by MacCraw
“What the… where the… f… fuck are we?” Kylie gasped.
“What’s more interesting is who was firing at us”, Kirkley remarked as more shots cracked and snapped off in the distance.
“Shush, shush”, ushered Royce. The group ended their discussion and listened closely. Their ears detected voices, human voices speaking a foreign language; perhaps German.
“Germany?” Kylie questioned; “What are we doing in Germany? And why are they attacking us?”
“I suspect we’ll find out in short order”, said Kirkley. “But we need to obtain some wheels, and some uniforms.”
Like a squad of professional soldiers, the survivors covertly crawled through the underbrush towards the source of the voices, which happened to be a small camp guarded by 8 German soldiers. What was more interesting was the fact that a tank happened to be parked just outside the base.
“Is that a tank?” Kylie asked with awe.
“Of course it’s a tank”, said Darnell. “Leopard 2A5. Standardized main battle tank of the modern German armed forces.”
“Let’s steal it”, suggested Royce, before looking around to find Kirkley. “Where’d the big guy go?” he asked in confusion.
Squeezing down on the trigger, Kirkley’s assault rifle opened fire in a fearsome blaze of 5.56 millimeter hollow-point bullets that effortlessly sawed through the unsuspecting German grunts. 30 rounds in a magazine plus the one in the chamber managed to slaughter 8 armed hostiles.
“Dayum, bro”, Kylie giggled as she disrespectfully kicked one of the corpses, “I didn’t know you could be so brutal.”
“Just shut up”, Kirkley growled. “Look, we need new uniforms, lest we want every soldier in this godforsaken country firing at us. Look, take the fatigues, vests and firearms off of these dead Krauts.”
To avoid awkward moments, each of the four survivors took turns stripping down and suiting up in German camouflage uniforms and vests and pouches, as well as taking their G36 rifles; accurate weapons with built-in red dot sights. The rifles were an important part of the disguise; running around with L85 rifles wasn’t standard and was almost guaranteed to generate suspicion.
“Now comes the fun part, lads”, said Royce. “Who knows how to drive this thing?”
“I’ll give it a shot”, Darnell smiled.
“Whoo!” Kylie clapped, giving Darnell a playful smack on the back; “You ‘da man!”
“What in the wet sack of Su and Sat?!” Darnell exclaimed from within the tank; “This thing’s got so many goddamn levers and knobs and buttons and shit.”
“It’s a main battle tank, Darnell”, Kirkley groaned. “It won’t handle like your Ford.”
“Then what makes you think that I’m the perfect man to drive this thing?”
“…Well you’re a soldier”, Kylie shrugged.
“But I’m not a tank crewman.”
“Look man, just haul your ass in there and get ready to floor it, or I’ll haul your ass and floor it”, Kirkley threatened.
“Fine, fine”, Darnell shrugged. “But if I initiate the self-destruct mechanism, it’s not gonna be my fault.”
After fiddling about inside the tank, Darnell finally figured out how to start up the vehicle, and set it in motion. The tank screeched and grinded loudly as it went aggressively blazing forward, bumping and thunking along through the German plains.
“This rocks!” laughed Kylie. “Crank up the tunes!”
Through trial and error, Darnell flipped the switch to turn on the music, which unexpectedly began playing classical German music – quite the opposite of hard rock or heavy metal. Almost as soon as the radio was switched on, it was switched off.
“Hey, look up ahead”, Royce commented as he looked through the viewport of the tank.
What Kirkley, Royce, Kylie and Darnell had come across was by no means a good thing. An armored division of German tanks, all driving in formation towards the southeast; towards Hamburg.
“What the fuck…?” Kirkley mumbled as he opened up the hatch and looked closely, despite the eclipse darkening the landscape and amplifying the shadows of tree and tank alike.
“Where are they going?”
“I dunno, but we’re gonna have to follow and find out”, Darnell said.
