The Undead the Second Week Compilation Edition Days 8-14

by RR Haywood

  ‘HAVE IT,’ my voice roars out and is cut off as seven assault rifles spew lead at them. Fingers squeeze triggers, muzzles flash, rounds spin and zombies die. They fall and die as we fire into their ranks.

  Clarence pauses for a second as we empty our first magazines. The timing is perfect and almost as one we shout ‘MAGAZINE’ as we eject the empty one and snatch a new one up. A quick memory of the battle of Salisbury Plain flashes through my mind.

  ‘MY TURN,’ Clarence stands and roars letting rip with the GPMG held one handed and firing into the zombies. We pause and stare in awe as the huge man absorbs the recoil into his massive frame and laughs with maniacal delight. One hand held out to the side feeding the coil of ammunition belt into the side of the machine gun. He takes steady sweeps side to side and nothing survives the sheer fire power of the devastating weapon. Bodies burst apart, limbs sheered off, stomachs ripped out, skulls explode as they fall.

  ‘FIRE,’ I scream out as Clarence stops, and the small arms fire of the SA80 assault rifles take up the work. They are nowhere near as powerful as the GPMG but there are seven of them firing at once and that more than makes up the difference.

  ‘ADVANCE,’ I shout as we change magazines and Clarence fires for a few seconds taking big strides forwards and sweeping the weapon left to right.

  There are hundreds and hundreds of them and they keep coming. Turning and charging and I had no idea how deeply packed they were or how far down the street they were stretched. They die in droves, sent back to the hell they crawled out from. Glancing over at Lani I see her face alive with the glory of battle, the grime from the weapon smearing her face and at this time, at this place I realise I’m in love. As if touched by an invisible hand she glances at me and smiles, a gorgeous big grin full of white teeth.

  Once again, there is nowhere else I would rather be right now.

  Twenty-Three

  ‘GET DOWN AND BRACE THE GATES,’ Maddox screams out, ordering his youths to lie down on the ground. The experience of knowing that bullets can fly for miles, especially when they’re fired from assault rifles and heavy machine guns. With no idea who the new group of attackers are, but with a suspicion that maybe they’re not here to attack the compound too, Maddox stares down at the junction in front of the gates and the terrific battle still being waged.

  More bodies slam into the gates and he looks down to see his youths stacked up against the inside, holding low but pushing their bodies against them.

  The two groups from the side roads still pour into the middle, roaring and screaming as they fight to join the battle, having no idea of the slaughter taking place just yards in front of them. The undead easily over power the survivors, tearing them apart with a frenzied and sustained attack. Biting and ripping flesh open, transmitting the deadly infection into the blood stream and launching off to take more down. The zombies fight and claw their way into the ranks of the survivors, the darkness of the night and the confusion of the battle masking their routes. Legs, arms, stomachs and arses get bit. Survivors fall and die, writhing in agony for seconds before dying. Inside their bodies the infection pours through every cell and brings them back, re-starting the heart and bringing the host back in the new perfect form. The survivors twitch and sit up, opening red bloodshot eyes and howling out as they launch and surge into the ranks of humans.

  The firing continues. Small arms from machine guns then a heavy machine gun for a few seconds. Maddox strains his eyes and can just make out the muzzle flashes in the distance of the road ahead.

  ‘Darius get the weapons up into the windows and fire down, keep firing everything we got. Jagger, get everyone else tooled up with hand weapons, anything they want.’

  Maddox turns back to the front, watching the battle and knowing the estate survivors are fucked. They don’t stand a chance. The infected are too fast and too powerful for them. Watching between the distant muzzle flashes and the battle underneath him he senses that instead of running away they may need to fight. If they run now, they’ll always be running.

  ‘Sometimes Maddox, sometimes you can run away, retreat or withdraw and survive to fight another day. Every once in a while though son, you have to man up and stand your ground. Stand and fight son. Whatever the outcome, whatever the cost. Let them know your name and what you stand for. Be beholden to no man. Stand and fight son.’

  The Bossman’s words sound through his mind, the great and powerful lord brought down by smoking a plant. But he was right and this is that time.

