“What is it?” Bannister was at his side immediately.
“Sorry, it was just a rat. I guess some of them must have escaped and probably been breeding like crazy.”
“Maybe that’s why there are so many lurchers around here. It’s like their fast food joint.”
The doors that they had come through started to swing open again and he illuminated them with his torch. Two figures entered. They moved slowly at first but when they saw the small band of soldiers their pace picked up.
Lewis shoved Hutchison and Singleton towards the other doors at the far end of the room. “Go. Keep moving. Bannister and Samuels, deal with them.”
Lewis ran ahead of Hutchison and Singleton who supported Bennett between them. He was dipping in and out of consciousness and they had to lift and drag him, almost a dead weight, which made progress difficult and slow. Neither could hold their weapons properly and they relied entirely on their comrades for cover.
The sound of gunfire rang out behind Lewis. He turned to see Bannister and Samuels following rapidly after them in a defensive retreat. He did not wait. Caution had now been abandoned. It was replaced by urgency and fear. With his heart pounding he burst through the doors leading out of the laboratory. He knocked straight into a woman, sending her reeling. He flinched as she reacted first and swiped at him. As she leaned forwards to bite he knocked her away with the heavy torch that he still clutched. He caught her with force on the side of the skull and she stumbled. He jerked the SA80 into her face and squeezed the trigger. At point blank range the effect was instant and decisive. Her head, which had been framed with a luxurious mane of deep red hair, turned to bloody mush. Her body was cast away from him as though weightless. Hutchison and Singleton were right behind him again.
“Come on,” he urged as he sprinted to the next set of doors, kicking them open. “Clear.”
He repeated the same process, running ahead so that he could check for danger before Hutchison and Singleton caught up.
“Captain Lewis, there are more of them behind us,” Bannister shouted to him from the far end of the corridor. “I guess we’ve stirred up the hornets’ nest. You go on. We’ll hold them here.”
“Roger that. Don’t be long and don’t take any chances.”
Lewis opened the next doors and again shone his torch wildly about. Movement! One woman lay on the floor half way along. She raised her head and stretched a desperate gnarled hand out towards him. She moaned and tried to drag her twisted legs behind her as she crawled towards him. He ran up to her and dispatched a single round into her head. A door to one of the offices was thrown open now. Another woman leapt forwards. She grabbed him by the arm and knocked him off balance, nearly bringing him down. He gasped and staggered over the corpse behind him. He just managed to regain balance before he fell. He twirled around. Adrenaline and fear were pumping as he disengaged himself from her grasp. He span her away into a wall before she could bite him. Then with a swift movement he brought the rifle up and squeezed, ripping her body apart and punching holes through her torso and deep into the masonry. She leant against the wall for a moment, staring at him with blank, sightless eyes. As her body slid slowly to the floor leaving a smear of blood on the white paint, he thought he saw the malice and rage falling away from her face, revealing the slightest of hints of the woman she once must have been. Her eyes drooped and closed before her head hit the ground.
“You okay?” Singleton panted.
“I wasn’t bitten.”
He did not waste any time. He proceeded into an open area. There were more doors ahead leading into nothing but darkness beyond and stairs that snaked upwards. Singleton and Hutchison exchanged a glance and then wearily chased after him as best they could.
Bannister and Samuels both knelt by the fire doors that they propped open as Lewis and the others disappeared along the next section. Bannister swung his torch back and forth. The previous set of doors now wobbled and then burst open as a man and a woman charged through.
“Easy now, hold it,” Bannister cautioned. The couple ran and covered half the distance. “You take the left one. Now, let ‘em have it!” Bannister shouted and both soldiers squeezed off a short volley. Both found their mark.
