Plague War (Book 3): Retaliation

by Hodge, Alister

  Vinh’s finger itched to pull his rifle trigger, but he restrained the urge to draw a bead on his Private. Such a scene would only cause more problems than a simple desertion. He’d almost resigned himself to allowing Chris to bolt and be dealt with by the MPs at a later stage when he saw something that gave him pause. The Unimog began to drive away from him and he saw the contents of the truck, the burst charge bags stuffed amongst the stacked shells standing out like tits on a bull.

  ‘Surely not?’ muttered Vinh to himself, not wanting to believe what he was seeing. But it all suddenly made sense. Explosions had been the M.O. of the Patriots, and here it was again, another improvised explosive ready for ignition right before his eyes. His eyes skirted forward looking for a potential target of the truck. If the truck took the next left turn off the main road, it would be heading toward the tunnel entrance. Even if that wasn’t Chris’s intended target, he couldn’t take the risk, the stakes were just too high.

  Vinh lifted his rifle and fired two rounds through the back of the truck, hoping for a lucky hit. The vehicle kept onwards, but now started to accelerate quickly. ‘Damn it!’

  Vinh’s back heel slid outwards in the gravel as he went from stationary to a flat-out sprint in the space of two steps. Vinh gripped his rifle in a white knuckled fist, blood trickling from his mouth where he bit his lip in fierce determination as he ran.

  ‘Get out of the way!’

  Bits of gravel spit out from behind each heel as Vinh cut between soldiers and artillery emplacements. The only chance he had now was to cut across ground and get in front of Chris as he turned toward the tunnel.

  Chris ducked his head sharply and smashed the bridge of his nose into the steering wheel by accident. He swore viciously as blood gushed from his nose and stamped his foot down on the accelerator. Two bullets had missed him by mere inches, their angry whine passing his head and punching twin holes through the windscreen. The time for blending into the crowd was gone, his cover blown. Now to see whether or not his luck would hold. He spun the wheel hard to the left, mounting the curb as he turned early into the tunnel’s access road.

  To the left of the road, he saw his officer streaking cross-country to intercept. Chris hunkered down in his seat as Vinh stepped onto the road before him and raised his weapon. He jammed his foot down harder on the accelerator and steered directly at his opponent.

  Vinh looked over his rifle sights, chest heaving from the sprint. He stood firm, resolve and determination making him formidable as a Greek warrior before the Hot Gates. Revving engine noise filled his ears as the Unimog bore down on him. He swallowed, held his breath for a split second and fired. He saw Chris’s body twitch from the bullet’s passage through his shoulder, then pulled his trigger to full auto. The hood of the truck now filled his entire field of vision. Vinh flung himself to the left.

  Chris screamed as the bullet passed clean through his left shoulder, smashing his scapula into bony fragments of shrapnel. His left hand fell from the wheel, the nerve branch for the arm destroyed by the wound. He gripped the wheel more tightly with his right hand to compensate as bullets sparked from the metal hood and roof.

  Thump.

  A flicker of satisfaction twitched the corner of his mouth as he caught the officer with the front corner of the truck, throwing his body onto the road. The front and then back wheel bounced over Vinh, 3,000kg of truck turning the officer into a mess of blood and entrails, rib cage and pelvis mashed into road.

  Ahead, the tunnel entrance drew close, obstructed by no more than a boom gate on this side of the wall. The simple barrier snapped like kindling as the truck careered through the opening. Chris hit the brakes, skidding to a halt no more than a few metres from the far side. The two guards standing on the inner surface of the thick steel doors waiting for Mark’s return, stared at Chris in astonishment. He elbowed open the driver’s door and dropped to the ground. His left hand was a useless lump of meat hanging by his waist, while the right pointed a handgun at the guards.

  ‘What the fuck, man?’ said one of the guards, staring at the pistol. ‘This is a restricted zone...’

  Chris fired. Two bullets into each man’s chest knocked them to the ground. One fared better with a lucky shot to the heart. The other lay convulsing, eyes wide in surprise as he drowned in his own blood, a red froth of bubbles spilling from his throat.

