by David Moody
He stopped talking momentarily, his eyes damp with tears, and looked around at the faces which watched him intently.
‘Yeah, I got a kid too,’ Escobedo said. ‘Name’s Joey. About the same age as your kid by the sounds of things. Cuts me up not knowing where he is or even if he’s safe.’
Lieutenant Coley moved closer to the German and put his hand on his shoulder. ‘I trust this guy,’ he announced. He looked straight at him. ‘Talk, Erwin. If you know anything you haven’t told us yet, talk.’
Von Boeselager took a deep breath. ‘The serum was created by scientists at the Polonezköy camp in Poland. Their brief was to create an unstoppable super-soldier, but they were only partially successful. There were two strands to their research, as I understand: prolonging life and increasing strength and ferocity. As you can see from the crowd outside this building, they succeeded to an extent, but at the expense of control.’
‘You’re not telling us nothing we don’t already know,’ Lieutenant Parker said.
Von Boeselager ignored him. ‘With the surprise attack in this region already being planned, our leaders ignored the scientists’ concerns and deployed the serum in its current unstable form while their research continued. In fact, I understand that one of the scientist’s reservations resulted in him being removed from the project altogether. He is being held at the concentration camp.’
‘What reservations did he express?’ Wilkins asked.
‘The contagious aspect of the condition. He warned that it would inevitably get out of control if the infection was released into the wild.’
‘And it has.’
‘That has certainly proved to be the case.’
‘Wait, wait, wait...’ Gunderson interrupted. ‘Let’s slow down a second here. This guy’s doing a heck of a lot of talking, but he ain’t saying much. You’re making it sound like there’s nothing can be done about this whole damn mess you’ve made, Fritz.’
‘I didn’t say that. There is...’
Von Boeselager stopped himself.
‘What?’ Parker said, aiming a pistol directly into the German’s face.
‘I’ve said enough.’
Parker was ready to fire. Wilkins positioned himself between the two of them. ‘Wait.’
‘He’s stringing us along...’
‘I don’t believe so. Herr von Boeselager is a clever man.’
‘We should feed him to the dead,’ Gunderson suggested.
‘And what would that achieve exactly? No, gentlemen, our German friend is giving us a master-class in negotiation. His knowledge is his bargaining chip.’
‘If he even has any knowledge. Who says he ain’t just stringing us along?’
‘That’s a chance I have to take.’
‘Lieutenant Wilkins is right. If I told you everything I know now, there would be no reason for you to keep me alive.’
‘I can’t see there’s much reason to do that anyway,’ Gunderson said.
‘I just want to get out of here and go home,’ von Boeselager said. ‘I want to get back to my family and see them before it is too late.’
‘And if we agree and you and I leave here today?’ Wilkins asked.
‘Then I’ll tell you everything I know. I swear.’
10
OUTSIDE IN THE RUINS
In a small walled courtyard behind the building in which they’d spent much of the last twenty-four hours, Wilkins, Parker and Gunderson had managed to find a safe pocket of space to explore, protected from the hordes of the dead by rubble and ruin. Wilkins uncovered a BBA035 motorcycle. It looked to have sustained only superficial damage. ‘Start it up, give it a blast,’ Parker suggested, but Wilkins declined. They spoke in hushed whispers.
‘What, and ruin the surprise? No, thank you. I’ll wait until we’re ready to leave.’
‘And if it doesn’t start?’
‘Then von Boeselager and I will be running.’
‘Quite a chance you’re taking.’
‘Less of a chance than if I was to start the engine here and now. I’ll wager the dead would find a way to pour through every available crack and crevice to get to us. Remember, wiping us out and adding to their ranks is all they’re interested in. It’s their very reason for existing. We’d all do well not to forget that.’
‘Don’t think I could forget it. I think about it every time I look at one of the damn things.’
