by Luke Duffy
Stu became aware of the eerie silence that seemed to envelop them. There was no wind, not even a breeze. The heat was stifling as though the overturned truck was irradiating heat, causing the sweat to pour from his face as he edged his way closer. He noted the lack of birdsong in the area too; there was normally at least one of them chirping away somewhere at the roadside or overhead.
The only noise was the faint crunch of broken glass beneath their feet as they gently placed each foot. The air was filled with the almost warm sickening stench of rot.
Stu nervously glanced over the sight of his weapon and to the high grassy embankment to his left, almost expecting a horde of un-dead to spring forth from their ambush position and come charging down on them.
A faint thud came from the upturned container on the back of the truck. Stu snapped his head back in the direction of the noise and stopped suddenly, just a few metres short of the obstacle.
Sini noticed Stu’s sudden halt and followed suit at his side, gripping his rifle even tighter in his hands and pulling it into his shoulder, ready for an attack.
Stu looked across at the tough Serb from the corner of his eye. "You hear that?" he whispered.
Sini shook his head, not taking his eyes away from the truck that lay sprawled across the road in front of them. He remained, waiting for Stu to give the signal to continue, trusting in his judgement.
"There's something, or someone in the truck."
Stu continued forward, carefully placing his feet as he walked and keeping his weapon pulled firmly against his shoulder and the muzzle pointing at the stricken vehicle. He cocked his head to the side in an attempt to zero in on the noise that he had heard.
It came again, the muffled clunk of something being dropped or knocked over inside the trailer.
This time, Sini also heard it. He removed the safety catch on his rifle and stepped out further to the side of Stu, making sure his friend was clear of his arc of fire. Both men tensed and moved to the rear of the container. The doors were sealed shut and there was no sign of anyone, or anything, on the other side of the truck. The road ahead was empty and stretched for miles in the distance towards London.
The noise must have come from inside.
Sini glanced back at the others in the Land Rover. Marcus, Hussein and Jim were all in position, their weapons raised and ready to support them or come to their rescue should they get into trouble.
"It's a case of curiosity killing the cat," Stu whispered to Sini as he reached for the handle of the container. "I just hope I have nine lives today."
Sini had no idea what Stu meant and at that moment, he did not care. He was completely focussed on the two steel doors of the trailer that would fall open the moment that Stu released the handle, revealing whatever it was that had made the noise and had the whole team coiled like springs.
Stu could feel the palms of his hands suddenly become sweaty. His heart rate had increased and he could feel the blood racing through his veins. He reached out with one hand and held the rifle firmly into his shoulder with the other, his finger already taking the first pressure of the trigger. He glanced back one more time and nodded at Sini as he raised his hand and showed three fingers.
Sini swallowed and leaned into his weapon as he took up aim at the seal of the large steel doors. He, too, took up the first pressure on the trigger, needing only to squeeze a little harder in order to release a torrent of fire into anything that poured from the truck.
"One," Stu whispered, "two...three."
He pulled the handle with one hard tug and quickly stepped back, both hands now holding his weapon as the door began to fall open. It creaked and squealed as the hinges protested against the rust that had formed around them. It seemed to take an eternity as the door gradually gained speed as gravity gripped it and it swung towards the ground. With a loud echoing clatter, the heavy steel door hit the tarmac, shattering the silence around them.
A draft of hot foul-smelling air blew in their faces like the backwash of a car exhaust. It carried along with it the reek of rotting flesh. Sini crouched and squinted into the gloom of the truck's container as he struggled to see anything past the large frame of the door.
Stu stood beside him, holding his breath.
Nothing happened.
Stu squatted beside Sini, hoping to be able to see more from a new angle.
There was a crash. Sini and Stu involuntarily jumped back, readying them for an attack. Stu thought he saw movement and squinted, scanning the dark interior. Time seemed to stand still and he could feel the tension in the air. It was as though every member of the team were holding their breath. He could feel the beads of sweat that trickled down his forehead and he was more than aware of the hairs that stood on end on the back of his neck. It seemed like a lifetime since the door had crashed open, yet he remained standing there, poised and ready to take on whatever was to come.
The outstretched hands were the first things they saw. Reaching, clutching pale hands that thrust at them from out of the gloom, dozens of them. Their bodies close behind and advancing from within the dark interior and towards the brightly lit doorway that framed the two living men drenched in the sunlight outside.
"Shit," Stu yelled, "get back, Sini. There's fucking hundreds of them in there." He began to fire into the advancing crowd.
Sini began to fire also, the bright flashes emitting from the muzzle of his rifle, instantly illuminating the dark space within the truck, allowing the two men to see glimpses of their attackers. The pale and rotten faces of the dead loomed out of the blackness towards them and it was clear that the large heavy goods truck was packed full with the victims of the plague that had ravaged the earth and the bodies of the humans that populated it.
Both men backed up, frantically firing into the truck as they moved away. Bodies crumbled to the floor, soon to be replaced by the ones following behind. The noise that the dead made, the long wailing moan, sounded more hollow and detached from within the confines of the truck as they all cried out as one. It was more haunting and poignant, as though lamenting at the men who mowed them down as they advanced on them.
