Dead Tropics

by Sue Edge

  Mike spoke up as I stood silent. “Anders, we need to hitch a ride back to the house with one of your patrols.”

  “Of course. I’ll walk you over to the team myself.” Anders hesitated. My spidey sense went off as his eyes shifted away. “However, we have recently been given orders to evacuate all civilians and troops so you need to be aware that you don’t have long to get back here. If you miss the last transport, you will be on your own.”

  “I see.” Mike drawled slowly. “When will the last transport be leaving?”

  “Oh Five hundred hours.” Anders’ voice was casual but as he moved to a nearby table to pour some water, I saw tightness in his face. “I will instruct the last patrol to check on you.”

  Handing us a glass of water each, he caught Mike’s eyes. “I hope you will seriously consider coming with us.”

  Mike turned abruptly to me. “Lori, will you collect our backpacks, please?”

  I gritted my teeth and spun on my heels. I didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to pick up on the underlying conversation going on in that room. If he needed me gone to talk more frankly, then so be it. Boyd was waiting outside the tent with a ready smile.

  “Hello Boyd, I hear you guys are pulling out.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I think headquarters finally decided fighting dead guys is a waste of time. Can’t say I disagree!”

  “So the quarantine is being lifted?”

  “No need. We’ve blasted the roads in and out of town. No dmw’s getting in or out.” He grinned.

  I returned the grin automatically as my mind raced. “But where does that leave the people who are still alive in this town?”

  He jerked his thumb at the gym. “That’s why we’ve been sending out patrols all day, ma’am. At this point, it’s become a search and rescue operation to find as many survivors as possible and then get them the hell out of town.”

  I nodded and headed past him towards our tent. To all appearances, the people in this town were being written off and abandoned to their fate. There was no way that all the survivors could be found in one day. Surely we could expect more from the people who were supposed to protect us?

  I hurried to the tent and grabbed the backpacks. The need to see my daughter was so strong that I felt almost sick. As I left, I saw Jensen bellowing at some men to follow him. They rushed past me towards the gates. Uneasily, I stared after them, wondering what the emergency was. Hopefully, nothing that would delay me leaving. I felt a little guilty at the selfishness of that thought but, hey, I’m human.

  Mike smiled at me as I entered the tent. He and Anders appeared to be poring over a map.

  “…we lost communications with the camp on the south side of town a couple of hours ago…” Anders straightened as he saw me. “Ah, ma’am. Excellent. If you are ready, I will take you to the patrol team now. They will be heading out soon.”

  “Thank you!” I replied appreciatively, relieved to think I would soon be reunited with my family. Grabbing his hat, Anders exited the tent with us in tow. Boyd fell in beside me. All around us, soldiers were packing equipment into trucks, taking down tents and checking weapons. A sense of urgency seemed to have filtered into the camp in the last half hour. I guessed there was a lot of work to be done before the army could pull out of town.

  As we passed the arrivals hall, still packed with shell shocked civilians, the sporadic gunfire on the nearby barricades suddenly became prolonged and numerous. Anders and Mike looked up, instantly alert. Urgent voices could be heard on the wind yelling orders. As one, we all ran towards the gates, where the ruckus seemed to be located. Bringing up the rear, I wondered briefly why the hell we were running towards trouble when we should be running the other way. As the gates came into sight, I caught my breath.

  The spotlights illuminated a scene both horrific and unbelievable. A mass of bodies, maybe thousands deep, moved towards the gate and surrounding fence. It was a dark, implacable mass of death - and it was coming for us. Under the glow of lights, the old, the young, the torn and bloodied, staggered towards the camp with utter single-mindedness. Destruction.

  16

  My mind went blank for a moment with utter terror. The sight was overwhelmingly horrifying in its scale and in its implication. There was no escape from a horde of this size. I could not see the ends of the mob as it spread along the length of the fence. The faces of the virus’ victims stared at me as they pressed against the fence. A dark haired girl of about six, a strongly built young man, an obese man of about sixty, a pregnant teenager…God, so many lives destroyed. And now they were intent on destroying our lives.

