But I was the damsel in distress here, and Claire was the one doing the rescuing. She didn’t need any help. The ghoul glanced over its shoulder as it neared the far wall, and that was all the invitation Claire needed.
She struck out for a knee, hooking the shovel around and taking a step backwards, her body weight pulling the ghoul off her feet. Before she could recover, Claire jumped to put a foot on the ghoul’s chest, and drove the shovel towards her neck. She put her other foot down on top of the blade, and with a roar of determination, pushed through flesh and bone.
The head came clear off the body, and rolled into an empty stall. The horses calmed down almost instantly, stopping their kicking and merely tossing their manes about, uncomfortable, but no longer terrified.
‘Shit,’ I said, shaking, not sure if it was from the sprain or the adrenaline, ‘remind me never to get on your bad side.’
Claire smirked for a moment, but it quickly faded.
‘You grab those blankets, I just need to throw up real quick.’
Thirty Four
I grabbed the blankets while Claire went into a vacant stall and emptied herself. Anyone still on fire might be beyond the point of saving, though in truth I wasn’t sure how long it’d been since the firebombs struck, our little altercation could have been minutes or seconds. Still wiping her mouth, Claire was careful not to look at the dead horse or the headless corpse as we made for the door.
We left the stables cautiously, thinking about the second ghoul who might have been waiting in ambush. With a blanket each over our shoulders, Claire with her extendable baton and me with the shovel, largely useless in one hand. We were going to cover each other’s backs, but then the sound of a shotgun split the night, quickly followed by a short burst of automatic gunfire.
Even more cautiously, we opened the door and looked out. Two SySec soldiers were standing back to back, casting flashlight beams about the courtyard from under their weapons.
‘It’s clear!’ one shouted.
We left the cover of the stables, rushing over to check the body they were standing by was our other ghoul.
‘Thank Gods for that,’ Claire said, giving him a kick.
‘We heard shouting. What happened? Quickly.’ The taller solider asked. I recognised him from the shed last night.
‘Two ghouls in the barn, I think they were going to kill all the horses. They only got one, we stumbled in and interrupted. Claire took that one out, you seem to have got the other.’
‘Definitely just two of them?’ he asked.
‘We only saw two. Maybe more got onto the property however they did.’ I said. ‘What’s the situation with the fire?’
‘Flash fire, burned out mostly but there are plenty of wounded. Side gate is fubar, and our secondary straw wall is gone. Don’t know about the forward one, with Mr Grant’s truck.’
‘Any sign of the enemy?’ I asked.
‘Massing in the lanes, but they aren’t attacking yet. Captain thinks they’re waiting for stragglers to catch up.’
‘That doesn’t bode well. Where do you need us?’ Claire asked.
‘Burns unit, in the house. We’ll make a sweep here, stay safe.’ The soldier signed off with a nod.
We rushed back the way we’d come, avoiding the stables and passing along the outside instead, better to avoid the scene within.
There was still a pair of soldiers manning the main gate’s watchtower, and a militiaman outside the lodge. As we rounded the corner of the stable block, we saw Sergeant Bailey and Captain Hale were standing well back from the flames that still rose from the bales they’d been using to construct the stumbling wall.
‘Going to have to use the last resort…’ I heard him say.
Despite how ominous that sounded, I trusted his judgement. We’d been doing well so far. I left the professionals to their strategy meeting, and got on with my job.
The infirmary, and thus, Rob Grant’s ground floor, smelled like gasoline, smoke and burned hair. We were only moments behind the arrival of the bulk of patients, and as we bustled in, trying to make ourselves useful, more came in behind us.
First degree burns didn’t make it past triage. Those three had been lucky, standing far enough back to have only been caught by a little splash that they’d put out themselves. It was mostly facial damage, it might leave some scarring, but they hadn’t burned their eyes so they weren’t a priority.