…
The German tank platoon hadn’t noticed the discreet arrival of the commandeered tank, but their focus was on Hamburg, where a massive brawl was taking place. Hamburg, once a peaceful and prosperous city, was now under heavy siege from the armed forces of the United Kingdom and the counterattack launched by the Germans. From the outskirts, armored divisions waged intense combat as anti-tank guns positioned in the forests and city limits fired at random targets, hoping to nail an enemy tank through blind luck and not accidentally demolish a friendly target. While tanks fiercely dueled in the outer city, intense infantry combat with armor support was waged from within the city as howitzers relentlessly fired upon approaching UK forces. Buildings were blown open by grenade launchers and rockets; snipers picking off exposed targets, and light machine guns emplaced in windows and poised to shred apart any infantry unlucky enough to wander into the crosshairs.
“Well, I think we’ve just initiated World War III”, Kylie groaned.
“Shouldn’t we just pull out now while our bodies are still attached to our heads?” Royce nervously asked.
“We don’t know where we’re headed, and I don’t care about the war, but those still are our guys getting hammered out there”, Kirkley stated.
“So what are we supposed to do? We fire on our guys; we’re traitors. We fire on them; they see through our ruse”, Darnell added.
“Look, nobody asked to go to war, but we need to man up and accept the situation as is”, Kirkley declared. “I don’t believe in friendly fire. Doesn’t matter what uniform they’re wearing; if they fire at me it isn’t friendly, and I’m justified in returning fire. My orders are: we go through this firestorm, praying to Su that we don’t get blown to pieces by a tank or cannon; head through Hamburg while scavenging what we can while trying to figure out where we’re heading.”
“And where would that be?” Royce asked, since he was completely oblivious to the solution to the wolf man problem that was being developed in Italy.
“Italy, mate”, Darnell replied.
“Italy? What are we doing going down to Italy?”
“Let’s make it there, and I’ll tell you”, Kirkley smirked as Darnell sped up and began an armored assault on Hamburg alongside a massive convoy of German Leopard tanks.
Although it was by no means more gigantic than the Normandy landings, the massive invasion of United Kingdom military forces was very close in scale. As the battle dramatically escalated, Kirkley easily figured out where the military had gone. Now it was clear that their only course of action; irrational as it was; was to take protected land and resources by force, even if it meant attacking a country that had no intention of attacking them first.
Shots were fired. Colossal tank rounds went soaring across the battlefield as tanks opened and returned fire upon one another. Although the shots generally missed their intended targets, there was one particularly frightening moment where Kirkley and his crew watched a round fired by a British tank strike the rear of a German Leopard, which exploded violently enough to get briefly thrown into the air before loudly crashing down and quaking the ground beneath it.
“Fuck!” Kirkley growled, “Get us out of here before we become tank flambé!”
The tank drove as fast as it could, narrowly dodging each armor-piercing shell blasted from the tanks of both warring nations. Even Kirkley, whose darkened mood was a result of the devastating losses of Pack, Poet and Hannah, was becoming increasingly scared with each fired round that thundered across the hillside.
The luck bestowed upon the mortified survivors finally ran dry when a lucky shot struck the side of their commandeered tank with a force too strong to describe, but with the effect of furiously tumbling the quartet aro
und inside their vehicle.
“Unfriendly fire, right?” Darnell quipped as he hopped out of the tank and helped his companions out of the wreckage.
“Without a shadow of a doubt”, grinned Kirkley.
As soon as everybody and their gear were out of the downed tank, the group made a frenzied sprint for Hamburg, keeping their heads low less they wanted a stray bullet or shell blow their heads off. The muffled sound of the thundering booms were blown out of proportion by how deafening the blasts were out in the open without any form of proper ear protection. Shrieking at the top of their lungs was the only viable way for the survivors to stay in contact with each other.
“THIS FEELS LIKE WORLD WAR II!” screamed Darnell.
“WELCOME TO WORLD WAR III, THEN!” Kirkley maniacally howled.
After a considerable burst of sprinting from danger, the frequency of tank rounds being fired lowered, and a new form of hostile fire was amplified. Anti-tank cannons and soldiers with rocket launchers were firing down on the invading force’s armor. The good news for the survivor crew was that the anti-tank guns were firing at the British tanks and not at them, but since they were wearing German uniforms and BDUs, there was nothing to worry over in the first place.
