The Words of Their Roaring
Page 2
He brought the back of his free right hand to cover his nose and realised he still held the gun. It seemed suddenly paltry and comically unnecessary in the face of such carnage, but he felt loath to let go of it. As he gripped it tighter, he sensed himself drawing strength from it, gaining courage. Slowly, he began to walk down the trench in search of the supplies centre, the dead pressed high to either side of him, threatening to topple over onto him at any moment and drown him in cold, white flesh. He felt a little of the wariness the Israelites must have experienced as they were led between those high, dark, roiling walls of the Red Sea with nothing but their faith to protect them.
Steadman tried to keep his eyes on the ground, using the lamp to guide himself past outstretched limbs that he would've otherwise stumbled over, but the lure to raise the light and gaze upon the ravaged soldiers' features was too great. A ghoulish curiosity, he supposed. The sight was appalling, but he kept returning to it, testing his endurance the way the tongue endlessly probes a painful tooth; agonising yet irresistible. Even so, when he did glance up, many of the dead no longer had recognisable features; their faces were indistinct, pulpy masses as if they'd been shot at close range. Others were eviscerated, evidently bayoneted repeatedly. He shook his head, ashamed to call himself human, refusing to align himself with a species that could commit such heinous acts of barbarism.
Why had they been so systematically slaughtered, and with such an obviously bloodthirsty callousness, he wondered. If this was the result of some mania, why then take the time to stack the bodies as if for a funeral pyre?
The smell was beginning to make him feel dizzy, and every time he closed his eyes gory images assailed him. His legs cried out for rest, and his throat for water. He was on the verge of collapse when the lamp illuminated the opening to some kind of officers' structure ahead, judging by the map table standing outside it. He sighed with relief and increased his pace towards it. There was a tarpaulin hanging across the entrance acting as a makeshift door, and Steadman hoped it would provide adequate shelter, not only to shield him from the cold but also remove from view, at least temporarily, the horrors of the trench: out of sight, if not mind. He covered the last few yards at speed and stumbled inside, pulling the sheeting closed behind him.
The first thing that caught his eye was the bed in the corner, half-hidden in shadow; he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt the caress of a pillow. He looked around the dark room quickly, taking in the large table, the surface of which was scattered with the remains of a meal, a couple of chairs, the stove, the walls plastered with maps and directives. He crossed to the table, placed the lamp and the revolver upon it, picked up a jug three quarters full of water, and took a long swig; it tasted rusty, but he drained it to the last drop. Then, he searched for scraps of food on the plates, shovelling hard pieces of bread into his mouth and chewing appreciatively before slumping exhaustedly into a chair.
Steadman sat unmoving for what seemed a very long time, too spent to think cohesively. Finally, he ran his hands over his face, his fingers rasping against his unshaven chin, and realised he was trembling. He felt hollow and scared; he would need a miracle to get out of this situation. He tried to reason through the consequences of today's actions and plan what he should do next, but his mind would not stay still for a moment; it fluttered, startled, from one scenario to another and would not allow him to concentrate. He assumed it was tiredness; his eyelids were beginning to droop as sleep crept up on him, and he was just considering whether to attempt to get the furnace going before burying himself beneath the bedclothes when he heard a soft mewling coming from the far corner.
He froze, unsure whether he had imagined it, deciding it could possibly be a combination of the wind and his fatigued senses. But then it came again, louder, undoubtedly human. It sounded like someone in considerable distress. He inched his hands across to the lamp and pistol and simultaneously rose to his feet, taking cautious steps around the table. There was a shape on the floor, silhouetted in the blackness. He shuffled closer and crouched down, lifting the lantern to see clearly.
Lying with his back to the wall was a British soldier, his familiar uniform soaked with blood. His eyes, rolling wide in their sockets like a beast aware of its impending death, squinted at the sudden light and tried to turn his head to face it. As he did so, Steadman saw the extent of the man's appalling injuries: a portion of the right side of his skull was missing, a cavernous red hole where his ear should have been, fragments of bone and clumps of hair standing at right angles. There was a vermilion halo sprayed on the wall behind him. Between his legs were three kerosene cans.
The soldier kept attempting to open his mouth to speak, but only made the soft, piteous cry that Steadman had heard. The man's eyes were moving wildly as if panic-stricken, his head shaking from side to side. Steadman got the impression that he was trying to communicate something, or maybe to warn him, but it wasn't until the man raised his right hand that had otherwise been hidden beneath his body and revealed the gun that was still clutched in it that he realised the horrific truth: the soldier had done this to himself. It had meant to be a suicide, but something had gone wrong, for it had left him mortally wounded and more than likely out of his mind in pain and shock. He pointed at the doorway and pulled the trigger repeatedly, grunting with each effort as the hammer slammed down on empty chambers. Presumably he'd tried to use the last bullet on himself.
"Can you hear me? Can you understand?" Steadman started to say, but faltered, realising it was pointless.
