‘Hey,’ Steve said, nudging Matt’s sleeping bag with his boot. ‘Sleeping beauty, get your arse out of bed.’
Instantly, the snoring stopped, and with a yawn, Matt slowly sat up but refused to wake up properly.
‘I need a piss,’ was all Matt mumbled, not even opening his eyes.
‘Well, that’ll just have to wait for a moment, cause I need to talk to you,’ Steve began, hoping he could rely on Matt’s cooperation. ‘Today’s the day, man.’
Matt opened his eyes to look at his friend, with a serious expression on his face.
‘Fuck, are you sure, Stevie-boy?’ he asked, pushing his arms out of the sleeping bag to rub some drool from his face. ‘There’ll be no going back once you’ve started. You do know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do. I can’t stay here anymore. This is no way to live, not really. The way we’re treating people is just not right and we all know it. I simply can’t do this for even one more day, Matt. I just don’t have it in me, and I’m taking Penny and her friends with me,’ Steve replied, pausing to think how to phrase what he had to say next. ‘The thing is, even though I get why you can’t come with me, I’m going to need your help to get away.’
‘Christ, Steve. Man, your dad will feed my arse to the corpses if he thinks I helped you and the civvies go AWOL,’ Matt began, knowing even before he had finished his protest that he would still do as Steve asked.
‘All you’ll need to do is turn your back for a few minutes while we’re on duty and the civilians and I will disappear into the countryside… gone,’ Steve added quickly, nervously chewing his lip.
‘Just turn my back, eh?’ Matt asked, realising there was more to come.
‘Yeah, I will have to knock you out though,’ Steve said sheepishly. ‘Just so Sarge doesn’t think you were involved.’
‘Great,’ replied Matt resting his chin on his hands, ‘can’t wait’
‘So you’ll do it?’ Steve said with relief.
Matt looked at Steve, raising his eyebrows. The two men had been friends for so long that they were more like brothers now. They had grown up together on the base, become soldiers together and ultimately because of each other, they became the men they were meant to be. They had stood side by side with the Dead before them and they knew the other would die for them; such was their friendship. Even though he would miss him, there was no way he was going to turn his back on his friend’s chance of a life away from the base.
‘What’s a bit of concussion between friends,’ said Matt, his mouth cracking into a smile. ‘So what’s the plan?’
Ten minutes later, Steve and Matt were once again braving the snow and freezing wind on duty manning one of the Jackals. They were watching the convoy’s flank and knowing this would be the direction from which his secret sword-wielding ally would be approaching, Steve had made sure they took this watch position. If he were to make his escape with Penny and the others, this would be the only direction they had a hope of fleeing undetected. While Matt kept an eye on the road ahead of them for any approaching Dead, it was the holding truck that held Steve’s attention. He knew he had to time it just right even to have a chance of pulling off the breakout successfully and when he saw Dave approaching the trailer with an armful of meals again, he knew the time had come.
‘Right, wish me luck,’ Steve said, tapping Matt’s shoulder.
‘You’ll need more than luck, mate,’ Matt replied, looking back at Steve. ‘Hey, look just look after yourself, man, and have a good life, okay.’
‘And you,’ said Steve, glancing back to the trailer to gauge how much time he had left with his friend. ‘I’m going to miss you, mate, and thanks, thanks for everything.’
‘Yeah, okay don’t go all queer on me, just get on with it,’ Matt butted in, knowing he didn’t really want to say goodbye to his friend either.
‘Okay, bye, mate,’ Steve said with a sad smile, as he swung the butt of his rifle towards Matt’s head.
With a ‘crack’ the butt connected with Matt’s skull. For the briefest of moments, Matt’s eyes seemed to go out of focus as he swayed slightly in his seat. Then, as the trauma took its toll, Matt fell forward onto the Jackals steering wheel, unconscious. Pulling Matt’s prone form back into a seating position, Steve checked once more for any of the Dead on the road and with a final pat goodbye on Matt’s shoulder, he turned and jogged over to Dave by the trailer.
