by Stevens, GJ
“More than you, it would seem. They can’t drive,” she said, keeping her words slow as she tilted her head.
The soldier narrowed his eyes and leant forward, looking like he’d done this in a hundred bars around the world. When the other man arrived at his side, he pulled him away to a huddle for words we couldn’t hear, turning back mid conversation with his face lit when he saw me as if for the first time.
He stepped forward, keeping his eyes on mine, a slight smile on his lips but flinching a look at Alex, who flashed a raise of her brow as the soldier stepped past.
Stopping a pace away, he brushed his hand through his short blond hair and narrowed his eyes as he wiped his hand across his mouth.
“Private Jordain,” he said, and held his hand out, then looked to his colleague and nodded. “Sheppard.”
I smiled, looked to Alex whose eyebrows were lower than I’d ever seen. I looked down to my right hand, still ballooning, and pushed out my left.
Jordain swapped his hands after sucking through his teeth when he saw my injury and gently shook my hand.
“Has anyone looked at that?”
“Jess,” I replied shaking my head. “Alex,” I said, nodding in her direction.
“Can I?” he said, and I nodded as my gaze fell on the camouflaged bag strapped to his belt with a dark olive cross in the centre.
I sat back in the passenger seat of the van with my legs dangling out, while Jordain took great care checking out my hand. His fingers traced the bones from my wrist to my finger, lightening the pressure each time I winced. As he examined, I watched out across the horizon and Sheppard scouring down the rifle’s sight.
“Have you seen any?” I said.
His hands paused and he looked me in the eye before shaking his head.
“You’ll know when do you. There’s no mistaking.”
He paused for a moment, then nodded.
“I don’t think it’s broken,” he said. "Keep it elevated."
I laughed.
“If you can,” he added.
Sheppard called at his back. Alex cursed.
“They’re attracted to noise. They’ll be here soon. The gunfire,” Alex said, catching my eye.
I nodded, jumping down from the seat as we stood in a square, our backs to each other, covering all points of the compass.
“Why weren’t you evacuated?” said Jordain.
“We’ve got a job to do,” I replied.
“What job?” said Sheppard, and I turned just as Jordain jabbed him in the back with his elbow, pointing to the three burgundy letters on the side of the van.
“Oh,” he replied, turning with his eyebrows raising as if he’d caught my eye for the first time. “Oh,” he said again.
“Where are you going?” Jordain said.
“St Buryan Hospital,” I said after a pause, holding my breath for their response.
Their reply was instant, but not with words. I heard them turn; Alex and I twisted around and we all faced each other. I could see the tension in Alex’s fists, could feel mine in the rising beat in my chest, but their rifles stayed pointed to the ground and their faces open with surprise at my words.
“That’s our FOB,” Jordain replied, the other nodding.
“FOB?” Alex said.
“Forward Operating Base,” I said, the words flowing out to leave the soldiers to nod.
“But there may be a problem,” Sheppard said. The pair looked at each other, faces turning stern.
Jordain stepped back, sweeping his eyes across the horizon before returning to the square.
“Our Oppos went back to collect more concrete blocks in the HIAB, but we’ve lost contact with them and Buryan.”
“When was this?” Alex said, stepping closer toward the group.
The two soldiers looked at each other, Jordain pulling up and twisting his wrist to look at a bulky metal watch.
“Three hours ago,” he replied, his eyes catching on mine.
“You should come with us,” I said, seeing Alex flinch at the words.
The soldiers exchanged glances, turning back when I spoke.
“One question, though?” I said, looking to the unfinished wall. “Were you building it to keep them in or out?”
99
As my words finished, the wind blew across my face. On second thought, I didn’t need to know the answer. Instead, I watched the concern on his face as he followed mine, turning with his rifle raising in the direction of the gap in the fence.
I pushed my hand out to rest on his forearm, but still it climbed. Turning toward him, I saw the resolve in his eyes as he caught a first glimpse, his training flooding his body with commands to control his grip and take aim.
This was a man who’d raised his weapon in combat before. The lines across his face set with a glare I’d seen so many times in the battlegrounds of Afghanistan and on other faces in other time zones on both sides of the line. It was the look of someone who knew they would take a life. Knew they were putting themselves forward for the ultimate sacrifice.
But I’d never seen the pause. The raise of the head. His eyes widening as he pulled up from the sight. I watched as his humanity caught up before he pulled the trigger, holding back his recent training which told him to put down the woman with half her clothes missing and a great wound on her shoulder. Which told him to pause was to lose the battle.
“No,” I said, keeping my voice calm despite my inner panic.
Jordain turned, his fair eyes squinting back a hard question. Inside his head I knew it would be a thought so obvious to anyone looking on, but we knew better.
“We need to run. You’ll only attract more,” I said, still struggling to hold the panic back.
I turned around and saw I hadn’t needed to say the words, watching as others shambled behind the pace setter and passing between the gap in the fence, past the flatbed truck, with it their foul stench greeting us in the wind.
“We need to go,” I said more urgently.
