by Brett, Cal
He heard the shouting again, this time closer. He still couldn’t tell what they were saying, but there were definitely several distinct voices and by their inflections he guessed they were barking instructions at each other. The shouts while loud, were not those of fear or confusion, rather they seemed to be controlled and calm.
The last undead went down with another head shot. This time the skull didn’t explode. A small hole burst from just behind the thing’s ear followed by a plume of pink and gray dust. Its knees buckled and it collapsed into a heap near its companions. These guys were not only well armed, they were also very good shots. Robbie began to get worried. The sound of the voices moved closer and he thought he could even hear the crunch of their footsteps. They were definitely coming down the drive into the loading dock.
Chapter 20
Robbie tensed up and waited. He glanced down at the door to the utility room, which he knew to be locked, and he hoped it would be enough of a deterrent to keep out this armed band. Over the years, he and Kelly had encountered a number of groups of living human survivors, armed and otherwise. Only the Baldwin sisters had proven to be altruistic. The rest were bad news and Robbie did not have high hopes for this one.
Just then, a man stepped into Robbie’s line of sight in the loading dock and quickly turned facing down the narrow alley leading to the room where he was hiding. He had some sort of small rifle lifted up against his shoulder and he aimed it left and right as he scanned the area. He was dressed in green camouflage and brown leather combat boots. This was the style of dress that had been adopted by many survivors but the way the man moved, with a kind of purpose, made Robbie think he really was, or had been, military.
In addition to the camo and boots, the man was wearing an odd-looking helmet, a green backpack, knee pads, tactical gloves and what looked like a bullet proof vest. All the gear made him look like a character right out of one of the old X-Box combat games. Even the most well equipped of the marauders and survivalists, he had encountered, had abandoned all the extra gear as too cumbersome and heavy. It was great to have a gun, but there was only so much ammo and eventually you were going to have to run, climb or crawl to get away. All that gear would just slow you down and make you lunch. This guy was either bat-shit crazy or part of some militia. Either way, Robbie surmised, not a character he wanted to meet face to face. Robbie remained still on his perch and hoped the man would not be able to see him through the high windows.
The man called out. “Clear!” His voice was muted, but he was close enough now that Robbie understood the words.
Another similarly dressed man stepped out, pointing his rifle in the other direction. He must have been standing a few feet back, out of sight, the whole time. The second man peeled off and went over to check behind the large green dumpsters on the other side of the loading docks. A few moments later, he also shouted out. “Clear!” He then returned to the center of the drive in a running crouch and kneeled facing back towards the street. The first man did another quick scan of the loading docks before also spinning and facing out.
Robbie heard several shouts from down the drive before two more men ran past the two kneeling and spun back facing out almost like it were some sort of dance. There was another few rounds of overlapping pop, pop, pops from down the driveway. Robbie assumed they were gunshots but couldn’t see the source. He also thought it was curious that they didn’t seem very loud. He didn’t know much about guns but had expected the reports to make more noise.
Five more of the military looking figures suddenly raced past the first group. One of the men who trotted into the alley, had a thick black mustache. “Right lads, square up in here, out of sight.” He called back over his shoulder, then pointing at Robbie’s door added, “Corporal Stewart! Check that door!”
A stocky dark-skinned man broke out from the group now rushing into the alley and sprinted to the door.
Robbie heard the lock jiggle.
“Locked, Sir!” The soldier shouted.
“Well bloody well open it!” The man with the black mustache ordered, from his position at the corner, peering back towards the street. He then added to the group. “Steady lads! They’re coming!”
Robbie didn’t have to wonder who or what might be coming.
The group of soldiers backed up into a defensive stance about ten feet from the mouth of the alley. They formed up, shoulder to shoulder, facing out with three kneeling in front and three standing behind with the mustached man taking a place in the middle.
