Aftermath (Book 1): Only The Head Will Take Them Down

by Duncan McArdle

  The guard slowly lowered his weapon, waving his fellow guards off back to their original positions, and instructing Donald to pull forward.

  “Don’t be too intimidated by my fame Parker, people know me, it’s a gift and a curse really”, Donald said, in the same low tone he always did, John unable to decide if he was joking, or so delusional he felt he was actually telling the truth.

  “Must be your glowing personality”, John replied as the truck pulled up alongside the first guard.

  “How’s it going”, Donald said to the guard, having either not heard or simply chosen to ignore John’s remark.

  “Not bad, what are you doing heading back so soon?”, the guard asked.

  “Going out hunting for supplies, found me a friend back at Apple River to keep the biters away”, Donald smirked, pointing to John.

  John’s face sank as he looked up at the guard. He had wanted to remain undetected, but he remembered this particular guard all too well. It was the same man John had driven right at before making it off the end of the bridge, the one person who had seen John and Andrew dead on, and perhaps the only one that might recognise him. But John couldn’t sit silently any more, he risked blowing his cover far more by acting suspiciously quiet.

  “Howdy”, he said smiling, with what could only be described as the worst Texan accent anybody had ever attempted, “How’s the day treating y’all?”, he asked.

  The guard stared at John for a moment, before removing his sunglasses for a better look, inspecting him up and down repeatedly, like reading a page from a book over and over.

  “Have we met before?”, he said to John, “You crossed here sometime or something?”, he asked.

  “Not likely friend, been travelling over from New York, not had the good fortune of hitting these parts yet”, John lied. The accent was improving with every word, but still sounded noticeably put on, to Donald at least, who now also stared at John, confused beyond all measures at his sudden change of tone.

  “Weird, cause you look just like someone… I’m trying to think who…”, the guard said.

  “If you don’t mind”, Donald interrupted, “We’re kind of in a hurry, what’s your price?”, he asked.

  “A STANAG mag or equivalent, whatever you find”, instructed the guard.

  “Done, will have it when I cross back over”, Donald said.

  Nodding and turning to walk away – though not before snatching one last glimpse of his new, apparently Texan, acquaintance – the guard headed back to his post, waving the Toyota through as he did.

  “You mind telling me why in the hell you’re impersonating some kind of speech impediment suffering Confederate?”, Donald asked.

  “Long story”, John replied, “I’ve crossed before, didn’t exactly pay the toll though”, he explained.

  “Well you’re gonna’ pay it now, you can add a STANAG mag to the list of stuff we gotta’ find”, Donald instructed.

  “Alright”, John agreed, looking out the front windscreen in time to see them approach the small hut-like building at the middle of the bridge. Suddenly, despite their earlier inspection, they were flagged down once more, this time in a much friendlier manner.

  “Don!”, yelled one of the men in the hut as he walked out.

  Donald slowed the truck and leant once more out of the window, replying with a friendly tone that itself sounded just as put on as John’s. “Well if it isn’t the bridge-master himself”, he said.

  “Now that is a title I could get on board with”, replied the man, grinning, “How the hell you doing?”, he continued.

  “Not bad thank you kindly, be a bit better if you stopped charging to cross, but I guess we all gotta’ play our parts huh?”, Donald said.

  “Fraid so”, replied the man, “Whose your friend?”, he asked, nodding at John.

  “Name’s John”, John replied, content that this man appeared to be much more friendly, and certainly hadn’t seen John’s face during the last crossing, “Nice to meet y’all”, he added, remembering suddenly about his newfound Texan accent.

  “You too John, I’m Gerry, and on behalf of the people of Stillwater…”, Gerry paused to look down at the other end of the bridge, where a pile of bodies lay burning away, “I welcome you”, he said, to the laughs of the two men still sat in the hut.

  “When’d that happen?”, asked Donald as he looked over to the pile.

