by P. R. Sharp
But never eaten alive...
No; not seen that one before.
He stood above the mauled store manager and tried to get his head around what he was seeing. Either this guy had been extremely tall, or he had been ripped in half and now lay in a kind of grotesque, star configuration; arms pulled from their shoulder sockets, hips splayed and snapped like a wishbone. The rib cage had been twisted and prised open, and one leg had been torn off below the knee; its lower half lying three feet away, trailing a once, moist spaghetti of veins and tendons. His face was carved in fear, the mouth pulled down in one last agonised contortion. One eye socket had been clawed back, and the marble like quality of the desiccated eye ball within, stared up at the ceiling as if it were made of frosted glass.
Nasty way to go.
He would prefer to eat a bullet.
The ever present buzz of countless flies echoed softly around the store as he crouched to inspect the corpse, looking for anything that resembled a card key, and then spotted a key chain obscured by what looked like part of a lung. He unsheathed his knife and used it to fish out the chain. He slowly pulled it back, cracking the skin of congealed blood and dragged globs of unidentified matter with it. The puddle of blood pooling in the eviscerated remains of the man's bowel area resembled the cracking surface of a lava lake. He held the chain up as the attached keys and card key were finally freed. He carefully shook off as much blood and debris from the card, then stood, cracking his shoulders back.
And standing less than ten feet away; the store's security guard. Except, it's not the security guard anymore; it's the psycho circus version of the security guard. His head twitched from side to side and the end of his nose was missing; the lower half of his trousers were shredded and glass protruded from his knees; his left ear was completely torn away and rested on his shoulder, attached by a piece of yellow flesh that looked like mouldy chamois leather.
Jesus Christ, where did he come from?
Zola stood his ground. He recalled the paragraph from his mission brief which warned against any sudden movement if you willingly or unwittingly encroach within the minimum safe distance of five metres. The thing wasn't looking in his direction, though; but still... where was he hiding? What happened to his nose?
He had to move fast. As soon as the creature acknowledges you, that's it. Fight or flight, kill or be killed.
Options. Only one; do it now.
He gripped his knife and propelled himself towards and around the security guard, grabbed a fist full of his hair and plunged the blade through the back of his skull, twisting the steel through bone and scrambled the base of the brain, destroying the virus beach head. The creature's body immediately lost its connection to central command and fell in a tangled bundle. Zola bent down and removed the security guard's key chain. He took no pleasure in the act, but at least now they had two key cards.
"Package secure," he said via his PRR, "On my way back."
***
The young Rifleman tried to scratch his chest through his Osprey vest. It felt like his chest hairs were being tied together then pulled apart by an invisible hand, and it was bugging the hell out of him.
"What's the matter with you?" the Corporal frowned. "You got ants in your pants?"
"Feels like bloody itching powder," Walker twitched.
"Once we get this door open, sort your self out; until then, please try and be still. You're FMTFO, got it? Freaking me the fuck out!"
"Yes Corporal."
Yates gave the rookie a reassuring punch on the arm and scanned the path that the Sergeant had taken to retrieve the manager's key card; if he even had one. He'd known the Sergeant for eighteen years and served with him for the last eight, predominately fire team duties and off the books search and destroy or sanctioned search and rescue. But when Zola married his sister on millennium night in the Barrack chapel, they became family. It's a cliché, I know, he thought; but they truly were brothers in arms. Nevertheless, the Errol Flynn act was getting old. One of these days, he'd have to tell his sister that her husband didn't come back today. It was a tough call. It goes with the territory. It’s all part of the job. He died serving his country. What a load of crap. He wished that he had packed his Ministry of Sound MP3 player. He could just listen to a bit of Iron Maiden. And what will your album of choice be today, Sir? 'A Matter of Life and Death' of course, his inner dialogue announced. The one that pictured a squad of skeletal soldiers on the cover escorting a tank. Very fitting; considering the occasion and the state of affairs. 'For the passion, for the glory, for the memories, for the money. You're a soldier, for your country, what's the difference, all the same...' He sang the lyrics to him self, letting the melody in his head distract from the slaughter house environment.
"Package secure," Zola's gravely voice crackled through his PRR, "On my way back."
Lucky bastard.
