Aftermath (Book 1): Only The Head Will Take Them Down

by Duncan McArdle

  “That sounds a lot like a suicide mission to me”, said the other man, who was also scanning the building, this time through the scope of a rifle.

  “Got any better ideas?”, asked Jay.

  “Yes, millions. First of which is that we leave them alone, up till now that’s been fine hasn’t it?”, asked the other man.

  “Up till now we thought they were dead!”, exclaimed Jay, before taking a moment to remember his most recently fallen comrade, recalling as he did the immense sight of blood washing around the bullet wound that had torn through his shoulder-blade.

  His current companion looked over, himself seemingly more interested in present affairs, but saying nothing.

  “They should have died back at that gas station, they definitely should have died in that fire”, started Jay once again, “But no matter what, as God is my mother-fucking witness, they’re gonna die now”.

  * * *

  Three heavy bashes of the shotgun’s stock – coupled with the odd kick and numerous swear words – eventually proved too much for the supermarket-grade padlock securing the roof exit of the hotel, its pathetic ‘metal’ bar cracking clean off the mechanism as John’s final swing of the weapon crashed down onto it. John paused for a moment, content to live in the success of his small victory just long enough to catch his breath, after which he knew he would no doubt have plenty of work to do, especially if the day so far was any indication.

  “Here goes”, he said out loud, placing his hand onto the now padlock-free door handle, and twisting it clockwise, the weight of the door and angle of its placement enough to take over from that moment on, swinging it violently open into the outside air.

  Light suddenly flooded the darkened stairwell, almost abruptly enough to send John cowering back into the darkness, his eyes having long since grown used to a much dimmer environment. Before long though, John had adjusted, and cautiously made his way out onto the roof, his shotgun raised and pressed to the shoulder, with his usual military-grade posture on full display. He covered every square foot of the rooftop as quickly as possible, ascertaining in a matter of seconds that he was indeed alone, something he had fully expected from the beginning, but was still happy to discover. Having completed his first sweep, John quickly switched from his short range shotgun – useful for the smaller, much shorter distance of the rooms in the hotel – to his M14, keen to be prepared for any eventuality, especially now that he stood in a position where range and openness became his biggest strengths.

  The layout of the roof was incredibly open, clearly it was never intended for use, save perhaps for the maintenance staff that might have used it to smoke on from time to time. The sides slanted perilously downwards, with no bars or railing to stop someone from falling, and the floor itself was ripe with exposed pipes and cracked cement, both of which John carefully avoided as he crept along the rooftop, keeping low as he did so as not to over-expose himself to the surrounding areas. He did however feel that he might be becoming overly-cautious, as the air had little more than a whisper of wind on it for noise, giving the sensation of an almost completely empty area, long since devoid of the sort of action that the earlier section of the same road had experienced.

  In any case, John was keen to carry out his duties quickly, and so headed directly over to the far side of the rooftop – which overlooked the neighbouring gas station – stopping just to the right of the final edge, where two chimneys stood almost side by side. The chimneys made for an almost perfect spotting location, the thick brickwork enough to almost completely obscure John’s body from a head on view, but just far enough apart for both John’s rifle and its scope to squeeze through the gap, minimising the amount of his own body he had to expose. Settling in quickly, John raised the M14’s scope to his eye, ready to start what he hoped would be a quick inspection of the gas station just a hundred or so yards away, still silently hoping it might be infested with enough biters to put Donald off of wanting to go over there.

  To his disappointment however, he saw nothing. Not a single sign of movement was present, and the long since abandoned gas station stood completely intact. Unfortunately for John, it looked as if it would in fact be a location worth raiding, despite it posing no benefit to him, who stood to gain absolutely nothing whether it was brimming with mint condition fuel, or completely dried up. Adamant he could find a reason not to head over, John started to scan the wider area, from the odd creature that stumbled around on the opposite side of the road, to the unknown shaded areas that might house anything from the rotting, abandoned dead, to the living, hiding in shadows, waiting to pounce. Nevertheless, John could find nothing worrying enough to take back to Donald, and so knew that they’d soon be heading over.

