Toy Soldiers Box Set | Books 1-6

by Ford, Devon C.

  “We need to move, now,” Hampton told him through thick lips in a voice which still didn’t sound like it was his own.

  “The others?” Enfield asked, barely able to keep his eyes open.

  “They got away, lad. They got away.”

  Enfield smiled, thinking of the sweet little girl and the tough, resourceful boy.

  Whatever happens to me, he thought, at least they’ve got a chance.

  TWENTY

  “Anything?” Johnson asked Bufford as he looked in the smashed remains of the large wing mirror.

  “Nothing,” he replied, “where are we going?”

  “No idea,” Johnson said, “just anywhere but here.” Just then a loud double-thump came from the thin wall behind the cab. The others in the back wanted to stop. Johnson said nothing but drove on until he found an empty lay-by on a stretch of open road. As far as he could see, nothing could jump out on them there.

  He jumped out, weapon up and ready, and rolled up the rear doors as Bufford pressed ahead to point his weapon down the road. Astrid started straight in with the questions, demanding to know where Hampton and Enfield were. Johnson just shook his head slowly, and saw her features darken and set hard.

  It was her armour. She defended her soul from the devastating news by hearing it, then shutting it out of her feelings until such time that she would be able to deal with it properly. That space, that emotional void, was still occupied by the death of half her team in the cursed air insertion so long ago, and more recently when her friend Christian Berg was lost so brutally and senselessly in the helicopter crash. That space was filling with bodies fast, and she worried that it might overflow before she got the time to deal with any of it.

  “Where are we going?” Kimberley asked, leaning forward to place a reassuring hand on his arm. The touch was as much to reassure her as it was him.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted sadly, “I just don’t bloody know.”

  Nevin drove in at the head of the small convoy, recovered from the ordeal of being sprayed with Michaels’ brain matter and oddly pleased with himself. A sullen crowd gathered to greet their return, but the mood was less than welcoming. Two of the guards had been almost overt in their allegiance to the people there, publicly voicing their disgust at how Michaels had hunted people down like animals. The smoulder of revolt didn’t take flame then, because the news of Michaels’ death sent waves of shock and relief around them.

  The relief was short lived, because Nevin’s words made it obvious that he had chosen himself to step into the vacant shoes. He told them that they all had to move on, to carry on with their lives and ensure their survival. He reminded them that the monsters were still out there; that their safety was not guaranteed.

  Then he made a mistake. He ordered for the blood and viscera to be cleaned out of the Ferret and walked away without waiting for a volunteer, just assuming that it would be done without question. He demanded fresh clothes brought to him and began stripping off as he headed inside the main building. He didn’t hang around or even glance backwards to see if his instructions were being carried out, because he just assumed that he could step in where Michaels had left off.

  He washed in a bowl of lukewarm water, ducking his head under and flinching as a chunk of something small and sharp jabbed painfully into his finger. He raised his head, water dripping down his eyebrows as he looked to find the source of the affliction. He picked the tiny shard of sharp bone out of his flesh, disgust and pain on his angry face despite the tiny proportions of the injury. He finished washing, looking around to see if the fresh clothes he had ordered had been delivered unobtrusively without him noticing. They hadn’t, so he forced himself to put back on the boots and trousers he had worn all day. He wore the inner layers of his top half but couldn’t bring himself to wear anything still matted with the partial remains of the man who had ruled the place he now saw as his own. Shivering against the cold as he wore two layers too few to stave off the low temperatures, he went back outside wearing a foul look and prepared to take his temper out on the first people he found.

  He walked outside and found a gathering of people facing the entrance, milling about almost uncertainly as though they lacked the final catalyst to take action as a group. They had a clear common purpose, but the spark to ignite the flame was missing.

  That spark came when a bedraggled woman gently pushed her way to the front rank and faced him down. She rubbed at her wrists where they had been tied until the revolt had forced her release. She showed no emotion when she heard the news of Michaels’ death, but inside she rejoiced almost cruelly, betraying a side to her personality that she didn’t know she had. She wasn’t ashamed of it. Now she faced the shivering man and felt the weight of the support behind her making her more powerful than he was.