Second degree burns made up the majority of cases, and I briskly worked my way through them, working with a couple of junior doctors and the lone orderly who’d made it out of the A&E escape with us. With my wrist all fucked up – and also of least priority in triage right now – the orderly helped me gently cool off the patients with wet tea towels, apply creams and ointments, then wrap the injuries in cling film. Some needed non-stick dressings and another I had to refer up to Claire.
Third degree burns are the worst, and we left the more senior doctors to those. They cut right down deep, to the point your nerve endings are burned away and you don’t know how much trouble you’re in. Without an emergency room and hospital facilities, the unfortunate pair undergoing debridement – the removal of burned, dead tissue – were probably going to die.
Gavin came in with one such patient draped over his shoulder. From the green overalls and high vis-strips, I knew it was another paramedic. Despite the ambulances we’d driven here in, we’d only ever had the two paramedics in our merry band.
‘Tucker, can you hear me?’ I heard Claire asking.
I tried to put it out of my mind, focusing on the job, but I didn’t like what little I’d glimpsed of his skin. They wouldn’t be able to peel off his clothes without taking it with them. Fuck.
My referral case might pull through, but he’d probably lose his hand. They got him hooked up to an electrolyte IV and set about cleaning and bandaging the charred appendage, but he could barely feel it, and that was a bad sign.
I lost track of time while we worked, concentrating on the tasks as they came up, one patient after the other, one step after the next, procedure, routine and muscle memory carrying me through without thinking too much about how that ghoul was about to disembowel me, or how I could damn near taste the snap of bone as Claire decapitated it with a shovel.
My wrist was a constant distraction, but once the pressing concerns were out of the way, McGann helped me pop some paracetamol and ibuprofen out of the foil, and fetched me a glass of water. I was already icing it and had a wrist brace ready to go, so there really wasn’t much else to be done. If we were at County I’d be seeing if I could get an x-ray to confirm it wasn’t fractured, but that’d have to wait until someone could do a tender and oh-so painful fingertip examination.
Engines started up outside as I was strapping into my brace, and the kitchen was filled with headlights for a moment as vehicles were moved from their parking spaces.
Gunfire began to sound as well, first in loose ones and twos, then pretty soon growing to chattering bursts that filled the night. Between the noise and the burns, you’d almost think we were in the backstage area of a fireworks display.
As I thought that, I looked across to where Tucker’s still form lay on the floor to one side of the snug. They’d brought a sheet to cover him with. There hadn’t been a dramatic moment where they pulled it over his face.
He’d been dead before Gavin even brought him in. He sat at the kitchen island, back to the counter, facing the rest of the room. He wouldn’t be able to see Tucker in the infirmary from there, but the way his eyes had glazed over…
Upstairs, riflemen in the bedrooms opened up to add their guns to the noise, sniping down into the lane to thin the zombie horde before they reached the others. I could see them now, squeezing down the side of Rob’s truck, soldiers and cops backing up and firing as they were forced to give ground.
Our patients re-joined the fight if they could stand, taking up weapons once again and going into the night. The surgical team were at work on the worst burn victims,
so Claire, myself and the other medics met in the kitchen to prepare ourselves.
‘It’s our duty to ensure the welfare of our patients,’ Claire said, addressing the seven or eight remaining medics, Gavin present but not really here, ‘this isn’t how we’d usually go about it, but nevertheless, we have a duty of care. It might be walking around on two legs, but that’s a virus out there. A sickness. This is what we do, people.’
‘We cannot knowingly take action that will endanger those in our care,’ McGann said, ‘the question is…if we go out there, are we endangering them because we may be needed to treat the wounded afterwards? Or by going out to help, will we prevent more people from becoming wounded?’
‘Prevention is more effective than treatment,’ I said, feeling a stupid grin creeping across my face. ‘Vaccinate your kids, people.’
That drew a grim little chuckle from the motley crew of scrubs and dirty white coats. After that was over, there came a round of hand shaking and back patting, each of us exchanging a nod and something along the lines of ‘It’s been hell working with you.’
