He pulled the trigger. The thing's brain shot up and out the top of its head. Blonde hair parted as scalp tore away, and the unnaturally tall creature toppled over backwards.
Abi screamed as the hands wrapped tautly around her throat refused to let go, and she followed the zombie down to the ground, her knee rubbing the concrete on the platform so harshly that she immediately felt the bloody stickiness around her shin.
Lukas, leaving Abi to struggle her way free of the dead undead, turned back and despatched the almost forgotten lurker loping towards him just beyond the crate. Its head flew back as the bullet impacted, and its momentum carried it over.
With their side of the platform clear, Lukas dropped down onto the tracks and began to pace across to the others.
'You guys struggling?' Lukas asked, his arrogance almost too much for Shane to take.
'We got it,' Terry said, slicing through two lurkers as if they were meaty mannequins. His first swoop disabled them, gashing through their bellies and spilling out their guts; without pause, he swung again, decapitating the first one easily. The second was barely able to stand when Marla shot it through the face from fifty feet away.
'Whooo!' Lukas yapped. 'Fucking yeah!'
The yard was clear. They must have fought off thirty creatures, maybe more. They would have plenty of time to count them later on, but for now all Shane could think about was the children.
'RIVER!' he called, slowly walking backwards along the track. 'RIVER!'
As if sensing he should be doing the same, Lukas began to call Saul's name, though he didn't really care if they ever saw the little dumb shit again. He was more trouble than he was worth; to be quite frank, he just wanted the girl now – River, or whatever she called herself. She looked game for anything.
'Marla, can you see anything from up there?' Terry asked.
Marla looked around. Trees, tracks, trees, containers, trees . . . 'Nothing,' she replied. 'Shit, Terry, where did they get to?'
Terry didn't have time to reply, as Shane called from the receiving yard hut. 'Found them!'
Marla sighed; relief had never felt so good. Terry rushed across to where Shane had cornered the tracks and disappeared from view. When he arrived, he could hardly believe what he saw.
Piled up, three- maybe four-bodies high, a stack of lurkers, all headless, all deader than they'd expected to be when their attack was mounted.
Saul was hiding in a niche between the hut and a crate. His tear-filled eyes were bloodshot and terrified; petrified of what he had just witnessed.
River was wiping the blade of her machete on an old beige rag, though it was more black, now, than its natural colour.
'We thought it would be best if we took out these ones,' River said. She was breathless, but not perturbed in the slightest by the battle she had just partaken in.
Shane could think of nothing else to do. He dropped to his knees and pulled River in, hugging her and kissing the top of her head as if it might be the last time he would have such an opportunity.
'Ewww, get off,' River sniggered. 'Don't know where you've been, and you stink.'
Terry grinned. 'She's right, Shane. When was the last time you had a honest-to-goodness wash?'
Shane let go of the girl, who continued to wipe her machete-blade clean; Saul, from the safety of his makeshift recess, whimpered.
There was something not right with that kid; Shane knew it – they all did – and why weren't his parents rushing to his side to comfort him.
It made no sense.
'We need to keep watch,' Shane said as he clambered back to his feet. 'I'll take the receiver yard. Lukas?'
The gut, who was in no apparent rush to make himself useful, sighed and said, 'Yeah, why the fuck not? I'll take that side.' To Terry he said, 'How long d'ya think you'll be trying to get that shit-heap fixed up?'
Terry shrugged; this guy was severely rattling his cage now. 'How long's a piece of string?'
Lukas rolled his eyes and snatched the shotgun from Abi's trembling hands. The thing was: she wasn't shaking as a result of what had just happened; she was frightened of Lukas. Something like that couldn't be concealed easily, and she was struggling to hide how fearful she was of her alleged husband.
As Lukas launched himself across the tracks, she followed. Terry shot Shane a glance which suggested that he too understood which one of the young couple wore the breeches.
'I'd better get on with it,' Terry said, breathlessly smirking and wiping the sweaty sheen from his glistening forehead. 'Keep an eye on things for me, would you?'
