They’re no more than puppets. But who is the puppeteer? And where is he?
“Go for head shots, lads,” Banks said. “And short, concentrated bursts. I only brought that fucker down last time by putting the barrel right up against his head. So wait until they’re close enough that you’re sure of a target, then hit them hard. We’ve got your back, so duck out the way if you get in trouble. Plugs in – this is going to get noisy.”
Banks pushed his own earplugs all the way in, and just had time to note that they also served to lessen the vibration rising from the saucer. He hadn’t really noticed it until there was an absence of it, but suddenly his thought processes felt sharp again, less clouded by the dance of the darkness and stars. He pushed the thought away, something to be considered later, if there was a later.
The dead Germans moved up to within ten yards of the barricaded doorway. Banks had a good long look at the oberstleutnant. His eye, and the chunk of flesh around his ear, had apparently regenerated, and there was no sign of any damage to his uniform, although Banks clearly remembered the black hole in his jacket, the hole he had put there himself. Not only did these fuckers come back from the dead, their clothes came back too, repaired as good as new.
I think we’re in trouble.
“Fire at will,” he shouted, and the crack of gunfire echoed loudly around the hangar.
*
Banks’ squad picked their targets well, each taking the dead man directly in front of them. Banks counted sixteen of the dead, in four ranks of four. The first rank ate up bullets as the four men fired volley after volley, the icy dead still walking forward at the same steady pace.
Five yards now. They’d be at the barricade in seconds. The oberst looked Banks in the eye. His mouth, gray lips little more than a fish-like slit, never moved but Banks had a distinct impression that the bugger was smiling.
“The officer. Put the fucking officer down,” he shouted. “You saw how they stopped the last time.”
Hynd and Parker both moved their aim at the same time and concentrated on the officer. Banks and Patel stepped forward to aim between them at the men’s original targets.
Six rounds hit the oberstleutnant in the face in less than a second, and this time the tall figure teetered, like a tree about to fall. Banks swung his own weapon round and added his effort to the rest.
Four yards now, soon to be within grabbing distance.
Nine rounds hit the German officer in the head, and this time he did fall, going down with a solid thud that sent a vibration through the floor. Banks felt it thrum in the soles of his feet even through his boots.
The other attackers stopped in their tracks, as if their driving force had been unplugged.
We got the fucking puppetmaster.
“Put them down. Put all these fuckers down,” Banks shouted.
The corridor became a shooting gallery. Banks was dismayed at how much of their ammo they had to expend just to put one of the things to the ground, and all of the squad had to step back to reload at least once before he was able to call a cease-fire.
Thin smoke hung above them, and his weapon was hot in his hands. Spent shells lay all around and despite the protection of the plugs, his ears rang with slowly fading echoes – he knew it would be many minutes before his hearing would be anything approaching normal.
The sixteen bodies lay in a heap in the corridor, and although Banks stood there for long minutes watching, none of them moved. The tall officer lay, partially pinned, beneath two civilians, and it was him that Banks watched most particularly, ready to fire again at the slightest provocation. But there was no sound, no movement.
Behind him he heard, as if in the distance, Parker and Wiggins loudly congratulating each other on a job done, but Banks wasn’t ready yet to join in any celebration. He’d put the German officer down before, put a hole in the dead man’s chest, taken out an eye, and still hadn’t slowed him much.
Just because the oberstleutnant had been put down again didn’t mean this was over, not by a long way.
*
Once he was sure the dead were really down this time, he let the men break off for a smoke while he and Hynd stood at the barricade, looking back along the corridor. He felt heat come in waves at his back from the saucer, but kept his gaze forward as the sergeant spoke.
“How long until the relief team get here, Cap?”
The man’s voice echoed as if coming up from out of a deep well, but Banks understood him well enough.
“Too fucking long,” he replied. He only half paid attention – he was considering going over the barricade and pounding the oberstleutnant’s head with his rifle butt until there was nothing left but slush. The trouble was, he still wasn’t sure that would be enough to keep the dead man down. Somehow, this was all due to that fucking saucer.
I turned it on. Now I wish I knew how to turn the bloody thing off.
He forced his attention back to the sarge.
“We have to stand,” he said. “I can’t think what else we can do – unless you’ve got any bright ideas?”
“I suppose flying yon thing out of here isn’t an option?” Hynd said, jerking his thumb at the saucer.
“Don’t even think of it,” Banks replied, thinking again of the dark and the seductive dance in the stars. “I’m getting no closer to that fucker than I need to. None of us should.”
Hynd was about to reply when they heard a metallic clang, far off, away down the corridor and coming from the living quarters beyond.
“I counted sixteen here,” Hynd said quietly.
“Aye, me too. We both know there were more than that the first time we came in. And we don’t ken how many more in total.”
Hynd echoed Bank’s earlier thought back at him.
“This isn’t over, is it, Cap?”
Banks didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
Another clang echoed through the base.