The doors swung open again and another man rushed through. Bannister was just sighting him when he felt and heard a disturbance behind him. A woman had been in one of the offices on the corridor along which Lewis and the others had just fled. She emerged into the passage, saw the two soldiers facing away from her and charged. It was only when she screamed that Bannister realised they were in danger. She launched herself at Samuels who only just had time to react. He swung around from his kneeling position and brought the butt of his rifle up and hard across her head which knocked her to the side. Even so, she crashed into him and the two went down in a jumble. Bannister leapt to his feet. The woman was entangled with Samuels and biting at his neck, whilst Samuels desperately tried to keep her teeth away. Bannister quickly and calmly stepped close and fired once at her head. Then he span and instantly fired a burst at the onrushing man when he was barely a couple of strides away.
Samuels got shakily to his feet. His clothes were torn and fresh blood trickled down his cheek and speckled his face but it was unclear whether it was his own blood or that of the diseased.
“Thanks,” he stammered. "You saved my life."
“Don’t mention it,” Bannister said dismissively. “I think it’s time to leave.”
Lewis was peering through the glass of the next set of doors but could see very little. Shots rang out from behind. As Singleton and Hutchison approached, their charge seemed to briefly regain consciousness. He coughed and raised his head slightly. His eyes flickered open.
“It’s okay, we’re here to help. We’re from the military,” Singleton said in as calm a tone as she could muster, through her gasps for air.
“No.” The voice was nothing more than a rasp, a waft of stale air escaping from a parched throat.
“It’s okay. We’re going to get you out to safety.”
He raised a trembling arm a few inches in front of his head but the effort seemed too much and his eyes closed. With a struggle he took a breath and spoke again, but even more quietly than before. “Upstairs.”
“What?”
“I think he’s telling us to go up there,” Hutchison said, pointing at the stairs that led up into blackness.
"I'm not sure," Singleton replied.
Lewis was about to go through the doors when Hutchison stopped him. “Captain Lewis sir, I think he was trying to tell us something. I think we should go upstairs, not through there.”
“But we need to get out and we’re not going to be able to do that from upstairs.”
“That is what he said,” Hutchison replied. “I think maybe we should listen to him. He knows his way around here better than we do.”
Lewis stared at him and back at the doors. There was a noise from somewhere beyond them, an unintelligible groan that decided the issue. He shrugged. “Okay, well I guess we’d better do that then. I’ll go up first to check but come right behind me.”
Bennett’s eyes again flickered open as Lewis raced up the stairs and he sighed. Lewis stopped at the corner of the staircase to check above. Bannister and Samuels burst through the doors along the corridor and came at a run. Hutchison and Singleton followed Lewis as closely as they were able. They were several steps up already and disappearing fast. Lewis shouted back down to Bannister.
“Up here.”
He did not look around to check if they had seen or heard but kept forging ahead. If he had looked back he might have noticed movement. The fire doors at the foot of the steps through which he had intended to go swung open, at first hesitantly but then with a crash as various bodies piled through. There were snorts and rasps of the infected as they fought with each other in their eagerness to get at the soldiers first, their hunger and wrath driving them on.
At the top of the stairs, Lewis paused to check
through the next set of doors. Damn fire doors. Too many and always restricting their view of what lay ahead. He cursed. There was not much light but he could see no movement. He was about to go through when he heard the screams below.
“What the hell is that?”
He turned to see Hutchison and Singleton mount the top of the stairs.
“Infected!” was all Hutchison had the breath to cry out, a look of panic on his face as the sound of gunfire blasted out from below.
Samuels had just reached the foot of the stairs when the doors first started to move. Bannister was only a step behind him. Samuels had been running at full tilt. The sudden shock of the doors swinging open, the last-minute change of direction to go up the stairs and the smooth surface of the floor had made him lose his grip. He slipped. Bannister stumbled over his sprawling colleague but regained his footing. He deftly grabbed Samuels by the scuff of his shirt and hauled him to his feet. He shoved him forcefully ahead, towards the stairs as the doors burst fully open revealing the extent of the mob.
“Defensive retreat,” he shouted at the younger man. “Go!”
