Toy Soldiers Box Set | Books 1-6

by Ford, Devon C.

  The far end of that stretch, nothing more than a reduced speed limit on a section of winding road, held a huddle of houses set back on one side before the road opened up into countryside views again.

  “Smiffy,” Downes said in a low voice, “push up to the GLF and hold. Dezzy, on me, ready for the door. Mac, take tail.”

  None of them answered, but all dropped into their allocated positions. Dez would open the door, one way or another, and Downes would enter with Mac behind him, while Smiffy kept an eye on the road in both directions from the iconic road sign which had put a smile on the face of any person who had undertaken a fast driving course. The white circle with a diagonal black flash, denoting a derestricted speed limit or, as they liked to call it, Go Like Fuck.

  Dez put a hand on the doorknob, pausing to glance at the other two men and receiving a nod to continue, and then he turned the handle to find it locked. That in itself was rare in those parts, but you’d never expend the energy of kicking down a door unless you had to. The air of tension ebbed noticeably as the three men knew they had a longer respite before action was required, and Mac moved to press his face to a downstairs window and check for movement.

  Dezzy lowered his weapon on its sling, placing both gloved hands on the cold wood of the door and pressing to see where it flexed and where it was solidly secured. It bent inwards at the bottom on the same side as the lock, but the topmost corner on that side was annoyingly rigid.

  “Bolted,” Dez said softly. He didn’t need to explain that this meant it was locked securely from the inside. “Go around?”

  “Takes us past the other houses we haven’t cleared,” Downes said, “We go in this way.”

  Dez nodded, holding out a hand to gesture his Major back away from the door as he reached behind himself to free the automatic shotgun. He raised the gun to his shoulder, checked behind him to see that the others weren’t too near to him, turned his face away and fired.

  Mac hadn’t seen any movement inside, because the window he had peered through looked straight in at a wall. Had they moved further around the outside of the house and explored further, then they would have found the family of five still securely locked inside their home. They might have been secure, but they certainly weren’t safe.

  The mother, complete with apron sheeted in blood where she had chewed on the hands, faces and necks of her own children, turned and cocked her head quizzically at the small creaks coming from her front door. It bent inwards slightly, flexing in the bottom corner before her ears detected something that made no cognitive connection, but instead translated into a primal feeling that there was prey nearby.

  She turned to face it fully, feet shuffling on the spot before her stiff and seized legs took tentative steps towards it. The door was beautifully crafted, carved from a single piece of oak many years before any of them had been born, and it had hardened with age to be like stone. She heard clicks, voices, and the shuffle of a boot on stone, but again none of these sounds connected to any memories or made any associations in her brain, despite which she was spurred onwards regardless. Behind her, disturbed by her movement and suddenly reanimated state, her children followed in reverse order of height with her eldest child looking over the heads of what had been his two younger sisters before their once-loving mother had changed them into what they now were.

  Finally finding her voice, the mother contracted the muscles in her chest to draw in a breath and with it the start of the dry-throated, creaking, shrieking noise they’d made when they’d heard noises outside their home. Since then, since that giant herd of people like they were, had passed through to leave them behind in silence and solitude, they hadn’t been stimulated enough to make that noise. But now, as their once-mother reached out a bony and emaciated hand towards the front door, her mouth let it out to tear the stale air in their home.

  With a shattering BOOM, the top quarter of the door disintegrated, letting in a rush of cold, fresh air, as if their house had been a sealed ship in the vacuum of space. The splinters of wood from the sudden opening fanned out, some striking the woman and embedding themselves into her skull and face, but one flew straight and true into her open mouth to puncture the soft wall at the back and drive the wicked spike of hard wood through the sinew and flesh. It punctured her spinal column high up and cut off the unthinking synapses which powered her arms and legs, and made her slump into a heap, effectively blocking her children from reaching the front door before it burst the rest of the way open to silhouette a big man in the aperture.

  As one, they all shrieked in attack.

  Dezzy fired a single shot into the wood where he thought the troublesome bolt was, shattering the door and creating a noise, ruinous and huge in the silent confines of the small village. He followed it up with the ballistic application of boot sole to the door just beside the lock. Utterly satisfied with both the mechanical and personal destruction he had just wrought, he stood in the doorway to assess his work. And swore ever so briefly but loudly.

  He didn’t think, not like the way that the Screechers didn’t think, but more of a naturally human instinctive reaction. He just raised the gun already in his hands and triggered off five shots into the horrifying abominations reaching for him. He stood frozen, looking over the barrel of the demonic close-quarters tool, disgusted and horrified at what he had just done, until he was shoved aside bodily to crunch into the splintered doorframe. Before Dezzy could right himself and bring his weapon back up to face the threat which had caused the man behind him to act, he heard a pair of muted cracks in rapid succession followed by the sound of a lifeless body slumping to the floor.

  Downes hauled his demolition expert back up to his full height, releasing him before stepping into the room with his MP5 held in tight to his shoulder and swinging it left and right to cover the room. Mac bustled in beside him, mirroring his movements to provide maximum speed as they cleared the dank smelling interior of the house. Dez stayed where he was in the doorway, almost panting and unable to control his breathing as he stared down at the horror and gore he had created in a second of unexpected and brutal violence.

