#
By the time Anderson brought his Land Rover to a gliding halt outside of his apartment block it was early evening and the September sun was giving ground to early dusk. The rage that had flared within him, as he had looked down into the latest lost sector from the parapet walls, had simmered to a low heat. It was a gnawing sensation within his gut that never left him, it was there when he woke up and it was there when he went to bed. The weight of responsibility of caring for each and every soul within Fort London took its toll on him and the memory of each one that he had to sacrifice to the plague each time he had conceded a sector was lost, order the exit doors closed and then listened as the screams began from the trapped Pure within. The nightmares that followed came each time he closed his eyes, they robbed him of a full night’s sleep ever since Karl Bruger began his latest round of assaults on his beloved Fort London and even though his logic laid on the salve of the greater good, that sacrificing some for the many was his only choice, the nightmares still came and came and came.
Stepping from his Land Rover he waved to the Angel on the top floor of the building opposite his block, there was a similar one at the back. Every eight hours they changed shift and the shifts went on twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. The 24-7 watch had begun following Anderson’s return from Fort Warwick after rescuing Hope from Bruger’s clutches, clutches Anderson swore would never again find their way around the child that was a beacon of hope for the Pure at Fort London. Even more important, as far as Anderson was concerned, was the simple fact that she was just a little girl who needed love and protection, then there were the promises that he had made to her mother, promises that he broke once and had no intention of repeating.
As he entered his apartment he felt the familiar ache in his chest at the thought of wrapping his arms around Hope. He knew she would be in his closet, sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest in the dark waiting for his return, waiting for him to tell her that the Tainted were not coming, that she was safe once again. Before the episode where she had been kidnapped, Hope would have been found snuggling under her quilt in her bedroom at such times, hiding from the people who walked funny but the memory of that time was linked to that so now when Mr Craig went out, as he was doing more and more it seemed to her, she would go to his wardrobe where it was dark and she could close the door and she could smell Mr Craig on the clothes that hung down and hid her. Moving from the apartment where the kidnap had taken place had not removed Hope's fear or the memory of that terrifying night when men had come and killed Melissa who used to look after her but it helped. It was also a relief for Anderson who lost several of his team during the attack including his long standing friend Jumbo who had served under him in the time prior to the plague in some of the most godforsaken corners of the earth where war, struggle and death forged unions between men, a brotherhood that was unbreakable. “Now where is that little girl hiding?" called Anderson, winking at the smiling housekeeper, Marisol, his Spanish live-in housekeeper who Hope adored.
"I don't know Mr Craig," replied Marisol loudly, playing the game that Hope loved. The squeal of delight from the wardrobe in the bedroom told Anderson that Hope had heard.
"Now could she be under the bed?" called Anderson, dropping noisily to his knees to look under the bed. More squeals. "Maybe she is behind the curtains?” he called, stomping with exaggerated steps across the room. There followed a little giggling scream from behind the veneered wooden doors. "I bet she's hiding in that wardrobe," he shouted loudly, banging his feet heavily as he moved towards them. Suddenly they flew open and a screaming child with a long mane of auburn hair ran out of the bedroom with Anderson in hot pursuit tinkling his fingers on her back and threatening to tickle her causing even louder screams and high pitched laughter.
Marisol smiled as she watched the chase which she had witnessed many times. "Food ready in ten minutes," she called as the pair raced past her.
After five minutes the pair collapsed onto the sofa, Hope panting as she nestled deep into the embrace of the man she trusted more than any other, even more than "Mr Preacher" she had told Anderson many times as she called him, "and of course Tom and Bull", she would always add. For several moments the pair simply sat, comfortable in the silence, Anderson stroking her hair as Hope's breathing settled and fluttering heart beat that Anderson could feel against his chest, slowed. At times like this he would imagine the world outside this safe haven was normal, that there was no plague, no Tainted and the blood that was being pushed around this child’s body by that tiny fluttering heart was not so important to mankind and to the psychopath Karl Bruger who Anderson knew would come for Hope once again.
"Did the bad people take more of the Fort?" asked Hope, her cheek staying pressed tight to the ex SAS leader.