Behind the defensive line, Robbie noticed one man not dressed in army gear. He had thinning, sandy blonde hair and a thick brown mustache. He looked more like he was on a safari than a military maneuver, wearing brown boots, tan cargo pants, a thick button-down long sleeve shirt and a vest covered in pockets. Unlike the others, he didn’t have a rifle. Instead, wielded a pistol which he likely carried in the black shoulder holster wrapped to his chest.
While the man they called Stewart tried to pick the lock, the others stood their ground as a large group of undead stumbled into the cargo area and seemed to immediately home in on their position. From the size of the group pressing in, Robbie knew the soldiers didn’t stand much of a chance unless they had enough ammunition to literally shoot and stack the dead so high that they couldn’t get past their own bodies.
“Fire at will!” The man with the black mustache shouted and the pop, pop, popping started up again as the men started shooting. The dead began falling but each one that went down opened a space for two more to step over them towards the group. The entire dock area was quickly filling up from wall to wall and the narrow opening into the alley was starting to look like a meat grinder as gruesome faces crowded into the gap and were quickly blasted back.
To Robbie’s surprise the little militia were holding them back, barely, and the fallen twice dead bodies were actually piling up, slowing the preternatural creatures.
One of the men yelled. “Changing mags!” He quickly dropped an empty ammunition cartridge and rammed home another full one. The process took less than a few seconds, but the dead took advantage of the gap in firing by moving up a step closer.
“Watch your lanes!” a large man with a brown beard growled from the back line.
Other men began shouting. “Changing mags!” These lapses in fire were letting the zombies inch slowly closer. Robbie wondered how much ammo these guys had.
“How’s that bloody door coming, Corporal!?” The man with the black mustache yelled.
“Working on it, Sir!” came the reply.
“Well, work a little harder if you don’t mind!” The man yelled as he changed out his own magazine.
Robbie couldn’t see Stewart at the door, but he could hear him cursing while he alternated between working on the lock and kicking and banging on the latch. He began to wonder if he should let these guys inside but continued to hesitate. Every time, in the past, when they had encountered a militia type group, they had ended up getting robbed or threatened or worse. He stared down at the metal latch as it rattled and wondered how much longer it would hold. When Robbie looked up again, the wall of gruesome decaying figures had moved a few steps closer.
The mustachioed soldier shouted, “Two steps back by ranks! Back rank first! March!” On this command, the men standing in back stepped back two paces without letting up their fire. When they were in place the man yelled. “Front rank, march!” Immediately the kneeling group scrambled backwards, careful to stay below the fire of their comrades.
Retreating gave the group some breathing room, but not much, as the undead horde surged, desperate to get to the buffet. In less than a minute, the space between the two groups had shrunk again.
The mustached soldier suddenly grabbed a tall, red bearded man next to him and shoved him back, “Get behind me!” He shouted, “Mr. Clark! Stay with the Leftenant if you please!”
The man in safari gear stepped over and put his hand on the red haired man’s shoulder and yelled, “I’ve got him
Major!”
The red bearded Leftenant jerked away and protested, “Bloody hell Major you need my rifle on the line!”
“They are pushing closer,” the mustached Major yelled as he fired, “And, I’ll be damned if you go down before I do!”
“For fooks sake, Major, if we all die here it won’t matter who went last!” the red bearded man screamed.
“You aren’t out of the fight, Leftenant,” Mr. Clark reassured him pointing at the gap created as the two men left on the back line had tightened up their ranks into the space he had just vacated.
“Progress report, Corporal!” The Major shouted coolly over his shoulder.
Stewart, who was desperately kicking at the metal door with everything he had, screamed, “Fooking can’t get it open Sir!”
“Color Sergeant!” The Major bellowed. “Go blow that bloody door!”
Before he even finished giving the command the burly man next to him broke ranks shouting, “I’m on it,” and scrambled back towards the door.
