‘The ghoul is with them.’ I said with confidence. I was sure of it. What I wasn’t sure of was if we could do anything about it.
‘Keep your eyes open everyone,’ Emile instructed, ‘the ghoul is holding off the attack, probably trying to draw out our fire. Stick to the plan.’
‘It shouldn’t be able to do that, right?’ Reg asked, on my left. ‘I thought that the infected would come for you, no matter what?’
‘The ghoul seems able to direct the zombies, focus their attention. It got them to loop around and surround the farm. No reason it can’t get them to wait two minutes.’
We lapsed into silence, but that only meant our ears focused on the eerie wailings of the waiting horde.
‘Why wait?’ Emile muttered, thinking aloud to fill the silence. ‘What have they got to gain by holding back?’
‘What would a living army have to gain by waiting, Reg?’ I asked.
‘Give time for other units to move into position, or reinforcements to arrive. Of course, they could also just wait there indefinitely, turn this into a protracted siege. Eventually we’d have to sleep, and they could attack while our defences are weakened. Or they’d wait even longer, until our food stores run dry and we’re forced to sally forth. We’ve got the horses for a good old sally.’
‘What did you do for a living?’
‘I own an antiques dealership, specialising in colonial and military history.’
I grinned. ‘Yeah, that’s a proper moustache-man job.’
‘Pardon?’
‘I bet there were some useful articles in your store.’ Emile interrupted, tactfully.
‘Less than you’d think,’ Reg said, and though his lips were moving, his eyes were locked on the shadowy figures down the lane, ‘I have a few old guns, including a swivel gun from a seventeenth century schooner, but the rifles aren’t serviceable. I wouldn’t be sure about the swivel either. Sabres and trench shovels, I imagine they would be quite useful right now though.’
‘You have swords?’ I asked. ‘I’ll put my fiancé on to you. He’s always wanted one.’
‘They’re the real deal, not replicas. Expensive, you know.’
‘You saying you wouldn’t cut me a deal? After all we’ve been through?’ I feigned incredulity.
Shots echoed through the night from the fields, and we fell silent again. My heartbeat picked up and I swear I could feel the hearts of those around me doing the same.
‘We make it through this, Nurse Cox,’ Reg quietly said, ‘and I shall perform the sabrage at your wedding.’
The shadows lurched forward, white light bleaching clothes and skin to paler shades, but doing little to change the harsh red of their bloodstains. The pitch of their moans changed, from low, uncomfortable groans, to something more urgent, perhaps even excited.
‘Will you let my other half keep the sword?’ I quickly asked.
‘We’ll see!’ he shouted, the volume increasing as they drew closer, and nerves got the better of him.
There were dozens of them, maybe as many as a hundred, certainly a crowd that outnumbered the six of us by a significantly unpleasant margin. The light cast by our lamps didn’t even touch the rearmost shamblers.
‘Gods be good,’ one of the civilians prayed, backing away from the gate, ‘there’s too many of them…’ She jumped from the bales and cast around the courtyard like she was looking for an escape.
I hopped down after her, grabbing her by the shoulders, spinning her to face me, though her eyes were still pinging from the gate to the hedge to the barns – the door was open to the barn we’d been sleeping in, an emergency refuge if we were suddenly overrun, but Rob’s other barn remained firmly locked.
‘Hey, listen to me!’ I called out. ‘What’s your name?’
She was a skinny thing, a little taller than me, maybe a little older, with mousy hair and bags under her eyes. Beneath her sensible winter coat she wore a smart blouse and waistcoat combo, with business slacks and a pair of pink trainers that didn’t fit the rest of the outfit.
‘Nat, uhm,’ she hesitated, another series of gunshots ringing out in the night. I gave her shoulders a squeeze, bringing her back to the here and now, not letting her get lost in her head. She closed her eyes to swallow past the pulse in her throat, but still didn’t meet mine when she opened them again.
‘Nat, for Natalie? You’re freaking out, Nat. We’re going to get through this. Trust me.’
‘How do you know?’ she asked. ‘We should just run!’
‘We’ve got walls, weapons, and the will to fight.’ I said, something from Hale’s speech-giving rubbing off on me. I wasn’t sure if I really felt it myself, that will to fight. But it certainly beat dying without one. ‘What have they got that we can’t beat?’
‘They’re monsters…’
‘And they’re not half as tough as they are scary. You can’t give in to that fear. I don’t want to be standing up there any more than you do, but they aren’t getting through that gate Nat. The only danger we’re in is running out of stuff to throw at them. Come on Nat, breathe with me. In, and out.’
She looked at me doubtfully for a moment, but then started to take deep, calming breaths. Talking people out of panic attacks was starting to become my speciality. Of course, talking yourself out of one is a different thing entirely. Do as I say, Natalie, not as I do.
