‘Medic one – your request is denied. Remain at your current location until you have further orders,’ said a curt voice, dismissing him out of hand.
Harry swore, punching the dashboard in frustration. He reached behind the steering wheel and turned the keys in the ignition, launching the engine.
‘What are you doing, Sir?’ until now, the Private assigned to assist Harry had remained quiet.
‘I’m going to get my friends, what the fuck does it look like?’
‘That would be against a direct order. It’s a chargeable offence, Sir.’
Harry looked at the Private incredulously. ‘Like I give two damns. If I live, it’s not like they’re going to jail their only doctor. Are you coming or getting out? Make your choice and quick.’
The Private shut his mouth and answered by fastening his seatbelt.
‘Good. Another rifle will come in handy.’ Harry rammed the accelerator to the floor, spinning the wheels as he sped toward the town centre.
***
‘Jesus Christ,’ muttered the Private as they approached Mark’s location scant minutes later. For over two blocks, the street was carpeted in bodies and gore.
‘You were on the wall during the fight at the Fort, weren’t you?’
The Private shook his head slightly, his eyes wide as he took in the scene to either side of the car.
‘Well don’t worry about them. They’re dead. It’s only the walking ones that need concern you. Like those bastards there,’ Harry said.
Two stray Carriers were lurching into the path of their car. Harry had by default fallen in on the route taken by Nate, the only path on the street relatively free of corpses. He sped up, hoping to mow them down with the bull bar. The Defender shuddered as it smacked into the plague carriers, one disappearing underneath immediately. The car bucked over its body on the road, the abdomen bursting with a wet pop. The other Carrier had been flipped onto the bonnet by the force of impact, its legs smashed to a pulp. One hand gripped a windscreen wiper while the other formed a fist and smashed repeatedly at the glass, screaming rage at the two occupants. On the third punch, a spider web of cracks splintered outwards, and with the fourth, it was through. Skin was peeled back from its knuckles, the bones mashed into a misshapen lump by the force expended to break through the reinforced windscreen. Harry recoiled in his seat, stamping on the brake pedal as he drew his service pistol. The Carrier reached forward and grabbed the front of the Private’s shirt, wrenching him closer. Harry chambered a round and fired point-blank, blasting half of the creature’s face away. The Private fell back in his chair, skin pale with terror.
‘Well that’s fucked us if we need to push through a swarm,’ muttered Harry. The windscreen was unusable, turned opaque by the damage, he had no choice but to kick out the remaining glass, so he could see. In the rear-view mirror, he saw the Carrier he’d driven over starting to crawl towards them, trailing intestines and useless legs in its wake. Time to move again.
‘There they are, Sir,’ said the Private, pointing to a shop awning on the left side of the street. Harry followed his direction and spotted them a moment later. Two soldiers were standing on the footpath below, firing at an approaching mob of Infected, while a third was being lowered from the awning on what appeared to be a rope made of rifle slings. Four people remained on the awning, and with less than forty metres separating the approaching Carriers and his squad, Mark was running out of time fast. Further down the block, the truck was a roaring inferno that had ceased to hold any interest for the surrounding mob.
‘Hold on, it’s going to a get a little bumpy for a second.’ Harry switched the car into 4WD and climbed out of the truck’s wake. The vehicle’s wheels spun in loose flesh intermittently on either side before biting against tarmac or bone enough to propel them forward over the blanket of dead, straight towards his friends’ location.
He hit the brakes as he mounted the footpath underneath the awning, sliding to a stop across the bodies underneath and jumped out of the car to join the other soldiers shooting at the Infected. Heavy thumps echoed as Mark and the remaining three soldiers lowered themselves off the awning before dropping onto the car’s roof.
Harry turned as he felt someone grip his shoulder and found his mate grinning widely at him. ‘Disobeying orders again I see, mate,’ said Mark. ‘I heard the radio exchange.’
‘So, charge me,’ said Harry, returning his smile.
‘No bloody chance of that, mate.’