  “Lori, come on!” Mike’s urgent voice startled me. He waved at me impatiently as Anders broke into a run towards some men manning a machine gun.

  “Captain, they came out of nowhere!” One of the men yelled at him. How that was even possible? Maybe if the horde came through the swamp but it still seemed unlikely. Most likely, someone had not done their job well.

  Anders calmly issued some instructions. I watched as some men ran up with what looked like rocket launchers. They knelt, aimed at the approaching horde and fired. The rockets flew through the air straight into the crowd, exploding on impact. Bodies disintegrated. A howitzer fired nearby while another man used a grenade launcher to send multiple grenades into the crowd.

  The noise was overwhelming, causing me to cover my ears instinctively. Nonetheless, it was clear to me that they were not making the slightest dent in the horde, in spite of the body parts flying around. Anders turned to Boyd. “Get these two to safety now!”

  Grabbing Mike’s shoulder, he looked at him somberly. “Good luck, Bridges.”

  Mike reached up to squeeze his arm. “You too, Anders.”

  With that, Mike nodded at me and we ran, Boyd following behind.

  “Jensen!” I heard Anders yelling. “Get the civilians on those choppers!”

  “Where are we going?” I gasped, trying to keep up with his long stride.

  “Boyd! How do we get out of here?” Mike yelled over his shoulder in response.

  Boyd pointed at the huge transport helicopters sitting on the oval. I saw the propellers had already started to turn in preparation. A group of frightened civilians was being herded across the field towards the helicopters.

  “No!” I dug my heels in. “I have to get home!” Mike nodded and turned to Boyd.

  “That’s not an option. Give us a vehicle.”

  Boyd shook his carrot-topped head, eyes nervously darting around. “We’re surrounded. You’ll never make it.”

  “We’ll take our chances.” Mike replied impatiently.

  “There must be thousands…” Boyd stared beyond the fence, mesmerized by the endless sea of faces beyond it.

  “Boyd!” Mike snapped.

  The young soldier shook himself. “Okay, okay. This way.”

  As we turned to follow him, a grinding, creaking sound behind us drew us to a stop. Slowly, filled with dread, I turned. All along the fence line, the pressure of bodies was proving too much. Parts of it had already given way and dead people were pushing through the barbwire, oblivious to the tearing of their flesh.

  “Oh. My. God.” I whispered in horror. I heard a strangled sound beside me. Boyd’s face was white and frozen with fear. A hand whipped me around. I stared into Mike’s cool eyes.

  “Don’t freak out on me now, Lori.” I licked my lips and nodded, resisting the urge to look over my shoulder. He held my eyes for a second longer before he was satisfied and then turned to Boyd.

  “Boyd! Snap out of it! The car!”

  Boyd blinked. With shaky steps, he backed up a few steps before spinning around. “Follow me.”

  We raced towards the side of the building where the army vehicles were parked. Screams and gunshots rang out behind us. Refusing to look behind me, I focused single-mindedly on where I was going. I saw the brightly lit hall in the distance and sent up a quick prayer for the safety of the people in it. Please don’t let any more innocent peopl
e die. People streamed through its doors towards the choppers. Soldiers urged them on loudly, weapons ready.

  Several tanks stood imposingly in the field. Now, they would be perfect for an escape, I thought yearningly.

  “Watch out!” Boyd screamed. I jerked instinctively to the side, just in time to see streams of dead-eyed bodies pouring toward us from between the tanks. Beyond them, the fence lay twisted and flattened. They stumbled over each other, pushing and shoving indifferently, as they tried to reach us. The sight of all those dead eyes focused single-mindedly on us turned my blood to water.

  “Run!” Mike yelled, pulling out his gun. Firing at the creatures, he glanced at me. “Go!”