A few minutes more work and Wilkins was ready. Gunderson – something of a grease-monkey – had checked the bike over as best he could and given it as clean a bill of health as possible given the circumstances. While he’d worked, Parker and Wilkins had cleared enough debris from an area of ground to enable the bike to be ridden out of this safe space. They’d placed a number of timber joists next to each other and rested them against the top of what had originally been a five foot brick wall, creating a makeshift exit ramp.
Done.
Time to move.
Wilkins leant back into the building and gave a thumbs-up to Coley who was watching from the top of the stairs. He, in turn, gave Escobedo the word, then escorted von Boeselager down to ground level. Wilkins gestured for the German to take the controls of the bike. ‘The hell are you doing, soldier?’ Parker asked. ‘You’re letting the kraut drive? You must be as stupid as Gunderson here looks.’
Gunderson grunted in disgust.
‘We’re both about to risk our lives out there, Lieutenant. I have to trust him, and he has to trust me. Otherwise neither of us are going to last long, are we?’
‘Don’t reckon you’re going to last long anyway, in all honesty.’
‘For all our sakes I hope we do. Now can we get things moving please?’
Parker nodded.
Coley shook von Boeselager’s hand. ‘Thank you. Good luck.’
‘You too, Lieutenant.’
Wilkins sat on the back of the bike and wrapped his arms around the German’s waist. High above them, Escobedo hung precariously out of the top floor window looking down. When he saw they were ready, he pulled the pin from a grenade and hurled it as far as he could across the packed square. Then another.
Two loud blasts in quick succession. Wilkins felt them travel up through his feet and into his belly.
One more grenade. Their meagre stock was being rapidly emptied.
Another explosion, then a deep, growling, thunderous noise as what was left of a café collapsed in on itself like a house of cards.
‘Do it,’ Wilkins ordered.
‘This is madness.’
‘I know. Fun, isn’t it?’
Von Boeselager kick-started the bike, and on the third attempt it roared into life. He rocked back, then powered forward, straight up the low ramp they’d built, and over the top of the wall.
If the grenades didn’t distract them, thought Wilkins, then we’re dead men.
The bike crashed down into an area of relative space on the fringes of the crowd, the suspension almost giving out under the weight but just about holding up. The back wheel threatened to kick out from under them, but von Boeselager instinctively hung out the other way to compensate, then swung back and accelerated hard.
The plan appeared to be working. When Wilkins looked up (he’d initially had his eyes shut and his head down) he saw that the explosions and the crumbling building had, mercifully, distracted many of the hundreds of rabid corpses which had continued to swarm here in the town square. It had left this side of the square – the area through which he and von Boeselager now rode at speed – relatively clear. Those members of the massive dead army which were interested more by the bike than the bang now found that they couldn’t get through. With half the rotting crowd trying to go in one direction and the rest of them the other, very few of the corpses were actually going anywhere.
Von Boeselager accelerated again, weaving this way and that, still nowhere near sure they were going to make it.
From his high vantage point Escobedo watched the motorcycle race away. The two men were out of si
ght in seconds, but the engine of the bike could still be heard minutes later. And, to his selfish delight, he noticed that their noise seemed to be of incredible interest to hordes of the dead. Sections of the vast rotting crowd had begun to move en masse, fruitlessly chasing after them.
The soldier ran down to the others who were waiting for him in the rubble downstairs.
‘This gonna work?’ asked Lieutenant Coley.
‘We’ll soon find out,’ Lieutenant Parker replied.
Their escape route had been planned, both in terms of getting away from the immediate area and getting out of Bastogne and on to Assenois. Working quickly and quietly, Parker and Gunderson scaled a wall then reached back for the others and their supplies. It took little more than a couple of minutes to complete the evacuation. Coley cleared a few undead stragglers out of their way. One of them came hard at him, but a fist to the face followed by a bowie knife between the eyes dealt with the threat.
Gunderson went for another one of the creatures, but Parker held him back. The dead woman was walking away from them, hypnotised like so many others by a combination of the ruins of the collapsed café building and the distant whine of the disappearing motorbike.
