Toy Soldiers Box Set | Books 1-6

by Ford, Devon C.

  Back into hell.

  He let out the slightest of small coughs before transmitting again, “Blue team moving in.”

  The six-man team slowly and precisely slipped the small oars over the side of their inflatable boat and began paddling towards the dark shoreline with as little noise as humanly possible. They were all capable of digging deep and propelling the craft at speed, but they weren’t there for their heedless resolve in strength and fitness; that might get a man through SEAL training, but it didn’t keep him alive for long when doing the shady work they were so often called upon to undertake.

  None of them spoke unless they had to, not that Miller thought they would be so undisciplined, and the oars were shipped again wordlessly as they reached the slither of white in the low, dark night that signalled the demarcation line between water and the stony shore of north west England.

  They rose, slipping over the sides to splash into the knee-deep frigid water and dragged the boat out of the waves onto dry land. Miller, left his seat at the back of the boat and took no part in hauling the craft ashore as he was stalking forwards out of the sea with his weapon raised, swinging his body from left to right and back again to maintain cover over his team.

  Others might feel an intense swell of what they would mistakenly call pride at leading such a body of men into war, but he would call it ego, and simply satisfied himself that he had the best the world could offer right there under his command.

  As soon as the boat was safely stashed well above the tide line and turned around to face their exit that was the expanse of black water looking out at the northern tip of Ireland, the others unslung their weapons and pushed out a defensive perimeter while they waited for their orders to move.

  Miller gave those orders in a low voice, running through what he wanted to happen with an economy of words only an elite soldier would use.

  “Jackson, point. Shepherd, take rear. Fall in and move out.”

  The five other men moved with painstaking care to get into position with Miller, behind the second in command of the team, allowing a sensible enough interval so that they weren’t bunched up and vulnerable to any ambush. At the rear of their slow-moving tactical advance was one of the Daves—Shepherd—with the other, Coleman, there with him. That just left Hernandez and their youngest team member, Wilson, called Willy or ‘Little Willy’ by the others.

  Being new to the team didn’t mean he was new to the military and by no stretch of the imagination was he a kid. They were all in their early to late-thirties with enough active tours under their collective belt that they had earned the title of special warfare operators twice over.

  “Eyes open,” Jackson’s soft voice drifted back to them as he slowed and sank to one knee to bring the weapon up a few degrees so that it was fully aimed ahead of him. The night was dark, but not without some ambient light from the moon. They’d been out for long enough for their eyes to fully adapt as much as they could to the environment, and as they weren’t fighting insurgents or soldiers—that they knew of—the risk of attack came solely from the creatures.

  “How many?” Miller’s voice, barely audible, came on warm breath behind his friend’s ear.

  “Eight, maybe ten,” Jackson replied.

  “Any of our target type?”

  Jackson sucked in a slow breath through his nose as he pondered the answer, letting it out almost as a sigh of disappointment when he spoke.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  Miller backed off slowly, calling in the rest of the team to whisper his instructions to them. Slowly, precisely, they moved to occupy positions in a wide arc around the knot of shuffling bodies concentrated in the deserted street ahead. Their objective wasn’t to just dispatch the hordes—air strikes and sea-borne artillery would do that if they formed any kind of swarm like they had before—but to select and subdue one particular type of monster created by the mutation of whatever unholy shit the Brits and CIA had cooked up to cause the global catastrophe.

  They waited, knowing that none of them would fire a shot or make a noise unless Miller himself called the ‘Go’ or they had no choice. Even then, Miller would be disappointed in any of his team who couldn’t take out one or two of the slow ones with their Ontario service knives without making a noise.

  Only they found no slow ones, because whatever had caused the newest monstrosity to increase the combat effectiveness of their enemy had done away with the high volume of slower ones; leaving only those designated as Lima and the new moniker of Echos, derived from the label of enhanced infected, which was what anyone safely away from the area called them.

  Slowly rotating his left wrist without twisting the barrel of his suppressed MP5—really the only choice in anti-zombie small arms—he looked at the glowing tips of the hands on his watch.

  Zero-five-forty, he thought, less than twenty minutes until daybreak.

  Deciding to wait it out and knowing that he didn’t have to communicate that with his team, Miller settled down to wait as the small crowd ahead and slightly below their position grew clearer in detail with every passing minute.

  He marvelled at how they crowded together, how they seemed to hibernate and hide from the wind like animals—like penguins sheltering from the icy winds of the Antarctic. As the dawn threatened to pierce the sky over the distant rise, a noise emanated from the gaggle of undead. It began as a low grumble, growing in intensity as the closely packed beasts began to animate and complain, before the group split apart and a female pushed her way free to sniff the air with exaggerated movements like a dog smelling food on the breeze. Her head swivelled to the higher ground where the US Navy SEAL team was hidden, and she opened her mouth to screech loudly with a tortured inward breath.

  Behind her, agitated and aroused by her actions, the others became more excited as though startled out of a drunken torpor to begin echoing her shriek in all directions, as they had yet to zero in on what had caused the reaction.

  “So much for the element of surprise,” Jackson said from Miller’s left.

