Plague War (Book 3): Retaliation

by Hodge, Alister

  Below them, the wall became a ribbon of light in a sea of darkness, a single bastion of hope that must hold against the ferocity of the tide she would help to bring crashing onto it. She turned her gaze away and out to the Infected land beyond.

  ‘You ready for this, Crash?’

  ‘Nope, but who gives a fuck, right?’

  A hard smile hit Erin’s face as she began to accelerate towards their target location at the far side of the Westgate Bridge.

  ***

  Mark drummed his fingers on his knee as he waited for the doors to open under the wall. The oiled hinges barely made a sound as the slabs of steel swung outwards to hang against the wood panelled exterior.

  ‘I’ll give them that – those doors look bloody solid, but they’re only as strong as the lock or hinges. If we’ve got millions of those bastards about to hit the outside – I’d like it to hold if it’s all the same,’ said Victor from behind the wheel of the armoured truck.

  The comment drew Mark’s eyes to the base plate beneath the entrance, a wide slab of concrete with drilled holes that huge drop bolts would slot down into to keep the doors in place. He didn’t bother checking the hinges, already irritated at himself listening to Victor’s anxieties. The last thing he needed was for one of his Corporals to make his soldiers even more nervous.

  ‘They’re strong enough to hold a bulldozer, you twat. Once they’re closed, nothing’s coming through until we want it to,’ said Mark, with more confidence than he felt. He looked behind and saw a few of the recruits nodding at his words, obviously wanting to believe him with all their hearts. Good. As long as he had their confidence, they’d do what was required to keep themselves and the rest of the platoon alive.

  The only problem was, they were about to abandon the safety of the steel doors and the wall surrounding them, to enter land owned by the Infected. For the next five or six hours, they were to be a ground support for the helicopters sent to herd the swarm. Although each of the helicopters in use this morning could hold enough fuel for a 500-kilometre flight, there had been some mechanical issues within the fleet that the engineers had struggled to eradicate due to limited parts and materials. That meant if one of the birds was to fall from the sky, they needed support close at hand if the kids manning them were to have a hope in hell.

  A thunderous roar of a helicopter swept over them. A spotlight cut down from the aircraft to the ground as it passed forward like a wraith against the clouds. Mark tracked it across the sky, wondering if it was Erin inside its fragile casing. Within moments, it disappeared over the horizon.

  ‘Vic, time to get a move on,’ said Mark.

  His Corporal set the truck into motion, descending the steep road to the bottom of the ditch then climbing out onto the plain. Ten minutes of cross-country brought them to the Princes Highway, where the truck bucked over the verge and onto the tarmac. The road had been cleared of car wrecks, the derelict bodies moved to funnel the Carriers onto the plains before the wall.

  Victor accelerated along the deserted highway, twin headlights illuminating a small patch of road before the truck. They were headed for the near side of the Westgate Bridge. Their brief was to stay within sight of the helicopter assigned to the Westgate Freeway, and around 500 metres in front of the moving swarm. Dawn was still a few hours distant, but the summer night was unusually warm for Melbourne. And as the coming day was forecast to be hot, it wouldn’t be long before the ghouls heated up and started to run. Planning the battle for the middle of summer had been a hot topic of discussion amongst the troops. Many had wished the fight to be conducted in the winter when movement of the Infected would be slower. But others had argued moving such large numbers to one location while they were grinding along at base speed could turn the battle into a month-long affair. And with supply lines until recently a tenuous factor, General Black had decided to gamble and start congregating the swarms in central Melbourne for a summer battle. When Tasmania had finally come to heel, it was already too late. The swarm had to be taken on as soon as the recruits were ready, to prevent an accidental breakout of the swarm towards Geelong catching the armed forces on the back foot.

  Mark turned around to address the detachment of soldiers in the back of the truck.

  ‘Everyone do a last weapons and ammunition check. Although I’m hoping for a boring couple of hours, I want us ready for action at a moment’s notice.’