‘We good?’ Lieutenant Parker asked, looking around at the others. He didn’t need to wait for an answer. He knew that they were.
11
ESCAPE
The motorcycle raced out of Bastogne. Wilkins held onto von Boeselager for dear life. The German struggled to stay focussed, such was the number of horrific sights they witnessed as they sped away from the town and out through the Belgian countryside. A Mark V Panther blocked the road and von Boeselager had to swerve around to avoid its stationary cannon. The tank was as dead as its crew. Just one soldier was moving. White suit, cold flesh... he reached out for the bike as it powered past but could only grab at the warm air it left in its wake.
The dead were somewhat fewer in number out here, though they were never far. Wilkins had naively hoped that because the town had been so heavily clogged by these despicable creatures, the countryside might be relatively clear. How wrong he’d been. Von Boeselager lost control of the bike when the front tyre sank into a pothole which had been hidden by snow, and despite his best efforts, he and Wilkins were sent skidding along the track. Von Boeselager immediately saw to the bike, leaving Wilkins to defend their position because a swarm was already nearing. He used his clasp knife to dispatch several of them until the German had righted the machine and was ready to leave. Wilkins, who was grappling with a particularly noxious foe, put a bullet between the dead man’s eyes then shoved the lifeless corpse away.
‘Behind you!’ von Boeselager shouted, and Wilkins span around to see another hideous cadaver coming at him at speed. The creature was close enough for its outstretched fingertips to brush Wilkins’ tunic. He kicked the monster away and ran for the bike.
‘Just go!’ he shouted, and as the bike began to move, Wilkins looked back over his shoulder, his heart thumping, at the place they’d just been. The dead were crawling out from between the trees in ever-increasing numbers. It was almost as if the forest was alive.
Mile after mile, Von Boeselager struggled to balance speed with safety. If anything, he drove too slowly, not wanting to risk losing control again. Last time they’d been lucky, but they both knew luck was in short supply these days.
A fork in the road.
To the right, the fighting at the front. To the left, everything else. Wilkins still gripped his pistol and wondered whether he’d need to use it or whether von Boeselager would continue to play ball. He was relieved when the German asked, ‘which way?’
‘By my reckoning I need to travel another two miles west.’
‘West? But that’s back towards the fighting.’
‘I know.’
Von Boeselager was distracted. More dead soldiers were approaching. Gnarled faces and twisted bodies. ‘We need to move.’
‘What’s your first name?’
‘What? Now is not the time for this.’
‘I don’t think I’ll see you again, old chap.’
‘Erwin. My name is Erwin.’
‘Pleased to have met you, Erwin. I’m Robert.’
‘And have you gone quite mad, Robert?’
‘Not at all, my friend. I just thought it was important for us to part as men, not soldiers.’
The dead were nearing.
‘You want to part here? We must keep moving.’
‘We need to go our separate ways. We both have important missions ahead of us. Yours is to return to your family and keep them safe. Mine, I’m afraid, is a little more onerous.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘And that’s probably for the best.’
Wilkins dismounted. Von Boeselager looked at him with incredulity. ‘What are you doing?’
‘My duty,’ Wilkins replied, and he stepped to one side and fired a single well-aimed shot which brought down the nearest corpse.
The sound of the motorcycle’s engine was like a call to the faithful. As they’d both expected, the periphery was alive with movement now.
‘Go,’ Wilkins said. ‘I’ll be fine from here. Thank you.’
Von Boeselager paused, clearly unsure. ‘Wait... before we part...’
‘What?’
‘The camp I told you about... the scientists responsible for this nightmare...’
‘What about them?’
‘One was Swedish, the other from the Vaterland.’
‘And?’
‘And I was told that the Swede realised the full implications of the work he was being ordered to do, and he rebelled. That’s why they continue to hold him in Polonezköy.’
‘And the German?’
‘I have already explained. He was taken back to Berlin to complete his work to create a super-soldier with the strength of the monsters we’ve seen, but with more control and consideration.’