***
The manager's key card worked, but the door was jammed. They forced it back until the blockage was identified as an office chair. It rolled away, disappearing down the dark corridor until it hit a side wall and came to a stop, somewhere in the black. Zola took a couple of hazard flares from his left thigh pocket, struck them and tossed both after the chair. The corridor's form immediately came into sharp focus, bathed in the harsh, deep crimson of double flares. The chair was about thirty feet away; two doors on opposite sides, and another on the far right. Bloody footprints danced across the floor in an abstract waltz. The corridor smelt of iron and excrement.
No contacts.
The team filtered into the corridor and closed the outer door. The left internal door lead to Administration, the right door to the Staff Canteen. The last door on the right lead to the toilets; a pool of long, dried blood had oozed its way under the door across the linoleum in a slow flood. The first door needed a key card and was peppered with gore. They opted for the Canteen.
The door opened in against a wall; another flare tossed and the room glowed like an abandoned Halloween party. Tables and chairs were in disarray; no sign of any bodies or infected loitering in the shadows, but there were dark patches of blood on the walls and various lumps of meat thrown around; some even hanging from the ceiling. The young rifleman swallowed and reached for his canteen. He took a mouthful of warm water and guzzled it back. Zola flicked another flare into the far corner, revealing vending machines and a long sink unit next to a fire door; the door had been forced opened during the hysteria and a thin beam of sinking sunlight shone like a spotlight onto the back of a blood soaked plastic chair. Notice boards adorned the walls, announcing the company mission statement and cumulative sales figures, and a pair of metal shutters separated the eating and rest area from the kitchen. A white board doubling as a menu drooped on a single screw. Written in black permanent marker ink, the choices for the day of the outbreak were, All Day Breakfast, Toad in the Hole, Egg & Sautéed Potatoes. A single waiter’s door to the side dangled from its lower hinge; the wooden door frame ripped and splintered like kindling.
Zola directs Yates and Xander to the kitchen. They step over up-turned chairs and are careful to avoid tripping and falling onto an upturned table leg. The young Rifleman and the Sergeant watch as they slip through the kitchen door and line of sight is lost. Walker fidgets beneath his body armour as he watches the beams from their torches bouncing off the stainless steel surfaces within the food preparation area. His SA80 feels heavy, even though it weighs little more than 5kg, and the 16Kg+ of his Bergen is pulling him into the floor. The Sergeant notices this and says softly, "Check the fire door," motioning with his head. Walker nods and crab walks around rectangular dinning tables and broken chairs until his silhouette cuts through the sunlight, breaking the beam for an instant, before he steps out of the canteen and finds himself at the rear of the store, in the staff car park.
Several carrion birds take flight, startled by Walker's sudden appearance. Squinting, his hands shielding his eyes from the low sun, he scans the flat terrain for any movement. Othe
r than the crows returning for their supper of indistinguishable body parts, and the occasional item of litter, gently rolling along the asphalt, the car park is completely still. With spaces for approximately sixty cars, Walker counts less than ten vehicles. But they are not parked neatly between perfectly parallel white lines, stencilled onto flawless, race track quality tarmac. Instead, they remind him of empty dodgem cars after the last person has stepped off the ride and the attendant has called 'No more tonight'; the last position of the cars a result of major gladiatorial impact. Two had hit head on, with at least four more displaying damage from multiple collisions. Most where suffering flat tyres and in one case, no tyres at all; one had been torched. Each had been tagged with gang graffiti.
Local gangs evolved to a whole new level after the virus broke. With no police present or prepared to enter infected areas, the mob ruled. There weren't many, though; thankfully. Far too many residents got infected in those first few hours; spread across a large city, and with little or no understanding of what was happening the epidemic grew quickly. But according to aerial reconnaissance, there were pockets of these gangs in every other Grid. They didn't stray far, and protected their domain as a spider guards her web.
Walker hadn't given it a second thought, when they had been dropped off in Section Zulu One Alpha. The in flight brief from Beachley Barracks included stats and intelligence pertinent and/or crucial to their individual mission; but trying to listen over the churning whirr of the helicopter motor above his head didn't help, and he could only pick up on every other word, so in the end; he turned off, whilst staring at the Grid Map. The city had been divided into one hundred Grids, each overlapping at some point. Each Grid was outlined by a circle, and each circle was block coloured red, orange or green. Green was designated safe, usually used as the Rear Guard or Forward Operational Barracks. On this dog and pony it was the multi-screen cinema and its forty acres of car park; Z.1.A. Orange was uncharted territories, no reports in or out; dangerous ground for the unprepared. Red equalled worst case scenario, or variations of... Including marauding gangs with no qualms about hacking your head off with a rusty blade.