He muttered an oath under his breath, unable to comprehend. He felt dislocated, as if in his escape he had torn through a veil and discovered madness existing alongside him. He wanted to ask him what had happened here, what had terrified him to the point of trying to take his own life, but the soldier was obviously beyond rational thought; indeed, it was remarkable that he was still alive at all. But it left Steadman with a dilemma; he was loath to leave him in this state and prolong his suffering, but didn't know if he possessed the courage to finish what the man had started. The latter was the merciful option (there was nothing a medic could do for him now), but he wasn't sure he could reconcile that fact with his faith. In all his twenty-five years on the planet, he had never killed anything higher up the food chain than a bluebottle.
Odd, he mused, that with all the mass murder going on around him, thousands of men dying in seconds to capture a few feet of ground, he should balk at one act of kindness.
The soldier started to wail louder, and Steadman thought he caught the semblance of actual words beneath it; surprised, he moved closer, straining to hear.
"... they... they come..." he gurgled, waving the gun in front of him. "... they know you're here..."
"Who? The Germans?"
If the man heard the question, he gave no indication. "... burn... should've burned..." His voice descended into a groan.
Steadman was puzzled for a moment, then glanced down at the kerosene cans and flashed back to the corpses piled outside.
... as if for a funeral pyre...
... burn...
"Mother of God," he said quietly. Understanding gradually began to dawn, and with it came a tingle of fear; had this soldier been left here to destroy the remains? But to what end? To cover up a war crime? Or to make absolutely sure they were truly dead? For some reason he hadn't been able to go through with it - what had he seen that suicide was the only way out?
There was a scrabbling from beyond the doorway, a sound that turned Steadman's bowels to water. The dying soldier suddenly became animated, shaking and crying ever more violently. Steadman stood and backed away, his eyes fixed on the tarpaulin-covered entrance. He tried to reason that it could be rats scurrying amongst the bodies, but couldn't even convince himself. He felt his breaths becoming shorter, his scalp prickle with sweat despite the chill. The revolver was slippery in his hand.
A low moan echoed outside; and then the sheeting bulged as if something was pushing against it, looking for
a way in. Steadman attempted to swallow, the inside of his mouth like sandpaper, and raised the gun. He sensed a breeze brush against his face, but had seen nothing come through the doorway; he moved nearer, peering into the gloom.
"Show yourself," he demanded, his voice cracking; then yelled in fright as something grabbed his leg. He staggered, glanced down and recoiled in disgust: the upper half of a German soldier's torso was crawling across the floor, one hand clutched around his ankle. In its wake, like a snail's trail, it left a glistening smear of blood, painted there by the entrails emerging from its rapidly evacuating stomach cavity. Its head was upturned, its eyes glazed, its mouth open and emitting a tiny wail from the back of its throat. Immobilised with shock, Steadman could do nothing but stare as the creature puts its lips to his trouser leg and attempt to bite through it.
Blinking himself out of his paralysis, he roared in revulsion, kicked out at it and managed to loosen its grip; he stepped away and without thinking fired the gun, catching it in the shoulder. The impact knocked it back, but it was clearly still alive; it struggled to right itself like a turtle flipped onto its shell. Steadman moved closer in horrified fascination, raising the revolver for a better shot, then caught himself before he could pull the trigger. He'd never killed anything before, either on two legs or four, and yet here he was prepared to act without pause; this creature, as his mind had fixedly called it, was still a man. He had survived horrendous injuries, either through enormous willpower or some quirk of physiology that enabled the heart to still beat even as the veins and arteries spurted into empty air, and, like the British soldier, could not be long for this world. Did that give him the right to help usher him towards death?
The German was crawling in his direction once more. Clearly, despite the pain he must be in, he was not going to give up on Steadman as his objective. Steadman allowed him to draw closer, and dropped to his haunches.
"I cannot help you," he enunciated, wishing he could recall what little of the language he knew. He shook his head, holding up his hands. "Nicht... gut..."
The man didn't seem to understand, or even to hear him. Still he approached, whimpering like a whipped dog, his insides rasping against the wooden floor. He grasped Steadman's boot and started gnawing on it as if it were a bone; Steadman could feel teeth attempting to penetrate the leather. Tears sprang in his eyes; he knew now that this was not one man desperately clinging onto life despite the ravages of his injuries. This was something else entirely, something beyond any kind of reasoning. He was no longer human, but the product of something... unholy. He shook himself free of the man's clutches, put the revolver to the back of his skull and squeezed his eyes shut at the same time as he squeezed the trigger. He winced at the bang, thinking: forgive me.
When he opened his eyes, the man was finally motionless, the contents of his head spread out in a parabola around him. Steadman shivered uncontrollably, the gun trembling before him. He could not stay in this charnel pit a moment longer; better he took his chances on the battlefield or in a military cell than spend the night amongst this horror.
He moved towards the doorway, glancing back at the British soldier when he heard him cry out. "I'm sorry," he said, turning his head away.
Steadman pulled back the tarpaulin and bit down on a scream: the trench was alive. Where there was once dead stacked upon dead, shadows now shifted and slithered, a familiar wail carrying on the wind. He saw arms and hands clawing themselves free like the freshly buried rising from their graves. Dark figures wobbled as they stood and grew accustomed to their newfound resurrection; some were missing appendages, some emptied viscera at their feet the moment they were upright, but it didn't take them long for their heads to turn in his direction. He could see them sense him, almost as if they were sniffing the air and hearing the beat of a warm, living heart. They began to shuffle forward, tripping over one another, the trench a tangle of grasping limbs.