  I bolted after Boyd, who was running as if Death himself was on his heels. We flew along the length of the airport building which suddenly seemed to stretch on forever. All along the fence line, bodies were spilling into the airport grounds. Soldiers charged forward, shooting their weapons, but they didn’t stand a chance against such numbers. Glancing over as I ran for my life, I witnessed the soldiers being swallowed by a deadly wall of hungry corpses.

  Brave young men continued to hurry forward to hold the line as hundreds of dead bodies advanced on them. God, such courage. For every corpse they succeeded in destroying, another ten were there to take its place.

  We weren’t going to make it, I realised. The end of the building was at least fifty meters away while the wall of bodies was only about about ten meters away. They would cut us off before we reached the corner.

  Mike must have seen it, too, as he suddenly stopped dead. Pulling his bat out, he swung it at a window forcefully, shattering it. Boyd, hearing the glass break, ran back to us, wide-eyed and jittery. At least he didn’t waste time asking foolish questions. Leading the way, he jumped over the glass and raced down the corridor. As we sprinted after him, I heard the crushing of glass underfoot and all too familiar moans.

  We followed Boyd unquestioningly through the maze of corridors. My throat burned as I struggled for breath. How much longer could I keep this up, I wondered with some desperation.

  Crash! The sound of glass breaking jerked our heads around. Corpses climbed through the jagged frame on our right. Bodies pressed against every window we passed.

  “There!” Boyd screamed. At the end of the corridor was a door, unassuming and yet as wondrous a sight as the Holy Grail. Ignoring my burning lungs, I desperately pushed my legs to go faster as windows started to shatter all along the length of the corridor.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw torn and bloodied corpses reaching through the windows as we passed. A body staggered in front of me. A man in a business suit, a ragged hole where his nose and mouth had been, moaned and clutched at me. Instinctively, I ducked under his arms and kept running. Another body grabbed at me and snagged my sleeve. Wrenching it away, I hugged the far wall as I ran, trying to avoid the arms of the slow moving bodies climbing through the windows.

  Pulling my parang out, I frantically lopped off a hand and then another. Mike swung his bat and battered the heads of the nearest creatures into the ground. As Boyd fired into the face of a female corpse blocking his path, I swung the parang fiercely through the neck of another woman. And, finally, there was the door. Wrenching it open, Mike ushered us through into the dark of the car park.

  “What the hell?!” Boyd exclaimed. Peering around him, I saw the empty car park. All the vehicles had been driven away. My heart sank to my toes. I was so exhausted that I didn’t think I even had the energy to run anymore. At least that is what I thought, until I saw the first of the dead horde pouring into the car park from around the building. The bloodstained mouths, dead eyes, torn bodies - the thought of being in their clutches made me sick with fear.

  “Head for the river” Mike said grimly. “It’s our only chance.”

  Once again, we forced our weary bodies into a run. Across the darkened car park, we ran, straight onto the runway. Turning, we headed down the long runway towards the mangroves. My legs screamed in protest but the sight of the huge horde seemingly keeping pace with ease on our right propelled me forward with renewed fervour. What we were going to do when we got to the mangroves, though? The river was deep and seriously infested with saltwater crocodiles. Surely Mike wasn’t suggesting we go in the water, was he? Maybe we would hide out in the mangroves for a while.

  Alarmingly, the eight-foot wire fence separating the airport from the mangroves was already down. We scrambled over the barbed wire and moved cautiously into the trees. I felt a moment of intense panic as darkness swallowed us. My feet froze in place as I waited for my eyes to adjust. Gradually, I realised I could just make out the shapes of trees around us. There was a shape moving cautiously just ahead of me. I prayed that it was one of the men.

  As I moved forward, my feet sunk down into the mud up to my knees. With difficulty, I pushed forward. A hand touched my arm. I swallowed a scream as I recognised Mike’s figure. He touched a finger to his lips and pointed ahead. Barely able to see in the inky darkness, I focused on my ears instead.

