Now.’ He fires into them as Charlie, Delta and Safa do the same. Sending rounds into bodies. ‘INTO THEM . . .’ Harry roars, surging up to go in deep to the ranks of men compressing as they come to a stop. Turning into each other, fumbling in the tight space while their mates scream in agony from the shots given, and if that wasn’t bad enough they then see the legend of Mad Harry Madden coming to life before their eyes.

  The wildness of him. The sheer bloodlust that takes over with a brutality that surpasses the refined skills of Safa, Charlie and Delta. A genial man by nature. A gentle giant who nurtures those around him. Who smiles slowly and keeps his thoughts in his head. A man of honour and principle, of integrity and a depth of courage that knows no bounds, that right now is a thing of seething violence erupting to decimate anything close to him wearing the grey of his enemy.

  A foot to the stomach takes the first one off his feet and flying back, then Harry wades in with his mighty fists clenched and swinging. Downing man after man. Bang, bang, bang. They fall like dominos. One comes in from his left with a knife drawn, but Harry grabs the hand, twists, breaks the wrist and headbutts down before snatching the blade to stick in the soldier’s chest. He pulls it free, twists and stabs another in the neck, then ducks to stab legs while gripping ankles to wrench them off their feet so he can stamp down in his sturdy 1943 boots.

  He times it to perfection, grabbing a sub-machine gun from a body and turning it to fire at the next section coming into the alley. They fall screaming, torn down by the barrage of fire as Charlie, Delta and Safa do the same and grab sub-machine guns.

  ‘Grenades . . . ON!’ Harry roars, scooping to grab the stick grenades from bodies as they go, and he moves fast, sprinting with a speed even Safa didn’t know he had, his jaw clenched, his face a mask of aggression. Harry knows they have to make distance and lead the soldiers on to give Ben space to get through.

  ‘FICK DEINE MUTTER,’ he roars, and lobs a grenade at a unit running into the road they sprint across. The four leap into the ruins opposite as the grenade detonates with a solid whump, then follow Harry back out into the street to charge at the scattered enemy, pressing the attack with a withering aggression that sends those men fleeing for cover.

  The four burst out into a wide crossroads and a heavy truck coming at them filled with soldiers.

  ‘DOWN, DOWN.’ Charlie reacts fast, throwing a grenade at the front of the truck as it slews to the side, trying to veer away. He opens fire, strafing the back with Delta as the grenade blows at the point of the truck turning sharply, the explosive giving enough lift for the truck to flip over on its side to slide down the road spilling broken bodies from the back, and they catch a glimpse of a man vaulting a wall to get clear as the truck slams into the side of a ruined house, but still they fire their guns, then run to the fallen to grab fresh weapons and more grenades.

  The four go left, running mere feet from Alpha hunkering down and into the street Alpha came from, with Harry spotting the mass melee going on with a battered old tank laying waste to a house while scores of men gather around it, pouring fire into the doors and windows. A temptation too great to pass. A target too good, and the four come to a stop, setting their grenades ready and throwing at the same time into the men gathered by the tank.

  The four explosions come near on together. Four percussive bangs that send men flying off their feet while others spin away screaming from the fragments slicing them deep.

  Harry snarls, striding out to fire the sub-machine gun as he walks down the road. Safa gains his side, shooting at the men as Charlie and Delta rush out to join the line and as one they spot the officer in the black uniform and peaked cap trying to run away and as one they twitch their aim to gun him down.

  ‘COVER!’ Delta roars on seeing the top of the tank swivel the barrel from firing at the house to aim at them.

  Safa and Delta go left. Charlie goes right, but Harry goes straight at it with fury in his eyes as the men inside panic and try to force their last shell into the tube. Harry moves faster. Snarling as the tank loads and side-stepping smartly when the thing goes bang and the shell flies past, whizzing down the road to hit the truck on its side, blowing it back across the junction through the lines of injured soldiers screaming in pain.

  Harry vaults onto the track, then up onto the roof as the hatch opens with a leather-headset-wearing officer surging up with a Luger, who finds his face filled with a 1943 boot. Harry kicks hard, then ducks to wrench the man out, flinging him aside, then dropping into the hatch as the other three stare on, listening to the screams until it goes silent. A body comes flying out the top, pushed by Harry underneath, who sends it falling to the ground.

  ‘Either of you drive a tank?’ Harry shouts, jumping down and shooting a writhing man in the head as he walks calmly by.

  ‘Delta did a tank course,’ Charlie blurts, pointing at Delta.

  ‘I didn’t do a World War Two tank course, you twat,’ Delta says.

  ‘Don’t stand there, lad, get in it . . . No shells left and the machine guns are broken so just drive it at the Boche . . . We’ll be behind you.’ Harry pauses mid-step with a glance up at the sudden roar of engines overhead as the air-raid sirens come to life across the city and once again the black silhouettes of the allied bombers fill the clear blue sky.