*
He stayed at the barricade for ten more minutes, watching the corridor. None of the bodies on the ground moved, and it didn’t look like they were going to. They melted, having encroached into the zone of heat being washed through the hangar by the gold circles on the floor. A trickle of dirty fluid ran away down the corridor toward the living quarters from underneath the pile of dead. Within the space of only two or three minutes, the bodies were little more than rounded boulders of ice, nothing left of the men they had been. Even more disconcerting, if that were possible, every part of them melted down, bone and hair, skin and muscle – including their clothing, everything impossibly turned to dirty water. A stream ran, snaking, away down the corridor into the darkness, as if fleeing from the heat and light coming from the hangar.
Hynd arrived at Banks’ side and looked over the barricade. He stood there watching the melting bodies, silent, for a long time before turning around.
“Maybe we shouldn’t tell the lads about this, Cap,” he said quietly. “They’re all good men and are keeping it together, but this shite is nae doin’ their nerves much good.”
“Mine neither,” Banks replied. “But at least these icy fuckers have buggered off for now.”
“But for how long?”
That was another question for which Banks didn’t have an answer.
Another thought struck him, and he turned quickly to where they’d left Hughes’ body against the wall. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or not to see that the corpse was still sitting in the same position where they’d left him and hadn’t melted away like the others.
But that’s not to say it still might happen.
“See if you can find something to wrap Hughes in,” he said to Hynd. “We’ll be taking him with us when we go.”
“We’re going?”
It wasn’t until the sergeant asked that Banks realized he had made his mind up some time ago.
“I think that’s the best idea,” he replied. “Yon saucer creeps me out about as much as those fucking ice zombies. I’d rather take our chances outsid
e in the hut.”
“I think the lads will agree with you there, Cap,” Hynd said, and left Banks to go to talk to the men.
Banks turned back to the barricade, pulled on his night vision, and tried to see into the darkness at the far end of the tunnel, but all he saw was the stream of dirty water running away into the black.
- 10 -
The squad knocked up a makeshift stretcher from the top of one of the tables that made up the barricade, then McCally and Hynd dragged the remaining tables aside to clear the doorway. The wood screeched loudly on the floor as they moved it, the noise echoing away down the corridor. Banks called for quiet, and they stood, listening, but there was no response, although Banks remembered only too well the metallic clangs they’d heard earlier. He didn’t expect this to go easily.
“We do this fast, or we don’t do it at all,” Banks said. “Down the corridor, then up the stairwell, out the door and down to the hut. Anything gets in our way, we take it out hard. Are we all clear on that?”
Wiggins, Parker, Patel, and Wilkes each had a corner of the table with Hughes’ body on it. Before getting ready to move out, all of the men had taken a look at what was now only a smear of slushy water on the corridor floor, but no one had spoken of it, and Banks wasn’t about to be the first to broach the subject.
He let McCally and Hynd take point, and he held back, letting the four stretcher-bearers pass him so that he could bring up the rear. He took a final look at the saucer as he left. It still did nothing but sit and hover, vibrating slightly just off the floor, but he felt its call, heard the stars sing in the blackness inside it, and yet again he had to fight the impulse to give himself over to its pleasures. It took all of his strength to turn his back on the golden glow and follow the squad down the corridor.
*
The first thing Banks noticed was how far the heat and light now penetrated. He didn’t have to do up his jacket or pull down the night-vision goggles until they were halfway along the tunnel corridor.
Despite the clearer vision, they were making slower progress than he’d hoped, for the floor felt slippery underfoot now where the water had run and frozen again. They’d have gone faster without having to bring Hughes’ body with them, but they didn’t leave men behind.
And especially not when there’s a chance of them getting up and walking around.
Wiggins almost lost his footing, and Banks had to move up next to the makeshift stretcher to steady it. Hughes’ eyes had opened again, and the dead man stared at him, accusing.
I’ll get you home, lad. It’s all I can do for you now.
Hynd and McCally reached the double door at the end of the corridor first, but didn’t open it until the whole squad had come together. Banks squeezed passed the stretcher-bearers to join the other two at the doors.
“Remember, we do this fast,” Banks said in a low voice. “Through, up the stairs and away to the hut, slicker than shite off a shovel. We stop for nothing.”
He opened the double door.
They wouldn’t be going anywhere in a hurry. Ranks of the frozen dead stood immediately outside the doorway, completely blocking their path to the main stairwell upward. At the lead of them stood the tall oberst, once again clad in full uniform, peaked hat firmly on his head, the jacket immaculate and free from any bullet holes, the Swastika showing sharp and clear on his armband. The German looked up as the door opened, stared straight at Banks with two milk-white eyes, raised his left hand, and pointed over Banks’ shoulder, back along the corridor toward the hangar. At the same time, he took a step forward. The ranks of the dead, four wide and at least eight rows of them that Banks could see, came forward in step, like clockwork dolls that had just been set in motion.