Shane nodded and wished Terry luck. The old guy hadn't been referring to the lurkers in his final statement.
It was Lukas that Terry worried about.
Shane climbed down from the platform and began to clear the tracks of undead bodies.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Four-thirty-seven. That was the exact time of the arrival of the first wave of creatures at Bay St. Louis. It was remarkable how quiet they were when they appeared.
And then all hell broke loose.
'Erm, Sniper Two? You seeing what I'm seeing?'
'Is that you, Bernstein?' Sniper Two responded through the crackling radio.
'Uh-huh. Have you checked your nine in the last five minutes?' Bernstein asked the sniper next to him, whose real name was beyond him . . . something like Blanks, or Blanc . . .
'Checking now, Bernstein.' There was a moment of radio-silence, and then came the garbled panic as Sniper Two realised what the caller had spotted. 'Holy shit, Bernstein! Are those all—'
'Dead?' Bernstein cut in. 'Do they look alive to you, Sniper Two?'
More silence as the idiot mounting the adjacent tower took a closer look, no doubt using his sights for clarification. Bernstein hissed, waited for a response, even though the question had been rhetorical.
'Sniper Two, I need you to focus,' Bernstein said. The situation could be controlled if he took charge of it now. This was their gig; their shot at glory. The other six gunmen were out of range, scattered further along the bay. There were two snipers within range of this approaching horde. Bernstein was one, and the idiot know as Blanks – or fucking Blanc, whatever – was the other.
'I'm focused,' Sniper Two finally responded; the radio hissed, threatening to die at any moment.
Bernstein hoped it didn't. That, considering the nervousness of the guy sitting in the tower next to him, would not be good.
'I count thirty, maybe forty undead,' Bernstein said. 'All approaching from the west, all moving slow enough for us to take clear shots at each of them.'
Silence.
'Sniper Two, do you copy?'
The radio crackled; for a moment there was nothing but static. It was enough to make Bernstein anxious, despite lasting for less than ten seconds in total.
'I'd say closer to fifty,' Sniper Two's staccato voice announced. 'There are more along the car-lot at your north-west.'
Bernstein glanced through his rifle-mounted sight and sighed as the emerging horde came into view. 'Roger that, Sniper Two. We'll get to those ones eventually. I want you to open up at the ones directly opposite . . . I repeat, shoot the ones nearest to the bay.'
The radio fizzled. Bernstein pleaded for it to remain functional.
'Roger that, Bernstein,' Sniper Two replied. 'Can we take them all?'
Truthfully, Bernstein wasn't sure. He knew they had enough ammo to sit up in their nests all day long taking pot-shots. What he didn't know, however, was if they had time to take out fifty of the creatures before they reached the bay.
He fired off the first round, connecting sweetly with the unfortunate creature at the front of the horde. Its head erupted; the dollar-sized hole in its forehead was a saucer-sized aperture at the back. As it fell, Bernstein heard the first shots from Sniper Two.
'Don't fucking let me down, Blanket – whateverthefuck you're called,' he muttered as he took aim and fired again.
*
Dredd was up and dressed befo
re Emma had time to figure out what was happening. The gunshots had come so suddenly – and after days of complete silence, unexpectedly – that nobody was prepared for the bombardment just across the way.
'Honey, stay here,' Dredd said. 'That's the snipers, which means that they haven't reached the bay yet. You're safe here. I have to find Gabriella.'
Emma's eyes darted around the tent. The sheer surprise of this attack had rendered her silent.
Dredd blew her a kiss – which seemed a little perfunctory given the circumstances – before unzipping the tent and vanishing through the flaps. Emma listened as the gunshots echoed around; they seemed to be coming from all directions, though she knew that was impossible, that the snipers were lined up neatly along the bay on her left-hand side.
She couldn't just lie there and listen to the mayhem beyond the tent. She threw her clothes on and headed out into the mid-afternoon drizzle.
