Plague War: Pandemic

by Alister Hodge

  Lieutenant Bourke had stopped at the dining room’s main door, counting off his guards as they entered. As Erin passed him, he drew it closed, shoving home the security bolt into the top of the frame. It wouldn’t hold for long, the panels of the door being made of glass.

  Bourke turned around, his eyes flicking over the people present in a quick appraisal. The back half of the room was filled with men, women and children, although it was a pitifully small contingent of the total numbers that the camp originally held. A few held improvised weapons, lengths of wood or metal; some had clearly been created prior to tonight in readiness for such an event. Others gripped large cooking knives that had been liberated from the kitchens behind. Next to the kitchen was another doorway into a different corridor that held a set of stairs to the second floor. A few people were already edging out this exit to avoid the coming fight. He ignored those leaving, better that the room only contained people directly involved in holding the choke point against the Infected.

  ‘As you already know, we are under attack. Plague carriers from the sunken cruise liner have arrived on shore and breached the fences surrounding our camp,’ said Bourke. A woman started crying in the back of the room, the sound carrying abnormally in the otherwise quiet room. From behind the locked dining room door, a guttural snarl echoed up the corridor.

  A harsh whistling sound was followed by a series of violent explosions that set the light fittings to sway as another artillery strike fell. Bourke’s expression hardened at the sounds. ‘This fight isn’t over. Everyone here has made it through nightmares on the mainland; and we will again. Once the artillery has cleared out the worst of their numbers, the Frigate will land marines to support. We just have to survive the next few hours,’ he said.

  One of the children screamed, pointing behind him at the door. Bourke swore violently as he spun around; he’d been hoping for more time to create a defence. A group of Carriers had rounded a corner further down the hallway and were headed toward the dining room. The creatures were in awful shape. Clothes torn and blackened by the falling shells, their bodies pierced by fragments of shrapnel. Bourke’s eyes were drawn to the leading ghoul, one of his own fallen guards returned to fight against him. The man looked like he’d suffered horribly in death, the right side of his face had been ripped off by unforgiving teeth and his eye punctured. A loop of entrails dragged behind him, pulled free of a fist-sized hole in his abdomen. One of the following Carriers stepped on the length of intestine, tearing it to leave an ooze of faecal waste as he lurched onward. Another had a two-foot shard of metal transfixing his chest front to back, stuck through like a pinned bug.

  Bourke shook his head, forcing himself to create a plan of attack. He turned back to the crowd that was rapidly thinning as people broke and ran.

  ‘I only want those who are armed to remain, everyone else get up to the second floor,’ Bourke said. ‘Rifles to the front, other weapons behind our line to clean up anything that breaks through!’

  While Bourke’s guards formed a line either side of him across the dining room, Erin had located the chef who was still with her group of children. She bustled them out of the back doorway.

  ‘Are you ok to take them upstairs?’ she asked. The older woman’s face was grey, with sweat beading on her forehead.

  ‘Of course, but you need to come as well. The kids were starting to panic with you out of sight,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll follow, but I have a gun. I need to do my part here.’

  ‘Stop being a fool, child! Let the adults sort it out. You need to look after your own neck and these kids,’ said the chef.

  Her words only made Erin more determined to stay. ‘Why the hell do you think I’m doing this?’ she said with anger mounting. ‘I’m damn well making sure that those kids stay safe by helping to block the room!’

  The older woman looked at her like she’d grown a second head, then turned back to the kids, clearly giving up on Erin as she muttered to herself, ‘It’s on your own bloody head then.’ Then with fake joviality, ‘Right kids – we’re off to the second floor. Jake, you take the lead, let’s make it a race!’

  Glass smashed behind her. She turned around to see the first of the Carriers enter the room. The door hung free to the side, the bottom hinge ripped free of the arch. Bullets hammered out from the defensive line. Their aim was poor, with only half of the shots finding a home within a Carrier’s brain. Erin saw some of them begin to edge backwards nervously as they fired, Jeremy the first to slip out of position and hang behind the line. As fast as they fired, the stream of ghouls escaping the corridor continued, and finally met the line of guards. The camp members with hand weapons swung over the heads of the guards, bludgeoning skulls with lengths of wood and metal. Others stabbed upward, seeking out the soft flesh beneath the chin before driving their sharp knives into the base of the brain.

