by Frank Tayell
Chester was slow to keep up, and had barely raised his pistol before Tuck reached the gates. She pointed at the wrought-iron ring next to an equally archaic keyhole. Lifting the ring did nothing, but turning it did. He could feel the mechanism grind, the bar lift. He pulled the door open, and Tuck was already moving inside. He was two steps behind. As he looked for the enemy, he caught a snapshot of the space, and it was a lot bigger than he’d expected, extending far behind the road. Picnic tables were stacked one on top of the other, with other furniture piled around them to make space for the snowplough.
Then he saw the enemy. A man, clattering onto a stack of pallets, blood spreading from the trio of bullet holes Tuck had planted in his chest. But they’d heard two voices, which meant two enemies. Chester was already pivoting, looking for the second shooter. He saw her, a woman with a shotgun in her hands. He was still bringing his gun to bear as Tuck fired. The woman collapsed. Chester relaxed, and did so too soon. A hand in his back pushed him forward as Nilda fired a burst at the front of the snowplough.
Tuck ran forward, but no more shots came from the front of the vehicle, and when she reached the front, her posture changed, though she didn’t entirely relax until she’d swept every inch of the small compound.
“Three people, but only two talking,” Chester said. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” Nilda said. “A snowplough? Isn’t that what we’re missing from Calais?”
“We’re missing more than one of them, though,” Chester said.
“We’re clear,” Tuck signed.
Nilda climbed up the heavy steps outside the cab. “Two rows of seats,” she said. “Room for three in the back, three in the front. Just about.”
She checked the grit-hopper behind. “It’s empty.”
“Search them, quick,” Tuck signed before heading back to the main gate.
Chester checked their arms first. Two had tattoos: the woman and the man who’d been near the front of the cab. The woman’s appeared old with a pattern of barbed wire wrapped around the branch. The man’s tattoo was newer, and similar in style to the gangster in the apartment. Here, though, the artist had done a better job. It wasn’t a dusty circle behind the three-leafed branch, but a mushroom cloud.
“Anything?” Nilda asked, finishing her search of the cab.
“The woman’s an old hand,” Chester said. “Got her tattoo in prison. That bloke, he’s a post-outbreak recruit. The other man’s got no tattoo. All in their twenties to thirties, all undernourished, but not starving. Looted clothing, looted gear. Not much ammo between them. You?”
“I found this,” Nilda said, holding up a walkie-talkie. “So, what do you reckon, they got out of Calais and came here hoping to steal the ship?”
“They don’t look like sailors,” Chester said. He picked up one of the bags he’d just searched, emptied it on the ground, kicked the contents aside to make sure he wasn’t leaving anything valuable, then began collecting the ammo. “The shotguns are all of the same type. Military, I suppose. Maybe police. Seems in good nick.” He tested the strap, then slung the weapon over his shoulder.
Tuck waved them over. “We got this wrong,” she signed.
“Got what wrong?” Nilda asked.
As the soldier began signing an answer, the walkie-talkie squawked. The words coming out of it were French, and met by blank expressions from Nilda and Chester.
“Don’t press the yellow button,” Tuck signed. She took the walkie-talkie from Nilda.
The voice came again. Again, it was met with blank stares.
Tuck flipped a switch and handed it to Nilda. “What did they say?” she signed.
“It’s in French,” Nilda said. “Not a clue.”
Tuck shrugged. “We underestimated them,” she signed. “Leon said that they left Calais heading in two directions, each column having at least one tank, at least one plough.”
“That plough?” Chester said. “You mean there’s a tank here, too?”
“At least one,” Tuck signed. “Those tanks and ploughs weren’t in Calais while Fielding was there, yes? They were kept somewhere else. Cavalie arrived in them, yes? She took them to Calais. Wherever they came from, whichever military base, there could be more tanks. And that is what these people are waiting on. Or they were.”
“Reinforcements,” Nilda said. “But why? Tanks are terrifying, but we can just sail away.”
