Throwback

by Guy N Smith

  Kuz was dead, they had no leader. But every one of them wanted the woman, a shambling bloodied and wounded throng milling about on the landing until they found the open bedroom door, crowding in through it.

  They sniffed the stuffy air, knew instantly that the room was empty, but she was not long gone for her smell still hung heavy in the air, a stench of fear mingling with that of a female on heat.

  The bed was empty. One of them approached it, leaned over and smelled at the blankets, grunted. An odour of mating, this had been the rutting stand!

  Snarling, looking about them, seeing the window wide open. A chorus of frustrated cries as they rushed towards it, looked out, saw where she had escaped; down the thick ivy which grew on the stonework.

  They followed, one at a time, their dead forgotten, descending with the ease of jungle monkeys, hitting the ground below at a run, giving voice to their cries of lust, a hunting pack that would run down its prey. Ten of them, howling their anger and lust. They would follow the trail until they dropped from exhaustion.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE SECURITY patrol was systematically scouring a section of suburbia, a convoy of armoured trucks infiltrating a pedestrianised shopping precinct, weaving its way between piles of debris, powdering broken glass beneath its wheels. Alert to any movement amongst the heaped wreckage.

  Most of the enemy had gone, fled to the open spaces. Just a few remained, stubborn guerrilla fighters without a cause, the old and the young. The wounded. And the dead. The air was thick with the stench of decomposing corpses but the commandos were unaware of this behind their sterilised air-filters. Raiders from another planet in the aftermath of a terrible war, the victors of Armageddon come to loot. And to take prisoners!

  Private Kenny King did not like it at all, neither did he tike Sergeant Walters. The young rookie had been regretting his decision to join the Regulars from the very first posting to Whittington Barracks in the Midlands. At eighteen he was 'gawky' (the sergeant's description of him), his features a mass of acne, possibly because he had been late going into puberty. He was a bloody fool, he repeatedly told himself, signing on for this when he could have enjoyed a more leisurely life on the dole. And like an even bigger bloody fool he had signed on for a further two years following his return from Northern Ireland. On the other hand, he consoled himself, if he had not opted for army life he wouid have been 'one of them out there' undoubtedly. Or dead.

  Walters was a fucking bastard, enjoyed being that way, and with administration handing out responsibility way above the status of jumped up bleedin' sergeants because officers were almost an extinct species, a parade-ground bawler found himself elevated to the role of captain. It was the Year of the Bully but most of all Kenny found himself feeling sorry for these wretches trying to hide out in the remnants of suburbia. They were scared to hell, they didn't want to fight; the army was pushing them into corners.

  Their instructions were to take prisoners, transport them back to that place in Hertfordshire. Fill the big prison van up until you couldn't get any more in, like Nazis taking Jews to the gas chamber. There wasn't a lot of difference. The buggers were human after all, well. . . sort of.

  The armoured cars were parked at strategic points, a cordon that took in the multi-storey car park, an ugly high-rise edifice that suddenly resembled a medieval castle. If you looked up you saw faces peering over the ramparts; the occupants were ready to defend their castle with their lives. They were under siege.

  'There's a good twenty of the fuckers up there.' Walters climbed down from the Land Rover, riot shield in his left hand, automatic pistol in his right. 'They can't go anywhere.' There was a leer on his swarthy face, his small eyes seeking out Kenny as they usually did, making him flinch. 'We need to take another ten.' He laughed.

  Kenny would love to have had the courage to enable him to ask, 'And what about the other ten, Sergeant? Or are we just going to slaughter the bloody lot?'

  That's up to them, boy. Our orders are to drive 'em out of the towns but there's only one way up and one way down from the multi-storey. It's a long way down from the top, the choice'll be theirs.

  'Look out!' The shout came from over to the left, triggering trained soldiers into instant evasive action; a line of riot shields forming a semi-circular barricade, rifles at the ready. Looking up.