  Erin paced forward, her heart hammering as she saw one of the camp men get shoved to the ground under the weight of a heavy Carrier. She ground the end of her pistol into the ghoul’s head and pulled the trigger, blasting skull and brain fragments into a rotten haze. She extended a hand and helped the man back to his feet.

  Jeremy caught sight of her with the gun in hand, a look of pure fury overcoming his features as he recognised his stolen weapon.

  ‘I fucking knew you took it, you little thief!’ he cried, ignoring the fight as he started to make for her. Erin backed away, not wanting to get stuck between the line of fighters and Jeremy.

  ‘Soldier! Get back in line, or I’ll shoot you myself!’ shouted Bourke, grabbing Jeremy by his shoulder and swinging him away from Erin. Bourke looked up at Erin, his face lined with stress, ‘Get upstairs and away from here, now!’

  Erin turned and ran for the door, pausing to look back once more. Jeremy had slipped back from the line and was now standing behind Bourke, his handgun raised at his back.

  ‘No!’ shouted Erin, but it was too late. Jeremy’s gun fired, and she saw Bourke jerk forward with the force of the bullet strike. Half the line was overwhelmed by Carriers as the fight turned into a melee of hand-to-hand struggles. Unable to see Bourke as the fighting surrounded him, Erin couldn’t tell if the bullet had been fatal or not. Some of the Carriers broke past the group and started to head towards her.

  Finally, her resolve broke, and she fled. She turned into the hallway and ran for the back stairwell. Abruptly she realised if any Carriers saw her go up the stairs she’d lead them directly to the kids. She slid to a halt, wrenched open the closest door and darted inside, pulling it closed behind. Her chest heaved as she sought out a light switch in the dark. Locating it, she switched it on to find herself alone in a cleaner’s storeroom. A simple lock was incorporated into the handle that she was able to engage. With the knowledge she was the sole occupant of the room, Erin turned off the light and plunged the room into darkness.

  She slowed her breathing with effort, opening her mouth so that the air movement would be as silent as possible. Outside her room, she heard the sounds of gunfire come closer as survivors of the battle retreated. Instead of heading for the stairwell, they went in the opposite direction, drawing the Infected away from where the main body of survivors were hiding. As the footfalls of the defenders receded down the hall, she now heard Carriers emerge from the dining hall in pursuit. Guttural snarls echoed outside her door as lurching irregular steps belied their movement away from her to pursue the remaining guards.

  Eventually it was silent again outside her door. The only sounds she could hear were from other sections of the building, muted screams and popping of gunfire. She forced herself to count to one hundred before carefully unlocking the door. Peeking around the corner, Erin found the hallway empty of movement.

  A moan of pain emanated from the dining hall. It wasn’t the sound of a Carrier, she was sure of that. Erin was about to make her way upstairs when the thought hit her that it might be Bourke. If his only injury was the bullet wound, he could still live, or if he’d been bitten,
the least she could do was give him a quick ending. Against her better judgement, Erin crept back to the dining hall doorway.

  She took a deep breath to steady herself and peeked around the edge. The room was a slaughterhouse. Crimson coated the floor and dripped from the ceiling where arterial spray had reached. In the far corner, two Carriers ripped mouthfuls from an inanimate body. She felt her heart drop with disappointment; there was nothing left alive in the room.

  Suddenly she was yanked off her feet backwards, a burning loop of fire about her neck. Erin managed to get two fingers of one hand behind the thin cord wrapped about her throat as she fought for breath. A vicious laugh sounded over her shoulder as she was dragged backwards, feet kicking with effort to escape and panic overcoming her thoughts. A door banged open behind, and she was jerked out of the hallway into a darkened side room and out of sight.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Mark skidded to a halt next to one of the defenders, twenty metres back from the fence. He ignored the screams of the Infected as they hit a new level of frenzied action in response to the greater number of soldiers. Mark scanned the ground before the wire. There was supposed to be a series of mines set up to compensate for poor coverage of this area, but the ground was empty.