For a beat he thought of lying, but he knew the rumours would catch him out and Hope would scold him. “We lost two sectors, but you’re not to worry," he assured her, leaning down to kiss the top of her hair.
Hope pulled back and looked up into Anderson’s eyes. “Did the bad people take others from the Fort?"
Anderson looked into a face that still held innocence, still had the light of a future still burning within eyes that had seen far too much pain and suffering. "Only a few," he smiled, hoping that the number floating around inside his head, a number that was yet to be confirmed, would not show in features he was desperately trying to keep relaxed. How could he tell her that just this very day he suspected a loss of seventy thousand would be confirmed?
"OK, wash hands, both of you," ordered Marisol, saving Anderson from the penetrating stare of his ward.
As the three of them finished their meal, Marisol placed her hand gently over Hope's and prompted, “Ask your question, he won't bite.”
Anderson frowned and gave the child a quizzical look.
"Next week is my birthday," she announced brightly, "and I know what I would like because I will be six."
The FL security leader was taken aback, why had he not thought of the obvious? Hope had been in his life for over six months so why had it not dawned on him that a birthday must be imminent? "Um...yes...yes of course," stuttered Anderson, taking a second or two to regain his composure. "Of course you can have something. What is it you would like?” He smiled, taking one of her tiny hands within his.
"I want to take a trip into the outer-lands," she stated with confidence.
Anderson’s smile slipped.
Chapter 6
"The Cutting Shed"
Blade brought his Pinzer to a halt outside the Cutting Shed, behind him a Leyland Daf T45 4x4 troop carrier skidded to a halt on the gravel, its 5.9 litre Turbo engine growling to silence. From the Cutting Shed, "The Butcher’s" minions lumbered out of the warehouse size building towards the vehicle. Ten creatures who had been men in a previous life but were now apron clad mentally scarred servants who went about their duties with a cold robotic action which was reflected in frozen facial features. None of them made eye contact with Blade which suited him, as far as he was concerned they were no better than the Tainted, what they did inside that shed, as far as he was concerned, was far worse than what the Tainted did for they had no choice, the plague having taken free will from them. These spawn had a choice and that choice was that they would take in the Pure captured by Blade, cut them up under "The Butcher’s" guidance to achieve a maximum food harvest for Bruger’s Mutant army, every ounce of flesh , organ or skin saved to feed their avaricious hunger, even blood was captured and stored for use, a use Blade had no wish to know but he knew there was so much of it from the one visit he had made inside that house of horrors, he would never visit again by choice. As Blade walked away towards Jeremy Boardman’s laboratories, he closed his ears to the cries of the Pure dragged screaming from the back of the Pinzer and the Daf. Thirty eight souls in total, thirty eight souls who would be broken down into lumps of meat, piles of hearts, kidneys and livers and over three hundred pints of blood in vats all ending up in freezers in the
space of twelve hours.
The quiet within the laboratories was a welcome relief to Blade. Inside this clean, antiseptic environment he could convince himself that the Cutting Sheds did not exist, that he was not responsible for bringing poor wretches into the clutches of "The Butcher” every week to feed Bruger’s army of creatures but it was a thin veneer that the battle hardened enforcer found more and more difficult to find balance with.
"So Jeremy," smiled Bruger’s enforcer, covering only barely his dislike for his leader’s pet scientist. “What you got for me?” Every time Blade made a delivery he was told to get a report from Boardman by Bruger on how the scientist’s studies were progressing. Bruger liked to keep the pressure on his chief scientist to find an answer to his two problems. Firstly how could they continue to produce more Mutants without the child’s blood and secondly how could they get the Mutants to eat Tainted flesh and make them believe it was Pure.
"I...I'm making progress," stuttered Boardman, his eyes telling Blade that he had been sampling way too much of his own discovery, White Lightning, the heroin substitute that Bruger used as currency and leverage. “Mr Bruger just needs to be patient."
"Patient?" snapped Blade, moving to tower over the back peddling scientist. "Case you hadn't noticed Jeremy," hissed Blade, lowering his head close to Boardman’s ear, "Karl's not big on patience.”