His absence was immediately felt as the zombies slumped a step closer. They crawled and stumbled over the growing pile of stinking bodies beneath them. It slowed them a little but the way the uneven tangle caused them to jerk and tumble about, made it harder for the riflemen to hit them in the head, even at close range. And it created a carpet of still animated undead, who had fallen, crawling out from under the feet of those still advancing. Precious seconds were lost as the men had to sweep their aim up and down, acquire targets, fire and eliminate the threats at several angles.
The red bearded ‘Leftenant’ and sandy haired ‘Mr. Clark’ quickly positioned themselves a step back from the group and added their guns back to the fight.
Robbie watched the Sergeant disappear under the line of his window and suddenly what the Major said struck him. Had he said “open the door” or “blow the door?” With all the shouting and banging, and the guy had an accent, he wasn’t sure. Did they have explosives too? He thought to himself. Then he heard a thumping against the door frame.
“Oh, shit!” Robbie groaned and he scrambled down from the top of the utility cabinet. His hand and arm screamed in pain but he pushed through as he inched closer to the door. From outside he heard voices yelling.
“It’s ready to blow, but we’re too close!”
“Blow the bloody thing!”
“Were too close, we need to push them back to get some space or we’ll blow ourselves up!”
“There’s nowhere to push to, Color Sergeant!”
“Everybody get down and cover your ears the best you can!”
“Keep bloody shooting!”
Robbie was terrified about letting them in, but he knew if they blew it open they were getting in anyway and with no door so were the zombies. And there was no place else to go. He decided to take his chances with just the militia guys. He pushed back the lock, turned the latch, swung open the door and shouted, “Come on!”
The two soldiers near the doorway stared at him in shock for half a second before the brown bearded Color Sergeant grabbed the smaller Corporal next to him and shoved him through the door. “We’re in!!” The Sergeant bellowed to the others as he stepped into the threshold to keep it open.
Beyond the big soldier’s broad frame Robbie could see that the riflemen in the alley were engaged in close quarters fighting. The zombies had pushed right up to their front ranks. Some of the men were swinging their rifles madly against the mob while others were still firing as fast as they could. Their calm demeanor had evaporated into a screaming panic while they fought for their lives. It also seemed very loud, and very real, without the dusty window between him and the action.
“Fall back!” The Major yelled. “Fall back!”
Mr. Clark grabbed the red bearded Leftenant and was trying to pull him back towards the door shouting. “The door is open! Go Sir! Go!”
But the much larger man wasn’t having it. He stood his ground and continued to provide cover fire for the men attempting to scramble back from the hungry horde. The Major had grabbed the foot of one of the men who couldn’t get up as the mob closed in around him and was dragging him back towards the utility room. The man continued to fire round after round as he was pulled along. The last man out separated himself from the grip of one of the things and tumbled back onto his bottom. The Leftenant and Mr. Clark took hold of his collar and pulled him along as he too continued blasting away at their pursuers.
Robbie stepped out of the way as the men began to rush into the small room. The Major was the last inside and the Color Sergeant slammed the door shut behind him, ramming the lock into place as soon as it hit the frame. Robbie noted that the men didn’t relax with the door shut. Rather they seemed to immediately begin checking their surroundings for additional threats. There was lots of shouting and he heard voices on the other side of the electrical cabinets shouting, “Clear!” - “Clear!”
Robbie looked back to find the large Color Sergeant glaring at him. ‘Oh great,’ he thought stepping back. ‘Here’s where they stab me with a big knife or something.’
The large man pointed his rifle at Robbie and commanded, “Turn around! Get down on your knees!”
It took a moment for Robbie to understand what he was saying, due to his thick English accent, but by the time he had figured it out, the big man already had grabbed him, spun him around to face the far wall and shoved him to his knees. Before Robbie could protest, the man shoved a boot into his back and knocked him to the floor yelling. “Don’t bloody move mate!”
