‘I need three of you with me in the Containers to start culling them through the murder slits we carved in the front wall.’ He pointed at different members as he talked. ‘Georgie, Harry, Jai. You’re with me. We’ll take shifts and rotate off the top of the wall. I’m going to set off the speakers in the front pits, then I’ll be with you.’ Mark ignored how they involuntarily winced with each firing of Penny’s weapon. They nodded nervously and quickly headed downstairs.
The battle had begun.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Steph gripped the little girl’s hand tightly as she drew her quickly towards to the house. The poor girl was whimpering in terror, but she didn’t have time to console her. Every few seconds, another rifle shot cracked from behind them as Penny systematically targeted Carriers outside.
Erin was standing on the porch waiting as she approached. ‘Steph, what’s going on? Where’s Jai?’
‘Your brother’s with Mark – he’ll be safe with him while we get them under control,’ answered Steph, trying to sound confident. ‘I’ve got a job for you though.’ She drew the girl in front and squatted to speak to her. ‘See that older girl up there? Her name’s Erin, and she’s going to look after you while your mum and dad help us to get rid of the monsters outside. I want you to do everything she says. Erin’s in charge. Do you understand?’
The girl nodded, snot dribbling down over her top lip as she cried. Steph picked her up under her armpits then hoisted her up to sit on the edge of the porch. For the first time, Steph noted that Erin had armed herself. She constantly forgot that she and her brother had survived on their own for days in the Carrier-infested land without any other help. Erin gripped one of the improvised hay forks ‒ the murderous long-handled pike. She leaned on the shaft slightly, using the weapon as a crutch to support her injured leg.
‘Don’t worry, Steph. She’ll be safe with me. Let the others know I’ll bring out containers of water to the porch for easy reach – you’ll each need to keep drinking through the fight or you’ll pass out. That, and I’m setting up a medic post in the living room again – just like Harry had for me when I came in.’ Erin seemed surprisingly in control for a child her age.
‘Good stuff. I’ll let Mark and Harry know.’ Steph gave her another smile, then slipped backwards to the wall once more, leaving Erin to lead her small charge inside.
* * *
Rodger and his wife walked around the top of the wall to the back of the property. Once they were away from the direct gaze of the others, Rodger allowed himself to limp, the pain in his calf was like a red-hot poker. His right boot squelched with each step as it filled with blood from the bite wound. The Carrier had bitten down to the muscle before he shook it free. The gumboot had been half dislodged from his foot in his hurry to get up the ladder, exposing his calf. When Mark had demanded to inspect the area, he’d stamped his foot down into it properly, the rubber top rising to conceal the wound from his view.
Rodger had no desire to let Mark know of his injury, he knew he’d follow through on his threat to kill him. Why tell anyone? For all he knew he might be an anomaly, someone that could survive the infection unscathed. Yeah, that was what was going to happen, he just knew it.
Jan noticed him limping, and looked at him with concern, ‘Are you ok, babe? What’s wrong with your leg?’
‘Nothing, Jan. I just pulled a muscle or something coming up the ladder, I’m fine,’ he answered, looking straight ahead. He’d always been a crap liar and knew his wife would read him like a book. ‘How about we each take a corner at the back? That way we should be able to observe the rear of the property as well as the sides?’
Jan nodded, walking onwards to the other suggested post while he crouched at the first corner. He couldn’t have given two shits about watching for Carriers. How could they possible hurt them up on the wall? Rodger just wanted his wife gone so he could suffer in peace.
* * *
Mark knelt at a power board on top of the wall and picked up the plug marked with red tape for the speakers in the front pit traps. Shoving the prongs home into the electricity source, he waited for the tape of screaming to reach him from the base of the paddock.
Nothing.
It had been tested before, and he knew it should be easily heard over the murderous din created by the Infected below. He began trouble shooting the rig by ensuring the power board was connected, then running his hand along the cable from the power board to where it exited the wall; that left damage somewhere between the containers and the pits themselves as the problem. He peered over the edge, following the line down through grass until he saw Rodger’s car. The bastard had run over the cable when he burst the front tyre and crashed into the field, pulling it free from the tape and speaker set up in the pit bases. Yet another key defence measure had been ruined by the man.
‘That fucking bastard, I’ll kill him myself if we live through this bloody night!’ he cursed, thumping the metal wall in frustration. They were left with a finite amount of ammunition and their hand weapons to see them through. Mark hocked a mouth of gluey spit in anger, then ran for the ladder. He had to join the fight below.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Harry raised the lever with a metallic squeal to open a doorway into the front containers. Shafts of light cut through the darkness of the interior from the narrow slits cut horizontally at head height in the front wall. Carriers’ faces could be seen at these gaps, hands wrenching uselessly at the sharp edges, or sticking whole arms through. The agitation of the Infected outside escalated with their presence. The volume of noise within the enclosed space was awful. Guttural snarls and moans bounced back and forth off the metal walls, so that in the darkness it gave an illusion of being surrounded by the beasts.
Harry gripped the bayonet tipped spear tightly in his right hand, and with a force of will, stepped forward into the killing room. He hung a camp lantern from a hook in the middle of the ceiling. The light swung slightly, creating an eddy of light against the walls.
