The two girls stood in terror as they watched the two men being attacked in such a violent way. Madeleine’s fear turned to anger and she pointed the torch at the group as she went to move forward to try and help them. One of the soldiers looked up, blood dripping from its mouth. It opened its jaw unnaturally wide and let out a terrifying groan. Two of the others dropped the Frenchmen and looked towards the girls.
Adrienne lunged forward, grabbing Madeleine to stop her moving towards the scene of carnage. As soon as she stopped the Germans turned back to their victim, almost oblivious to the girls. It was now clear that they could do nothing to help the men as more and more of the soldiers crowded around and started attacking them. François screamed and then a sickening tearing sound stopped him. The light from the torch showed a heaving group of people, a head lifted up, it was one of the soldiers and looked directly at the girls. From its mouth dripped blood and it chewed on what looked like raw flesh. Adrienne screamed and turned to run. Madeleine tried to stop her but she was too late. The girl’s movement attracted the attention of the soldiers and this time a small group left the dying Frenchman and started moving towards the girls, one of them grabbing Madeleine. Madeleine’s decision on whether to help the men or not was made for her as François must have pulled out his pistol. With just two shots fired in quick succession the screaming stopped and the group of cannibalistic Germans turned en mass to the girls. Madeleine left the radio equipment but did grab her notebook and then chased after Adrienne who was already thirty feet away.
* * *
The sixteen man column was once again back on the route to their bridge objective. Now with an extra two Americans in tow the group was slowed down by the additional stretcher on which the wounded Corporal Martinez lay. It had been forty five minutes since they’d left the woodland and they were nearly a third the way to their objective, the Orne River Bridge. Though they’d missed the first stage of the attack, there were only two options and both required their presence. First, if the British soldiers had already captured it then they would be needed to help with the defence of the bridge. The second scenario would be that they had somehow failed to take the bridge, if this was the case then Lieutenant Harvey and his men would have to capture the bridge themselves and hold it till relieved.
The terrain was flat and they were moving from one field to another. Behind them was the thick cover of yet another piece of woodland. There were narrow roads a short distance away but Sergeant Smith had advised keeping off them, especially after their first encounter with the mysterious German convoy. They were following the perimeter boundaries of the fields as the broken walls and fences provided handy cover if needed and also broke up their shapes as they moved in the open terrain. Off to their left flank was a thick wood that eventually reached a small village off into the distance. It looked like a road ran the other side of the wooded area, another reason to keep well away from it. Smith had made sure that the broken fence lay between them and the woodland, just in case.
Sergeant Smith and two of his corporals were at the front of the column, around a hundred yards ahead of the rest of the men. After coming across several unexpected surprises he was taking no chances. This position was commonly known as taking point and essentially put the three men in the most dangerous position if they came across trouble. The primary benefit was that the rest of the column would have time to respond. By keeping an experienced man like Smith at the front their chances of surprise were greatly reduced.
Lieutenant Harvey walked alongside the wounded American soldier, talking quietly and trying to learn more about the men that had attacked him. He was very concerned at the change in the man’s leg wound. The blood had congealed very quickly and was now starting to look like the kind of wound he would expect to find on a dead body. It simply didn’t make sense, unless the man had a serious case of gangrene, but so quickly!
“How are you feeling Corporal?” asked the Lieutenant whilst looking at the man’s leg.
Surprisingly the American soldier seemed more alert than he had been just a short time before.
“Actually, I’m feeling much better now, Sir,” he replied. “I can’t feel my leg, but the pain has gone and I‘m not as tired as before.”
“Can you move your foot?” asked Harvey.
“Yeah, I think so,” replied Martinez as he wiggled his toes. “Yeah, look!”
Incredibly the man’s foot was moving from side to side.
