by Brett, Cal
The place smelled like old dirt and long dry manure. A few holes in the roof let in enough moonlight that, after their eyes adjusted, they could see they were surrounded by pallets stacked high with something resembling sandbags. Tucking in against the nearest pallet, they waited for the swish of the plastic curtain to quiet behind them. When the clatter had ended, Kim nudged Bevins and they began their steady heel to toe movement towards the front of the dark warehouse.
Robbie heard the rate of gunfire increase. This time from several directions. He recognized the suppressed fire of the Royal Marines’ weapons. It was soon joined by the loud bangs of the attackers’ hunting rifles.
“What the hell?!” Someone yelled from down below. Men scuttled back and forth behind the trucks as they tried to escape the deadly rounds. Bullets had started coming in from both of their sides.
“Dammit! They got around us,” a man yelled, “Nick! They’re killing us!”
“Form up behind the trucks on the left and right!” a loud voice yelled. “Blast the hell out of them!”
Robbie saw men moving into position but before they could begin effectively returning fire, they began to fall victim to the Marines’ disciplined and accurate shots. Their bodies tumbled and spun as they were filled with lead even as they approached their new lines.
“We gotta move Nick!” Someone yelled. “There’s no cover here!”
Windsor rose and advanced in a crouch towards the pock marked trash bins. On the other side, he found a man lying on his back in the dirt. His shirt was ripped with small holes and covered in blood. His rifle lay at his feet where he had dropped it. The Leftenant picked up the rifle and handed it to Clark who had moved up with him. Clark quickly checked the rifle, unloaded the round in the chamber and popped out the magazine with practiced hands.
“We need to move up into position to support One Section,” Windsor said. They could all hear the gunshots increasing on the other side of the building. The Leftenant scampered over to the man lying face down in the dirt. He grabbed the man’s foot and unceremoniously pulled him off the rifle underneath him.
“Careful, Sir,” Clark warned.
“Dead,” Windsor said pointing at the man’s pale face. Windsor then quickly unloaded the rifle and lay it back down in the dirt.
Whispers and footsteps carried from the far side of the warehouse. It sounded like the men were walking straight down the middle of the room and not doing much to be stealthy. Bevins signaled that he would take a position between the pallets while Kim should remain and cover the main aisle. Kim agreed, and they each drew back into the stacks to let the marauders walk into their ambush.
A few seconds later, Kim saw movement in the darkness and the shapes of two shadowy figures approaching. They were hunched over as if trying to keep low but the crunch of their boots on the dirty floor negated any efforts to be undetected. Kim lined up his rifle on one of the silhouettes and readied his first shot. He took a deep breath and began to let it out as he squeezed the slack out of his trigger.
“Aaaah!” A surprised shout interrupted him. The shout was followed by the sound of something heavy falling and spilling onto the ground.
The two raiders responded by opening fire in the direction of the noise. Their muzzle flashes lit them up, giving Kim a clear shot at his first target. He popped off several rounds dropping one man to the ground. The second man didn’t notice his companion go down behind him and kept firing into the darkness. Kim pivoted to line up another shot when an expanding cloud of dust roiled out into the aisle. He fired several rounds into the spot where the man had been standing but had no idea if he had hit anything.
After firing, Kim leapt to his feet and ran back into the maze of pallets calling out to his friend. “Bevins!?”
Scrambling around a corner he ran into the thick dust cloud that was spreading out over the warehouse. Squinting and coughing, he pressed forward. Rubbing his eyes with one hand and leading with his rifle in the other, he moved through the thick sheets of dust. Ahead, the shadows of two figures kneeling on the floor emerged. They seemed to be digging in a pile of dirt where one of the stacks of pallets had collapsed. Coming up behind the first, a man in grimy coveralls came into focus.
“Oy?!” Kim shouted as he got closer.
