The Living Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Coast

by Albemont, L. I.

  The colonel laughed incredulously but he looked at Ian with compassion. “Son, how long do you think we’d last if we dealt like that with the enemy?”

  David said, “This might be a way to neutralize this enemy. The prisoner should be returned to his ship as soon as possible. Even if they don’t allow us to board their ship, perhaps they won’t fire on us this time if we try to board the ship that is still afloat and clear it out. We have the inflatables still in storage. Enough to get us out there.

  Ian is right. We are building a new world and this is the right way to do it. The infected from the strike zones are approaching rapidly; they’ll be here in a few days. Our defensive wall is as strong as we could make it but I doubt that it will give us more than a brief respite. If we can’t find a way to evacuate, ultimately we’re lost.”

  Colonel Hamilton made a steeple with his fingers. He looked like a man wrestling with a problem he couldn’t resolve and it had exhausted him. Finally he spoke.

  “Return the prisoner. If this fails we can still try to take the drifting ship. It’s going to be hell getting out there if they decide to shell us again. May God protect us.”

  The meeting broke up and moments later Moshe shot a string of lit firecrackers tied to an arrow to the north side of the beach. The sharp pops drew the attention of the roaming dead who began a slow shuffle up the shore.

  A small armed patrol slipped quietly out the gate and picked their way down the hillside to the rocks where the private had hidden his small boat. He made it into the surf without incident and paddled out to sea. He seemed ludicrously cheerful and even waved as a strong offshore wind sent him racing through the waves.

  The team were up the hill and inside the gate before the dead were really aware of their presence. All they could do now was continue to work on the wall and wait.

  ~

  An Australian soldier penned the following narrative in late 1972 or early 1973 then put it away for twenty years. It was discovered after his death by his grandchildren whose attempts to publish it brought it the attention of H. M.’s government. The Ministry was unsuccessful in purchasing the work and it was eventually published, but as fiction, in a tabloid popular in America where it spawned a short-lived spin-off of apocalyptic/combat, comic books.

  Da Nang 1968

  They called it war crimes. Didn’t feel that way at the time. It felt like survival. What else could we have done? I’ve asked myself that a million times since they pulled us out. We’re not supposed to talk about it. That was one order that was easy to carry out. It’s hard to find the right words.

  It was my first deployment. We trained for weeks back home, trained until we were so knackered we nearly dropped dead every night. By the time we finished basic, some of us actually looked forward to the combat zone. We didn’t think it could be any worse than what we had just been through.

  The ship that took us from Brisbane Bay to Da Nang was enormous. This was Sergeant Wall’s second deployment and he had a thick, red scar on his neck that went up the side of his mouth then into his scalp. I never knew what caused that but he was lucky it missed his eye. He kept us busy with calisthenics every morning and every evening we had target practice off the bow, shooting at clay targets. I guess they wanted us busy so we wouldn’t have a lot of time to think about what we were sailing into. The food was good, too.

  Once we got off the ship we saw Vietnamese everywhere wearing white pajamas. There were more out in the fields wearing those black, conical hats. It was confusing. Were these the enemy? They didn’t even look up when we walked by, like they weren’t interested in us at all. The whole place was green and lush with trees and vines everywhere except in the water-logged fields those people were wading through. I reckoned they knew what they were doing but I would have been worried about crocs lurking in there.

  After we disembarked the first thing they had us do was load a bunch of trucks with supplies. It was hot and you could almost see the moisture in the air. I remember feeling like I would die if I didn’t get some water soon. Just when I reckoned I was going to keel over, the water trucks showed up. It tasted a little off and wasn’t cold but we gulped it down anyway.

  The supply trucks took off and the transport trucks rolled in and we were loaded this time. Before we left, Sergeant Wall gave each of us forty, live rounds. I attached one magazine to my SLR and stowed the other in my belt, wondering if I had enough ammo to stay alive. I felt like a sitting duck in that transport and I stared hard at all that greenery flashing by, expecting snipers in the trees.

