Toy Soldiers Box Set | Books 1-6

by Ford, Devon C.

  As they all congregated and stretched their cramped muscles, sounds of a trapped animal, hissing and yowling, drifted out of the hatch to them, followed shortly afterwards by a small projectile of brown and black exiting the vehicle and seeking the nearest piece of low cover too small for a human to fit. Everyone but the royal marines looked shocked. Peter had already learned of the survival of the cat who had followed him and Amber so long ago. He smiled at Johnson, who just seemed speechless.

  “Bloody thing has to be down to two lives maximum,” he muttered, digging in his pack and handing a tin of something to Peter. He fished in a pouch on his webbing to produce a tin opener, offering it to the boy, who was already proudly holding his own and grinning at the SSM.

  Kimberley hovered behind Peter and smiled nervously at Johnson as she fussed over the boy and earned suspicious glances from his sister. Ever since he had been left behind at the farm, she had blamed herself and expected criticism from others, but when none came, she seemed to act harder on herself than even before. Johnson smiled back, forcing his facial muscles to move into some semblance of an expression designed to reassure her that she wasn’t to blame. Privately he blamed himself, even taking Peter aside when he could pry his sister from him for just a minute, to apologise to him. Peter had been the one to offer the reassurances then, taking responsibility for sneaking away from the group without telling anyone.

  Johnson, a man accustomed to large industrial garages, returned the conversation to the subject of diesel and brought Duncan’s attention to the grubby metal tank standing in the yard.

  “Better to get it now than risk having company later,” he said. The logic was sound, but it was a hassle to drive the two big wagons back outside and crank the heavy hand pump up and down to brim their tanks, while the others formed a loose cordon with their guns trained outwards. The task all but drained the remains of their strength. When both wagons were full, Johnson encouraged them to fill the three metal jerrycans they found with diesel, seeing as they were already there.

  Safely back inside, they set a guard and began a debrief on what had happened since they had last seen one another.

  Daniels, finally stood down from the need to do things immediately, filled Johnson in on what he’d missed.

  “It was bad, Sarn’t Major,” he admitted. “We lost half the boys when they went back to the base for more wagons and gear. Only Povey made it back and that was because the Regiment boys found him being chased by a pack of the bastards. It was Nevin.” At the mention of the squadron sergeant major’s nemesis, the big man scoffed in derisive anger before a smile crept across his bearded face and he recounted his last sight of Nevin—undead and trapped inside a shattered body halfway down a cliff—to the radio operator. Daniels’ smile grew to mirror the SSM’s.

  “Good,” he spat vehemently. “Less than the fucker deserved after what he did.”

  “That’s not the half of it,” Johnson went on. “Seems like our missing troop sergeant set himself up as lord of the hill and was running a bloody protection racket, which Nevin found himself a part of. It was those two bastards who wrecked our little winter headquarters with a Ferret.”

  Daniels nodded towards the two royal marines. “But they did for him?” Johnson sucked in a breath as he fought down the physical response the recalled emotions threatened to overwhelm him with.

  “Yeah,” he answered. “Saved our lives by being prepared to give up their own. It’s bloody good to see them in one piece…”

  “The others, the Mister Palmers and Mister Lloyd, went to Scotland with the SAS blokes and the helicopter crew.” Johnson nodded along as Daniels gave him the details on that, listening as he described the brutal winter with too many mouths to feed and not anywhere near enough food to go around.

  “Funny,” Daniels said, “when they all left, there was more than enough food left. I think that’s the way, you know? Small groups…”

  “Probably right,” Johnson agreed distractedly, his thoughts evidently going elsewhere.

  “We going to talk about this or ignore it?” a voice asked from behind them. Daniels turned, hearing the hostility in the tone and misunderstanding it. He found himself facing the wild-bearded SBS sergeant whose abrupt manner he had taken as angry. Johnson, accustomed to his directness, answered him.

  “Can’t say it hasn’t been on my mind,” he agreed. “Charlie? Fetch me a map of the area.”

  The map was laid out flat with most of them huddling over it.

  “We’re here,” Johnson said, indicating a small town outside Salisbury, “and the Screechers stopped coming round about here,” he said, tapping the sharp tip of the bayonet he was using as a pointer on the map a few miles to the west.

  “The house was back here,” Daniels said as he tapped a finger on the map, “and AWACS reported the swarm down here.” Again, another tap on the map some twenty miles to the south.

  “All of them heading in the same directions…” Larsen said thoughtfully.

  “So why do you think this has something to do with the Yanks?” Johnson asked Daniels.

  “They were on to me straight away,” he said, brow furrowed as though he was trying to find the source of the paranoia in his own words. “I’d been broadcasting regularly, seeing if I could get them to make contact back.”

  “Them?” Bufford asked gruffly.

  “The Americans, mainly. There’s at least one French frigate and some supply boats from other European countries. Our navy’s there too, but they’re not running the show, by any stretch of the imagination.”

  “And you know this how?” Johnson asked, suspecting he knew the answer but not comprehending that anyone had the patience he suspected Daniels possessed.

