by Luke Duffy
Marcus studied the weapons in his hand and grunted. "Do you have any more weapons in the whirly bird?"
"A couple of rifles and a GPMG," Kelly replied.
Marcus' eyes lit up as she mentioned the General Purpose Machinegun. She knew then that the man standing in front of her must be ex-military, probably infantry, judging by the delight in his eyes.
'How else would he appreciate the value of having a machinegun such as the GPMG?' she thought to herself.
"With about eighteen hundred rounds for the gun and plenty of loose for the rifles," Kelly added, wanting to seem compliant.
Marcus grinned at her. "You have a 'widow-maker'?"
He looked back over his shoulder to Steve and Helen. "Grab the weapons and ammo from the chopper and bring it all inside."
A crash from far behind them, in the direction of the house, dragged Marcus' attention from the helicopter crew. He turned and saw Karen bounding down the steps. She marched across the gravel with her chest puffed out and a stern look on her face. Gary ran after her, trying to drag her back, but she rebuffed him each time, shrugging his hand from her shoulder and continuing towards Marcus.
Marcus felt uneasy. Her sole attention was concentrated on him and she scowled at him as she drew near. He was ready to fight with a helicopter, but he was not prepared for a confrontation with the 'battle-axe' that was Karen. Whatever it was that she was upset about, Marcus knew that he was about to receive the brunt of her wrath.
"Shame on you, Marcus," she reprimanded him, "how long are you going to keep them out here while you carry out your 'Spanish Inquisition' with all your guns pointed at them?"
She looked from Marcus to the two newcomers. Her expression was hard and stern when looking at Marcus, but softened as she turned to Kelly and Joey.
"I'm sorry about this one," she said to Kelly as she took her by the arm. "He's a little over protective of us all and sometimes forgets his manners."
Marcus felt like his grandmother had just rebuked him. "Karen, I was just about to bring…"
"You just leave them to me, Marcus," Karen said over her shoulder as she began to lead Kelly and Joey away, fixing him with a stare that took him right back to his childhood.
Karen reminded him of his grandmother in many ways and as a result, she would even get away with slapping his legs if she felt the need to. Marcus looked down at himself, half-expecting to see his bare legs protruding from a pair of school shorts. For a moment, he was filled with nostalgia for his 'Nan' and a half smile curled his lips, as he remembered things from a time long forgotten.
"You have their guns," Karen said as she headed towards the house, "so you just carry on doing your job while I do mine."
Marcus decided not to argue further. The pilot and co-pilot were disarmed and easy enough to deal with if they tried anything, so he allowed Karen to play the part of 'Mother Hen', a role that she enjoyed very much.
Gary looked at him and shrugged. "There's no stopping her once she has something in her head, Marcus."
He looked over his shoulder, making sure that Karen was out of earshot, and then took a step closer to Marcus while speaking in a hushed voice. "I learned a long time ago that she couldn't be stopped when she sets herself to something. I never told her to her face, but for years, I nicknamed her 'Attila'."
Marcus grinned at the comparison.
Inside the house, as the helicopter's crew sat eating hot soup and being plied with all the boiling tea they could handle, Marcus and the others gathered around, watching them.
Kelly looked up from her bowl, the warm aroma of tomato drifting up to her face in wisps of steam. She breathed deeply, savouring the smell before dipping her spoon into the hot mix.
She glanced from her first taste and saw dozens of expectant eyes staring back at her. She could almost see the thousands of questions they wanted answers to. It was as if their minds were so crammed with them that the questions had taken physical form and had begun to seep out from their heads.
She braced herself for the bombardment.
"So," Jake began, "you're part of the counter offensive?"
Joey shook his head and let out a laugh that sounded more like a hiccup. "Not exactly; we were supposed to be gathering information and relaying it back to base."
"What sort of information, and where is your base?" Helen asked eagerly. She was desperate to learn of other places where people still survived.
"Jura," Kelly announced as she slurped soup from her spoon and avoided the first part of the question. "The Isle of Jura, off the west coast of Scotland. It was turned into a fortress early on as we evacuated the mainland."
"So, we still have an army?" Jake asked.
Kelly shook her head as she stirred her soup. "Not really, no. Most of what was left of our forces was destroyed during the counter offensive. There are still a few units on the island, but they're mainly for security."
"Destroyed?" Jake found it hard to believe that the entire army had vanished from the face of the earth, despite the billions of people that died since the dead began to rise.
"Yeah," Joey continued, "our head shed completely underestimated the enemy and entire regiments, brigades, and even divisions were swallowed up in the cities. There wasn't a thing we could do to help them; even the armoured units were lost. Their tanks and APC's were bogged down and turned into tombs, surrounded by thousands of those things."
Kelly looked across at Marcus sitting on the other side of the table. He stared back at her, still reserving his own judgement on them; still dressed in black plastic bags.
"So, how come you're dressed like that?" Kelly asked, unable to delay the question any longer.
"It's his turn to be the gimp for the day," Lee joked.
Jake let out an involuntary snort of laughter and immediately slapped his hand to his mouth to contain it. He looked across at Lee, his face turning purple as he fought hard to hold back the hysterics that threatened to burst through his efforts at self-control.