‘Do you want to take a minute?’ I asked her.
She didn’t say anything, but I could tell she did.
‘Stay here, come up to the gate when you’re ready.’
As I returned to the top, I twitched backwards, recoiling from the sudden sight. Only Emile’s steadying hand on my back kept me from falling off the bales.
They were pressed against the gate, like the mob outside of a rough hockey match, waiting to be let into the ground. Only instead of chanting their team’s song, there was the unearthly moaning. The closest in the press had their hands firmly atop the gate, and were pushing and pulling at the wood with little to no effect.
‘Those beams are doing their job,’ Reg said, referring to those castle-gate crossbars SySec had installed. With them, the side gates became almost a solid wall of timber and steel.
‘Still though,’ I said, ‘seems a shame to let them just have at it. I think we’ve got to get started.’
‘I know just what you mean.’ Emile sighed, passing me a hammer.
‘Oh, fuck me…’ one of the other civilians grumbled, psyching himself up for it. We’d been introduced, but I couldn’t remember if he was the John or the James. Like I said, I’m usually good with names, but between the panic attacks and the enemy at the gates, I had other things to think about.
We had a couple of hammers, pipe-wrenches, and bricks gripped in gloved hands – and we used them on the closest targets available, bringing them down on the fragile little workings of the human hand, filling the air with the sounds of cracking bone, thudding timber, and our own cringing sounds of discomfort.
The zombies, for the most part, didn’t seem to give two shits what we did to them. They didn’t feel pain, but maybe they felt surprise or maybe it was just my imagination, but every now and then when bone crunched under my hammer, I thought I heard the pitch of the zombie’s moaning change, or that I was drawing a fresh wail from their grey, cracked lips.
I tried to tune it out by humming my scrub-in song, but there was something way too macabre about inflicting blunt force trauma in time to the music. I just grit my teeth and grunted my way through it like the rest of them.
‘Barnyard, this is Watchtower,’ Captain Hale said over the radio, ‘Status request, over.’
Reg took a step back from the wall to answer. ‘Barnyard. Zeds at the gates, estimate eight-zero, but holding strong. We have not begun to launch missiles yet. Your status, Watchtower? Over.’
‘Enemy contact, missiles partially effective. Thinned our numbers from estimates four-zero to two-zero. Refrain from using un-approved term “zeds” on radio, Barnyard. Over.�
��
I turned from the crooked, splayed fingers I had just beaten with my hammer. ‘I did wonder. Zeds?’
‘It’s shorter than saying zombie.’ Reg said defensively, before bleeping his radio again. ‘Received Watchtower. Clarify, enemy is engaged. Will commence dispensing projectiles. Barnyard out.’
It was Emile’s turn to take issue. ‘Dispensing projectiles?’
There was a little round of smirking at Reg’s expense.
Natalie re-joined the gate, and looked out across the horde of milky-eyed, wailing dead. She quickly looked away, and met my eyes.
‘Sorry about that.’ She said, sheepishly.
I gave her my hammer and put a hand on her shoulder.
‘Catharsis. They lay a hand on the gate, whack it.’
‘I can do that.’ She said, putting some strength in her voice, but gripping the hammer in two hands.
In our little corner of the defences, things were going well. The dead were clawing ineffectually at our walls, broken fingers uselessly brushing at SySec’s fine fortifications.
Reg kept an eye out for the ghouls by scanning the crowd in the light – everything beyond was darkness – while Emile watched for threats coming from behind us, within the courtyard. They’d got in once without us noticing, and there was nothing to say they couldn’t do it again. I figured all the other teams would have someone doing the same.
I pulled on the gardening gloves left for me atop one of our brick stacks, and started handing them up to John and James, whose names I was sure were correct, but just not which belonged to who.
I tried to focus on the bricks, and not think too much about what we were about to do with them. At least we wouldn’t be able to feel their skulls breaking like we could their fingers.
‘Pick a target a couple rows back,’ I suggested. ‘We want the broken-fingered zeds at the front to stay standing, unless you want to go through all that hammering again.’
With that, we unleashed a volley of masonry, tossing red bricks and chunks of grey breeze block at the heads of zombies three or four rows back. Not all our shots hit the mark – we were throwing rocks after all, not tennis balls.
Where the masonry struck home, the zombies fell. It was hard to say whether they’d been put out of the fight entirely, or if they’d simply been knocked over and the horde moved up to fill the gap, standing atop each other in a way that would soon be very, very dangerous if they were living.
Certainly the press was tight enough at the front that if these were living people, the ones with broken fingers would be being crushed against the gate by the weight of those behind. I wasn’t sure what would be worse, crammed in and suffocated, or knocked over and trampled, and this is after my brief experience with the latter, last night.