  ‘Where the hell are the Claymores?’ shouted Mark over the din of the Infected. The soldier looked like he was barely keeping it together.

  ‘I don’t know, Sir. They mustn’t have been set up. There’s a whole pile of stuff over there, but we haven’t had time to get to it with only five of us here,’ he said, breaking away from Mark to fire again. ‘We were told the area was sorted, but some bastard’s not done his job and left us in the shit!’

  Mark grimaced fatalistically. He directed his squad forward into a line where they opened fire while Mark ran over to the boxes of packed equipment. Sure enough, it contained a series of Claymores, along with small arms ammunition. He pulled out three of the rectangular containers. Small enough to be carried in one hand, they were about thirty centimetres wide, twelve centimetres high. The Claymores held several hundred ball bearings that when exploded, sent a lethal spray against the enemy. At the base were two sets of pronged legs that could be dug into the ground, and peep sight at the top to aim the blast.

  Mark ran back with the mines and quickly set them up behind the line of his troops so that the arcs of fire from the mines would overlap heavily through the crowd of Infected. He dug the legs of the boxes in at the back, angling the forward face upwards to aim the ball bearings at head height. Once he had inserted the fuses, he ordered his squad to retreat behind the mines.

  ‘Take cover, firing!’ he shouted, then depressed the charges. Three successive blasts rang out, spitting steel at 1350 metres per second into the face of the Carriers, not twenty metres away. The balls punctured through the faces and skulls of those against the fence, ploughing onwards to dismember the Carriers wedged in behind them with devastating effect. Sparks lit off the wire where ball bearings ricocheted onward. The fence line was wiped virtually clear, and Mark’s crew quickly moved forward to kill any Carrier still moving with systematic precision.

  The bent poles were pushed upright, and star pickets hammered in behind them to lend support to the damaged structure. Immediate crisis averted, Mark left five of his men to support the original defenders at the fence, and then jogged back with his squad to their original position on the wall.

  The dirt walkway that had been created behind the wall had not fared well. In numerous places, the wooden hoarding that held the dirt in place had split or collapsed, allowing the dirt to wash away in the rain. Where the path was now missing, soldiers were reduced to sitting on the actual wall, a leg dangling either side while they shot at the Infected below.

  Mark climbed back up to their previous position to find the battle nearly at an end. Little was moving; the last crawling Infected across the field of dead were being cut down, each moving figure drawing the attention of multiple marksmen. The streets behind the slaughtered swarm were deserted.

  Mark felt tiredness ache through his limbs, the tight knot held in his chest slowly easing as he understood; they had survived. As a last gunshot rang out, a ragged cheer rose up along the wall from a thousand throats. After four hours of systematic destruction, the army had pulled through and achieved a permanent foothold back on the mainland.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The room plunged into total darkness as the door slammed behind her. Erin redoubled her struggle, wrenching against the cord with the fingers she had managed to get behind it.

  ‘Fight all you like – you’re still going to die,’ said Jeremy, grunting as he tried to control her body movements.

  Erin had known it was him as soon as the cord had wrapped around her neck, but the confirmation of his voice drove her panic even further. The man had killed her friend and executed Bourke during the fight. It was only a matter of minutes before she was the next mark on his record.

  ‘I’ve been looking forward to this moment. Ever since you started sticking your nose into my business you’ve had this coming, and no fucking hero officer to save you this time!’ he said laughing to himself.

  Erin drew a ragged breath, desperately trying to fill her lungs. The cord burnt like a ringlet of fire about her neck as the rough nylon tore the surface layer of skin. With her free hand she reached into her waistband for the pistol. As she yanked it free, Jeremy’s hand grabbed hold of the weapon and wrenched it aside as Erin pulled the trigger. The bullet ricocheted off the floor before lodging in the far wall. He viciously twisted the pistol out of her grasp and she felt her index finger snap as it caught in the trigger guard.