When the man didn’t answer Kim stepped up and shoved his boot hard into his back. The man tumbled over, spun around to face him, and let out a growl. The thing’s dead face was covered in fresh blood. As it began struggling to rise up and attack this new living meat Kim took a moment to look at the other one. It seemed to still be focused on whatever was buried in the dirt. It looked up at him and scowled through bloody teeth as if to warn him against trying to take away its meal.
“Got ya some rats their boys!?” Kim said as the one in the coveralls rolled down the pile towards him. He fired two rounds. The first hit center mass, causing Kim to curse, and did nothing to slow the creature. The second shot zipped through the skin just above its ear, causing its already loose scalp to flip up.
“Bloody fuck,” he cursed again as he backed away from the thing, frantically blinking to clear the dust from his eyes. It kept coming and he lined up on its head to fire again.
The shot went wide as he was shoved from the side and sent sprawling down an aisle between the pallets.
“You little shit!” An angry figure shouted from the veil of dust and darkness.
Kim spun, struggling to get his rifle turned around as the figure came closer.
“I’m gonna bash your head in!” A large man with a metal bat emerged and drew it back to strike as he came into melee range.
Kim was tangled in his rifle strap, so he fired a shot. He knew it would miss but hoped it would cause the man to react by dodging away and give him time enough to get free. The man jumped aside but only for a second. Not long enough.
He brought the bat down on Kim’s chest plate. The body armor protected him, but the force of the blow still knocked the wind from him and sent pain jetting across his ribs. He groaned and struggled to get the rifle strap to give. The second blow hit his helmet from the side, ringing his head like a bell. As the man brought the bat up again Kim realized the rifle wasn’t going to help and spun away in a panic. The next blow hit him hard on his back plate as he tried desperately to wriggle out of range.
“Goddamn! I’ll teach you to fuck with me!” The man shouted angrily. “Yer gonna die, Army boy!”
Good to his word the man continued swinging the bat as Kim twisted and spun frantically to avoid being hit. Sometimes it worked. Others, he felt the bat’s impact. Sometimes it struck his armor and others it slammed into other areas. The bat slammed hard into his arm and the pain was so intense he began to hope the man would finish him soon. He knew he couldn’t take much more.
There was a pause in the attack and Kim opened his eyes to see the man had stepped back. He wiped his forehead with a scowl.
“Whew,” he panted, “kicking your ass is wearing me out.”
The man suddenly screamed and reeled sideways. At his feet knelt the zombie that had been pursuing Kim just moments before. The thing had bitten down on the man’s leg, tearing at a chunk of the flesh through his dirty jeans.
“God damn!” The man howled as he tried to hop away from the biting thing. He swung the bat down and impacted with its shoulder, but it held on tight.
While the man fought the zombie, Kim struggled painfully over and propped himself back against a pallet. Rising gingerly to his feet, he was finally able to get the strap untangled and lift up the rifle.
The man saw him standing and screamed with desperation in his eyes, “shoot it! Goddamn! Get it off me! Shoot it!”
Kim fired. He hit the struggling man center mass, sending him careening backwards. The creature held on tight, continuing to rip and pull at the denim as his quarry tumbled to the ground. The man stared up, wide eyed with surprise and fear, as his life drained away through the hole in his chest.
“No, no, no!” He whee
zed, ineffectually slapping at the thing. His strength draining into the dark pool spreading from beneath his body. “I don’t die! I don’t die! Goddamn it!”
Kim limped carefully around the two. Hugging the wall of pallets to keep out of either’s reach. The man’s wild eyes glanced up, desperately pleading, as he went past but the creature ignored him, seeming entirely focused on keeping a solid grip on the meal he had just found.
When Kim reached the crossing aisle he looked back at the man, now recognizing him as the marauder who had been swallowed up by the dust just a few minutes before. The man writhed and clawed weakly at the dirt around him trying to pull himself from the thing latched onto his leg.