"Butcher wants to see you," whispered Boardman, hoping to deflect Blade.
The enforcer’s smile slipped away, his features draining of blood before the scientist’s eyes which gave him untold pleasure.
"What does he want?" asked Blade with a little bit too much carefree bravado.
"Why don't you go and ask him?" suggested Boardman, failing to keep a flicker of a smile from his lips. He knew Blade hated the Cutting Shed but in truth he could not blame him for that, he had been there once, he would never go again, not unless he was on the menu.
"I'll do just that," grinned Blade, turning and heading for the door. As he turned, the smile slipped and his eyes closed as he prepared himself for the horrors he was about to face.
"Oh Boardman," barked Blade turning at the door. “When I get back I'll need that answer for Karl, need to be able to give him some good news about your two projects." Blade winked and left for the Cutting Sheds.
Boardman watched the automatic door shut behind him and chewed heavily on his thumb nail. How much should he tell Blade, how much should he hold back as a bargaining chip for his wellbeing pressed by Bruger in person? There was news, he had made breakthroughs and he was close, so close but......how much to tell?
#
Blade stopped with his hand on the cutting house door that was never locked, why would it be, who in their right mind would try to break in? Taking a deep breath, he entered, feeling prepared. He wasn't, as soon as he stepped into the vast shed his senses went into overload and then complete meltdown at the sheer horror of the scene in front of him. His eyes took in what could only be described as a human slaughter house, the writhing naked men and women hanging by their ankles from a slow moving channel girder that suspended them four feet from the ground, their screams and begging cries for mercy tearing at his eardrums, the smell of death that he was no stranger to was overpowering, the strange mix of open stomachs, faeces and urine filled the air and made him gag. Blade had wielded death’s sword on many occasions but he had never seen it on the scale that confronted him at this moment, a moment where his legs sagged beneath him. The Pure he had brought to the shed were dragged out of the holding pen they were caged in one at a time by the Butcher’s minions, tasered to subdue them before they were stripped and had their ankles lashed together like chickens, their hands bound behind their backs. Four of the hulking minions then lifted them bodily upwards and hung them on the ever moving track above them by their ankles, where countless butchers hooks slid past on a hidden track, and so the bodies hung moving and spinning as the poor souls began to revive from the taser shock and as they span they caught glimpses of where they were heading, "The Butcher”. He stood over six feet eight tall, his bared upper body a mass of thick hair that was clogged with blood that had begun to turn brown to black, the leather apron hanging from his waist down to the ground coated with a sheen of vitriol liquids and blood. As each poor wretch reached him, one of his massive hands grabbed the back of his victims head, pulled it forward and swiped the 16 inch butcher’s boning knife across the exposed throat. A clean practised swipe that opened a gash that went back to the vertebrae below the skull, the damage telling of a razor sharp blade that carried out its work with ease. The blood poured from the wound, caught in a floor gulley that would drain into a tank further along this conveyor belt of misery. At the far end of the track, the twist of the channel forced the hooks to slide upwards to the point where the lifeless bodies dropped from the track to create a grisly pile of carcasses waiting for "The Butcher’s" minions who dragged them onto massive slab tables where they were reduced into parcels of food for Bruger’s Mutants. Every organ, every ounce of flesh was sliced away leaving a pile of bones that were thrown into a builder’s skip at the far end of the shed.
Blade worked hard at keeping the contents of his stomach in place as "The Butcher" strode towards him, his place at the killing line immediately taken by one of his team. "You don't look so good Blade," smirked the colossus of a man, wiping the flat of the razor sharp knife across his apron, leaving a red smear of fresh blood to mix with the smear of human fluids coated across it. "I can smell the fear coming off you."
Blade forced his eyes to look up into the eyes of the man who frightened him more than any man he had ever met, even Bruger could not raise the fear within him that he felt at this moment. Here was a man who took pleasure in taking a human being and reducing it to parcels of food, every part, that once was a thinking functioning person, would be torn from the skeletal frame that supported it and tossed into a plastic bin ready to be placed within enormous industrial freezers. “You don't frighten me," lied Blade, struggling to keep any tell-tale quiver from his voice. "So let’s just cut the crap, what do you want?”
