by Luke Duffy
Together, they moved through the doorframe and the torch beam flashed as movement darted before them. Two rounds exploded from Stu's weapon, deafening in the confined space of the armoury. Marcus fired also, loosing off at least five rounds into the darkness, adding to the crescendo of noise.
"Shit, what was that?" Stu exclaimed, the panic rising in his voice.
"Wait," Marcus moved his light, "I thought I saw a..."
"Fucking hell, is that a man?" Stu stared at a bloodied pulp in the corner of the enclosure, slumped at the foot of a large wooden table. From the boots that remained attached to its feet, they could tell it had once been a soldier. In the corner of the room, cowering and hissing at them were two feral looking cats. Their coats were matted and greasy, their mouths smeared with blood. On the floor, in the middle of the room, lay another cat, dead and bloodied from the rounds that Marcus and Stu had fired into it.
"They were feeding on this poor bastard." Marcus shone the light back on to the unrecognisable body in the corner.
"But look," Stu's hand grabbed Marcus' forearm and guided the beam to the walls around them, "there's still a few weapons left in here." The light glinted as it hit the dull black metal of weapons still sitting in their racks.
"It looks like we've hit the jackpot, then. Go and grab Sini, tell him to bring some light. We'll grab what we can then hit the ammo store."
They all stood outside the armoury, eight British Army rifles laid out before them. Jim stood, holding one in his hands, scrutinising it with a look of disdain in his eyes.
"What in the name of John Wayne's arse are these then?" He held out the weapon in one hand, wielding it as though it was a child's toy.
"They're SA80's," Stu replied. "British Army issue rifle, same calibre as your M16."
"Yeah, but at least the M16 looks like a rifle. This looks more like a drill of some kind. It's all fucked up. The magazine is in the wrong place."
Stu shook his head as he took the weapon away from his American friend. "It's called a Bull-Pup design you dumb arse redneck. It has more or less the same length barrel and range as the M16, but the weapon is shorter because the magazine is set back from the pistol grip. Size isn't everything, Jim."
"That's not what your Mama said." Jim grinned at Stu.
Sini and Sandra were left to watch over their find while the rest went to find ammunition and magazines for the SA80's.
On their return, they began filling the magazines with the ammunition they had found. There was not much of it, but more than what they had for their old weapons.
"They pretty much cleared out the ammo stores too like they did with the armoury, but we found a couple of crates left," Stu informed Sini.
They discarded the AK47's and filled the pouches in their assault vests with the 5.56mm magazines for their new weapons.
"Got a couple of these little darlings, too," Stu beamed at Sini and presented him with two heavy satchels about the size of a couple of paperback novels.
Sini instantly recognised them and his eyes lit up like a child at Christmas. "Claymores! Oh, Stu, you shouldn't have." He took one of the packages of explosives packed with small steel balls and tucked it away in his tactical vest.
"I knew you'd like them," Stu said with a smile.
Jim checked the garage and came back with a vehicle that was still in working order and fuelled. It was a longer 110 wheelbase, stripped down British Army Land Rover. Tough and reliable, Marcus and Stu knew them well. It had a frame mounted on top and just behind where the driver and commander sat, that was fitted with a cradle for a mounted machine gun. However, with no belt fed weapons to be found in the armoury, they decided that they would resort to operating it with rifles instead. Now that they had a means to fight, and mobility, it was time to search for the finer things; food, clothing and the possibility of rest.
Marcus and his team approached the closest barrack block with caution. Their weapons held at the ready and their eyes scanning in all directions. The shattered glass of the windows and doors crunched under their feet as they travelled, hugging the wall, toward the entrance. Many of the windows had been boarded over and the remains of makeshift barricades were strewn around the entranceway. The doors were splintered and shattered.
"It was the dead that did this," Marcus whispered over his shoulder as he peered through the gaping doorway.
"How do you know?" Sini hissed in reply.
"Because living people, especially heavily armed, would've just blown holes in the walls, just like they did at the armoury. Besides, I'm staring straight at a dead fuck right now."