‘Need a hand with the door again?’ Steve said with a smile.
‘What? Oh cheers, Steve,’ Dave replied, nodding towards the door as he juggled to hold the food packs for the civilians.
Once Steve had unlocked the door, he held it open for Dave to walk through. With one quick glance around the compound, he followed him in.
‘Right, grub up, people,’ Dave said to the gathered group inside. ‘Sorry it’s just…’
Dave’s apology for the bad food was cut short, as once again, Steve’s rifle butt connected with a skull, knocking the man to the floor.
‘Time to go people,’ Steve began, stepping over Dave’s unconscious body, his eyes instantly meeting Penny’s. ‘We’re getting out of here and I need you to be quick, quiet and to follow me, no questions.’
It was only when he looked at the others in the trailer that he realised this wasn’t going to be the big escape he had hoped for. Sometime during the night, the group had not only been given their neck pulse detectors, but the men of the group had been handcuffed to one of the interior walls to prevent a repeat of Richard’s escape attempt.
‘Shit!’ Steve said, looking back to Penny.
‘Unless you got the keys on you, we’re not going anywhere,’ Richard said, lifting his bruised and swollen face to look up at Steve. ‘But please, you’ve got to get the women and children away from here.’
‘No, I’m staying with you,’ Nicky said, reaching for her husband.
‘Nicky…’ Richard began.
‘We haven’t got time for this,’ Steve interjected. ‘We’ve got to go now, but I promise I’ll come back for the rest of you, somehow.’
‘How do we know we can trust you?’ the woman they had picked up prior to arriving at Lanherne said defiantly, standing to look at the man that had already tricked and betrayed her once.
‘Look, nothing I can say can change what happened, but I’m trying to make it right,’ Steve replied, ‘and this may be our only chance to get away. We’ve got to go now.’
‘You’re wasting time,’ Cam said to the four women free of the handcuffs that held the men in place. ‘Every second you stand around thinking about it, the less chance you have to get away. Just go, go while you can.’
Slowly, Penny stood, pulling her eyes away from Steve’s gaze.
‘Anne, Justin, look after Alex and stay close to me. We’re going to have to move fast, okay,’ she said calmly, reaching down to pick up Jimmy.
‘You’ll have to carry him, if you’re coming,’ she continued, dumping the small boy in the woman’s arms as she picked up his sister, Samantha.
The two women looked at each other, each silently challenging the other. Two strangers brought together by a bad situation, each having to trust the other with their lives. Then something in the woman’s eyes changed. She knew the soldier had been right. This may be their only chance of escape and she would have to take it if she could.
‘My name’s Jennifer,’ she said quietly to Jimmy, repositioning him onto her hip, ‘but everyone just calls me Jen, okay, little man.’
With the quickest of smiles to the woman who had joined them, Penny turned back to Steve.
‘I’m staying too,’ said the other woman, holding tightly to the hand of the man sitting next to her.
The two had been picked up together over a week ago and as they had both been selected to be rescued, they hadn’t seen just how brutal this rescue mission really was. For them, the base offered a life free of the Dead and they would take it, no matter how strict the regime in charge turned out to be.
‘J
ustin, do as Penny says and we’ll be together again real soon. I promise,’ Nicky said, pulling the small boy into a fierce hug and praying her words wouldn’t prove to be a hopeful lie.
Justin began to cry silently, hugging his adoptive mother back tightly.
‘I’m sorry, but we’ve got to go,’ Steve said, anxious not to stay any longer.
‘Take care of them,’ Nicky said, looking up at Steve, her tears falling freely as she pushed Justin reluctantly away from her. ‘Take care of them all.’
‘I will,’ Steve said, as he nodded seriously to the weeping woman who had entrusted the care of her son to him.
Looking over at the small group now in his charge, he noticed the woman called Jen, struggling to keep hold of the small boy she held in her arms. Unlike those from Lanherne, this woman had lived too long on the brink of starvation and simply carrying the boy’s extra weight was obviously a struggle for her weakened body.