  A maroon Marina with a black vinyl roof was mounting the concrete wall of the top storey, the underside of the chassis scraping and screeching on the concrete blocks. Front wheels spinning in space. A jerk; it rested level for a second then began to tip downwards. The back wheels caught, held it like a fly on a wall. Then it was free, airborne, an aeroplane without wings, a clumsy useless thing yielding to the law of gravity. A weapon of death.

  Maybe in other circumstances Kenny would have screamed but he had got used to not doing a lot of things that came naturally when Walters was around. The rookie's mouth opened in terror and he would have run had he not been hemmed in by riot shields. Something inside him said in a calm, matter-of-fact voice, 'You're OK, son, it won't reach us from there.'

  The car fell vertically, a straight drop down, once catching a jutting parapet that dented and spun it, seemed to slow it up, a circus acrobat falling from the high wire; a trick, he did it twice a day, got some kind of sadistic pleasure from making his audience throw up, kids screaming and crying, hiding their faces.

  The car hit the concrete pad adjacent to the park, a crash of buckling metal and showering glass, leaped up a good six feet as its suspension found enough bounce for a spectacular swan song; came down on its roof, a heap of scrap that gave it anonymity.

  'Get in there, up the ramp,1 Walters roared, led the charge forward, a habitual zig-zag that would have made him a difficult target for any marksman. 'Shoot at will.'

  Some of the soldiers were already firing, a hail of rifle bullets aimed at the radiator of a Datsun which was just appearing over the rampart where the Marina had come from, ripping into highly polished metalwork.

  Then they were on the ramp, safe from an overhead attack. Another car smashed on the forecourt outside. The throwbacks had not forgotten the battle techniques of their ancestors; repel all boarders.

  The ground and first storey were deserted. Systematically the soldiers searched every parking lot, checked vehicles; most of them were locked. Shoppers and businessmen had parked their cars and never returned to them. Probably some of those very people were up above now engaged in a last-ditch defence. Innocent victims of a vile unspeakable mode of warfare who would be over-run by the very soldiers who should have been protecting them against a foreign foe. Kenny King hated himself almost as much as he hated his jumped-up commander.

  Sergeant Walters fired. It was a woman, darting out from the open back of a van, sprinting for the second elevation. She screamed, bowled over like a shot rabbit, a complete somersault, and came to rest hard against a Cortina 2000, spottling its grey finish with crimson. She sat bolt upright, cursing them with dead eyes; somewhere behind her blood was pouring out, seeping round her body and following the fall of the floor.

  Walters approached her, pushed her with his foot so that she slid slowly sideways. Now the wound was visible, a jagged hole at the nape of the neck where the dum-dum bullet had struck her. That was good shooting.

  Kenny King swallowed, his eyes misting up and distorting the scene. She was young, maybe not quite seventeen yet, and her features could have been Asiatic; apart from the straggling hair and rough skin, dressed in modern clothes she might not even have attracted a second glance, except for the obvious reasons. He had dated a girl up in Wakefield before he joined up who had looked very similar to this one. It might even have been her lying there in that spreading pool of blood. A chance in several millions. He hoped it wasn't. You bastard, Walters, you didn't have to kill her!

  'Aren't we supposed to be taking prisoners, Sarge?' A tall sallow-faced soldier asked the question that everybody was thinking.'I mean . . .'wishing suddenly that he hadn't voiced
his thoughts, 'that is . . .'

  'You take your orders from me, Private.' Walters wheeled and for a second the swinging barrel of the pistol took in all of them. ll said fire at will because those fucking animals up there are fighting backV They don't have any business trying to drop cars on us. They should run the moment they see us coming. 'Anybody not obeying orders will be court-martialied when we get back to base. Get it, all of you lousy fuckers?' They all nodded because they didn't have any option.

  Up there, above them on the top elevation, was a group of very frightened people, people who had once been ordinary peace-loving folks now horrifically transformed into primitive Man by terrible germs released into the atmosphere, were now trapped like rabbits in a dead-end burrow. They could be taken alive but Walters didn't want it that way. He was glorying in a one-sided battle, lusting for a massacre. In a way perhaps the poor wretches would be better off dead. Kenny King was sure he would throw up before it was all over. Afterwards he might even desert at the first opportunity.