The upper half of a man, its bloated and fetid entrails trailing behind it, slowly dragged itself along the dark corridor and toward Marcus at the brightly sunlit entranceway. It was no more than ten metres away, and even in the gloom of the building's interior Marcus could see the terrible injuries to its body. The lower jaw was missing and the skin from its back and shoulders had been stripped to the bone. Its tongue dangled from its gaping maw and smacked against the floor with a sickening wet slapping sound as it pulled itself along.
Sini had peered in also and now, he felt the tingles along his spine as he watched the horrific vision slowly edging its way closer to them. "I say we just leave, Marcus."
"This is the closest accommodation block, Sini. It looks more intact that any of the others, and they're all probably full of the dead anyway. At least here, we can just bug out to the vehicle."
"No, I mean we just leave this whole place, Marcus."
"And go where? Right now, we have no food or supplies other than ammunition. We need to rest, too. Better to be here, at the top of the hill where we can see them coming and with an escape route. We need to clear it, floor by floor, and then rebuild the barricade."
Marcus dealt the slithering corpse a blow to the head with the butt of his rifle, putting it down for good. Stu and Jim began clearing the upper floor with Hussein, while Marcus, Sini and Sandra took care of the ground floor. Most of the rooms were empty and it seemed that most of the people that had been inside had escaped through a fire exit at the far end.
Sini reached down and turned the handle to the final door in the corridor. The door swung open and immediately, clutching hands grasped at him. The cold bony fingers reached for his face and closed around his throat. He let out a yelp as he tumbled backward. The rifle in his hands juddered as he loosed a volley of shots into the bodies that fell on top of him as he lost his balance and fell to the floor. He could smell their rotting flesh as they grappled on top of him, gnashing their teeth at his face. Sini and the four bodies became a tangle of struggling and flailing limbs. Biting teeth chomped down into rotted flesh as the corpses chewed into each other, trying to get a mouthful of Sini.
More shots followed and Sini's screams could be heard throughout the building as he struggled to squirm away from under his putrid attackers. Marcus bounded along the corridor, shouting for Sini to get clear of the bodies. He ran with his weapon in the aim and the first pressure taken off the trigger as he prepared to fire into the group. Sini was still writhing on the floor amongst them.
Marcus could not get a clear shot without hitting his friend.
Sini let out another scream as a set of incisors bit down on to his shoulder. Marcus felt his heart skip a beat at the sound and knew what a blood-curdling scream like that meant. Sini, with all the strength of an infuriated grizzly bear, began kicking and punching at the dead faces that continued to lunge at him. He rolled free and scrambled to his feet.
"You motherfuckers. I'll kill you, I'll fucking kill you," he screamed as he began kicking and stomping at the heads of the ghouls that were trying to gain their footings and continue their assault.
Sini was foaming at the mouth and Marcus could see the fire in his eyes as he stepped back and began pumping rounds into the sprawling mass of maggot-infested flesh at his feet. The bullets ripped through them, sending tatters of flesh, bone and clothing flying in all directions. Marcus joined the
maelstrom and the deafening roar and smoke from their weapons filled the corridor as the four corpses were reduced to nothing more than a pile of minced meat.
Both rifles clicked empty and, as one, they dropped the magazines from their weapons and loaded full ones in their place. Marcus' ears were ringing as he watched Sini change his magazine. Sini's eyes remained fixed on the dead at his feet, as though he was in a daze.
The noise of pounding feet sounded distant and muffled as Marcus saw Jim, Stu and Hussein sprinting along the corridor from the other end of the barrack block.
"Sini, you okay?"
There was no answer.
"Sini..." Marcus began again.
Sini turned and looked up at Marcus, his eyes staring right through him. He looked back down and then to Marcus again. "The fuckers wanted to eat me!"
Marcus looked at the shoulder that Sini now began frantically uncovering, inspecting the wound. "Did they get you, Sini?" he asked, a feeling of dread creeping up his throat.