  A hand clamped onto his shoulder, making him jump and turn on the attacker as he raised the butt of his shotgun, intending to connect it to the skull of whatever had crept up on him when he had dropped the ball of concentration. The blow was blocked, and his eyes met the icy-blue reflection of Smiffy’s.

  “It’s me, Dez,” he told him, “it’s me.”

  Dezzy slumped, a half gasp of a stifled sob escaping his mouth, which made his friend lean over his shoulder at the destruction inside. Smiffy’s eyes went dull, glazing over as he saw, assessed, understood, dealt with and moved on; all in an instant.

  “You had no choice,” he said to his friend, lightly slapping his face to bring their eyes back together, “Hey? You hear me? You had no choice. It’s shit, but it’s done. Now get yourself together.”

  He held him by the shoulders for a few seconds, letting Dez’ exaggerated breathing stabilise and watching as the oxygen and good sense returned him to his former self. Dez stood tall, emotionally dusting himself off, and walked inside to step over the three headless bodies of the young children as they lay collapsed in a meat pile in between their twice-dead parents.

  NINE

  “Major,” Lloyd greeted the leader of the SAS team as he slid out of the passenger side of the truck. Downes walked to the leader of the marines and shook his hand.

  “Lloyd,” he answered, scanning his eyes over the twenty men and two big transport trucks arrayed behind him at the agreed meeting place.

  “All quiet down there?” the younger man asked, indicating the village in the shallow ground ahead.

  Downes hesitated, recalling the initial look on the face of his man, usually so stalwart, reliable and unflappable, when he had first cleared that last house below and ahead of them.

  “It is now,” he answered enigmatically, “Want us to hang around?”

  “Could you?”


  Before answering, Downes looked first at his watch and then up at the sky, which was grey and held an air of veiled malevolence.

  “May as well,” he said, “we aren’t going to get another village cleared before sundown and before this weather closes in.”

  Lloyd had to agree, having had the luxury of time to make his own guesses about the newest weather front as they waited for their scouts to return.

  “I’ll put two at each end of the village,” Downes said, “If you hear us shooting, then pack up and get ready to move.”

  “Understood,” Lloyd answered, turning to his men and shouting for them to load up, and instructing them that her Majesty wasn’t paying them to stand around and look pretty.

  “They ain’t paying us at all, Sir,” came a disembodied voice from somewhere near a tail ramp.

  “Enough of your treasonous comments, Foster,” Lloyd snapped half in jest, recognising the voice instantly despite the speaker’s obvious attempts to hide his identity, “but well done on volunteering to be the first man in. Proud of you, lad.”

  Milton, three years the Lieutenant’s senior, smiled in the back of one of the trucks. He had no qualms about being the first man in, especially seeing as the Hereford lot had just been through, which minimised his chances of getting eaten. He had made the joke in the clear knowledge that the officer would return fire with some admonishment and raise the morale of the boys in the process.

  He had been offered promotion, told, even, that he would be wearing three chevrons on his sleeve, but he had been adamant that he didn’t want it. After being summoned by Lieutenant Lloyd to the office where Captain Palmer ran things, he had stood to attention and kept his eyes resolutely forward until told to stand easy.

  “Relax, man,” Palmer had said smoothly. Lloyd explained to Foster why he wanted him to take the rank, detailing the primary reasons that he was liked and respected by the surviving marines.

  “You fought well on the island,” Lloyd said, “and the boys listen to you.”

  “Then I’ll keep doing that, Sir,” Foster answered, “but I don’t want the stripes.”

  “Why is that?” Palmer had asked, genuinely intrigued as to why a man would turn down such an honour. Foster smiled.

  “It’s not like there’s a pay bump, Sir,” he said, pushing the luck of his flippancy as far as he dared, “and if I’m a sergeant, I have to enforce the rules and make the lads scared of me. I can’t have a laugh to lift their spirits if I’m doing that.”

  Lloyd thought about their last sergeant, the irritable, irascible and ever-grumpy Bill Hampton. He was like a father to the marines, always looking after them and making sure that they all had the right kit and that none of them went without, but that fatherly attitude harked back to a time when the whip was still an acceptably used tool for facilitating learning. He could be harsh, very harsh on the men if they let him down, and that was the aspect of the role that Foster was trying to refuse to undertake.

  “Thank you, marine, you may go now,” Lloyd had said to him, returning the parade ground crisp salute, which he felt was for Palmer’s benefit, a display to maintain the high standards and expectations of his corps.

  “I rather suspect, Christopher,” Palmer drawled, “that the man has a point. My advice, if you need any at all, which I highly doubt is the case, is to encourage him to promote the morale of the men without forcing the rank on him.”

  Palmer looked up, checking to see whether his conversational advice was being taken as such and not interpreted as an order.

  “Your unit is, sadly, smaller now and the men look directly to you for leadership. I say keep him close and mentor the man; bring him into command discussions and see how he thinks.”

