by Luke Duffy
"Hold it, Jim. Slow down."
Without any questions, Jim eased off on the accelerator and gently applied the brake, bringing the speed of the vehicle down to a crawl.
They were travelling along a narrow lane that was barely wide enough to fit two saloon cars, side by side. Their British Army Land Rover was much wider than the average civilian vehicle and it would be difficult for them to manoeuvre if they ran into trouble.
Trees lined the roadside to their left and a low hedge with an open field, gently rising up to a wooded area on the high ground, to their right. Up ahead, and obscured by the overhanging trees that drooped down towards the road, Marcus could see something. He could not make it out, but he could also smell smoke, acrid smoke that burned his throat.
"What is it, boss?" Jim asked as he craned his neck in an attempt to see further along the road.
"I'm not sure. You smell that?"
"Smells like a mix between aviation fuel and burning rubber to me," Stu offered from behind them.
Marcus nodded as he made a hand gesture, signalling for Jim to reduce their speed even further. He scanned the land to his left and right, then twisted in his seat to get a view of the road behind them.
"What's going on, Mr. Marcus?" Hussein asked as he looked down from the gun position and saw the troubled expression on the team leader's face.
Marcus shook his head, "I'm not sure but I don’t like this."
"You don’t like what?" Sini asked.
"I think the road may be blocked up ahead," Marcus replied as he raised himself in the passenger seat to get a better view. "We'll have a hard time of turning around if it is."
Sini looked at the roadside to his left and right. Deep drainage ditches run parallel to the road and up close to the tarmac. The Land Rover took up nearly the entire width of the narrow country lane.
"Shit," Sini hissed.
Marcus turned to Jim, "Okay mate, push on, slowly. If we can chuck in a one-eighty up ahead, then do so and we'll head back the way we came."
Jim pushed the vehicle in gear and began to creep forward again. To their horror, the road became narrower, to the point where the hedgerow was almost brushing the paintwork of the Land Rover.
Marcus fidgeted in his seat. He knew they were trapped. All he could do was hope that the blockage up ahead was negotiable with no crowds of dead waiting for them. The smell of the smoke became stronger. It drifted in thin wisps through the trees above and became thicker as they drew closer.
With nowhere in sight that offered the possibility of turning around, Marcus called a halt again. Jim brought the vehicle to a stop and slipped it into reverse, keeping his foot pressed down on the clutch, ready to back up at speed if needed.
"Stu, Hussein, you two come with me," Marcus ordered twisting his neck so that he was facing the people in the rear. "Sini, Jim and Sandra, you stay with the vehicle while we have a look." He turned to look at Jim. "At the first sign of trouble, get out of here. If we get split up, the emergency RV will be that little cottage we saw two kilometres back on the right of the road, okay?"
Jim nodded, "Roger that, boss."
The three of them dismounted from the vehicle. Marcus gently pulled back on the cocking lever of his rifle to check that it was ready to fire. He knew that it was, but he always liked to be sure. He eased it back just enough so that he could see the brass casing of the chambered round, then he gently pushed the lever forward again until he heard the click.
Stu leapt across the ditch to the right of the road and began pushing his way through a small gap in the hedgerow. Marcus followed and Hussein brought up the rear of the small recognisance patrol.
"Up to the high ground, Stu," Marcus said in a low voice from behind him.
Stu nodded and began to pace across the field. It had been a long time since there had been anyone to harvest the crops that grew there. It was now overgrown and tangles of long grass and roots threatened to snare their feet as they made their way up the hill.
Close to the top, Marcus paused and turned to look back at the road. It was hard to see with the hedgerow and trees obscuring much of it. He could feel the trickles of sweat running down along his spine as he breathed deeply from the effort of the hill. He could just make out the upper part of the Land Rover. It seemed so far away. They were out in the open and vulnerable, and Marcus could feel his blood chill at the thought.
"Sini," Marcus spoke over his radio, "radio check."
"Loud and clear, boss."
"Good to me. We're near the tree line, about to turn north."
"Roger that, got you visual."
Stu reached the tree line and turned left, following it along and paralleling the road. He glanced to his right in the trees, the thick foliage and gloom blocked his view after a few metres. The woods looked dark and ominous and the sounds of cracking branches and rustling leaves sent a wave of unease through him.
Stu raised his hand, signalling for Marcus and Hussein to stop. They obeyed the command, crouching down on their haunches and remaining silent. Stu, without speaking, looked back and called for Marcus and Hussein to close up to him. Again, they obeyed and keeping their profile as low to the ground as possible, they made their way forward.
"What we got, Stu?" Marcus whispered as he arrived at Stu's shoulder.
"Not sure. There's too much smoke to tell, but whatever it is, it's just a hundred metres or so away," he said looking down to his left where the hill dropped into the shallow valley.
Marcus raised his binoculars to his face and scanned the dark billowing clouds of smoke that rolled upwards in the air from a wide area in the low ground.
"I can't make anything out," he stated.
Waiting for a gap in the black veils that curled and swirled across the fields and road, the three of them crouched and watched. As the wind shifted direction slightly, the clouds of smoke, for a few seconds, parted.