Sini was busy pulling the straps of his assault rig away from his shoulder, trying to see the damage.
"Did they bite you, Sini?" Marcus asked, slowly, pronouncing each word clearly.
Sini turned to Marcus, his eyes bulging and looking as though they were about to fall out of their sockets, then his mouth gaped.
"Fuck, Marcus, my rig saved me. They couldn’t get through. They bit into the leather of the shoulder strap but didn't get the skin. It hurt but they didn't get me."
Marcus rolled his eyes and let out a breath that he had not realised he had been holding in until that moment. "Jesus, Sini, you had me flapping there."
"You were flapping? I thought I was dead."
Both men began to laugh, a laugh that rang the length of the corridor, the laugh of men that had escaped a situation that should have killed them. It was complete relief. Within seconds, Sini was crouching, his back leaning against the wall as he tried to compose himself.
Later, Marcus and Stu went back to the guardroom to deal with the dead officers. The others offered to help but Marcus insisted they stay behind and gather what equipment they could find. In truth, Marcus and Stu felt duty bound to take care of the tortured British officers personally, having once been part of the same army.
The deserted barrack block provided them with what they needed. There was a lot of clothing and equipment lying about, including more ammunition. Marcus helped to find Sandra and Hussein some suitable boots and clothes while the others loaded the vehicle with what equipment they found inside the accommodation block and parked it close to the doors and then barricaded them inside.
That night, they all slept a long and much needed sleep in one of the communal rooms on the upper floor of the accommodation block.
2
"Remind me again, Stan. Why are we doing this?"
"Because it's a laugh, Kieran, that's why." Stan leaned against the wall staring back at his friend, the wind blowing his ever-growing fringe across his face.
They had been friends for many years. Now, barely out of their teens, Kieran and Stan had first met in high school. After that, with no grades or prospects and very little interest in anything other than getting into trouble and chasing girls, they had remained close. However, what they saw as a close friendship, most other people, particularly their parents, saw as a hindrance to one another, each forever holding the other back.
"No, mate, it was a laugh the first time we did it, but we've been up here for three days now and it's getting stupid. Look at them," Kieran pointed out over the rooftop of the gym that they were standing on and at the ever-growing mass of discoloured and bloated faces below them.
Stan picked up another weight plate, held it out over the edge and like a human version of the crane game, the sort he had played so many times at the fairground, carefully aimed at his target below him.
He looked across at Kieran and grinned. "Are we going to get a big teddy this time?"
He dropped the five-kilogramme plate and watched as it plummeted toward the ground. It smashed into the face of dead woman staring back up at them and dropped her like water, caving her skull inward. "Bull's eye," he screeched with glee, "see, wasn't that funny?"
"The first couple of times, yeah, like when you made that guillotine out of that sheet of metal and chopped that big fucker's head off. That was hilarious. But this is just getting dangerous now, mate." Kieran was pleading for Stan to see logic.
Stan shrugged and huffed then turned to face the weather beaten face of his friend. "What's up, you losing your nerve?"
"To be honest, yes," Kieran took a step closer, inflating his chest and preparing himself for a confrontation. It would not be the first time that they ended up in a tussle over a disagreement. "Look at them." He looked out and motioned with his chin at the dead that filled the parking area in front of the gym. "There are fucking hundreds of them, and there's been more and more turning up by the hour. We spent a whole day lugging all these weights up the stairs from the gym and making enough noise to attract every one of them for miles. Then we made even more noise laughing, shouting and dropping weights on their heads." His voice was raised and getting louder as he fought to make his point. "Now look at it, I got bored of this after an hour but no, you wanted to stay. Well we've stayed long enough, Stan."
Stan blinked as he tried to recover from Kieran's tirade. "Well, what do you want to do?"
"I don't fucking care, mate. I just want out of here. Those smelly bastards have been kicking the shit out of the doors since they got here and if they manage to get in, where are we going to go? Nowhere, because we're stuck on this frigging roof, throwing dumbbells over the side like a couple of dicks, with no other way down."
