by Luke Duffy
Throughout the whole day and evening, continuous reports had come down from the guards on the roof about the noises they heard and the movements they saw. On more than one occasion, as the hysteria and feeling of impending doom has spread, they had falsely believed that the gate had finally collapsed.
The dead were in a constant state of motion, their pulsing crowds surging back and forth, as they assaulted the walls repeatedly. No one had ever seen them so riled up and it was impossible to understand what had given them such vigour after their freezing hibernation. Many had hoped that the cold would have caused irreparable damage to them, leaving them permanently dead, or at the very least crippled and only capable of a much reduced speed and strength.
Instead, they threw themselves at the park as the 'fast movers' and 'infected' had done in the early days, at the start of the outbreak. Their cries and moans, louder and more vicious than ever before, echoed around for miles, terrifying the people as they stood guard on the rooftop of the house.
The rain continued to fall in fine sheets and, before long, Marcus and Stu were as drenched as the rest of the guard shift. The thought of dragging themselves through the fields to the north of the park after such a heavy rainfall was not an appealing one.
Marcus considered that, because of the sudden and heavy deluge and the low ground of the fields to the north, the track would be a quagmire of churned mud and swamp, resembling the battlefields of the Somme.
"Shhh…" Stu suddenly hissed, turning to Marcus with bulging eyes, a finger pressed against his lips. "Do you hear that?"
Marcus shook his head and the rest of the roof party took a step closer towards the edge of the wall, squinting into the murky night and trying to hear past the heavy drops of rain that splashed all around them from the outcrops of the roof, chimneys, and gutters.
"I don’t hear any…" Claire began.
"Shut up, and listen," Stu growled with urgency.
Over the constant patter of the rain and the distant chorus of the dead song, another sound came drifting across the expanse of the park grounds and into their ears.
Carl frowned as he distinguished the new resonance from the other noises they had become accustomed to in the darkness. He looked at Stu questioningly. He was about to ask what he thought the new sound could be but Stu's contorted and frowning face discouraged him from speaking.
Marcus twisted his head and pointed his right ear towards the south. There was definitely something else adding to the ambient noise of the night. He could clearly hear the hum and wail of the thousands of reanimated corpses within the swish of the light wind, and echoing droplets of the rain, but something else, faint and distant, not a constant but still there, emitted from within the other noises.
"It," Stu began, and then paused, questioning his own thoughts before he continued. "It sounds like, a bit like…a bell."
Marcus, unable to hear anything, leaned back and glared at him, wondering if his friend had lost his mind.
"A bell?"
"My ears are better than yours, mate, and that’s what it sounds like. I'm not saying it is a bell, but that’s all I can describe it as."
"Oh fuck…" Carl exclaimed, suddenly realising what it was that he could hear.
He turned to the others, his face draining of all colour and his mouth beginning to tremble as he began to inch his way back from the edge of the roof.
"What?" Marcus asked as he stared at the pale-faced and rain-drenched, terrified man. "What can you hear?"
Carl glanced nervously from each of the people before him and then out, over their shoulders and towards the area of the main entrance that was obscured from their view by the numerous trees and darkness.
"The gate," he stammered as he turned to Stu, his voice quivering and on the verge of hysterics.
"It's not a bell, or anything else. It is the gate, collapsing. That’s the sound of it bouncing against the steel tanker as hundreds of bodies climb over it."
Without another word, Carl turned on his heels and raced towards the door, disappearing down the steps into the house.
Marcus paused to listen, concentrating all of his efforts on his senses.
He heard it.
The sound was still there and the clangs of the two metal objects as they collided together, over and again, were unmistakable now.
"Shit, Carl's right," he gasped. "Get off the roof," he ordered the others, before turning turned to Stu.
"Get the general and get the road team up here. Keep everyone in the house and tell Kelly to get the heli started. She will have to pick the heli group up from the roof."
Stu turned to move, and then paused.
"Why the roof? Shouldn’t we just load them in to the chopper?"
"We're out of time," Marcus replied with haste as he began searching the area to the south of the house with his binoculars.
"They're already in and Kelly may not be able to get it started before she's overwhelmed."
Stu took off through the house, screaming for everyone to get up and move. He burst into the kitchen where there was already a hive of activity going on as the word from Carl and the others had spread.
"Keep everyone inside," Stu ordered Sophie. "Marcus doesn’t think that Kelly will be able to get the chopper started in time before the pus-bags get here."
He turned to Lee and Kieran, who were stood close by.
"Lock us down. Barricade the doors then get to the roof and bring every weapon and scrap of ammunition we have."
Before Lee and Kieran began dragging the tables and couches into place, Kelly raced out through the doors and into the rain, Joey following her as they headed for the helicopter. She drew the pistol from the holster on her hip, checked that a magazine was fitted, and pulled the top slide back towards her before released it again, ensuring that a round was chambered, as she readied herself for action.
Marcus watched as Kelly and Joey ran across the slippery wet grass and jumped into the cockpit of the aircraft. Immediately, they began flicking switches and preparing the engine to start.