"Wait," Hussein hissed. "I can see something. Looks like a crashed plane."
Marcus and Stu scanned to the area where Hussein pointed. He was right. Through their binoculars, they were able to make out the twisted and scorched remains of what appeared to be a C130 Hercules. Multiple fires burned all around it from spilled aviation fuel and the wings appeared to have been ripped off in the crash, leaving the long, cylindrical hull sprawled across the width of the road. A long wide trench of disturbed earth running down the hill to the north betrayed the plane's final moments as it had crashed onto the ground. Wreckage and equipment were strewn everywhere with numerous fires smouldering all around.
"Looks like they were carrying supplies for the offensive, what do you think happened, Stu?" Marcus asked as he passed his binoculars to Hussein to have a look.
"No idea, mate, but have a look at that." Stu pointed past the dark smoke and into the distance, towards the north.
Before Hussein had had the chance to raise the binoculars to his eyes, Marcus snatched them back. In the distance, and obscured by the plumes of smoke and shimmering heat of the burning aviation fuel, Marcus could see white and green patches scattered across the open fields. He struggled to make them out at first, but then his eyes focussed and he felt an icy hand grip his throat. Strewn across a wide expanse of open ground and hanging from the trees a few hundred metres away, Marcus recognised parachutes, dozens of them.
Marcus had served in the Parachute Regiment, and he recognised a Drop Zone when he saw one. The vast open ground was ideal for a mass drop. Away from the immediate surroundings of built-up areas and with the low rolling fields, it was a perfect choice for a DZ. However, something had gone terribly wrong.
"Looks like they gave the green light when the pilot realised the aircraft was going down and the troops bailed out."
"Where are they then?" Hussein asked from behind.
Marcus looked down at the ground below his feet. Even after all these years since leaving the army, he still felt an overwhelming sense of loss when he saw or learned of the deaths of fellow paratroopers.
As he focussed, Hussein clearly saw the bodies of the men that hung limply from the cords and straps of their parachutes, still secure in their harnesses. Looking closer, he saw the flinching and struggling movements of the reanimated troops as they fought against their bonds. He looked into the low ground, at the wide-open fields where many more deflated parachutes lay. Dozens of figures thrashed and clutched at the webbing that was still attached to the large sheets of parachute silk enveloping them. Some lay entangled on the floor in their rigging lines, while others staggered to their feet, attempting to walk but being dragged back down by the weight of their equipment.
"Shit, Marcus, look!" Stu exclaimed in a hushed voice. He pointed down to their left, to the smoke that surrounded the crash site.
Through the breaks in the rising black and grey columns, Marcus could see movement on a vast scale. A sea of shambling figures closed in towards the downed aircraft. Marcus scanned along the road towards the south, in the direction they had come from. Through the trees on the far side of the narrow country lane, he could see hundreds more of the dead, headed towards them.
Marcus felt his heart begin to pound. He spun around and looked in the fields to their south. More flesh hungry ghouls stumbled across the open ground, the smoke from the crash site attracting them from the villages and towns for miles around.
Their vehicle was in a blind spot, Sini and Jim unable to see and oblivious to the approaching danger.
"Sini, get out of there," Marcus ordered over the radio. "You’ve got dead closing in from the west and south."
"Where, Marcus?" Jim replied. "I can't see anything."
"Fifty metres to your left," Marcus' voice took on a tone of urgency. "Get the fuck out of there, now. We'll meet you at the ERV."
From their vantage point, Marcus, Stu and Hussein saw the Land Rover begin to back up along the road. The dead to the west saw them too and began to crash through the row of trees and spill onto the narrow road. The vehicle began to turn a bend and then they were lost from sight to Marcus and the others.
"Okay, Stu, we need to get in the woods and head back to the RV."
The three of them stood just as they heard the crackle of distant gunfire.
"They're behind us," Sini's voice screamed through their earpieces, his voice loaded with panic, "hundreds of them, blocking the road."
More gunfire followed as Sini opened up with his rifle into the mass of dead.
Marcus watched as the Land Rover came into view again, racing back to the area where they had dismounted. The road was now teeming with the reanimated corpses of the dead in both directions, completely cutting off any chance of escape.
Stu took aim through the site of his rifle. The loud resounding crack as he began to fire echoed down from the high ground and to the shallow valley below. Marcus and Hussein followed suit and began picking off the dead that closed in on all sides of the beleaguered vehicle and its occupants.
Bodies fell as the rounds smashed through their heads and into their brains. Others jerked and shuddered as the shots missed their targets and hit other parts of their body. Stu had already fired a full magazine in them without making a difference to their numbers.
"Magazine," he cried, informing the others that his weapon was empty and he needed to reload.
Marcus and Hussein continued to fire. More shots, quicker in succession, rang out from the road as Jim, Sini and Sandra fought to stem the flow. To their right, Marcus caught a glimpse of more figures headed in their direction, up the hill and through the smoke from the direction of the crash site. Attracted by the noise of the weapons and the flashes from their muzzles, the mass of bodies that had been obscured from the smoke, now began to emerge from the billowing oily clouds like a living nightmare.
"Bug out, Jim. Head for the high ground," Marcus ordered.
