by P. R. Sharp
"No!" Zola half whispered, half moaned. He fell to his knees and gathered up arm loads of the plastic wallets as they continued to fall like copper pennies from an amusement arcade coin log. Yates watched as his friend of eighteen plus years became a wretched, sorrowful sight to see, scrambling through the muck and litter to recoup his stolen money, completely oblivious to the accelerating mass of undead heading straight for them. Yates backed away as one grabbed Zola's boot. Zola turned and in an instant, came back to his senses. He kicked the brute in the face with his heel, tearing putrefied flesh from the cheek bone and managed to stumble backwards to the wall where his rifle stood. But it was too late. Even as he rolled onto his back and readied the weapon, they fell on him. Yates opened fire and the darkness of the tunnel flashed with sporadic images of the attacking horde.
***
Xander saw the muzzle fire centred in the subway tunnel and the scattered faces of the infected captured in the white flashes, but he couldn't see the Corporal or the Sergeant. Far too many developments sprang into his mind as he quickly looked over his right shoulder and saw that the first claymore was about to be triggered by the large group advancing from the supermarket. Another hasty glance over his left shoulder informed him that the infected coming down the long, fence panelled path would soon meet a welcoming ball of flame and shrapnel. As he looked back, however, he saw that there were countless infected clambering over the road side crash barrier above his head. Shooting your team mate in the face at point blank range on a breakfast of granola bar and luke warm cauliflower cheese was not the best way to start the day, he considered, as a plume of anxious nausea made it all the way up to his throat, but was forced back down his oesophagus with a defiant gulp. He ran back to the subway and ripped open the Bergen. He pushed the bags of money that were meant for Walker's mother and his share to one side and extracted every piece of gadgetry and explosive device from the deep well and side pockets and made a quick inventory. His eyes snapped to an incendiary grenade and without hesitation, he pulled the pin and lobbed it as far as he could towards the supermarket infected. His throw could not have been more perfectly timed; just as the grenade bounced once and exploded, sending a white hot ball of flame across the ground, the leading infected from the group tripped the claymore and they were cooked or cut to pieces from both sides. Some continued to walk, heads and clothing ablaze. The leaves of a young oak tree crackled as flames licked its branches. Xander snatched Walker's SA80 and started firing single head shots into the crowd. He heard the second claymore detonate and sneaked a look around the wall of the subway. The fence panels on both sides of the path were destroyed or on fire and at least ten of the infected lay in smouldering bits, but those bringing up the rear simply walked through the flames. Others were slipping or rolling down the subway embankment, toppling over the road side barrier. He side stepped to the left, exited the tunnel and took out those nearest with clinical, decisive shots, then stooping quickly to pick up a frag grenade, tossed it under arm with his left hand up the slope and ducked back into the subway. The explosive blast threw a half dozen infected into the clearing where the paths met and Xander tossed another grenade into their heart. They were devastated before they could get back on their feet. Movement to the left forced him to turn the SA80 towards the other subway entrance. His reactions paused, instructing him to wait long enough to identify the figure walking backwards from the underpass as Corporal Yates. He was dragging Sergeant Zola brusquely out of the subway mouth by his collar, and both were shooting randomly back into the dark passageway. A line of infected appeared from the dank opening, and Xander stepped into a solid firing stance. He fired and the head of an infected male flicked upwards as the bullet tore through his temple and exited the back of his head. The Corporal had stopped firing but
was unable to reload because his left hand had a firm grip of Zola's uniform. He dragged him with both hands away from the entrance, giving Xander a clear firing line. He downed three more when a severed head came soaring out of the shadows and bounced, then rolled towards the feet of Sergeant Zola. Zola reacted by emptying his clip into the detached head as another rolled out of the gloom. Within a few seconds, four more heads flew out of the subway, followed by a petite figure with blue hair, adorned with limb and facial protection and wearing a police anti-stab vest that was at least two sizes too big. Xander realised that it was a young girl; and she was armed with a sword.