  The smell was something I wasn’t prepared for. Mold mixed with the oil they poured on the roads to keep the dust down mixed with sewage gave off an unforgettable odor. It got in your nostrils and stayed there. I’ve never smelled anything quite like it anywhere. Sometimes it shows up in my dreams.

  We went by more fields and again saw those little people in their pajamas and hats, never looking up. We could have been ghosts they ignored in the hope that we would just go away. We would have happily gone away but all of us were committed for a year.

  The road began to wind up a mountain and that’s when we got to see the top canopy of the jungle that dominated the area. The sight was breathtaking with more mountains visible in the distance, near the coast. Silvery waterfalls cascaded down the sheer, rock cliffs. The sergeant said he had seen panthers, monkeys, and even the occasional elephant in the early morning. For a few minutes I forgot why I was there and I just enjoyed the beauty of it all. The truck continued up until we reached a plateau with good visibility all around.

  Camp was primitive. Latrines were out in the open and the most personal bodily functions were on fairly public display. We had tanks of water for drinking but most everyone bathed in the stream on the edge of camp, if we bathed at all. They passed packs of cigarettes out like candy and the tobacco aroma helped mask the body odor. Most meals were eaten cold even though we had cans of sterno. Private Dalton showed us around and made sure we had our rations and ammo.

  We were waiting for intel and orders. A patrol had gone out a few days ago and never returned. The jungle is full of little villages that were practically invisible from the sky. Most of the occupants were just non-combatants and farmers trying to hide out and live their lives but occasionally VC soldiers holed up there and used them as a base of operations and we had to clear them out. The troops conducting the mission were familiar with the territory and had completed a dozen similar raids before this one. Sergeant Wall said he didn’t know if they were dead or captured but they were our mates and we couldn’t leave them behind.

  On the evening of September 20th we got the order to move out the next day. Air reconnaissance found evidence of human habitation in the jungle about nine klicks due north. Not far at all.

  We left before dawn. The route took us slightly down onto a cleared plain we would have to cross before we entered the jungle again. I felt exposed without the canopy overhead and I knew we were tempting targets for anyone watching from the trees. Crossing quickly we gained the jungle cover and soon found a game trail leading up toward our destination. We kept a constant watch for hidden guard outposts but the two we saw were abandoned. Still, we knew we were getting close.

  The trail ended abruptly and we came to a sudden halt. Just past a tall clump of jambu, a clearing revealed seven or eight huts clustered along the fringe of the jungle surrounding neatly-tended, square fields. We saw no one except for a child, naked and covered with dark blood, standing outside one of the huts. He appeared to be in shock and swayed on bare feet, blank eyes unfocused and wide, with a stained bandage taped to his side. The VC often used children as living bombs and we approached carefully but the boy carried no explosives or other weapons that we could see. He did, however, have several bite marks on him that looked oddly human.

  We skirted the child and cleared each hut. All were empty but we found helmets and several folding shovels. That was proof enough that our men had been here at some point and gave u
s hope they were still alive. I paused inside the last hut, thinking something smelled wrong here. A stench of rot lingered in the still air. I checked the dirt floor to see if anything had been buried but the dirt was solidly packed and undisturbed.

  I heard a disturbance outside and emerged to see Sergeant Wall trying to pull the bloodied child off of a furious Dalton. The soldier held his bleeding wrist in front of him and glared at the boy who growled and twisted in the sergeant’s grip. He twisted about and his dripping mouth clamped down on Wall’s arm. Fortunately the sergeant had his jacket on and all the child bit was a mouthful of canvas.

  The sergeant flung him away, sending him sprawling in the dust but the child immediately began to crawl back. Sarge backed away but the boy never stopped attacking until the sergeant picked him up and threw him into the trees, hitting his head against a mangrove. His skull cracked and covered the tree with a dark ichor. He didn’t get back up. The body stank as if the child had been dead for weeks.

