Deadweight | Book 2 | The Last Bite

by Forster, Paul

  “But you took the bugger down and you’re okay?” Bo replied unmoved.

  “If Jack hadn’t landed that first hit, if it hadn’t had to jump that wall, I think that would have been us done.”

  “And if my auntie had bollocks, she’d be my uncle,” Bo said; he was unimpressed.

  Amy got to her feet and stood next to Jack. “Bo, what the hell is wrong with you? All you do is sit on this fucking bench watching the world. This world doesn’t need you watching it! It needs you to get involved and help fix it!”

  “New dead thing wants to kill us. That’s not news. And you want me to fix this nonsense? Then why the hell have you been cutting me out of everything? I might as well be the pot washer for the respect I’m shown,” Bo hissed as he got to his feet, his knuckles white as he gripped his shotgun ever tighter. “Amy love, bollocks to you,” Bo cursed and stormed off into the farmhouse.

  Amy sat on the bench, and Jack joined her, placing his arm around her.

  “We can increase patrols, up the numbers to teams of three. Get some more tin can lines on the west side,” Jack suggested. He had been thinking about what they could do to mitigate against the new threat.

  “I agree. We’ve never seen one before, we’ll probably never see one again, but let’s be safe,” she replied. Amy knew they’d see another one, there would be another Natasha and who knows what else. She also knew it changed nothing. They had what they had.

  Chapter 23

  Being a small island, the people of the Isle of Wight believed they wouldn’t be afflicted by the plague destroying the mainland. It didn’t take more than a few days to prove how wrong they were. Ferries full of refugees fleeing the infected had arrived at Fishbourne, the authorities unable to cope with their numbers. The amount of small private vessels was vast, touching down wherever they could along the coast. Thousands of people looking for safety. Hundreds already infected and bringing death with them. By the time those on the island realised what was happening, the mainland had completely fallen, and they relied upon a few Territorial Army soldiers based on the island. They put up a good fight, but within a week they had run out of ammunition and down to a handful of men. Against a traditional foe, they would have surrendered, but the dead didn’t take prisoners. Within the next month, the dead had hunted down and devoured the last few survivors who didn’t have the means to flee the island. Not a single living soul remained on the Isle of Wight. Barely a patch of the island was free of blood or carcasses.

  When the two remaining companies of 42 Commando Royal Marines touched down on the southern part of the island to establish an operating base, they were nearly overrun within an hour. Airstrikes and the sheer determination of the boots on the ground stopped the landing craft pulling out with just a handful of survivors. More Marines and soldiers would reinforce the position, but they could not push out. Dinner had been served and every feeder on the island was hungry. The manpower needed to maintain a square kilometre of the island was more than could comfortably be afforded. The men tired. The dead didn’t. After a week, suicide became the biggest killer amongst those present. The constant fighting with an enemy who didn’t stop was too much. A thousand of the dead lay incapacitated, but more came. They always came.

  The generals and the makeshift government were ready to abandon the plan, try again at one of the Channel Islands. Sark or perhaps even Guernsey were far less ambitious than the Isle of Wight and had been favoured by many. Sark was tiny, but they could have taken it in an afternoon and would easily accommodate many civilians and military personnel. It had little to sustain them, but neither did the ships. They would have had a safe base of operations on solid land, but instead they had expended thousands of pounds of munitions and lost hundreds of men. Morale being down the toilet concerned the generals more than the politicians. The last hope was to send a second landing party to the north of the island. Reconnaissance had confirmed large hordes had made their way from all over the island to the first landing zone. The explosions and gunfire too tempting for the starving feeders.

  They spared just 50 men, several small vessels acting as landing craft for them. They didn’t go big; they went quiet at the dead of night under a full moon. The boats glided the last 30 metres to the shore, and the men disembarked so quietly, a sleeping baby wouldn’t have woken. They headed inland. A farm half a kilometre away was their rendezvous point.