Walker stared at the sun. Halos skated around its flickering disk. He blinked rapidly and saw a single bright head lamp, branded to the inside of his eyelids. The circular glow shimmered and changed into a vision of the Grid Map; his imagination pulled a single grid forward, where it slowly transformed into a petri dish, crawling with the virus, before every grid on the map quivered and exploded, sending blinding white light in all directions.
He blinked and was blind. He blinked again.
"Any contacts?" The Sergeant’s voice whispered through the supernova behind his eyes. Walker jumped and shook his head. A negative image of the car park flashed across his retina as he looked at the Sergeant, who was stood in the doorway, behind him.
"No sir, place looks dead."
"This could be our best route to bug out."
"Agreed."
"Do a quick perimeter check. I'll wait here."
"Yes Sarge." Walker felt motivated; he felt for sure Zola was going to rip him a new one. He didn't like this mission, and it was beginning to show. He jogged down the side of the building until he reached the edge of the car park. A tall, wooden fence made of substantial timber marked the boundary; beyond its height, a narrow woodland strip and beyond that, a private housing estate. He followed the fence line until he was almost level with the front of the store, stopping at another high fence of twisted metal poles and meshed wire. The high and wide gate that allowed access to the staff car park had been damaged at some point, but he was able to close and secure it with a few cable ties from his Bergen, whilst all the time his squinting eyes mapped the immediate surroundings. He felt a surge of burning acid reflux, rising in his chest as he surveyed the blasted remains of infected scattered across the customer car park. There were a few who had been blown apart mid torso, but were still able to pull themselves along.
"Wasps go away." He whispered nervously to himself. "If you ask them nicely, wasps go away."
The Sergeant waved him back to the canteen and he jogged to the fire door. "No contacts," he said, catching his breath and forcing a sickly, metallic taste back down his throat. "There is an access gate, and just inside the main car park, there's a footpath down into the woods; looks like it goes down behind the petrol station and into a pedestrian subway. It‘s all signposted."
"Good work," said the Sergeant and ushered the young Rifleman back into the dark and slightly chilly staff canteen. Walker was relieved to see that Xander and Yates were present. Yates was getting ready for a radio check; Xander was wiping the barrel of his sniper rifle with his favourite rag. Green glow sticks had been distributed around the room, which only seemed to make it colder. Zola tried to pull the fire door all way, but it would not close. With a simple upwards nod, he gestured for Walker to help him move a large table, which they lay on its side with the legs facing the door.
"We're going to have to keep an eye on this," the Sergeant’s voice drifted into his head. "That's our exit. You take first watch. If anything enters this area," indicating the gap between the table legs and the door, "drop 'em. I'll relieve you shortly."
"Yes Sergeant."
"Listen up," Zola said, clearing his throat. "The fire door won't close so we're going to have to keep watch. One hour shifts. I'm next. Get some food, rest up. Boots on; we bug out at 05.00." There is a respectful but slightly subdued chorus of "yes sergeant" from the squad, which made Zola smile. He wandered over to where Yates had set up for the radio check and sat on a backless chair. He slapped his hand on his friend’s shoulder and flicked through his personal supply of MRE's, selecting Spaghetti Bolognese for his supper. Yates handed the radio to him just as the disembodied voice of J.H.C announces a battalion wide message.
There have been losses. Eleven of the fire teams have failed to report and thus far, three teams have been confirmed infected and 'retired' from the arena.
Retired... ‘Subtle way of putting it.
Additionally; earlier in the campaign, whilst landing for a civilian medical evacuation, a Chinook was overrun by infected and though the pilot was able to take off, the Chief reported several infected onboard and the Chinook had to be shot down over a suburban area. Reports of the virus reaching a wider perimeter have been pouring in from civil defence units and the estimated infected population has reached staggering proportions and now spans multiple counties; the outbreak has been officially upgraded to LEVEL THREE. Bad mess all around. Squawk ident' to acknowledge....
...Squawk...
...Pagan acknowledged... Standby... Report current status...
"Squad leader Sergeant Alex Zola reporting… All squad members accounted for... Secured four wall shelter for the night... Encountered multiple contacts... Zero, repeat zero friendlies... Advance to Grid Two at 05.00, repeat 05.00; copy, over." The Sergeant combed his goatee beard with his finger nails as he waited for a response. Several seconds passed before they got one.
"Copy that Pagan; 05.00... Over and out."
The Sergeant and the Corporal exchange a quick look of surprise.