‘Here, give the boy to me,’ he said to her, pulling Jimmy from her arms. ‘We’ll be able to move faster if I carry him.’
‘Thanks,’ she replied, steadying herself briefly.
‘Right, let’s do this,’ said Steve, moving to the door.
Opening the door slightly, Steve scanned the makeshift compound for activity. Luck seemed to be with the small escaping group at that moment, with the only sounds of activity coming from the communications tent and with most of the soldiers not on watch duty still in their tents trying to keep warm, they might just have a chance. If Steve could get them across the small open space outside the holding truck and to the tents, they should be able to get to the Jackal and freedom, undetected.
‘Stay low, keep quiet and follow me,’ he whispered back to Penny, Jen and the children.
Taking a deep breath, Steve darted silently across the stamped down area of snow, over to the row of small tents. Penny, close on his heels, clutched a scared Samantha close to her chest, while Alex ran alongside her holding tightly to her jacket. Behind her, with her heart pounding in her chest, Jen ran with Anne and Justin, trying to keep up. Steve had made it past the first couple of tents and already he could see the back of the Jackal, tantalisingly close.
‘We’re going to make it,’ he thought to himself.
It was then that behind him, Jen caught a glimpse of two soldiers about to step out from behind a tent right into Steve’s path. Skidding to a halt, she silently grabbed Anne and Justin, pulling them into the small gap between two of the tents, praying they hadn’t been noticed. Raising her finger to her lips, the two children looked at her with fear in their eyes.
‘Well, what have we here? Going somewhere?’ Jen heard one of the soldiers say, followed by the ominous sound of a rifle being cocked.
Jen, cursing the heavens for their bad luck, knew that while the soldier’s attention was otherwise diverted, the two children and she might still have a chance to escape. Taking a small hand in each of hers, Jen crouched low and led the two children along the side of the tent. With adrenalin pumping through her as she peeked around the front of the tent, Jen could see the soldiers forcing Steve to his knees, while Alex clung terrified to Penny’s leg.
‘No!’ came Penny’s cry, as one of the soldiers began a vicious attack on Steve, while the other had his gun pointed menacingly towards her and the three children to stop her from darting forward.
Jen knew it was now or never. With Penny’s screams for the soldier to stop alerting the rest of the camp, her window of escape was closing fast.
‘Ready?’ she whispered back to the boy and girl crouched next to her.
Not waiting for a reply, Jen pulled the two children forward and darted across the open space behind the backs of the soldiers engrossed in their beating.
‘Please, please, please,’ she silently prayed, desperately hoping neither of the soldiers would turn and notice her escape.
Some unknown deity must have heard her prayer, because she had made it to the back of a large vehicle that sat on the perimeter of the camp, undetected. Pulling the two children down by one of the large wheels out of sight, Jen stole a peek at the man sitting in the driver’s seat. With his eyes closed and a small trickle of blood running down his forehead, Steve had planned this escape route for them to take all along.
‘We’ll make a break for the hedgerows,’ she whispered to her two new charges.
With one last glance back at the camp and the sounds of Penny’s pleading for the attack on Steve to stop fading behind her, Jen broke their cover from behind the vehicle and ran with Anne and Justin to the nearest patch of hedgerow cover that grew by the side of the road.
‘Stop, you bastards, stop! You’re killing him,’ Penny screamed, as Streiber began to kick at Steve’s already bloody body curled up at his feet.
‘Streiber,’ came the hard voice of Sergeant Blackmore. ‘Explain!’
‘Caught this one trying to desert with the woman and children, Sir,’ the soldier replied, giving Steve one last kick in the ribs.
Sergeant Blackmore walked over to the man on the ground and using his boot, roughly rolled him over onto his back. Seeing it was his son, Steven, he was neither surprised nor disappointed. The boy, just like his worthless mother, had always been weak and he had come to expect nothing better from him. When he thought of all the good men or rather good soldiers that had died at the hands of the infected, Sergeant Blackmore was disgusted at the actions of his own son.