  As the soldiers moved, they didn’t make a sound. Any feeder encountered was silently dispatched with a Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife. The full moon and clear skies allowed the men optimum visibility to move at speed.

  It had smelled them before their boots hit the water. It watched them under the moonlight as they finished off the unthinking beasts. He slipped in behind them at a safe distance as they walked further from the shore. He had nearly gone insane through hunger, but now a meal was close.

  Mason had been clever, but never academic. An overweight barman before he began taking FatBGone. He was eager to lose weight to get the attention of his childhood crush, who had never paid him attention. The more weight he lost, the less he cared about impressing her, and instead enjoyed a hedonistic life he’d never dreamed of. Sleeping with tourists and locals, he enjoyed himself. When the hunger came, the mainland was already in trouble. He kept his head down and picked off those poor souls foolish enough to trust this pale-skinned man. Once the feeders outnumbered the living, he indulged himself. He never stopped to think about what would happen when the food ran out.

  He was weak, but still dangerous. He knew the island better as a feeder than he ever had as a normal person. He had armed himself with a double-barrelled shotgun shortly after society fell. It had proven useful in slowing down his prey. He was outnumbered and outgunned, but he knew what to do. These soldiers were avoiding trouble. He’d bring it to them.

  Mason didn’t dare get too close, but he didn’t need to. He caught sight of a soldier 50 feet ahead and raised the shotgun. He took a quick look to check that no other soldiers were close and squeezed the trigger.

  The soldier’s scream of pain was nearly as loud as the shotgun blast. His colleagues immediately took defensive positions, ready to be attacked. Two marines rushed to their fallen colleague as he sat up, not as hurt as he initially thought.

  “I thought one got me!” he stated. His adrenaline was pumping, he touched his face, several small wounds littered his cheek, ear, and just below his eye. He gingerly touched his arm and winced.

  “Shut the fuck up, do you want them to get us all?” a harsh whisper reminded the injured soldier of their situation. But it was too late. The gunshot, the scream, and the following movement had alerted the handful of creatures nearby that hadn’t succumbed to a blade, and many further out started moving towards the brief ruckus. He examined the small wounds, “It’s birdshot. You’ll live.”

  Mason watched, careful not to move and risk being spotted. He could smell the fresh blood and everything in him wanted to run towards the soldier and eat. He had to wait his turn.

  Another marine screamed out as it attacked him, a single feeder leaping on him and pinning him to the floor as it bit down on his face. The knives were hastily placed in their scabbards and rifles brought into play. Soldiers started popping off rounds into the darkness. “Pull back to the beach,” they all knew how the last landing had deteriorated and none wanted to be part of a repeat action. A Minimi light machine gun burst into life, its tracer rounds shooting in all directions as its user provided cover for the retreat.

  Shit. Mason hadn’t expected them to give up so easy. He ducked down, eager to avoid detection, but a marine stumbled over him in the darkness and fell to the floor. The soldier turned to see Mason and paused before bringing his rifle to his shoulder. Mason fired the second barrel of his gun at the soldier’s face. It didn’t kill him. The birdshot had decimated his features, his eyes punctured and face a mass of smashed meat. He was in too much shock to pull his own trigger, and the rifle dropped to the floor. Mason couldn�
��t stop himself and launched at the soldier ripping out his throat. He barely chewed as he wolfed down large chunks of flesh. It was the first good feed he’d had in a long time. Two marines fired behind them as they carried on their retreat. They saw their colleague; they saw Mason covered in his blood, a piece of skin hanging from his teeth.

  Mason closed his eyes. Time to die.

  The roar was deafening. The huge feeder appeared from nowhere and picked one marine up by his helmet and batted the other away 20 feet with a single powerful swing of its enormous fists. The soldier fired as he flew through the air before he hit a tree, stopping him. Mason was saved by this huge feeder, maybe 10 feet tall. Everything about it was oversized, but its head seemed disproportionately big. He’d seen this huge one previously and given it a wide berth. Even monsters feared bigger monsters. It gave a sharp twist of the soldier’s head and ripped it from its torso. The lifeless body fell to the floor in a crumpled heap as it began chewing on the face.