  “That one of them?” Wilson asked in a voice too loud for their situation and betraying his status as the least experienced man there. “That one of the… Echos?”

  “Negative,” Jackson told him, no longer bothering to keep his voice too low as the faster one had already set off in a lumbering jog in their direction. “That’s still a Lima.”

  “Okay,” Miller said with a sigh as he stood and cricked his neck from side to side in anticipation of the assault, “take ‘em down.”

  Suppressed gunshots punched the still pre-dawn air as the Lima tumbled to the dirt to twitch until a three-round burst perforated her skull to leave her lifeless again. The others came on behind, walking in contrast to their boss’ jog, and fell easily as the operators took their time to fire aimed shots in testimony to their calm demeanour under what counted as fire. When the last of them fell, Miller gave the order to move forwards and ‘make sure’ of any dead body before they stepped inside grabbing distance. One or two more shots punctuated the morning and he himself had drawn his blade purely to save raising their noise profile, should he need to end the movement of a not-quite-dead-again, undead thing.

  As they began to return to their original position, expecting orders to move either inland or else up or down the coast, another sound tore the air in two as loud and as sudden as a passing jet operating below the safe flight deck.

  It was like a bark, only higher and sharper than a dog’s, like an aggressive fox had been disturbed by their arrival. Something about the quality of the sound echoing around the now-deserted streets shot cold into their spines like a hypodermic needle, and as one, they began to contract to form an outward-facing ring of raised weapons.

  “The fuck was that shit?” Hernandez complained half to himself as he performed a reload on his MP5 without looking.

  “Seriously,” Wilson added, “what the hell was that, Master Chief?”

  “That, Willy,” Miller said in a low tone soun
ding almost bored even though his heart was beating like a disco track, “was probably something we don’t want to meet, but orders are orders.”

  They stayed in position, twice more hearing the sharp barks at differing intervals, which sounded as though the thing making them was either moving fast or, far more worryingly, wasn’t alone.

  They held their position for a few more minutes until the daylight showed enough light that none of the shadows could hold any unwelcome surprises.

  “You wanna break out the yo?” one of the Daves asked softly, meaning to lure the Echo, the so-called ‘enhanced infected’, into a trap as they had when sent to capture a Lima weeks before.

  “Too exposed here. I don’t like it…” Miller whispered, suddenly deciding their chosen battleground put them at a disadvantage. “Everyone back to the boat,” he said, unsure why he felt so uneasy but trusting his instincts. As they moved, he finally understood why he was suddenly so… so afraid. The morning air was still and silent, but something more ominous was there behind the silence; not a single bird or animal anywhere made a sound to disturb the secluded beach, as though the apex predator was within earshot and everything alive was holding its breath in the hopes of surviving the dawn.

  Just as Miller’s nerve caught up with his thoughts and he opened his mouth to yell at his team to get ready, to defend themselves against what he knew must be so very close and about to attack, the barking noise sounded again very close by.

  He froze, his inward breath feeling like it had got stuck in his throat, which had constricted with a primal fear. He turned toward the source of the noise, his body moving slower than he thought it should, as if he was underwater, and his eyes located the filthy, naked creature crouching like a primate on the top of an abandoned hut still standing watch over the beach.

  It couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven when it had turned, Miller guessed. It was hard to tell as the hair had all fallen out to leave the pre-pubescent and shapeless body of what had unmistakably been a girl totally bald and androgynous. It canted its head to one side, regarding them as a confused pet might, only with a look of hatred and utter malice clear in her expression.

  Still, no matter how much his brain willed his body to comply, to follow his goddamned orders, Miller couldn’t bring the weapon around to line up a shot before the thing hunkered down to bunch the thin muscles of its legs and prepare a leap that he just knew would bring it down in their centre before any of them could connect a bullet to it.

  His mouth began to form the incoherent shout of rage as he abandoned the grip of the weapon and instead reached for the blade again, intent on dying with enough of the thing’s brains running down the hilt of the weapon to make his sacrifice worth it.

  As it began its seemingly slow-motion jump, just before the feet broke contact with the wood of the roof it had used as the platform to descend on them from, the zip and crack of a high-velocity bullet snapped through their position, seeming to bring with it the correct speed of time and motion back to his world.

  The creature, nearly headless, fulfilled its intended arc of flight to land in a broken, shattered pile of thin limbs in their centre.

  Looking down on it now, Miller felt a revulsion mixed in with so much pain and regret for what had once been a child that his mind didn’t fully register what had happened until Jackson slapped him on the arm.

  Turning and looking up, Miller saw a bush rise to its feet slowly and shake off the draped branches that had formed such an effective camouflage. A hand was raised in greeting before the shooter turned and jogged away downhill to disappear.

  Confused, Miller turned to Jackson to begin asking questions when another sound reached his ears. Glancing back towards the sea, a small craft not unlike their own but which had once been white and red where theirs was black, came into sight.

  “You fuckers lost?” boomed a strong voice from inside the small boat. “Get in your tub and follow us, you silly bastards.”