  Erin’s vision was starting to grey. The blood supply to her brain was slowly being cut off as the cord tightened over carotid arteries. She ignored her broken finger and pulled free the short blade she’d been carrying for weeks. Holding the handle in her fist, she rammed the point back blindly.

  Jeremy screamed out in pain, releasing the cord about Erin’s throat. The blade was buried to the hilt within his thigh, and as he frantically tried to wrench it free, he tripped and fell backwards. The back of his head crunched against the concrete floor as he hit the ground, knocking him unconscious.

  Erin was on her knees, a hand rubbing at her neck as she gasped for air like a fish out of water. A crimson ring extended about the front of her neck where the cord had pressed. With the return of air to her chest, she scrambled to reclaim the pistol from where it had fallen and picked it up in her left hand. The index finger of her right hand was bent at an unnatural angle and wouldn’t fit through the trigger guard any longer. Tears ran down her face as she stood over Jeremy and aimed the weapon at his chest. She was determined to finish the job, only with him dead would she know for certain that he could never hurt her again. With gritted teeth she began to squeeze the trigger.

  The door burst open behind her, catching her off guard. Erin yelped in surprise and backed away, changing her aim to the doorway. It was Bourke. Blood seeped from a ragged wound at his left shoulder, the arm hanging limp and useless below. In his right was his service pistol, which he lowered as he saw Erin. His face was pale from blood loss. Bourke glanced around the room and took in the sight of Jeremy’s motionless body, then back up to Erin, his eyes focusing immediately upon the red line about her neck.

  ‘Are you ok?’ he asked, voice thick.

  Erin angrily wiped tears off her face with the back of her arm. ‘I will be once he’s dead,’ she muttered and walked back to Jeremy, aiming the pistol once more at his chest.

  Bourke pushed the aim of her weapon away from the unconscious man. ‘That would be a kindness he doesn’t deserve; leave him for a Carrier,’ he said, eyes narrowed in disgust as he regarded the unconscious man. ‘We need to get upstairs to the other survivors; are you coming?’

  Erin took a steadying breath, then nodded and stepped over Jeremy’s inert body, taking great care to crunch his fingers underfoot as she passed. At the door she pa
used.

  ‘Wait a sec,’ said Erin, as she darted back to Jeremy’s side. She leant down, grabbed hold of the knife’s handle, and gave it a sharp twist as she wrenched the blade free of his thigh. Fresh blood oozed from the wound as Erin wiped the knife clean on his pants leg then sheathed it once more. ‘If I have to let him live, I’ll be damned if he gets my knife as well,’ she said, turning away.

  They checked the hallway to ensure it was still empty, then briskly jogged to the stairwell, climbing the steps two at a time. The third door they opened on the landing displayed a room full of terrified young faces under the care of the old chef. Erin held a finger to her lips for them to be quiet as she gently closed the door behind Bourke. The officer’s face was grey as he slumped against the adjacent wall. Erin knelt down beside him, concerned that he was losing too much blood.

  ‘Can I check out the wound for you?’ she asked. Bourke gave a stiff nod.

  ‘There’s a dressing pack here you can use,’ he said, laying his rifle on the floor. Hand now free, he fished out a small sealed pack from the left shoulder strap of his webbing and gave it to her. Erin helped him undo a few buttons of his shirt and slip the sodden material off his left shoulder, exposing the wound. A small hole was present at the back where the bullet had entered and smashed his shoulder blade, but the exit wound was nasty. A clump of flesh had been torn out at the front exposing bone and muscle at the top of his arm. She quickly unpacked the dressing; a pad of absorbent cloth attached to the middle of a bandage, and pressed it firmly into the cavity for a few minutes to stop the bleeding with direct pressure. Bourke stifled a moan of pain, teeth clamped against the agony in his shoulder. Satisfied she had the worst of the haemorrhage under control, Erin tightly bound the cloth into place with the attached bandage.