The Undead (Book 23): The Fort

by Haywood, R. R.

  They sprawl out. The world suddenly so much quieter from the walls blotting the wind about their ears. Gasping and crying. The two of them pawing at each other, grabbing and pulling as though still trying to swim as everyone turns from staring into the fort to look down at the two soaking wet women. ‘It’s not just a crush…’ Lilly gasps. ‘That kiss…it was…’

  Mary turns her head to look at her, both staring, both gasping for air.

  ‘Lilly!’ a voice snaps as the two women bring their heads up to a sea of faces staring at them. Everyone from the fort in the middle section. Billy rushing towards her. Throwing his arms about his sister’s soaking wet body.

  ‘What…’ Lilly sucks air, trying to make her mind work. ‘What’s happened?’ she looks round seeing scared faces. Damsa and Ameer with the women but not Maleek or Bashir. Sunnie and Anika but not Pardip, Jaspal or Simar. Ann but not Norman. No Lenski. No Kyle. No Joan. No Sam or Pea. ‘What’s happening?’ she says again, pushing to her feet.

  ‘It’s gone bad,’ Ann says. ‘Lenski said to stay here…’

  ‘They got drunk,’ Agatha says. ‘That Tommy…racists and…’

  ‘They’re tearing it apart,’ Sunnie cuts in. ‘Par and the lads are trying to stop them but there’s too many…’

  ‘All drunk,’ Ann says. ‘They’ve lost it…’

  Lilly staggers to the inner gate, Ann helping her. ‘You need to rest,’ Ann says. ‘Both of you…’

  ‘How’s your empire now, Little Tyrant?’ Lisa says, snapping Lilly’s head over.

  ‘What the hell?’ Mary says, shaking her head as she staggers after Lilly, joining her at the gate to look through. ‘Holy shit…is that fire? Is the fort on fire?’

  Lilly steps through, taking it all in with one sweep of her eyes. The fires at the back. The flames from missiles thrown near the canteen. The huge crowd edging closer to a thin line. She sees Sam and Pea holding rifles. She sees Maleek and the others clutching sticks with their backs to the new building and she sees Lenski, walking alone towards them with the pistol lifting in her hand.

  ‘SOUL JA,’ Bashir screams.

  ‘I don’t know what that means,’ Sam shouts back at him. Everything a blur now. Everything a mess.

  ‘KILL ‘EM…’ Tommy roars out. ‘NOW…KILL ‘EM ALL…’

  A roar and the crowd moves. The mass of them knowing they will not be fired upon. Sam and Pea freeze. Not believing this is happening. Kyle with Joan, running for the back as Keith leads his group towards the doors as the detonation of violence finally comes. The deep roar of it. The crowd now sick with bloodlust. Ready to tear that small line apart and they won’t stop there. They’ll burn that building down. They’ll destroy and rampage. They’ll kill and rape. They are the mob. Ordinary people now monsters to the last.

  ‘SOUL JA…’ Bashir yells again, turning his head from the coming crowd to Sam. ‘SOUL JA…’ he beats his chest, desperation in his voice.

  ‘Stop screaming fucking sold ja at me…’ Sam yells, snatching a look at Bashir.

  ‘SOLDIER!’ Pea exclaims with sudden realisation. ‘He’s saying soldier…’

  ‘Soldier?’ Sam gasps, looking at Bashir.

  ‘Soul ja,’ Bashir says, nodding fast. Pointing at himself.

  ‘Give him your gun,’ Pea urges.

  ‘I am!’ Sam yelps, pulling her rifle overhead to pass to Bashir who takes the weapon and sweeps an arm out, forcing them behind him as he lifts to aim and make ready.

  ‘Here we go…’ John shouts, going low while gripping the metal pipe in his hands. ‘Ready lads… READY?’

  Lenski aims as the crowd starts moving. Seeing the charge. Seeing the end game is right here and she will have to shoot them. She has to end it, but still she hesitates. Still she sees unarmed drunk people and her finger holds the trigger. Willing herself to do it before it’s too late. She has to. She must.

  Movement on her right side. Lilly stepping in with Donald’s rifle in her hands. Movement on her left side. Mary stepping with her chest heaving. Both of them drenched to the bone. Both of them breathing hard and Lenski turns to look back at Lilly. At the cold blue eyes glaring from someone who doesn’t give a shit what the rules of society were.