To Marcus, it seemed to be taking forever as he stood keeping an eye on the open plains, the woods and the track leading up through the trees from the main gate.
In the house below, bangs and thuds resounded through the walls and roof as people began shoring up the doors and barricading the windows. Some had already begun to arrive on the roof. Children were crying and frightened voices from the adults attempted to comfort them as they asked incessant questions about what was happening.
Marcus heard an engine fire up from below, but it was not the sound of the Puma. It was a car engine; he looked down to see the zebra striped Land Rover racing across the gravel of the parking area with spinning wheels sending flying gravel and pebbles in all directions. It sped off towards the north of the park.
"Gary," Marcus yelled over the lip of the roof, "Gary, where the fuck…"
It was too late. The vehicle was too far away and, whether Gary could hear him or not, he clearly would not stop. Marcus watched as the rear lights disappeared over the rise to the north of the park, in the area of the animal pens.
Stu arrived at Marcus' side carrying the GPMG with coils of glistening linked ammunition draped over his shoulders.
"Here," he gasped as he slammed the machinegun down at the edge of the roof. "Lee and Kieran have the rest of the ammo between them."
Stu stood up straight and breathed deeply, his chest heaving and straining from the effort of organising the defence of the house then lugging the heavy weapon and ammunition up to the roof.
"How are we looking?"
"Come on, Kelly, come on," Marcus growled as he willed her to get the helicopter started and into the air.
A low whine heralded the electric motors cranking as they attempted to start the main engine of the aircraft. It continued to rise in pitch, and then a low rumble joined it as the powerful jet engines fired and began to grumble their way up through the revolutions.
"Come on, get
it going, Kelly," Marcus encouraged as the main rotors made their first indication of turning and began to move, painfully slow, through the damp air as the motors began to howl.
To the south, specks of dark and distant moving shapes began to appear on the open fields that stretched out from the woods towards the east. Marcus did not need to raise his binoculars to see them, but instead turned his attention to the woods that were closer to the house and contained the track that led down, directly to the main gate.
'If they're already in the fields, then they’ll be coming up the track too,' Marcus thought to himself as he eyed the dark woods.
"Steve," he yelled as he began to move towards the west side of the roof, "keep an eye on the heli and let me know when they're about to lift off."
Steve nodded and took up position with Jake and Helen on the eastern lip of the roof. They watched the helicopter intently as the blades picked up speed and the engine climbed in pitch. They could see that the mass of bodies approaching from the south were getting closer by the minute as they lumbered towards the house and the commotion from within and around it.
Marcus and Stu reached the western lip and stared down into the blackness of the park. They could hear the helicopter engine in the distance, and could hear the wind in the trees directly below them, but there was still no sign of the dead at their end.
"Set the gun up," Marcus ordered in an urgent voice as he began reaching into a pouch on his assault vest. "We'll need to buy Kelly as much time as possible."
A rifle opened fire at the eastern end of the roof, its muzzle flash lighting up the area and Steve, as he began pouring his rounds into the closest of the creatures approaching the helicopter from the south.
The howling engine continued to rise in volume and the rotor blades gathered speed as they thumped the air above the aircraft. Soon, they spun so fast that it was impossible to distinguish them individually. The engine screamed and the angle of the rotor blades changed slightly as the wheels began to gingerly bounce from the ground while Kelly increased the throttle and lift.
Screams, cries and panic could be heard from all around as more people poured out from the house and onto the roof. Unarmed and terrified, they huddled together in the rain, listening to the sounds of the aircraft as they desperately clung to their hope of rescue and watched the others around them defending the house from the dead assault.
Marcus quickly screwed the last of his mini-flares into the firing mechanism and cocked back the spring handle, which contained the firing pin. He held it up to the air, vaguely acknowledging the freezing rain running down the length of his arm.
Stu crouched beside him, the machine gun in his shoulder and a length of linked ammunition running from the feed-tray and through his left hand, held out to the side of the gun to support the weight of the rounds and prevent stoppages, or the link from snapping.
More shots rang out from behind them as Steve, Helen, and Jake continued to cover the helicopter crew while they attempted to bring the aircraft to the point where it had enough power flowing through the engine and was ready to take off.
The children whimpered and huddled close to the other members of the group that stood in the lashing rain, terrified that they would be stranded on the roof of the house as they watched, with wide eyes and growing terror, the dead making their way across the fields.
The flare shot out of Marcus' hand with a pop, blanketing the area in a blood red light as it soared into the air above the trees. In the ghostly crimson glow, hundreds of figures emerged from the darkness of the woods.
They staggered through the trees, their deathly pale and grotesque features illuminated by the flare as their eyes locked onto the source of the light and the two men who crouched close to the edge of the roof.
"Fuck, fuck," screamed Stu, as his eyes took in the magnitude of the crowd silently creeping towards them through the trees and along the path.
The advancing dead were everywhere, thousands of them, pressing towards the living as they staggered forward, shoulder to shoulder, through the underbrush of the woods and along the muddy track.