‘That doesn’t bear thinking about,’ Wilkins said, and he broke away momentarily to take care of the next nearest cadaver.
‘The Swede was trying to develop something that would stop the condition from progressing...’
‘An inhibitor? That would make sense. It’s the only option, I guess. A cure would be out of the question. How can you cure something that’s already dead?’
‘Quite.’
‘It is not much but I have told you everything I know, I am afraid. Do you believe me?’
Wilkins thought for a moment. ‘I believe I do. We want the same thing, you and I.’
There were seven corpses closing in now. Several were moving with increased speed. Wilkins holstered his pistol.
‘Go,’ he said. ‘Get out of here. Get home and do what you need to do.’
‘But I cannot leave you out here like this...’
‘I’ll be fine. Now go! Find your family!’
And with that Wilkins turned and ran along the road that stretched deeper into the forest. Von Boeselager roared away in the opposite direction.
The dead were everywhere. He could sense them. Feel them. Fortunately, as he’d found previously, by slowing down and mimicking their often clumsy and ponderous movements, he was able temporarily to fool them into thinking he was just another of their number. Mostly. Through bad luck he rounded the broad trunk of an ancient Norwegian Spruce at the exact same time a disfigured Nazi corpse came the other way. The dead soldier’s reactions were guttural, his speed surprising but no match for Wilkins. By the time the creature had opened its jaws, yellowed teeth ready to clamp down and rip the British man’s flesh from his bones, Wilkins had already struck. He plunged the blade of his clasp knife into the dead man’s temple, and his artificially prolonged life was ended instantly. He fell to the ground with the grace of a sack of potatoes. Wilkins wiped his blade on his trousers then moved on.
He checked his map and compass again in the eerie half-light of the forest, taking care not to draw any more unwanted attention than was necessary. The sun was all but h
idden behind a layer of impenetrable grey cloud which was, in turn, hidden by the tree canopy overhead. If his calculations were accurate and his bearings were right, he’d reach the road to Liege soon enough, and from there he’d head west to the village. He was moving in the right direction, he was sure he was, but it didn’t take much to ignite his nagging self-doubts today. Here he was, completely alone in a war-torn, foreign land, swarming with an unnatural enemy, with his sweetheart hundreds and hundreds of miles away and what felt like the weight of the world on his shoulders. Things couldn’t get much worse.
Or could they?
He froze when he heard more sounds of movement nearby. More corpses? The noise was initially directionless, confused by the dense mass of trees. The camouflage they provided was welcome, but the way they diffracted the light and sound was not. He pressed himself up against another trunk and peered around, trying to see without being seen, ready to repel the next vicious attack.
A Nazi patrol.
He could tell from the way they were moving that the figures up ahead were human. Constant noises were audible now over the soldiers’ bluster – the engines of several jeeps, weapons being readied, orders being shouted. From the little he could make out, these men seemed to be retreating back from the front. He tried to believe it was the allies forcing them back, but he knew it almost certainly wouldn’t be.
Wilkins held his position – uncomfortably close – and watched as the increasingly frenzied movement continued. He heard voices yelling. ‘Schnell, schnell! Holen sie sich das haubitze in Position!’
It looked like they were the remnants of one of the Volksartilleriekorps. Field reports Wilkins had heard had intimated that they’d proved to be ill-equipped and had been left behind as the German front had advanced as part of Hitler’s surprise offensive across the Ardennes.
‘Schnell! Die monster kommen!’
Wilkins couldn’t risk going backwards or forwards, and instead he went up. He swiftly hauled himself up into the branches of the first tree he found with boughs low enough and strong enough to support his weight. He hugged the trunk of a tired old oak for all he was worth. A distinctly British tree in unfamiliar surroundings. Memories of home gave him the slightest crumb of comfort. And in the same way this lone oak stood proud amongst the spruce, he quickly realised how his survival out here was due in no small part to the fact he was on his own. The old adage of there being safety in numbers usually held true, but not today.