  “We’ve lost too much time. I want everyone to spread out. Use the walkies to stay in touch, and everyone meet back here at 1200 hours. We need to wrap this up today.” Wall gestured and we split but none of us got very far.

  Two VC, dirty and exhausted, emerged from a camouflaged pit less than thirty meters into the jungle and, hands held high, surrendered. We disarmed them before the sergeant questioned them. Both claimed to know nothing about our missing guys but one of them had a Zippo lighter and a pack of Winfields.

  “You know where they are and you’re going to tell me!” The sergeant shook him like a dog shakes a rat. The soldier’s shoulders slumped and he stood and nodded, seeming resigned. His compatriot was silent.

  They led us a short distance into the jungle to a pit the top of which was overlaid with fern and bamboo branches. I suspected a trap and kept my eyes on the trees around us. The smell of death was overwhelming. Angry, Sgt. Wall shoved one of the VC toward the pit.

  He screamed something like “Bo doi!” and tried to run but Sarge shot his knee out. He fell to the ground and rolled in agony.

  A pulley was rigged to a platform that could be lowered and raised to get the prisoners out. The rope was wrapped around a tree. I was closest to the pit, dreading what we were going to see when a faint rustling and then a moan arose from the hole. Someone down there was still alive. I reached around and unwrapped the pulley rope.

  The VC started to holler again when he saw us start to pull that rope. I’ve never seen anyone more terrified. The bloody bugger kept yelling “Bo doi!” and tried to stand on that shattered knee, falling down in agony but still pulling himself away, fingers hooked into claws that dug into the jungle floor.

  The moaning grew louder and the smell of rot and death was suffocating in the close, moist air. Just from the odor I knew we would be dealing with dead bodies or at least a lot of gangrene. The groaning sounded agonized. I knew the VC used torture but I had hoped I would never see it close-up.

  The platform stopped and we pulled it over to level ground. We were surprised that as well as a few of our men there were non-combatants on there. Women and children crawled over each other in their eagerness to escape and all of them were wounded in some way.

  Two children stumbled clumsily off the platform and, to our amazement, attacked the wounded VC soldier, latching on to him and burrowing into his exposed flesh with their teeth and hands. Shocked, we didn’t understand what was happening and I think we all just froze for a few seconds, watching until the little girl bit into his throat and blood fountained out in a dark, red arc. The soldier’s screams turned to choked gurgles and then he wasn’t moving anymore.

  Something grabbed me by the shoulder and jerked me back hard. I turned to face one of our guys. He reeked of rot and his flesh was a sickly, gray-white. He opened his mouth wide and I saw beetles and worms crawling about the blackened tongue just before he tried to take a bite out of my face. Luckily I flinched and that mouth hit my helmet, knocking me backwards so hard I thought my neck had snapped. I sprawled on the ground and he fell on top of me, that hideously searching mouth still biting. Instinctively, I pulled my knife and thrust it up, driving it into his eye. I swear he didn’t even bleed, just twitched a little then collapsed. Rolling him off of me I retrieved my knife. There was no blood on the blade, just black goo that stank like you wouldn’t believe.

  All about me we were fighting the wounded, both the villagers and our guys. The other VC soldier was screaming something. Sergeant Wall paused to listen then shouted, “Shoot them in the HEAD, the HEAD!”

  We did. Even now it’s hard to recollect the horror of deliberately shooting women and children, not to mention our own guys. I don’t know what the VC did to them but all of them had serious wounds and advanced gangrene. I honestly don’t know how they were able to move. We threw the bodies in the pit and torched them. The rising column of smoke was like a billboard alerting anyone to our location so we did double-time back to base camp.

