by Luke Duffy
Marcus trusted and counted on every member of his team. They had all been through the mill and he knew he could rely on them to react in the right way when it came to it, but a bunch of civilians that had been thrown together through circumstance, that was another matter. They were untrained and probably scared to death ninety percent of the time and with no natural reactions embedded into them from years of training and experience, it could cause them to freeze at the critical moment and put the rest in danger. It was that thought that Marcus could not shake from his mind. His brother could be hurt, or worse, due to someone suddenly panicking.
His family were never far from his thoughts. He longed to see his wife and children again. He yearned to hold them in his arms, to keep them close and safe. A slight smile grew on his face as he imagined the scent of Jennifer as he pulls her close and kisses her for the first time. It had been a long while since he had last been home and after everything that they had been through it now felt like years.
They still had a long way to go. He knew where they needed to go, but he did not have the first idea about which was the best way to get there. Before the dead swallowed the world, it had been a simple drive north for a few hours and then he would be home.
Now, though, no one could possibly know what kind of obstacles lay ahead, even the conditions of the roads. The most logical option would have been to take the most direct route, but times had changed. The easy route now would probably be the most dangerous and perilous. That same system of roads bypassed a number of large cities and they were probably festering and boiling over with the dead.
Everyone was aware by now of how the reanimated bodies behaved. They acted on instinct and herd behaviour. If they saw one of their own headed in a certain direction, many of them would follow. Stumbling onto a major road system would be easy for the dead that were spewing out from the city of Birmingham or Coventry. Once on the highway, then they would probably stay there as the road channelled them and fed them along in both directions. With nothing to encourage them to veer off, they would be shoulder to shoulder on both sides of the road.
As well as the dead, there was the living to consider, too. They had experienced all too well, what could happen when society breaks down. Throw a few sick minds and the means to cause mayhem into the mix, and what could go wrong had a very strong chance of doing just that.
They had experienced it first hand in Iraq, Turkey, Serbia and France, even in England at the army barracks. It would need to be the minor roads that crisscrossed the Midlands. There they could continually bypass any major built-up areas and stick to the open country.
Marcus looked over at the dark and faint silhouette of Sini as he stood watch by the window. He could see the red glowing embers of the cigarette Sini was smoking as he inhaled the fumes back into his lungs, his face being slightly illuminated by the faint light of the burning tobacco. The lounge of the public house was still and only the soft sound of people sleeping and the roar of Jim snoring indicated that there was anybody else in the room.
Marcus' eyes drooped and closed then involuntarily sprang open again. Sleep was tugging at him, but his subconscious continued to drag him back. They closed again, longer this time and his thoughts became muddled as he drifted.
There was movement in the room. The part of his brain that remained alert sensed it and forced his eyes open again. For a moment, he struggled to focus, then he saw Sini, still standing at the window as he had been just moments before but the cigarette was now gone.
Sini was crouching slightly, his shoulders hunched and the rifle he carried gripped in both hands with the butt pulled in tight. The barrel was still pointing down but it would take just a split second to raise it to aim. Sini was alert. He was bobbing his head, fighting for a better angle of view or light as he tried to identify something that he had seen on the other side of the window.
Marcus jumped to his feet, snatching up his rifle as he did so. In just a few bounds, he was standing at the side of the tough Serb, Sini, and peering through the glass and into the darkness with him.
"What is it Sini, what do you see?" he whispered from the corner of his mouth, keeping his eyes fixed on the parking area outside and his hands gripping his rifle tightly.
"I'm sure I saw something moving, Marcus." Sini craned his neck again in an attempt to locate the source of movement he had seen, but it had gone.
They stood in silence for a few minutes, watching for any further indication of anything on the outside. Nothing moved and both men began to relax.
"Sorry, boss. You should try and get some sleep," Sini whispered.
"Aye, chance would be a find thing, mate."
Marcus moved back to where he had left his sleeping bag. He placed his rifle down beside it and began to pull back the folds of the quilted material, then he stopped. He looked up at the window that was closest to him and stepped across the short distance to the glass pane. He wanted to double check. Something inside him urged him to have one final look before he settled himself to go back to trying to sleep.
He pressed his face close to the cold windowpane and stared into the darkness outside. There was nothing there; nothing moved. Satisfied, he pulled his head away...
A pale looming face sprang up in front of him on the other side of the glass. Marcus jumped with shock and sprang back a step.
"Shit...," he cried.
His rifle was with his sleeping bag behind him. Instinctively, he reached for the pistol he had tucked into the waistband at the front of his trousers. He felt the curve of the pistol grip in the 'V' shape of his hand between his thumb and forefinger. He coiled his remaining fingers around the handle and at the same time, as his hand began to pull the weapon free, his thumb clicked down on the safety catch. His right index finger was already curled around the trigger and the pistol was now free of his trousers. His wrist was twisting so that the barrel pointed in the direction of the sudden threat. He had already begun to squeeze the trigger to release the first shot.