‘Take this man to Dr Morris. I want him conscious and aware at his court marshal,’ he said to the SAS Commando who had mercilessly beaten his son, ‘and get these civilians back to the holding truck.’
‘Sir!’ the soldier replied with a swift salute.
Without a second glance at his son’s unconscious body, Sergeant Blackmore turned and walked past the silent soldiers of his squadron who had come out of their tents to see what was happening. Some of them exchanged discrete looks of concern but all knew better than to voice an opinion on what had happened to Private Blackmore. ‘Better him than me,’ was a thought that came to most of them and already many had turned away from the sight of the Private’s beaten body.
‘Start breaking down your tents,’ Sergeant Blackmore said coldly, his tone challenging any of his men to question his actions. ‘We bug out in twenty minutes, but thanks to Private Blackmore, we’ll have to deal with some business first.’
All of the men knew what that meant. Private Steven Blackmore’s torment had only just begun.
***
In the Med lab, Alice fought her way back to consciousness. Through the heavy fog that threatened to drag her back to oblivion, she grasped the sound of spoken voices around her, and like a tether, she pulled herself back to reality.
‘Well, they certainly gave you a good working over,’ Dr Morris’s unconcerned voice came, as Alice’s eyes fluttered open.
Afraid that the doctors would drug her again, Alice laid still with only her eyes moving to take in the scene. Dr Morris was wiping the blood from the chin of the solider who had known Penny and Lars. The man had been beaten severely and as he sat at a desk, clutching his ribs obviously in pain, Dr Morris administered what could only be called half-hearted care.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve broken a few of your ribs and your split lip could really use a few stitches,’ Dr Morris said to the soldier, as he dropped his latex gloves down onto the tray of surgical equipment. ‘But I think you’ll agree it would be a little pointless really to fix them… Look, I could give you some pain killers, but we both know your what Sergeant Blackmore has in mind for you.’
‘Anything you can give me, Doc, would be great,’ Steve said, wincing from the pain.
Doctor Morris looked at the beaten man before him, knowing he really shouldn’t waste their valuable medication on a condemned man, but something inside him shouted to be heard, shouted for him to act. Some long forgotten need to help his fellow man in practice rather than just in theory and formulae called out to him, reminding him to treat this
man with compassion in what would likely be his last few hours.
‘Okay,’ Dr Morris said with a sigh, turning to retrieve some medication from a cupboard.
As the doctor rummaged through the cupboard looking for a specific medication that was less likely to be missed, Steve looked down at the stack of papers piled next to him on the desk. Skimming over the printout to take his mind off the waves of pain that rippled through him with each breath, one phrase suddenly stood out and horrified him. Looking up, he caught the gaze of the pregnant woman strapped to the bed. He knew he had but a few seconds to act while the doctor still had his back to him, so silently, he reached forward to the tray of surgical implements. With one last quick glance back to Dr Morris, Steve grabbed one of the small paper wrapped scalpel blades and tossed it to the woman. As the wrapped blade landed by her hip, she looked back at him, her confusion obvious. Steve made an obvious glance down to the printout and then nodded back to her, silently trying to tell her what he had read. Whether she understood or not, Steve had no idea, but as she stretched her fingers to manoeuvre the blade into her palm slowly, he knew at least he had done what he could for her. He had given her a chance to save herself and her baby, and perhaps, if luck was on her side, the line he had read saying, ‘terminate inoculated foetus to record antivirus viability’ might never be put into practice.
***
‘Fuck! Where are they all coming from?’ whispered Leon, turning to face Imran.
‘From what Sister Josephine said, the idiots aren’t shy about using their guns to put down the Dead,’ Imran replied, his whisper mirroring Leon’s, ‘and looks like they’re thundering through the countryside like bulls in a china shop, riling up all the Dead as they go. Of course, as far as they’re concerned, they’ve got what they want from this area now, so what do they care if all the Dead that are able to, suddenly take to the roads to follow?’
Five More Days With The Dead (Lanherne Chronicles Book 2) Page 19