‘You can thank me later, but how about we get the fuck out of here?’ said Harry looking over his shoulder at the approaching corpses.
‘Ah, guys?’ said Steph pointing back in the direction from where Harry had come. ‘Our retreat’s just been blocked, and I don’t think we can push through without a windscreen. We’ll end up a canned dinner.’
Mark looked back and found fifty odd Carriers lurching toward the intersection, blocking their path back toward the Bellarine Highway and Queenscliff. ‘Shit. Get in the car, we’ll find a different way around.’
Once the last door had closed, Harry put the car in gear and hung a tight U-turn. They were fast running out of options. Harry accelerated for the only route left, north onto Yarra St, a road that would take them towards the bay. The car bucked and skidded forward over the flesh-covered asphalt, barely under control. Harry mounted the footpath at the corner, avoiding the reaching arms of the Infected mob that sought to cut off their escape, and suddenly they were on empty road. The 4WD’s tyres hit solid tarmac and the vehicle leapt forward like a greyhound released.
Mark got on the radio to Vinh who was still fighting his way through the end of a swarm three blocks away. There was still no chance of joining the soldiers in the back of his truck. Mark bit his lip in frustration, weighing his options before making his decision.
‘Vinh, we’ll execute the evacuation of the Westfield’s mall in the meantime and aim to rendezvous with you on the mall’s north side in two hours. Will that be enough time for you to break through and meet us?’ he asked.
‘We’ll be there, Sir. Out,’ came Vinh’s crackled reply over the radio.
Mark hooked the radio back onto his webbing. ‘Harry, take the second left. We’re ditching the car and breaking into the Westfields.’
‘Why the hell would you want to do that,’ asked Harry, ‘when we can just find some clear streets and hightail it back to base?’
‘The General said there’s a group holed up somewhere in that shopping centre that I was supposed to locate if possible. Might as well make the best of this clusterfuck and get part of the mission right. With the condition of this car, we need to find a safer place anyway – might as well achieve both at the same time. If there is anyone still alive, it must mean the place is secure from Infected. We can take cover there, then join up with Vinh as soon as possible.’
Harry still looked unconvinced.
‘I’m not leaving half my platoon behind while I run back to base!’ Mark said, losing patience. ‘And after what you risked for us just now, I thought you’d understand.’
Stung by his words, Harry stared straight ahead, silent. At the second corner he swung left, the tyres screeching in complaint as the back end slid out briefly before regaining grip. The street in front of the mall was empty of Carriers, however, a block distant, a handful of dogs could be seen on one footpath. On seeing the car, they started to lope forward to investigate.
Harry mounted the curb, sliding to a stop before the main entrance. Looking through the heavy glass doors into the gloomy interior, Mark failed to note any movement. A heavy padlock was fastened between the doors, too solid for them to break quickly.
‘There’s a pinch bar in the back, if someone can grab it,’ said Harry. ‘It might be enough to break through the side entrance.’
Jai fished under his seat blindly before grinning as he pulled free the metal bar. The remaining members of the squad piled out of the car and jogged over to a normal sized door adjacent to the larger entra
nce, usually used by shop owners as an after-hours exit. Jai wedged one end of the pointed tool into the locking mechanism, then put his weight on the bar. The bar bulged slightly, but the door held. Mark leant his strength to his efforts, and with a metallic groan, the lock tore free of its housing. The door crashed open, banging loudly off an adjacent shop front.
‘All right, everyone in,’ said Mark quietly, waving the group through. Inside the entrance, the seven created a defensive arc pointing inwards while Jai attempted to close the door again.
‘We screwed the lock, Mark. Best we can do is block it with something heavy I reckon,’ he said after a brief inspection.
One of the other soldiers helped Jai drag a heavy stone bench seat up to the door.
‘That’ll have to do. Doesn’t have to hold long,’ said Mark, pacing forward into the unlit gloom of the mall.
Jai frowned as he gave the poorly blocked door one last look, then jogged after his squad to catch up.