  ***

  Erin’s gut clenched as the sound of an agonized scream breached the helicopter cabin. It didn’t matter that she knew it to be nothing more than a recording used to concentrate the numbers of Infected at the far side of the Westgate Bridge. The terror and pain within the sound was unmistakable, and it drove the swarm around the powerful speaker to frenzy. Few of the Carriers wore any clothes, the fabric having degraded and torn or rotted away long before. From her height, it was difficult to discern individual faces, but those within the mob had lost any resemblance to the men and women they had once been. Skin had taken on a tobacco coloured tinge as it dried and retracted from orifices and eyes. Teeth were permanently exposed, made unnaturally long by shrunken gums, they gnashed together repeatedly in anticipation of their next meal in futile rage. All wore the trauma of their deaths plain to see. Missing limbs. Chewed faces. Eviscerated abdominal cavities. Bones that were stripped clean of meat, coated in nothing but brown, dried blood. Flaps of skin and tissue hung like macabre aprons on some, flapping with each uncoordinated step. All were walking horrors torn straight from Dante’s Hell to grace the streets of Melbourne.

  A number of carefully placed shipping containers blocked the path over the bridge. Positioned months ago, to prevent migration of the main swarm before the army was ready, each had a large steel ring standing proud from the top, allowing the whole container to be lifted into the air and moved. And that time had come. A massive Chinook dual rotor helicopter hovered over the first container, buffeting the Carriers on the far side with a down blast of air. A large hook swung from a thick steel cable in the cross breeze until it finally threaded the ring above the container. Erin let out a breath in relief that part of the road blockage would finally shift. Slowly the helicopter lifted until all slack disappeared from the cable, and then with a sound of groaning metal, the container lifted into the air. The Carriers began to stream through the new gap and onto the bridge. Already carrying some body heat from a warm pre-dawn breeze, the Infected were moving faster than expected. The Chinook carried the container until it was free of the road, then activated a release mechanism, dropping its cargo to smash onto the ground far below. It returned to the bridge and repeated the exercise another few times until the path across the bridge was completely free. The swarm now ran on unimpeded, drawn onward by Erin’s small helicopter that hovered metres above the leading edge of the swarm like an angry mosquito.

  Satisfied that the swarm was on the move, Erin abandoned her precarious position so close to the ground where light poles and cable-work of the bridge threatened to ensnare her rotor and bring her crashing down. She gained altitude until they were above bridge structures and radioed back to base.

  ‘Raven II to control. I can confirm the Westgate Bridge is cleared of obstruction and the swarm is on the move,’ said Erin.

  ‘Thank you Raven II, we will set off the noise attractant at the far end of the bridge. Can you give an estimate of numbers in your immediate vicinity?’ asked her squadron leader.

  Erin pressed her foot down on the left yaw pedal, turning the helicopter to look back over the bridge toward the city. The Infected were crammed shoulder to shoulder, a moving mass on the Westgate Freeway as far as she could see to the city, spilling out onto the verge at either side and filling all possible standing room between the factories and buildings that lined the road.

  She muted her mike and turned to Crash, ‘How many do you think?’ she yelled over the noise of the rotor.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine. I don’t know, tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? I’ve never se
en that many bodies in one place at a time to be able to gauge,’ he said, one corner of his upper lip rising unconsciously in revulsion at the undead mass below.

  Erin unmuted her mike to answer her squadron leader. ‘It’s hard to tell, Ma’am. We’ve never seen a swarm this big,’ she started, hesitant to give a poor estimation. ‘There’s probably at least one hundred thousand crammed onto the Westgate Freeway as it extends back toward the city, and that’s only those that we can see from our present location.’

  ‘Good. Keep them moving. Inform me of your position once the different swarms coming down the highway from Flemington, and the Western Ring Road from the northern suburbs join yours on the Princes Freeway. I don’t want any of you in the vicinity when the next stage of the plan comes into action.’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am. Raven II out,’ said Erin, happy to break off the conversation so she could place all her attention back on the swarm below.