  ‘No,’ Lilly whispers. A feeling inside. A surge within. A seething, growing knot of rage building up. A rage unlike any other Lilly has ever felt. Soaking wet. Bare footed. It’s been hot as hell. She’s worked everyone to the point of nearly breaking them to flatten the bay, to get materials to build a canteen, to build a wall. Days of blistering heat. Days of sheer gruelling hard graft and seeing broken people pick themselves up and move on again. Working in that staggering heat to build and make something decent and now this.

  ‘No,’ she says again. Her voice stronger. Harder. The girl who took back the fort. The girl that rolled the grenade into the room full of children and right there, Lenski knows Tommy has made a very, very terrible mistake.

  Without a shred of hesitation Lilly pulls the trigger and sends the first round spinning across the fort that takes a man through his chest because to Lilly there are no rules and there is nothing she will not do to protect the fort.

  The second round slams into a woman who drops screaming out from her thigh bone shattering. The old world is over. This is the new world. It doesn’t matter what was. It only matters what is now. What they are now.

  ‘SEE ME…’ she roars out, firing the third round that takes a man through the side, making him spin away and drop. Lilly doesn’t see unarmed protesters. What she sees are the enemy who must be stopped. Those are the rules of the new world. This is the way now.

  ‘SEE ME…’ she fires again, sending a bullet through a shoulder that comes out the other side with shards of bone lacerating the faces of raging drunks behind. She shoots as the drunk, roaring crowd charge across the fort towards that thin line of terrified people who only did good.

  Everything a blur. Everything happening so quickly. Bashir hears the shots but keeps his focus on the crowd coming at him. Two years in the Afghan army. Taught by British and American instructors. He sights his weapons, selects single shot and fires into a big man charging at him. The bullets slam home. The man falters with a look of confusion on his face. This isn’t right. He’s not armed. They can’t shoot him. He spots another muzzle flash and feels the impact of more rounds hitting him, shunting his body as he sobers in a heartbeat, looking about at the fires and carnage and he drops to die, bleeding out as Tommy roars behind him.

  ‘GO ON! KILL THE FUCKING MUZZIES…INTO THEM…KILL KILL KILL…’ Tommy hears the gunfire, figuring them to be warning shots but not caring if they’re not. It’s too late. He’ll tear this fort apart and be the king. Fuck them. Fuck the muzzies. Something whizzes past his head with a noise like a wasp. Someone drops near him, screaming out as he clutches his stomach. ‘KILL ‘EM…KILL THE FUCKING MUZZIES…’ another wasp going by. Someone else screaming in pain.

  Lilly fires single shots. Striking bodies and legs. Dropping them as they charge. Gunfire. Smoke. Chaos and noise. The pressure of the storm bearing down. Everything a blur. Everything happening so fast.

  ‘I’m not having this,’ Agatha says, muttering the words that grow louder. ‘I’m not. I’m not having this…not in my bloody fort…’

  Lilly fires. Bashir fires. Smoke and fire. Noise and chaos. Hearts hammering. Bashir adjusts his aim, firing again. Lilly striding in. Sending bullets into the crowd.

  ‘No,’ Agatha says, shaking her head. ‘NO…’ she steps out through the gate with a ripple spreading through the others. ‘This is our fort…’ she speeds up, rushing on towards Lenski with Sunnie at her side. Colin and Joanne share a look and go after them as the bay workers nod at each other. The boat drivers. The people who have worked and felt the change. They go through the gate. Striding after Agatha and Sunnie.

  Lilly fires. Bashir fires. The crowd charge.

  A roar from behind. Lilly spins to see people spilling from the gates with Agatha and Sunnie runnin
g as fast as they can. All of them grabbing heavy things to hit with. Ordinary men and women prepared to fight for what they hold dear. Dozens and dozens of them. A new mob. A bigger, louder one.

  A surge inside Lilly who passes the rifle to Lenski and runs out to scoop a length of wood up, holding it aloft. Holding it high. ‘INTO THEM,’ she screams her battle cry. ‘COME ON…INTO THEM…’ She starts the counter charge. Running hard. Mary behind her. Lenski running.

  Simar snaps his head over. Seeing Lilly charging. Her face a mask of pure aggression. Running ahead of everyone else. A sight to see. Fearless. Relentless.

  ‘COME ON,’ he shouts out, holding his weapon aloft, holding it high and he breaks out to run as Lilly steams by. Norman crying out, holding his stick ready. Pardip and John roaring. Maleek screaming. That thin line going fast into the screaming crowd.

  A second of silence before they hit. A second of pure energy as every man and woman in that drunken mob see Lilly coming at them. The wildness in her face. The blaze in her eyes. The sky behind her streaked with colour. The clouds rolling. A flash of lightning in the distance.

