The Undead the Second Week Compilation Edition Days 8-14

by RR Haywood

  We watch as a man dressed in black combat trousers and a khaki top walks into view, he makes a point of bending down to place his assault rifle on the ground then standing up and turning round to show he’s unarmed. He walks towards us with his hands away from his body.

  ‘Right, come on then,’ I start opening the driver’s door.

  ‘I thought Nick was driving the other one,’ Clarence asks.

  ‘He is but we got to get the keys first, I’ll come for that…Nick you hang on here a minute.’

  ‘I’ll come,’ Dave starts towards the rear doors.

  ‘No mate, stay here and get ready to use the GPMG if it goes bent.’

  Clarence and I clamber down, wincing from the heat and bright sun beaming down. The area feels hot and arid with no natural plants or foliage but just industrial equipment, tarmac and hard baked earth. The sun glints blindingly from the metal tubes and pipes and I have to use my hand to shield my eyes, putting us at an instant disadvantage.

  ‘Can’t see a fucking thing,’ Clarence growls. I stare down at the ground, trying to let my eyes adjust to the glare.

  ‘Quick move in,’ someone shouts, I glance up to see silhouettes of figures running towards us.

  ‘TRAP,’ Dave roars from inside the Saxon.

  A heavy weight crashes into me as shots are fired, I recognise the sound of rounds pinging off the metal armour of our vehicle. Huge hands grab and pull me along as Clarence shouts for me to move. Getting to my feet I follow after him, both of us staring at the ground and half squinting as we duck down a narrow alley running between a mass of pipes.

  ‘Get down,’ he mutters, we pause in the shade blinking and rubbing our eyes as we draw our pistols, both of us having left our rifles in the vehicle.

  Shots fire from all around, the metal ricochets coming from all directions as they focus their fire onto the Saxon. The GPMG opens up with a thudding boom as Dave returns fire.

  ‘We can’t get back to the Saxon,’ I say hoarsely, ‘we’ll be cut to bits…shit,’ I fire my pistol at the figure appearing at the end of the alley. The figure spins back from the rounds striking his chest, his assault rifle clattering to the floor.

  ‘Nice shot,’ Clarence says as he crabs along to grab the fallen man’s gun. He checks the magazine and takes spare ones from the man’s pockets, shoving them into his own before easing his way towards the end of the alley.

  I watch my end, the pistol raised and held with two hands like Dave showed me. Rounds strike all around, bouncing off the pipes and the ground at the alley entrance.

  ‘DON’T SHOOT THE FUCKING PIPES,’ the amplified voice booms out. The shots coming our way instantly ease up as the order is obeyed, buying us some time. The firing at the Saxon just intensifies as they direct their aim that way instead. The GPMG keeps firing in bursts, loud screams and shouts of agony sound out as Dave hits target after target.

  ‘THE TWO BETWEEN THE PIPES…YOU ARE TRAPPED…PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS NOW.’

  ‘You think he means us?’ I ask sarcastically.

  ‘Reckon he does boss,’ Clarence replies, he fires quickly, yelling in triumph, ‘got one.’

  ‘They won’t shoot us in here,’ I call out.

  ‘Yeah but we can’t get out either,’ he replies.

  ‘Stalemate…’ I cock my head listening to the Saxon engine grow louder. I try to peer out the end but have to quickly duck back in from the rounds hitting the ground inches away.

  ‘STAY THERE MR HOWIE,’ Nick’s voice comes over our loudspeaker.

  ‘Incoming,’ Clarence calls out, he fires the assault rifle he took from the man, using short controlled bursts.

  ‘Mr HOWIE…THEY’RE RUNNING TOWARDS YOU,’ Nick shouts a warning. I keep the pistol aimed at the end of the alley, waiting to press the trigger at anything that appears.

  ‘THEY’RE JUST AT THE END, TWO OF THEM…’ Nick relays.

  ‘Fucking cunt needs to shut up,’ one of the men shouts from round the corner of the alley.

  ‘You coming in or what?’ I shout out.

  ‘You impatient then?’

  ‘Yeah…’ I lie down on the floor, lifting my aim to where I think their chest height will be.