"Short 'n' sweet," the Sergeant observed, shoving a spoonful of spaghetti sauce into his mouth.
"I do enjoy our little chats," Yates quipped.
"Ass fuckers..." grinned Zola with his mouth full.
"Cock suckers..." Yates grinned back.
Xander smirked as he overheard the banter between the Sergeant and the Corporal. In the dim, green light of a dozen glow sticks, he had dismantled, cleaned and was in the process of reassembling his L115A3, something he could do wearing a blind fold; and very often did, just to pass the time. He had fired more shots today than on his entire last tour of Afghanistan, and was quietly confident of his role; he was, after all, the best shot on the squad, if not the battalion. On his last assessment his score was on average, 23% higher than any other shooter; and he was well on his way to becoming an instructor. The Sergean
t may have more years under his belt, and the Corporal too, for that matter. But neither of them could hit a target from seven hundred and fifty yards out, and as for the young Rifleman; as long as he pointed his gun in the right direction and was less than one hundred and fifty feet away, he could hit a target that wasn't moving.
Xander watched Walker, who had removed his Bergen and was leaning against the wall next to the fire exit. He knew very little about him, other than he was nineteen or twenty some, came from somewhere over in the east, and this was his second outing with the squad; replacing a Lance Corporal from the Devonshire and Dorset Light Infantry, who had broken his neck, falling off a stationary Foxhound whilst drunkenly titting about during R’n’R in Camp Bastion. Their first time out with Walker had been to cut the fibre optic cables of a missile launch platform on the Pakistan border less than two weeks ago, and Walker had performed to the best of his abilities. In other words, he kept his head down, followed his commanding officer to the letter and didn't fuck up. The Sergeant seemed to like him, and the Corporal, a man who could be very hard to read, had obviously given Walker the benefit of the doubt. But Xander was hesitant. Maybe it was because of the exchange of words back in the allotments; he wasn't sure. He watched as Walker squirmed inside his body armour, rolling his shoulders and rubbing his arm against the wall, like a bear using a tree as a scratching post. Walker rubbed his forehead and dropped his rifle. The sound made Zola and Yates turn sharply and Xander saw Yates whisper something to Zola, but he could not hear the words.
"You still feel itchy, soldier?" asked the Corporal. Walker rubbed his forehead again and nodded. "Get it sorted then."
Walker sniffed and nodded again, saying "Yes Corporal," as the Sergeant stood up and walked towards him.
"I’ll take my watch now, son." Zola said to Walker as they passed between a couple of upturned tables.
"Thank you Sergeant," Walker said as he removed his armoured vest, dropped it on the floor and proceeded to scratch his chest. Even in the gloomy, verdant of the room, Xander could see droplets of sweat, beading across the young Rifleman’s cheeks and forehead. Walker fumbled for his canteen and splashed some water over his face and drank the rest until the canteen was empty. He dropped this to the floor and turned, looking left and right, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to produce some saliva. He headed back to the sink unit and turned on the cold tap, but only a trickle of water came out. He cupped his hands and sucked the liquid into his mouth, then tried the hot tap; this time no water came out at all. His gaze fixed on the staff kettle and he emptied the old and lime encrusted contents down his throat until an agonising flash of pain stabbed the back of his eyes; he experienced an immediate ascension of anger and threw the kettle at the wall, where it shattered into a dozen pieces. His entire body felt as though it were being squeezed in a vice and grilled with a flame thrower at the same time. He threw himself at the vending machines; fists pummelled the perspex panels. Yates jumped to his feet, whilst Xander turned slowly on his chair and stared as Walker rocked the drinks machine back and forth. Cans of pop and soda rattled in their trays, but none fell. He punched and kicked the machine, giving himself boxer breaks in both hands. The Sergeant attempted to pull him away, telling him to be quiet, but the young Rifleman side swiped him with a haymaker and sent Zola sprawling over a broken chair. Zola rolled onto his back and looked on open mouthed as Walker shook uncontrollably and head butted the drinks machine several times. Then, very suddenly; he stopped. He stood still for a moment, swaying gently back and forth as concussion slipped into something foreign; something pathogenic and on a sub atomic level. Subsequently, clutching his throat, he began to spin wildly, knocking into upturned furniture and bouncing off the sink unit. He fell to his knees and belched. Vomit unexpectedly exploded from his mouth and showered the sink unit and vending machines in a foul, stinking mix of semi digested granola bar and stomach juices.