by Luke Duffy
THE DEAD WALK THE EARTH
PART IV
LUKE DUFFY
http://www.lukeduffybooks.com/
Copyright©2016 Luke Duffy
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of the registered Author and Owner.
1
Continued from Part I, Chapter-1…
They hung back, remaining tucked away within the shadows and keeping their distance from the windows while watching through the cracked and jagged panes of filth encrusted glass. Their eyes shone brightly in the gloom while their bodies were cast in darkness, blending into the swathes of inky black that smothered their surroundings.
The night was cold, and their breath misted faintly in front of their faces. The cool air brushed against any skin that was exposed, causing a multitude of tiny bumps to form on the surface, and the hairs to stand on end. Their ears and noses tingled, as the chill of the land seemed to travel up through the old stone floor, into their legs, and along their bones. They shivered, but it was not the falling temperature that caused their bodies to shudder. It was apprehension, knowing that they were about to set out into an urban nest filled with the carcasses of thousands of walking dead, the victims of the plague that had ravaged the entire planet.
With the door leading down into the twisting stairway and tunnel entrance at their backs, the two veteran soldiers waited, allowing their senses to adjust to their new environment. Their breathing was slow and controlled while their eyes carefully scanned and scrutinised every centimetre of the street beyond the pumping station windows. As they listened for the slightest noise that would alert them to approaching danger, they prepared themselves to step out into the dead world beyond the protective walls.
The building that they were in was as silent as a tomb. Not even the rats dared to make a sound, but the soldier’s heartbeats sounded thunderous in their own ears. They were away from the safety of the base now and deep within the city. The pumping station, dating back to the Victorian period, was situated on the outer fringes of the town centre. When it had first been built, it had been away from the central areas, but as the population grew, it was slowly swallowed up amongst the expanding metropolis. Now, Al and Tommy were right in the centre of the graveyard that had once been a thriving hub of civilisation.
Outside, the moon had made an appearance from behind the seemingly endless banks of rain laden clouds that had smothered the sky throughout the evening. Now, in the bright glowing lunar light shining down on to the deserted streets, the two men could see the lifeless world that they had retreated from many years before.
In the darkness of night, the moonlight cast everything in a multitude of grey shades. There was very little in the way of colour, and the years of grime and rot had taken the vibrancy out of every structure. Even the road signs and shop fronts had faded and become virtually indistinguishable. Within the towns and cities during the hours of night, as the buildings slowly crumbled back into the earth, everything appeared like a high definition black and white photograph.
Standing back from the shattered windows the men remained rooted to the spot, not daring to move or make a sound while they watched the colourless and desolate streets. Rows of buildings lined the road, dark and decrepit. Their doors askew and foreboding, and their windows smashed, revealing nothing of their dark interiors while their brickwork slowly dissolved to dust. Years of abandonment had taken their toll on the town, and as the unchecked weeds and plant life pushed out the mortar from between the bricks and foundations of the buildings in Mother Nature’s battle to reclaim what was rightfully hers, the rain and wind had done the rest, stubbornly battering at the structures, rotting them from within, and steadily reducing them to rubble.
The town, like so many others across the world, bore the scars of the anarchy that had reigned during the rising of the dead. Vehicles sat discarded and rusting away while personal possessions and the remnants of civilisation were strewn across the roads, discarded and left to the ravages of time and decay. The things that had once been valued by humanity now sat corroding within the urban areas, worthless and forgotten in the new world.
Then there were the bodies. Hundreds of them still littering the gutters, their bones stripped of flesh and dismembered, and scattered in all directions. As the weeds and mildew covered the businesses and homes, the remains of the dead were also claimed by the creeping advance of nature. Their skulls with dark and empty eye sockets stared out over the desolate streets, bearing witness to the slow passage of time.
A lamenting gust of air drifted along the empty road, picking up the lighter objects and pushing them through the darkness. Old newspapers bearing the final headlines of civilised humanity and rusted cans with their eye-catching labels broke the silence as the invisible hands of the wind gently nudged against them, causing them to roll and glide along on the breeze with their rustles and clatters.
There were other noises that rose out from between the buildings of the decrepit city. The sorrowful moans of the dead occupants echoed through the air as they shuffled along the roads, roaming through the streets with no thought for where they were going. They mindlessly shambled from one place to the next, changing direction only when something blocked their path or a noise attracted their attention. Now that the world was dead and mostly silent, there was very little to distract them and they wandered aimlessly, occasionally lifting their heads to let out a low wail as though protesting against their ghastly existence.
Some of the walking corpses congregated into crowds, packing themselves in tightly within the buildings or the pathways that crisscrossed the urban areas. Others meandered through the landscape alone, following their shuffling feet as they aimlessly made their way from one place to the next.