  With that, the man sat back down and the boat began to power away heading north up the coast line. Without any good reason not to, the navy SEALs got back in their boat and followed them.

  ONE

  Five weeks earlier

  Dean Johnson woke up. His eyes moved first, as though he subconsciously didn’t want to betray his changed state of consciousness until he was sure of his surroundings, but when it came back to him that he was safe, he allowed the stretch to begin in his hands.

  They reached out above him, seemingly connected to his toes as the already large man made himself even larger so that he hung off both ends of the bed, and as his body tensed and he held his breath to give the final, climactic shudder of the movement, he held the pose until releasing both the breath and his tense muscles to deflate with a sigh.

  He sat up, twisting his upper body left and right with an oddly satisfying pop and crunch of vertebrae realigning themselves, before swinging his legs out over the side of the bed and hearing the protesting springs of the mattress sing him a morning greeting as he stood.

  “Is it morning already?” came the groggy, contented voice from behind him. Suddenly aware of his hairy bulk being so uncovered, he stooped to retrieve a shirt and fumbled his words over answering.

  “’fraid so,” he said softly, glad he’d been reminded that he wasn’t alone in time before issuing a biological morning bugle call. “You stay there, I’ll get us a cup of tea.”

  Kimberley fell back under the covers they had only recently started sharing and held a single thumb aloft in his direction, enjoying the last few moments of comfortable sleepiness before the day began.

  Something about time and tide not waiting came to her but she forgot it quickly enough as the residual heat left on Johnson’s side of the bed made her smile and lean into it.

  They were among the last ones to rise—a significant departure from almost every other day of his life—and when he padded his bare feet over the cold, polished floor of the kitchen he found himself greeted by a young boy standing on a wooden step before a large range cooker.

  “Tea up,” Peter said, approximating both the cadence of his words and his accent as he spoke. Johnson watched as the boy used a thick tea towel to lift the metal pot from the heat and struggled to pour it into the two cups without sloshing a decent amount onto the worktop sides.

  “Two cups please, Peter,” he said as he walked past and waited for him to put down the hot metal before ruffling his hair with what passed for affection from him. Peter misunderstood, aiming a quizzical look his way before it dawned on him that the squadron sergeant major wasn’t looking to have two drinks for himself. He smiled, embarrassed slightly, and picked up the teapot again to spill more of the dark liquid onto the surface.

  Fresh milk wasn’t available so they drank it black, and Johnson reached for the bag of sugar complete with the stained teaspoon jutting from the top like a shovel left in the dirt ready to be used. He broke the crusted surface of the white crystals and heaped a mound into both cups before giving it a cursory stir and picking them up to take them back to bed.

  “Biscuits?” Peter asked. Johnson turned to see the boy waggling his eyebrows excitedly as he produced a square tin and popped off the lid to reveal an almost full selection of Family Circle delights.

  Johnson gave a gasp of delight only half faked for the boy’s benefit and put down the cups to dig out the jammy-centred variety along with the custard creams. Realising that he didn’t know what Kimberley’s favourites were, and further realising that the chances of that conversation happening over the time they’d known one another were slim enough that he could be forgiven for not knowing, he sought out a plate to add a variety of others before balancing it on top of one cup and heading back to the room they had occupied together for the last week.

  Setting it down beside the bed, he heard her issue the same comedy gasp and reach out with dainty fingers to select the chocolate chip cookie and shamelessly dip it into her tea.

  Settling himself bac
k into bed beside her, he grumbled as the crumbs of a shortbread fell into his beard to find a semi-permanent home in the hair on his chest.

  “What’s on the agenda for today?” she asked through a mouth partly obscured with a bourbon biscuit hot on the heels of the pink wafer. Johnson chewed and swallowed, taking a sip of hot tea to wash down the biscuit before he answered.

  “I’ve got the morning off,” he reminded her, enjoying the idea of being secure enough that they operated a rota of time off to rest and recuperate.

  “I know that,” she said, pausing to take a loud slurp of her own drink. “I meant what are we doing with the morning?”

  Johnson’s eyebrow raised into a mischievous arch as he slowly turned his face to her, making her laugh and slap his arm hard enough to force a small spillage from his cup to dribble hot liquid onto his lap and force a hiss of pain from his lips. They both laughed, forcing the sounds of normality to leak out from their comfortable haven into the rest of the building shared by the eclectic group whose fates had been intertwined in ways none of them could ever have anticipated.

  Peter smiled when he heard Kimberley laugh. His position up on the kitchen counter had been difficult to achieve without the wooden step but he didn’t relent until he’d successfully hopped himself up to turn in mid-flight and land enough of his backside on the work surface to shuffle backwards and keep him there.

  He added two heaped spoons of crusted sugar to his own cup of strong, black tea and dug through the remnants of the biscuit tin to leave all of the boring ones. Halfway through his second custard cream his sister, Jessica, appeared in the kitchen looking so bleary from sleep that only the speed of her movements and the flushed colour of her skin told him he wasn’t looking at one of the undead invading their temporary home.

  Peter leaned to one side and reached up behind him to retrieve another cup, which he passed to her.