  “Last night. Some A-hole’s ragged their way across the bridge, noise brought a whole horde of them down on us, they went down easy enough though”, Gerry explained.

  “That so?”, Donald asked, looking briefly to John before returning his gaze to the smouldering pile. “Well I hate to be the one to tell you, but I’m not sure you’ve seen the last of ‘em”, he said, looking into the outskirts of the town just beyond it. In almost exactly the same moment, the man nearest the pile of bodies made the same horrifying realisation, and turned to yell one simple word.

  “Hooooorrrrdddeee!!!!”.

  Chapter 15: Gearing Up

  Before the outbreak, the slow and aimless shuffling of the average person in your local town or city, constantly knocking into others not looking where they were going, was so commonplace it was laughable. People were generally polite though, whether genuinely or not, always quick to apologise for getting in someone’s way, knocking someone’s coffee out of their hands, or perhaps stepping on the heels of the person in front. Now though things were a little different, and as one member of the horde tripped another, their head hitting the solid ground hard before being promptly stomped on by those that followed, there wasn’t the slightest hint of an apology. This was to be expected though, as the forty or fifty people in this horde were not knocking into each other on the way to work, or trying to catch a train about to leave a nearby station just a few moments from now. They were all dead, and they had somehow sensed the presence of something that was not.

  “Jesus that’s a lot”, Gerry remarked, as the two men inside rushed out of the hut to look at what had been seen, “Get plenty of ammo boys, we gotta’ get down there quick”, he ordered.

  “Jump in the back I’ll run you down”, Donald said, the men responding quickly by jumping into the bed of the Toyota, loading up their weapons as soon as their feet hit the solid metal flooring.

  “Thanks Don”, Gerry said as he too climbed around the rear of the truck.

  John had never felt more uneasy, the cold metallic clicks of bullets being injected into the various variations of M16 the men were wielding just a few feet behind him. Each man had every reason to save a round for John afterwards, though thankfully, none so far appeared to have identified him. John’s fears were put to rest though by the acceleration of the Toyota, a surprising kick coming from the old truck as it began ferrying the men along the bridge, towards an activity exciting enough to hopefully put John out of their minds.

  The horde was big, big enough to obstruct the entire bridge, but bunched up enough to mean that some shots might just take out more than one of them, certainly at the start. As the group arrived at the Western guards position, disembarking to the sound of his rifle firing into the crowd not thirty metres away, Donald revved the truck and began speeding back to the other end, hoping to save the one remaining guard the journey he was currently attempting to run.

  “He’ll recognise me!”, John said worriedly as he realised what Donald was doing.

  “What, with that fantastic accent of yours? Who could possibly figure that out?”, Donald said sarcastically. “Don’t worry about it, they’ve got bigger issues, soon as the crossings clear we’ll go”, he said.

  Upon reaching the final guard – who gratefully threw his weapon into the truck-bed before jumping in himself – the sound of weapon fire become much more frequent. The guards at the other end were taking care to make every shot count, but as the still thirty or forty strong horde got closer, time became more and more of the essence. The truck arrived back at their position just in time to see one of the undead drop fr
om a perfect headshot, the smoke still billowing from the M16 that had dealt the deadly blow. From behind the falling body however, came another, this time sprinting directly at the men. It was clearly fresh, probably no more than a few hours old, and was small enough to avoid the few shots the men were able to fire before it reached their ranks.

  Arriving at the line of men – two or three shots pointlessly tearing through its lower body at the last second – it lunged at the larger Western guard. Immediately its teeth began gnawing away at the air separating it from its latest meal, ready to bite into the fleshy neck of its target, just as soon as it stopped struggling to get away. But it was not to be, as the butt of an all American M16 was swung into the side of its head, cracking the temple open and throwing the thing far enough off the body for another of the men to nail it in the head from close range. Instantly blood and bile splattered across the floor, the body it came from making no further attempt to move, and the man on the floor breathing a sigh of relief. There was however no time for resting, and so he got to his feet, and continued to help thin out the now more dwindling horde in front.