In the early days of the rising, the flesh-eating populous of the towns and cities were constantly on the move, rampaging through the streets and buildings in their lust for living flesh. Screams of pain and terror filled the long nights as the unfortunate victims were set upon. In the years that followed, long after the cries of the humans had ceased, the sounds of dogs barking at the infected and howling in agony could still be heard across the landscape. Now, with all the pets and animals of the built-up areas consumed, in hiding, or having fled, there was very little in the way of stimulus, and many of the dead became dormant. They stood or sat for long periods, their heads hanging and their eyes fixed on the floor beneath their feet.
Some would remain that way for years, slowly rotting away where they stood and becoming home to colonies of insects and creeping fungus. Others would eventually wander away as distant memories flashed into their misfiring minds and dragged them along the roads leading out from the cities and into the rural areas.
However, the dead did not sleep, and the slightest sound that indicated there were living beings close by was enough to rouse them from their inactivity. A part of them always seemed to remain conscious and aware of their surroundings, and they were everywhere. They infested the cities, but the open country had not escaped their touch. No matter where the living tried to hide, regardless of their remoteness, the dead would always find them. The survivors of the plague had learned through many years and countless hard lessons how to travel undetected through the barren wasteland. All too often a misplaced foot, a sudden movement, or a word spoken too loudly had caused the demise of the living.
“You good to go?” Tommy asked, his twisted face catching the ambient light from beyond the discoloured windows as he whispered across to the large dark silhouette that was standing in the corner.
The bulky shape nodded back, his white eyes shining b
rightly in contrast to his surroundings as the moonlight reflected from them. They had remained in cover for a while after sealing the tunnel, listening and assessing the situation. Now it was time to move and get on with the mission. Neither of them relished the thought of wandering through a city that was filled with the rotting bodies of the dead, but they were the best at what they did, and they would never allow anyone else to carry out the task on their behalf.
The pair carefully headed towards the door, one behind the other, and with their weapons raised into the aim. In spite of their bulk, armour, heavy equipment, and ammunition, they tread softly, almost gliding across the debris littered ground. Each step was gently placed in order to reduce noise and remain undetected. They were methodical in their movements, their eyes scanning every corner and shadow while their rifles acted as extensions of their bodies, moving in harmony with their eyes as they covered one another.
They paused at the large doorway, remaining within the gloom and avoiding exposing themselves to the street beyond. The frames were smashed and broken, and the thick oak panels that had once been a solid obstacle lay shattered and discarded to the side of the entrance, having been destroyed in the early days when the defences crumbled under the enormous weight of bodies pushing against them. When the tunnel had been completed, repairing the doors to the pumping station had been considered, but no one could figure out a way of doing it without creating noise and attracting the legions of dead that lurked within the city. In the end, with a lot of grumblings and voiced concerns, it was decided that the doors would remain as they were and open.
The dark smears that covered the surfaces around the entrance hall was evidence enough that someone had once tried to use the building as a refuge. It had done them no good. The dead had broken in and tore them apart, their blood spraying and flowing over the walls and the floors. Almost every building and dwelling on the planet had undergone some degree of reinforcement as the living attempted to barricade themselves within, but very few defences had stood up to the onslaught. No matter how well a place was sealed and locked down, most eventually collapsed, allowing hordes of ravenous ghouls to pour in.
The men took up their positions within the threshold, standing on either side of the wide doorframe, facing each other and overlapping their fields of vision as they watched opposite ends of the street.
“You see anything?” Tommy hissed.
The big man, his eyes fixed on the far end of the road, nodded slightly. His eyes squinted and he pulled his weapon a little tighter into his shoulder, his right index finger resting against the safety catch of his rifle.
“Two of them,” Al whispered back without taking his attention away from the two moving shapes. “About fifty metres away.”
The two dark figures, their clumsy movements betraying them for what they were, meandered along the gloomy road, dragging their feet and scuffing them along the tarmac. Their bodies swayed with each step as their bony hips oscillated as though their spines were about to detach themselves from their pelvises.
“Coming or going?”
With a shrug and a look of irritation, Al stared back at Tommy.
“Does it fucking matter?” he hissed through gritted teeth. “It takes these things a month just to walk a hundred metres. They’re there, and for the next few hours they probably won’t be anywhere else.”
Tommy nodded in thought, realising that his question had been irrelevant, and that it really did not matter whether the dead were approaching or moving away. Either way, they needed to go out into the open and deal with them because the two staggering corpses were in the direction that they intended to go.
“Ron, this is Al, radio check.” He waited for a few seconds, expecting to hear the distant voice of their HQ acknowledging his transmission. “Ron, Al, radio check.”
Tommy waited, watching Al’s dark silhouette as he continued in his attempts to check in with the base. There was no reply, but he could not say that he was surprised. They were in a built-up area, and their VHF sets only had a short planning range. To add to the usual issues regarding communications, their radios were old and had taken a beating over the years. Ron did what he could to maintain them, but even with his experience and expertise, the lack of spare parts took its toll.