  Lilly hits the line first. Going deep with a roar and striking her stick into a kneecap, smashing it to bits. Mary behind her, swinging out with huge punches. Smashing into jaws. Into noses. Into eyes and skulls.

  The second line hit. Simar, Jaspal, Pardip, Maleek, Bashir and Norman. Men who would have been killed for being dark, for being gay. Now armed and fighting. Striking out wild and untrained but driven by pure aggression. Teeth bared. Eyes wide.

  The third line hits. Agatha and Sunnie slamming in to lash out. Colin and Joanne. Brian Collins limping on his injured ankle using his crutch as a weapon. Martin Jones swinging a club with one arm still in a sling. Jane Parker snarling as she takes a drunk woman off her feet with Emily the librarian. The two kicking and dropping to punch and batter. Lenski steaming in behind Lilly and Mary, using the butt of the rifle to hit out, whacking left and right, screaming wildly.

  Lilly takes another one down, smashing the stick into a mouth so hard the teeth fly out. She batters the man away, blood spraying over her face. In deep. In amongst them. Fighting close and hard. Mary at her back. Punching and punching the way she was taught by her Uncle Peter. Breaking bones with her hard knuckles. Her red hair flying as she twists and pivots.

  John rams his stick into a man. The weapon breaks, snapping in two. He ditches it to use his fists, fighting dirty, brawling hard. Pardip at his side, his weapon already lost. A hit across his back. He roars out and spins to see Karl lashing out with a heavy pipe. Pardip shouts out and goes in, slamming his forehead into the big man’s nose, dropping him instantly.

  Norman on the floor, rolling over and over with a drunk tattooed man, blood flying out. Grunts and shouts. The guy gets the better of him, experienced in street brawls and he gets Norman onto his back and starts slamming punches down as Maleek dives in from the side. Norman surges up, going after them. Diving in to punch and hit.

  Kyle and Joan stopped running the second they heard the gunfire. Both of them hunkering down to see where it was coming from, but the smoke hampered their view. Wafting across, making them cough with eyes stinging. Motion everywhere. The crowd roaring as they charge. Noise and chaos. Gunfire and smoke. Everything a blur. Everything happening so fast.

  ‘THERE!’ Joan shouts, seeing figures running for the armoury door. A solid little crowd of men led by Keith. Things in their hands. Weapons and tools. They run fast. Going through the smoke and heat. Men at the door. Tools being used. Wood splintering. A jemmy cracking the lock.

  ‘GET OUT,’ Kyle shouts, aiming his pistols. ‘GET OUT OF THERE…’

  The men turn, seeing him coming. A burst of motion, faster and harder as the doors are wrenched open with men running in. Kyle goes faster, sprinting to get there. Firing once into the belly of a man still outside. He reaches the door, seeing men inside grabbing at weapons but he cannot shoot his pistols into a room full of ammunition and grenades. Everything a blur. Everything happening so fast. ‘GET OUT,’ he goes in fast, holstering his guns.

  ‘FUCK OFF,’ a man screams out, grabbing a rifle to use as a club, swinging it at Kyle’s head but the old man blocks the swing and goes in low before rising up to slam the flat of his hand into the man’s chin, snapping his head back. Kyle turns his foe with the force gained, slamming him down into a pile of boxes while bringing his knee up into the elbow joint. A crunch of bone. A scream of agony and Kyle steps back, pulling his knife from the sheath on his belt, ducking another punch to stab into a thigh before bringing the blade up into the stomach, stabbing hard and deep, twisting the handle, pulling it out and slicing the blade across the throat. Gunfire behind him. Joan firing her rifle into the head of another man running towards the open doors as someone else looms at Kyle, swinging fists. Kyle dances back, swaying side to side before going in to grip and roll the man over his hip, driving the blade into his throat as he drops.

  ‘STAND DOWN…’ Joan shouts, striding in, aiming her rifle at the others.

  ‘OKAY OKAY,’ Keith yells, a pistol in one hand, a magazine in the other. He was almost there. Almost armed. A flicker of rage on his face but he drops them both to fling his hands up.

  ‘Bastards,’ Kyle shouts, fuming as he stands up. ‘Ye bastards…’

  ‘We’re unarmed…’ Keith says, keeping his hands up.