“They can sink us,” Tuck signed. “These aren’t criminals. They aren’t gangsters. Call them soldiers if you want, though they were poorly cast from a broken mould. They are the enemy, and this is war. Kill them now, or kill them later, we have to kill them because they want to kill us.”
“What do we do?” Nilda asked.
But it was already too late.
The sky rumbled. The ground shook. A plume of smoke erupted to the west.
“The tank,” Tuck signed. “Without the spotters in the apartment, it’s firing blind. These people were their relief. The back-up. Here to attack anyone we sent to take out the tank.”
Another shell erupted on the shore-side. The tank was firing blind, but it only needed to get lucky once.
“How many shells does a tank carry?” Nilda asked.
“A Leclerc? Forty,” Tuck signed.
“Then we’ve run out of time,” Nilda said. “Give me those grenades.”
“What grenades?” Chester asked.
“No,” Tuck signed. “Go to the ship. Tell them to depart. Leave a small boat off Ostend. I’ll be there before dusk, or I won’t be at all.”
“I missed that,” Chester said. “What grenades?”
“Go back to the ship, Chester,” Nilda said. “Tuck and I will take care of the tank.”
“How?” Chester asked. “And no, you’re not.”
Another shell rocked the town.
“One of us has to go back to the shore,” Nilda said.
“And it’ll be you,” Chester said.
“You’d have to carry me, and that would defeat the purpose,” Nilda said.
Tuck bent down, and plucked two withered strands of wilting grass. She folded both into her palm so they appeared the same length. She held her hand out to Nilda.
“You want me to pick?” Nilda said. “Fine.” She did.
“Short straw,” Tuck signed, letting the other fall to the ground. “Go. Chester and I have this.”
Nilda growled, but nodded, and sprinted off, down the street, towards the shore. And it was only as she ran did Chester realise she would have to run through the area the tank was now shelling.
“Let’s get this done,” Chester said. “And how are we getting it done?”
“Find the tank,” Tuck signed as she walked along the road away from the garage. “Grenades,” she added, tapping her bag.
“Where did you get grenades from?”
“Calais.”
“And they’ll work against a tank?” he asked.
“We distract the tank. Get it to shoot at us, not at the ship. Any other questions?”
A shell erupted far closer to them than the harbour.
“Nope.”
She began running along the road. He followed, and it was obviously the right route. A channel of pushed-aside detritus and mud showed where the plough had driven. Had it really been left there to reinforce the spotters in the apartment? Something about that didn’t add up. The shells were coming a few minutes apart. Without the spotters, it was firing blind. It, or they? More than one tank had escaped Calais, and Tuck was right, those tanks had come from somewhere else. Where? That it would be France, not Belgium, was little comfort.
Tuck grabbed his arm, and pulled him across the road, to the lee of a rusting car. He’d already seen the zombie, and reached for his mace.
Tuck grabbed his arm again, shaking her head. “No. Leave it.”
“It’s ahead of us,” he said.
She shook her head. “It’s heading toward the tank. Let it go.”
“But we’ve got to get to the
tank ourselves,” he said.
Again, she shook her head, and he wasn’t sure if she was disagreeing, or if she simply couldn’t read his lips. “Sniper,” she signed.
He frowned, uncertain he understood.
“There’s a sniper in the water tower,” she signed. “There to relay the radio messages between the spotters and the tank.”
He only caught half the words, and even less of the meaning, until she pointed beyond the car and up at the water tower dominating the skyline.
“The water tower?” he asked.
She undid her bag and pulled out three grenades, and thrust them into his hands. “Here. You deal with the tank. I’ll take out the sniper.”
“A grenade will take out a tank?” Chester asked, taking the fragmentation devices from her.
“Distract the tank,” she signed. “Watch for the machine guns.”
“Machine guns?”
“Three. If it’s a Leclerc.”
“Three machine guns, right.”
“Throw. Run. Hide. Throw. Run. Hide,” she signed, mouthing the words. “Don’t attack. Distract. Leave the rest to me.”
He put the grenades into the bag with the shotgun shells he’d taken from the dead gangsters by the plough. The scepticism on his face must have been clear.