  Twenty-Four

  ‘MAGAZINE,’ I shout and eject the old one, quickly pushing it into the pouch on my belt and slamming a new one in. We’ve advanced enough to be reaching the first bodies felled by our bullets. But still they come and still we mow them down. Holding at times, then advancing a couple of steps but all the time taking ground and despatching these foul things back to hell.

  Lucky bastards is what we are. Finding such a big horde to play with. And at the point of being tooled up to high heaven too. New guns with lots and lots of shiny bullets to throw at them. Clarence is clearly having a great time doing his whole Rambo thing, I’m going to get him a bandana for his bald head and smear some black lines across his nose.

  Our incessant fire rate whittles them down and the bodies pile up. As with many times before I notice the bodies act as trip hazards and obstacles to the oncoming zombies and a couple of times I smile at the sight of the stupid things tripping and falling over.

  ‘HOLD,’ Dave shouts out and we drop down while he works to clear a blockage in his weapon. Clarence lays down flat and uses the front tripod to steady the weapon as he fires into the pressed ranks. The obliteration is immense and before long we’ve got a nice big gap in front of us.

  ‘CLEARED,’ Dave shouts and we rise up to advance again, marking our steps and holding the line. I notice some of our lads have switched to single shots and are going for head shots, calling out when they get one. Dave joins in but again, he gets discounted as every one of his shots is a head shot. We’re all getting better though and we’re getting more heads now than we we’re before. Apart from Lani and Tom who are still quite new to the assault rifle experience.

  Picking them off one by one and letting Clarence do a sweep every couple of minutes with the GPMG, we conserve ammunition and make steady progress and before long we looking through the pressed ranks at some kind of high fencing and a scaffold tower erected behind it. A fortified commune, this must be what the undead were attacking. From this distance I can just make out a single figure stood on the top of the tower. I raise my hand and wave, hoping he can see us and be re-assured that we are making headway towards them.

  He waves back just as muzzle flashes and shots ring out from the windows of houses behind the fence. Shotguns and rifles firing down into the junction beneath them.

  ‘Dave shout for them to hold their fire,’ I shout, worried that they will fire into us if we keep advancing.

  ‘HOLD YOUR FIRE, LET US WORK OUR WAY TO YOU,’ Dave bellows out and I can vaguely see as the man on the tower waves his arms and after a couple of seconds the shotguns and rifles cease.

  ‘MOVE UP,’ I shout and we advance, firing into the undead as they still turn and charge at us. There is a ferocious battle taking place ahead of us but the gates to that commune look closed and secure so who is fighting outside the gates?

  ‘PEOPLE IN THE MIDDLE,’ Lani shouts, ‘THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THE JUNCTION,’ she adds. We peer down and look in horror at men and women fighting out with sticks, battling away at the undead and being taken down by the ferocious attacks.

  ‘We’ll shoot them if we keep firing,’ Blowers shouts. Then aims and fires into a zombie breaking away to charge at us.

  ‘Dave, get their attention, tell them to pull back into the side streets.’

  ‘MOVE BACK, MOVE AWAY FROM THE JUNCTION. WE WILL FIRE ON YOU, MOVE AWAY NOW,’ Dave bellows but despite his enormous voice he has little effect as the fighting is too intense for anyone to try and bac
k away or turn to flee.

  ‘What now?’ Tom asks in alarm at seeing more people being savaged down.

  ‘We go in with hand weapons,’ I draw my axe wedged into the gap between my back and my rucksack, then twist the assault rifle round out of the way, ‘form a circle, we stay tight and fight to the gates, maybe draw the zombies away from the other survivors and give them a chance to get away.’

  No arguments and they can all see the sense in the planning. Clarence pushes the heavy machine gun to rest behind him on the long shoulder strap and pulls his axe out. We form up in a circle with Dave at the front and start advancing down towards the open junction.

  Within a few steps we get contacts as the undead see us pushing out into the open ground and start charging. Axes swing as we cut and strike them down. Our close phalanx stays tight as we lash out, swiping and lunging. Lani making neat swipes with her meat cleaver and Dave just killing anything that looks at him the wrong way.