Jordain nodded, turning to his left with his weapon gripped hard, but letting the muzzle down to point to the grass.
“Let’s go,” he said, following my example with his volume. However, Sheppard didn’t seem to have heard or taken note; at Alex’s side he held his rifle pointed towards the gap as his head shook from side to side.
Alex backed off as we retreated and joined me in the van as Jordain rushed to his colleague’s side.
The round went off before he could reach and we watched the woman’s head explode, sending her body to the floor as the contents of her skull covered the creatures behind. Jordain stood fixed to the spot with Sheppard stood upright, the weapon loose at his side as they watched the creatures trample the headless body without a pause.
With a sharp blast of the horn from Alex, Jordain pulled Sheppard to the back of the van.
No one spoke as Alex rolled us over the ground with the van pitching up and down to leave the creatures to follow until they shrank to nothing in the mirror. We encountered no more creatures as we skirted the fence line wrapping around the village and soon arrived at the welcome smooth tarmac.
With the engine left to settle to a low murmur, I was the first to speak as I peered over my shoulder and caught Jordain staring to his colleague sat against the rear doors with his gaze fixed into the distance.
“This takes us in a straight line to the hospital,” I said, switching a quick glimpse to the small screen suckered to the window.
Jordain nodded as he pulled his gaze around to the windscreen.
“There are three checkpoints along this route. The first should be over the horizon,” he said, leaning forward and raising his rifle to look through the scope. “But take it really easy on the approach. They may have seen a little more action than us.”
“You mean don’t count on them knowing what they’re doing,” Alex said, interrupting.
I waited for a reaction, my gaze fixed on Jordain.
“She didn’t…” I said, but Jordain s
hrugged and let a playful smile flash across his face before I could finish.
“Touché,” he replied. “It might be better if we walk alongside,” he added, flashing a look to the back of the van.
My gaze darted around the view as I twisted in my seat to search out across the flat scrub rolling for miles on either side.
Unless the creatures hid in the undulating ground, unless they had ducked down ready to pounce, we weren’t in immediate danger.
As the thoughts settled, my mind turned to the other creatures; their obvious intelligence, their clear eyes and need to breathe and blink.
A shiver ran along my back as I thought of the moment I discovered their need to reproduce.
They were still human, despite their demonic actions. Were they what I would turn in to?
I flashed back to where this all began, for me at least. The compound where I’d been taken and everything I’d seen. With Toni by my side I’d taken solace that their days were numbered, but now I knew she’d either not had all the information, or it was another lie. My head was so crammed with questions, each fighting inside my mind to be answered.
Humanity is screwed. These things were multiplying, but I could give everyone some hope. Maybe.
Without Alex slowing the crawl of the wheels, the back doors opened and the two soldiers jumped to the road and slammed the doors.
Jordain peeled to our left, Sheppard walking along our right side whilst Alex kept the pace.
“Let me drive.”
She didn’t hide her surprise at my suggestion as she looked down to my swollen hand.
“It’s getting better. Anyway, we’re going so slowly,” I said, trying to stop the muscles in my face from reacting to the pain as I raised my right hand and flexed each of the swollen fingers. “He says there’s nothing broken.” The grit of my teeth told another story.
“He also said you should keep it elevated.”
“I need you walking alongside. I need you to film what we’re seeing,” I said, raising my brow as I widened my eyes and smiled.
Her protest sank as the corners of my mouth raised, just as guilt gathered in my chest. She was walking beside Jordain with the camera on her shoulder within less than a minute.
“What’s your first name?” I said, calling out through my window whilst I watched Sheppard’s slow strides.
With the rifle clasped in both hands across his front, his gaze fixed along the shallow climb and the endless rise as another brow appeared each time we thought it was the last.
“I’m Jess,” I said when he didn’t reply.
“From the news,” he said, still not answering my first question.
I nodded anyway.
“It’s just an exercise,” he said, his voice flat. “That’s what they told us first. Then it was a chemical release as they issued NBC suits and sent us out on patrols. Before we stepped foot outside the complex, we got the orders to build the fences. We’re not engineers mind,” he said, shaking his head. “He’s signals and I’m a chef.”
“Patrols came back with fewer men than had set out. Then entire patrols didn’t return. That’s when they started on about the disease, virus or whatever. It wasn’t too long before they told us people were being bitten and the dead were coming back to life. We didn't know what to believe.
“They gave us training,” he said and laughed. “They showed a fucking horror film for fuck’s sake. We all thought it was a joke and checked our watches for the date to make sure we hadn’t skipped to April first. We lost comms with our oppos, with the FOB and it all became real.”
I didn’t fill the pause. I had no words to help.
“I’m sorry for shooting at you,” he added, his words soft but distant.
Shaking my head, I was about to say how I understood. I knew how crazy and fucked up the whole situation was, but something distant on the horizon caught my eye. It was a shape on the left side of the road.
I soon realised the building was a shipping container painted dark green, but by that time my concentration had moved to the writhing bodies engulfing it.