  ‘Ye fucking tried though didn’t ye,’ Kyle shouts, lashing out, punching Keith in the face with a hard hit. ‘YE FUCKING TRIED THOUGH…’

  Outside the armoury it feels like the battle goes on for hours. ‘KILL ‘EM…’ Tommy roars out. He can win. He can do this. He can take the fort and be the king. ‘STRING ‘EM UP…’ people fighting all about him. A battle waging. His troops will win with ease. He’s got this.

  Delusion in his mind. This isn’t a battle. It’s a brawl and over within minutes with the mob turning from one solid mass back to the component parts of drunks and idiots within an instant.

  ‘COME ON,’ Tommy roars, turning this way and that. A big metal pipe in his hands. His chest puffed up. His arms out wide. His belly wobbling as he struts. Sweat dripping down his red face. ‘KILL ‘EM…’ his voice seems louder now. Penetrating further. Or maybe it’s the lack of the roar from this mob now decimated. Solid hits now heard. The grunts of individual fights. Not a battle. Just a brawl. Sordid and filthy. People crying in pain. Drunk and confused. Begging for help. ‘COME ON,’ Tommy shouts again, spinning on the spot. His face a mask of aggression. Smoke wafting about him. His feet shunting empty beer cans and bottles. His crappy fence a few yards behind him. ‘NO,’ he shouts angrily. ‘NO…’ he roars. Seeing Karl down with Pardip straddling over him, smashing fists into his head. Emily and Jane ripping Gwen off her feet, punching and beating her as the woman screams in panic, trying to crawl away. Matty dead on the ground.

  Sticks being used as clubs to beat the drunks. Breaking bones. Giving back what was threatened against them. Taking revenge. Not a battle but a brawl. Bodies everywhere. The cries and whimpers sounding through the shouts.

  ‘FUCK,’ Tommy screams. ‘GET UP…GET UP…’

  A whump of an impact from Lilly smashing her stick into a man, driving him to the ground.

  Mary staggering back. Her fists dripping with blood. Her lips snarling as she runs the back of one hand across her forehead, smearing a wake of blood. Seeing the beatings being given. Hearing the bones breaking. ‘THAT’S ENOUGH NOW,’ she cries out, her voice cracking. ‘ENOUGH…IT’S DONE…’ she lurches to Emily and Jane kicking at Gwen, pushing them back. ‘ENOUGH…it’s enough…stop…STOP!’ she staggers to Lenski, taking the pistol to aim over the wall out to sea and she pulls the trigger. Making everyone flinch and turn. Making them look. ‘Enough…it’s over…ye can’t beat them when they’re down…’

  ‘OUT,’ a voice at the back. Joan ordering the remaining men from the armoury at gunpoint. Kyle coming out last. Heaving for air. His knife dripping in his hand.

 
‘Sim, get back mate,’ Jaspal says, pulling his brother back from slamming punches into someone on the ground. A man whimpering. His face pulped and covered in blood. Norman and Maleek get to their feet. The man they were fighting sobbing for mercy.

  Only a few of the drunks remain on their feet but they wilt back quickly. Lifting hands in surrender. Dropping to the floor to cry. Staggering and overplaying confusion.

  ‘What’s going on?’ one of them asks. ‘It just went nuts…’

  ‘You fucking racist,’ Simar rushes at him, seeing the guy that threw the can at Norman. Seeing one of the men that beat him down with a stick that laughed at him and called him a Muslim cunt.

  ‘Mate,’ the guy says, holding his hands up. ‘I don’t know what’s going on…’

  A punch. Solid and hard. The guy drops, gurgling and spitting teeth. Simar standing over him.

  ‘You wanted to kill me…try it now…TRY IT NOW…’

  Lilly turns a slow circle, viewing the fight, viewing the battlefield. Seeing it as the brawl it is. Her face alive. Her chest heaving. The girl who took the fort back. Blood on her face. Blood spattered over her skin. ‘Who started this?’ her voice calls out. Hard and ruthless. Making every man and woman turn to look at her. ‘Who started this?’ she asks again, her head lowered, her eyes looking up, taking in the way everyone looks to a meaty tattooed guy in the middle dropping a metal pipe as he backs up with a hunted look on his face. Feral and wild. Cunning eyes seeking a way out. Licking his lips as he thinks and looks at the faces of the men he was abusing just a few minutes ago. Norman and Maleek. Pardip and Jaspal.

  ‘Fuck me,’ Tommy says. ‘What happened? Eh? Just had a few beers and it went off…this heat…’

  ‘He steal,’ Lenski says, striding to a beer can. ‘See?’ she picks it up, pointing at the black cross. ‘Yesterday. I mark them. All of these. In the food stores…I put this mark on all…’