"Don't shoot, don't shoot," the face hollered from beyond the window.
Marcus hesitated. He continued to move the pistol into the aim, but he refrained from taking up the final pressure on the trigger that would send the hammer forward, striking the firing pin against the percussion cap of the nine-millimetre brass casing that was already loaded into the chamber, and firing off the round.
Did that pus bag tell me not to shoot?
Sini arrived at his side, the weapon in his hands held at the ready. Marcus could hear the others stirring behind him.
Another person joined the face at the window and they both raised their hands. "Don't shoot, please."
Marcus stepped forward, the gun still trained on the two at the window. He eyed them with suspicion and peered into the darkness behind them. The first face glanced back over his shoulder, following the line of Marcus' eyes. The man seemed to realise that Marcus was watching for anyone else that was with them.
"It's okay, we're alone. Please, there's no one else with us, let us in."
Marcus stepped over to the main entrance and released the dead bolts at the top and bottom of the old heavy wooden frame. He ripped the door open and reached out into the cool night air for the two people that were already there waiting for the door to open. Grabbing the first of the men by the scruff of his collar and dragging him inside, he threw him into the waiting arms of Sini.
He quickly grabbed the next man and tossed him like a child's toy over to his right, sprawling him across a table and knocking chairs over in the process. The man let out a yelp and looked across to his friend as he lay with his back arched over the table.
Marcus turned his pistol on him as he sealed the door again, slamming the locks back into place.
He bounded across the short distance to the man on the table. He leaned over him, his weight pressing down on the man's chest as he thrust the barrel of his pistol in his face.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Marcus growled.
&nb
sp; The man whimpered, his face contorting into a pathetic grimace like that of a child's when being chastised by its parents. He looked across to his friend, restrained by the frightful looking Serbian.
He started to cry.
Marcus had gone for the shock and awe approach with them. Knowing nothing about them, or their intentions, he did not want to give them a minute to think or catch their breath. Immediately, he set out to show his dominance over them, to make it clear about who exactly was in command of whom. Normally, the first reaction of the captives would be to acknowledge their captor’s position and comply with their commands for fear of reprisals, giving them total control.
Immediately bursting into tears was a new one for Marcus.
Marcus was taken aback by the man's reaction. Instantly, he felt sorry for him but he was too long in the tooth to allow his self to lower his guard at that moment. Instead, he backed away slightly, but the pistol remained pointed straight at his face.
"Stop crying and tell me what you're doing here," Marcus demanded.
The man slid down and began to curl himself into a ball at the foot of the table, holding his head in his hands and weeping uncontrollably.
"Are they going to kill us, Pete?" he cried into his palms.
"Please, leave him alone," the other man pleaded at Marcus.
Marcus turned to him, the gloomy light revealing just the outline of the man that stood locked in Sini's grip. Marcus stepped closer, his pistol still pointed at the man on the floor.
"Okay, Pete. You can tell me instead. Are there anymore of you out there?"
Stu stepped across and stayed close to the cowering figure at the table so that Marcus could concentrate on the other.
Pete shook his head. "No just me and him." He nodded to his friend.
"Him?" Marcus asked.
The constrained man glared at Marcus, defiance in his eyes. "Yes, him. His name is Michael. He's my brother." He changed his tone when he realised that Marcus was slowly closing in on him. "Please leave him alone, he's..." he hesitated.
"He's what?" Marcus asked genuinely curious.
Pete looked down and let out a long sigh. "He's special, okay?"
Marcus looked across at Stu and then back at Pete. "You mean as in special needs, learning difficulties special?"
Pete nodded. "Yeah, that's what I mean. Please don't hurt him; it was my idea to come here. Let him go."
Stu took out his Sure Fire light and shone it in the face of the still whimpering Michael.
"Hey, mate, nothing to be afraid of. We just had to make sure you weren't dangerous is all." Stu was using his 'everybody's best friend' voice.
Michael pulled his hands away from his watery eyes and blinked in the bright light. "You...you mean like the others out there?"
"Uh, yeah, something like that," Stu nodded.
Michael smiled up at Stu, relief flooding his face. He turned his head in the direction of Pete.
"Hey, it's okay, Pete. They just wanted to make sure we weren't monsters."
They guided the two newcomers over towards the fireplace that still glowed with embers, casting a small but sufficient amount of light in the immediate area. Pete and Michael were manhandled and dumped on the floor with their backs placed against a large armchair. Even though Marcus and his men had softened their approach to the two, they were still wary, suspicious of them and ready to kill them if necessary.
Marcus handed them some water that they gratefully gulped down between them.
"I suppose I'll get a brew on then," Stu declared as he set about positioning the old-fashioned kettle on the hot embers of the fire.
Pete and Michael had relaxed a little, but their eyes were still wide as neither of them knew what their eventual fate would be.
Marcus shone his light down over the two of them as he sat down on the chair in front of them. The light travelled the length of them both and Marcus scrutinised what he saw in the beam.
