End Times V: Kingdom of Hell

by Shane Carrow

  “Don’t know.”

  “Withdraw, slowly,” Blake said. “Stay under cover.”

  We wriggled backwards through the grass, down into the gully, the shelter of the undergrowth and the paperbark trees. Blake lingered behind, covering our retreat and scoping out the mill, and came to join us a few moments later.

  “No movement, so he didn’t spot us,” he said. “But if there’s one, there must be more.”

  “What the hell are they doing there?” Rahvi said.

  I groaned. “Draeger read the journal. I didn’t write down where the codebook was, but I think he said something about... about search teams. Sending people out to look over the places I’d been.”

  “And you didn’t think to tell us this earlier?” Blake said furiously.

  “Well, I’m sorry,” I growled, “but if you didn’t notice, my brain got fried back there and I had trouble remembering shit!”

  “Keep your voice down,” Rahvi hissed.

  “What does it matter?” I said. I’d been leaning against a paperbark tree and holding a branch, getting my breath back, but now I stood up straight and pulled out my gun. “We go in there, kill them, get the codebook and leave. We’ve got the jump on them. What’s the problem?”

  Blake pinched the bridge of his nose. “Because aside from the issue of attacking a force of unknown size in the close quarters of a small building,” he said wearily, “they’ll radio for backup as soon as they engage us. And then we’ll have the full force of New England raining down on us. Again.”

  I sat down again with my back against the tree. Yes, New England is on the brink of civil war, and appears to be having trouble with zombie outbreaks – but it certainly isn’t out for the count. We’re still close to Armidale, still close to the heart of things, and it’ll be a long time before three exhausted, dirty, starving soldiers will have the upper hand.

  So we’re sitting here, trying to think of a plan. At least, I am. Blake’s crawled back up to the top of the gully to try and scout a little closer to the mill, and Rahvi is asleep in the bracken. When he was stretching out I asked him how he could sleep at a time like this, and he replied “by closing my eyes.”

  I guess he has years of experience at sleeping wherever and whenever he gets the chance. I’m not so good at that, but it’s probably not a bad idea to try. We were walking all night and I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours. There’s going to be blood spilt soon, and the more well-rested we are the less chance it’ll be ours.

  3.30pm

  “Matt. Wake up.”

  I opened my eyes, and saw Rahvi’s face. Above him the sun was high in the sky, filtering through the leaves above us. “What time is it?” I mumbled.

  “Half one. Blake’s back. Come on, we’re moving out.”

  I scrambled to my feet. Sergeant Blake was further up the gully. “Hey, wait!” I said. “What are we doing?”

  “Well,” Rahvi said, keeping in step beside me, “you and me are going to hide in the bushes while he walks up to the front door.”

  “What?”

  We clambered further up the gully, pushing through ferns and bracken. “We’re all wearing military uniforms, right?” Rahvi said. “But if these guys are one of Draeger’s field teams, we have to assume that they’re on the lookout for both you and me. But not the sarge. He was never captured, never photographed.”

  “They photographed you?”

  “Yeah. Why? Didn’t they take pictures of you?”

  “I guess.” I didn’t remember it, but then, I’d spent half my time as a prisoner of the Republic either unconscious or on a blissfully tripped-out journey into my past.

  “Right. So we can’t exactly go strolling through the fields. But Blake can. He’s going to pretend to be on the run from a battle or a zombie outbreak or some other shit that’s going down.”

  We’d reached the top of the gully. Blake was heading off into the trees that bordered the fields, circling around towards the road, and Rahvi and I stayed under cover and followed in his trail. “This seems stupidly risky,” I said.

  “You got a better plan?”

  “No. Why are we going round to the other side of the building?”

  “There’s Claymores in the field. Land mines. Bear that in mind if everything goes to shit and we have to run for our lives again.”

  “Uh… will do. So, he pretends to be a friendly soldier. What next?”

  “Well, assuming they don’t shoot him on the spot, he’ll see how many of them there are, get an idea of their positions. And then it either becomes feasible to take them down… or not.”