Samuels started to scramble up the stairs. Bannister turned and fired from the hip. Holding the rifle steady as he stood his ground, he did not aim this time but just fired indiscriminately into the mass of writhing limbs who were no more than a few paces away. He held his nerve and held his position. With the rifle on fully automatic the first of them was ripped to shreds as he bore the full brunt of Bannister’s assault. The next was a woman but she tripped over the man ahead, straight into Bannister's fire path. Immediately behind were several more and there seemed to be still more movement in the darkness beyond.
Samuels reached the first bend in the staircase, several steps up. “Okay,” he shouted, now partially deafened by the noise as he turned to cover his corporal’s retreat.
Bannister now raced up the steps as Samuels raised his rifle but the infected were too near and too fast. The nearest woman grabbed hold of Bannister’s ankle. He lost his footing and toppled forwards with a grunt. The rifle flew from his hands as he winded himself. The woman cried with delight as her prey came within her grasp. She struggled to get at Bannister though, because the next of them, a young man with a blue coat, also wanted to reach him. Behind several more surged forwards and the look on Bannister’s face of total, pure terror jolted something inside Samuels. The thumping in his head had been getting stronger and stronger. He had been feeling as though he was not actually present in his own body but was detached, examining his actions from a distance as an impartial observer. It was as if, for some time, he had been watching a film of himself and he would have been intrigued to learn how it might end were it not for the headache that pounded away. Now with the look of abject fear on Banister’s face and the suddenly delirious collection of diseased, he snapped. A flash of rage filled him and he roared a cry of righteous anger. He launched himself down the stairs towards his fallen comrade.
He leapt at them and landed, crashing into the first two. The spine of the woman who still sprawled on the floor broke as his weight crushed her. The man with the blue coat was knocked flying down the remainder of the stairs. Samuels managed to keep his balance but he had dropped his rifle. He frantically unclipped the fastener around his pistol, whipped it out and started firing into the throng, even as they reached for him.
The nearest man grabbed his wrist and pulled him forwards down the remainder of the steps. Samuels raised the weapon and fired into his face, blowing his head apart. Blue Coat now reached for his legs and Samuels tried to kick him away with a cry of rage, and shot him twice in the chest.
Bannister staggered to his feet, unsure as to how he was even alive and turned to see his colleague fall. For the briefest of moments the full attention of the mob was focused on Samuels. He disappeared beneath a writhing mass of clutching, hooky claws. A collective shriek went up from them. Samuels fired twice more and Bannister heard him scream but at that moment there was a firm hand on his shoulder. He flinched and turned to stare into the eyes of Captain Lewis.
“Run!”
Lewis pushed Bannister up the stairs and stopped long enough only to fire a long volley into the screaming crowd, hoping without hope that one of the rounds might find its mark and end Samuels’s suffering. Then he turned and fled after Bannister. He looked back just once but there was no longer any sign of the boy beneath the feeding frenzy. His rifle was aimed at them. If he had been able to see Samuels he would have done the decent thing but he did not have time for regret or remorse, just as he did not have time to delay. The sounds from the diseased were no longer the cries of rage but they had taken on hideous overtures of glee and delight.
At the top Singleton and Hutchison were puffing under their burden, the majority of which was shouldered by Hutchison. Bannister was inconsolable as he flagged. He held his head in despair but Lewis grabbed hold of his arm and shook him. Speaking fast, he realised he now had to maintain the momentum of his party if they were to have any chance of escape from the abyss.
He pointed down the stairs. “Samuels is gone. The rest will be upon us in a heartbeat. We’ve gotta get the hell out of here, else we’re all dead. That way now, run!”
They limped onwards with Bannister still covering their rear using Hutchison’s rifle. Until they had cleared that corridor he cast many baleful glances back towards the top of the steps but nobody came up it, preoccupied as they were with their prize. Reluctantly he slipped through the next fire doors and with one last mournful look behind, the staircase passed from view.