Even after all I’d seen so far in these last short days, the sight on the horizon was enough to pull the breath from my lungs.
The first checkpoint lay ahead, but we could barely see the concrete blocks in the road for the dead ambling around. I watched, squinting at the sight I could just make out as one after the other, heads twisted towards us, but when a gunshot exploded at my side, every creature in view turned in our direction all at once.
My scream only added to the call as I saw Sheppard’s body settling to the tarmac, his brains only just slapping to the ground as his fingers uncurled from around the butt of the pistol. His first sighting had been too much. How many people would have done the same if they had the chance to take the easy way out?
100
Pushing the van door open, I fell, scattering to the cold road as a flurry of boot steps raced from the other side. Breathless, I tried calling out.
“Pick it up,” I screamed at Alex, as I regained my feet.
She flinched upright with the camera loose in her grip and pointing to the ground.
“Pick it up. The camera,” I snapped.
Alex pulled out of her stare at the blood pooling on the cold, hard ground and nodded once before raising the camera on her shoulder as I waited for the red light.
“The microphone,” I pleaded, stepping forward with her shrug, breath flinching in my lungs as Jordain stood up from the body, his hands stained red.
Taking the microphone in hand, I stepped away from the life gone from my feet, turning my back to the direction we’d headed whilst not looking to see the distance they’d closed. The words already pouring out were raw and unprofessional, less than a rookie could manage. I tried to slow. I tried to cool my hurry, adding definition to the speech I hadn’t needed to prepare.
When the flow stopped, I knew I’d done enough. The crowd teeming towards us visible over my shoulder in the distance would have alone done the job, my emotion a ripe illustration of how worried the viewers should be, hoping they listened to my pleading and prepare. Hoping they would not sit back and think they would be served their life on a silver platter. Hoping I’d made them understand life was no longer a right. Life was now something you had to fight for.
Like a director in my ear, the stench told me my time was up. It was time to get the message to the masses.
After moving the van back to what we hoped was a safe distance, I sat in the rear of the van with the door wide as I held the camera on my lap like a new-born. Fragile. Precious. In need of constant care.
We’d taken up our tasks, each knowing what the other was about with no need to ask.
Alex circled the van with a rifle slung over her shoulder, every other moment sweeping the sight across the view, lingering on where we’d come from. She estimated we’d have half an hour if they’d continued to follow, but she wouldn’t let her guard down; knew the danger could come from any angle. Even the sky.
Jordain worked at a considered pace, taking care with the body as he lay what remained in the grass at the side of the road, covering him with a sheet of plastic, finding stones, boulders to give Sheppard the privacy he deserved.
I played with the controls in the back of the van, ignoring the images uploaded to the suite of screens. There would be no editing; a raw version is what they’d get. The images were ready, the van giving the familiar shudder as the satellite transmitter raised.
Until it stopped half way.
Pushing the button a second time, I heard the groan of mechanisms above my head and the whine of gears locked together, unable to fulfil their task. I pushed the system into reverse and felt the shake as the metal settled home. It lifted one more time and I counted the seconds, stopping as it finished before it should.
With a deep breath I stepped to the road, moving away with heavy steps to get a better view. I didn’t need to climb the ladder held to the back doors. I didn’t need to get
up close to see a great splinter of wood which was no shorter than my forearm and lodged in the twisted mechanism, telling me it would never rise again. Just like I didn’t need to hear Alex’s words; our time in this place was up.
“They’ll have what you need at the hospital,” Jordain said, his voice close at my ear and I turned to see him staring up at the roof. “All sorts of comms gear,” he said. “I can get us on the network. You can still deliver the message.”
I smiled at his unbidden words, the weight lifting, if only a little. I turned and took his hand, squeezing through his glove until he pulled away.
“There’s too many. I don’t think the van can take it. We’ll have to find another way,” Alex said, as we each scoured the sea of bobbing heads too close for comfort whilst trying not to linger on the detail; the blood matted hair or great rends of flesh blackened and dry, or their slack but determined expressions.
“No,” Jordain said as we filled the three seats in the van's front.
“We’re going right through them,” I said, nodding whilst bracing my good hand against the dashboard, the engine flaring as Alex’s right foot grew heavy.
101
I watched on as our speed built whilst listening to the scratch of Jordain’s pencil as he wrote instructions of how to connect to the military network. I took in the view, despite my insides gripped with anticipation, head practicing for how the first impact would feel.
The first clash of flesh and bone sent a shudder of emotion though my body, watching each creature mown down, their heads splitting from their bodies at the neck and rolling up the windscreen. I wished I could unhear the solid thumps against the roof as the sounds travelled, echoing the chaos.
I thought of the debris getting caught in the satellite transmitter. I tried to force my imagination not to picture tufts of hair wedged between the mechanical joints, eyes dangling down by connective tissue from where the metal parts met.
With the windscreen wipers fighting to clear the blood, smearing the sticky mess left and right, I could feel the van slowing. The metal complained as I tried to relax back into the seat, tried to let the pressure of my blood release, only to spike again as each new horror presented.