Toy Soldiers Box Set | Books 1-6

by Ford, Devon C.

  Seeing them both disappear inside, flicking on the large Maglite torches attached to the fat barrels of their compact weapons, he watched as Astrid and Bufford disappeared inside.

  And he waited.

  “Ready?” Buffs asked softly of Astrid, who had pulled down the scarf so that her mouth was exposed to the cold air. Her breath misted as Bufford’s did, only hers wasn’t filtered by the scruffy facial hair.

  “Go,” she said faintly, following his lead as the two of them poured into the building like water. They split left and right, powerful torch beams flashing around the darkened interior to create crazy shadows between the tall aisles. The beams of light, pointing in every direction that their weapon barrels and eyes did, showed how alert they were to the possibility of unwanted company as they moved anti-clockwise around the inner perimeter of the warehouse, until they eventually returned to the door where they had made their entry. At the centre of the warehouse was a single construction surrounded by an open area before the tall ranks of industrial shelves. That area contained three small forklift trucks and appeared to be the office which ran the distribution for the area. Each of the long, wide aisles contained wrapped pallets of foodstuffs; bags of dried pasta and rice, as well as large tins of beans and tomatoes. The company logo outside the large roller shutter doors meant nothing to them, but the contents made it obvious that the warehouse provided for the catering and commercial markets.

  Bufford dropped to one knee as Astrid automatically turned to adopt the same pose facing away from him.

  “See if the truck works?” he asked her softly, “Load it and take it back?”

  “This is a good idea,” she replied, her grasp of English being almost flawless but lending her a formal tone. She gave the accurate impression of being classroom taught, as opposed to the colloquial use of the language by a native speaker, but that wasn’t to say that she wasn’t picking up a few choice terms that her training didn’t cater for. Her Russian was less formal, but her Cold War training hadn’t required her to blend in with the population on the UK mainland.

  Bufford went to rise but froze as a noise behind him sounded muffled in the dusty gloom.

  “Office,” Astrid said.

  Bufford gave no verbal answer, rising instead and turning to follow her lead as she approached the door. He flicked his thumb all the way up on the fire selector, pushing it from single shot to safe, and let the gun hang down as he reached behind his right hip to draw the peculiar weapon he carried. He had never been awarded or issued the assault pioneer’s axe, a throwback of British military tradition, and especially odd to his hands as it was an idiosyncrasy of the army and not from his naval roots. But he had taken it on a whim from the sergeants’ mess display on the base he had found himself occupying when the world had so suddenly turned to shit. He didn’t know why he had taken it, but he was glad a dozen times over that he had. He drew it now, its polished head glinting off the weapon-mounted light of Astrid’s MP5 as she stood by the door and looked at him, waiting for his nod.

  He gave it, crouching low beside the doorway as she spun the handle and stepped smartly backwards to give a distance of nearly fifteen feet, where she froze with her gun raised and ready. Nothing happened immediately, but the groaning and banging from inside in response to their presence told them that one of them was in there. Slowly reanimating, having likely been immobile in the strange hibernating state they adopted when cold and undisturbed, the Screecher inside shambled towards the light and noise. And seeing the weapon-mounted light, it broke into a run.

  Astrid, with a clear line of sight, fought against the very natural urge to drill a 9mm round straight through the grey-skinned skull of the beast that opened its mouth and reached for her, taking fast but unsteady steps towards her on legs that had stayed still for too long. Her torch beam illuminated the face, cloudy eyes not responding to the harsh light as a living person would. She kept her discipline, not wanting to waste a single, precious bullet, as they were running out at a rate that was unsustainable, and she held her breath as it reached the threshold and took a longer step out of the room.

  As it did, Bufford rose to bring the axe down one-handed in a savage blow that crushed the skull and crumpled the former worker to the concrete floor like a meat concertina. Using his foot to hold the ruined head still, he pulled the axe away and wiped it on the torso just as a single word cut across his concentration.

  “Buffs!” Astrid snapped desperately.

  He didn’t think, simply abandoned the position to throw himself out of arms reach and roll back to his feet as two snapping coughs tore the air. He looked back to see another one, female, tall and heavily built, fall like a tree as the second bullet snapped her head back. He watched as though in slow-motion, the adrenaline in his body slowing the real-time events of the world briefly, as her body moved like the footage of crash test dummies on television. Her head flew back, whipping forwards with the momentum of her skull and upper spine going through their full range of movement, to go rigid and topple forwards to land with a meaty thud on top of the one he had dispatched, or had rendered safe, as one of their companions said, and she lay motionless.

  Bufford looked at Astrid and nodded once, the sincere thanks and the returning acknowledgement passing between them in an effortless flash of non-verbal communication. He rose, dusted himself off and slipped the axe back into his belt before they cleared the small office. The stench they had remembered from the early days was gone, replaced by an almost sickly sweetness of dried-out meat that had gone off.

  The cold had changed everything as soon as the unexpectedly freezing winter had set in for real, and despite battling the constant chill and hunger, at least the zombies were easier to deal with. The office held little of worth apart from the warm coats which were superfluous to their needs, but the keys to the single box truck preserved inside the warehouse made them both breathe a sigh of relief that they wouldn’t have to search the pockets of the twice-dead corpses.