  Chris climbed awkwardly into the back of the Unimog with his one functional arm and picked up the Gerry Can of petrol. Gripping the container between his knees and feet for purchase, Chris unscrewed the cap and tossed it aside. Pouring petrol was going to be difficult with only one hand while the container was near full. He hoisted it on top of the shell crates and tipped it forward. Petrol splashed over the munitions and charge bags in uncontrolled glugs that spattered the area, soaking the lot in accelerant. Chris swore at himself as he felt petrol soak into the front of his clothes, and hauled the Gerry can back down to ground level. He jumped down from the back, gripped the can under his one good arm and splashed further petrol underneath the fuel tank. Chris pulled a length of cotton fabric from his pocket, stuffing one end into the fuel tank, while leaving the other to hang down to the puddle on the ground. He then walked backward, leaving a trickle of petrol in the gravel as he made for the rear entrance.

  The smell of fuel was strong in his nostrils, rising from the soaked fabric of his chest. His heart beat like a jackhammer, anxiety beginning to churn at the danger of lighting the fuel trail while having so much on him at the same time. Blood oozed from his shoulder wound in an energy-sapping stream, soaking his left arm and chest. He was beginning to feel light headed from the loss and finding it difficult to concentrate. A plan that had seemed so easy twenty minutes before was slipping from his fingers and he scrambled about his mind for a solution to the changed circumstances. If he didn’t get it sorted, his father would have yet another reason to call him a failure.

  Warmth touched the balding patch on his scalp as he emerged back into the late morning sun. He dropped the can on the ground and stepped away from it while pulling out a zippo. Chris looked around for a water source, faintly knowing that he should wash his hands first before using the lighter.

  ‘Don’t move!’

  Chris spun unsteadily on his heel toward the order and found a Military Policeman advancing, rifle trained on his chest. Chris held up the lighter, furious at the added obstacle.

  ‘Come any closer, and I’ll fucking light it!’

  The MP kept his rifle aimed at Chris, but his eyes flicked away, following the trail of petrol into the tunnel and truck. Realisation dawned as he took in the scene, face blanching and eyes widening in horror. Unconsciously, the MP took half a step backward.

  ‘If you set off those shells, you’ll blow a hole in the wall.’ The MP talked slowly and calmly, as if addressing a dangerous animal. ‘If that happens, every man and woman here is dead.’

  A manic grin cracked over Chris’s face. ‘No shit, that’s kind of the point.’

  ‘But why the fuck would you do that?’ The MP seemed truly puzzled.

  Chris was starting to struggle to follow the man’s questions. Colours were fading to grey, and he could feel his knees threatening to unhinge.

  ‘For the Patriots and my father,’ he mumbled, his voice sounding distant in his own head. ‘I promised my dad I’d bring down the wall.’

  ‘Bullshit. It’ll be suicide for you as well as us. No father would ask that of their kid.’

  The MP’s words hit harder than an upper cut, the truth smashing aside the lie of a future at his father’s side. His father had sacrificed him, used him as a pawn without a second thought. Tears welled as Chris realised he didn’t have the energy to fight anymore. A great wail of hopelessness, a pain worse than the physical hole in his torn shoulder consumed his mind. He looked down at the zippo in his hand and flicked open the lid.

  ‘Don’t...’

  Chris ignored the MP, flicked the lighter and watched as flame from the wick spread
along his hand to body like shimmering water. Bullets smacked into his chest, but the MP was too late. Chris dropped the zippo to the ground, igniting the trail of petrol. Flame leapt forth, speeding down the line of accelerant to the truck, up onto the tray and into the fuel tank. Within seconds, the Unimog turned into a blazing inferno, white heat burning the paint over the shells away in an instant and making the metal casings glow a dull orange.

  Chris collapsed to the ground, his world reduced to a small sphere of pure agony. He screamed as flames engulfed his body, melting skin like wax and charring fat, muscle and sinew.