There was no reply, but the fire from the low ground continued.
"Sini," Marcus tried again. "Debus and head for the high ground," he screamed into his radio.
Suddenly, through the sight of his rifle, Marcus saw figures crashing their way through the hedgerow away from the road and towards their position on the hilltop. He took aim at the first, and then released the pressure on the trigger.
"It's them," he called to Stu and Hussein. "They're bugging out and moving towards us. Check your targets."
"Roger that," Stu replied, without letting up on his rate of fire.
More of the dead appeared in the fields to the south and the mass of bodies to the north drew closer by the second as they staggered up the hill. Marcus conducted a quick battle appreciation in his head. Their only option was to head east, through the woods to their rear. All other directions were teeming with the shambling bodies of the dead.
Jim was out in front with Sini at the rear, helping Sandra as they crossed the field and ascended the hill as fast as they could. Through his weapon sight, Marcus could see that she was struggling. She clutched at her abdomen, the pain from the emergency appendix operation hindering her as Sini continued to drag her along towards them. They were just a hundred metres away, but Marcus knew that they could not afford to allow Sandra time to rest. The moment they arrived, they had to move to the trees and try to put as much distance between them and the pursuing dead as quickly as possible.
The first of the bodies from the right were now just twenty metres away. Stu turned and began to take out the lead creatures in an attempt to spare them just a few seconds more before Jim, Sini and Sandra reached them.
Panting hard and pouring with sweat, Jim stumbled the last few metres of the hill and dropped to the side of Marcus. Sini and Sandra were just seconds behind him. Marcus saw the agony in Sandra's face. Her features were twisted and she whimpered and groaned with the pain. He could see that it was a struggle for her just to remain upright.
"We need to move," he informed them with a sympathetic nod towards Sandra. "We can't stay here, we got to keep going."
Raising her head and groaning, Sandra nodded to him, understanding the need for them to get out of there as quickly as possible.
Marcus turned to Jim. "Did you salvage anything?"
Jim continued to battle to catch his breath.
"Just ammunition," he gasped as he dropped the heavy pack from his shoulder, filled with the loose magazines and rounds that they had taken from the barracks. "I couldn’t get the radio, boss."
Marcus nodded. He understood that the three of them were lucky to have made it out with their lives, let alone lugging a heavy radio with them.
Stu led the team into the woods, his rifle held hard into his shoulder and his finger running along the side of the trigger guard, ready to fire on anything that sprang up in front of them.
Marcus took one final look in the fields and valley below. It swarmed with the approaching dead, all of them with their eyes locked on Marcus and his team as they made their escape. He knew they would follow.
"Okay, Stu, take us in. As quickly as you can, but not so quick that we can't react to any threat that pops up."
"No worries, mate," Stu replied in a whisper.
They were just a hundred metres in the trees when they heard the first of the dead behind them begin crashing their way through the wooded area. They moaned in frustration, their wails echoing through the trees. The sounds of the branches and rustling leaves crackling under their feet seemed to come from all around in the densely packed wood. Marcus resisted the urge to rush and increase the pace. Sandra was in pain, close to collapsing, and the prospect that there could be more of the dead in front of them filled him with trepidation.
It was a natural wood, so there were no lines or channels that they could follow between the trees. Within a few hundred metres, it became hard to tell if they were headed in a straight line. The dim light that the small breaks in the canopy allowed was insufficient for them to see more than twenty metres ahead of
them. The few narrow beams of sunlight that penetrated through the high branches and leaves created mirages, which played on their nerves.
Repeatedly, Stu spun, his finger gently squeezing the trigger as he saw a figure or movement, only to realise that it was the discolouration on the bark of a tree from the sunbeams or the swaying branches high above casting moving shadows on the ground. They had slowed to a crawl; all the time, the sounds of the pursuing dead resonated all around them, stalking them through the wood.
The trees around them creaked and groaned as they swayed in the breeze that rushed through the woods. Mixed with the moans and wails of the dead, it was an eerie and terrifying atmosphere for the six people that were unsure of their bearings as they pushed deeper.
A sudden crash to their right and a dark figure, its features shaded in the gloom, stumbled towards them. Hussein raised his weapon and quickly fired two shots in the creature, the first hitting it in the chest and the second in the head. The flash from the muzzle of his rifle illuminated the immediate area, drowning it in a moment of brilliant white light. For just that brief second, Marcus saw more figures close by, stumbling through the trees and turning in their direction.
"Go, Stu. They're all around us. Go, go," Marcus screamed from the rear.
A chorus of cries and wails erupted from the darkness in all directions as the dead saw them and gave chase. They bounced from tree to tree, stumbling over roots and crashing through branches as they attempted to close the gap between themselves and the fast moving living people that fled from them.
Stu sprinted forward; another figure loomed at them from the murky darkness. It was so close that he squeezed the trigger without having to aim. In the flash of light as the round exploded from the barrel, he saw the face cave inward and a spray of bone and brains erupt from the back of the creatures head. Before the thing had hit the floor, Stu had passed it. He could hear the rest of the group close on his heels, their heavy footfalls, grunts and gasps of breath echoing through his ears.