“Now!” Chris whispered and we fired at the same time. The rifle kicked against my shoulder. The suppressors making a loud cough which I was fairly certain wouldn’t be heard over the zodiacs engine noise. The light at the front wavered, dipped a few times and then tumbled into the sea with a splash. The engine noise from the zodiac seemed to rev up and then cut. As the lifeboat drifted nearer I could make out a shape hanging over the side at the rear. The other guard was nowhere in sight and neither was the light.
“I think your bloke hit the water,” Chris said from beside me.
“Looks that way,” I said smiling, that was probably the hardest shots I had ever taken.
Chris headed for the cabin “Let’s get these charges set so I can get the fuck back to Tessa.”
I followed him back inside and placed my rifle on the kitchen table. Mike had started the engines again and managed to get us close to one of the legs. Chris attached three charges to the leg and then we moved to the next leg and did the same. That left us with two charges which we placed on a third leg just in case it would be needed, which I doubted.
Mike moved us out from under legs and we headed back the way we had come. The eastern horizon had just started to lighten when Chris said that we were far enough away to detonate. He lifted a box and placed it on the console. It had two switches and a button that was marked ‘FIRE’ with a light above it. He flicked first one switch and then the other and the light came on over the fire button.
“There you go, buddy!” He said to me stepping away.
I looked at him and then at Mike, who just nodded. I looked out the window at the oil rig and felt a cold spot right where my heart was. I had been trying to end Benton’s reign of terror from the very beginning and now was the chance I had been after.
“Die fuckers!” I said and pressed the button.
From where we were the explosion was something of a disappointment. The charges went off with a ‘CRUMP’. What happened next wasn’t. The top of the oil rig seemed to totter to one side and started to hear the screech of metal. Secondary explosions started to go off on the main platform and it started to slide over toward the sea. We could see small bodies cartwheeling into the sea from the platform. If they weren’t dead as they fell, then they would be when they hit the water from that height. The leg that we hadn’t placed any charges on seemed to slowly come out of the water like a dog raising its leg to take a piss. The whole top of the oil rig hit the water causing huge spouts of it to fly into the air. It started to slide under the waves and the water turned white as it disappeared. The last thing to be seen was the undamaged leg coming fully out of the water and then slide under the bubbles after the rest of the oil rig.
We didn’t cheer or clap each other on the back we just turned round and entered the cabin and went down to the kitchen. Mike made us some coffee and we sat around the table drinking it in silence. Chris stood up and placed the mug in the small sink before turning round and resting his back against the counter.
“Was it just me, but was it just a bit of a let-down?” He asked us.
Mike looked up from his coffee “Now that you mention it.” he said with a small smile.
I was grinning at them both.
“What the fuck are you smiling about?” Mike asked me.
I gently shook my head “We have just blown up an oil rig and you’re both saying it was a bit of a let-down!” I said with a small laugh.
Chris started to laugh and then Mike, soon we were all literally rolling around the kitchen laughing at what had just happened. My stomach was hurting with laughter when we decided to get back home.
Getting back to the mooring took us until the following evening. Pulling slowly up to the mooring, Chris and I were stood at the railing with our rifles. There were four infected lurching near the A.P.C, but we couldn’t see any others nearby. Chris shot first and blew one of the infected’s legs off.
“Did you mean to do that?” I asked him.
He shrugged and took another shot “Nope!” he replied as his second shot caught the infected in the forehead snapping its head back.
I lined up a shot on the nearest infected and fired. My shot torn through its neck pulling it round in a circle. When it turned back to face me I could see its white spine glaring at me through the remains of its neck. The green sludge ran down from the opening. My second shot followed my first and the spine shattered throwing green sludge and white bone out behind the now falling infected.
Mike came out carrying his rifle “You two can’t have all the fun!” he said snapping off two shots which were picture perfect headshots and the last two infected fell to the ground on top of the others,
“Can we go now?” He asked grinning.
Chris and I looked at each other and at the same time flipped him the middle finger.
Chris secured the lifeboat to the mooring and Mike went to grab our rucksacks. I stood with my rifle over my arm, looking out toward the A.P.C and the lifeboat station. It was quiet and there didn’t seem to be any more infected roaming the area. This seemed strange considering there had been quite a few here when we left to blow the oil rig up. I jumped down to the dock and headed toward the A.P.C; I heard a thump come from behind me and turned to see Chris and Mike jumping to the dock.
“I’m going to check the A.P.C,” I called to them.
Epilogue
Chris raised his hand and waved to me. Raising the rifle, I headed to the A.P.C and walked around it looking off to the sides and underneath it. No infected jumped out at me and nothing looked out of place apart from a few green sludge on the rear doorway and the sides.
I could hear Chris shout something, but I couldn’t make it out.
Grabbing the handle on the rear door, I pulled it open and the last thing I saw was the barrel of a shotgun and Tom’s grinning face above it, before a loud bang and a bright light. I could feel myself falling.
I fell out of the office chair and to the floor of the security room.
Dazed I looked around the room and saw the screens showing the labs and hallways of Benton Pharmaceuticals. The radio on the desk squawked and a familiar voice came through the speaker “Marc, are you still in the security room?”
‘What the fuck was going on?’ I thought as I clambered up from the floor and grabbed the radio from the desk. The light from the monitors casting light around the room.
“Tony is that you?” I replied.
“Yeah, it’s me. I’m down here in the test labs. I thought that I heard you moving around the animal lab.”
I couldn’t shake the bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something bad was going to happen.
Tony’s voice squawked from the radio “Look I thought I’d check the lab.”
It was then images flashed through my brain “Tony NO……”
About the author.
Justin Gowland was born in Zambia. His father had been working there as an electrical engineer in a copper mine. He returned to the North East of England with his family when he was Three.
He had a normal sort of childhood, but was always interested in reading. He wrote short stories and played a lot of D&D.
On leaving school and he joined the Army as a Junior Leader and then moved onto the adult services at the age of eighteen. One of his last postings was to Hereford and after spending nearly six years he left.
He married again for the third time and it was his wife who said "What’s the point of writing your stories if no one is going to read them?"
Justin published his first series ‘The Reaper Trilogy’ in mid-2014. He recently finished ‘The Infected Series’ and has started a new series called ‘Leeches’ the first book due in the autumn called ‘Dark Castle’
yle = " -webkit-filter: grayscale(100%); -moz-filter: grayscale(100%); -o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
The Infected (Book 6): Last Shot Page 11