by Luke Duffy
They continued along the gloomy passageway, dimly lit by the few bulbs that could be spared. Rats screeched and scurried along the walls, their claws scratching at the hard packed clay, and the water that seeped through the earth, fell from the thick wooden supports of the walls and ceiling in echoing drops that rang out in the narrow space.
The shaft, wide enough for a man to stand in with his arms stretched out on either side, continued for a long way. Two-point-nine kilometres to be exact. At every five-hundred metre interval, a gate of thick steel bars blocked their path, needing to be unbolted and slid back from the wall and then replaced behind them. At two points, the tunnel was rigged with explosives, ready to be detonated should the dead ever discover their secret passage.
They walked, and soon without realising it, both men found themselves staring up at the ceiling of the tunnel as they continued their journey through the dimness. Neither of them needed to say a word. They both knew what the other was thinking.
Just above us, there’s an army of rotting feet.
At the far end, they reached the final door. It was a hatch that had been taken from a war ship. Made from four centimetre thick steel, and virtually impossible to force open, it was the final barrier that separated them from the danger of the outside.
The construction of the passage had been a work of genius, overseen by an engineer named Michael. He had spent months, years, surveying the area at huge risk to himself and his team, losing many of them along the way. With great skill and patience, he had studied and poured over every map, aerial photograph, and town plan. Anything that could help him with the task ahead. Under the circumstances, it had been a feat of engineering that the survivors considered to be more important than any architectural wonder from the old world.
He had plotted the tunnel so that it came up beneath the foundations of an old Victorian pumping station. The building had still been in use up until the days when the world had crumbled beneath the onslaught of the dead and the strong walls and heavy gates helped to ensure that the hidden passage would remain unseen and protected.
With absolute accuracy, the tunnel had been completed, emerging exactly where Michael had intended it.
Unfortunately, Michael had died the previous year from cancer. It had eaten him to the bone and there was nothing that anyone could do to help him. In the end, he had taken an overdose of morphine to ease his suffering.
At the door, the two soldiers paused and silently read the inscription that had been etched into the wall.
To Michael,
The man who, with a shovel and pick, fought for our survival but lost his own personal battle.
Always remembered.
Sleep well.
On the floor below it, laid a bouquet of wilted flowers and a candle that had burned down to nothing more than a solid puddle of melted wax.
Standing back from the door, they raised their rifles and pulled back on the cocking levers slightly. Just enough to see the shine of the brass case that was sitting snuggly in the breach. Happy that their weapons were ready to fire, they pushed the working parts forward again and conducted a final check of their equipment, weapons, and ammunition.
The larger man covered the door, while the other began slowly to lever the locking mechanism out from its recess in the thick stone wall. The lock was stiff and he winced as he pulled, afraid to put too much of his weight behind it and bring it crashing towards him, making a deafening racket that would alert everything on the surface.
The lock was painstakingly released and the door was free.
Holding the rifle firmly against his shoulder, the big soldier could hear his heart pounding against his chest, and feel the sweat that soaked his brow and running down into his face. He nodded to his friend who then pulled at the bulky hatch.
It fell open with a faint whine, and both men readied themselves to receive whatever happened to be on the opposite side, stepping back and taking up the first pressure on the triggers of their assault rifles.
Nothing but blackness greeted them and both released a sigh of relief.
“Why the fuck didn’t old Mike put a peep-hole in this fucking door?” The skinny soldier hissed through the gloom.
They stepped through the hatch and sealed it shut behind them, locking themselves into a small chamber containing a number of large pipes and valves. Below their feet was a heavy iron grate, running into the sewers. The sound of trickling water echoed around them in the cramped space, mixing with the screech of the rats that scurried through the network of sewer tunnels beneath them.
In the low light, the steel staircase leading up to the surface was barely visible, but they had been here many times and knew it was there, and how careful they needed to be as they climbed the rickety steps.
Slowly and silently, they both began their ascent towards the dead world above.
2
Sierra Leone, West Africa. Twelve years earlier.
The rattle of automatic gunfire continued to echo throughout the lush green valley, carried along on the wind and rebounding from the low lying hills on either side of the river.
The attack was over.
The loud deafening concussions of high explosives, the rapid crack and thump of machinegun fire, and the lingering, agony filled cries of the dying had been replaced with cheers of triumph and celebratory volleys fired into the air from the Kalashnikov assault rifles.
Excited voices called out to one another and orders were barked as the rebels swept through the ruined village, ransacking the remaining homes that were still standing and had escaped the ravages of the short but brutal battle.
Dressed in a mix-match array of military uniform and civilian clothing, the confident rebels sauntered arrogantly amongst the devastation, sifting through the debris and searching for anything of use or value.
They were never concerned about why they attacked and their brutality never faltered. Their commanders would order them onto the offensive and they would obey without question. The reasons did not matter to them, but their lust for blood and loot did.
The rebels were not soldiers. They had no military skill or knowledge, and many had been snatched away from their villages and towns as children, forced to fight and commit acts of butchery. Controlled with drugs and the promise of reward by their warlord commanders, they had become brainwashed and savage, indifferent to the suffering that they caused and unconcerned with anything, other than plunder, rape, and murder.
