Arisen, Book Nine - Cataclysm

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  “Think maybe they’ll shoot us up here?” Colley said, his gait betraying the terrific weight his ill-shod feet were having to bear. “Put us out of our misery?”

  Hackworth was too knackered to answer.

  Their new additions – Rebecca Ainsley, with her sons Aiden and Luke – weren’t far behind. The boys had often gone hiking with their dad, SAS Captain Conner Ainsley, and he’d instilled into them the qualities of resolve, determination, and forbearance. But they were still young boys, age six and eight, and they were tired and afraid.

  Perhaps naturally, as the only two parents of small children, Rebecca and Amarie had gravitated toward each other – the former walking between her two boys as the latter tirelessly carried her small daughter Josie, all of them trudging across the bleak landscape.

  “So your husband is in the Army?” Amarie had asked.

  “Yes. Deployed overseas.”

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “No.” Rebecca smiled sadly. “I never know when. But I always know he’ll be back.” She hesitated before asking her next question. “Where’s Josie’s father?”

  Amarie shrugged, her delicate shoulders slumping. “I don’t know. Lost.”

  Rebecca just nodded. It was the usual story. And so common.

  Finally, the group slowed to a stop as they reached CentCom HQ, built out of the former Wandsworth Prison, its hulking stone walls looming above them. Perhaps some salvation, or at least a cessation of walking, was finally at hand.

  The guards manning the gate got a good look at the disheveled mob, and seemed to ready their weapons. Rebecca didn’t wonder if they thought it was actually a zombie attack. Holding tightly to her boys’ hands, she moved to the front. Working to dredge up a smile, she got out the precious ID card her husband had left her – as a last-ditch measure against the fall of London, or just the fall of order. Her Get out of hell card.

  “Good morning, Staff Sergeant,” she said – glad for her ability to read rank from his uniform insignia – and handed over the ID.

  The man was standing to the side of the closed vehicle gate in a human-sized doorway, which was currently open – but blocked by his body. He nodded, still looking warily around her at the mob she headed, then took the card. “What’s this, then?” He didn’t look as if he recognized it.

  “CentCom civilian access card,” Rebecca said, still trying to smile, though her heart was beating a hundred miles an hour in her chest. “My husband is a captain in the SAS. This entitles his wife, namely me, and our two sons, to shelter and protection in any military installation.”

  “Stay here,” he said, then turned and went back into the security station, which looked like a small room built into the thick wall itself. He picked up a phone and turned his back. Rebecca couldn’t hear what was said.

  “Okay,” he said, returning and handing the ID back. “You three – only.”

  Rebecca braced herself now for the hard and scary part. She had to try to get the others in. She’d promised she’d try. “These people,” she said, gesturing behind her, and smiling again. “They got me here safely. They protected me.” The guard’s hard expression didn’t change an inch. “Don’t you recognize them?” He didn’t even look up – like he didn’t care enough to try to recognize them. “They’re the Tunnelers. The ones on television, who survived two years underground. And then the bombing of Canterbury.”

  This was clearly gaining her no traction. Finally she just asked. “Is there any chance you can see your way clear to letting them come in with us? Please.”

  “Out of the question.” The guard looked like that was the end of it.

  “Fuck. I knew it. Shafted again.” That was one of the Tunnelers – male, middle-aged, and unhappy – standing just behind Rebecca. Her self-preservation instincts kicked in now – and she braced herself to get her and her boys through that doorway before something ugly happened out here.

  But then she saw the guard’s icy expression melt just a little.

  Amarie was standing beside Rebecca, her precious bundle held as ever to her breast. But the thin blanket covering the little girl fell away – and she emerged from underneath, reaching her tiny hand out… to the scope mounted on the top of the soldier’s rifle. He tensed up, but didn’t pull away. Josie’s tiny face screwed up in a look of concentration, as she pulled and twisted on the scope, trying to turn it or pull it off. The soldier’s grim visage broke out into a reluctant smile, and he shook his head as he tried to fight it.