  Sergeant Wall made sure we kept radio silence all the way back and told us not to speak of the mission to anyone on the radio until he filed his report. He spent a good deal of the evening questioning the prisoner. Apparently “bo doi” means “devil” in Vietnamese and, according to our prisoner, that is what those villagers and soldiers were, or had become. He said the only way to kill them is to burn or behead them, preferably both. He claimed to have no idea what had happened to the rest of the platoon and though we searched, we never found any more information on their whereabouts.

  Private Dalton grew worse overnight and the sergeant reckoned he had blood poisoning. The bite on his arm turned black and gangrenous. The next day a chopper landed at camp and medics loaded him on board along with the captured VC.

  The secrecy of our location was now compromised with all the activity so we broke camp and took up a new position, further north. The reports the North Vietcong and our own press put out later about the incident were incomplete and biased. Those creatures were not innocent women and children, slaughtered indiscriminately. I don’t think there was a soldier in our platoon who didn’t have nightmares about that day. I know I still do.

  Bea closed the laptop and rolled over onto her back in the velvet mound of emerald moss. She had found this secluded little alcove this morning and begged Fitz to let her use his laptop again. Checking her email proved as fruitless as usual so she was once again going through the British files. The last three days had been quiet as they waited for some sign or communique from the Chinese ship. So far they had heard nothing.

  Brian and Moshe spent their time shooting at an improvised target with the bow and arrow set Moshe had found. Moshe was quite a good archer and before long Brian wasn’t bad either.

  The wall was complete. Unless the coming dead were able to climb the sheer, steel plates, scale the scree then the cliff, they should be okay.

  She had been helping with meals and training with weapons. She had cleaned, disassembled, and loaded almost every type of firearm they had. After this she was issued a Glock, almost identical to the one she lost in the river. Lacking a holster, she stashed the gun in one of the front pockets of her cargo pants for easy access.

  They were all on high alert. Mei had packaged their medical supplies for easy transport. Fitz issued everyone a backpack containing water, a knife, and two MREs. Stacks of inflatable boats, grappling rope ladders inside, were tied close to the gate.

  It was almost time to set up for supper. The electricity had been on now for close to a week and the meals were consequently much improved. A foraging group found three hens yesterday and triumphantly carried them back, holding them upside down as they squawked. This morning a bedraggled rooster showed up, no doubt looking for his lost harem. All four now scratched contentedly at the bottom of the garden.

  A hot, dry wind started blowing in from the east two days ago. If they slept with the tent flaps open they woke up in the mornings covered with a fine grit. After sleeping in the heat of the sealed tent for one
night they decided they preferred the grit.

  Bea returned the little laptop to Fitz and just as she started down the path to the kitchen she heard a sound, a deep sigh that escalated into a moan but like the moans from a thousand people in ghastly agony. Sentries at the top of the hill were signaling frantically. At the same time the breeze brought a scent of mold and decay, like meat turning, but not quite rotten yet. She ran back up to the hill overlooking the scree. They were here.

  Chapter Fourteen

  At first just a few clustered around the base of the wall. Over the past week Bea had gotten used to the slow, shambling pace of the local dead. These were different. Their movements were faster and much more coordinated. They didn’t just run stupidly into the barriers, they seemed to be testing them for openings or weak spots. When they came to the spot where the barriers met the rock cliffs, they continued to dig and grope for handholds. Bea caught her breath when one of them clawed away a loose section of rock.

  Brian, Moshe and most of the camp soon joined her. Despite all the training over the past few days, hardly anyone carried their evacuation packs. A few even brought snacks and continued to munch as if they were watching a movie.

  Some, though, brought their weapons and were starting to aim them down at the dead before Colonel Hamilton showed up and told them to put them away. He moved through the crowd, repeating the same speech at intervals, speaking quietly but with urgency.

  “That’s useless, people. We can’t kill them all. Get your gear together and remember the drill.”

  The dead continued to flow into the narrow canyon and spread out along the wall. That musty, moldy scent grew stronger mixed with a faint whiff of decay. Many, many of them were featureless with raw, charred-looking skin.