***
A squadron of flies performed a mass dog fight above the two soldiers’ sweaty heads, as Yates dragged Zola by the scruff of his neck back to the subway where Xander stood waiting, watching aghast as the slight female figure walked behind them. PAGAN had expended over three quarters of their combined ammo, and there were still over one hundred infected bearing down from numerous approaches. Their only saving grace was that the infected weren't firing back at them; at least that was something.
Xander measured this thought as he collected more magazines from the Bergen for the SA80 and resumed his position in the mouth of the subway. If providence was on his side, he could keep the hordes at bay as they planned their next move.
"Thanks for the assist," said Yates as the girl entered the underpass.
"Thanks for not shooting me! I heard your guns. Can you get me and a friend out of here?" She asked through the dust guard covering her mouth.
"Funny,” Xander said over his shoulder between shots. “I was just going to ask you the same thing."
With sweat dripping from his face, Zola looked up at her. He was grinding his teeth and frantically rubbing his leg. "Your friend is a dead man!" she said in an understated, matter of fact tone.
“What’re you talking about?” Yates challenged, turning first to the girl, then back to Zola. Zola used his knife to slice open his trousers and revealed a large, deep and vivid scratch, just above his boot.
"She's right. I zigged when I should have zagged."
"Oh bloody hell." Yates uttered under his breath.
Zola panted. The reality of his situation rippled through him akin to an icy palpitation. He looked at his leg; already, the capillaries around the wound were bulging through his skin. He watched as dark blue knots wormed beneath translucent flesh like ink. He swallowed and felt a mounting blockage at the back of his throat that tasted of Bolognese sauce and metal. Deep down, he knew that he was damned. He jumped as Xander fired a volley of rounds into a pack of infected, half expecting one of the bullets to have his name on it; then licking his lips through the pain and slapping his leg he said, "You need to call in this position and get back to base. There’s no way you can regulate this many hostiles on your own."
“On our own?“ Defensively, Yates started to repeat Zola’s words but he cut him off.
"That’s an order, Corporal. We've fulfilled our mission and found a survivor... besides, I’m not going anywhere."
"When the almighty put teeth in your mouth, he ruined a perfect asshole! You and your bloody plan," said Yates.
"Seemed like a good idea at the time." Zola replied. "How long do you figure I've got?" The girl shook her head and looked at the ground. Zola winced. “I don’t want to go the same way as Walker. You hear me Xander? Shooting your Sergeant will only get you a court-martial. You‘re not putting a bullet in my head.”
"Shit man... you're a fucking idiot! In fact… idiot doesn‘t even come close. Calling you an idiot is an insult to idiots…" Yates said with an uptight pace.
"I get your point, Corporal. And it’s ‘you're a fucking idiot‘, Sir," Zola sniggered, but it was a desperate laugh, full of despair and dread. He flinched yet again as Xander fired another volley. Sighing, he said in a comical German accent, “you have your orders,“ then pulled out his loaded SIG-Sauer and raised it to chest height. These were the last human sounds to come out of his mouth, or indeed any sound to come out of his mouth, before he put the pistol to his chin and blew his brains out the top of his head.
Xander span around when he heard the shot. He saw Zol
a’s body slump over but his judgment insisted that he return his awareness back to the approaching infected. The girl jumped at the shot but showed no sign of shock. Yates couldn't believe what he had just seen. No explanation. No apology. No 'it's for the best' speech and no verbal love letter to his wife; his sister. Lucky bastard, my arse. He grabbed Zola by the collar and shook him. "No no no, you self-centred, fucking prick. What the hell did you do that for?" he sobbed.
"He would have turned," the girl said as Xander fired the last of the magazines contents into a procession of infected and quickly reloaded. Yates dropped Zola and turned, rubbing angry tears from his face. He fell to his knees and started to add up the supplies. He counted twelve magazines of 5.56 and one hundred and fifty shotgun rounds.
They still had twenty four mags for the four SIG-Sauers (minus two rounds.) He took the pistol from Zola's dead grasp and handed it to the girl. "Like he said. We have to get back to base. Do you know how to use one of these?"