*
“How many times do we need to put this fucker down?” Wiggins said at Banks’ back.
“Third time’s the charm,” Banks said, but didn’t give the order to fire. He’d seen how much ammo they’d needed at the last attack; they didn’t have the firepower to force their way past the ranks ahead. He had a longing look at the stairwell, their path to freedom, but there were too many of the dead between the doorway and the stairs. They might make it, they might not, but he’d probably lose men in the process. Having come this far, he was loath to give up their position, but he knew he had little choice; Hughes dead eyes still accused him; he wasn’t ready to lose another squad member.
“Back up,” he said as the Germans came forward at the same slow pace as previously. “Back to the hangar. If we can’t shoot them all, at least the heat will get them.”
They backed away, once again slowed by the stretcher-bearers and being wary of the ice on the floor. The dead came through the doorway four abreast after them.
Banks, McCally, and Hynd put themselves between the attack and the men carrying Hughes’ body, and for a while they managed to maintain an even distance to the tall German officer as they went back up the corridor, but calamity struck near the halfway point.
Somebody slipped. Banks didn’t see who it was, he only heard the clatter and thud, then an echoing crack as the bed of the table on which Hughes’ body was lying split. In the time it took Wilkes and Patel to heft the dead body between then and get moving again, the oberst had stepped up almost face to face with the rearmost men of the squad.
Banks stared into the dead-white eyes, and felt the icy cold wash off the officer as the German raised his left hand again and pointed up the corridor toward the hangar.
“The answer is still no,” Banks said. “So why don’t you fuck off back to wherever you came from.”
The oberst took another step forward.
Banks put three quick rounds into its face, then turned away.
“Leg it,” he shouted. “Back to the door, and fast. Let’s see if we can hold them off long enough for the heat to stop them.”
*
They slipped and slid their way at a flat run all the way back up the corridor, arriving at the hangar doorway just in time for Wilkes and Patel to dump Hughes body unceremoniously by the side. Then it was a frantic few seconds while they arranged a new barricade, although this one was nowhere near as sturdy as their earlier attempt and was only waist rather than neck high. By the time they got it in place, the approaching dead were less than ten paces away.
“At least it’s fucking warmer up here,” Wiggins said. That was an understatement; the temperature in the hangar appeared to have risen even more during their short absence, forcing the squad to unzip their outer jackets. Parker started to shuck his off.
“No,” Banks said loudly. “Stay ready for cold-weather action. We don’t know when this is all going to go sideways on us.”
Wiggins laughed at that.
“We’re pretty much as far off to left-field as we can get, don’t you think, Cap?”
“I wouldn’t bet my house on that, lad,” Hynd replied.
“I wouldn’t bet your house on it either, Sarge,” McCally said, then there was no time for talk.
The dead kept coming forward, but now Banks saw that they were already melting, with icy slush, like semi-solid sweat, leaching off their bodies and clothes as they approached the hangar doorway.
“We only need to hold until the heat gets them,” he said. “Remember, short controlled bursts, head shots only. Take that officer down first, all of us at once. On my signal.”
McCally, Wiggins, Patel, and Wilkes knelt on the ground and aimed over the top of the edge of the barricade while Banks joined Hynd and Parker in standing just behind them.
The oberstleutnant was still in the front rank of the oncoming dead. Banks saw that his most recent shots had taken out the left eye and blown off part of the cheek below it, but once again, he hadn’t done any damage of any substance. The tall officer raised his left arm to point again.
“Enough of this fucking shite,” Wiggins said, and Banks tended to agree.
“Fire,” he shouted.
*
The concentrated volley at close range bl
ew the oberstleutnant’s face and most of the front of his head away, spraying ice fragments all through the tunnel. The body swayed, its left arm still pointing into the hangar, then finally toppled. When it hit the ground, the German officer shattered into fragments, slushy ice skittering across the floor.
“We got the fucker,” Wiggins shouted in triumph, but this time the ranks of the dead did not stop when the leader fell. They kept coming forward at the same steady pace.
Whatever is in charge of all of this bollocks is learning.
“Fire at will!” Banks shouted.
The squad didn’t need any other urging. Fragments of ice flew, shots cracked in a seemingly endless roar and every few seconds another of the frozen men toppled to smash on the floor as little more than rapidly melting, slushy ice. The heat was taking its toll on the attack almost as much as their weaponry. But still they kept coming, their sheer weight of numbers forcing them inch by slow inch closer to the barricade.
Wilkes and Parker both had to reload at the same time. The momentary weakness in the field of fire gave the iced dead an opportunity to shuffle six more inches onward, although three more of their number crashed to fragments almost at the same time. The floor of the corridor immediately ahead of the barricade was now awash with icy slush and dirty water. Thin smoke hung just below the roof of the tunnel, almost obscuring the ceiling completely and making it appear that the frozen dead were lurching forward through an autumnal fog, a scene straight out of a gothic horror.
Operation Antarctica Page 8