It was then that she realised the enormity of what was occurring just beyond the bay, as the groans of a hundred creatures drifted along on the wind, piercing her ears, turning her blood to mercury.
*
Gabriella didn't know what was going on. She watched as people emerged from their tents, their makeshift nylon fortresses, to see what all the commotion was about.
'We're gonna get eaten up, now,' Lizzie said as she appeared between the half-zipped doorway of her tent. 'You'd better go and tell your mom and dad that you love them, because the creatures are gonna come and gobble us all up.' The way she spoke reminded Gabriella of her own mother's story-time voice.
'Don't be silly, Lizzie,' Gabriella reproached. 'They can't get in here. We're safe here.' She hoped she was right, because the thought of the creatures breaking the barricades and crawling towards her, hungry, ready to “gobble” her up, made her skin crawl like a thousand tiny spiders just beneath the surface.
'If there's lots of them,' Lizzie said, smiling as if it was all a game, 'then they might get in, and then we're all in biiiiiig trouble.'
Gabriella had had enough. 'If they get in,' she said to her friend, 'I'm going to point them in this direction. I'm going to tell them that you don't mind being eaten, that you actually want to be one of them, and then you're for it.'
She wouldn't tell them anything of the sort, because they don't listen. They don't know anything other than flesh, and how nice it tastes. Besides, how could she tell them anything if she was running in the opposite direction?
Her faux-threat worked, though, and Lizzie's tiny face dropped as the confidence oozed out of her, leaving her just a terrified face between two pieces of cloth.
It was all Gabriella could do not to burst out laughing, though with the gunfire still echoing around the bay it was impossible to feel any sort of assurance, especially not enough to smile.
Over the sound of rifle discharge, somebody was calling her name.
Her dad.
He was looking for her, scouring the site as if she was a little scaredy-cat, which she wasn't. When she turned to face Lizzie again the girl was grinning.
'Is that your daddy I hear calling you?' she chided. 'Come to save his little, sparkly princess from the zombies?'
For some reason – Gabriella didn't know why, but she'd seen people do it to each other when they argued – she jabbed her middle finger up at her friend. Lizzie gasped, threatened to tell on Gabriella for doing a “Naughty sign.”
'Tell on me; I don't care,' Gabriella said, poking the air again with her middle finger.
Just then, her father appeared behind her, filling the gap between two tents as if he was half-a-mile wide. He sighed, relieved with his discovery.
'Thank God, Gabriella,' he gasped as he scooped her up from the ground. 'I've been looking everywhere for you.'
'Not everywhere,' she said. ''Cos I've been here the entire time, with Lizzie.' She pointed towards the gap in the green tent, but her friend's face had vanished.
Yeah, that's what that middle finger does, Gabriella thought, and made a mental note to use it more often.
'Come on,' Dredd said, hustling his daughter through the excited – and petrified – throng towards the base.
When they reached it, Dredd was summoned over to Frank Pimlico by the uniformed man nearest the entrance. Whatever was happening, the general was toying with the idea of sending the Wave Hawk out to assist.
'What is it, General?' Dredd asked. A soldier came along to pacify Gabriella while the men talked war-tactics, though she would have much preferred to stick around, and said as much as the poor grunt tried to coax her away with promise of ice-cream.
'Go with the soldier,' Dredd told her. 'He'll fix you up something nice.' He gave the uniformed man next to Gabriella a stare which said, Don't make me fucking regret this . . .
Gabriella succumbed to the promise of chocolate and escorted the soldier – that's right, she led him out – through the base and into an adjoining room.
It was then that General Frank Pimlico informed Dredd of the situation just beyond the bay, and what they could do to solve it.
'We have two snipers over on that side,' Pimlico said inbetween heavy pulls on a cigarette. Smoke seemed to billow from every orifice as he spoke. 'We're tracking the horde as they get closer, but we're not sure they're going to be able to take them all out, not alone.'
Dredd didn't like the sound of this; he had missed a lot of school as a youngster, but he was sharper than most, and this was one of those conversations that had only one possible outcome.
'You want me to do a flyby.' he said, not a question.