  After the sprinter, few more had any notable levels of energy left in them, only two or three making any real attempt to break ranks and attack, each of which were swiftly dealt with by the surprisingly effective shooters. Eventually the horde was gone, its past presence evidenced only by a series of piles scattered along the bridge, limbs and heads sticking out from them at every angle. Happy the bulk of the work was over, the men set about taking care of the last few survivors, the select few that lay on the ground, struggling to move. It was an easy job, a single plunge of the blade each men carried into the head, often ‘double-tapping’ them for good measure.

  “Make sure you get ‘em all”, yelled Gerry, who despite being dissatisfied with nearly losing a man, was at least happy to see that the closely grouped nature of the attack had concentrated most of the clean up to one area of the bridge, save for a few straggling bodies who had fallen early.

  “Let’s get this mess cleared up”, he said, just as the Eastern guard – the one guard with any chance of recognising John – approached him, speaking only a few words into his ear, followed by both men looking over to the Toyota as soon as he had finished. Donald and John, who were still sat in their respective seats at the helm of the truck, could only sit and watch, as Gerry walked over to the Toyota and climbed into the back.

  “Take us back to the hut please Don, need to have a quick word”, he said.

  John suddenly felt his heart begin to pound at a violent and incredibly quickened pace. Had the guard finally recognised him? Had he told the man that now stood in the back of the truck, armed to the teeth? It immediately became all he could think about, and from the look on his companions face, was all Donald could think about too. Aside of course from the consideration of whether or not he could drive so fast and so recklessly that the dangerous man known as Gerry, might fall out.

  But Donald did no such thing, driving instead exactly as instructed over to the centre of the bridge, and watching in his mirror as Gerry disembarked and walked into the small hut, gesturing for his two chauffeurs to follow.

  “Should we just go?”, John asked, looking forwards toward the bridge’s exit that headed the way they had come from, the other side blocked by a sea of bodies and armed men.

  “Let’s just see what he wants, worst case scenario, it’s two on one”, he said smugly, checking in his rear view mirror to make sure Gerry’s men were still busy piling up bodies, before getting out of the truck himself, closely and reluctantly followed by John.

  “Gentlemen”, Gerry proclaimed as they entered the hut, “Please, have a seat”, he said, pointing to the two chairs on their side of the makeshift desk, which was little more than a sheet of plywood atop some disused garden bins.

  Sitting down, the men braced themselves for what was about to happen, whilst Gerry turned and opened a large casket behind him.

  “You two turned up at just the right time it seems”, he said, giving nothing away about what his intentions were, “Almost too perfectly”, he continued.

  “What…what exactly is it that you mean?”, John asked, trying desperately to sustain his ridiculous Texan accent, despite the severity of the situation.

  “Well I’ll get to that, first I have something for both of you”, replied the voice, as Gerry turned to face the men holding two rifles, which he promptly slammed down onto the desk.

  John could see Donald clench his weapon, preparing himself for the events that might be about to unfold. John did the same, ready if needed to follow someone he had met just a few hours ago, into an almost certainly deadly combat.

  “These my friends, are for you”, Gerry said, interrupting John and Donald’s preparations, and stunning them both into still silence, each of them confused as to whether they should scream, shoot, run, or do all of the above.

  “I don’t understand?”, Donald said cautiously, breaking the long silence.

  “Well, you two were invaluable just now in getting us all to the end of the bridge. That horde against us one by one might have taken a few of us down, but you two got us all grouped up together and because of that, we got them all taken care of without injury… just about.” Gerry said.

  John picked up the first of the weapons, a black M4A1 assault rifle with carrying handle, the switch set to fully automatic, and a dot of blood resting on the tip of the barrel. John was fairly certain the droplet – and probably much more of it – had come from the previous owner, whose body was no doubt now floating down the river, but that didn’t exactly put him off the otherwise glorious firearm. After a few seconds though, John’s train of thought was interrupted.