  ‘NOW,’ Nick shouts as one of the men jumps out and opens fire into the alley. I fire the pistol, striking him in the legs first then re-adjusting to get him in the chest. He staggers back from the force of the bullets, dropping down to sprawl out on the ground.

  ‘ONE LEFT,’ Nick shouts.

  ‘Come on then fuckwit,’ I shout.

  ‘Fuck this,’ I hear him mutter.

  ‘HE’S RUN OFF…’ Nick relays.

  I twist round to see Clarence still taking single put shots at his end, crabbing down I head towards the body hoping to get the assault rifle he was holding but the body is lying out of reach.

  ‘GET READY,’ Nick shouts, I stare out wondering what they’re doing. The Saxon reverses to the alley, leaving enough room for the rear doors to swing open, Cookey, Lani and Blowers kneeling inside and waving me towards them.

  ‘Clarence,’ I shout. He turns round, grinning like a maniac.

  ‘Cover me,’ he shouts as he starts running bent over, Blowers stands up, aiming over Clarence towards the end of the alley. I run and dive into the back as Blowers fires.

  Clarence dives in, landing on top of me as the three of them pull us in and close the doors.

  ‘They’re in,’ Lani shouts. Nick pulls away as Dave drops back down.

  ‘You okay Mr Howie?’ He asks with concern.

  ‘Fine mate,’ I reply with a gasp from having Clarence’s bulk land on top of me.

  ‘Yeah I’m fine too Dave,’ Clarence mutters.

  ‘Er…what’s the plan?’ Nick shouts.

  ‘Well it appears they don’t want us to have a tanker of fuel,’ I reply getting to my feet, ‘give me that microphone,’ I climb over the seat and grab the handset, ‘WHAT’S THE MOST EXPLOSIVE THING IN HERE? THE PIPES? THE SILO’S?...OR SHALL WE JUST GO FOR THE TANKERS…’

  ‘CEASEFIRE,’ the voice orders, ‘CEASEFIRE NOW…’

  ‘Mr Howie is that a GPMG?’ Nick points ahead to a small group of men running into view with what looks like a heavy calibre machine gun on a tripod.

  ‘Yep…Dave…’ I shout in alarm, he’s already getting up the hole and grabbing our own heavy weapon.

  ‘Get down,’ I pull Nick down as the other weapon opens up, the front of the vehicle being hit by sustained firing.

  Dave opens up, slamming rounds at the other group and shredding them to pieces within seconds. He keeps firing, aiming at the gun as it skittles and bounces across the ground.

  ‘Who’s up for the docks?’ I shout as Dave drops back down.

  ‘Sounds good to me boss,’ Clarence replies, ‘I bloody said we should try there first.’

  ‘Nick…time for us to go mate,’ he pushes his foot down, moving the Saxon along as we go past the coveted fuel tanker trucks. Dave goes back up again, resuming his short burst firing as Nick navigates his way back onto the main avenue. Bodies lie everywhere, torn to pieces from our firing.

  It seems every gun they possess is trained on us as the Saxon takes a battering from the small arms fire.

  ‘Why haven’t our tyres blown out yet?’ Cookey asks.

  ‘Run flat…they’re not normal tyres,’ Clarence shouts over the symphony of bangs and dings that come from all around us.

  Dave fires ahead of us, cutting the armed guards down as they lean out to fire at us, time and again he gets direct hits and we keep seeing the mini explosions of blood and pink matter puffing into the air as the rounds strike home.

  Nick takes us straight down the avenue, heading back towards the entrance we came in from as another pick-up truck powers out from one of the side streets aiming straight at us. Nick floors the Saxon, the engine screaming out as the Pick-up rams into the driver’s side with an almighty shunt that skewers the back end of the Saxon round. Dave was firing off to the side, only seeing the p
ick-up at the last second. His rounds miss the target, striking a thick pipe which causes high pressure liquid to start spraying out.

  Nick brakes hard and controls the Saxon well, bringing the speed down while avoiding hitting anything. We come to a stop, all of us staring out the window at the liquid spraying from the pipe. The hole it comes from seems to get bigger, forced wider from the pressure of the liquid inside. It sprays high into the air, a thick black liquid that coats everything in sight.