  The new combatant hadn’t gone unnoticed, and it started drawing fire from several of the fleeing soldiers. Bullets harmlessly entered its body or glanced off its skull. Angrily it launched the decapitated head at a cluster of soldiers knocking one on his arse and the others in shock at the sight of their friend’s head in front of them.

  Mason smiled at his new ally and continued gorging himself on his own kill. Seconds had passed, and he didn’t know what was happening, the pain in his back, and the sensation of movement as it launched him through the air. His new friendship hadn’t lasted long as he landed on a marine, he realised the big fucker had picked him up and thrown him at the soldiers.

  The soldier panicked, unable to move under Mason, “Kill it, kill it!” he screamed to his nearby comrades.

  Mason was as confused as the man he was lying on top. “No, don’t!” he blurted out.

  “It’s one of the smart ones, grab it!” a marine screamed. They dragged Mason off their friend, then smashed down on his head with the rifle butts until he was unconscious.

  The huge feeder started moving towards the soldiers and Mason. Rifle fire did little to dissuade it from continuing its attack. It was nearly upon them when another marine further back lined the monster up in the sights of his LAW-80 rocket launcher. He panicked as it was nearly on top of his fellow soldiers. He fired off the rocket, and it struck the creature’s stomach, detonating with a large enough explosion to knock those nearby to the ground. It had blown a hole the size of a football in its ribcage. Broken ribs and bile spilled from the gaping wound as it staggered in disbelief. The creature wasn’t dead, but it was out of the fight. It hobbled away as fast as it could, even it knew its chance of recovery was slim. The men grabbed their prisoner and beat a hasty retreat.

  Air support from an attack helicopter started lighting up the land behind them with rockets aiding their retreat. Only 20 marines made it back to the shore, boarding the small vessels that were waiting for them. Maybe a hundred feeders pursued them onto the beach. They had come from nowhere, this place truly was infested.

  They dragged Mason aboard a small boat, his arms hastily bound as they pulled away from that damned bloody island as fast as the diesel engine would allow.

  The odd scream or panicked plea for help from comrades who didn’t make it back could be heard above the engines. A few rifle shots, then silence. None of the marines could look at each other as the boats made their slow retreat to the fleet. They had failed miserably, but this smart feeder was a consolation prize. The white coats would be very interested in dissecting it.

  Chapter 24

  With his extra ammunition, Peter had decided it would be a good time to teach himself how to shoot. Some cartridges were preloaded into magazines, others were in small packets. He made his way to the top of the building to the small fortified observation post. The empty cartridges showed this must have been a good place for shooting and felt safer than being on the ground if he was going to piss off his ravenous neighbours. This was his third practice session, he limited himself to two magazines a session, wary his supply of ammo was healthy, but not infinite.

  He lined up a target in his sight and gently squeezed the trigger. The creature’s lower jaw exploded, and it stumbled back, confused, but not down.

  “Fucking hell,” he groaned. He was frustrated it wasn’t a kill shot, but for a self-taught marksmen he’d made tremendous leaps in ability. He lined the disfigured creature up for a second shot, this time finding its cranium.

  Then he heard it again; the helicopter. He looked around frantically, trying to see where the sound was coming from, and from nowhere two smaller helicopters appeared flying only ten metres from the ground. Both did a circuit of the site and Peter started jumping up and down waving his arms.

  The two Westland Lynx helicopters had been taken out of service years ago, but as society fell many, including these two, were brought out of storage and put to use. The evacuation had needed every piece of equipment that could be scrounged together. A utility helicopter like the Lynx was a valuable addition to the effort against the dead. Whether ferrying equipment, soldiers, or civilians, it was a reliable aircraft that didn’t stop. The evacuation had been over for a month. These two choppers had a different mission.