"Fuck…"
27
The barrel of the GPMG erupted with a roar and a jet of white flame as Stu squeezed the trigger, sending a burst of machinegun rounds into the nearest cluster that he had seen in the moment of the haunting red glow. The report of the gun was deafening, drowning out the sounds of the rifles that had seemed to open up all around him. Even the helicopter, as its engines screamed while it reached its maximum revolutions, was muffled by the blasting report of the powerful machinegun.
The butt of the gun juddered against his shoulder, sending vibrations through his whole body as he continued to squeeze the trigger for just two seconds at a time, sending out five round bursts.
The belt of ammunition flowed through the fingers of his left hand as he kept a tight grasp on the pistol grip with his right. All the time he swivelled the weapon from left to right, picking out fresh targets as they approached, mowing them down with a burst of searing hot metal.
One bullet out of every five was a tracer round and the woods became illuminated by streaks of glowing red, as the gun spat its venom at the mutilated bodies refusing to retreat from the ferocious defence.
Bodies fell in their droves and trees snapped in half as the large machinegun bullets punched through flesh and wood alike, devastating the ground immediately to the west of the house. Within a minute, the woods were nothing more than a smouldering and bloodied quagmire of mud and flesh as the dead were smashed by bullets and ricocheting tree splinters.
"Ammo," Stu screamed over his shoulder as he felt the belt of ammunition becoming lighter in his hand.
"More ammo, bring more fucking ammo."
Guns, pistols and rifles opened fire from all around the rooftop as everyone joined in on attempting to give Kelly the time that she needed. The noise was thunderous, sounding like a thousand hammers beating against a thousand steel drums. The bright red tracer bullets shot out in all directions, punching through flesh, splintering bone and wood, and ricocheting from rocks before rocketing vertically into the black sky.
The children screamed and covered their ears as they clung to their mothers. The people in the centre of the rooftop were helpless. They had no weapons to defend themselves and could only look on, as the rest fought with desperation to stem the tide of death that flooded towards the house.
The weight of fire did little to stop the advance of the dead. For every one that fell, it seemed a hundred more sprung up in their place. The death and destruction that obliterated everything around them did nothing to deter the mindless reanimated corpses.
They continued their onslaught, wailing with excitement and, even when battered with rounds that punched numerous holes through them, they pressed their assault.
Kieran appeared at the side of Stu and began to hand him bundles of the precious machinegun ammunition. The linked bullets slid from his shoulders in long, brass belts that sparkled in the bursts of light from the numerous weapons erupting all around them.
"Link them together," Stu screamed at him hoarsely as he let out another burst of fire into the darkness. "Make sure you get them the right way, for fuck’s sake."
"Yeah, I know," Kieran screamed back at him over the roar of the gun, "you showed me this afternoon, remember?"
Kieran worked frantically, clipping the two ends of the ammunition belts together so that Stu could keep his rate of fire going without having to reload. He linked two more belts then stood up, raising his own rifle and taking aim at the advancing dead.
"Lee is still in the house," he hollered across to Marcus.
Marcus looked across at him, releasing his own trigger for a moment and trying to focus his hearing through the racket of the firing.
"What?" he yelled back.
Kieran, rainwater pouring down his face and into his mouth with his ears ringing from the deafening sound of the guns, pointed back towards the door that led to the s
tairs and into the house.
"Lee," he screamed to Marcus again, "he's still in the house, with Sophie."
"Shit," Marcus hissed and turned, ready to go after them.
Lisa had heard Kieran inform Marcus about Lee and moved towards the door. She had no weapon and served no purpose in the defence of the house from the rooftop.
"I'll get them," she screamed back at Marcus through the rain as she took off towards the door.
"Just don’t forget and leave without me."
She raced through the house, screaming for Lee and Sophie, finding them in the foyer as they finished adding the last items of furniture to the barricaded main entrance.
They turned as the first thumps rocked the heavy wooden doors and echoed through the dark foyer. Lee and Sophie watched as the barricade of sofas and tables shuddered under the impact as more fists and bodies crashed against the door from the outside. The din of their assault on the house increased by the second, and soon, windows gave way, shattering loudly under the hammering of rotting hands.
The doors shuddered and reverberated under the impacts, shaking in their frames, and soon they began to splinter.
"Come on," Lisa screamed at them as the sound of gunfire, the helicopter engine, pounding fists and breaking glass threatened to carry her voice away into oblivion.
"You need to get out of here, now."
Sophie headed for the stairs, dragging Lee with her as he continued to stare at the rattling door that he knew would not hold out for long against such a ferocious onslaught.
"They're everywhere, Lee," Lisa yelled at him as they began to climb the stairs. "We can't hold them back."
Lee turned and raced up the final few steps with Sophie, dragging his attention from the failing barricade and heading for the rooftop.
Lisa lunged for the top step as Lee and Sophie took off along the corridor, the ball of her foot making contact with the thick carpet, but immediately losing its grip and forcing her ankle backwards, as the weight of her body pushed down on her foot.