The Front (Book 2): Red Devils
Page 19
He slumped in the corner with his back against the wall and waited for the inevitable. It was just a few minutes later when the wood splintered and they came surging up into the loft.
McCarthy saved a bullet for the first of them, but wished he’d held onto it for the creature following immediately behind. Sergeant Phillips. The reanimated corpse of his squad leader was trapped halfway through the hatch. McCarthy had a single bullet left. Did he put his sergeant out of his eternal misery, or end his own suffering before it began?
The shot rang around the flesh-filled farm, echoing across the emptiness, causing the dead to surge and herd again, converging on the isolated outpost. McCarthy lowered himself out of the hayloft window and dropped into the decaying crowd below, using them to cushion his fall.
He was up and on his feet again in seconds. Punching and shoving with one hand, slicing and stabbing with the blade he held in the other. From here it looked like all of mainland Europe had been overcome by the dead, but McCarthy was still alive, and by God, he was going to go out fighting.
33
AT THE FRONT
TO THE EAST – THE ELSENBORN RIDGE
The shells were fired as quickly as they could be delivered to the front. In the space of a couple of days, the entire area had been all but destroyed, changed beyond all recognition. Virtually no tree remained standing in the Rocherath forest. Craters were filled with ice- and snow-covered bodies. For as far as anyone could see in any direction, human remains covered the ground.
But still they kept fighting.
The decaying enemy continued to advance, their numbers undiminished, but the 99th Infantry Division would never surrender.
34
AT THE FRONT
SOUTH OF BASTOGNE
They’d spent too long on the back-foot. It was time to reverse the tide.
Lieutenant Coley ordered a group of men to advance onto a section of land that had just been hit with a barrage of shells. ‘Get in quick,’ he shouted over the chaos. ‘You find anything moving out there, you hit it hard until it lies still. Understand?’
‘Yessir,’ came the reply from several American soldiers as they piled forward.
Coley felt a hard slap on his shoulder and he span around fast, rifle primed and ready to fire. ‘Whoa, now, take it easy,’ said Escobedo. ‘Good to see you too, Lieutenant.’
‘Sorry, Escobedo. Never been so tired, but I’ve never been so keen to keep fighting, neither.’
‘I know what you mean.’
‘Can’t remember the last time I slept for anything longer than a couple of minutes.’
‘You making progress here, though?’
‘It’s damn slow, but yeah. We’re getting there. We’re moving in the right direction now, at least. Tactics are pretty straightforward – hit ’em hard, then clear the way through.’
Escobedo went to move on, but then stopped. He checked himself. Munitions exploded in the near distance, and a prolonged barrage of machine gun fire ripped through the air nearby. Foul-smelling smoke drifted between the two men. ‘Reckon we’re going to make it?’ he asked.
‘Damn right we are, soldier,’ Coley said without hesitation. ‘There’s no way we’re going to let all this have been for nothing. Get your head down, get fighting, and keep fighting ’til there’s not a single one of those diseased bastards left standing. You hear me?’
‘I hear you, sir,’ Escobedo said, and he shouldered his rifle and charged headlong into battle.
Coley surveyed the devastation ahead of him. A world in ruins. Americans killing Americans who’d already died once before. Nazis fighting alongside sworn enemies to defeat an even greater foe. Civilians burning corpses and delivering supplies.
This was a battle which had to be fought.
A war which had to be won.
35
POCKLINGTON HALL
Wilkins barely had time to get himself clean and his wounds seen to before he found himself in front of Colonel Adams again. ‘Good job, Wilkins,’ the colonel said. ‘It appears that strange little girl you brought back with you might just be the key. Our scientists believe she carries enough information to enable them to understand this abhorrent condition and put an end to it. She’s infected with a variant of the germ, by all accounts.’
‘Doctor Månsson gave his life to protect her.’
‘Then let us hope his sacrifice wasn’t in vain.’
The colonel seemed downbeat. Broken, almost. Wilkins tried to focus but all he wanted was to go out into the operations room and look for Jocelyn. He thought he’d caught a glimpse of her through a window a few moments ago. There’d been times in the last few hours he’d thought he’d never see her again.
‘The news from the front isn’t good, Wilkins. The situation is at tipping point. Between the Nazis and the undead, our forces are being beaten back. We’re struggling to hold ground.’
‘So the sooner our chaps can produce a cure, the better.’
‘If only it were that simple. As quickly as we’re trying to tame the disease, the Nazis are doing everything they can to increase and harness its power, to rid themselves of its unpredictability. By all accounts, we understand they’re close to cracking the problem too.’
The news was like a hammer blow to Wilkins. ‘Good Lord. What can we do?’
‘We believe an all-out assault on the bunker in Berlin where the work is being carried out is the only option available to us.’
‘A bunker? In the German capital? The very heart of the Reich’s stranglehold on power? Such a mission would be suicidal.’
Colonel Adams gestured for Wilkins to follow him. ‘Come with me.’
He took Wilkins down into the bowels of Pocklington Hall again, past the guarded door to the room where the undead remains of Raymond Mills continued to be held (and Wilkins could hear Mills crashing about in there even now). They came to another door in another corridor, guarded by two imperious-looking, black-suited troops. They exchanged salutes, then the colonel waved them away. Working in perfect synchronisation, the guards both turned keys in the door then slid across bolts and released latches.