Rounds began to smash into the truck from Stu's left. The holes created by the bullets of the rest of the team as they punched through the steel of the vehicle, formed shafts of light like the effect caused by a disco ball. Heads snapped back and bodies jerked as the hail of fire thumped into them. Limbs were shot away as bullets and fragments from the trailer tore through them. Soon, the floor of the truck was awash with entrails as the rounds and splinters of steel ripped through abdomens, spilling their bloated and putrid contents at the feet of the advancing corpses.
Stu and Sini ran back from the vehicle, back towards the rest of the team as they realised they were under threat of being overwhelmed from the dead that filled the trailer.
Marcus and the others continued to fire their weapons until their barrels smoked and the truck took on the appearance of Swiss cheese. The tyres were gone, exploding with a loud bang as rounds hit them. The fuel tanks were ruptured spilling diesel onto the tarmac and the superstructure began to collapse from the numerous hits that had weakened it. Within a minute of the firing starting, the sound of the dead from inside ceased.
The team remained silent, watching for any movement. One by one, they changed the magazines on their weapons for full ones, the empty ones being thrown down the fronts of their vests to be recharged later.
Stu stood staring back at the truck, smoke drifting from the muzzle of his rifle.
"What the fuck?" he asked no one in particular as a section of the framework toward the rear of the trailer suddenly buckled as the bullet-riddled steel gave way.
"Stu, what's going on?" Marcus called from his vehicle.
From their angle, Marcus and the others had seen nothing of what was in the truck. All they knew was that there was something bad enough to make Stu and Sini begin to fire and then come running back towards them. That was all the information they had needed at that time
to prompt them to give fire support and begin throwing down as much cover fire as possible while the two men retreated to safety.
"The truck," Stu glanced back at him and motioned to the smouldering and bullet riddled vehicle with his rifle, "it was filled to the brim with them."
Jim stepped out from beside the Land Rover, a questioning look on his face as he approached Stu and Sini.
"Why would it be filled with dead heads?" he asked as he stood by the two men and studied the remains of the large vehicle.
Stu shrugged, not taking his eyes away from the scene in front of them. "You tell me, mate. I only work here."
They stood for a minute and watched the rear doors of the heavy goods vehicle, waiting to see if any had survived. Jim began to creep forward but kept a safe distance. After a short inspection, he looked back over at the others.
"Looks like there's still a few left, but they're in no condition to do much."
Marcus walked over to where Jim was standing. Something made him want to see things for himself. The rancid smell made his eyes water and snatched the breath from his nostrils. It was a mixture of oil, mould and most of all, rotting flesh.
"Fuck me," he cursed from between his fingers as he desperately covered his mouth and nose, "what were they doing in there?" He gagged.
Stu stepped forward and pulled his pistol from his assault vest, the hammer giving off a clicking sound as he pulled it back with his thumb. He raised the weapon, ready to dispatch the remaining dead that crawled and slithered towards them through the quagmire of their own rotting filth.
"No," Marcus ordered as he placed a hand on top of Stu's forearm. "Save your ammo. They can't do much in that state anyway."
It was clear that they had been in the truck for some time. Their bodies had become bloated and almost liquefied in the humid heat of the interior of the truck container. When the rounds of the team hit them, their bodies were so delicate that many of them had pretty much burst from the sudden change in pressure.
Hussein had moved around to the other side and peered in the trailer from a safe distance. He glanced down onto the floor at the mass of bodies that lay riddled with bullets and mutilated beyond recognition. He studied the ones that still looked relatively intact and soon realised what it was that bothered him the most about what he saw. From what he could tell, they all had something in common.
He stepped over a squirming corpse that had lost its legs and an arm. It had received a hit in the head. It was still moving but the shot had ripped away half of its jaw and cheekbone along with an eye and leaving a large flap of flesh that hung down from its face. Its lank, greasy hair lay plastered to its scalp and the pale and bloodied skin glistened in the sunlight as though coated with oil.
He looked down at the body, a pang of sympathy plucking at his heartstrings as the one remaining eye stared back at him, almost pleadingly. Hussein looked away and cleared the choked lump from his throat with a cough. He looked back down at the child and nodded, a tear forming in the lid of his right eye.
He reached to his hip, pulled his heavy machete from the scabbard, raised it above his head and took a deep breath. The blade cut through the air with a slight whistle and smashed into the side of the wretched creature's head with a loud thud and the cracking of bone. The skull caved in instantly and the child's putrid brains flowed through the large gash that the heavy steel machete had created.
"Mr Marcus," Hussein called as he walked towards them from the far side of the truck, sliding his machete back into its scabbard and rubbing a hand across his eyes and cheek, wiping away the few tears that managed to escape, "the people in the truck, they were not dead."
Stu spun on him, those very words sending a chill through his body. "Yes they fucking were," he growled.
Hussein realised his mistake and understood how Stu must have interpreted what he had said. "Sorry, I mean, they were not dead when they were first put in there." He saw Stu relax slightly. "Look, I can’t see any bites."