  In the tunnel, twin shells exploded simultaneously.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Ahead of Mark and Erin, the wall above the tunnel exploded in a geyser of dirt and splintered wooden panels. The twin steel doors were smashed off their hinges. Flung twenty metres forward, they slid to a stop at the base of the moat. The soil fell back down in a hard deluge to reveal the true extent of damage. The front face of the wall seemed to have sustained the greater amount of damage, a once sheer face changed to a scree slope either side of the tunnel that a man could crawl up. The battlement above the tunnel had dropped in height, filling in the space of the tunnel while also thankfully smothering the fire before other shells reached a temperature to trigger ignition. Limbs and body parts littered the surface, some moving as the survivors tried to extricate themselves from the soil.

  Mark glanced in the rear-view mirror. The approaching swarm was no more than 1,500 metres behind. There wasn’t time to waste on questions of how or why. If they were to survive, there was only time for reaction. The new reality was plain to see; either they managed to repair the wall before the swarm of Infected broke upon it in a wave of plague-riven violence, or they died. And if the army succumbed here, the fragile hopes of any survivor across the country would be snuffed out like a match in a gale.

  Mark accelerated once more, skidding to a stop at the edge of the moat. The pair abandoned the truck, sliding on their backsides to the base of the wide ditch. With one of Erin’s ankles still useless, she mounted Mark’s back and gripped his shoulders like an overgrown child being piggybacked while he ran to the other side and climbed the scree slope.

  Steph awaited them at the top of the wall, face blank as an empty canvas, she helped Erin off Mark’s back to sit on the path. The battlement was a maelstrom of activity as soldiers crammed forward, some already carrying shovels to begin an attempted fix. Seeing the torn section of Achilles behind Erin’s ankle, Steph pulled out a field dressing and started to roughly bandage the wound without question of how it happened. Erin clamped her jaw against the pain.

  ‘What were our casualties in the blast?’ asked Mark, while taking in the damage from his new vantage point.

  ‘Ten from our platoon, and another fifteen from Vinh’s,’ said Steph. She looked up and met Mark’s eye for a moment. ‘Vinh’s in that number as well, Mark, so I’ve already taken the liberty of seconding his force into our own.’

  Mark nodded, unwilling to think of another friend dead just yet.

  ‘How are they going to fix the wall?’ asked Erin from between clenched teeth.

  ‘A crew’s on its way to try and weld the doors back in place – if they’re not warped out of all use that is. Otherwise it’s spade work,’ grunted Steph, as she tightened a knot in the end of the dressing to hold it in place and stood up again. ‘We’ve got to clear that slope you guys just crawled up. If you could do it, so can the bloody Carriers.’

  ‘And the defence of the workers? That job won’t be completed before the swarm hits,’ said Mark. ‘They’ll be fully exposed down there and slaughtered to a man.’

  ‘Not with our platoon in front of them, they won’t,’ said Steph.

  ‘It’ll take more than our squad, but I agree. We need to form a cordon at the base of the wall until the job’s done.’ Mark stepped back onto the steep dirt slope, his boots sinking to the ankle in the loose soil. ‘I want our combined platoon at the base ASAP. Everyone’s to carry as much ammunition as possible – and make sure they’ve got their swords. Re-supply might become impossible.’

  As Mark turned to descend the slope once again, Steph held her rifle above her head to gain their enlarged platoon’s attention. ‘You heard the Boss!’ she yelled, voice cutting clear above the chaos. ‘Fill your ammo pouches and make sure your pig-sticker’s sharp. It’s time to fight!’

  Behind them and up the slope, blue sparks showered as the arc welders fixed the doors permanently to the steel frame. The slope appeared as a mass of movement, every square metre holding men and women, shovelling with frantic energy born from terror at what approached. They were making progress, with some sections already cleared to a stage where new wooden slats could be drilled into place again.