The shell-shocked survivors regrouped in a building fairly close to one of the larger batteries of anti-tank cannons. Once they had gotten stacked up, they turned to their leader for their next move.
“Look, like I said, I know this isn’t our war, but they’re killing our boys out on the front. We might as well level the playing field.”
“And how do you propose we do that, man?” Darnell asked.
“Did you catch those guys with RPGs up there?” Kirkley responded.
“No, because I was too busy trying to avoid getting shot and blown into pulpy pieces.”
“Stay here”, ordered Kirkley.
Kirkley began to circle the battery, which in addition to containing a pair of anti-tank guns, also housed three soldiers with missile launchers. In short order, Kirkley shot and killed the soldiers from a safe distance, before storming into the house and up the stairs to where the trio of deceased Germans had been holed up. Snatching up one of the launchers dropped by the soldiers, Kirkley took aim at the closest cannon through the rocket launcher’s scope, and fired; launching a rocket that struck and obliterated the anti-tank gun and the men crewing it. It took a moment for Kirkley to figure out how to reload the weapon, before getting impatient and picking up one of the other dropped launchers to use against the second gun. With both cannons destroyed, Kirkley went back down to his companions.
“Nice job, buddy”, said Kylie. “Hopefully the British armor can push through Hamburg.”
“Quick question: why are you supporting this conflict?” Royce asked.
“Because I’m playing my own faction”, Kirkley answered with a grin.
The group moved into the war-torn city as the sounds of gunshots echoed across the walls, and a vibe of destruction and death permeated their hearts and minds.
“Hey, you smell that?” Darnell commented as a vague but familiar scent entered the air.
“I do, and I don’t like it”, replied Kirkley. Kirkley took off ahead and made a frightening discovery, and one more alarming than finding out that his country had invaded one of its allies.
A body; a human body ripped apart. A large gash had split the chest of the victim open, opening up the chest. The wolf, like the others of its kind, went for the heart; the survivors in the apocalypse still didn’t understand why the creatures favored this organ over every other section of the human body.
“Oh fuckkk…” moaned Kylie as she dropped to the ground, only to be caught in Royce’s arms.
“…Rrreally?” Darnell groaned as his arms swung to his sides and his head rolled back in frustration. “Really?”
“Ready or not, here they are”, Kirkley growled. “Look, we’ve got plenty of ammunition. There can’t be that-“
Kirkley’s motivational statement was uncannily interrupted by shouts of pain and loud groaning, with the occasional snarl mixed in between the human commotion.
“We need to move, now.”
The frightened humans made a sprint for the closest building, about 15 yards from their current position, and immediately took position at the windows, ready to shoot and destroy possible hostile targets.
“See anything?” Kylie nervously asked as she swung her rifle around.
“Negative. No wolf men around”, replied Royce.
“Alright, now just what the fuck is going on here?” Kirkley exclaimed as he angrily slammed his rifle down on the table. “How the fuck did these wankers get here?!”
“Good topic of discussion”, Darnell responded. “I’m guessing that they stowed away on the ships?”
“Look, mates”, Royce announced as he double-checked his weapon’s magazine and toyed around with its foldable stock, “It doesn’t matter how, or why they’re here. They’re here. Now how do we get out?”
“At least we don’t have Samantha to worry about”, Kirkley sighed. “Bitch got what it deserved.”
“Damn right”, agreed Darnell.
The group suddenly began to shiver nervously as they heard the door handle squeaking as it slowly turned, as the wolf man behind it hissed deeply and coldly. The only one not paralyzed by fear, Kirkley angrily smacked Royce with the stock of his gun, which snapped the Scottish man out of his trance. Kirkley and Royce quickly lifted the coffee table up and threw it at the door; once the door was minimally blocked off, Royce grabbed a chair from the dining room and jammed it in a position where the door was unable to open. Despite this obstruction, the dog soldier was determined to reach its prey, but it was too blinded by hunger to sense the approaching danger.
A loud crack and tremble was heard and felt from out in the street, and when the dust had settled, Kirkley and the others looked to see a gigantic blown-out section of wall, and no trace of the dog soldier outside. In its place was a mighty British Challenger tank, the savior of the survivors.