  “Please,” Amarie said, in her soft and beautiful French accent. “Don’t send us back out there.”

  * * *

  Now Rebecca felt her spine stiffening.

  “Yes,” she said, putting her hand on the soldier’s arm – but he instantly pulled back, cradling his rifle. “Surely you can take just two more? A woman and child? Surely your whole job is to protect people?”

  The guard blinked heavily, his serious soldier face coming back in place. “If we start taking in every random civilian refugee who rocks up here… believe me, all will be lost. What if they’re infected?” It wouldn’t be the first infected person they’d let in there recently – and that had almost been the end of everything.

  Rebecca knew the man had a point. That was kind of how the world had gone down in the first place. Yes, the people behind her were in trouble. But all of humanity depended on the soldiers in these bases. And this was CentCom HQ, upon which presumably rested the entire defense of Britain.

  A loud and jarring horn sounded behind them. Rebecca turned and looked back – a large military lorry had come up the road toward the gates, but was blocked by the gaggle of Tunnelers spread out in the road. It edged forward to the back of the crowd, its big engine growling, and honked again.

  The guard stepped forward, raised his voice, and shouted over Rebecca’s head. “You lot need to clear the road – now!”

  Behind her, Rebecca could also see the leader, Hackworth, conferring with the big Moroccan man, his henchman, Colley. “This isn’t what we hoped for, but maybe it’s for the best,” Hackworth said. “I think London’s doomed. We need to go north – get out of here, and be on our own again. And I don’t think we’ll be the only rats fleeing this ship. We just need to make sure we’re not the last ones.”

  Colley looked skeptical. “I don’t see how we’re going to make it across so many miles of a city falling into chaos.”

  Rebecca blocked this out and turned forward again. She had to get inside. But she was also determined to get the young Frenchwoman and her baby in with her. At least them. But even as she opened her mouth to beg, the guard cut her off.

  “Orders are orders. And it’s disobeying orders, now of all times, that’ll get everyone killed.” But even as he spoke, his eyes went to Josie, the beautiful and fragile eighteen-month-old girl, who was still leaning out, determined to master the accessories on his rifle.

  Rebecca could see him weakening. She said, “Can’t we just say they’re my sister and niece? Just two mor—”

  But her words were cut off by the sound of a thundering explosion – something terrible and violent and unexpected happening behind the stone walls. It crescendoed for a few seconds, then was punctuated by what sounded like something enormous and metallic crashing to the ground in the distance. The radio on the guard’s shoulder chirped up. “Warden One Zero, message, over!”

  The man touched his radio. “Go ahead.”

  “Lock down the gate. Security posture alpha. NOW.”

  “Roger that, sir.” The guard put his hand on the big steel-grate door that would close their only entrance to the base. “Come in if you’re coming in.”

  Rebecca looked from his young steely face, to Amarie’s young gentle one – and then down to her boys, who were both looking up at her in fear and expectancy.

  “Please,” Amarie said, starting to cry.

  “Have a fucking heart, man,” one of the Tunnelers said from behind.

  The soldier’s col
leagues were yelling at him from the other side of the door. He clenched his teeth – then put his hands out. “The little girl only. That’s it.” He looked to Rebecca. “You swear she’s yours, you take care of her, and it’s on your head.”

  Rebecca looked over to Amarie, whose face had gone sheet white. The reality of it hit her in an instant: to get her daughter to safety she was going to have to abandon her. They would be separated. It was the worst choice she could possibly face. And she had to choose in the next second.

  “Take her!” she cried – squeezing Josie to her breast a last time, kissing her on the head, and wetting her hair with her tears.

  “Give her to me,” Rebecca cried, bundling up the little girl and herding her sons ahead of her through the gate, which was already swinging closed. It clanged shut with a crash and a shudder.

  They were in.