  Miri isn’t big at all, but an inert human form of any size is called a dead weight for a reason, and the lack of food, water and a night of being awake in the freezing cold soon take their toll as Ben and Konrad run hard with Emily trying to hold Miri on the stretcher.

  They go into the road where Harry, Safa, Charlie and Delta picked the first fight and spot the b
odies at the end, then they run past the alley strewn with broken bodies as the grenades and explosions and gunshots and screams sound out nearby.

  ‘YOU!’ A German medic runs at them, his grey uniform and his hands covered in blood from tending to the injuries of his comrades. ‘Give me that stretcher now . . .’

  ‘My mother,’ Emily shouts back. ‘She’s been shot . . . We need to . . .’

  ‘My soldiers take priority,’ the officer barks.

  ‘No!’ Emily cries out. ‘Please, sir . . . we have to get her through.’

  ‘I will tell you once more before I . . .’ He doesn’t finish the threat from the shot going through his head as Emily draws and fires, then pivots to fire into the other two medics tending the injured, killing both.

  ‘Go,’ she urges. ‘GO!’

  They set off running again, running as fast as they can while Konrad’s shoulders and arms start to burn. He gasps for air, his face flushing a deep red. ‘Ben . . . I can’t . . . I . . . gotta . . .’

  ‘Keep going.’ Emily gets to his side, reaching a hand out to give some lift to the stretcher, not much, but anything helps.

  What a thing to do. What a plan to come up with, and right now Ben curses himself for even suggesting a thing of such monumental stupidity. He’s risking everyone for one member of the team. Would Miri do that? Yes. Without doubt she would. She might snarl and snap and yell and patronise everyone around her, but she would kill the world for one of her own, and right now Ben might be doing just that.

  They cross the end of a street, all three of them turning their heads to the far end and the sight of a heavy truck slamming over onto its side amidst a cacophony of gunfire and explosions. More shouts from somewhere else. Noise everywhere and units of soldiers pouring from the streets, heading towards those noises.

  ‘How much further?’ Emily asks.

  ‘Two streets,’ Ben shouts over his shoulder as Konrad whimpers, knowing he can’t keep going for that long.

  A huge bang sounds out and the truck on its side explodes, shooting back across the road as they run into the next junction as the air-raid sirens come to life and the sky above them fills with bombers roaring overhead.

  Alpha peers over the wall, unaware that Harry, Safa, Charlie and Delta ran past a few seconds ago. He has to go. He has to go right now. Four explosions sound from the street he ran from followed by sustained gunfire, and he vaults the wall and turns the collar up on his stolen tunic and forces himself to walk with the assured arrogance of a German soldier as the tank fires the last shell that whips past Harry and through Safa, Charlie and Delta and past Alpha to hit the truck that explodes out and goes screeching backwards as Alpha simply turns his head to watch it happen.

  A second later and he starts walking faster, using the distraction to get away.

  The air-raid sirens come to life and everyone around him moves from static, slow and exhausted to full out running in terror for the shelters on hearing the sirens and Alpha runs too.

  The bombers come into view overhead, bringing horror to the streets as the allies work to bring the Fatherland to its knees. Alpha runs faster now, cursing at the thick crowds of Berliners streaming against him.

  A unit of soldiers stand in the street, monitoring the civilians streaming past. One spots a grey tunic going against the flow and points at Alpha, shouting for his officer, who calls out for Alpha to stop, but the man runs harder, slamming through the dense lines of screaming people as the soldiers give chase, firing rounds into the air to make the people duck and move as a huge explosion rocks the ground, sending bricks and flaming wood into the street, killing several soldiers and many civilians. Alpha goes down, hit by something, and through sheer willpower he rises to run on, his face wet with blood, pain everywhere. People screaming and crying out, holding the dead and injured in their arms. Pain and suffering in every direction.

  Alpha starts to slow, the pain getting worse with waves of nausea pulsing through him, but he can make it. He can find Kate. A grey uniform looms in front and he draws his pistol, aims and fires, then carries on without looking back as his run becomes more staggered and lurching, his feet suddenly heavy, his legs simply unwilling to give him the speed he demands.

  One street to go. One final street, where the road has thankfully been cleared to allow the ambulances and trucks to ferry the injured to the makeshift hospital.

  There it is, at the end of the road, the schoolhouse. A large brick building with huge white sheets tied together across the roof and a crude red cross painted on it, standing in a sea of rubble and demolished buildings like a beacon of hope to the people who work with bleeding hands and numb feet to keep the access routes clear.

  Alpha trudges on with the love of a woman giving him the fuel to keep going. He thinks of her laugh, of her eyes, of the feel of her lips when they kiss, the way she holds him and the soft words she gives. Nothing will stop him now. Nothing.