Claire and I shared a brief, tight hug.
‘Whatever happens next, it was nice seeing you again.’ She said.
‘You too.’ I said, flashing her a tight smile. ‘It was nice to clear the air. And hey, you saved me from being immolated, and eaten alive. In the space of like, five minutes. I think I can forgive you kidnapping me now.’
‘Aww, thanks!’
I let her leave first, taking one last moment to steel myself. When I left the doorway, Emile bumped into me.
‘Ah, I have been looking for you.’ He said.
‘What do you need?’
‘I need to apologise. Lo siento. Should have given you this sooner, but in my defence, I needed it when I left my shotgun with James.’
Emile had unclipped his pistol holster from his belt, and held it out for me.
‘You’re finally giving me a gun?’ I asked, eyebrow raised. Despite that, I snatched it off him and began fumbling it onto my belt. ‘What’s the catch?’
‘Bullets.’ Emile sighed. ‘There are not many. Take it out, now press here, eject the magazine.’
For some reason, I was expecting it to feel cold to the touch, but it was warmer than I expected, heavier too. I did as he instructed, pressing a small button between the trigger and the grip. The clip slid free, and holding it sideways I could see there were only three bullets left.
‘This isn’t going to be much good in a fight.’
‘No, but…if the worst should happen. It will prevent certain, shall we say, fates worse than death?’
‘One for me, one for you, one for Claire.’ I said, sliding the mag back in. ‘Bit of a shitty thing. You can’t expect me to pull the trigger on all three of us like that…’
I didn’t really think that’s what Emile expected of me, but I didn’t know what to think right then. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull the trigger on myself, let alone anyone I cared about.
‘No, I won’t be near you in the fight. I will be at the front with the rest of the fire teams, you go near the back. Those are just for you and Claire. Think of the third bullet as…spare.’
‘For what, in case I can’t shoot myself right the first time? I know I’ve never fired a gun or anything, but I’m not sure you can suck that badly.’
‘You would be surprised.’ He said, clapping me on the shoulder. ‘Good luck out there.’
‘Buenaventura.’ I wished him back.
Hale had repositioned the busses he’d picked up in Overbridge to form new barricades. One between the corner of the stable block and the house, and another across the stables courtyard. He’d had to move the sedan as well, and between the vehicles they formed a reassuring wall of steel.
It was the gaps between the cars that were not so reassuring.
As they’d done several times now, SySec, GFPD and the Beauchief Militia led an orderly retreat away from the lanes, falling back in stages to allow clear lines of fire, fresh trigger fingers and not a man left behind.
Jevaun and the farmhands had fetched the rest of the horses from the stables, got them away from the smell of death and tethered them up at the side of the lodge. The experienced equestrians had managed to get them to lie down, stopping their clomping and whinnying.
The crowd was growing now behind the busses, just as the one on the other side was. While we waited, our motley assortment of farm tools in hand, hiding behind our vehicles and our best shooters, the zombies poured in from the lane.
It’d have been more dramatic to glimpse them through the last traces of smoke from the burning bales, but someone – Hale no doubt – had made sure our marksmen had the best possible shots, nothing to obscure their vision. That’s why we had more guns up in the rooms that overlooked the front and side of the house.
Once everyone was behind the busses, Hale, Bailey and Emile began shouting for various shooters to change positions. Get inside the busses. Open windows a crack, be ready to fire through. Damn I wished I had more bullets. And knew how to fire this fucking thing. My wrist was killing me, so there was no way my shovel was coming into play. I swapped it with someone standing nearby, taking a hammer instead.
It wasn’t exactly cramped in the waiting mob that formed our defence, but I did feel packed in, waiting for the end with my new weapon in hand. It wasn’t physically claustrophobic, but in my head, I’d been forced down a tunnel of decisions and actions, all of them leading to me standing right here, with no options left but to fight to the death, or take myself out early.