Biting his lip and looking back over the edge at the crowd below, Stan realised that Kieran had a point. "Should we go somewhere else then?"
Kieran almost punched him in the jaw. "Fuck yeah, I think we should, there's better places than this. There's a supermarket not far from here. I say we have a look."
"Yeah, we can get all the supplies we need and then take a car from the car park."
"Neither of us knows how to drive, dickhead."
"Yes I can."
"Grand theft auto on a PS3 doesn't count, tit."
"Fuck off. Well, why can't you drive?" Stan retorted.
Kieran shrugged, "Because my mum did all the driving for me."
Kieran felt a moment of shame at the fact that he was now twenty years old and he had never made the effort to learn how to drive. Suddenly, he realised that he knew how to do very little for himself. He had been completely dependent on his parents.
They walked toward the roof exit, but not before Stan had landed one last crippling blow to one of the dead with another five-kilogramme weight, and headed down the stairs. Once back inside the gym, they realised just how close they had come to being trapped on the roof.
The doors rocked and rattled as the dead pounded against them from outside. The hinges shifted in their frames and the old plaster around them had begun to crumble. They shared a moment of terrifying realisation as they looked at each other, open mouthed, and then looked back at the old wooden doors that separated them from the horde of flesh yearning reanimated corpses.
"Right, we'll go out the back way and head towards the supermarket." Stan nodded his agreement, his eyes fixed on the steadily weakening door as they moved backward, towards the rear of the gym.
Outside, they scaled the steel fence that backed on to the builder's yard behind the gym. Large stacks of bricks and timber filled the open area, creating a maze that threatened to swallow the two of them up should they find themselves in trouble. It had not occurred to either of them to check from the rooftop of the gymnasium to see whether the coast was clear in the builder's yard. Now, at ground level, and their field of vision blocked by the high piles of building supplies, they had no idea what was around the next corner as they made their way toward, what they presumed, was the main entrance, leading them onto t
he street.
They passed through a door that led to the reception and pay counter. Two bodies, completely stripped of flesh and covered in tatters of blackened muscle and sinew, lay in the centre of the large room. Bloated flies buzzed angrily around them and Stan and Kieran were swarmed as they entered, the warm putrid air attacking their senses like a thousand knives.
Swatting at the flies and gagging at the stench, they fought their way toward the glass door on the far side, hesitantly stepping over the two grotesque and devoured corpses on the floor. Kieran could see that the street beyond looked clear. He wanted nothing more than to taste the fresh air that lay beyond the pane of glass. He increased his pace and slammed against the door, expecting it to swing open and feel a blast of cool clean air fill his lungs.
The door juddered and reverberated against his weight, but it held fast and Kieran rebounded and stepped back onto Stan's foot. Together, they crumpled to the floor in a heap, Stan's face landing just inches away from the nearest rotted corpse.
He felt the bile and terror rise in his throat together. His eyes widened as he stared into the empty maggot-filled eye sockets of the dead man's head.
"Shit," he screamed as he punched and kicked at the heavier-set Kieran, who lay sprawled on his back above him. "Shit, get off me." He struggled free as his friend also regained his balance and rose to his feet.
"You okay, mate?"
"I nearly landed on that thing," Stan spoke and spat bile at the same time. Wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve, he turned his eyes away from the corpse, and looked at the door then to Kieran. "What's up with the door?"
Kieran was studying the frame. "It's locked."
"Can we kick it through?"
"We shouldn't."
"Why not, I'm not staying in here."
Kieran was straining his head at the glass door and peering left and right along the street. "If we break the glass, we'll attract more of them." He pointed up the street as he stepped back from the entrance.
"More of them, what do you mean?" Stan rushed to the door and shielding his eyes with his hands to cut out the reflection and to help him see more clearly, he saw slow shambling figures heading towards them from further up the street. "Shit. What are we going to do now?"