***
Five minutes later, a furred snout poked through the crack of the broken door, sniffing the air vigorously. Catching the scent of human, lips snarled back to expose sharp canines. The animal shoved its face heavily into the gap, claws scrabbling for purchase. Slowly, the bench seat began to slide on the tiled floor, the gap becoming wider. Suddenly its head was through, showing that partially healed rents ran backwards over the scalp of the huge Rottweiler. Saliva frothed at the edge of its mouth, dripping to the ground in glutinous threads. It withdrew slightly, then rammed hard into the gap again until the seat moved far enough to allow its shoulders room, and then it was through. The rest of the plague-ridden dog pack followed their leader, easily passing through the gap created by the bigger canine and padded softly into the complex in wake of the soldiers.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Behind her head, Erin heard the pistol’s slide release, drawing the bullet into the chamber as it slid forward, ready for use. She dropped to a crouch, spinning on one heel to face the man trying to kill her. The gun fired with explosive noise in the confines of the hallway, the bullet shooting open air where her head had been a split second before.
Jeremy loomed over her, one hand clutched at his stomach where blood and gastric juices dribbled between his fingers. He looked mildly bewildered, not understanding why she was still alive. Erin screamed, her fear and rage transforming the sound to a primeval war cry, and stamped her foot outward in an ungainly kick, her heel connecting with his kneecap. The joint buckled sideways, ligaments audibly snapping as he fell to the ground.
Erin stood and crunched her foot viciously upon his hand to release his gun from shattered fingers. She kicked the weapon free, skittering along the floorboards well out of reach. Erin’s breathing was rapid, adrenaline swamping her system and heightening every sense as she gripped her own pistol. Jeremy cowered on the ground beneath her, whimpering as he cradled deformed fingers against his bloody abdomen.
‘Don’t do it,’ he begged between convulsive breaths.
Erin said nothing for a moment, staring over the sights of her gun directly into his eyes as she considered his request, thinking of her friend Rachael, defiled and murdered by this same creep. She thought also of the honourable man lying faceless in a puddle of his own blood not ten metres away.
‘Maybe I should ask Lieutenant Bourke for his opinion on what I should do?’ she said, her voice thick with anger. ‘Would he advise mercy a second time?’
Jeremy stared back at her, his face hardening again as he saw the girl’s resolve. ‘No? How about Rachael then? I don’t think she’d be telling me to hold off either.’
Jeremy’s face contorted in rage as he spat a bloody clump of sputum at her feet. ‘Fucking get it over with then. Just know, every night you go to bed, you’ll see my face when you close your eyes. You’ll never sleep again.’
Erin squeezed the trigger.
‘That’s where you’re wrong. Your place in my fears just ended,’ she said quietly, staring down at the crimson blossoming from Jeremy’s forehead. ‘Corpses of your sort don’t generate much terror anymore.’
She felt oddly numb, not really sure anymore how to react to a scene like this. Relief that she was alive? Terror at how close she had come to dying? Anger that another of her friends had been stolen from her?
Maybe it would come later. Right now, she needed to find out what was happening to her brother, and numb detachment would help her do that. Emotion and the pain it brought in tow could wait for a later date. She knew something had gone wrong with her brother’s platoon. Bourke’s face had said it all before he’d been shot.
She left Jeremy where he lay, a spattering of flies already hovering over the grot of his abdominal wound. Erin went to her room, gathered a few necessities into her rucksack before walking out the door without a backward glance. With any luck, the soldiers at the Fort would have found out some information of what was happening on the front line.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Mark swung his torch in a slow arc across the tiled passage between the shops. All were secured, roller doors preventing any access to the wares inside. The mall had the silence of a tomb, not a sound penetrated the complex from the outside world making every footstep seem unnaturally loud. As they progressed deeper, the light provided through the glass entrance dimmed, then disappeared altogether.