  Just ahead of me, I could hear Boyd labouring through the mud but up a little further, there was something else…I strained to identify the faint sound. A low pitch, ululating sound…my blood chilled in recognition. The sound the corpses made. And Boyd was heading straight for them.

  I hissed “Boyd!”

  He didn’t seem to hear me. Mike’s hand tightened on my arm. Glancing at him, I realised he was facing to our right. A slurping, wet sound directed my eyes to a spot only about ten feet away. Something was moving through the mud towards us.

  A sudden scream jerked my head around. Boyd. He screamed in terror again. I heard him thrashing in the mud as he fought for his life. The moans rose in pitch and excitement. As Boyd fell abruptly silent, our unseen companions moved towards the disturbance.

  Grabbing my hand, Mike silently led me away. My heart ached for the loss of another young life as I struggled to move quietly through the mud. No easy task. I pulled one leg slowly up and out before gently sliding it through the mud again. We moved in this staccato way for at least twenty minutes, pausing several times as we heard movement nearby. We waited until the sound moved away before starting to trudge forward again. My heart pounded frantically as the constant strain of trying to see and hear in the near complete blackness took its toll on my already frayed nerves.

  With a splash, I suddenly found myself floundering in waist high water. We had found the river. In alarm, I tried to scramble back onto the bank. Mike grabbed me around the waist.

  “We have to swim across the river.”

  “Are you crazy?” I hissed, my eyes widening with panic. “There are crocs in here!”

  The mangroves here were home to some of the world’s biggest and most dangerous crocodiles in the world. On my occasional fishing trips, I had seen some enormous ones sunning themselves on the banks. The thought of swimming across the river…surely he couldn’t be serious.

  “If we stay here, we’re done for.” He reminded me grimly. “And so is Sarah.”

  Sarah. The reminder cleared the panic from my thoughts. I had to get the medicine to my little girl. Thank God the bottles are waterproof.

  “Okay.” My voice trembled. “God. Okay.”

  “Keep your movements smooth and minimise any splashing.” Mike said with calm practicality.

  “Don’t you ever get scared?” I asked, incredulous.

  “All the frigging time.” He replied drily. “Let’s go. The noise is attracting the corpses.”

  I realised that he was right as I registered the moaning of many dulled voices nearing us.

  Through the cool, dark waters, we breaststroked quietly away from the bank. I thought that I could never be more frightened than I had been, facing zombies on that first day. I was wrong. Swimming into pitch-black water, knowing there were crocodiles present, required every bit of will power that I had. At any moment, I expected to feel steel jaws clamping around me.

  I heard splashin
g behind me as bodies fell into the water.

  “You don’t think they can swim, do you?” I whispered.

  “Nope.”

  More splashes.

  “But as they don’t breathe, I can’t see anything stopping them walking across the riverbed.”

  Shit

  17

  “How much further do you think it is?” I hissed, trying to resist the urge to break into a faster stroke and get the hell out of here.

  “We should be about half way across by now.”

  God. Please let us be faster swimmers than they were walkers. I tried to remember how deep the river was. I was pretty sure that it went as deep as fifteen meters in part but I had a sinking feeling that the area around the airport was considerably shallower, as only dinghies usually travelled along it.

  About thirty feet behind us, the water erupted into a flurry of splashes. Fear gripped me like a vice as I realised that a croc must have taken one of the zombies. Oh God, oh God.

  “Keep it together, Lori.” Mike’s soothing voice floated back over the light breeze. “If the corpses are keeping the crocs preoccupied, all the better for us. Just keep going.”

  Slowly, I took a stroke and then another. I couldn’t think, my mind was frozen with fear. I just kept moving, focusing on keeping my strokes smooth and quiet.

  An interminable time later, my hands touched the mud bank on the other side of the river. With a sob of relief, I allowed Mike to pull me out of the water and into his arms.

  He held me tightly as I shivered uncontrollably. I felt him stroke my hair tentatively. His touch felt so comforting and calming that I felt my heart slow down straight away. Feeling almost calm again, I stepped back, out of the reassuring circle of his arms.