"They all look pretty messed up to me, Hussein," Jim replied as he glanced from body to body.
"But can you see bites?"
Marcus shrugged. "He has a point, though it's a little hard to tell, what of it anyway, Hussein? Maybe they were all going somewhere and then the truck crashed?"
"Why would they leave living people in the back of the truck to die then?" Hussein asked. The fact perplexed him and knowing that some of them had been children too, it horrified him.
"Maybe it's because, it's a fucked up world?" Jim answered with a question of his own. "Who knows, Hussein? Maybe they meant to come back to save them or the driver got eaten and they were left trapped?"
"What a way to go, though. The heat must've been horrendous in there," Stu observed. "With no water and no air, they didn't stand a chance, poor bastards."
"Come on," Marcus announced, snapping everyone from their morbid stupor as they stared at the carnage before them. "Let's get going. We have probably attracted every one of them for miles around with all the noise. Jim, give us an ammunition state of the whole team as soon as you can and Stu, check on Sandra before we go mobile again."
Hours later, and the team had gone static on the ring road that circumnavigated the city of London. The roads headed south were completely blocked on both sides. For as far as the eye could see, destroyed burned out vehicles were crammed, bumper to bumper, on every patch of the tarmac of every slip road, leaving them channelled toward the north and the large sprawling city of London.
The mass panic that had gripped the cities had been even more devastating in the capital. There was no hope of heading south. Marcus and his men had had no choice but to turn north and run the risk of becoming an easy target on the crossing of the Thames River.
They slowly picked their way through the devastation on the road towards the large bridge that spanned the width of the river. The tollbooths were nothing but a tangled and twisted mess with vehicles having become fused in a mass pile up as they had attempted to plough their way through the barriers.
Marcus steered the vehicle through and out to the other side and brought the Land Rover to a halt. The bridge lay before them, stretching off in the distance and up over the horizon.
A number of dark figures clumsily shambled between the stalled and destroyed cars that sat motionless on the bridge. They saw Marcus and his team and began to lurch towards them, grunting and moaning as they drew closer. Marcus was not concerned; they were too far away and too few in number to pose any real threat.
Marcus hesitated as he sat behind the wheel with the engine idling in neutral. "What do you think, Stu?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the bridge.
"We're short on choices really, aren't we?" Stu replied. "Let's just try and get across as quickly as we can before we draw a crowd."
"Well, there is another option..." Marcus began.
"Bollocks to that, Marcus," Stu cut in, "there's no fucking way I'm going through the tunnel. At least here, we have the option of jumping off the bridge. Down there, we'd be screwed."
Marcus had been about to suggest the possibility of driving through the Dartford Tunnel that passes below the Thames River. Apart from the bridge, it was the only other way across as far as they knew.
"Yeah, we..."
The sound of roaring jet engines drowned out his words as a black shape passed close overhead and soared towards the city. The glow of its engines could clearly be seen as it cut through the air, away from them.
Marcus looked at Stu, an expression of excitement and surprise spreading across his face. He slammed the gear lever forward and pressed his foot to the accelerator, powering the vehicle towards the bridge. The dead that approached were brushed aside like rag dolls as the heavy truck hit them, their bodies flying in the air and hitting the ground in a tangled broken heap.
Halfway across the bridge, Marcus brought them to a stop again. They were at the highest point and the angle gave them a perfect over watch view of the entire city. Everybody dismounted
from the vehicle, seemingly paying little attention to the stray bodies that staggered in their direction from the distance. By now, they automatically took note of any threat and assessed it subconsciously. The bodies on the bridge were too few in numbers and spread out to represent an immediate danger to them.
The team stood at the rail, watching the city. Those that had binoculars keenly held them to their eyes and scanned the scene before them, calling out what they saw to one another.
Plumes of smoke hung above London as fires spread and buildings became engulfed in the licking flames. The low percussion booming as gas tanks ruptured and fuel stations and even cars exploded in the heat, could be heard from every direction. Fresh balls of fire sprung in the air from every part of the city as Marcus and his men stood and watched.
"Holy shit," Jim muttered as he stuffed another spoon full of beans into his mouth, "what do you think is going on?"
Marcus' reply was interrupted by the screech of another jet as it swooped overhead and towards the city centre. The noise was deafening and the blast of hot air they felt as it passed over them was an indication of just how low the aircraft was travelling.
They watched, open-mouthed, as the city of London was slowly reduced to ash. Wave after wave of bomber jets and fighters attacked targets on the ground and, before long, the city was nothing more than a ruin. Its tall buildings were crumbling by the minute and as more bombs and missiles hit and exploded amongst them, the ancient and once beautiful landmarks were smashed and burned beyond recognition.
"It looks like the counter attack has begun," Marcus surmised as he shouted over the din.
"Yeah, but what do they expect to have left when they're done?" Jim asked as he peered through his binoculars.
"I don't think they're all that concerned about the architecture now," Marcus replied as he watched another wave of bombers drop their payload.
The plumes of smoke and dust from the explosions were followed seconds later by the thundering report of the blast as it travelled on the air towards them.
"I think they just want to cleanse the place of everyone of those walking pus bags."