Kim sighed, raised his rifle, and shot both, man and thing, in the head. Bam! Bam! The two figures jerked and slumped to the ground as the bullets passed through their brains. He didn’t do it for revenge, or mercy. He didn’t blame the man for the injuries he caused. To him, the desperate people out in the wastelands had become animals themselves.
Like the rest of the world, humans were returning to their natural state. Neither animal nor undead could be blamed for doing what was in their nature. He ended them with as much feeling as one might have for killing a poisonous snake that had ventured into his yard. He just didn’t want to risk having more zombies in the dark warehouse to worry about later.
Kim watched them for a moment. When he was sure neither was coming back, he turned away and stepped down the aisle into the dusty darkness. He called out quietly. “Bevins?”
He heard the sound before he saw its source, the snarling snapping of lips and teeth. When he got closer, he could see the zombie had dug a hole into the pile of dirt and was clawing out gobs of bloody looking meat. The thing did not notice him approach and continued with its feast.
Kim’s heart sank when he realized what was likely under that mound of dirt. He took a deep breath to stave off any emotion that might try to overcome him. But his eyes watered anyway as he withdrew his large knife from its sheath. Stepping up behind the undead thing he shoved the knife into its temple and jerked it out again as the creature fell over and rolled down the pile. He grabbed its dirty boots and pulled it away, so he had better access to the mound, then sank to his knees and started digging.
“Go!” the voice that Robbie assumed was Nick’s called. “Get back to the goddam trucks!”
The men who were still hiding behind the trucks turned and began running toward the narrow gap in the warehouses behind them. O’Reilly and MacGregor fired from the roof as the retreating group exposed themselves. One went down and at least two more howled from hits but kept moving. Robbie and the Marines ducked down as the last man into the gap turned and fired up at them before he disappeared into the darkness. The shots went wide but when they looked up again the men had retreated out of sight.
Kelly had followed Clark up to the first body where he had signaled for her to wait until they had disarmed the other man. She crouched in the shadows leaning against the trash cans watching for any approaching threats. She jumped when the “dead man” in front of her gasped and blood gurgled from his mouth. For a moment she thought he might be coming back as an undead, but something made her pause rather than immediately crushing his head.
The man’s eyes blinked, and he turned his head to look at her. “Wait…wait.” He gurgled. “It was in the other drawer. I told her. Wait.” Then the light went out of his eyes completely and his face rolled aside into the grey sand.
Kelly didn’t have time to contemplate the man’s last words. Several armed men came rushing through the alley between the buildings. She scrambled around to the back side of the flimsy cans and lay prone. Windsor and Clark were caught out in the open and dove quickly to the ground. The only cover they had was the body of the man they had just shot, and they scrambled to get behind him. Luckily, the men were moving fast and didn’t slow down to aim as they fired off several rounds.
The lead men jumped into the idling trucks and, with little regard for those behind them, stomped on the accelerators. Those following barely had time to leap into the beds of the moving trucks as they spun out of the parking lot.
One man did yell a belated warning for their companions as they roared away. “Steve! Earl! Run!”
Clark fired several rounds from his pistol at the retreating vehicles. It took Windsor a few seconds to get his rifle back up, but he was able to get off a few shots into their dusty wake. They heard metal ting and glass shatter but weren’t able to tell if they hit any more of the assailants. The trucks continued moving away.
Robbie heard the roar of engines as the men started, what must have been, their escape vehicles on the other side of the next warehouse. The sound of squealing tires followed as they ripped through the gravel and asphalt parking lot towards the front gate. A few more pops were heard as the Marines on the ground fired on the retreating vehicles. There was a crash at the front gate which Robbie assumed was them pushing through the two vehicles they had left there, followed by their roaring into the night.
After a minute of silence, Bradley’s loud voice broke the quiet. “Friendlies moving up! Hold your fire!”
The group who had come in the front gate moved through the patches of moonlight and swiftly behind the abandoned and battered trucks. They spread out clearing the alley and checking the bodies scattered there.