  “Spent all winter going through every NATO frequency on the list,” he answered flatly. His tone gave away the fact that it had been tedious work, to say the least.

  “I got a response in the beginning,” he went on, “and they wanted to know our location and strength and all that. Said they were cataloguing survivors for future extraction when the situation was under control. I asked what that looked like and they didn’t say anything. Anyway, they took my emergency hailing channel and just stopped answering. Gave up after a while; I was more interested in finding yo—in finding any more of our boys who’d made it off the island and were at a loose end.”

  “And we appreciate it, Charlie,” Johnson said, seeing through the young man’s pretence. “But that still doesn’t answer the question…” Daniels looked down for a moment, probably deciding on the best way to phrase his thoughts, before raising a single finger and wagging it slowly as he spoke; almost as though it were connected to his mind with an invisible string that teased out the conclusions from the mess of suspicion.

  “They were already up in the air and had eyes on this swarm not long after it formed—my guess is that there were a lot of Screechers still hanging around after the island—and this is after months of the Yanks not making contact.”

  “So, you think they knew about the swarm before it happened?” Bufford grilled him, leaning in to see the man’s face and gauge the answers his expression would give when his words would not.

  “Something like that,” Daniels answered, still frowning pensively. “What if they weren’t looking for a swarm specifically? What if they were monitoring the county to see if the Screechers responded to something?”

  “All you can eat buffet?” Bufford asked sarcastically. “One of those raves for Screechers?”

  “Weapons test?” Johnson asked, unable to keep the hint of trepidation from his voice.

  “What?” interrupted a small voice from behind them. They turned or craned their necks to see Peter approaching, his older sister following close behind almost uncertainly now that she was no longer the protector of a frightened, naïve young boy. “Some kind of thing that calls them all to one place?”

  They all stared at him for a second before exchanging silent looks with one another.

  “Wel
l, they were all heading in one direction, weren’t they?” Peter went on, not put off by their attention or fearing adults like he used to. “And the faster ones were all at the front with the slower ones behind, so that makes sense…”

  “It does make good sense,” Astrid said, having wandered in to join the impromptu pow-wow. “Do any of you have an alternative suggestion?”

  “I get that we’re all interested in this and all… aargh,” Hampton said with a groan as he put his stiff leg up on a low stack of car batteries. “But what difference does it make really? So what if someone’s fucking abou—”

  “Ahem,” Ellie cut in, having been the last to join the group’s congregation.

  “—if someone’s playing silly buggers with the Screechers and sending them all to one place, as long as that place isn’t where we’re going, I present the case that we accept that fact and carry on about our business.”

  “What the sergeant’s trying to say,” Enfield said in his calm and controlled voice, “is that we’re wasting braincells on a problem we don’t need to deal with. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Exactly,” Hampton agreed. “Thank you, Marine Enfield. Next time I need you to speak for me, I’ll shove my hand up your jacksie and use you like a puppet.” Hampton was joking, although only those who’d spent the last winter with them would know that the marines never needed to exchange harsh words or fall back on the rank structure to get anything done.

  Enfield held Hampton’s gaze, even when the sergeant waggled his eyebrows once and muttered, “all the way to the elbo—”

  “But they were heading north,” Kimberley asked. “Scotland’s north. Who’s to say they aren’t all heading for where the others are?” Johnson opened his mouth to softly explain what she’d missed, hoping that nobody else beat him to it, as the thought of her feeling embarrassed or shamed in any way stung him. He was beaten to it, but in such a kindly and commanding way that he found his feelings move from protective fear to something resembling immense pride. And a healthy dose of protectiveness.

  “Because we went east,” Peter told her, beckoning her towards the table where he looked at the map for a moment, trying to get his bearings. He’d evidently been watching earlier as the soldiers had discussed it, because his eyes were lingering on roughly the correct grid squares before Johnson tapped a gnarled fingertip on an area to the east and slightly south of the place he’d identified as their current location. “Since the…” he swallowed and shook himself like a twitch overtook him. “Since the farm, we went this way. Corporal Daniels told Mister Johnson that they were going south to north to begin with, and the Screechers we saw were going east to west.” With each directional description, the young boy ran his finger in the relevant compass point flow. Johnson saw Kimberley hiding a smile that he knew would not be out of amusement at the boy playing grown-up, but would be from genuine pride.

  “So they’re all heading to a single point which is west from here and northwest of where the others started off?” Kimberley asked him, having leapt far ahead of his explanation logically but taking a brief moment to let him develop his confidence.

  “So, it would make sense that if we went north we’d see them heading southwest,” Peter concluded.

  “Only they’ve stopped,” Johnson said. “About eight miles back. No obvious reason why.”

  “Could be the range of whatever’s attracting them. Like blood in the ocean attracting sharks over a certain distance.” A few faces grimaced at the analogy.

  “That’s Hollywood rubbish,” Bufford chimed in, sounding almost bored as though he’d had the conversation before. “I’ve been in the water all over the world and sharks don’t go into a frenzy just because someone cut themselves shaving or got stabbed multiple times.” He added an unapologetic shrug which raised more questions than it dismissed about his history of underwater activities.