  We arrived at the edge of the road, an unsealed dirt track that ran through the forest and led straight up to the mill. Sergeant Blake was crouched down in the bracken, staring at the building. There was a Range Rover parked on this side, and as we watched, a soldier emerged from the mill and leaned against the wall, flicking at a cigarette with his lighter.

  Blake took his Steyr Aug off his back and handed it to me. “Right,” he said. “I’m going to walk in peaceably with my hands up. You two had better move backwards into the undergrowth a bit, in case they send someone to look in the direction I came from. Now, if you hear gunfire, or any sound of a struggle, come in guns blazing and save my ass.”

  “Won’t they report something like this?” Rahvi said. “Finding a lone, lost soldier?”

  “Yes,” Blake said. “But nobody’s going to send reinforcements over that. We’re only in strife if they decide I’m lying. So again, if you hear any sound of struggle, come and save me, because it means that in less than half an hour this place will be swarming with soldiers.”

  “This is a shit idea,” I said. “You know why? Because this is really, obviously a shit idea.”

  “Unfortunately we don’t have any others right now, Matt,” Blake muttered, and started moving through the undergrowth.

  I lay on my stomach and peered through the rifle scope, watching the scene ahead unfold between the stalks of bracken. Blake moved out into the field with one hand outstretched, a gesture of peace towards the soldier with the cigarette. It dropped out of his mouth in surprise as soon as he saw the sergeant, and he snatched up his rifle and moved out into the field, pointing it square at Blake’s chest and yelling something. Blake raised both his arms high and yelled something back. The wind was blowing in the wrong direction; I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  “This is going swimmingly,” I murmured.

  Three more soldiers came out the front door of the house, dog tags jangling around their necks, holding an assortment of weapons. “Two Steyrs and a Remington pump-action,” Rahvi whispered beside me.

  “They’re all kids, except the smoker,” I said. He looked to be in his thirties; the rest were teenagers. Conscripts.

  There was a tense shouting match out in the fields. Then one of the soldiers frisked Blake for weapons, relieving him of his combat knife and sidearm. After a moment he was escorted inside the mill at gunpoint.

  “Not so good,” I said.

  “Just wait,” Rahvi whispered. “We didn’t expect them to give him a hug.”

  We waited for a few more minutes. A few more minutes became ten minutes, then fifteen minutes. I fidgeted uncomfortably. “What if we don’t hear a struggle?” I said. “What if nothing happens?”

  “Then we wait for nightfall,” Rahvi replied.

  “You’ve got be...”

  I was cut-off in mid-sentence by three sharp gunshots coming from inside the house.

  Rahvi didn’t glance at me, didn’t say anything. He jumped straight to his feet and started dashing through the undergrowth, clutching his rifle. By the time I’d managed to get to my feet he was already sprinting down the road towards the mill. I wasn’t far behind him.

  More gunfire was coming from inside the building as we approached; a few more single shots, then a quick rattle of automatic fire. Rahvi ducked past the Range Rover and went around the left side of the building. I went to the right,
past the pond and the waterwheel, to nip inside through a side door.

  A narrow, dim hallway, my eyes adjusting to the light. The mill seemed horribly silent. I raised Sergeant Blake’s Steyr and carefully stepped down the corridor, my boots sounding unbearably loud on the floorboards. The hall led into the kitchen, where I very nearly plastered Rahvi’s guts over the wall from sheer reflex – he’d entered through a door on the other side and was standing there now, Steyr in hands, utterly silent. He raised a finger to his lips and pointed towards a door leading into the next room, the lounge. I was about to step forward and open it when I heard the pantry door burst open behind me and a man scream “Drop your weapons!”

  I turned, hefting my rifle, and was rewarded with a glancing blow to the side of the head. I collapsed onto the lino, vision blurring, and immediately felt somebody drop down and pin me to the floor with his knee. My Browning was pulled from my thigh holster. All around me were screams and shouts, and another quick rattle of gunfire. I struggled against my assailant, but he pushed me harder against the floor.