‘Hey Mark, check this out,’ said Steph. She was standing to one side of the walkway, shining her torch through the roller door of a store. Behind the security barrier, three corpses were neatly arranged on the floor. Each showed unmistakeable features of plague infection prior to being put out of action. On the roll-down barrier itself, a black tick had been painted.
‘Looks like whoever’s living here has been conducting a systematic cleanout of the plague,’ she said. ‘I didn’t notice until then, but each store we’ve passed has a black tick plastered over it, like they’re noting that it’s been cleared.’
Mark glanced along the shops, and sure enough, each one had been marked. ‘Fine by me, less work for us to do,’ he said. ‘However, if we do run into some live ones, how much ammo does everyone have? I’ve got less than a mag left.’
While in the truck, each soldier had been reloading from pre-packed magazines stacked inside the crates in the middle of the tray. This meant that few of them had been able to stock their webbing adequately prior to their forced evacuation.
‘Not much,’ said Steph, ejecting her magazine to check. ‘I reckon I’m down to my last ten shots,’ she said, shoving it home again. Few of the others were in much better a situation.
A little further on, the hallway opened up into a large open ring, the roof soaring high above. On the far side, a travelator to the second floor lay dormant.
‘Where do we try first?’ asked Mark to himself. ‘If I was hiding out in a mall, which shop would I chose as a home-base?’
‘That’s pretty obvious,’ said Jai.
‘Yeah, a supermarket,’ interjected Steph. ‘You’d want the essentials within hand’s reach. If you’ve got food and water – there’s little need to leave and place yourself at risk.’
Jai nodded. ‘My thoughts exactly.’ He turned on the spot, searching for something. ‘There!’ he said, pointing at a sign hanging from the ceiling. ‘A Coles supermarket is down that hallway to the right. Why don’t we go there first?’
Mark shrugged. ‘Fair enough, can’t say I have a better idea.’
A loud crash echoed to their right. The group spun as one, rifles pulled to shoulders. A Carrier had appeared behind a shop’s security door, now hammering at the barrier as it sought to reach them. The creature’s rasping cry was somewhat muted by the Perspex, but the assault on the shop front echoed loudly through the open space above them.
‘Looks like they didn’t manage to finish the cull, eh?’ said Harry. ‘You want me to kill it?’
‘Nah, leave it, anything else here already knows about us now. We’re too low on ammo, save your bullets for when we don’
t have a choice,’ Mark said.
The group walked onward with weapons at the ready, making for the supermarket. The shops changed to a mix of cafes and fast-food stalls, their displays a technicolour of mould and rot under the torch light. Shortly, the hallway became blocked. Jai and Steph’s instincts must have been right, as someone had constructed barriers to prevent Carrier access. Lengths of dowel had been pulled from clothes racks, their ends sharpened to spikes. These rudimentary spears were fixed at forty-centimetre intervals, nailed to the top of benches so that the points faced outwards at waist height, ready to transfix unwary Carriers like flies on a pin. Some of the spears looked like they’d seen some action, their wooden lengths stained with dried blood.
Mark carefully eased between two points and climbed onto the top of one of the tables. From the additional height, he cut a beam of light through the darkness with his torch ahead, spotting the entrance to the supermarket. Like the other stores, the security doors had been rolled down, and there was no sign of movement or light within to suggest the people remained. Eyes still ahead checking for any other dangers, he crouched slightly, making ready to jump to the ground.
‘Wait!’ Harry said urgently. ‘Check below your feet.’
Mark swayed slightly, regaining his balance as the table shifted under him. Mark looked down and felt his gut turn. The defenders hadn’t stopped with the table-top spears. On the ground behind the bench was a series of Punji sticks ready to catch anything that made it over the first obstacle. Long nails the length of his palm had been hammered through planks of wood and left facing upwards. Mark’s feet ached just looking at them. One of his mates had lost a foot to a similar booby trap laced with human faeces in Afghanistan. The wounds had been hideous on their own, but once the subsequent gangrene took hold, amputation had been the only option left.
Plague War: Pandemic Page 25