“We have to protect the future,” Tuck signed. “The children. All of them. You understand that. You know that. Without them, there is no future. And without a future, then none of what we’ve done matters. Our friends died in vain. The pain has been for no reason. The suffering without purpose. There has to be a future. It’s the only way any of this makes sense. Understand?”
“I missed most of that, sorry,” Chester said.
“Go. Through there. Watch for zombies. Good luck.” She picked up her gun, and ran to the left, and to a row of trees which would offer her little cover from the undead, and none from the tank, but whose spindly, leafless branches would shield her from the sniper.
Chester adjusted the bag around his shoulder, then checked the shotgun he’d taken from the thug by the plough. Distract the tank? He could manage that. He watched the zombie slip in the mud pile left by the plough. Had the sniper shot it? No, the zombie was still thrashing. Perhaps it wasn’t a sniper, then, just another spotter, or perhaps there was no one in the water tower at all. Hoping that might be the case, he left the shelter of the car, and ran to the right, seeking cover as he continued onward, in search of the tank.
Through a back garden, across the edge of a field, back onto a road, and he was sure there was no sniper up in the water tower. There were zombies further up the road, heading towards the explosive roar of the cannon. They’d head towards him if he lingered, so he pushed on. He was close. The shells were coming further apart. Presumably because they were running low. Possibly. Maybe. But he knew where the tank was. A roadside poster depicted children riding down a water slide. A theme park lay ahead of him, and presumably that was what the water tower supplied.
He ran on, keeping to the cover of the trees, until they vanished. Ahead of him was the car park. In it was the tank. Around it were bodies. Heading towards it were the undead. Two of them. Then only one as the other collapsed. Shot. But not from the tank. He’d heard the gunshot, though it sounded like a whisper compared to the roar of the tank. He glanced up. Was that movement up on the water tower? He moved his glasses, uncertain, until he saw the movement again. He heard the shot more clearly this time. And when he looked back towards the tank, the second zombie was dead. There was silence for a moment, then the tank fired.
Instinctively, he ducked, though the shell arced high overhead. That was the reason for the gap between the shots. So the sniper could deal with the zombies the cannon’s bark summoned. In a way, that was good, since it meant the tank had no machine guns. Or no ammo for them. Or no one to operate them while they were using the cannon. Six people could have fit in that plough, but they’d have been cramped. One sniper on the water tower to relay the radio and keep watch. One gunner in the tank to operate the cannon. Maybe. Probably. Which didn’t help him decide what to do.
Distract, those were Tuck’s instructions. The shotgun didn’t have the range. The handgun’s bullets might not even be noticed against the war machine’s thick armour. It had to be the grenades, and that meant getting a lot closer. The ticket shop was the only cover.
He withdrew a grenade. Pin then lever, wasn’t it? He pulled the pin, hoped that hadn’t ignited the fuse, and ran.
There was movement to his left. A zombie. He ignored it, sprinting forwards, but not directly towards the ticket shop. Above all, he wanted to get rid of the grenade now in his hands. He hurled his hand forward, throwing the grenade at the tank, thinking to dive to the ground a second later. A long three seconds after that, it detonated. He picked himself up. The tank’s hatch opened. It had worked. One grenade had actually disabled the machine. Except it hadn’t. A man with a bolt-action rifle appeared, firing before his arms and shoulders were out of the tank. The first shot missed, but the second wouldn’t. Chester ran again, diving behind the ticket shop, a building large enough to contain a gift shop, concession stand, and bathrooms.