  “Alright, get up,” he snarled, a moment later. The pressure was gone, and I staggered to my feet, gripping the kitchen counter for support. Rahvi was standing on the other side of it, his hands in the air and a furious expression on his face. There were no less than three soldiers in the room, now, with their guns aimed directly at our heads. My heart was pounding, and I felt a sick fear rise up inside me.

  Something I decided, right then, was that I would rather die than go back into captivity. I would lunge at one of the soldiers and let him shoot me before that.

  But not yet. I’d let it play out a little longer.

  One of the soldiers pushed the door open and we were marched into the next room, the mill’s main living area. I remembered it well from my last visit: a large, spacious room, the ceiling two stories above, a staircase running up the far wall. There were two large windows, but the curtains were drawn. A few embers were glowing in the fireplace in the corner. A handful of easels were scattered across the room, with half-finished paintings or sketches clipped to them, and every surface was covered in paints, brushes, charcoals and sketches – which were in turn covered in a fine layer of dust. The artist who had lived here before the rise of the dead was long gone.

  Standing up against the windows, with duct tape over his mouth and both arms held high above his head, handcuffed to the curtain railing, was Sergeant Blake. His eyes flared with frustration as we were led into the room, pushed up against the window next to him. The oldest soldier, the smoker, was standing in the opposite corner casually reloading his Steyr. The wall opposite him was peppered with bullet holes.

  There’d been no struggle. They’d opened fire just to lure us in.

  “I think that went pretty well, on the whole,” he said.

  “Is it them?” one of the younger soldiers demanded, his finger very close to the trigger on his Steyr. All three of the teenagers had their weapons pointed at us. Rahvi and I kept our hands in the air.

  The smoker studied us for a moment. “The general messed up his face pretty bad, but that one’s too young to be anyone but Matthew King,” he said, looking at me. My heart sank. “And I’m not 100%, but I’d say that this one here’s Joe Rahvi. And their mate, I guess, is the one who busted them out of jail.” He glanced over at one of his men. “Kocol, raise Armidale and relay that information to Major D’Costa.” The young soldier nodded, and hurried out of the room.

  The smoker sat down on the couch in front of us. His other two subordinates were still standing behind the couch, aiming their guns over his head at us; one Steyr Aug, one mean-looking combat shotgun. I wondered how experienced they were. I wondered if I could lunge at the smoker without them shooting me. He sat with his rifle across his lap, rubbing the stubble on his chin and thinking. After a moment, he said: “Is General Draeger still alive?”

  I glanced over at Rahvi, who remained silent. I figured I should too.

  “It doesn’t really make any difference. I’m just curious.”

  We didn’t say anything. The smoker clucked his tongue. “In a little while, a helicopter’s going to arrive, with some of the top brass inside. Things haven’t been going too well for us since you took the general. I’m sure you’ve noticed that. So they’re a little tense. And they’re going to be very keen to find those nuclear codes. And, since you came back, we know they must be here. Somewhere in this building or in the grounds outside. So why don’t you save us all the drama and just tell me where they are?”

  I was about to make a snide remark, but Rahvi spoke up before me. “New England is falling apart,” he said. “Things won’t hold together. Why do you care about us, or the codebook? Your best chance of survival is to leave right now. New England is about to become a very dangerous place.”

  The smoker laughed. “Do you know who I am, mate? Army Intelligence. I report directly to Major D’Costa. I think I know a little bit more about what’s going on in New England than you do.”

  “Why do you even want the codes anymore?” I said. “The nuke is long gone. What could you possibly use it for, anyway? You’ve got bigger issues!”

  “The nuke isn’t gone,” the smoker said simply. “It’s in Wollemi National Park, at the Cloud Mountain Observatory. Last I heard, it was being protected by only fifteen men, who are holed up in that building with a horde of zombies several thousand strong surrounding them on all sides. It’s not going anywhere. And as soon as we get our own affairs in order we’ll send a group to retrieve it.”

  I have to say, that left me speechless. We’d had no idea where the nuke was, except that it was possibly somewhere near Wollemi National Park.