  Rolling onto his back to sit against the chimney breasts, John took a moment to analyse the rest of his surroundings. It had become easy to miss some of the better sights in the world thanks to the way it was now, things like the green treelines just visible off in the distance, the blue skies that occasionally crept through the almost permanent layers of smoke that filled the air, and the birds darting across the sky, chirping happily as they did. Looking at it all, the world almost seemed calm once again, the modern day worries suddenly taken away, for all but a few seconds. Before long though, John knew he had to move, keen to get as much done today as possible, so that he might move on to his family first thing in the morning. With that in mind, he stood up, taking in the sights around him for one final time.

  As he did, another thing caught John’s attention, the faintest of noises, carried by the slightest of breezes, seemingly originating from the front of the hotel. Not knowing what could have caused it, John grabbed his M14, and crept slowly towards the front of the roof, his weapon raised over the edge, exposing just a few inches of barrel with every step, as he attempted to ascertain the source of the sound. Nearing the edge however, he breathed a sigh of relief, at the sight of Donald limping over to the truck, his foot dragging slightly on the floor, causing the scraping that John had heard.

  John tapped the butt of his rifle slightly against the metal siding of the roof, keen to get his companion’s attention, without drawing the unwanted attention of anything else nearby. After a few seconds of confusion, Donald eventually looked up, having realised where the noise was coming from. Finally catching eye contact, John placed a finger over his lips, advising his companion to lower the noise of his scuffling limp.

  “You have any idea how boring it is down here?”, Donald yelled in response, displaying little tact or subtlety to his words, clearly not getting John’s silent intentions.

  “Shhhh!”, John replied, pressing the finger against his lips even harder.

  “There’s nobody around Parker, grow a pair would you? Hurry up and get down here”, he yelled again.

  John raised his rifle outwards, looking through its only barely magnified scope, attempting to check if there was in fact anything around, potentially stirred by the sudden increase in noise. Sure enough, two biters from the opposite side of the road, just outside a fast food restaurant, were suddenly alert. Their heads pointed upwards, their noses visibly inhaling the air around them, keen to smell out the source of the noise. At current, they stood little chance of finding it, the two hundred or so feet that separated them from Donald acting as just enough cover to conceal Donald’s position, for now at least. And so John simply raised his hand, instructing Donald to stay where he was, to which Donald thankfully replied with only a nod.

  Clearly it was time for John to head back down, and so he took a few crouched steps back – still using the cover of the roof to hide the majority of his body from the world around him – and then stood up tall, quickening his pace to the rooftop door, knowing that every second represented another mistake that Donald might make. Reaching the door though, he took a moment to calm himself, the knowledge that he had far from checked every room in the hotel kindling a small amount of fear in the back of his mind. Something could appear at any moment, and that was an eventua
lity he needed to be prepared for. With that in mind, he placed his hand on the door, propped open slightly by an empty tin of beans John had left in place, and pulled it open, his weapon raised and pointing into the still empty stairwell. At this level at least, it was clear.

  As the sixth floor corridors came quickly into sight – John having already descended the first half-floor of steps – John cautiously slowed his pace, the muzzle of his rifle eyeing up every possible hiding spot for the undead, but finding nothing with his quick sweep. Stepping off of the sixth floors bottom step however, he did notice the presence of a window, just a few feet from his position, which overlooked the road in front of the hotel. Knowing only too well that when left alone, Donald had a tendency to act rashly, John briefly peered through the dirtied glass. Once again he noted the location of the two nearest biters – seemingly undisturbed by Donald’s latest noise – and then he looked to Donald’s position, now leant on the side of the truck closest to the hotel’s front door, exactly where John had left him.