  The door gunners started spraying the feeders at the fence line with their machine guns. The heavier 7.62mm rounds did more damage than Peter’s rifle. Their fire wasn’t massively effective, but those that weren’t struck in the head and permanently taken out of action were damaged. A snapped femur here, damaged spine there all helped. The men firing seemed better for letting off some steam.

  One helicopter broke off and hovered one hundred meters away from the fence as the other stopped its assault and positioned itself over the centre and began to lower.

  This was it, Peter was being rescued. He was saved. As soon as he was onboard, he’d direct them to the farm, to the others. He hoped Amy had made it back, but he had a responsibility to those that had remained to help them if they were still there.

  The Lynx touched down for a mere second as four heavily armed men hopped out and took a position covering each other as the helicopter joined the other one and both circled Wellworth once again, ready to engage if their men came under attack.

  “Clear!” Sgt. Spencer Matthews was facing the main building and moved towards it. His three men followed, providing 360 degrees of cover. Spencer had been with the SAS for ten years, spending most of that time with Boat Troop, his experience had put him back on dry land for the mission.

  “Sarge, where’s our shit? They said they dropped it off,” he enquired. Billy Clegg was the least experienced of the men. He’d found himself assigned to the SAS after society fell because they needed numbers for the operations they would be running. Billy was a good soldier, a serving Royal Marine before his transfer. He had failed SAS selection once, but not by much. In normal times, a fail is a fail, but the SAS had needs and near enough had become good enough, much to the disgust of those who made it to into the regiment the old-fashioned way.

  “I’m guessing that bellend on the roof and his mates have been tucking in,” Mike said. Mike Stelling was old school SAS, he’d killed men on most continents, but never in his own country. He was gruff and looked too old to be running around playing soldiers, but at forty-two years old, had the world not ended, his SAS career would have. Now he’d probably die on active duty, and that pleased him, he lived for the regiment, he would rather die for it than be forced to leave it.

  “It’s not as if the cunts could nip over to Sainsburys and pick up snacks. Well fucking played for digging in for this long,” Gary said. Gary Waddle had been with the SAS for three years after ten with the paras. He was a calm man, even for the regiment he had ice running through his veins when bullets started flying.

  “Shut the fuck up, heads on,” Spencer ordered. He didn’t know if those who remained at Wellworth were friendly or not. He knew that the dumb fucks in logistics had delivered food, ammunition, and explos
ives to a potentially hostile force and then the head sheds had dropped him and his men in the middle of it all.

  Peter had run down through the building. It didn’t occur to him that these armed men might not be friendly. He reached the ground floor and headed through the lobby. Outside he could see silhouettes of armed soldiers. He slowed down, unsure of himself, the rifle in his arms he didn’t know whether to lower it to show he wasn’t a threat or bring it to his shoulder to show he wasn’t to be fucked with. The barrel of the L119A2 carbine pushed against the base of his skull stopped him in his tracks.

  “How many others?” Spencer pushed his carbine’s barrel harder into Peter to drive home his point.

  “None. No one, just me,” Peter answered. He was nervous, unsure if this man would accept his response.

  “Just you, no one else?” he asked again. Spencer didn’t feel Peter was a threat, despite him having both a pistol and rifle.

  “The main lab, there are feeders, but they can’t get out.”

  Spencer signalled for his men to join him. “You’re with me, Billy, watch this one,” he commanded. Gary and Mike formed up and Billy led Peter to the side.

  “Set them down mate, easy does it.” Peter was told. Billy was ready to empty a magazine into Peter if he so much as hesitated, but he didn’t. Peter carefully put down the rifle on the floor and pulled the pistol from his holster with his thumb and index finger before placing it next to the rifle.

  “Is this a rescue?” Peter queried. It embarrassed Peter to ask, was it obvious?

  “You ain’t going anywhere for a while, anyway. And neither are we,” was the response. Billy walked around Peter trying to see what this man was. One who had survived on the mainland surrounded by these monsters. That alone proved he shouldn’t be underestimated, but Jesus, he looked like a nerd.

  “How many survivors are there?” Peter hated an awkward silence, and he had questions.