"So, Pete, you're a soldier then?" he said in a casual tone.
Pete looked down at himself and then back at Marcus. "No, I'm no soldier."
"Okay, so you just like wearing the outfit?" Marcus gestured to Pete's uniform and boots with his light.
Pete shook his head. "It's what was given to me, along with a gun, but I'm not a soldier. I don't think there are any left anyway. Not on the mainland at least, except you guys."
"Except us," Marcus smiled. "There are soldiers in London. We saw them."
A look of disdain spread across Pete's face and he sneered. "They aren't soldiers. They are young boys and old men with two days training and a uniform, thrown into the thick of it as cannon fodder."
"You need to start making sense, Pete."
"They're civilians, press ganged into a militia. Everyone who made it off the mainland and to any of the islands occupied by the government and armed forces, they were set to work in one way or another, not that we were slaves or anything, but we couldn't just go our separate ways and we were still subject to state rule. That's when they brought in conscription."
"Conscription?" Marcus looked across at Stu, raising his eyebrows questioningly.
"Yeah, anyone considered of an age old enough to fight, they were forced in the new militia units. They were given a couple of days training to learn how to use the radio and rifle and that was it, they were considered ready for the great counter attack on the mainland."
"What about the regular army? Why aren't they being used?"
Pete frowned back at him, confusion spreading across his face as he looked from Marcus to Stu and then to Jim.
"The regular army? Where have you been since all this started?"
"All over and it's a long story. Go on." Marcus waved a hand.
Pete's face relaxed as he realised that Marcus genuinely did not know about certain events.
"Well, there is no regular army anymore well, not much of one, anyway. There are still a few units but they are being kept back because of their expertise and experience, or so they told us. It makes more sense to send in the expendable against the dead, the likes of us, so why waste the trained soldiers?"
"What happened to the rest?" Marcus asked as he leaned forward, eager to know.
"They're dead," Pete replied simply.
"They're dead, all of them?" Marcus exclaimed.
"Most of them, yes. Obviously, you've not been keeping up on current events, but they were wiped out in the early stages of all this." He waved his arm around him to indicate the country and its current state.
"Before anyone really understood the problem and how to deal with it, the army units still in the UK, the police force and even the fire service were thrown in to deal with the 'unrest' and in the process, they were killed, eaten or turned into them walking dead things.
"I heard on the news that all the troops in Iran were being recalled to Britain, but apparently, many of them never made it out of the Middle East, and those that did died on the way home. There were reports of sea battles, like in the Second World War between China, North Korea, America, Britain and a whole bunch of other countries. I think Russia got involved too and they just blew the shit out of each other."
"And you got conscripted?"
Pete nodded his head vigorously. "Yeah, me and Michael. He doesn't even know how to fasten his own shoes but they still sent him. As soon as the helicopters dropped us off, I decided we should run for it. Have they cleared London out?"
"No," Jim butted in. "They just bombed the crap out of it. Pretty much flattened it and a lot of the so called soldiers were still getting attacked by those things."
Pete shook his head. "I knew it wouldn't go well for them." He looked back up at Marcus. "Honestly, we're not looking for trouble; we just want to go home. Our village is not far from here, which is why we ran. Please don't make us go back, don't turn us in?"
Stu snorted. "Why would we turn you in? We want to avoid the soldiers as much as you do. We've no desire to be cannon fodder."
Pete glanc
ed from each man to the other expectantly. "But, but I thought you were soldiers too?"
"We are," Marcus replied. "But we don't belong to any government and we've no intention of joining in the bloodbath that the clowns in charge are conducting."
"I don't understand. I presumed you were some kind of Special Forces Unit or something, sent out to give reports on the ground and situation, and stuff."
"No, mate, we aren't Special Forces and I fucking hate paperwork. We have fought our way back from Iraq, across the Middle East and up through Europe for the past four months or so. When the news of what was happening broke, they left us in Baghdad to rot while the head shed made a run for it. We were there as private military contractors. We're all ex-soldiers, but from different countries, you see?"
"Ah," Pete now understood. "You mean mercenaries?"
Marcus chuckled. "Yeah, some people see us as that."
Pete whistled through his teeth. "Jesus, you've come all the way from Iraq? That's a long way, even when the world was normal, never mind coming through all this shit." He sounded genuinely impressed at the accomplishment.
"It was a long way," Stu added. "We've lost some good friends along the way, too, and we still have a ways to go. So you can understand our desire not to get caught up in any gang fuck like what's going on in London right now."
Pete smiled. "So does that mean we're on the same song sheet then?"
Stu nodded. "Here, get some of this brew down you," he said as he handed him a steaming cup.
19
The squawk of the birds in a sudden panic and the fluttering of their wings alerted him to their presence as he drew near. They jumped from their perches on the slowly rusting hulks of forsaken and discarded vehicles and took to the air, flying away to the open fields to the right of the highway.