“Well?” Tommy asked.
Al shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Tina said we should go back if we couldn’t get comms. What do you think?”
“I think you should stop worrying about what your mum might say, and grow a pair of your own balls instead of borrowing Tina’s.”
“Fuck off. What do we do? Head back or crack on?”
Al shook his head dismissively and clicked the radio a final time.
“Ron, if you’re sending, I’m not receiving. We’re cracking on and will try comms again once we’re at the first task location. Nothing heard, out.”
They understood that they would be in for a dressing down from Tina for breaking SOP, but they both knew that standard operating procedures could not always be followed in the real world. If they scrubbed every mission that they carried out due to communications problems, they would spend their entire lives sitting behind the walls, and nothing would ever get done. Tina did not like her men taking chances, but Al and Tommy had never done anything by the book or played things safe. It had been a subject of constant arguments between them over the years, but despite their sometimes apparent cavalier approach to protocol, Al and Tommy always managed to scrape themselves out of any situation.
“She’ll get her knickers in a twist, no doubt. But what can she do? She can’t get us pregnant, or send us to Iran.”
Tommy grunted and smiled, shaking his head. Once again, they were going to be accused of being maverick and ill-disciplined when they returned to base. There would be shouting and threats, but as always, Al will say something stupid to completely defuse the situation and stop Tina’s tirade in its tracks. The man seemed to have a natural ability to turn any situation from one of hostility, into one of amusement.
They stepped out from the shelter of the old building and descended the short flight of concrete steps leading down to street level. The night was damp from the torrential downpour that had left the land sodden with glistening puddles that reflected the twinkling moonlight. In the open, the air was crisp and filled with moisture and caused thick mists as they exhaled, forming wisps of pale clouds that coiled around their heads.
Al suddenly stopped and held out a hand to Tommy. They crouched down and took up fire positions. Al cocked his head.
“Unknown call sign, say again,” he whispered.
Tommy waited, watching the street and checking on the two wandering infected. They did not seem to be getting any closer. He turned to Al and raised an eyebrow.
“Ron, Al, radio check.” He waited a few more seconds. “Ron, this is Al, you’re difficult. Radio check.”
Al turned to Tommy and shook his head.
“I can hear Ron, just about, but I don’t think he’s getting me.” He paused and looked up at the rooftops. “Must be the buildings.”
“Or these prehistoric radios,” Tommy grunted. “We’d be as well using two tin cans with a long piece of string between them. Our comms are always shit.”
“It’s that fucking hideous head of yours, mate,” Al grinned back at him. “It scrambles the frequencies.”
“Fuck you.”
At the foot of the steps they stopped again and hunched down beside the low brick wall. Checking to the left they scanned along to the far end of the road and studied the numerous dark windows and gaping doorways that glared back at them. Their eyes took in every detail of the street as they searched for movement. After a moment, they nodded to one another, satisfied that they remained unseen. Moving in a crouch, they turned to the right, hugging the wall and headed towards the two misshapen forms that blocked their path. Using the rusting hulks of the vehicles that slowly decayed at the roadside for concealment, they edged their way forward while ta
king it in turns to move and cover one another, silently bounding from one obstacle to the next.
As they advanced, they made subconscious notes of everything around them—the entrances into the buildings, the dark corners, even the debris and litter on the ground that could be accidentally kicked, and in turn, give away their presence. They stalked their prey with the agility and stealth of lions and the subtle footing of ballerinas despite their size and the weight of their equipment.
Tommy and Al were seasoned veterans, but they had not allowed themselves to become overconfident through familiarity. They knew the area and every building, but they planned, drilled, and studied meticulously before every mission, ensuring that all possibilities and perceived problems were covered. They trained endlessly with their weapons, equipment, and their bodies, honing their skills and fitness to levels far beyond most soldiers. They had spent more time out beyond the walls than anyone within the forward operating base, but they would never allow their confidence to get in the way of their judgement. However, from time to time, accidents happen.
Just a few metres away the two bodies sauntered along the curb side. The rasp of their worn and tattered shoes scraping along the ground was the only noise in the area. The sound carried the length of the street, rhythmically grating against the hard asphalt as the leather and the dried flesh and bone within were slowly ground away.
Al and Tommy halted and paused for a moment. They watched the street, listened to the night, and sniffed the air, checking their surroundings. They remained unnoticed and were now within striking distance of the foul creatures that were just metres away. Peering past the car that they took cover behind, they saw the backs of their targets.
In the dim light, they could see the withered shapes of their prey. Their long bony arms hung at their sides, swaying in rhythm to their jerky steps. Their clothing, stained and frayed, hung from their emaciated shoulders and clung to their exposed ribcages, mottled and dull, just like the thin layer of skin that covered their bones and shrivelled organs.