  Nevin knew it in the same moment that she did, and his hand fumbled in the pocket of the trousers for the revolver. The crowd descended on him as one, pinning his arms and body with so many hands that he was utterly powerless to resist. It was the realisation that the threat of violence only held so much sway over others, and when the majority recognised their power, they were an unstoppable force. The gun was wrested from his grip and the barrel turned on him for the cold metal to grind the soft, thin layer of flesh between his eyes. He screwed his eyes shut tightly and tried to squirm away from the pressure, a keening noise escaping his mouth without permission, until a strong voice cut through the hum.

  “No,” she said, “not like that.”

  “Hang the bastard!” a woman shouted in a shrill voice made aggressive by the horrors of oppression.

  “Shoot him,” yelled a man, most likely unwilling or unable to do so himself, but happy to allow another to bear the burden.

  “We can’t let him go,” another voice shouted, being met with grumbles of affirmation and support.

  Pauline thought about it, thought about how best to satisfy the people who had suffered under the control and cruelty of him and people like him. The others had been given a choice; stay and become one of them or leave and consider themselves apart forever. None of them was the ringleader type, but this man, Nevin, he was toxic.

  “Oh,” she said nastily, letting all of the anger and frustration pour out of her after months of imprisonment, “we can let him go.”

  Nevin was frogmarched by so many pairs of hands around the building to face the sea from the high cliffs. He had begun to hope that they would banish him, would eject him from the safety of the Hilltop with only the clothes on his back. He willed them to do that, begged and pleaded in between threatening and abusing the people pinning his arms. One man pushed through to spit in his face, and looked horrified when Nevin spat back, as each man held the same contempt and hatred for the other. The man despised Nevin for what he had done to people, how he had bullied and exploited the weak. Nevin hated him because he hated everyone.

  He was powerless to resist the will of the people, but babbled pleas and threats constantly in the desperate hope that something, anything he said would save his life. It didn’t, and without any more words or opportunity to talk his way out of his fate, they pitched him over the side of the cliff towards the sea far below and listened as his screams faded into the sounds of the crashing waves far below.

  Captain Palmer called a meeting. Because everyone was present, it had to be held outside in the cold in order that everyone could hear him. He told them about the safe site in Scotland, about how Britain was effectively cut off and that no help would be coming in the near future. He told them that it was their duty to get there, by any means possible, and to support the remnants of the rightful government.

  “It might be your duty,” called a voice from the crowd. Palmer could not find the face of the disembodied words, but he recognised the voice and knew it belonged to the man who had always been vocal about their plight. That vocalisation had usually been negative, and his younger brother had told him of how the man had lied about his wife being pregnant in order to try and ge
t on board one of the rescue helicopter flights back on the island. He had struck the young officer and had looked likely to do so again until another of the civilians had intervened, but since building up the life they lived at the house, he had gathered some support among the non-military people, and even his wife had returned to his side.

  “…but it’s not ours,” he finished amidst a chorus of agreeing murmurs.

  “Very true,” Palmer said, “so if anyone wishes to stay here, then we will discuss the supplies and resources to be left behind.”

  Bizarrely, some of the civilians untethered to the squadron by family wanted to come with them, just as the surprise of a few army families wanting to stay rocked Palmer’s confidence. He saw that not as a desertion, but as a failure on his part that he did not inspire those men sufficiently to follow him. The disillusion was tempered by the reassurances of Lloyd and Downes, as well as those of his younger brother, who had become more noticeable now that the possibility of a more comfortable life peeked over the horizon. Those who wanted to stay did so out of hope that loved ones and friends had survived, and that they could be there to offer safety and assistance to those who would hopefully emerge in the spring, like daffodils.