  Ahead of her, Rebecca could see men running – almost all of them toward what she could just make out as a terrible fire in the distance, pouring thick gouts of oily black smoke into the blue sky. Over the chaos swirling around inside the compound, she heard shouting behind her.

  When she spun in place and looked back out through the gate… she could see Amarie still standing there with her fingers through the steel latticework, and tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “I’ll take care of her!” Rebecca shouted back. “I promise!”

  Amarie nodded, but looked as if her heart had just been pulled out.

  “You’ll be okay!” Rebecca added.

  But behind the young woman, Rebecca could now see the Tunnelers swarming the truck in the road – pulling the soldiers out of the cab, and climbing over the tailgate into the back. Their movements bespoke their growing desperation – and their resolve to survive.

  The rules of civilization were falling away, one by one.

  Worth Staying Alive For

  Kent - Four Miles South of the ZPW

  Private Elliott Walker of the Parachute Regiment took aim once again. But it felt very different this time. As the sharpshooter for his platoon, a role bridging the gap between infantry soldier and long-range sniper, Elliott had been given a flash new L129A1 rifle – right out of the crate and gorgeous, with a jet-black receiver and barrel, tan pistol-grip and extensible stock, and a big ACOG 6x sight mounted on top. It was a beautiful weapon.

  But it, and the training, had been given to Elliott for a reason:

  To protect his brothers.

  He was supposed to provide overwatch, and suppress targets too far out for his teammates to hit, up to 800 meters – and to do so before they became a threat to the team.

  But today that gorgeous rifle was smeared in dirt and mud – and Elliott didn’t like to think what else – and even had a few stalks of grass sticking out of the accessory rail on the barrel. And Elliott was too exhausted and numb to pamper the weapon as he usually did. Moreover, now he was about to start shooting to protect one person only: himself.

  And this was a damned unfamiliar and lonely feeling.

  He had originally been sent out as part of a six-man patrol to recover an errant ammo drop. And now he was the only one coming back. The lone survivor.

  Among those who hadn’t made it was Private Ahmit Patel – Elliott’s best friend of four years. He and Elliott had walked into the same Army recruiting office on the same day. They’d gone through Para selection and training together, been assigned to the same platoon, and over the years become closer than brothers.

  Until today. When Elliott had shot Ahmit in the face in the back of a dirty SUV mired in the mud behind enemy lines in overrun Kent.

  Now his brother was gone.

  And now he had to somehow get back through to friendly lines – and back to the only brothers he had left. The other lads in 1 Platoon, D Company, 2nd Parachute Battalion (2 Para) – which was also much of what was left of the thin red line standing between London and its destruction. To have any chance of making it back, Elliott was going to have to try and clear himself a hole in the inexorably advancing horde of dead, from behind.

  And then run like hell through it.

  Because it would be collapsing on him from the instant he started.

  Crouching in the grass beside the remains of a wooden fence, he took aim on the back of a head in the distance. He took a breath, exhaled half, and settled the illuminated red dot of his sight on the brainstem. He gently squeezed the trigger. The weapon barely chugged through its suppressor and the head dropped out of view. Then he acquired another target and did the same. He was aiming to clear a path maybe twenty-five meters wide – and as deep as possible, maybe even out to the 800-meter range of the weapon. He wasn’t sure how deep the enemy went.

  The only thing Elliott had going for him was that the dead didn’t notice when the ones next to them dropped.

  The dead had no brothers.

  * * *

  Then again, the dead wouldn’t accidentally shoot each other, either. The batteries for Elliott’s personal role radio (PRR) had gone dead. He never remembered to carry spares, because Ahmit always had a pocketful. They’d become like an old married couple, dividing up tasks and forgetting about them.

  But even if he had remembered, he wouldn’t have had it in him to go through his dead best friend’s pockets before he left him. But now that reticence might actually get him killed. Coming back into friendly lines was a dicey maneuver at the best of times, particularly from the direction of the enemy – and was much aided by radioing ahead, alerting the defenders, and imploring them not to light you up.