  ‘Nick….get going mate…quick…get fucking going…’ I mutter quietly. The guards haven’t seen the damaged pipe and keep firing at us. Some of the bullets creating little sparks as they impact on the armoured panels. Nick eases the vehicle round to face the correct way, the action seeming to be so incredibly slow.

  Everything slows as we all twist our necks to stare out at the liquid spurting into the air. Nick floors the accelerator, the engine roaring as we start moving away.

  ‘CEASEFIRE….STOP FIRING NOW….’ The amplified voice screams with urgency, repeating the words over and over.

  I’m not exactly sure what happened next. It could have been a spark from a bullet hitting the side of our vehicle that ignited the fumes from the liquid, or it could have been a badly aimed shot fired directly at it, or it could have simply been the super-charged heat of the air creating the exact right mix of heat and gasses that caused the liquid to combust.

  What I am sure of is that the liquid did start to combust. It flared slowly, a thin blue flame that danced clearly along the floor. For a couple of seconds I thought it might go out. But it didn’t. The thin blue flame spread and made other thin blue flames. Those few flames caused more flames and within a couple more seconds the ground around the split pipe was on fire.

  Then the spray caught which was an amazing thing to see. One second a dark distinct spray of viscous liquid, then within an instant it was alive with scorching hot flames licking at the air.

  We power away, gaining distance with every passing second. The flame holds at the pipe, seemingly content to just ignite the liquid as it comes out. A huge battle taking place at the opening of the pipe between the pressure of the liquid coming out and the hunger of the fire trying to get in.

  ‘GO,’ Dave roars as he drops down from the GPMG, his voice the loudest I have ever heard…but then he knows what’s coming.

  The Saxon steams down the avenue, racing towards the entrance. I open the passenger door and lean out, staring back at the flames spewing from the pipe. The amplified voice still booming out but the words lost from the roar of our engine.

  Clarence cracks one of the rear doors open, the lads and Lani peering out of the gap at the flames that seem to grow larger and more fierce with every second. The sky above the flames shimmers from the heat, dirty oily smoke pouring up into the still air.

  We reach the entrance we came in from, Nick driving straight over the bodies of the men we shot down. He aims well, scooting straight through the ruined gate and onto the access road.

  The flames grow larger, a dull roar that reaches us despite the increasing distance and the sound of the engine. Then they stop. Gone.

  ‘Close the door,’ Dave orders calmly.

  ‘Why it’s stopped?’ Cookey asks.

  ‘It hasn’t,’ his words are flat and lifeless but strike a chord in all of us. Cookey stares in horror for a second, unable to tear his eyes away from the patch of sky where the flames were.

  That same patch of sky erupts as a huge fireball detonates into the air, followed a split second later by a deafening bass filled roar. Both Cookey and I stay watching out the open doors, completely unaware of how fast Nick is driving.

  The fireball grows larger and larger, reaching high into the sky. A solid wall of flame that seems contained and almost spherical, like a twisting tornado. The sight is awesome, mesmerising even. Then another one goes. I say another one as I have no idea what it is, but whatever is next to the fireball goes up, adding another massive explosion that rocks the ground. We all feel the vibration that shudders the vehicle, the heat wave from the first one hits us as dry charged air blasts against the vehicle.

  The second fireball just melts into the first one, creating a wider, twisting wall of flame that dances hundreds of feet into the air.

  I twist round, seeing the determination on Nick’s face as he concentrates on the road ahead. I think of what Dave said, about the people in the international space station seeing the refinery explode before and I can’t imagine it’s anywhere near as big as this one.

  Smaller explosions reach us, dull thuds like fireworks popping off in the distance. The pipes and tubes must be melting with the heat, spilling their explosive contents to be ignited and join the fireball.

  The Saxon is going flat out now, which isn’t that fast in comparison to most modern cars but the size and weight of the things makes you feel the speed more acutely. The chassis vibrates noisily causing us to tremble and judder. Cookey hangs on tight as he and the others stare out the still open rear door. I’m hanging on for dear life too, still unable to stop watching the flames scorching the sky.

  They grow larger every second as more dull thuds and smaller explosions reach us. Dark solid fragments fly high into the air to go spinning off deeper into the refinery. Those fragments will be super-hot and judging from the height they reach; they’ll plummet down with incredible force and cause even more damage as they land.