  Mark tapped the fingers of one hand in a running drum roll against his knee as he watched the swarm in the distance. He could feel his right upper eyelid start to twitch as he tried to maintain an outward appearance of calm despite their precarious situation.

  The sun had breached the eastern horizon before the first Carriers crossed the bridge, chasing the little helicopter that hovered and dived at the leading edge to draw them onwards. But dawn breaking before they’d even left the bridge showed just how far behind schedule they were. Mark had listened in silence to the radio chatter from the Chinook pilots as they struggled to hook the first container, battling an unexpectedly strong cross breeze and a faulty hook mechanism. Every extra minute they took to get the show started meant the other swarms got closer along their respective routes. If his detachment was on the wrong side when the other swarms spilled onto the Princes Freeway for the home stretch to Little River, their truck would become buried under the swarm.

  ‘Our Erin seems to be doing ok up there, Boss,’ said Victor. ‘How about we move the truck to the other side of the Western Ring Road? With the speed those bastards are moving at now, it won’t take them long to catch us up.’

  Mark glanced over at his Corporal, ready to cut him down with a sharp tongue for suggesting he leave Erin exposed. The look on Victor’s face pulled him up short. He looked embarrassed at his own words and wouldn’t even meet Mark’s eye as he spoke.

  ‘I don’t want to do it anymore than you, mate, but we’ve got to think of the numbers,’ Victor said in a quiet voice so that only Mark could hear him. ‘We’ve got eight soldiers behind us, versus two in the sky. We’ve stayed as long as we can, considering their fuck-up clearing the bridge.’

  Mark looked back at the swarm, anger contorted faces now becoming distinct the closer they came. His hand squeezed into a fist on his lap in frustration.

  ‘Do it,’ Mark muttered. ‘Pull back behind the Ring Road while we can. I’ll inform Raven II of the change in plan.’

  ‘Are you friggin’ kidding me?’ said Crash, after signing off from Mark’s radio communication. ‘Isn’t he your old platoon officer - why the hell is he leaving us unsupported?’

  Erin initially felt the same sense of betrayal at the notification. If there was anyone she’d thought she could trust, she would have named Mark as that man. He was as close to family as she had these days...

  ‘Because he’s doing his job, Crash,’ Erin muttered as she climbed steeply into the sky to gain an aerial view. Her heart dropped and she felt a spurt of shame at her earlier thoughts. While concentrating on her own swarm, she’d neglected to keep an eye on the surrounding area for dangers to the support crew on the ground.

  ‘And he still might have left his call too late,’ she said.

  From up high she could now see the other swarm approaching along the Ring Road. A tide of ragged corpses ran along the raised motorway that arced over their own road and then curled downwards to join. As Mark’s truck approached the overpass, the leading edge of the swarm was already above them.

  She felt utterly helpless up in the sky. ‘Come on, Mark. Fucking accelerate!’ said Erin under her breath, urging him onwards.

  A corpse thumped onto the road ahead of the truck, head smashing on impact like a rotten watermelon.

  ‘What the fuck?’ muttered Mark as he leant forward in his seat and looked upwards at the overpass. His heart stuttered briefly as he saw the horde of Infected lining the sides of the roadway above. More Carriers launched themselves at his truck from above, becoming a waterfall of falling bodies.

  ‘Jesus, Vic, you were right. Stamp on it, mate, we’re going to have to punch on through,’ said Mark. He turned around to the soldiers in the back of the truck. ‘Get ready to brace!’

  Another Carrier landed directly in front of them, feet first. Both tibias snapped on impact, a spike of one shin-bone bursting forth from the skin to impale the torso of its owner as it crumpled. Victor swerved to the side to miss it and planted his foot on the accelerator.

  On the far side of the freeway Mark could see the swarm already spilling off the other access ramp. Faces screamed as they ran towards his vehicle.