This was the last place in the world I wanted to be, so far from my comfortable home, the one with the creaky banister, the one with my friends and my bike and my scented candles. So far from my other home too, the one with the skyline view, the fridge that always had a beer for me, and the man that I loved.
‘Come on, keep it together.’ I told myself.
Hale didn’t pontificate this time. There was no speech. There was no time. People were in position, and the enemy were closing in, that slow staggering walk, that long low moan, drawing ever closer.
Was he going to wait until he saw the grey of their eyes?
‘Open fire!’
The air split with gunfire, the noise was deafening, as all-consuming as the sirens had been on our push down the motorway, only there was no getting used to this. There was little rhythm to it, not on such a large scale. The booming blasts of shotguns cut through the small pops of pistols and chattering zips of automatic fire, the rising crack of rifles above it all. It was an orchestra of violence with Captain Hale as the conductor.
Strong arms with pitchforks stepped forwards as the zombies finally closed, despite the ever present pushback of the guns, there were always more bodies where they came from. Dave in his riot armour stood with a grim faced Gavin at either side of the sedan, shooters standing between, firing over the top.
When the zombies tried to pass down the gap, they thrust forward with their forks, sinking them deep into the upper bodies of the first zeds through, shoving them back into those behind. It’d have been a fruitless, losing battle if they weren’t immediately backed up.
More long weapons came from the sides as Dave and Gavin held their charges in place, a group of civilians weighing in with picks and axes, swinging down on the next ones in line, clogging the gaps between vehicles with lifeless bodies.
Emile was kneeling in the driver’s seat of one of the busses, window open, and his shotgun blasting away. When he ran out of shells, he closed the window and began to reload, but when he was finished, didn’t open the window again. Was he saving something for surprises? Or did he think he’d need more than one shell to blow his own head off?
The gunfire was petering out all around us now. I saw a few shooters at the front swap fresh magazines into their pistols, but they didn’t fire. Something was afoot.
Claire appeared at my arm, and squeezed my shoulder.
‘Think we’re going to make
it?’
It was hard to say. We were holding them off, but how long could that last for? And why was nobody firing anymore? I told her as much, but she didn’t respond, eyes on the fighting.
The zeds were pressed deep against the vehicles now, deep enough for them to begin rocking them on their tires. They were damn big for minibuses, they probably weren’t going to topple over, but the sedan might be a different story, the weight of the dead might shove it sideways and into our unruly mob.
‘Think we’ve waited long enough, sir?’ I heard Bailey shouting to Hale. ‘Sentry says no more in the lane! They’re all here!’
Hale cast one last look over the assembled horde.
‘Let them have it!’ He commanded, setting his back straight, as his mouth cracked into the barest of smiles.
Sergeant Bailey pulled a bright orange flare gun out of her shoulder holster, and let it rip skywards. Like a firework, it fizzed into the sky and burst with a bright red glow, though without quite such a loud bang.
All that I could hear after the flare were the moaning of the zeds as everyone waited to see what the hell was going on. I looked around, searching for some clue, and saw Jevaun and the farmhands unfolding tarps, covering the horses. The kid caught my eye, and winked before disappearing underneath one himself.
‘What’s he doing?’ I asked Claire, pointing back to Jevaun.
Similar questions were rippling through the crowd, those that had the luxury of not being at the front, engaged in a life or death struggle with the zombies who were now, for some unknown reason, not being shot at.
Then I heard it, the rumbling of some great diesel engine. Something powerful. Something monstrous. Something that I hoped was on our side.
Floodlights burst into life behind the zombies as the front of a terrifying machine lumbered out of Rob’s second barn, agricultural nightmares unfolding at the front end, transforming into a broad line of metal horrors that began to whip and whirr as the harvester struck out towards the back of the horde.
The Suburban Dead (Book 2): Emergency Page 32