"I told you," Marcus replied, ignoring Lee's comment, "it's for protection."
Kelly's brow furrowed in confusion. "Protection," she asked, "from what? The dead can easily bite through that."
Marcus shook his head. "Not from the dead. Someone dropped a nuclear warhead and it's the best we could manage. We took shelter in the cellar and I came up to see if it was safe for the others."
Kelly almost laughed. She understood his concern and the reasons why he was dressed the way he was. She shook her head, feeling more relaxed that the outfit was not a part of the man's everyday attire.
"There's nothing to worry about where the bomb is concerned," Kelly confessed to them. "It was a low yield device, no bigger than five kilotons."
Steve leaned forward from the end of the table. He glanced at Marcus, then to Kelly. "What does that mean, 'five kilotons'?"
"It means we're safe," Marcus said to him without taking his eyes from the helicopter pilot. "It was a tactical nuke."
"That’s right," Kelly added in acknowledgement. "They're designed to take out military instillations and troop build-ups on the battlefield. The bomb dropped on Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War was twenty-one kilotons, so this was a baby in comparison."
"So you dropped it?" Jake asked accusingly.
Joey shook his head. "No, we didn’t drop it. It was launched remotely from the silos that we still have access to on the mainland. We were supposed to record the after effects of it and report back to the General. We were on our way there to record our findings when we came across this place."
"The 'General'? And which general is that?" Marcus asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Gibson," Kelly said with disdain. "The man is fucking mad." she glanced about her and noted the children that watched from the peripherals. "Sorry about the language, but it's true. He's completely insane."
"Never heard of him,"
"You were in the army?" Kelly asked, realising that Marcus must have been expecting to hear a familiar n
ame.
"Used to be, a long time ago," he replied.
"Infantry?" Kelly asked, already knowing the answer.
Marcus nodded. His expression was stern and thoughtful. "The Parachute Regiment," he replied.
Kelly glanced at Joey knowingly, and then nodded at Marcus. Now that she knew, she could not picture him as anything but a paratrooper.
"Gibson wasn’t always a general. He pretty much promoted himself. When he was given the command on Jura, he was a Colonel, but the power of being in charge of so many people must've gone to his head." Kelly reached for her glass and gulped down a large amount of water before she continued.
"After the failure of the counter offensive, he declared himself Chief of Staff and commander of all land forces."
Marcus' eyes widened and his forehead creased as his eyebrows were raised to their limit.
"Really? Sounds like we have a genuine old fashioned usurper up there."
Kelly nodded. "Yeah, well after we received reports that the Isle of Man was overrun, and the Channel Islands were at war with each other before losing comms altogether with them, Gibson decided that he would take command of the forces that were left and still loyal."
"Loyal to whom? I thought the government had been knocked out?" Helen asked.
"Loyal to him; he had an army of fifteen thousand troops at one point."
"So, what happened to them?" Marcus asked, anxious to know the fate of the armed forces.
Kelly looked down at the table, avoiding eye contact with Marcus as his question burned in her ears.
"Dead, mostly," Joey said casually and without looking up as he played with his spoon.
Kelly looked at him and then turned to Marcus, her eyes showing strong emotions as she held back powerful and horrific memories.
"That’s right," she began, "Gibson took it upon himself to try to recapture Glasgow with ten thousand soldiers. He refused to listen to his staff about the disadvantages they faced."
She breathed deeply and splayed her hands on the table, still fighting with her feelings.
"Jesus, they didn’t have a chance. They were too far from base and without any real support or resupply. When it began to turn against them, they had nowhere to retreat to and we didn’t have enough aircraft to lift them all out."
"What about an evacuation or fall-back. Surely the operation was planned with 'actions-on' and contingencies?" Marcus asked, knowing that there was probably no such thing for the ill-fated forces in Glasgow.
Joey shook his head and looked at Kelly, unsure of what to say. He squirmed in his seat with discomfort and cleared his throat as he searched his mind for the right words to use.
"Uh, well that’s where the General got the idea for nukes," Joey finally informed them. "He ordered a MOAB to be dropped on the city while the troops were still on the ground."
"Fuck me," Marcus gasped.
Steve looked at his brother, completely unaware of what they were saying. "What's a 'MOAB', is it an atom bomb?"
Marcus shook his head, his eyes locked on Kelly and Joey as they sat in silence before him.
"Massive Ordinance Air Blast, also known as the 'Mother of All Bombs' or 'Daisy Cutter.’ It's the biggest non-nuclear weapon in the world and can take out an entire city, and that crazy bastard dropped it on his own troops."
Kelly nodded with fear in her eyes. She could see the expression on Marcus' face as he studied her with suspicion. She did not like the idea of them suddenly declaring her and Joey as a threat due to orders of an insane army officer.
"So he tried a nuke next?"
"No, he hit Newcastle and Leeds with another MOAB after that. Newcastle burned for three weeks before the fires finally died out."
She watched Marcus for any signs of change in his feelings, but he was hard to read. His face, although it was stern and his eyes piercing, showed no overt signs of aggression towards them, but at the same time, revealed no indication of understanding that Kelly and Joey were not responsible for the decisions of their commander.