  Two loud thuds sounded as bodies hit their roof, making Victor swerve slightly out of surprise. Mark looked backwards and saw the two Carriers cartwheel along the tarmac in their wake after falling free of their vehicle. They were now in the shadow of the overpass. Ahead was a thin line of Carriers, some immobile with skulls destroyed by the fall, others dragging smashed lower limbs with their arms. The armoured truck shuddered on impact, wheels bouncing over the corpses, and then they were through.

  Mark looked behind again to see the freeway rapidly fill with Carriers. What had been clear road only seconds earlier was now crowded with the undead. If they’d been thirty seconds later...

  ‘Woo hoo!’ shouted one of the recruits in the back, pumping his fist in excitement. ‘That was FUCKING AWESOME!’

  Mark couldn’t help a wry grin at the kid’s reaction. Fear mixed with adrenaline and stress. It did funny things to different people. Mark raised a hand to his mouth and stifled a yawn. Like some other veterans, he could blunt most outward signs of stress, but yawning was out of his control. ‘Ah well, better to yawn then piss yourself with fear,’ thought Mark.

  ‘Raven II, we’re heading back to base. Take care up there. Out.’

  ‘No worries. Thanks for the ground support, Lieutenant Collins, we’ll see you behind the wall shortly,’ said Erin. As she looked down, Mark’s armoured truck left the highway in the distance to cut across the plain, making a beeline for the closest entry point through the wall.

  Erin and Crash weren’t the only ones in the sky now. The other helicopter crews who’d led their own swarms forward had joined them, and it was time to move the Infected off the tarmac en masse.

  The southern most parts of Werribee had been sacrificed, raised to the ground months earlier to extend the open killing ground of the plains beyond. The four helicopters worked in tandem, each taking position a hundred metres apart off the edge of the highway. Erin held her craft at a hover metres above the heads of the Infected below, watching with mute fascination as they reached upward, gnashing brown teeth at her in futile rage. She edged her craft backwards, out over blackened and scarred soil. The proximity of the helicopter was too much to resist, and the Carriers surged after her and off the highway. Those behind followed the changed direction of the swarm, moving onto the plain.

  Within twenty minutes, Erin and the other helicopters from her squadron had turned the clear land where houses had once stood into a sea of writhing flesh. Crimson streaked the pallid flesh of sections of the swarm where they’d found pits of butchered carcasses. The army wanted as many Infected to congregate in this location as possible. Where the blood pits lay, Carriers climbed over each other, viciously tearing at those around them to access the fresh meat underneath. Sound attractants blared shrieks of torture until the speakers were buried so deeply under bodies their hellish chorus became muted.

  A recall to base came over the
radio; the job of Erin and her comrades had come to a close. The four helicopters rose high into the air before flying south to decrease the chance that any part of the swarm would follow their movement.

  ‘Mission complete!’ said Crash. ‘Time to go take some pot shots from the wall, Erin. It’ll be all gravy from here, chickadee!’

  A hot wind started to blow in from the north as they flew for the wall, causing the helicopter to bounce in the turbulence, and it was with some relief that Erin landed the craft and gained solid ground under foot. She reached behind her pilot’s seat and retrieved her rifle from the rack at the back of the cabin.

  Weapons in hand, both teenagers jumped down from the helicopter cabin while the rotors had yet to reach a standstill. The downdraft of the slowing blades flattened hair and clothes against their bodies as the pair ran for the wall to take their allocated position as auxiliaries to Mark’s platoon. For the coming fight, every hand capable of holding a rifle was expected to play its part.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Mark stood on the battlement atop the wall, looking toward Werribee. On the horizon, the edge of the swarm could be seen as a smear that danced deceptively in the heat. He was about to pull out a field telescope when a clatter of ascending feet on metal drew Mark’s attention for a moment, and he turned to see Erin and Crash emerge from the staircase behind. Both their faces were pink cheeked from the run and excitement at completing their mission.

  ‘Welcome back,’ Mark said, a half smile on his face. ‘It’s good to have some veterans to bolster our strength. Sergeant Williams will allocate you a position,’ he said.