He fished out a grenade. If he could get it into the open hatch—
The ticket shop exploded. He was thrown aside, landing on his back. Fractured wood and windows rained down on top of him. He rolled sideways, cutting his hands and elbows on broken glass as he tried to shake the ringing from his ears. It was all he could hear. Smoke was all he could smell. His glasses had fallen, so even when he looked up, everything appeared blurry and indistinct. His hearing returned at the same speed as comprehension. The ticket shop had lost all its roof and most of its walls. What remained was a smouldering shell that offered no cover from the sniper. There was no cover anywhere, except for the tank. He crawled sideways until he could see the monstrous machine. The hatch was closed, the shooter back inside. The vehicle juddered, reversed, moving away from the ticket booth, not to line up another shot, but to get enough distance to build up speed. That driver wouldn’t waste a shell when the tank’s treads could kill just as easily. There was nothing but space between him and the tank. The empty car park was a killing ground for the sniper. His choices were to stay and be blown up by the next shell, or run and be shot. He pulled the pin from the grenade, and ran, winding his arm back.
He had no idea where to aim, but since he could only see the tank as a blurry moving shape, it didn’t matter. He threw. The grenade soared through the air, bounced off the cupola and rolled down behind the turret. Chester dived to the ground as the grenade detonated. As he picked himself up, ears ringing once more, he saw the smoke streaming out of the cannon’s barrel. The next thought to fly through his mind was that he’d not been shot. Tuck had dealt with the sniper. And, somehow, that grenade had done for the tank. Except it hadn’t. The turret juddered and moved. Chester dived forward, rolling again until he was flush against the now motionless tank treads. The cannon fired. The shell impacted against the top of a tree, blowing its upper branches into toothpicks. The recoil had jerked the tank back a few feet, but there was now a grinding whine coming from the engine.
Chester grinned. He was nearly deafened, nearly blind, covered in soot, ash, mud and his own blood, but the tank was immobile. The ships were safe. He drew the pistol, and the moment the hatch opened, he fired. The cartel thug had been expecting it. He’d tried to half-jump, half dive out of the hatch and to cover, but he’d misjudged which side of the tank Chester was on, and so launched himself towards the Londoner. Chester’s bullets took him in the neck, shoulder, and skull. The man fell limp, rolling across the tank towards the ground.
“And now it’s…” Chester began, but coughed, and had to spit out a bloody gobbet of saliva.
It was over. This battle. But there would be others. They’d have to prepare. Prepare for war. Against an enemy with tanks. What a future that would be.
As danger receded, pain made itself known, and most sharply in his
arm. A shard of glass was wedged in his skin. He holstered the pistol, and plucked the fragment clear. It was then he noticed all the other cuts and bruises. And it was then he heard the sound.
He looked up as a second figure pulled himself from the tank. Another man, bearded, older, and with a pistol in his hand. Time slowed as glacially as realisation dawned. Three gangsters in the apartment. Three with the plough. And three, here, in the car park. One in the water tower, and two in the tank, a driver and a gunner. Chester reached for his holstered gun, but there was no way he’d reach it in time. The man levelled his weapon, and grinned. His teeth exploded as a bullet slammed through his jaw. He slumped, dead, to the cupola.
“Point a gun at my fiancé?” Nilda said, as she jogged over from the treeline. “No one shoots Chester but me.”
“Nilda? You came from the ship?” Chester asked.
“I didn’t make it to the ship,” she said. “Some idiot was dropping shells on the road I wanted to run down. I came to ask them to stop. I don’t think any of the shells went near the harbour, though. Where’s Tuck?”
“She went up to the water tower, to deal with the sniper.”
“We better go get her,” Nilda said. “Wait. You mean up there? Can’t you see? She’s hanging over the edge!”
It wasn’t Tuck.
After a breathless, muscle-burning climb, they reached the walkway ringing the top of water tower to find Tuck stood with her arms and shoulders dangling over the side.
“Tuck? What are you doing?” Nilda asked.
With both her hands full, the soldier couldn’t reply.
Nilda reached down on her left side, Chester on her right. Leaning over the water tower’s edge, he saw the soldier was holding onto the arm of a literal dead weight: the sniper.
“She’s dead. Why don’t you let her fall?” Chester asked.
But Tuck couldn’t hear, let alone reply, so they helped her haul the dead sniper up onto the walkway.
“Why didn’t you let her fall?” Chester asked again.
Tuck rubbed her arms, then her hands. “From this height, she’d have exploded. No one would have recognised her. Do you have a phone? Take a photo of her face.”