  ‘This is carnage,’ I shout at the sight of many small fights taking place. People pressed against the gates lashing out with sticks and bats with nails through the ends. The two roads leading away to the left and right are packed with bodies fighting and rolling about on the ground. Too dark and too confusing to see if they are undead or people.

  ‘OPEN THE GATE,’ I shout up and wave at the man on the top of tower. He hesitates and sweeps his arm round at the junction, clearly telling me he’s worried about breaching his own entry point.

  ‘WE’LL KEEP IT SAFE, OPEN THE GATE, THEY WON’T GET IN.’

  ‘THEY MIGHT,’ the man shouts down in a deep but youthful voice.

  ‘WHY ARE YOU IN THERE IF YOUR PEOPLE ARE OUT HERE FIGHTING?’

  ‘THEY AIN’T MY PEOPLE, THEY CAME TO ATTACK US AND TAKE OUR COMPOUND. THOSE INFECTED CAME AT THE SAME TIME,’ He shouts back.

  ‘Shit, that was bad timing,’ Cookey jokes to a few sniggers from everyone else.

  ‘HOW MANY YOU GOT IN THERE?’

  Twenty-Five

  Maddox stares down at the fighting still raging in the junction and watching the small group of mercenaries stalking down the road slaughtering everything in their path. He watches as they get close to the junction and then one of them shouts for him to cease fire.

  ‘STOP SHOOTING.’ Maddox waves his arms and hears his order repeated as the rifles and shotguns suddenly stop.

  Incredibly, the mercenaries then push their guns away and take bloody big axes out and get into a small circle before walking out into the junction. Maddox watches with keen interest, his heart in his mouth as he observes the strange mix of people killing everything that steps close to them. A small man with two knives at the front, a giant man with a bald head, a Thai girl, some young lads and a bloke with curly dark hair.

  ‘How the fuck…’ he mutters to himself as the infected seem to drop instantly at the tight little swings and lunges these people lash out.

  The man with the curly dark hair shouts up to open the gates. Maddox refuses, pointing to the fierce fighting still taking place. He shouts down that these ain’t his people and someone says something funny within the circle as they all snigger.

  ‘HOW MANY YOU GOT IN THERE?’ the man shouts up. Maddox hesitates. If he tells them they are just children it will show them as weak and they are heavily armed with machine guns and assault rifles and they look like soldiers.

  ‘THEY ARE JUST CHILDREN IN HERE,’ Lenski shouts as she scrambles to the top of the tower to stand next to Maddox.

  ‘KIDS? JUST KIDS?’ The man with the curly dark hair asks.

  ‘YEAH JUST KIDS,’ Maddox shouts back as Lenski grips his hand in terror at the sight of the carnage taking place.

  ‘HOW MANY?’ The man asks.

  ‘OVER ONE HUNDRED,’ Lenski shouts down in reply and Maddox watches as every face in that circle glances up. Hard looks on tough faces.

  ‘STAY THERE AND KEEP THAT GATE CLOSED, WE’LL SORT THIS LOT OUT,’ the man with the curly dark hair shouts. He says something to the rest of his group and they instantly push their axes and knives away and pull their guns back round. At another order they split into two lines of four standing back to back. They raise their weapons to their shoulders.

  ‘GET DOWN GET DOWN GET DOWN, DROP TO THE GROUND NOW DROP TO THE GROUND NOW.’ The small man roars out and Maddox leans over to see people dropping down and covering their faces. The small group pauses a few seconds then opens up. The hammering retorts boom out as the infected get shot to pieces. The heavy machine gun rips them apart like hot knives through butter and within a few seconds it’s over.

  Everything that was standing is now dead.

  Twenty-Six

  We didn’t hesitate when the woman said it was just kids inside and we knew this had to end now. Why these adults were attacking a compound was beyond me, but that didn’t manner. What mattered was ending this.

  So we did.

  Ruthlessly.

  Anything left standing after Dave gave the warning was shot down. We poured rounds into those things and I have no doubt in my mind that we killed people too. But the way it was going they would have been bitten and turned anyway, so they had it coming. There were so many undead in amongst them we could never have ended it cleanly. This wasn’t our fight and maybe we had no right to get involved. But I know if I was behind a high fence with over a hundred children I’d want someone to come and kill the nasty monsters for me.