"Point and shoot!" She replied with the same matter of fact tone. He quickly showed her how to load a magazine and release the safety. "Take his holster and ammo," pointing at Zola. With no trepidation, the girl unbuckled the holster from Zola's leg and strapped it to her own. She strapped the clip pack to her other leg and watched as Yates gathered up the array of explosive devices and stuffed them back into the Bergen. All the time, Xander continued to empty round after round into the infected, which were constantly pushing forward. Yates stood and pulled the Bergen onto his back. When he saw how many infected were covering the woody paths, he loaded his SA80 with a fresh clip and joined Xander, who was now crouched in the entrance, firing single shots from the shoulder with rapid precision. "I think we need a distraction," Yates said, turning to look at Zola's dead body.
***
Xander retrieved his sniper rifle and his shotgun and crossed them uncomfortably over his back, leaving Walker's rifle to hang from his shoulder and the P226 attached to his right leg. Yates passed him two clips for the SA80 and a dozen shot gun shells, which he secured in his pockets, then he grabbed Zola's legs as Yates grabbed his arms. They heaved his dead weight out into the clearing, where they stopped and began to swing the Sergeant’s corpse. When they had achieved enough momentum, they launched Zola at the feet of the nearest approaching horde, then turned tail and followed the girl, who was waiting for them at the top of the embankment between the two underpasses. Pausing long enough to see the infected rend Sergeant Zola like ravenous diners at a Jacobean banquet, the trio clambered over the metal road side barrier and came out on a roundabout that was blocked from every angle with abandoned vehicles. Though it was a relief to escape the dullness of the woodland subway pit and step out into the bright, early morning sunrise; what greeted them at the top of the slope was not so uplifting. To the front and left stood burnt out houses and several burnt out cars. A crooked traffic jam in both lanes stretched out before them for at least a half mile, and apart from the vehicles, there was very little cover. Infected wandered through these in all directions; there were so many, the entire neighbourhood must have turned. The remains of bodies that had been dead for a long time, lay rotting on the tarmac, permeating the air with a fetid bouquet. "This is your neck of the woods, young lady. What now?" Yates pressed.
She pointed down the road. "You see those traffic lights?" She said. "If we can make it there, I know somewhere safe. You'll be able to use that radio thing of yours and get us out of here." Xander and Yates looked down the road then at each other. The traffic lights in question were at the far end of the carriageway; at least the full half mile that they would need to travel. There was no direct path and the infected easily outnumbered their bullets. "That's a tall order, even for us," said Xander.
"Just like Garmisir," Yates groused.
“‘Cept we weren't fighting zombies...”
"There is that..."
"And the Hadjis had RPG's."
"Jesus! We just lost two good men and you’re cracking wise. You sound like you’re talking yourself into this Lance Corporal.”
“You’re pulling rank now? Really?”
“You want to go ahead? Be my guest. Start walking."
"Hey, Robson and Jerome? No one said anything about walking," the girl butted in. She tossed some keys into the air and Yates snatched them on their downward trajectory. "We can drive."
***
She led them across the supermarket access road and down another short embankment thick with prickly hawthorn and peeling silver birch until they came out onto a wide path; and there, parked on the grass verge stood a battered BMW 5. Yates eyeballed a small, white decal highlighted against the black of the driver’s door that said, “When in doubt - flat out”. The front grill resembled broken teeth and all four headlights were smashed. The fenders on both sides were ripped and grazed and the wing mirrors were gone; but, the girl told them, the engine and the air conditioning worked perfectly. Xander swiftly removed the weapons from his back and threw them onto a sleeping bag on the back seat, displacing tins of food and bottles of water into the floor well. Yates took off the Bergen and did the same, tossing his Benelli, SA80 and Zola's M4 carbine and shotgun in too, then climbed into the cockpit and inserted the keys into the ignition. The engine purred to life on the first turn as the girl slipped into the passenger side and held her sword between her legs. Yates noticed for the first time that she was wearing sections of rubber tyre gaffer taped over her knees and elbows for protection. Ingenious and resourceful, he thought, as Xander clambered up through the sunroof with Walker’s SA80.