  “Regardless,” Johnson said, rolling up the map and raising his voice a little to change the subject and take charge. With more civilians and two more soldiers, he felt as though order needed to be restored. Him taking charge wasn’t an arrogance—if anyone more capable who he trusted to guide their choices was there, he’d happily take instruction rather than give it—but things needed to be done.

  “We’ve got maybe two days of water on our wagon. What about your lot, Charlie?” Daniels looked abashed as though he’d failed his sergeant major.

  “A day. And food. We left in a bit of a hurry…”

  “We were the same,” Hampton added as he idly picked at a piece of hard skin by a fingernail with the small blade of a folding knife. He saw the attention his actions were receiving and mumbled a reassurance that he hadn’t stabbed any Screechers with the knife before. “We had two canteens full and are down to half that now. We also didn’t get any food on the way out the door on account of not having been there long and some cock-jockey of a civvy trying to tell us what to do.”

  Priorities needed addressing, and for once, Johnson missed how simple that small matter had been over winter. There had been weeks at a time when fresh snowfall could be collected and allowed to defrost, and that didn’t take into account their comfortable home—before the village had been destroyed—that still enjoyed running water.

  “First things first,” Johnson said, looking to Enfield, who was already lifting the small rifle and bending to pick up the large, padded gun slip. He held out the smaller weapon to Peter, who hadn’t held it since he helped the marine sight it for the first time so long, and yet not so long ago. Enfield headed for the steel staircase leading up to the half-mezzanine floor but Peter hesitated and glanced behind him. He smiled at his sister, who seemed to give a small nod of permission before he turned back to follow and swallowed down his recent memories of steel ladders and mezzanine floors.

  Sentry duties covered, Johnson then recruited Bufford to lead a small recce and see what the immediate area offered. He would ordinarily have asked Astrid to go too, but she was displaying a post-adrenaline exhaustion that would make her reactions sloppy. Coupled with the fact that her weapon was filthy through firing and her ammunition count was incredibly low, he tactfully left her out of any plans.

  “I’ll come with you, Buffs,” he said, picking up his gifted MP5 from the table and walking away. “Bill?” he shot back to Hampton, who smiled sweetly in comical response. “Square everything away in here and set about seeing if there’s anything we can use?”

  TWENTY-THREE

  “Yo’s in place,” Jackson said to Miller in a quiet voice. The team was looking forward to this fetch and carry mission, because it required the liberal application of bullets to the heads of infected monsters. They weren’t bloodthirsty or callous, not overtly at any rate, but the SEALs were becoming frustrated by being in sight and smell—oh dear God, the smell—of the enemy. Miller nodded and took up position, wishing for the third time in the last half hour that he’d brought the Colt rifles from the ship’s armoury in addition to the loadout he had opted for, to keep their noise profile as small as possible.

  He reassured himself that these things didn’t wear any kind of protection, and a five-five-six round went through a skull or a face just as well as the 9mm they carried did.

  “Okay,” he said, after checking the action on his weapon again, “light it up.”

  Flares were activated and tossed ahead of them, and the briefcase device—their new, non-human yo—was set a little way behind the cargo net. Even before the device was switched on, the flares revealed two shadowy figures shambling awkwardly, drunkenly down the hill towards them. They’d elected a new spot for trapping, as they had every time they’d been sent to the mainland for test subjects, only this time they would get to end the suffering of more than a few before they hopefully got what they came for.

  “They’re slow ones,” Shepherd said in a low voice, asking permission with his tone.

  “Okay,” Miller told them, “nice and slow. Take your time and mark your shots.”

  It took a few
seconds for the suppressed snapping sounds to start coughing from the barrels of their guns. The first wave of shambling enemy fell quickly, the sudden absence of their moans swelling those coming on from behind, much in the way bees would respond if you swatted one too close to their hive. It was like a pheromone was released when one died, which made the others coming behind even angrier, and when a commotion at the back of the slow advance cut the air with a spine-chilling shriek, they knew their target was in play.

  “We got one incoming,” Miller barked to his men. “Hernandez, you get ready to hit the gas. Daves, fall back and keep shooting. Jackson, Kid? Cover and move. Go!”

  Slick and professional, the two Daves—Coleman and Shepherd—stopped firing and fell back, keeping their profiles low so as not to interfere with the shots of Jackson and Wilson. Miller was already behind the slung net, standing tall in plain view as the two moving men stopped, turned, and began lining up headshots at the advance so the other two could fall back under cover of their fire.

  It was a natural thing to maintain their fire discipline and training, even if this enemy didn’t fire back, because to learn something different now would mean to lose the years of muscle memory, of ingrained training, and would run the risk of them not knowing instinctively what to do when the shit hit the fan.

  Too many of them were approaching now, so Miller gave orders to start slowing them down instead of wasting time with a careful headshot which required a good aim.

  “Kneecaps,” he called out. “Drop the bastards and slow them down. We need the fast one to reach the net first.” He raised his own weapon and began rattling bullets ahead of them in controlled three-round bursts, by flicking the safety catch down two notches.