  One of the silo’s goes up next, and it dwarfs the previous explosion. Making it look like a match head in comparison. A huge thick broiling plume of deep red and yellow flames soar up and up, the sound reaches us a second later. A sound so deep it resonates through our bones.

  The road starts the incline, heading further away from the refinery. Just one Silo as far as I can tell. Just one and already it fills the sky.

  Another one goes, followed an instant later by another. It must be the ones closest to the first, being set off in a chain like reaction. The people in the refinery must be dead already. Nothing could survive what we’re seeing. The heat would melt them in their boots, the lack of oxygen would suffocate them.

  Still we climb the hill, getting higher and higher and with every metre we climb the view of the refinery opens up. The sight sickens me for the few fires underway are tiny in relation to the whole of the site. What we saw, the teaming huge flames reaching into the sky were just a fragment, just a taster of what’s to come.

  The others realise it too. Lani turns to me with an intense look on her face, Cookey and Blowers stare at each other quietly. Clarence stands with his back to me, staring through the gap. Only Dave seems unbothered as he watches out the front window.

  ‘Are we far enough?’ Lani asks, ‘Dave…are we far enough?’

  He turns slowly, staring first out the back door then at her. He shakes his head, ‘not yet…’

  Another silo goes and this time we see the detonation from the ground upwards. A spontaneous combustion that shoots another fireball up. Another goes, then a whole row is set off one by one. Big white silo’s that look perfectly clean and round from here just go up, spewing their contents as though to destroy the sky.

  Smaller fires break out, distinctly bright against the dark ground. Smoke billows as the fires spread. A tube must ignite as a long spume of flame goes off, zipping from left to right within seconds, like a fuse from a stick of dynamite.

  It detonates something, which sets something else off. More tubes ignite, flames zipping left to right, right to left, up and down. A whole cross section of shooting fires that light the ground up like a laser display.

  I try to calculate our distance. We’re topped out at just over sixty miles an hour. That’s roughly a mile a minute. Three, maybe four minutes since we left so maybe three or four miles distance. That sounds good but right now, staring back…it doesn't feel anywhere near enough.

  The refinery goes up. The whole of thing detonates into a supernova. A burning sun grows from the ground, devils, demons and monsters of he
ll rise from the earth to screech into the sky.

  A mushroom shaped thing of living flame that grows and increases in height, girth, depth, width and every other dimension known. It must be alive, for a thing such as this cannot be anything else.

  It rises higher and higher. So bright that the sky around it seems to darken. So bright that it almost burns my retinas from looking at it. So huge that I have to crane my neck to see the top, and still it grows higher.

  The shockwave spreads out in a wide circle simply making the ground flat. Everything that was there is removed. Houses, buildings, cars, trees. Nothing can withstand the blast. The seaward side of the refinery is gone from view and I can only imagine the devastation such a blast must be causing.

  Then the sound comes. A furious roar of rushing wind and dragons breath that just hits in one full on symphony of noise. The shockwave comes with the noise. A deafening evil dry and scorching wind. I slam the door closed and see the others get buffeted deep into the Saxon as the pressure slams the rear door closed. Everywhere is noise. Just solid noise that seems to lift the Saxon into the air, rocking and jolting us.

  I’m screaming, Nick is screaming as he grips the steering wheel. Debris flies in front of us, smaller items cascade down onto the road in front of the vehicle or go flying past the windows. A hurricane of wind that sends missiles off vertically and high into the sky to come whizzing and spinning back to earth.

  Dirty air buffets us all around. The blue sky is gone from view as a sea of brown and scorched greys sail all around us. Everyone is screaming but they do it silently for nothing can penetrate the wall of noise that is suddenly and forever more our existence. This must be hell. We died in the explosion and this is it. An eternity of pressure, of noise, of screeching and knowing with every ounce of your being that you cannot survive. My ears pop repeatedly from the pressure changes in the air. My throat becomes sore from the screaming and the heat. My eyes blur from the sights I cannot stand to see.

  I blink and blink, desperately trying to clear my vision. What fills my view is Dave, stood there holding onto something above his head with both hands. His face looks serene and without fear. He looks at me and smiles, a slow grin that lights his face up. His eyes tell me not to be scared for this cannot be hell, because if it was the devil would be on his knees in front of Dave praying for forgiveness.