Steadman did not hesitate. He rushed back to the soldier, grabbed the kerosene cans and began to splash fuel through the entranceway at the approaching creatures. When all three cans were empty, he flung the lantern into the throng.
Instantly, the dark confines of the trench became an explosion of light. The first of the figures were immediately immolated, man-sized candles awkwardly stumbling into those behind, the touch allowing the fire to spread. Thick black smoke began billowing into the air, and soon it was impossible to distinguish between the shapes being devoured by the wall of flame. For a moment, Steadman felt a small spark of hope; the inferno seemed to have halted them. But mere seconds later he saw that they were still coming, implacable and relentless, that ever-present moaning barely rising an octave. The ones at the front were shrivelled husks, turning to ash before his eyes, but they were replaced by others, unconcernedly treading on their fallen comrades as they surged forwards.
Steadman let loose a cry of frustration and fired at the nearest creature, blowing a puff of soot from its arm. There was no way out. He checked the chambers of the revolver and found he had three bullets left. That was at least some comfort.
He walked over to the British soldier and knelt beside him. He knew what Steadman intended and nodded slightly, his eyes pleading. Steadman embraced him and placed the gun barrel under his chin, offering a silent prayer before firing.
He sat down next to the body and surveyed the room, littered with the dead. His faith had instructed him that life was to be preserved at all costs - but that had been shattered. Death was preferable to the parody of life these creatures exhibited.
They were beginning to come through the doorway, shadows dancing on the walls as the flames flickered. They bumped into the table and chairs and bed, trying to find their way around, igniting fires as they did so.
He put the revolver in his mouth, tasting the oil. Funny: he had refused to be sacrificed to the war, made the choice of life over death, and yet here he was preparing to offer himself up to Purgatory. This seemed the lesser of two evils; whatever those things were - and the Army was aware of them, that was plainly evident - he guessed that if they took him, he would end up in a far, far worse place. Better this way; better a sinner than a victim of the Devil's works.
Steadman turned his head and looked up at a map of Europe on the wall, which was starting to smoulder and blacken as the creatures brushed past. Maybe this is the Apocalypse, he thought as his finger tightened on the trigger. Maybe this is the beginning of the end.
If they're the future... God help the living.
PART ONE
A Sound Like Breaking Glass
Cruell and sodaine, hast thou since
Purpled thy naile, in blood of innocence?
John Donne,
The Flea
Now
CHAPTER ONE
The head didn't so much explode when hit by the bullet as deflate, a fat sack of gas puckering like an emptied balloon, haloed by a blossoming cloud of dust and powdered shards of ancient bone.
"Fuckin' things are rotten," Hewitt muttered. "See the way it burst like a goddamned watermelon?"
Gabe grunted a reply, chambering another round. He put his eye to the infrared sight and swept the street, their vantage point from atop the multi-storey car park offering a decent view of the shadowy thoroughfare beneath them. Dark figures were stumbling in the blood-red gloom of the eyepiece, hunched silhouettes shuffling aimlessly from one side of the road to the other. They seemed unperturbed by the shot that had rung out seconds earlier, or the fact that the skull of one of their brethren had vanished in a puff of miasmic residue, what was left below the neck keeling over like a felled tree. They stepped over him - or, rather, through him, snagging their feet on his form if they wandered too close - barely aware the body was even there. Gabe moved the rifle in tiny increments, following the path of each figure, trying to gauge the numbers, his crosshairs alighting on one for several moments before drifting across to its nearest companion.
"Well?" he heard Hewitt ask. "How many you reckon?"
He felt Hewitt shift up onto his knees beside him and once more peer into his night-vision binoculars. It was enough for Gabe to finally take his eye from the rifle-sight and irritably study his colleague. The kid annoyed him for numerous reasons - he was excitable but lacked the experience to put that enthusiasm to good use, he wasted ammo, and he had a sarcastic streak, a trait Gabe found particularly ignoble - but it never failed to particularly rankle him that Hewitt would often ask his opinion then double-check it for himself immediately afterwards. Gabe guessed the kid was trying to assume he had some kind of say in the decision-making process, rather than being the extra pair of hands he undoubtedly was, useful only for the inevitable donkey work. If it weren't for the bountiful haul they were expecting, Gabe would quite happily go on one of these missions alone. He could certainly do without having to converse with the little idiot. But he kept these niggles to himself, chiefly because Flowers seemed fond of the kid - Hewitt was, after all, eager to please and would go out of his way to find favour in the boss man's eyes, looking to weasel his way up the hierarchy. You had to watch what you said sometimes, in case a version of the truth spilled back to the wrong people.
"Yeah," Hewitt drawled with an infuriating note of authority to his voice that sounded alien coming out of his mouth. "Two dozen looks about right to me too." He turned to Gabe. "Where's the store?"