CHAPTER 12
The day was really dragging. With fewer people to talk to and no immediate tasks of any great importance, Corporal Charlotte Collins found herself alone in her room a lot, with too many thoughts circulating and too many memories tormenting her. Freshest in her mind were her thoughts of her dog Cujo. Had he still been alive she could have busied herself looking after him or taken him for a walk around the grounds. His absence just drove home her terrible sense of loss, not only for Cujo but for all the friends and relatives that she would never see again.
She wondered despondently if that list would be added to before the day was out, with the loss of some of the soldiers that she had come to think of virtually as family. The extraordinary stresses and strains that they all faced had caused some to start withdrawing into themselves or acting erratically, and others were losing their tempers far too easily. It was therefore hard to feel a sense of solidarity with absolutely everybody. Nevertheless, the extreme adversity had forged strong ties on the base. Whenever there had been any losses they had all felt it keenly, partly because of these bonds but also because each of them knew that every death could so easily have been them instead. There but for the grace of God…
Collins sought company and found herself in the radio room. Vida and Senior Aircraftman Masters were ensconced in conversation but they stopped talking when she entered as though they had been caught doing something naughty. Collins got on well with Vida. She always seemed to be someone to turn to in order to lighten a mood. Her breezy personality and sometimes quirky use of the English language amused Collins, although today Vida was unusually subdued.
“Any news?”
"We thought we heard something on the VHF," Vida said, brightening up momentarily, "but it was only static. The range is no so good with VHF. And with the HF, we try to scan the channels but nothing. There was a message that we heard but it was clearly on repeat and already over a week old. It was too distant and weak to hear what it say."
"There must be other military bases out there that are still functioning, but our equipment here is just not up to scratch," Masters added ruefully. He looked apologetic, as though it was his fault. "We never used it much these days. It's old and was due for updating."
"Have you heard anything from the mission to the labs?"
They shook their heads in unison, glumly unable to meet her eye. "They are using VHF," Vida replied. "They are too far. We can h
ear nothing."
Collins felt as though she was intruding on their personal vigil and soon left them alone with the white noise of radio static signaling the release of many more souls rushing towards their creator. Hopefully, hope against hope, not the souls of their friends.
The dining room was empty for once so she sat at a table with a cup of tea by herself. After a minute the slightly ungainly figure of Sergeant Vallage materialized at her side, huffing and holding his own mug.
“Mind if I join ya lassie?”
His Scottish accent was so strong that it sounded as though it must be affected. She sometimes had to concentrate to understand what he was saying but it made her smile.
“Please do, I’d love the company.” She tried to hide the urgency in her own voice.
“How ya doing today?” For someone who normally came across as gruff and curmudgeonly it felt slightly odd to hear him displaying genuine concern.
"I’m just a bit worried about the mission, that’s all.”
“Aye, well, we’re all worried about them and no mistake. But I’ll tell you one thing and that’s for sure…” He paused as though for dramatic effect, taking a slow, deliberate swig of tea and she actually leaned in towards him despite herself, keen to hear his next pearl of wisdom.
“Yes?”
He smiled and rubbed his moustache, aware that he had caught his fish and reveling in the attention. "Well, I tell ya, that Mr Wood - he’s a real born survivor.”
She blushed. She had not been aware that their little romance, or whatever it was, had been so blatantly obvious to others. She had believed they had been discreet about it all, but clearly not, not that it really mattered anyway. He continued as though unaware of her blush and she silently thanked him for it.
“Aye, he’s a born survivor, make no mistake. I’ve been in the mob for longer than you’ve been alive, I dare say, and you get to recognize the look after a while. Something in their eye, in their voice, or how they walk, I can’t say for certain. But he’s got it - the look. No doubt about it. If anyone will see them all through then it’d be him, that’s for sure. So never give up hope.”
The Blood of the Infected (Book 2): Once Bitten, Twice Live Page 14