  The second and third storeys were devoid of life. So was the fourth. Only the fifth remained now and they were up there all right. The soldiers could hear them as they fanned out into an arrow-shaped formation and began to ascend the steep sloping concrete ramp. Textbook perfection in their approach, ready to unleash a hail of fire at the first sign of trouble.

  Kenny's eyes focused on the sergeant's broad green and brown blotched camouflaged back. You bastard!

  A crash from far below, muffled, lingering like the sound of a coin tossed into a deep wishing-well. Another car had gone over the wall. And then the floor levelled out on to a giant sunlit balcony, a line of cars on either side. The top elevation and the throwbacks were right here.

  Seven or eight of them were struggling to lift a Ford Escort up on to the rampart, powerful muscles bulging as they took the strain. Some more were dragging out a Metro. All had their backs towards the oncoming soldiers except a bunch of children who huddled together beneath an awning.

  No! Kenny King felt every scrap of decency and fair play in him rebel. Helpless youngsters ranging from five to possibly ten; they could have been mistaken for trained chimpanzees at a cursory glance, hairy creatures who were busily filling an empty ice-cream tub with sand and unsuccessfully trying to make a castle from it on the concrete floor. Each time it crumbled, powdered, and they tried again.

  Kenny didn't care any more, didn't want to be any part of this. Something inside him took over, had him rushing forward with pistol raised, marksman-style, trained on the back of Sergeant Walters. 'No, you're not going to murder them. I won't let you. I. . .'

  A shot rang out. Walters should have died instantly because the young rookie was already taking a trigger pressure, hesitating at the last second because that same spark of decency which had hurled him forward was also quavering, a fleeting flash of conscience that said, *You can't shoot a man in the back. You can't take human life!'

  The slug fired by the corporal close behind took Kenny in the back of the head, tore a jagged hole through his skull and spewed brains and blood out of his forehead; threw him forward so that when his own pistol exploded the bullet flew harmlessly into the air.

  Walters dropped to his knees. A glance behind him told him the whole story; he had seen it before, it would happen again, a boy's nerve giving out, an animal gone berserk and having to be put down.

  The throwbacks turned, the Escort started to slip. One of them wasn't quick enough, screamed as it rolled over on to him. The others scattered, found themselves caught up in a hail of pistol and rifle fire. A blonde bearded male crumpled up, clutching at his stomach, was dead before he rolled over. Another had his throat torn out as though it had been savaged by a fierce dog.

  The soldiers alongside Sergeant Walters were lying on their stomachs firing, those directly behind him kneeling, the rear ones shooting from a standing position.

  Seven or eight dead lay in the foreground, the rest leaping up on to the rampart, running agilely along it. More shooting, a fairground game now; you collect your prize when they're all down.

  Only three left, stopping because there was nowhere else to run. Sitting ducks. A single shot and the far one crumpled. Two to go. It was target practice now.

  The last two jumped, defiance in their wild shrieks as they leaped into space. You found yourself listening, counting, wincing in anticipation of the crunch far below.

  Sergeant Walters rose to his feet, dusted himself down, a half-smile on those swarthy features. 'I guess that about wraps it up, Corporal.'

  'The kids, Sarge . . .'

  Walters turned slowly, saw how the youngsters were bunched under that awning, half-raised his pistol.

  'We still need more prisoners, Sarge.' The other's tone was nervous, his voice quavering, staring at the bloodied shot-up corpse of Kenny King, the lad from Wakefield. He had ended up that way because he couldn't stomach massacring women and kids. And you were the one who shot him, Corporal! They said they needed kids as well. To experiment on.'

  What experiments? Oh, Jesus Christ Alive!

  'Yeah, they do need kids.' Walters lowered his weapon. 'Round 'em up. Take 'em down and put 'em in the van with the others.'