The group went silent, Harvey looked ahead to see the hand signal from Sergeant Smith. The group dropped to their knees, weapons ready, expecting to be attacked at any moment. Martinez, now on the ground where his stretcher had been lowered, lifted himself up to a sitting position so he could see what was happening. Nervous, probably from his previous encounter with his attackers, he reached for his weapon and checked it was loaded. On his lap sat his Colt 1911, he was taking no chances. He could hear the sound now; it was a number of people crashing through the distant woodland. The rest of the paratroopers now positioned themselves against the broken fence, pointing their weapons towards the tree line. A spine chilling scream echoed across the fields followed by shouts, it was a woman’s voice.
In the distance Sergeant Smith signalled, the order came down the column, they were to hold their fire. Harvey looked towards the trees, the shouting was louder now and he could just make out shadows moving at the base of the trees. Then he spotted them, two young girls, maybe teenagers, running for their lives. One of the privates stood up at seeing what was appeared not to be a problem. He was shouted at immediately by Captain Scott, “Get your head down boy!”
The two girls kept running, now well out of the woodland and making their way across the open field in the direction of the soldiers. Corporal Martinez whispered to the Lieutenant.
“What are they running from, Sir?”
The officer shrugged, he obviously had no idea and continued watching the drama unfold.
“No idea, we need to keep low and quiet though, we’re not in a position to get stuck in another fight, unless we have no other choice,” he said.
Without even checking the fence the girls dragged themselves up and over only to find waiting arms grabbing them and pulling them to safety. They started to scream but Captain Scott and Trent managed to cover their mouths, beckoning them to be quiet. The two girls, seeing the line of armed men struggled, having no idea which side the men were on, or even if they were there to help or attack them.
The American captain intervened.
“Bonjour, mon nom est Capitaine Scott de la 101e Division Airborne.”
The girls looked confused, they were obviously in shock.
Captain Scott continued, “Je suis un soldat américain. Nous ne vous blessera pas.”
One of the girls relaxed a little, “My name is Madeleine and this is Adrienne,” she shook his hand. “You’re an American? Your French is very good!” she smiled.
Before anybody could say anything else they were interrupted by the men shouting, Scott looked back to see a large group of men shambling across the field towards them.
Scott turned to the girl, “Are these people chasing you?”
“Yes,” Adrienne answered indignantly, “one of them was trying to bite us.”
Lieutenant Harvey crawled over, he looked at the girls, then to the Captain.
“Are they being chased?”
Scott nodded, he pointed to the girl with the bite marks.
“Look, she’s been bitten as well, what’s going on?”
“Those soldiers attacked our friends. We were trying to get away when Madeleine was bitten, but she was lucky it was only scratches and we managed to get away,” replied Adrienne.
As the officers talked the strange group of people continued their slow progress. They were either still following the girls or they had spotted the soldiers because they were heading right for them. The distance was a good hundred yards and they would take a short while longer to reach them.
Private
Wilks called out, “Behind us!”
The men quickly checked the space behind them only to spot more of these people. This second group was much larger. Sergeant Smith had made his way back to the group and consulted with the officers.
“I don’t like this, I think these guys must be drugged or something…”
Chard interrupted, “More like pissed, Sarge!”
The Sergeant looked at him, his expression said enough to make Chard return to watching the group. Smith continued.
“Either way we can’t go back and this other group from the woods is heading this way.”
Captain Scott spoke to the French girl again.
“Why are these people chasing you?” The girl shrugged.
“I don’t know, they were trying to eat us though!” she answered in a panic.
The conversation was stopped by howling and wailing, the same sound they had heard back at the landing zone.
Smith called out to the officers, “Sounds like the same ones we heard back at the convoy.”
Smith stood up, leaning on the fence. He shouted to the nearest group that was approaching from their left flank.
“Hey, what do you want?” There was no response.
Captain Scott joined in, “Parlez-vous anglais?” There was still no reply.
Scott asked Harvey, “Do you speak German?” the officer nodded, “A little.”