  Rolling up the rear doors, they found the truck half-stocked with sacks containing either rice or flour – they couldn’t be sure which, and neither did they overly care – so they returned to the aisles to use their knives to remove the heavy plastic wrapping from pallets and retrieve heavy can after heavy can of beans and soup. They loaded as much as they dared, both having to strip off their thick coats as they rapidly overheated with the exercise, and seemed to simultaneously feel that they had pushed their luck enough with the time they had been there. They knew that their guard outside would never complain, but he would only remain on-station for so long before he climbed down from his perch with the big rifle slung across his back and follow them inside; such was their curse with a lack of personal communications.

  Using the keys to check that the battery still held charge, Astrid flicked the ignition on and off once to give Bufford a thumbs-up gesture from inside the cab. They moved back to the door where they had entered, stepping out cautiously as they knew the long barrel of a high-powered rifle would be aimed in their direction, and Bufford stood tall to make the signal for ‘form on me’ as he placed his left hand on his head with his fingers pointed down like some comedy interpretation of a spider coming to rest on his dome. He held the pose for ten seconds to make sure that he had been seen, then crouched to adopt a defensive position.

  Inside a minute Enfield joined them, his newly-acquired small calibre rifle in hand and the longer barrel of his Accuracy International protruding over his right shoulder. He jogged towards them silently, slipping across the open space like the ghost he was, and fell in beside the SBS man.

  “Truck loaded with catering supplies,” Bufford said softly with undisguised happiness, “way too much for one haul. Lock this place up and come back with more hands,” he finished. Enfield gave no reply, simply held his hands out for the keys to the car they had found on their way to the warehouse, which Bufford handed over.

  “Roller shutter on that side,” he told the marine as he pointed o
ff to their right, “we’ll go in front and you follow.”

  The same two slipped back inside and Enfield waited, hearing the laboured sounds of a neglected engine clatter and groan into life before he safetied his weapon and ran low for the door of the Montego. Suppressing a shudder as he slipped behind the wheel, he pushed the seat forward and turned the key with his foot on the clutch to reduce the stress of starting the tired engine. Vehicle travel was something they tried to avoid, but the unexpectedly harsh winter was pushing them to more desperate measures in their need to stay fed. He wound down the driver’s window despite the cold, so that he could hear some of what was going on outside. He could hear the metal roller shutter protesting at being forced to open, like a teenager being made to get out of bed at sunrise, and he slipped the car into gear to fall in behind them at a distance where he would not become tangled up in any drama which might befall them.

  They had food, finally, and they were heading back to their little slice of fortified Britain. Being abandoned by the rest of the world, however much of it still remained as before, times were becoming very hard.

  ONE

  Four months prior

  Captain Palmer sat at the desk in the ground floor room of their adopted and adapted country manor and rubbed his tired face with his hands. His stubbled cheeks rasped against his skin, as like almost all of the men, he had forgone the routine of shaving out of a simple lack of water and toiletries. The former Captain of the Household Cavalry, more accustomed to the challenges of armoured warfare than he was the vagaries of logistical concerns, wished that there was someone else to take on the task that had fallen to him.

  The few of them who still shaved, despite the outrage of the Colonel, favoured the traditional method of using a straight-bladed razor instead of the more common disposable kind. With close to a hundred people in their group, a steady supply of such luxury items was so far down the list of priorities that they weren’t worth expending any effort over.

  His exasperation came from simple mathematics, as he calculated the number of mouths to feed versus the stores of food they had. Their scavenging missions usually followed the template of their SAS team scouting the area, and their remaining Royal Marines and men of the armoured Yeomanry squadron going in en-masse to clear out whatever was available. He knew that there was a booming trade in the black market going on at the house, and even he had lowered himself, via a trusted corporal, and traded a few items for things that he wanted. But his men knew better than to withhold food from the haul. Or at least he hoped for their sake that they did.

  Their strange amalgamation of mixed armed services personnel and civilians rescued from the area had evolved over the few months that they had been there, but as a mild autumn began to give way to a sudden and brutally unkind winter, things had become increasingly difficult. He sat in the room, glancing forlornly at the empty fireplace and wishing that there were sufficient fuel stores to have even a small blaze to heat the room. He sighed loudly, uncharacteristically betraying his feelings, and tucked his chin deeper into the large uniform smock he still insisted on wearing, despite the multiple layers he wore underneath, including a thick, knitted jumper to insulate against the chill.

  People often spoke of the onset of winter being sudden, but this year had been the worst in his memory and the cold was worse than the many skiing excursions his family had taken him on as a child. Pipes froze solid overnight, cracking the old brass open like a hatching egg and sparking terror as people ran around the large house looking for anyone with plumbing experience. By the time such a man had been located and roused from his bed, the flooding had caused extensive damage to the old carpets and the floorboards beneath. The floor below cascaded water through the cracked plaster ceiling to elicit shrieks of fear and discomfort from those suffering from the unnatural indoor rain, and what came after was worse still.