'You'll have a gunner in the rear, of course,' Pimlico said, as if that made everything better. 'And you don't even have to land outside the perimeter. Just hover, and shoot.' He gestured with his hand to show how simple the mission was.
And to him, it was the easiest thing in the world, because he didn't have to get in that chopper and fly out over a horde of insatiable cannibals.
What if something went wrong? What if the rotors jammed up . . . or the engine failed, or anything? Who'd be sent out beyond the perimeter to rescue him?
'Emma's gonna be pretty pissed at me for even considering this shit, General. You know that, don't you?'
'She's a great gal,' Pimlico said. 'She'll love you all the more for it.'
'So do I get to choose the gunner?' Dredd asked. 'Or are you gonna give me any available piece of shit?'
'No, you take who you want, Dredd. So long as they're still alive, they're yours.'
Dredd knew exactly who he needed for this massacre; and that's what it would be.
A massacre of the undead.
*
'Bernstein, can you see an end to them?' Sniper Two's voice fizzled from the small, grey radio at Bernstein's feet. 'I thought we had enough ammo for this shit . . . I'm almost fucking dry over here.'
Bernstein shot three creatures directly between the eyes before answering. 'Negative, Sniper Two. There's a whole clusterfuck of them coming from my three that you can't even see yet.'
Sniper Two made a choking sound into his headset; Bernstein suddenly felt very alone up in his tower. He hoped one of the others was already traversing the bay to relieve the obviously-nervous sentry of his post; this was no time to lower their guard.
Bernstein sighted on the shambling mess that had once been a celebrity. He recognised the face, though it was terribly decayed and gnawed away, now, leaving only partial patches of skin and meat on the skull.
Eric Roberts. That was it; Bernstein had seen some of the guy's films, and they sucked. Shooting Eric Roberts in the face was hardly going to blemish his score-card.
In fact, it would probably go down as honourable; the guy was famous for being the less-talented brother of Julia Roberts, though in some photographs they appeared to be the same person.
Bernstein pulled the trigger. Eric Roberts's eyes rolled up to the sky, as if asking God a question in the last moment before his brain ceased functioning for the second time.
Why did you
make Julia better than me?
Without pause, Bernstein swung the sights across and targeted on the next poor bastard in his firing-line. He was almost relieved to stare down on a less-prominent figure, someone who had been no-one in life. If Morgan Freeman had been staggering through the neighbourhood, Bernstein would have been reluctant to pull the trigger.
This creature was black, but it wasn't Morgan Freeman, and thinking it might be was only delaying the inevitable.
Ptttt.
The bullet hit the creature squarely, and it somersaulted backwards, landing in a heap beside a charity deposit-point.
'Are you still there?' Bernstein softly spoke into his headset. 'Sniper Two, do you copy?'
'I'm here,' the tremulous voice replied. 'Did you just take out Eric Roberts?'
Bernstein laughed. 'You saw that, huh? I thought it was him. Didn't know he was was recognisable.'
Two creatures fell as Sniper Two fired beautifully into the horde. It was good to know he was still functioning, albeit slowly.
'I was gonna shoot him myself,' Sniper Two said. 'Falcone sucked.'
'Don't remember that one,' Bernstein said as he fired two shots into the horde, decapitating a creature completely. 'I shot him for Best Of The Best.'
The sea of undead continued to push forward; their groaning was unbearable, enough to drive even the stablest of men insane.
The whole thing reminded Bernstein of a fairy-tale his mother used to read him as child.
The Pied Piper Of Hamelin.
These things were the rats, their insatiable hunger was the piper. They crawled, clambered, shambled and staggered incessantly forward, hoping to find flesh to sate their madness, and Bernstein wanted to end their misery, each and every one of them.
They were fighting an impossible enemy, though. Their sheer numbers were their main advantage. It didn't matter that they were slow, or afflicted; what mattered was: they wouldn't stop to get at you. They would climb over the dead bodies of those fallen in front to reach you.
The Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Line Page 12