Lieutenant Harvey stood and shouted in the best German he could manage. “Sprechen sie Englisch?” Again silence then a few seconds later came more wailing and groaning.
“Enough of this,” called Smith, “anybody got a flare?”
One of the soldiers acknowledged and fired a shot into the sky. It lit with a flash and suddenly the field and the group of men became clear.
“Fuck me!” called out one of the privates.
The nearest group were soldiers, though their clothing and equipment was bedraggled and filthy. None of them seemed to be carrying weapons in any meaningful way. Worst of all though, was that they all seemed to have sustained injuries of some kind. Some were missing limbs, others had gaping wounds in their chests or throats. All of them had substantial amounts of blood around their open mouths. A few shots rang out as Wilks and Harris fired instinctively at the closest. Captain Scott called out for them to cease fire but it was unnecessary as they had already stopped from the horror of what happened next. The first two men had been knocked to the ground, both felled by good shots to the body. However they simply lifted themselves up and continued on. Sergeant Smith looked to Lieutenant Harvey for confirmation, he gave the nod. Without hesitation Smith called out, “Open fire!”
The previously quiet area was shattered by the collective fire of over a dozen men armed with rifles, submachine guns and machineguns. The group continued their slow march, now only thirty or so feet away. At this range they were shredded, body parts ripped apart, heads cut clean off and blood and gore spraying all around. The Allied soldiers formed themselves into a very loose ‘C’ shape so that they could defend the front, rear and left flanks of their position. The Bren opened up on the second group to the rear and started knocking down the enemy at long range. Harris and Trent joined in with their Enfield rifles, within seconds there were none left standing. Smith called for a ceasefire and the men reloaded their weapons, ready for whatever awaited them.
Lieutenant Harvey called out, “Sergeant Peters!”
The Lance Sergeant responded promptly, “Sir!”
Harvey continued, “Take Humphreys and check on the bodies.”
The sergeant and corporal moved off towards the nearest bodies from the firefight. The closest ones were only a dozen yards or so from their firing line. Looking at the first body it was obvious that these people were in the same condition as those discovered earlier. Their bodies were covered in a variety of injuries prior to those sustained from their own shooting. Peters was surprised by one of the bodies in particular. Looking more closely he noticed a patch on the soldier’s uniform. It hadn’t even occurred to him that these men might not be German. He turned and shouted out to the Captain.
“Captain Scott, we’ve got an American here!”
Peters turned back to the bodies, spotting movement in the middle of the group. Humphreys pointed to another that was moving. Humphreys stood up, looking at Peters, “What the hell?”
As Peters turned, Humphreys spotted more of the shapes moving from the woodland. “Oh shit, Sir, we’ve got more of them!”
One of the men in the unit spotted movement behind them, from the group that had been approaching from a distance. More were also approaching from behind them. Peters screamed out, the American soldier that was wounded amongst the bodies was holding onto his leg, lifting himself up the sergeant’s body. Humphreys ran over and tried to help, only to be pulled to the ground by more of the dead men.
The two girls started screaming, the same sound that the British soldiers had heard at the start of the action. They were pulled out of harm’s way by the burly Lance Sergeant Jones. One of the corpses somehow pulled itself up to their position but Jones stamped down hard and emptied a dozen rounds into the body, he put a few in the head, just to be sure. He looked back at the two cowering girl, they were petrified.
Smith shouted to Jones and Wilks.
“Get over there and give them a hand, the rest of you, open fire!”
The soldiers immediately opened fire on the new targets that had arrived. Jones and Wilks leapt over the broken fence and moved ahead, firing bursts at any of the living corpses that got too close. Within seconds they were there and dragging the wounded Humphreys away from the bodies but some of them were still holding on. Jones smashed the wooden stock of his Sten MKV into a man’s skulls, knocking him down whilst Wilks kicked another repeatedly. The two men kept pulling at Humphreys. Peters tried to stagger back, away from the bodies on the ground. The American kept trying to bite at him but he held him off with his hands. Something clawed at his feet, forcing him to lose his balance and dropped him to the ground.