  Moving once more, John descended the next flight of stairs, the usual sweep of the floor coming quickly afterwards, as John’s rifle became familiar with the each floor’s identical layout. Once again John checked quickly out of the window, making sure both biters still held their position, and that Donald followed suit. John now had the entire sweep of the area down to just a thirty second period, and so covered the next two floors in little over a minute, eventually arriving at the third level, and looking out the window once more.

  This time however, something had changed. Both biters now lay on the ground, not an ounce of movement in their body, seemingly both now completely deceased. Had they fallen of their own accord, cracking their heads as they hit the hardened floor below? Had dehydration and malnutrition finally finished them off? The thoughts of any natural end to their ever-dwindling lives seemed like somewhat of a pipe dream, a distraction to the considerably more likely possibility, that Donald had decided to act. But John had heard no gunshots, and knew that in such a short space of time, there was no chance Donald could have made his way over and killed them by hand, especially given his persistent limp. It was time to investigate, and so John flicked off the manual locks of the window, slid the pane slowly upwards, and hung his upper body out of it, quickly locating Donald’s position.

  “Was that you?”, he called out softly, in what was little more than a harsh whisper.

  “Was what me?”, Donald replied in his usual tone, still defiantly ignoring John’s advice about noise.

  “The biters over the road!”, John replied, again very softly.

  “The what? Would you speak up for Christ sake?”, Donald called back.

  “Keep your god damn voice down would you?”, John asked of his companion, growing increasingly agitated at his lack of respect for John’s advice.

  “John”, Donald said loudly, before leaning off of the truck, and placing both arms out to each side, “There’s not a living soul out here!”, he yelled loudly.

  John went cold, all he could do was stand there and listen in horror, as Donald’s deep booming shout echoed on every hard surface for what felt like miles around, bouncing from every wrecked car and trashed building, seeping through the smallest of gaps, the slight wisp of wind propelling every letter to every available ear as far as the eye could see. As the last echo died away, John looked back to Donald, feeling an overwhelming urge to put a bullet through his mouth, if only he wasn’t still completely reliant on his cooperation. Instead, he simply gave him a look of pure rage, a look which clearly fell short.

  “See!?”, Donald called out again.

  This time however, it was not John that responded to Donald, nor was it any voice or harsh look at all. This time, the abrupt ear piercing sound of gunfire erupted from the other side of the road, a sudden spray of bullets clattering against the far side of the Toyota, some speeding clear through the less metallic sections and shattering the glass on the front of the hotel. As the bullets landed, John had but a single thought. Clearly they were not alone here, and more importantly, the biters from across the street had not died a natural death.

  Chapter 28: Run for Cover

  Donald reacted with exactly the sort of pace John expected, quickly ducking down behind the truck, putting nearly two metres of metal between himself and the shooters. John meanwhile threw himself against the nearest wall, his eyes the only thing that remained exposed, in a move he hoped would allow him to stay hidden enough to avoid being spotted, but leave him with enough vision to pinpoint the shooters. Down below, he could just barely see Donald, crouched behind the truck, looking up to John’s window, utterly helpless in his current position.

  As the second barrage of bullets hit, John looked outwards, knowing from the noise roughly where the shots had come from, but remaining unable to see the shooters themselves, both seemingly hidden behind the trees lining the road’s central reservation. Thanks to the superior height of the floor John resided on, he could see only the odd muzzle flash, the excess amounts of foliage in his eye-line covering the shooters from above. With that in mind, John quickly looked downwards, ensuring Donald had not been hit by the latest array of shots, before rolling back over to the stairs, and descending to the second floor.

  On arrival, the sound of further shots scattered across the truck, the clang of metal on metal roaring into the air, before numerous stray bullets instead came crashing through what little glass remained at the hotel’s front entrance. John ducked down briefly, before resuming his descent, quickly throwing himself down multiple steps, and onto the first floor, only to be greeted yet again by the sound of gunfire. This time however it was Donald that had fired, judging by the heavy boom of what John knew to be the sound of an AK47. Looking out of the window, John confirmed his suspicions, at the sight of Donald leaning over the bed of the truck, his rifle firing multiple shots at the trunks of trees John could now catch a slight glimpse of, their bases finally exposed from the lower angle he was now viewing from.