“Two Section report?!” Colors bellowed into the night.
“Sergeant Bradley?” a female voice replied. “I’m coming through the alley. Don’t shoot.”
A moment later, Kelly stepped into the moonlight with her hands raised.
Major Garrett was crouched behind one of the disabled trucks and looked back to watch her approach. “Kelly?” He looked worriedly past her. “Where are Windsor and the others?!”
“They chased a couple of guys into that warehouse,” Kelly lowered her hands and nodded at the building behind her. “Clark said to come tell you.”
“Right,” the Major said. “Colors, Simmons. Will you go help cover the doors to that warehouse. Don’t let any bad guys in or out.”
The two Sergeants nodded and turned towards the alley.
“And Sergeants,” the Major added, “don’t go in there unless the Leftenant knows. Yes? We don’t need friendlies shooting each other in the dark.”
“Aye, Sir,” one of them said as they stalked away into the shadows.
“Kelly,” the Major shifted his gaze, “everyone ok? What happened over there?”
“Our people, your Marines, are all ok I think,” she said. “They took down a couple of guys out back of the warehouse. I’m pretty sure they are dead. Two others ran inside. Windsor sent, um, the Asian guy and the kid with the freckles in after them. A bunch of them took off in trucks just now. Not sure if any of them were hit. But I think they got away.” She paused and added. “Sorry.”
“Not to worry,” the Major consoled her. “They are out of our hair for the moment and, with a bit of luck, haven’t got any reinforcements nearby.”
“Not sure my luck works like that lately,” Kelly sat down and leaned on the truck next to the officer.
“Yes, well, we can cross that bridge when - and if - we get to it.” He replied. “As for now, perhaps you can signal your friends inside to let them know the bad guys are gone and they can stop shooting?”
“Yea, good idea,” Kelly turned around and rose just enough to peer over the hood of the truck.
All the warehouses were similar. The one the Baldwins were using as their home and fortress didn’t look any different from the others from out here. Its long brick façade was broken up by several small barred windows, a set of steps and doorway to the office in the middle, and large loading bays at either end. The rolling steel doors covering the loading docks were pocked with small black holes where they had recently been peppered with bullets.
“Beatrice!” Kelly shouted. “Sunshine! Hold your fire! We ran them off! Those guys are gone!”
“Who the hell is out t
here, man!?” The familiar voice of Sunshine called from inside.
“It’s Kelly and Rob!” Kelly shouted back. “We thought you might need some help!”
“You got that right, man!” Sunshine yelled back.
“Kelly is that really you?!” Beatrice shouted.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Kelly answered, “Robbie is here too. He’s up on your roof!”
There was a long pause.
“You tell Robbie he best gets down from there before he hurts hisself again,” Beatrice finally said with genuine concern.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Kelly laughed. “That’s a good point.”
“Who else you got with you?!” Beatrice called.
“It’s a long story but they are friends,” Kelly shouted. “Can we come in?”
“What happened to those hoodlums?!” Beatrice questioned.
“We ran them all off I think!” Kelly shouted back, “except for a few who are dead.”
“Good!” Bea’s voice called.
“Ok, just a minute!” Sunshine responded. “I need to unblock the door.”
Simmons spotted the bodies of the dead marauders laying in the driveway as he came out of the alley. He marked them but they looked dead enough. He kept his rifle to his shoulder and scanned the area for other threats as Bradley came out behind him, doing the same. The two had worked together long enough that they did it on instinct with little verbal communication required between them. Both were veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq, before the undead had risen, and walked into dangerous situations like this with a practiced intensity that many might call calm.
They spread out several yards apart and took positions that gave them a good view of both the front entrance and the rear loading area. The old front door hung open on its rusty frame giving them a narrow view into the space. The two Marines had just settled into their cover when movement inside caught their attention. Their rifles lined up on a silhouette moving towards the doorway.