Georgie and Jai entered, heads down as if the wall of demonic noise was a physical barrier to be overcome. Jai held another bayonet-tipped spear like Harry’s, Georgie gripped an altered hayfork, the remaining middle prong sharpened to a wicked point. The three spread apart along the front wall. The joining walls between the three containers that comprised the front line of defence had been cut to allow a small doorway for access to allow free movement by the defenders through the whole front wall to reach areas of need.
The Carriers outside fixated upon each of them, following them as they moved, hands reaching through the holes, desperately trying to grab hold of a limb to pull back into a hungry mouth.
Without a word, Jai was the first to act. He lunged forward, his blade piercing through an open mouth. The Carrier clenched its teeth together about the knife, upper incisors snapping free. Jai shoved forward again, driving the blade upward to puncture the brain stem. The ghoul went limp, hanging as a lead weight on the knife blade, almost ripping the shaft from his fingers. Jai braced a foot on the front wall and wrenched the handle back, salvaging the knife for his next target.
Harry and Georgie followed suit, trying to block out the cacophony of screams. Mark stepped through the doorway in time to see Georgie drive her narrow pike into the right eye of a Carrier, causing jelly from the ruptured globe to spurt onto her chest as she rammed the weapon deep into its brain. She gave a small yelp of disgust, before ripping free the metal to find another target.
Mark waded in, spurred on by the view of his mates attacking the enemy. He drew his sword from the scabbard in a fluid motion and stepped almost within reach of a set of hands grasping ineffectually through the metal slit. Mark chopped viciously into the two arms to clear space. The severed hands flopped into the container to lie about his feet. Grasping fingers removed, he was now able to stab ahead. The strength and weight of the blade allowed him to be less picky in his targets, as he punched through skull at the temple, stabbed into open mouths, or m
erely incapacitated via slicing through the spinal cord of an exposed neck.
They settled into a gruesome pattern of work. Pick a target, stab, repeat. Steam billowed from their mouths as chests heaved with exertion. Sweat poured from their bodies despite the midwinter’s night, making weapon grips treacherous and slippery.
Georgie rubbed the back of one wrist across her forehead, trying to move loose pieces of fringe stuck in place by sweat. She glanced down at her watch, noticing for the first time the layer of gore spattering her shirt.
Harry cursed as yet another blister tore open on his palm, straw colour fluid dribbling down to his fingers from the wound. Both hands were macerated from the rough wooden handle of his bayonet spear. He clenched his teeth against the discomfort and continued.
It had only been thirty minutes, but it felt like an eternity.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Jan shivered. The night grew colder as time crept forward. The Infected continued to target the front wall, ignoring the sides and rear for which she and her husband were responsible. Jan’s guilt at bringing this influx of Carriers into their current location was a sour weight in her gut. She glanced across at her husband, a black silhouette on the far corner of the wall. He hadn’t moved since taking up his post, just sat there with knees drawn up to his chest, shivering. As she watched, he fell to the side, the dull thud of his head against the metal drowned out by the battle which had so far forgotten them. Jan swore under her breath, something was wrong with him. She knew he had been lying earlier; the man wore every thought on his face like a banner.
She glanced desperately around for anyone else she could call to for help. No one was near. She abandoned her post, jogging across the back wall to her husband. He was lying on his side, eyes staring blankly ahead, motionless. She grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him roughly, yelling into his ear to wake up without effect. Tears started to well in her eyes as realisation hit – he was dead. She rolled him onto his back. Beads of sweat clung to his forehead like a swarm of fat bed bugs that scattered, running down the sides of his cheeks and temples with the change in position. A fine spider web of dilated blood vessels spread upward across his cheeks. A look of surprise was frozen on his features, as if he couldn’t believe that death had finally caught him.
Jan still couldn’t believe he might be really gone. She leaned forward over his face, feeling for air movement against her cheek as a sign he might still be breathing. Her heart skipped a beat and she found herself conflicted. Part of her quailed in fear of losing a husband, and another silently exalted that she might be free of him at last. She pressed two fingers into the side of his throat, feeling for a pulse under waxen skin that made her recoil inside at the sensation. Nothing.
Out of her periphery, she noted his fingers tremble by his side, then form a fist. She jerked backward from her husband’s body. His eyes suddenly opened, locking onto the form of his wife at his side. Lips pulled back into a grimace, teeth exposed.
Slowly, as if the nervous system was navigating control of a foreign body for the first time, the corpse drove itself to a sitting position. Jan was speechless in terror; her mouth silently formed the word ‘No’ again and again as she scooted backward on her bottom to stay out of reach.
Warm piss soaked her jeans as her bladder released. She drew closer and closer to the inside edge of the container wall. Her husband’s corpse lunged forward, hands reaching hungrily for her throat. She leaned backward, and suddenly there was nothing behind her except air. Jan fell headfirst, a short scream extinguished by a wet crunch on impact with the concrete path below. Dark blood crept away in a spreading halo from the back of her skull, crushed like an egg by the fall. Throughout the years of verbal and physical violence that marked their relationship, Rodger had always promised to kill her, but it had taken his death to make it a reality.