Well, that’s what they had hoped.
Almost immediately after saving their lives from a ferocious predator, the tank turned its barrel towards the disguised quartet, who instantly acknowledged the danger and ducked behind the furniture as the coaxial machine gun opened fire on them.
“HEY!” roared Kylie; “WE’RE FRIENDLY, ASSHOLES! BLUE-ON-BLUE!”
“Can it, Kylie!” Kirkley shouted in response; “We’re in enemy fatigues, remember?!”
“Everybody on me! On me!” hollered Darnell as the machine gun tore through the family portraits and decorated pottery lining the shelf on the wall. Shards of glass, plaster and glazed pottery rained down on the backs and necks of the four panicked survivors as they crawled on their hands and knees. The tank tore through the walls as the group scurried through the dining room, made a sharp right turn through the kitchen, and out into the laundry room where a back door lead them out into a back lot where they were given temporary safety from the armored fury of a main battle tank. The survivors still heard the grinding of the treads as it thundered down the road.
“Remind me why we dressed in German fatigues?” Kylie huffed as she brushed dust and debris off of her pants and back.
“It gave us weapons and the means to blend in with the Germans”, answered Kirkley.
“But the British are attacking us now”, Royce groaned.
“Look, like I said, I don’t give a damn and a half about this war. My only focus is on getting out of here; dodging dog soldiers; kicking ass; and staying alive”, Kirkley firmly declared. “Now I’m heading out to get a truck, and this time, we’re making sure we’ve got plenty of gasoline and plenty of supplies. And maybe a dozen beers and some tents.”
…
Although he refused to admit it, since the death of his closest friends and his lady love, Kirkley began to care less and less about his current trio of followers and more about himself and his own survival. In particular, the
traumatic death of Hannah was what made him silently declare war on everything, but he although he wasn’t a good man, he wasn’t a monster either, and his heart still beat.
The others following Kirkley’s lead had their own feelings of loss. Kylie’s were perhaps the strongest, since her former “career” as a bandit was one that forced her to take lives from the frightened and the innocent, and when her superior committed an act of pure treason, her loyalty was severed and she declared herself as a follower of a good cause and a sincere person, though the memories of her past atrocities still lingered. Royce was essentially the leader of an entire pub full of frightened survivors who were now dead due to his inability to fight like a warrior. And Private Darnell, the lone survivor of his own pack, was also recovering from the loss of his entire squad, and an entire mass of people he was assigned to defend.
Still, despite the misfortunes tossed down at them from the warring spirits, the four fierce fighters continued to surge through Hamburg, shooting anything that crossed their paths. Unfortunately for them, they were about to experience what a true soldier throws himself into on a daily basis.
As Kirkley and his companions leisurely strode through an alleyway, a deafening snap originating from a distant building echoed through the darkened sky, and a high caliber bullet moving at surreal speed blew clean through Royce’s left arm, which was now left with a gaping hole 12 millimeters wide. The shot had blown clean through the bone, and almost the second it hit Royce dropped to the ground screaming and kicking around wildly. With tears in her eyes, Kylie rushed to help her wounded friend, who unintentionally kept kicking at her to keep her away. Kirkley, not ready to lose another comrade to the harsh battlefield, angrily smacked his downed ally over the head to asset himself, and dragged Royce deep into the shadows before the sniper could take a second shot.
“Roll up his sleeve!” Kirkley barked as he unsheathed his personal ivory-gripped machete. Although it sickened Kylie, who knew what Kirkley was preparing to do, she understood that he was doing it for the greater good and survival of Royce. As Darnell held Royce down, Kylie struggled to roll up the sleeve of his uniform, and the resistance of a dying arm didn’t quite work in her favor. When the sleeve was up as far as it could physically go, Kirkley raised his large blade and sliced off his friend’s arm with a powerful swipe. Royce’s scream reached a new decibel level in what Kylie considered to be on par with a jet taking off, and almost immediately after Royce’s arm had been severed, Kylie quickly began to use the rolled sleeve as a tourniquet to stop the typhoon of blood splashing out of his tremendous wound.