  Because of the pandemonium and ensuing need for lights to be switched on during darkness, an operational cardinal sin, the house attracted unwelcome attention from the outside which raged on throughout the freezing night and into the morning. That single, costly night had taken a significant toll on their lives in the form of half of their remaining ammunition being expended and claiming the lives of three defenders. They still hadn’t recovered from those losses, and morale at the house had plummeted into a deep depression.

  Thinking again of the long and confusing engagement, Palmer tried to find the positives as well as ruthlessly assessing their defensive performance and plans. The wide ditch they had dug surrounding the vulnerable approaches to the house had undoubtedly saved them from being overrun, as had the bitterly cold weather which the area was unused to experiencing. They had found that from autumn, the number of Screechers wandering around had reduced exponentially, and those who did wander up to their defensive lines in ones and twos were rotting and sluggish, far worse than they had seen them deteriorate through summer.

  On that night, when fate conspired with bad luck to deal them a cruel blow, they came in waves until entire sections of the ditches filled with bodies and allowed the shambling attackers to step over the writhing, struggling bodies to walk almost unimpeded towards the warm flesh of the men and women under Palmer’s charge. Palmer was an officer of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces, an officer trained at Sandhurst, which in his opinion, provided the finest officer training in the world, as was demonstrated by the multi-national attendees eager to take back the ways of the British Army to their native lands. But he was still unaccustomed to leading their rag-tag band in defensive infantry tactics without resupply or additional support. It felt unorthodox and more than a little desperate at times. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, the bonds of discipline and service were beginning to unravel everywhere he looked. Uniform wore out and was replaced by civilian clothing, and the cold weather diluted that compliance further still as the men wore whatever they could find to stop them from freezing, just as he did, but at least he still tried to maintain some semblance of protocol.

  A knock at the door snapped him out of his miserable reverie, and he drew in a breath to announce that the person should enter, but he swallowed the word as the door opened a fraction of a second later; as though the knock was simply a warning instead of a request for permission. He relaxed when he saw who it was, leaning back and crossing his arms for warmth to tuck his cold hands under his armpits.

  “Julian, how are you?” Lieutenant Lloyd asked.

  “I’m well, thank you, Chris,” Palmer answered with a genuine smile. He liked the Royal Marine officer, seeing in the slightly younger man a leader who was respected by his men, and capable.

  Perhaps ‘capable’ is grossly inadequate, he had thought to himself when assessing the man, as he is personally responsible for bringing the vast majority of our fighting strength out of the fiery hell that was the Island.

  And he was. It was his quick thinking and decisive action which had seen a ragged infantry formation, like a rally-square, which had crab-walked its awkward way up almost a mile of steep hill, fighting every step of the way and rescuing as many people as possible before forming a defence atop the hill. They had defended that landing site, suffering the agonising wait between the relay flights of the helicopter which had rescued them from the furnace.

  Most of them, anyway.

  “Going over the company books?” the junior officer asked blandly to open the conversation.

  “Sadly yes,” Palmer replied, “and they do not make for an enjoyable read, I’m afraid.”

  “Food?”

  “Always food,” Palmer replied tiredly. He glanced at the crystal decanter, automatically feeling the urge to pour both of them a brandy as they discussed business, in spite of the time of day, but the vessel had long since run dry and as nobody had left the house in the weeks since the last attack, any hope of a fresh supply was woefully deluded.

  “But also fuel; for the house and the vehicles. And we have burned through too much ammunition to make viable many m
ore defensive actions of the nature we have already endured,” he added in his naturally verbose manner, meaning simply that they were running out of bullets faster than they could afford to. His mind wandered to the strange trend he had witnessed emerging among both soldiers and civilians carrying crude melee weapons with them. Most soldiers relied on the bayonets affixed to the ends of their personal weapons, even if the destructive projectiles were in short supply, but many had also begun sporting folding shovels, hammers and small axes which stayed with them at all times.

  “I think we need to discuss reconnaissance with the Major,” he told the royal marine.

  Lloyd nodded sagely as he sat, mulling over his friend’s words. The roles and hierarchy of their group had merged and evolved too since their flight and devastating losses after the Island had become overrun and cut off, and as Palmer had been volunteered as the de-facto leader of the group, Lloyd had assumed a sub-command of the defences. Be they marine or trooper or civilian, everyone assigned to defend their home had fallen under the command of the Lieutenant without question or protest, bar one man. Palmer’s younger brother, Oliver, who still insisted on using the double-barrelled version of their family name as though status and breeding meant a damn thing when abandoned and facing starvation, had been assigned to Lloyd as his second in command.

  The junior Lieutenant was universally scorned and disliked by the men after his behaviour had once more grown sullen and smacked of assumed privilege. His older brother had hoped that to assign him to that task would make him more accessible to the men, and would allow them to see him working hard, but he too often heard that he was delegating his duties in favour of spending time rubbing shoulders with the half-insensible Colonel who provided little to no practical assistance in their plight. Palmer had managed to steal the senior officer’s two privates away from the man to bolster the defenders’ numbers, but Second Lieutenant Palmer’s repeated absences from duty were both embarrassing and inconsequential.