  The five agents enter the front door to Herr Weber’s building as the air-raid sirens come to life and as one they pause and hold still.

  ‘There wasn’t an air raid till later,’ Bravo says quietly in German.

  ‘Something’s changed,’ Charlie says.

  ‘Could be us,’ Alpha says. ‘Our presence here . . . like a small variance or something.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we turn back?’ Charlie asks.

  ‘Dear boy, we’ve come this far,’ Bravo says. ‘I say we get this done and then go back for tea and cake.’

  ‘You two,’ Alpha says, looking at Charlie and Delta. ‘Hold the street door. Echo, come up and hold outside. Bravo with me again.’

  ‘Roger that,’ Bravo drawls, beaming at the others. ‘Such fun we are having, eh, chaps.’

  Charlie and Delta share a glance, nodding at Alpha as they take sentry either side of the street door, both of them glaring at Bravo’s back as the others mount the stairs to go up and out of sight.

  ‘Prick,’ Charlie whispers once Alpha, Bravo and Echo are out of sight.

  ‘Complete prick,’ Delta whispers. ‘Be glad when this is done.’

  Movement in the street door between them. A man coming in.

  ‘Closed,’ Charlie says in German, stepping out to block his path as the internal door behind Delta opens.

  ‘Sorry, Affas,’ the man in the street door says, grinning as he moves with a blur of speed, driving the point of his blade through Charlie’s throat while clamping a hand over his mouth. Delta would react, but the huge arms wrapped round his head lifting him off his feet prevent him doing so and all he feels is a dull crack as his neck snaps.

  ‘Almost there . . .’ Ben calls back, his own shoulders now on fire, his legs feeling heavier with each step.

  Konrad weeps from the agony of it. Fighting with everything he has to keep hold of the stretcher as Emily snatches a worried glance at Miri’s deathly form.

  The last junction nears. The final one that feeds into Bundesstraβe 2, then straight down to Arch 451. So close now. The last corner comes into view and they run on, feeling the tremble in the ground underfoot from the bombs hitting nearby. Hearing the explosions and the screams that follow. Seeing the people streaming past as they flee panicked and wild for the shelters.

  ‘Oh no . . . no, no, no,’ Ben gasps, reaching the corner to see the units of soldiers holding position at the end of Bundesstraβe 2. Too many to get through. Far too many to get through. Dozens of them. ‘Oh fuck,’ he adds on seeing the tank trundle into view, albeit a battered old-looking thing. Dozens of soldiers and now a tank. The hope vanishes. The energy they had to keep going abates as all three realise the odds against them.

  ‘Can we go round?’ Emily asks.

  ‘Not enough time now,’ Ben says, thinking fast. The only option left is to wait for the portal to open near the airfield, but Miri will not last that long. She is barely clinging to life now. Ben tries to think of options, wondering if they can go through the ruins to reach Arch 451, but they’d still have to go through those soldiers an
d he stares hopeless as the tank lurches towards the units, slewing left and right, stopping and starting in a way that makes the soldiers turn to look at it. ‘A fucking tank,’ Ben mutters. ‘I wish we had a fucking tank . . .’

  Delta peers through the slit in the front of the tank, his hands grabbing sticks and pushing things while levering other things while his feet push pedals. ‘Delta did a tank course,’ he grumbles, mimicking Charlie. ‘Delta can drive a tank . . . Bloody thing is ancient.’ He curses as it swings left, then overcompensates to bring it too far right while seeing all the soldiers on the junction of Bundesstraβe 2 turning to look at him. Then the worst thing happens and he stalls it. Staring wide-eyed at the snorting jolly-faced Aryan bastards laughing at him. ‘Wankers,’ he mutters. ‘Oh, you’re for it now . . .’ He turns it over, spewing black fumes while Harry, Charlie and Safa share looks as they hunker down behind it.

  ‘You said he could drive a tank,’ Safa says.

  ‘I said he did a tank course,’ Charlie says.

  ‘Ha! Got it,’ Delta says as the tank fires back up to a resounding and very sarcastic cheer from the German soldiers.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Ben asks as the tank lurches on towards the German soldiers. It looks like it’s going faster. Like it’s building speed.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ one of the German soldiers calls out as the laughs and cheers fade away.

  ‘Yeah, not laughing now, are you?’ Delta says, pushing more power into the thing. ‘COME ON.’ He pushes more, driving it forward as fast as it will go.

  ‘Oh shit,’ Ben says, watching the tank charge at the German soldiers.

  ‘Oh shit,’ the German soldier calls out.

  ‘Oh yes!’ Delta shouts. ‘HAVE IT!’

  ‘Harry!’ Emily exclaims, a grin spreading across her face at the sight of Harry, Safa and Charlie running crouched behind the tank.

  ‘No way,’ Ben says, hardly believing it. ‘Right . . . you ready, Kon?’