  The sergeant noted with contempt the way some of the rookies moved to carry out his orders. Fuck 'em, they weren't paid to think, to reason. Just to obey. He watched the way they took the children down the ramp, almost reluctantly. We don't want to do this to you but if we don't then we'll be court-martialled. They're the enemy, you fuckers, prisoners-of-war. And when we get 'em back to base in Hertfordshire they're going to be guinea pigs, injected with Christ-knows-what. They'll either live or die, they've got two choices, 'Hurry along there, you lot. We don't have all day.'

  The sergeant's stomach knotted, felt like he'd got an appendicitis coming on. He couldn't have, though, because he'd had his appendix out, peritonitis when he was a rookie, like this rabble, on the Rhine. That kid had come close to chopping him, a matter of a second, maybe two. He'd buy the corporal a drink in the Mess tonight. Or maybe he wouldn't, the others might see it as a sign of weakness. You saved a colleague because it was your duty, and for no other reason. He'd do the same for any of them and not feel anything personal, just see that it went down on record.

  On the drive back he would scribble out his report Just a brief encounter: attacked by the enemy hurling cars off a rooftop, fought to the last. The corporal would countersign it. And if any of those fucking rookies had anything to say they would be court-martialled. The country was in a State of Emergency, you couldn't afford to be squeamish. Soldiers were trained for battle, and in battle you killed the enemy.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  DON'T TOUCH me, Jon, please!

  Sylvia tensed, every nerve in her body rigid, tried to think of a plausible reason which she could put into words. I've got a headache. Husbands had given up believing that one twenty years ago. It's the wrong time of the month; he knew already that it wasn't. I'm too tired. She'd once told him that sex was better when you were tired because you were more relaxed.

  She bit her lip, resisted the urge to knock his hand away. Please don't touch me. I don't want you, I want my own husband back because he's out there in the dark and cold. Alive. Oh God, Eric's alive.'

  Jon wanted her tonight and there was no way short of a determined physical resistance that she was going to stop him. She groaned, eased her legs apart. Shut your eyes and think of England. No, think of Eric.

  It was Eric in the darkness of her bed. It had to be; everything else had just been a bad dream. No, it wasn't Eric's feel, not his way. Her mind flipped back to the other morning and suddenly her whole body began to prickle and tingle. There had been no fear because it was Eric ail right. Not even rape because she had been more than willing. So strong, so fierce, every thrust so meaningful.

  Jon was lying with his full weight on top of her now. His naked flesh was repulsively smooth, his strength barely that of a callow youth. She turned her head away,
tried to avoid his lips. Screw me then and get it over with; let me be back with Eric.

  No way was she going to make it to an orgasm. She let him ride her, her feelings beginning to slip away like a piece of driftwood going out with an ebbing tide. Sobbing softly to herself. Oh, Eric, I want you. I don't care what they've done to you, I just want to be with you.

  j3imly she was aware that they were no longer coupled, that he was lying facing away from her. Oh how I hate you, Jon Quinn. This is all your fault. If it wasn't for you I wouldn't be here now, I would be out there with Eric; like him

  Her mind was made up. She would go to her husband. Not now, maybe not tomorrow. But before the winter set in and trapped her here with this man who only wanted her body.

  Day after day Eric Atkinson had squatted up on that slope watching the smallholding below him, virtually an aerial view, the cottage a matchbox house, the two people dots which he scarcely recognised. Only the woman.

  He had moved further back up the slope almost to the fringe of the big forest. Fear ate into him day by day, the knowledge that the hairless male had the means to kill him instantly if he got close enough, indeed he had almost done so already. He saw him shoot a rabbit on the edge of the patch of ground where he grew his vegetables. Unbelievable, terrifying.

  The coney had been grazing a row of cabbages, had not heard the man's approach. Its ears went up and it bounded away, a blur of grey at full speed.

  Bang!

  The report echoed, the hills taking it up, magnifying it. Atkinson started, almost fell back, clutched at his ears trying to shut it out.

  Bang. Ba..ng...ba..aaa...ng. Like thunder rolling before a storm. But he could not take his eyes off the scene below. The rabbit stopped as surely as if it had run into an invisible barrier, rolled over on to its back, the white of its belly uppermost, legs kicking, the motions growing weaker and weaker until finally it was still.