  Once more the attackers fired back, sending Donald ducking behind the truck as he waited for the storm of gunfire to stop. This time however, things went differently. John could only watch as the series of shots clattered against the trucks body, until eventually, a single bullet was sent low enough to fit underneath the huge truck, sending it directly between the Toyota’s wheels, and into the foot of Donald’s already injured right leg. The bullet immediately and very visibly ripped through the fleshy top section of the foot, a splatter of blood careering out of its left side, and sprawling across the floor leading up the lobby. To John’s surprise, Donald said nothing, his face clearly contorted with pain, his arms clutching downwards towards his foot, but himself apparently in too much agony to react vocally, or to think logically, something that worried John more and more every second that Donald stayed in his clearly vulnerable position.

  Eventually, John’s concern grew too large, and he couldn’t help but sacrifice his hidden position in an attempt to help.

  “Behind the wheel”, he yelled through the window, “Use it as cover!”.

  Looking up, clearly having only barely heard John’s words, Donald attempted furiously to understand John’s accompanying hand gestures, realising his intentions mere milliseconds before the next set of bullets came flying over. This time however, the shots landed in a smattering around the first floor window, the window which John had only barely pried open, now shattered across the ground in front of which it had stood, a series of bullet holes strewn around it, embedded into the building’s brickwork.

  John hazarded a look once more, this time seeing to his relief that Donald had understood his message, and was now shimmying over to the wheel, the dense rubber of which would at least prevent a similarly placed shot making contact again. Knowing that his companion was now at least somewhat safer, John ducked back against the wall, and once more rolled over to the stairs, keeping as low to the ground as possible as he did. Soon enough, several more shots made their way th
rough the open window, accompanied by the sound of the truck being hit yet more times, the attackers clearly targeting both John and Donald separately now. Whoever this was, they had both men pinned down very tight.

  John paused for a moment at the top of the stairs, knowing that they led into the completely exposed lobby, an area where subtlety and slowness were simply not an option. But if John was to get to Donald in time, there was nothing else for it, and so in a matter of seconds, John stood up tall, sprinted down the stairs as quickly as he could manage, and headed straight across the lobby to the front door. The sound of crunching glass beneath his feat accompanied his every step, until he eventually reached the front of the hotel, now ready to launch some kind of rescue effort on Donald.

  At this point, John knew he had used up every last second of the break between shots, and so ducked once more against a side wall, mere moments before yet another series of bullets made contact with the truck and now the wall which John stood behind, the attackers apparently having seen John’s movement, and thus now able to concentrate their shots to a much smaller area.

  “Donald”, John called out, unsure as to whether or not Donald had seen his latest position change.

  Looking up at first, before then noticing his companion just thirty or so feet from where he sat, Donald eventually saw John, a feeling of relief spreading across him as he realised he now at least had somebody nearby.

  “Stay over there!”, John yelled, “I’ll do what I can from here, I’ll get you out of there!”.

  “Fuck that!”, Donald yelled back, “Put some shots down, now!”, he ordered, as he slowly got to his feet.

  “NO!”, John screamed, knowing as the word left his mouth that it would do nothing in terms of convincing the incredibly stubborn man, now stood alongside the Hilux.

  There was nothing else for it, John raised his M14 and fired off a series of shots, only roughly knowing where the attackers even were, something he compensated for by firing at a variety of potential locations. As he did, the figure of an injured man limped across the car-park in front of him, his right leg unusable at this point, something that was at least somewhat fixed by the use of an AK47 as a makeshift crutch. But Donald’s pace was excruciatingly slow, and his large mass, now not at all covered by the bulk of the truck, made for an easy target. All John could do was to keep the fire going, doing whatever he could to try and keep anybody from being able to come out from their cover.