  “I’ll take this one friend”, Donald said as he snatched the gun from John’s hand.

  John glared at him briefly, before remembering that he had of course agreed to forfeit all weapons to Donald eventually anyway. With that in mind, he turned his attention to the second choice.

  It was a much older looking M14, its wood body looking infinitely inferior to the M4’s mostly metallic design, but the scope atop the M14’s upper assembly making for a much more useful weapon where longer range accuracy counted, something that worked well for John.

  “Right then, now we’ve got that matter sorted, let’s get you two on your way”, said Gerry, who had moved to stand behind the pair, before gesturing for the men to head back out of the hut.

  “Sure thing”, Donald said, “Thanks for these”, he added, walking through the open doorway as he did.

  John simply nodded gratuitously as he too followed quickly behind, keen to exit both the cramped quarters of the hut and the entire bridge itself just as quickly as possible.

  Upon re-emerging back into the bright midday sunlight, the progress the guards had made became abruptly apparent. One side of the bridge was already completely clear of bodies, and those still on the other side were being quickly thrown into a growing mountain of the dead, ready to be burnt.

  “Let’s head down”, Gerry ordered, perhaps forgetting for a moment that Donald and John were not in fact his men.

  Nonetheless, they obliged. It was the least they could do for the man who had just given them both some reasonably hard to come by rifles, as well as whatever ammo had been left in their respective magazines.

  “Your guys seem pretty handy”, Donald noted as he climbed into the truck and started the engine.

  “They ain’t so bad, not too quick to the draw sometimes though”, Gerry shouted back from the Toyota’s rear bay, no doubt referring to John and Andrew’s daring crossing the day before.

  “You’re busy here then?”, John interrupted, his Texan accent now somewhat believably refined.

  “Sometimes maybe. We normally get three or four vehicles a day, sometimes a couple hikers by nightfall too”, Gerry replied.

  “How about today?”, John asked, keen to learn the fate of his former companion’s crossing.

  “None today”
, Gerry replied, to John’s disappointment, as the truck pulled up behind the pile of bodies – the other men now throwing on the last few carcasses – followed by Donald silencing the engine.

  After a few moments, the flames began, spreading with remarkable speed from the base of the pile right up to the top. It was the sort of pace that John was certain indicated the use of some kind of accelerant, perhaps even fuel, though he was hopeful that even they wouldn’t be so stupid as to waste something quite that valuable. Spreading quickly, the brightness of the flames and the volume of the cackling growing with every passing second, John almost didn’t notice a new sound just catching the tip of his ear. It was the sort of noise that no fire would make, no matter what was being burnt, and one that sounded much more like the revving of an engine, one that was getting much louder very quickly. John turned just in time to see exactly what he had expected to see, albeit a little later in the day than he had anticipated. It was the fast approaching mass of a Ford F150 storming its way across the bridge’s half way point, travelling at such speed that it took just a few seconds to come up alongside the group, all of whom still knew nothing of its presence, aside from John of course.

  As it passed by them all, John saw clear as day, that same terrified but excited face that Andrew had pulled the day before. His eyes were so fixed on the road ahead that John doubted he’d even noticed the parked Toyota, let alone his former companion sat in the passenger seat, right next to the maniac who had earlier tried to slice his throat open.

  Just like that, Andrew was gone once again, and only after the truck’s huge wheels had left the last piece of bridge in its dust, did any of the guards manage to raise their weapons at the rear of the Ford, each coming to the quick realisation that at this point, any shot, no matter how well aimed, would be nothing more than a wasted bullet.

  “God damn it! How did nobody see that!?”, Gerry roared.

  “Boss, we all came down for the horde, I was gonna’ get back into position after we burnt ‘em”, the Eastern guard reasoned.