On top of the wall, the corpse rose to standing, then stepped into the void in mindless pursuit. It hit the ground feet first, both ankles shattering on impact. The tibia of the right lower leg burst through the shin as a bloody spike of bone. The Carrier attempted to rise once more, however, the two ankles now lacked the structural integrity required to stand. The ghoul fell ungainly to its side, sprawled into the garden. Limbs thrashed in the air until eventually it managed to turn onto its stomach. Its first victim now forgotten, the Carrier dragged itself toward the house in search of warm prey.
Chapter Forty
Penny fought to retain control of her thoughts against a mounting panic that threatened to reduce her to an incoherent mess. A carpet of dead extended thirty metres ahead, gaining depth the closer it came to the wall.
And still they came; stumbling over the meat underfoot or crawling forward to the containers. The defenders below had been effective in cutting down those that reached the wall, maybe too effective. Wickedly sharp metal flashed out of the narrow holes cut in the front wall, killing any Carrier within reach. The carcasses themselves now created a problem for Penny and Steph as death upon death made a fleshy ramp. The Carriers were almost within hand reach of the top, fingers scrabbling at the metal in a frenzy driven by the defenders’ proximity. Exhaustion decimated Penny’s accuracy with the rifle. She was missing up to half of her headshots as her arms trembled beneath the weight of the rifle that had previously seemed so light.
She fired once more, the shot going low and wide, blasting flesh from the right shoulder of a Carrier below. Penny swore bitterly to herself as she pulled back from the edge to reload. They desperately needed support or a short break. Steph’s magazine ran dry and she stepped back to join Penny in reloading a handful of magazines with ammunition.
‘Where’s Mark? We need help here or they’re going to reach the top,’ spat Steph. Rather than scared, she looked furious. Rage driven by her perceived failure to keep the Infected at bay.
‘They’ll join us soon I reckon, the Infected will be too far above their holes now to reach effectively.’ Penny looked over Steph’s shoulder to the containers at the rear of the house, searching for Jan and Rodger. ‘What happened to the people Mark sent to the back wall? We need those useless bastards here.’
Steph scanned the skirting wall herself, incredulous that they could have left their post unattended. ‘The fuckers are gone,’ she breathed unbelieving. ‘They didn’t even have to do anything back there…’
A scream echoed from the container beneath their feet, cutting over the horrendous noise of the attacking ghouls outside the wall. Both Penny and Steph froze, then looked at each other, neither wanting to admit what the noise heralded.
‘You go see what happened, Steph. Try and bring them up here if you can. If we don’t get help, we’re all dead anyway.’
Steph nodded, then scrambled for the ladder to the ground. Penny rammed a magazine into the military rifle, clamped down on her fear and returned to work.
* * *
Erin bit her lip in frustration. She felt useless stuck inside while the fight continued at the front wall. After preparing the living room as a medical clinic and putting the water on the front porch ‒ which had remained untouched ‒ Erin had floundered for an activity to occupy her mind. She’d given up trying to talk with the smaller child. The girl had refused to speak, growing ever more distressed away from her parents. Erin found a viewpoint from within the house so the little girl could watch her mother through a back window. The girl sat on a kitchen chair, knees drawn to her chest and thumb in mouth, her behaviour regressing to that of a toddler during the night’s terror.
Erin spent the next hours restlessly pacing between checking on the girl, to listening at the front door for any change in activity, desperately trying to determine what was happening. From the back room, she heard the girl yelp with anxiety and then a rapid patter of footsteps into the adjacent room. Erin quickly walked to the rear of the house to find out what was happening. She found the girl with her hands up against the glass, staring up at the wall.
‘Is everything ok?’ Erin asked.
‘Mummy just ran to Daddy for something, I just wanted…’ the girl suddenly emitted a terrified shriek as she saw her mother fall.
Before Erin could react, the girl was past her, running for the front door. Erin screamed at her to stop and wait, but the girl scrambled down the ladder, off the porch and out of sight.
Erin bolted after her. The gap between the containers and the house appeared pitch black in comparison to the blinding floodlights at the top of the wall. She grabbed a hand torch from next to the front door then stepped outside. Ignoring the ladder, Erin dropped her long-handled pike off the porch then jumped the six feet to the grass below. As she hit the ground, the force of impact tore her stitches, laying her thigh wound open. She stifled a scream at the burning pain, biting on her lip until the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. Erin grabbed the pike off the ground, used it as a crutch to force herself to standing, then limped in the direction the young girl had run. She was determined not to fail Steph in the one task given to her while the others did the real fighting.
Within moments, she had rounded the corner of the house to find the girl crouched above a motionless figure. Erin shone her torch, providing a halo of light about daughter and mother. Dark blood lay in a rapidly-congealing pool under the woman’s skull. The girl was hysterical. She screamed at her mother to wake up, thumping her chest with tiny, balled fists in desperation. Tears welled in Erin’s own eyes as she stood next to the girl feeling useless, unsure what to do in the situation.
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