  As the smoke cleared we ejected our emptied magazines and quickly pushed new ones home. Clicks and metallic noises filled the air. Clarence threaded his last coil of ammunition belt into the GPMG as we stepped out drawing our axes and started moving between the corpses, using our torches to seek out the still living zombies. Their groaning and shuffling noises made them easy to find and we stalked through the bodies chopping heads off and cutting throats open.

  ‘Mr Howie,’ Nick calls my attention and points to the gate opening up. All of us turn and stand ready as a well-built young man walks out. He looks round at the bodies and then straight at me. Walking steadily with a pistol in his hand down at his side. A young woman steps out behind him and walks forward. More young people gather in the gap created by the open gate but they hold there.

  ‘Hey, you the man from the tower?’ I call out.

  ‘Yeah,’ he replies, his voice low and deep. His tone as wary as his movements which are fluid and powerful but aloof and ready for action.

  ‘I’m Howie, nice to meet you?’ I step towards him and hold my hand out. He pauses looking me up and down, then across at the rest of my group. A decision made and he steps in closer, extending his hand to shake.

  ‘Maddox,’ he nods and up close I see how young he is, maybe eighteen or nineteen at the most but his eyes are deeply intelligent and his grip has power.

  ‘This is Lenski,’ he nods behind him at the very attractive young lady stepping carefully over the bodies, she stops next to Maddox and I extend my hand to her.

  ‘Lenski, I’m Howie these people are with me. We mean you no harm, we are not a threat to you, we’re just passing through.’ I want to re-assure them quickly knowing that with over a hundred terrified children inside they must be deeply worried.

  ‘It good to meet you Howie,’ she replies with in a clipped Polish accent.

  ‘So are you the only adults here?’ I ask.

  ‘Kind of,’ Maddox replies and I can see he’s still very wary.

  ‘Listen mate, we’re going to sort these out and make sure they’re all dead. There might be some injured people out here. Have you got a first aid station or medical bay here?’

  ‘No,’ he replies simply.

  ‘Okay, have you got bandages and clean water, something we can use to patch them up, maybe some lights?’

  ‘We have these, I get them and make the lights ready,’ Lenski says with a pointed look at Maddox.

  ‘I’ll get some of my lot out here to help clear this up,’ Maddox says. He turns back to the open gate. ‘Jagger, take the left side, Moha
mmed take the right, Sierra and Liam I want your crews down the main road ahead. Ryland get into the units and get some lights out here bruv, Skyla find Lenski and get water and bandages up here into the street.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Cookey exclaims at seeing groups of youths pour from the gates. Young kids armed to the teeth with knives and sharp sticks, bats, swords and poles. A few bigger kids direct them with short words of order and they move about in sections. Dropping down and shoeing bodies over, slitting throats, clubbing heads and bursting skulls apart. They rifle pockets and loot the bodies, searching for anything usable.

  We all stand shocked and stunned, unable to take our eyes off these children doing the bloody work of killers. The fact that they’re ordered really stands out. They smile and joke with each other and the banter remind me of how we are when we operate and move together. And I notice they keep staring and glancing at us, but the faces become hard and unsmiling when they look at us. Not scared, not terrified little children but the same wary aloofness that Maddox had.

  ‘What the fuck…’ Nick mutters.

  ‘This is one strange day,’ Lani adds in the same muted tone. A proud looking girl leads a group of children across the junction heading into the shadows of the street opposite, one of the smaller children stares in awe at Clarence as he passes by.

  ‘You is hench bruv,’ the child says in a strong confident tone and turns away as the others start sniggering and pointing at Clarence.

  ‘Did we just save a bunch of gangsta kids from a nice group of survivors being eaten by a horde of zombies?’ Cookey asks.

  ‘Possibly…’ I reply quietly, not quite believing what my eyes are showing me. Within minutes there are injured bodies being dragged past us through the open gates and dumped on the street beyond. The children dragging them race back out and grab more injured people. The youths on the street inside the gates examine each body closely with torches, checking for bite wounds. Any that are suspicious are killed instantly and without any sign of mercy or pity.