  “You’re probably right, Julian,” Lloyd answered, knowing that the shrewd-minded young man was indeed entirely accurate.

  In the front of the truck, Lloyd also smiled as he finally understood Foster’s point. He could not have reproved his sergeant that way, nor could he expect to tolerate the quips that the man made which required the reprimands he found himself giving out. But the balance was perfect. Foster worked hard and played hard, the men looked to him for their lead and despite his humorous comments, the unit was cohesive.

  As the trucks set off down the gentle slope in the undulating land, Lloyd tucked his cold chin into the scarf around his neck and kept his eyes resolutely ahead on their target.

  It took a little over three hours for the small village to be cleared, which was far faster than they had been when they’d first trialled their new tactics. The plan was simple; SAS team go in and do reconnaissance, clear out any small elements of hostile forces, then withdraw. After that, the main body of troops would move in, seal off the village and systematically empty each building of everything useful to be brought back to the large estate they occupied. Anything too large for the trucks would be safely stockpiled and returned for, and any return trip would be conducted with strong numbers because, as they had learned all too often, the situation could change from shit to deadly in an instant when dealing with an unthinking and unpredictable enemy.

  Downes had sent his driver, Smiffy, to the furthest end of the village in the truck with Mac so that he could keep Dezzy close to him and wait for the man to speak about what had phased him so badly. He didn’t push him as they sat on a low roof in the cold air covering the closest end of the village’s approach road, but simply waited for him to speak.

  Dez sat still and quiet, wanting to strip and clean the shotgun for no other reason than to purge the barely-coked barrel of the weapon of the evidence that he had fired it, as though somehow that would clean away the memory of what he had done. He had done the right thing, but he was a mature enough and experienced enough soldier to know that a person didn’t know what would affect them until it had already affected them. He was tough, he was switched-on, but he also knew that he had been affected by the suddenness of the attack. He knew that he had been affected by his instant, and correct, reaction to open fire.

  He considered the other ways it could have played out.

  He could have baulked, not taken the shot, and he could have been infected. Downes could have been infected. Mac. Smiffy.

  In a world where ‘us or them’ held even fewer moral obligations than before, what he had done made perfect sense, both morally and tactically, but he had still pulled the trigger and violently decapitated three young kids with a brutal and evil storm of lead. He knew they weren’t children, not really, not anymore, but he would forever be left with the images of their small skulls breaking apart under his onslaught.

  “You okay?” Downes asked softly, wanting to move things on more quickly than they were occurring naturally. Dez took a breath, held it, and blew it out with puffed cheeks before responding.

  “Yeah, Boss,” he said as he strapped the shotgun back onto his pack, “I’m fine.”

  “Good lad,” Downes said quietly, his eyes narrowing as he diverted some of his attention away from the stilted conversation and towards the distant countryside. Dez saw his look, followed his eyeline and scrabbled with a belt pouch to retrieve the small binoculars which he raised to his eyes and asked, “Where?”

  “My eleven o’clock,” Downes said, not having to explain to the seasoned soldier beside him that he had detected movement, “Stone wall, west towards the higher ground. Gateway.”

  Dez followed the instructions he had been issued with as effectively as possible in such few words. They had become expert at this, so in tune with one another after the months they had spent in Afghanistan, where they were more likely than not to be fired upon by the side they were unofficially there to help than by any Soviet conscripts. Then, just as now, only in a very different way, failure to detect the enemy’s movement could easily result in death.

  “Got it,” Dez said, his face contorted as he squinted into the eyepiece of the futuristic-looking binoculars, “Screecher. Can’t seem to figure out the gate. Here.”

  Dez held out
the binos to Downes, who took them wordlessly. It took him only a second to acquire the moving smudge on the horizon and magnify it into a filthy and ragged approximation of what it had once been.

  Most of the right arm from just below the elbow was missing, and the right side of what seemed to have once been light blue denim dungarees was sheeted black with gore. The skin of the face, drawn back as though stretched by malnutrition from teeth which now seemed overly large, was far paler than even the other dead they had encountered. It moved sluggishly, drunkenly, as it bumped its small chest into the wooden bars of the gate, unable to comprehend why the way forward was closed to it. Downes watched closely, his own face screwed up just as Dezzy’s had been, as the thing stopped trying to weakly force its way through the obstacle and instead turned its nose up to the sky and seemed to sniff the air, tasting it like an animal would. It threw back its head, mouth open to emit that awful screeching noise that so aptly lent them the nickname given by the soldiers; but no sound reached them.

  Major Downes had fought many enemies of Her Majesty over many years of conflict, but never, not even when low on ammunition and pinned down by superior forces, had he experienced a fear of an enemy as he did then. Unbelievably, impossibly, the thing seemed to slowly lower its head and cock it over to one side as it stared its sightless stare directly at Downes from nearly three hundred metres away. Despite himself, Downes shuddered.

  “Smiffy could have it with his VAL,” Dez said gently, suggesting that the stolen Russian sniper rifle be brought back, along with its operator, to dispatch the creature.