  What took two days to decide, amidst arguments and tears, was that almost fifty of them wanted to stay, wanted to take over the big house and work the farm and man the defences to keep them safe from the suspected return of the Screechers when the warm weather came back. Among those fifty were half a dozen of the squadron men, but none of the RAF crews or Royal Marines had any inclination to remain behind. The core of the squadron had remained intact, but Palmer wondered how many of those would have fallen away if they hadn’t rescued their families or if those they had rescued had wanted to stay. The pull of family was a force stronger than gravity. The marines, just as the remaining helicopter crew and the SAS team, all still considered themselves deployed, more than surviving a nuclear apocalypse where the undead walked the countryside in hordes, and the only support they could count on was their own. Their units were still largely intact, and that helped maintain the cohesion between the men.

  Plans were drawn up, supplies were sorted and stockpiled and the three vehicles they planned to use as their convoy were meticulously prepared and repaired by cannibalising whatever they had left. They were mindful not to leave those staying behind without the use of heavy guns, and to that end they left a handful of working squadron wagons arrayed where their guns could do the most damage to any assault by the dead or the living alike. The decision as to whom to send ahead in the helicopter, which they had checked and double checked could only manage one trip, was a difficult one.

  The person they should send in charge of this detachment of the civilians should be sensible and senior enough as to have their report taken seriously but should ideally not be a man who was irreplaceable on what would very likely be an arduous and dangerous journey. Palmer had thought to send Maxwell, his interim Sergeant Major, but the man was simply too vital to the running of things to let go.

  He elected eventually to send the newly-minted Sergeant Ashdown, injured horribly so long ago by the gruesome animated remains of a Royal Military Policeman, and promoted to replace Maxwell as the nominal head of Assault Troop. He travelled with his family, all of them intertwined with Maxwell’s relations, and his presence satisfied Palmer that the word of the RAF crew would be supported by a sergeant. He sent three other soldiers on the helicopter, none of them carrying more than a small bag as the weight of luggage would put lives in danger in many ways, and those men were carrying some form of illness or injury that would hamper their performance on the hundreds of miles of unknown road they would likely be fighting along.

  The two newest arrivals, shrouded in tragedy, had both flatly refused to come. Both held on to the desperate belief that their loved ones were still alive, and both knew that they wouldn’t find their way to the Highlands of Scotland and across a stretch of sea to find safety, so they stayed.

  Arrayed the next morning before the ornate walls of the house, and seeming at odds with the building, but at home with the barbed wire and trenches, the large Bedford truck and two Fox wagons, along with the dirty Land Cruiser adopted by the SAS team, set off without fanfare or ceremony, heading north towards uncertainty. The helicopter, warmed and checked thoroughly after weeks of frozen inactivity, lifted off and thrummed sedately away into the gloomy winter sky.

  Palmer, unfamiliar with the Fox but picking up the commander’s seat and the controls with an ease which spoke highly of his intellect, paused before they rolled out. He looked down to the man who was staying, but who he had hoped would come. The man’s loyalties ran too deep for him to abandon hope of his real boss returning.

  “Corporal Daniels,” Palmer said as he waved him over, “I don’t suppose I can facilitate an eleventh-hour deal and convince you to join us?”

  “’Fraid not, Sir,” he said with a smile, “I’ll stay and mind the radio. Mister Johnson will pop up again when the weather breaks, I’m sure of it.”

  “I pray for all our sakes, Corporal, that you are right.” He leaned down, fixing the man with direct eye contact and held out a gloveless hand. Daniels climbed up on the hull of the angular wagon, removed his own woolly mitten, and took the hand in a firm grip, shaking it as the cold flesh of both men’s hands warmed slightly as though the skin liked company.

  “Drive safe, boss,” he told him.

  “You also,” Palmer replied, “I’ll make contact when I can, see if we can’t reconnect in summer.”