"Look," Kelly began in an attempt at explaining herself and gesturing to Joey sat beside her. "You should understand as well as anyone, we have orders to follow. We didn’t decide to drop the bombs."
Marcus shook his head in disbelief. He imagined living people were probably still hiding within those cities.
"So, where was the nuke bomb dropped?" he asked in an unemotional voice.
"Which one?" Joey asked in reply, indicating to the people of the mansion that more than one nuclear bomb had been detonated.
Jake's head shot up with an expression of alarm. "Jesus, you mean they've dropped others?"
Kelly glanced nervously at the people staring back at her.
"A hydrogen bomb was dropped on London six days ago," she said with a sigh, feeling that they were digging themselves into a deeper hole. "It was so infested that it was decided the city was to be wiped from the map."
"As well as the surrounding towns…" Marcus added, knowing the size of the devastation that a hydrogen bomb could cause.
"I'm surprised you didn’t see or hear it," Kelly replied in a quiet voice, barely more than a whisper.
Marcus leaned forward, staring straight at her. "What about the bomb we saw a few days ago, the tactical nuke, where was it dropped?"
"Stoke-on-Trent."
"Shit," Steve exclaimed, "that’s only thirty miles or so from here. What about the radiation?"
Kelly shook her head, attempting to swallow another mouthful of soup. Since the conversation had turned so sour and she and her co-pilot were being looked upon as being responsible for the destruction of the cities, her appetite had begun to fade.
"I told you, it was a tactical nuke, low yield and the radiation is minimal, especially at this distance."
Marcus felt a sense of haste, as though he needed to get the information as quickly as possible.
"Right, where is the General planning on nuking next?"
Kelly shrugged her shoulders. "I don’t know. We were supposed to report on the effects of the bomb at Stoke first, but obviously we haven't done that."
"Yet," Marcus interjected with a sneer.
Kelly looked at him and noted the change in his bearing. "Look, if you're wondering whether or not we plan to report your little gathering here, you needn't worry," she retorted in an aggressive and defensive tone.
"Our mission isn't to look for survivors or make contact with them if we come across any." She glanced at Joey before continuing. "If Gibson found out we had landed here, he would probably court martial us."
A shudder ran down Joey's back as he suddenly saw an image of them both hanging from a rope.
"I'm not going back, Kelly," he declared.
She shot him a look, the shock of the statement suddenly rattling her foundations. He looked up at her with an expression of complete calm etched across his face.
"I'm not going back to Jura. I can't."
He looked at Marcus pleadingly and then turned back to his pilot and friend. "If these people won't let me stay here, then I will take my chances on the outside, but I'm not going back to face the hangman."
"The 'hangman'…?" Gary repeated questioningly.
Kelly sighed and looked down at the table. "Yeah, Gibson hangs people who speak out or disobey orders."
She realised that Joey was right. There was no life or real safety on Jura. Gibson's rule was totalitarian, and his most loyal troops and commanders enforced his law and will on the survivors there with a vigour that resembled the Gestapo, or KGB.
"And you two kids want to join our gang now?" Marcus asked sarcastically.
Kelly and Joey remained silent, as did the rest of the people that were assembled around the table. They all waited with anticipation to hear what Marcus would say next, but he continued to stare at the two newcomers without speaking.
Finally, he stood up and turned from the table.
"I will have to discuss it with the others," he announced, "but until we come to
a decision, your weapons will remain with me and you will be placed under guard. For all we know, you could be part of a rogue unit looking for a place to stay and your story could be bullshit. You could be here to gather information on us and our defences."
Kelly nodded. She understood his suspicion and hesitation.
The next morning, as Kelly lay asleep on one of the large couches in the foyer, she was awoken by Marcus, as he nudged her in the back with the toe of his boot. She rolled over and turned to him, squinting in the semi darkness and rubbing her eyes. She looked at her watch and saw that it was almost six.
"You want a brew?" Marcus asked, holding out a cup of coffee.
She gladly accepted the steaming mug and slurped at the boiling dark fluid.
"Thanks," she croaked as the liquid ran down her dry throat.
"We've decided," Marcus began as he sat himself on the coffee table that was placed in front of the large leather sofa, "you and your buddy can stay, but you abide by our rules and you pull your weight."
Kelly looked up at him, feeling a sense of relief and optimism at the thought of not having to return to the island.
"Thanks."
"Don’t thank me," Marcus replied, "I was all for kicking you both out, but one: you know we're here and could report it to your commander, and two: Karen and Jennifer have taken a shine to you and I don’t want to get on their bad side," he said with a smile.
Marcus and the others had sat and debated late into the night. They had discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the helicopter crew becoming part of their group. Though Marcus was unsure of their real intentions, if they had any, he did reason that it would be better to have them close, rather than turn them loose.
Kelly attempted to return the smile, but it came across as more of a look of disgust as her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and her teeth felt as though they had a layer of fur coating them.
"Who's Jennifer?" she asked.
"She's my wife and I'm trying to keep myself in her good books before I break the news to her," he said ambiguously.