Now, they were high on the euphoria of their success, believing themselves to be brave and noble warriors, fighting for a cause that warranted the total slaughter of anyone they considered to be their enemy.
They chanted and sang as they pillaged, firing their rifles into the air and claiming a glorious victory against their foe. Even in the aftermath, with the mixture of drugs and adrenalin in their veins subsiding, and the fear coursing through their bodies being replaced with pride, they remained oblivious and uncaring to the pain and grief that they had dealt out to the once peaceful village.
Their yellow tinged glistening eyes scoured the earth, searching for their rewards, apathetic to the mutilated bodies splayed out on the ground all around them. Men, women, and children, lying in pools of steaming blood, were butchered like cattle.
A loud horn blast from their commander’s truck signalled that it was time for them to leave. With high spirits, the rebels returned to their vehicles, dragging their bootie and two beaten and bound white men with them. They kicked and screamed at the two prisoners as they were hoisted up on to the bed of the truck, raining down blows with their fists and rifle butts until the men collapsed into a heap of swollen flesh and gushing blood.
The engines rumbled and the heavy wheels sent up clouds of dust into the air, cloaking their withdrawal from the area and the echoing sound of their celebratory fire steadily receding into the distance, leaving a landscape of devastation in their wake.
The rebels left the village with their spoils of war.
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sp; Plumes of acrid black smoke swirled in the hot wind that gust through the remains of the huts and small farms, obscuring the blood soaked soil and concealing the destruction and horror that had taken place just moments before. The fading gunfire added to the sound of crackling flames as raging fires continued to spread and burn all in their path.
The air hissed with the thousands of scavenging insects that descended upon the shattered settlement, eager to feast on the remains of the villagers.
Every structure bore the scars of battle. The homes and communal buildings lay in ruins, their roofs caved inward and the licking flames steadily consuming everything that they came into contact with. The mud brick walls that were left standing, glowed and slowly crumbled from the intense heat.
An abandoned vehicle, one of the many that had brought the blood thirsty rebels to the unsuspecting village, lay smouldering at the outskirts. Its steel frame was twisted and pockmarked with bullet holes, having fallen victim to the ferocious firefight that had engulfed the small town.
In the driver’s seat, still seated at the helm, was the charred and skeletal body of one of the attackers. His fingers still clutching at the wheel, and his blackened grinning skull, the eye sockets void, staring out at the tattered remnants of the village.
Countless bodies were scattered throughout the area. Some lay in heaps; families that had died together, their lifeless corpses hugging the earth while their cold hands continued to cling on to one another in their death grip. Others had fallen alone, with no one to hold on to in their final moments, cut down and slaughtered by the ruthless monsters that laughed and sang as they butchered everyone they found.
The scale of the massacre and the extent of the vicious wounds inflicted, were testament to the shared suffering of the unfortunate people.
No one had been spared.
The children of the village had suffered along with their parents. They had been ruthlessly shot, hacked with machetes, and bludgeoned with clubs. Their screams of terror and pain, and their pleas for mercy had fallen on deaf ears, as their attackers had swept through, raping and killing in an orgy of blood.
At the crossroads in the centre, four pale naked bodies lay in the dirt. Their headless carcasses baking in the midday sun as their blood seeped into the earth around them.
They were the remains of British soldiers.
They had fallen in the hailstorm of the battle, fighting hard to defend the helpless villagers from the onslaught. Many of their attackers had died during the assault, but the soldiers had eventually been overwhelmed. When their ammunition was expended, they had fought with fixed bayonets and hand-to-hand against the merciless rebels, but one by one, they had been cut down.
Now, they lay mutilated in an undignified heap, stripped of their equipment, clothing and personal possessions, the rebels carrying it all away as souvenirs of war.
The cries and whimpers of any remaining survivors had been quashed by the rebels before they had left, leaving only the hush of death.
Not even the birds dared to make a sound now. They sat in the trees, or circled above the blood soaked earth, quietly watching.
A ghostly silence slowly fell over the area as the sound of gunfire faded, leaving the insects unhindered to feast upon the dead.
Hours later, as the flames died and all that remained were the smashed and burned remains of humanity and village life, all churned together into the mud, there was movement in the village once again.
Dark shadows moved from within the wisps of smoke.
Rising up from the ashes, the eerie silhouettes, silent and lumbering, drifted through the rubble, driven forward by an unseen force.
A woman, her abdomen split open from her breasts down to her groin, her bloated and mottled intestines splayed out and mixed in with the dusty soil around her, began to move. Her heart did not beat from within her chest, and the remaining blood in her veins, coagulated and cold, did not flow through her body.
She was dead.
Her fingers twitched, barely detectable at first, but soon, they grasped at the black dirt, digging her broken nails deep into the soft earth.
With each passing minute, her body became more animated. Muscles that had stiffened with rigor mortis, twitched and jerked as her limbs struggled to regain their function. Her mouth opened, a gasp escaping from within her lungs as the last breath she had taken was expelled from her lifeless body. Her jaw snapped shut again, the teeth clashing together loudly from the force.