  Daniels nodded, sure that he wouldn’t see any of the men again but feeling that he had done the right thing by staying. Someone had to keep the pilot light on for the SSM, because Daniels knew the man well enough that even if he was dead, properly dead and not one of the Screechers, then he would have spent the last moments of his life doing something worthwhile. He knew if he was still alive then he would find him, eventually, and if he was one of those things? Well if he was, then corporal Charlie Daniels would do for him personally, then follow the boys to Scotland.

  On his own if he had to.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Nevin came to, his head unbelievably thick and groggy as he struggled to recall how he had come to be where he was. To answer that conundrum, he thought, he had to first figure out where that was in relation to where he last remembered being, and when he followed that memory-string back to the source, he recalled with horrifying clarity what had happened. They had seized him, stripped him of his gun and dragged him to the cliffs. Without mercy, much the same way that he treated people, they had thrown him off the cliff into the evening sky where he didn’t so much fall as tumble, end over agonising end, until his broken body came to rest on a soft, mossy outcrop and his skull thumped hard into the natural green rug until the resistance of the rock underneath fought back and knocked him out cold.

  He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious, much as the way these things worked when hit very hard in the head. But his clouded mind reasoned that it hadn’t grown fully dark yet, and logic dictated that given the freezing temperatures he was highly unlikely to have been unconscious all night. He reckoned he would have died of exposure if that had been the case.

  As his senses slowly returned to him, he blinked his eyes to better focus on what he could see around him. A rhythmic huffing sound came from nearby, but he didn’t understand what could make such a noise, and besides, the sight his eyes drank in shut off all concentration to anything else. He had lifted his head, propping himself up on one elbow to stare down the length of his body at where his legs had once been. He knew what he saw couldn’t be his legs because, for one, he knew that if they were, then the sickening sight of the broken bones protruding through the pale, grey flesh and the dirty material of the trousers would prompt at least some feeling of pain. He felt nothing, and tried to move the broken leg he could see. It didn’t budge, so he tried harder, grunting as he forced all of his effort into making the feet twit
ch, move, or do anything in response to his commands. He visually traced the feet and legs back to his own waist, patting his body as he went upwards until finally he was rewarded with the sensation of being touched at his midriff. He froze, patting downwards again and feeling nothing before moving his hands back up until he could feel his own touch. His hands moved faster, whipping up into a desperate frenzy as he sucked in a deep breath and began to scream in fear and horror and hope that the paralysis was something his brain had invented, or that he was still unconscious, but those thoughts were pushed aside as another feeling came to him.

  Nails raked down his scalp from behind, making him squeal and move awkwardly as his top half dragged the numb, dead lower half with it. He turned to see, to smell, the rotten waste of what had once been a person wriggling towards him on the same rocky outcrop above the waves below. He shrieked, the decomposed beast shrieked back, sounding a hollow hiss in place of the characteristic scream, and the two inched closer to one another as the battered, limbless, ruined corpse shuffled inexorably closer to the paralysed man who could do nothing to defend himself but scream louder. Nevin tried to escape, tried to drag his half-useless body over the rocky green of the outcrop and drag himself clear of the rotten monstrosity that was thrashing slowly with one arm and no legs from the knees down. It must have been there for a while, because it was barely identifiable as a person other than by shape.

  Nevin’s numb hands slipped on the soggy, moss-covered rock, and his face hit the ground with no body strength to support him. As he hit, the cracked stumps of blackened teeth reached forwards and connected with the skin beside his right eyebrow. It clamped down, ripping and tearing as the sudden heat of his blood threatened to cook his face in contrast to the frigid air whipping around them. He howled in pain and fear as the thing craned its neck forward to chomp on his face again. He desperately tried to claw his own way to the ledge and pour himself over to dash his own body on the rocks beneath. He failed, but he did succeed in dislodging his attacker. It fell off the ledge, coming to rest only a foot below on another rock, but that distance was an insurmountable peak to the thing as it could barely locomote any more. Sudden heat, a burning intensity from within him, replaced the bracing cold he could feel. He knew the wind was still blowing hard against his exposed skin, but he no longer felt the temperature of it.