  Now Elliott would have to rely on some well-timed shouting, plus not having the profile of a Zulu. The combat helmet helped. Very few of the dead had those. Infected soldiers tended to be put down by their units before rising up again. Or else put themselves down if they had to.

  But even as he brought his rifle up and stood up in the tall grass, Elliott felt his motivation flagging. Everything seemed so pointless now. The pain he felt over Amit’s death was the rawest he’d ever experienced. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t been face-to-face with him when he died. But the pain was scorching and felt like it would never subside. If he had to guess, he would have said it might take the rest of his life to stop hurting.

  Part of him actually hoped that his life wouldn’t go on much longer – because that would be an end to the pain. Maybe that made him a coward, maybe it meant he wasn’t cut out to be a soldier, never mind a paratrooper. He had absolutely no problem dying to defend his Para brothers – if he could save even one, just one life in the Regiment, he’d be happy to spend his life doing so.

  And, finally, that thought provided him with his motivation, his one inspiring purpose. If he could get back to his platoon, he could help protect the others there, as they protected him. And maybe everything would be okay – even if they all went down together. He hadn’t been able to save Ahmit. But maybe he could save someone else.

  And that was worth staying alive for.

  No time like the present, he thought, taking a series of deep breaths. Particularly when the present might be all I’ve got. And it was slipping away fast. The hole he’d just painstakingly shot through the Zulu lines was already shrinking.

  He took off.

  Running in full combat kit was harder than it looked, and always a draining task. Now, totally on his own, Elliott was also going to have to shoot to defend himself. He had no one covering his six, nor his flanks. He had no base of fire support. He didn’t have a platoon or section to maneuver with.

  He immediately switched to a two-eyed aiming technique – keeping the illuminated part of the sight in focus with his dominant eye while his other viewed the field to acquire targets. There was no way he was going to have time to line up shots peering through the pinhole of his scope, and it would destroy his situational awareness if he tried.

  But his training on this had been minimal, so he just had to hope it worked.

  For the first couple hundred meters, his initial
sharpshooting stood him in good stead. There were no dead ahead of him – only destroyed bodies he had to hurdle or go around. The terrain was easy – mixed sections of crops, grass-covered pasture, and small sections of forest. The “wild spaces” of England were the result of millennia of agriculture, so were now laid out in very ordered plots. Elliott made a straight line through them all, not slowed by the fences and gates that normally sectioned them off.

  All of those had been pulled down by the advancing army of the dead.

  He cleared the first section of field, then the next of pasture. Then he entered a forested stretch. There was no underbrush – that had been cleared away decades ago – so the going was still easy, aside from some tree-dodging. But there were also a handful of Zulus lost and stumbling around in here, and they made for Elliott as soon as they heard him.

  Too slow. He ignored them and ran on.

  Another section of pasture. Now he could feel the pinhole of his escape collapsing. As he ran by dead on either side, they saw or heard him, and moved to follow. But as long as he kept moving fast…

  More crop land. The oilseed rape stalks, like thick cabbage, threatened to tangle up his feet. He kept running. Another forest section. Now they were on him for real – including some runners, who took off as soon as they got the scent of prey. Instantly, Elliott was having to shoot on the run, taking frantic shots, just to stay alive and on his feet.

  Out of the forest, into another pasture. There were a number of them in his path here, but most were slow ones, so he just ran and dodged, like a footballer breaking away for the goal. There were runners in his peripheral vision, but it was so damned hard to hit them while running himself. He had to keep moving and hope he could outrun them.

  He was getting close to friendly lines. He had to be.

  By the end of this field, they were pulling and pawing at him – he shoved them away with his rifle and carried on into the trees, where he had to start shooting again. If he could just get through this last stretch of forest, he figured he was home free.