Robbie’s hand and arm howled in pain and he wanted to cry, but he stayed where he was. The noisy chaos in the small space was instantly magnified by the slapping and pounding of fleshy fingers on the outside of the door. With his face on the dusty concrete floor, Robbie could only see the boots of the men standing on the other side of the wall through the tangle of wires connecting the cabinets to the floor. He could hear the men yelling back and forth but with the Color Sergeant’s large boot keeping him firmly in place, he couldn’t make out who was saying what. The accents, and the fact that they were all talking over one another, didn’t help either as he could only make out every few words.
Finally, the Color Sergeant shouted with a booming voice that sounded like it was right in Robbie’s ear, “Right! Shut it you lot! Quiet! What’s going on back there?!”
The room went silent, except for efforts of the creatures outside, and after a moment someone said, “Sergeant Patel’s been bit!”
“Bloody hell,” the Color Sergeant exclaimed, “Mr. Clark, would you mind keeping an eye on this one while I see what can be done?”
“Of course,” the man named Clark stepped into a position behind Robbie as the large soldier removed his boot and could be heard quickly walking to the back of the room.
“Don’t make any sudden moves now, son,” Clark added. “My foot isn’t as big as the Color Sergeant’s but my pistol is loaded and I will use it. Do you understand?”
Robbie nodded. Over his shoulder, he could see that Clark stood a pace behind with a gun pointed down at him. Everyone else quickly crowded into the back, presumably around the wounded Sergeant Patel.
“Where are you bitten?” he heard the Color Sergeant ask.
“Fucking shoulder and my wrist,” came the answer, this time not an English accent but, what Robbie thought sounded Indian. Robbie didn’t know much about accents but he had watched enough BBC America with his mom back in the day to recognize a few. “Bastards got me when we started pulling back,” Patel went on, “mother fuckers tried to take me and I fucking didn’t let them. I fucking KILLED THOSE MOTHER FUCKERS!” He shouted out the last part as if yelling at the things outside.
“You hear me, mother fuckers!” He screamed with a quiver in his voice, “You didn’t get me! You’re fucking not going to get me! I’m fucking not going with you! You can’t follow me to Nibbanah you mother fuckers!!”
There was a moment of quiet inside as everyone let the man say his piece. Fin
ally, the Color Sergeant said, “Simmons, get some bandages on those wounds…”
“No,” Patel said, “don’t waste the supplies, we all know what is going to happen.”
“We can stop the bleeding,” the Color Sergeant replied, “give you something for the pain.”
“Fuck that,” Patel answered, “I can handle it. I’m not fucking waiting for them to take me. Here, take my gear…”
Robbie heard the sounds of metal and heavy fabric clanging and thumping onto the floor as, he guessed, the man was removing and tossing his things towards his comrades.
“Leftenant?” Patel called out.
“Right here, Sergeant,” came the answer.
“Will you do me a favor, Sir?”
“Name it,” the Leftenant said.
“Will you tell my father,” he began, “that I fought these motherfuckers all the way to the end? That I never gave up and I fucking went down fighting? Will you tell him that? That I never gave up and killed every one of the motherfuckers I could?”
“I will tell him,” the Leftenant promised. “I will find him and tell him personally.”
“YOU HEAR THAT,” Patel screamed at the door, “YOU MOTHERFUCKERS! You are not going to get me!”
“Is there anything else I can do?” The Leftenant asked.
“Just find my father and tell him I never gave up,” Patel’s voice broke as if he were in tears.
“I will,” the Leftenant said, “I swear it.”
“Good,” the Sergeant said calmly. “Now back up please, Sir, I will not be one of those demons and I will not make my friends do my dirty work. Please back up all of you.”
“Patel, don’t,” someone begged.
“It cannot be helped now, I can feel their damned poison in my veins, it’s not long now,” Patel said, “Look away my friends. I don’t want this part to be how you remember me. I will see all of you on the next plane.”
There was a shuffling as the soldiers backed away.