  “So,” the smoker said, shifting in his seat, still with his hands on his rifle. “Let me ask you again. Where exactly is the codebook?”

  When neither of us answered, he shrugged. “Fine. Suit yourselves. I don’t really mind. But let me warn you – Major D’Costa was a very close friend of General Draeger’s. They went to Duntroon together. They served in Afghanistan together. They restabilised New England together. If the general is dead, the major is going to be very, very upset with you.”

  Suddenly the door opened, and Kocol came back into the room. “Sarge, I can’t get through to Armidale,” he said breathlessly. “There’s something going on, another outbreak I think, it sounds pretty big...”

  “Shut your mouth,” the smoker growled. He stood up from the couch, and paused at the door. “Do not take your eyes off them,” he ordered the other two soldiers, then followed Kocol out of the room.

  “You hear that?” Rahvi said. “An outbreak.”

  “Shut up,” one of the soldiers hissed.

  “You’re fucked if you don’t get out of here soon,” I said.

  “Turn around and face the wall,” the other one commanded.

  “No,” Rahvi said. “Listen, you’re not idiots, you wouldn’t be alive this long if you weren’t idiots. But it sounds to me like there’s an outbreak going on. This place is going to end up like every other place…”

  “Shut up,” the one with the shotgun said. “Shut your fucking face.”

  “I’d be getting the fuck out of here while I still could,” I said. “You got rifles, you got that Range Rover…”

  “You don’t shut the fuck up, I’m going to fuck your faces up worse than they already are,” the shotgun soldier hissed. The other one was looking worried.

  “General Draeger’s dead,” Rahvi said. “We killed him. This place’ll fall apart without him.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’s true,” I said. “I shot him myself. For what he did to me.”

  “You know what we saw on the way out here, last night?” Rahvi said. “Zombies. Zombies in New England, if you can believe that. Not five kays from here. All wearing Army uniforms.”

  “All right, I warned you, asshole,” the soldier with the shotgun said. He was sixteen, maybe seventeen, an outbreak of acne across his cheeks. “I war
ned you to shut your fucking mouth.” He started stepping around the couch. “Dan!” the other one warned, but it was too late. Dan was already raising the butt of the shotgun to smash Rahvi across the face.

  Which was never going to happen. Rahvi grabbed the shotgun in his own hands. There was a blast, and plaster poured down from a hole in the roof. The other soldier was wide-eyed; I took the opportunity to launch myself forward, leap over the couch and tackle him into an easel.

  We went down in a tangle of splintered wood and torn paper, the rifle wedged between us. I grabbed his hair and slammed his head against the floorboards, twice, three times. He managed to bring a knee up and kick me aside, pushing me off him. I landed on my feet as he crawled onto his hands and knees, not trying to fight back, just trying to get away from me, scrabbling across the floor with the rifle getting caught in his legs. On the other side of the couch, another shotgun blast reduced a long-dead television to fragments as Rahvi and the other soldier vied for control of it.

  There was half a paintbrush lying in the wreckage around us, one edge a splintered point. I grasped it in one hand and lunged forward, stabbing it into the back of the soldier’s neck. He screeched in pain, and I dragged him forward, grabbing his hair and shoving his face into the embers in the fireplace, pressing it down, and now his screams shot up to a whole new level and I could smell burning flesh and in my mind’s eye I was back there, back there in the torture chamber, smelling my own skin burn as Draeger pressed a hot iron rod against my chest. It was a good smell. There were bricks around the fireplace – I pulled the soldier out of it and slammed his head into them, feeling his face crunch, over and over and over. He wasn’t screaming anymore.

  Eventually I became aware of somebody calling my name in the distance, and then physically dragging me away from the corpse. “He’s dead, Matt!” Rahvi was yelling, not in the distance but right up in my face, pulling me to my feet. “He’s dead!” He was looking at me with a mixture of horror and disgust. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  I glanced back down at the body. He’d been just as young as the other one – younger than me, anyway. His face was red and twisted from the fire, covered in blood, his nose a pulpy mess. He wasn’t breathing.