It was more like the door to a bank vault than a prison cell, and inside it looked more like a hotel room than a gaol.
The relatively luxurious looking room had a single occupant. SS- Obergruppenführer Jakob Wolfensohn stood to attention, clicked his heels and saluted.
‘It appears we have a way in,’ Colonel Adams said.
36
TOGETHER AT LAST... BUT FOR HOW LONG?
Wilkins held Jocelyn tight as they watched the golden sun dip below the horizon. The grounds of Pocklington Hall were silent, as if every last man and woman were resting in preparation for the next fight. ‘Promise you’ll never leave me again?’ she whispered.
Wilkins looked deep into her beautifully clear eyes. He pictured them becoming clouded with infection. He pictured Jocelyn’s perfect lips drawing into a snarl and her teeth biting into his flesh. He pictured his wonderful fiancé transformed into one of those hellish creatures he'd fought in Bastogne and at Polonezköy, damned to walk the Earth in endless pain for all eternity.
‘No, my love, I cannot make such a promise.’
‘But you must.’
‘Not until the war is won, Jocelyn. Not until the world is rid of both the Nazis and the undead menace they have unleashed.’
‘But Robert, you’ve done your part.’
‘No, Jocelyn. My fight has only just begun.’
The End
The series will continue with
THE FRONT: BERLIN OR BUST
Coming soon from
Craig DiLouie
AFTERWORD
I was honoured to be asked to be a part of this project by Craig and Tim, who’d come up with the idea for the series in May 2015 while they’d been discussing the zombie genre at Crypticon Seattle. When the invitation came I said yes without hesitation.
Those of you who know my work will also know that this book is
very different to the usual kind of story I write. My books are usually contemporary in their setting, and almost always feature a cast of ordinary people who find themselves thrust, usually through no fault of their own, into extraordinary situations. Wrong place, wrong time.
When I started researching and writing this book, it struck me how many millions of people found themselves in that exact situation during World War II: ordinary people, extraordinary situations. Sitting here now, enjoying a life of relative comfort and security, it’s easy to forget that, not too long ago, untold numbers of men and women were forced to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect our freedoms. As time goes on and we increasingly focus on the many issues of today, we can lose sight of the efforts and achievements of those just a few generations older than ourselves.
Writing this book brought a lot of things into focus for me. It left me with a new found appreciation and respect for those who lived and served through World War II.
I’m no history scholar or military buff, so I have taken numerous massive liberties with the facts (we’re writing about zombies after all!). Though the events of the Battle of the Bulge form a backdrop to this novel and to the entire series, the further we get from Tim’s excellent first novel, the more fantastic our story will inevitably become. This book is an adventure story at heart, one which might have been torn from the pages of a tattered copy of Boy’s Own back in the day, and I very much hope that you’ve enjoyed it.
I can’t wait to see what Craig has in store for us in BERLIN OR BUST!
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
DAVID MOODY grew up on a diet of trashy horror and pulp science fiction. He worked as a bank manager before giving up the day job to write about the end of the world for a living.
He has written a number of horror novels, including AUTUMN, which has been downloaded more than half a million times since publication in 2001 and spawned a series of sequels and a movie starring Dexter Fletcher and David Carradine.
Film rights to HATER were snapped up by Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth, Pacific Rim) and Mark Johnson (Breaking Bad). Moody lives with his wife and a houseful of daughters and stepdaughters, which may explain his pre-occupation with Armageddon. Find out more about Moody:
www.davidmoody.net
www.infectedbooks.co.uk
CRAIG DILOUIE is the author of SUFFER THE CHILDREN (Simon & Schuster, May 2014) and the bestselling zombie novels TOOTH AND NAIL (START/Salvo Press, April 2010), THE INFECTION (Permuted Press, February 2011), its sequel THE KILLING FLOOR (Permuted Press, April 2012), and the RETREAT series with Joe McKinney and Stephen Knight.
He has also authored the CRASH DIVE series, a WWII submarine thriller; THE GREAT PLANET ROBBERY, a military sci-fi comedy; and PARANOIA, a psychological thriller.
As a technical writer, he has also written several non-fiction books about lighting and electrical design.
Craig blogs about apocalyptic and horror books and films regularly at:
www.craigdilouie.com
TIMOTHY W LONG has been writing tales and stories since he could hold a crayon and has read enough books to choke a landfill. Tim has a fascination with all things zombie, a predilection for weird literature, and a deep-seated need to jot words on paper and thrust them at people. Tim spent time in the US Navy, worked for a major game corporation, an aeronautics company, and he has been in the IT field for the last 15 years as an engineer before becoming a full time author. He is an active member of Horror Writers Association, SFWA, and International Thriller Writers.
Tim resides outside of Seattle where he spends time with his partner in crime, Amanda, as well as 2 children, 2 dogs of various sizes and dispositions, and a near constant supply of overpriced and overcooked coffee beans.
http://timothywlong.com
Table of Contents
Copyright
Also by David Moody
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Afterword
About the Authors