The Butcher didn't reply, his eyes never leaving Blade’s, their black depths showing no emotion as he watched the man before him wilting under his stare. "Tell Mr Bruger we have nearly enough food stored to last a month."
Blade frowned, not aware of what the monster was talking about.
"Just tell him," instructed The Butcher, who dismissed the enforcer by simply turning and walking away.
Blade didn't loiter a second more than he needed and moved quickly to the door he had come through just minutes before. As he pulled the door behind him and sucked in the clean fresh air, he tasted bile rising into his throat, the meal he had enjoyed a couple of hours earlier made a reappearance ending up in the overgrown flowerbed outside The Shed door. Spitting out the last lumps, he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and moved on unsteady legs towards Boardman’s domain. After three steps the radio clipped to his belt chirped into life bringing him to a halt. “Blade, its Wishbone."
Blade pulled the radio free. "What is it?" he snapped, taking out his anger on Wishbone. An anger born at his own weakness in the presence of The Butcher, he feared no man but this monster was Pure evil.
"We got a big group under surveillance. I got twenty five troops with me but we're gonna need some extra muscle if we are going to hit them."
"Where?"
"Stevenage, around thirty miles north of FL."
"How many?”
"Gotta be ninety, including kids.”
Blade closed his eyes. Kids, he hated this more than anything he had ever done. "Ok, I'm at The Keep with a dozen men. I'll leave first light and be with you late morning, don't make a move till I get there. I'll call you when I get close.” Blade closed the line and started once more for Boardman’s laboratory. Within two strides, the radio chirped again. "Blade?”
"What now you asshole?”
"You’re pushing the boundaries of our friend
ship Blade," came Bruger’s voice.
#
Andrew felt sick and there was a pain behind his eyes like a thousand red hot needles pressing into his brain. He became aware that he was on his knees and each side of him there were other persons who were barging and shoving into him. People who were grunting and snarling, their heads down seeming to be feeding directly off the floor only........ it wasn't the floor and as his swimming vision began to clear, he gagged as he recognised that the foul smelling shape beneath him was what used to be a human being and that the man to his left and the woman to his right were feeding on the open abdomen, growling like wild animals. Pushing backwards, he struggled to get to his feet, his shoes slipping and sliding on the mixed body fluids spread over the lino floor covering. As he found purchase, he staggered back until his back slammed up against the wall of the room, the contents of his stomach exiting through his mouth and nose in an explosive discharge that landed a metre in front of him. Through streaming eyes, he watched in horror as the woman turned from the corpse on the floor and snatched up the lumps of meat that seconds before had been in his stomach and forced them into her mouth, her throat bulging as she attempted to swallow the huge lumps he found hard to believe he had swallowed himself. The woman looked up at him, her eyes dead bloodshot pools that stared through him. His fuddled brain began to clear, the voice in his head screamed a warning, “get out, they’re Tainted.” The woman rose to her feet. Andrew waited for the rush as she came at him, he had seen it many times as he dodged the Tainted but then something happened that he could not understand. She simply ignored him, turned and dropped back beside the man who was still feeding on the corpse on the floor. The fog within his head cleared further as he remembered an earlier realisation, he was Tainted, he had the plague. That’s why they ignored him, that’s why he could be in the same room as them and not get eaten but....... how could that be, for he was thinking, he was feeling, the Tainted did neither, they just ate. He staggered across to the man knelt feeding on the floor and kicked him in the ribs, sending him over onto his side trying to force a reaction. There was none, the creature that had once been a man simply slithered back to the corpse and continued feeding. Andrew felt hot, the pain behind his eyes returned, his vision began to swim. The voice in his head roared out, "You’re sliding back under." He lurched towards the door, his vision focussing in and out as he floated back and forth between Andrew and Mutant 221. As he stumbled along the corridor and down the stairs he kept shaking his head trying to hold back the beast within, he was burning up, the low growl he could hear was coming from his own throat, he was going back. As he left the building, his head flicked from side to side, his nostrils sniffing the air noisily......221 was back.
Bravo Two Zombie (Book 3): The Final Solution Page 4