The woman’s eyes flickered open. They were flat and dull from the lack of blood pressure, showing no spark of life. The pale film covering the iris showed no hint of a soul as her large black pupils stared, unseeing, at the pale blue sky above her.
More bodies began to move.
Dozens of mutilated and grotesque figures clumsily dragged themselves to their feet, ignorant to their injuries and the clouds of bloated black flies that had descended upon them, swarming through the air with an incessant buzz.
As the sun began to dip towards the tops of the trees, the shadowy remains of the massacred village stumbled through the wreckage and out on to the dusty track.
3
Syria.
The sky had turned to a bright blue, but it would be another hour before the sun was ready to rise above the horizon and begin warming the landscape with its radiance. It was still very early in the year, and the nights were bitter. The freezing February air would attack any exposed body parts like a sudden harsh slap.
A fine layer of frost coated the ground, its microscopic crystals sparkling like a blanket of stars stretched out over a hardened crust of black soil. In the severe cold, the rocky terrain seemed harder than ever, as though the low temperatures had sharpened the pointed edges of even the smallest of pebbles.
He remained still.
His breathing was slow and controlled, instantly freezing into a white mist that drifted up above his head and dissipated into the cold air. His bulky mass was pressed close to the ground, sinking into the earth and becoming part of the topography, while his attention stayed fixed on the target area in front of him.
His unblinking green eyes and hard expression betrayed his absolute disdain for their current situation. He let out a low sigh and shifted his position to give his stiff muscles and aching bones a moment’s respite from the icy temperatures that they had been forced to endure for the entire night.
For four weeks, they had battled against the elements, suffering the extremes of the climate and the land, pushing their bodies and stamina to the limit. Methodically, they had collected all the information that they needed before putting their final phase into motion. Every aspect of the plan had been scrutinized down to the smallest detail. Nothing had been left to chance, and a number of back-ups and alternatives had been put into place, ready to be brought into play on the receipt of certain code words that would be given to them by their commander over the radio.
“I fucking hate this place, Marty,” he grumbled to the man next to him. “Why can’t they send us somewhere nice for a change?”
Marty shrugged, blinking his eyes rapidly to help with his focus as he pulled his face away from the thermal imaging sight. A wry smile spread across his lips.
“I don’t think they have much call for the likes of us in Antigua right now, Bull,” he replied in a voice that was little more than a whisper.
Bull grunted.
His real name was Manus, but the nickname ‘Bull’, had followed him throughout his adulthood. He remembered, even as a child, one of his many foster parents had referred to him as a ‘Raging Bull’. Being tactful or subtle could never be considered as one of his strong points, and his approach to anything in life was to take it head on, with brute force and maximum effort, mentally and physically, as though everything was a fight to the death.
Grace and diplomacy were not familiar words to him, and he was as quick with his fists as he was with his tongue.
However, contrary to his own beliefs, the nickname had not d
erived from his personality, or his large muscular frame. It had first been given to him during his time as a young soldier and no one, not even his closest friends, had ever plucked up the courage to inform him of the true origins of his bestowed title.
Early in his army career, based in the garrison town of Aldershot in the south of England, the rugged, good looking, Manus, soon drew the attentions of many of the local women. In the bars and clubs, his broad shoulders and piercing eyes turned the heads of many.
It was not long before one lucky girl managed to snare him, even if it was only for just one night. As it happened, she too had a nickname. ‘Machinegun’s Mary’, was a regular face in the barrack block belonging to the Heavy Weapons Platoon. On most weekends, she spent her afternoons and evenings flitting from one room to the next, enjoying the company of the soldiers there. Often, with more than one at a time.
After managing to seduce the inebriated Manus one evening, she convinced him to escort her back to camp. Something that Manus was more than happy to oblige her with.
The next week, when Mary took up her usual position at the bar in the Trafalgar Inn, she was asked how she had got along with the ‘mighty’ Manus.
“It was over before I realised it had even started. He went at it like a bull in a China shop, and then fell asleep,” she replied.
From then on, he became ‘The Bull’.
“I’m just sick of being in crap places,” Bull continued to grumble as he lay in the cold beside his friend. “Everything is a pain in the arse. If I want a dump, I have to do it in a bag and keep it. Then, after a few days of walking about with a bag of shit in my pocket, we walk twenty miles just to go and bury it so no one can find it. I haven’t had a hot meal for over a month or changed my fucking underpants. What kind of a life is that?”
Marty stole a quick glance to his left to look at his friend, and nearly erupted into laughter.
As always, Bull never failed to amuse him. His face, framed in a thick scarf and topped with a misshaped, overly large woolly hat, had taken on the appearance of a frozen slab of pork. His four-week-old beard was covered with frost, and mucus that had solidified into pale stalactites, dangled from his nostrils. His skin was a pale grey, except for his nose, which was a bright crimson, but it was not the pathetic dishevelled appearance that made Marty want to laugh, it was the expression in Bull’s eyes.