Back at the fence Smith could see their situation falling apart. The bodies on the ground all around their position were slowly lifting themselves up and moving towards them, whilst in the distance more of them were appearing from the dark woods. Smith ran back to the two officers, firing bursts from his Sten as he went. All along the line the soldiers were shooting and every few seconds the crump of a grenade blasted apart several of the enemy.
Smith spoke rapidly to the men.
“I’ve got no bloody idea what’s going on. I suggest we get moving and fast. See those buildings ahead?” the sergeant pointed out to the distance, the officers nodded.
“Right, we get to decent cover, check the wounded and get into a more defensible position.”
Lieutenant Harvey gave the order and the soldiers lifted themselves up, grabbed any wounded and the two girls and made for the buildings off in the distance. Smith and the two officers helped pull Humphreys from what looked like living corpses but there was nothing they could do for Peters. Dragged to the ground at least three of the corpses were taking mouthful of flesh from his arms and throat, he was screaming and blood gurgled from his throat and mouth. Lieutenant Harvey paused for a moment then pointed his Colt 1911 at the man and fired three rounds at him. Two impacted into the unfortunate soldier’s chest, the third and final round hit him square between the eyes. Without hesitation the survivors dragged the wounded men between them and joined the exodus across the field to the buildings.
The thin column was now scattered and running the distance of two field lengths to the buildings in the small village. Though the lead men were almost there, the two officers, Smith and the men they had just saved were struggling to keep up. Moving at a fast walking pace the moving corpses were slowly gaining on the group. Smith fired bursts when he could, but he mainly needed to help the wounded Humphreys who was being dragged between him and Captain Scott. Smith noticed that Lieutenant Harvey was being grabbed by two of the vile things. One
was knocked back by several rounds fired at point blank at its head by the officer’s pistol, the second however was hanging on to his smock and equipment, slowing him down. Before he could try and help another appeared at his side and he was forced to release Humphreys for a moment and spray a burst of fire into the thing’s chest.
A short distance ahead, were Chard and Archer. As they ran both of the men kept a watchful eye on their left flank. They were running as fast as they could with the equipment they were carrying. Chard held his Sten MKV in both hands whilst on a sling he carried the PIAT projector. Archer on the other hand lugged the heavy Bren machinegun, not a weapon for sprinting with. Looking behind Chard spotted the trouble the officers and Smith were in.
“Archer, the Lieutenant is in trouble, give me covering fire,” shouted Chard.
Turning around and dropping to their knees for increased stability they provided covering fire for the retreat. Chard emptied two complete magazines from his Sten gun whilst heavy bursts from Archer’s Bren gun tore into the groups of creatures. The first burst was wide but the second succeeded in knocking down several of their pursuers. Archer took careful aim with his Sten and loosed a couple of rounds taking a chunk of flesh from the corpse holding onto Lieutenant Harvey. Harvey, now free of the creature, grabbed Humphreys and the small group carried on towards the buildings.
The small number of buildings formed the heart of the small French village. The area itself looked completely unspoilt from the ravages of the war. At this time of night there were no people wandering about and the narrow roads were deserted of the few vehicles you might expect to find. At the centre of the village the three small roads joined together and the most prominent building was a kind of vehicle workshop. In front of it were a few old tractors and an old, rusty looking truck. Running alongside the road were a number of small houses that eventually led to a small grassed area and then a church. Behind the church were a number of small farm buildings, though there was no immediate sign of the main farmhouse. A low wall ran around the church though it had a few gaps, some deliberate and others from lack of maintenance. To the distant side of the church was a graveyard that disappeared into the cover of a number of trees. It looked like a vicarage or other large house was positioned behind the trees. In the other direction a boarded up petrol station betrayed a time when there was better access to both labour and machines.
Night of the Nazi Zombies Page 7