"Not quite a Hummer, but it'll do." He said.
Yates slipped the gear stick into reverse and slowly backed the car down the path until they came out onto a wide area of grass that lay between the main road and a metal fence, beyond which was a large open field surrounded by Poplars, Oak and Sycamore. A legion of infected roamed the grassy expanse. Many were wearing white medical gowns, caked with vomit and blood. Yates turned the wheel until the BMW was facing towards the traffic lights at the end of the carriageway, dropped the car into neutral and waited.
The girl turned to Yates, and then nodded to the way ahead and back to Yates. "What are you waiting for?" She asked with obvious impatience through her facial protection. Yates sighed and gripped the steering wheel.
"Nothing," he said, trying to sound as conventional as he could; but in truth, he was wondering how the hell this little girl had managed to survive for this long with just a sword, and how had she driven through the mass of cars that lay before them.
"We're going to have some hitchhikers if you don't get a move on," Xander’s voice descended from the sunroof. Yates glanced into the rear view mirror and saw a score of infected approaching from the roundabout. He revved the engine before putting it into gear, feeling the power of the machine as it shook; then he shoved it into first and slammed his foot on the accelerator. The wheels dug into the sun baked ground covered with a light sprinkling of fresh morning dew, spitting soil and wet blades of grass into the air. It took a couple of seconds to find any traction and the back end slipped left and right before the vehicle pulled away and was doing 30mph before Yates tucked the car into second, then third. Immediately, the infected that were drifting between the stranded hulks of metal that used to be their pride and joy, reacted to the sound and turned towards them. It was conspicuous consumption gone mad. Society had traded its love of the material for warm, human flesh.
Yates could see that the grass tapered out and became pavement. It was wide enough for the car to squeeze through, but was blocked by a VW Golf that had been shunted onto the footpath, leaving a gap of about ten feet. An infected female suddenly stood up on his right and threw herself at the bonnet. Her head made contact with what was left of the headlight and the force of the impact shook his hands from the steering wheel as her tattered clothing got caught in the broken front bumper.
"Oooo.. Two points," He heard Xander yell.
"You're enjoying this shit way
too much," Yates shouted back as he struggled to shake the woman from the wheel arch without veering off course. The high revolution of the driver’s side front wheel spat the woman out and her body flew across the grass like a bowling ball and hit the boundary fence of the open field. Xander caught a quick freeze frame of her shin bone making contact with the top cross bar, then snap and spin around to kick her self in the stomach. He winced and held onto the roof with both hands as the car belly flopped through a deep, dry hole and bounced up onto the pavement. They had inches to spare as the car raced between parked cars and chest high brick wall, missing a lamp-post by a whisker. Two infected slammed into the bonnet, forcing Xander to dodge back into the vehicle as they sailed over his head. Changing down into second gear, Yates executed a handbrake turn and used the blocking VW Golf as a buffer. The momentum ricocheted the BMW into the road, knocking a black and white mini cooper forward and into the side of a 4x4. The mini recoiled from the hit and slammed back into the passenger side, sending the girl sharply to her left. She managed to get her arms up just in time to save her head from making contact with the door, and she shot Yates a disgruntled sideways glance, even though he couldn‘t see her expression beneath her goggles and mouth guard. All three occupants were thrown forward as the BMW smashed into the side of a fire damaged bus and came to a painfully abrupt halt in the front grill of a burnt out police cruiser. Yates’s hands slipped from the steering wheel and his right foot got jammed between the brake and the accelerator. His sternum punched forward and he blacked out. The engine roared, screamed for ten seconds or so, and then died.
Xander looked up to see far too many infected encroaching on their position, and he was more than a little disturbed to see that one of them was dressed in military camouflage. He wasn't sure, but he thought it was a member of Fire Team Aegis. He fumbled for the SA80; somehow, the barrel had found its way up his sleeve during the crash and he was thankful that he hadn't inadvertently blown his arm off below the elbow. He pulled the stock up to shoulder level and started firing.