  A shriek of rage emitted from a hundred thousand mouths battered the ears of Mark’s platoon. He’d climbed the far side of the moat to look on the approaching enemy, wanting to see them before the battle joined. Mark’s gaze danced along the front of the advance, looking at individuals and reminding himself that his enemy was no more than flesh and bone. Mark deliberately kept his breathing slow and deep, preventing the spike of adrenaline becoming a flood. There was no flight here, only fight in Mark’s response. The Infected were less than a hundred metres distant, approaching in a ragged line of hellish monstrosity. A waft of rotten pork preceded the swarm, emanating from half charred limbs and singed hair. Even from this far, Mark fancied he could see expressions of rage mixed with hunger on Carrier faces as they lurched forward at a drunken jog. They were moving fast, heated to a point of rabid activity by summer winds and crossing of the burnt plain. Once they hit the edge of the wide moat, he’d give the order to commence firing. All within his squad were capable of hitting well past that distance, but the lie of the land prevented him joining the engagement any sooner.

  Mark turned his back on the enemy, slid back down the steep edge of the moat and jogged back toward his troops to re-take his position in the line. At this point, the base of the moat was around fifty feet wide. Very soon, the space was about to become cramped, viciously so.

  ‘Where the fuck are my reinforcements?’ muttered Mark under his breath. The men and women of his platoon stood in a thin arc about the base of the work site. Each stood at arms distance from the next – far too few to provide any more than a momentary pause in the advance of the swarm. Sheer numbers would overwhelm his squad in minutes unless he had back up.

  ‘Boss! We’ve got company!’ shouted out one of the Privates.

  Mark looked around, and saw more soldiers descending the wall to join his platoon on the floor. A female lieutenant he didn’t recognise jogged over.

  ‘My squad’s the first of the reinforcements you’ve requested. I’ve been told to reassure you – the General expects this line to hold. He’ll be feeding troops into any gap until the job’s done. You won’t stand alone.’ The woman wore a tight expression, but the hand on her rifle was steady.

  Mark reached out his hand and the Lieutenant accepted the gesture with a firm handshake. ‘Glad to have you on board for the ride, Lieutenant. Let’s make the bastards pay for every step, yeah?’

  The new soldiers filled in the gaps and formed a second line behind Mark’s squad. With additional troops, the front line took a kneeling position, the back line a side on stance so they could shoot from above. The sound of the Carriers was deafening. Ear splitting shrieks mixed with demonic howls and carnivorous snarls. A head appeared above the edge of the dry moat. A pus-filled hole marred the centre of its face, the entire nose ripped away by a previous bite. As its lips pulled back to snarl, Mark plugged a round through the cavern where its nose should have been. The head flicked backward, spattering grey brains over the Carriers pushing up behind.

  ‘Make your bullets count! One round per head!’ shouted Mark as he changed his aim to the next arrival. There was no time for inspiring speeches. The swarm had arrived.

  All along the edge of th
e dry moat, Carriers came into view. Uncaring for the obstacle, they tumbled down the slope in their haste to access the warm meat on offer. At the base, the Infected pushed themselves to standing, broken or dislocated limbs ignored as they attacked. Rifles hammered along the line, taking out Carriers like a scythe through wheat.

  Brain-shot Carriers dropped like rags, joints unhinging in unison. Fallen corpses were mashed into the dirt by those coming from behind, frenzied legs pumping up and down as they drove forward. The forerunners of the swarm came up against an invisible wall, stopped in their tracks by a hail of bullets. Flesh ripped from bodies, bullets punching out fist-sized clumps of bone and tissue with their passage. Where the brain was missed, corpses were smashed backward with the force of a sledgehammer blow, knocked to the ground where they thrashed in an attempt to regain their feet. When the need to change a magazine arose, the soldier would step backward, allowing the second behind to take their place and maintain a maximum rate of fire.

  Gradually the swarm began to thicken. The pile of corpses at the base of the moat increased in depth, stretching up the far slope. Mark was forced to move the line back a few paces to maintain space between his soldiers and the attacking horde. He glanced behind and found more time had passed than he realised. Work had finished on the doors, their circumference now fastened with a thick, bubbled layer of weld. The face of the wall to either side was a sheer face once again. Engineers worked frantically to install new panels along the dirt face to prevent the Infected from tearing into the soft surface and creating their own ramp. They needed more time.