‘Barnyard, from Watchtower,’ Hale’s voice came over the radio, ‘be advised that Foxtrot has dispatched to reinforce Alpha. Enemy’s arrival at Echo was a trick. All told there may be six to seven zero zero enemies present across all locations. I repeat, six to seven-zero-zero hostiles present. Status? Over.’
We carried on dispensing projectiles while Reg answered.
‘Barnyard. Gates are still holding firm, no sign of them falling. No eyes on any ghouls. Over.’
‘How many hands do you think you can spare, Barnyard? I want more bodies ready in the fields, shooters if possible, but don’t leave your garrison without a gun, over.’
Reg looked to Emile, who was in charge of this barricade.
Emile then looked at me.
‘Fuck no.’ I told him.
‘Give Katy the radio, we will go to assist the field teams.’ Emile said.
‘No, nono, no, nope.’ I said, putting my hands up and away from Reg’s offered radio.
‘Katy, por favor, this wall is safe. You heard the captain. Reg and I can shoot, so we need to be there to back up the others. All you have to do is stand here and keep an eye on things.’ Emile said, already passing his shotgun to maybe-John, who’d done his bloody service and was trusted with a gun. ‘She is loaded, but save the shooting for ghouls only, sí?’
I let out some wordless sound of frustration and snatched the radio off Reg. Then, because I remembered leadership is supposed to be a united front, I wished them luck.
‘I’m holding this radio for twenty minutes, tops. Go kill some zeds.’
They hustled across the courtyard, Emile checking his sidearm as we went. But everyone was looking at me again. Gods I wish they’d cut that shit out.
‘Just because the wall is safe,’ I said, casting a look over the enemy at the gates, ‘doesn’t mean we stop trying to kill those bastards.’
I grabbed another brick and dispensed the projectile just to drive the point home. I actually managed to land a direct hit, square in the forehead. It timed quite well with a distant gunshot and the zombie went down amongst the crowd – but his space was swiftly taken by another.
‘John, keep an eye out for ghouls at our back. James, Nat, keep throwing.’ I told them, before bleeping my radio. ‘Barnyard to Watchtower. Reg and Emile are on their way. What’s your status, Captain? Over.’
‘Still two-zero enemies at the main gate, which shows no sign of falling. I’ve also sent two men to the fields. Looks like we can spare the manpower, but I don’t want us to get complacent Nurse Cox. This could all be another trick, with more waiting to pour out of the woodland. Keep your wits about you. Watchtower out.’
We exhausted our ammunition supply over the next quarter hour. Or that’s how long it felt. Could have been a lot less, but we were careful with it, resting our arms between throws and taking the closest thing to “careful aim” as you can with a hunk of rock. As the supply dwindled, I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable again.
Our barricade was down two skilled shooters, so our chance of taking a ghoul out if one showed up had dropped. John might have been a good shot, but I didn’t know him, so I couldn’t count on that.
If we encountered a ghoul, taking it out at range couldn’t be guaranteed. Maybe it’d jump the fence and we’d be forced to engage it in hand-to-hand. I didn’t like the sound of that. Missing a gun and two of our shooters, I felt more exposed. Vulnerable. I could hear the gunshots ringing out from the field teams with increased frequency, and my worries began to grow.
Things only got worse when Natalie tossed the last rock, and we started to count the zombies remaining. It didn’t look good. Hale’s gate might have been able to take out half their targets, but they were dropping them directly down from that homemade watchtower.
We’d done a lot worse, taking our numbers from eighty or so, to seventy. Either we’d been incredibly poor shots, or they’d been getting reinforcements, more zombies pressing in from behind. We couldn’t see the back of the horde, and it wasn’t like we were keeping a firm count to begin with.
Still, it was a grim realisation. No more missiles to launch, and no guns to shoot – not if we wanted to hold something back for the ghouls. Anything else we could do to hurt them would have to be done up close and personal.
Fortunately, we were prepared for that. SySec, in their infinite wisdom as defensive combat specialists, has provided us with a pickaxe, and a pitchfork.
Very sophisticated stuff.
Both sharp and heavy enough to go through a human skull with a grunt of effort and a bit of awkward leaning. Too awkward, if you were swinging the pickaxe. The logistics didn’t work.
So James and I teamed up, one holding the other’s belt for a few minutes, making sure they didn’t fall over the gate or get dragged down, while the other used the pitchfork to thrust downward into the skulls of those below, moving left to right. When one undead body fell, it was replaced by another, and Natalie had a fresh set of fingers to smash. A neat, grim little system.
As we cleared the first row, the ones that replaced them stood just a little higher, atop the backs of the fallen. If Natalie hadn’t been doing her job, they’d have had a much firmer grip on the wall than those that c
ame before.
But even with broken fingers, I didn’t like the implications. The more we killed, the taller the next lot would stand. We might be able to take out a score of them this way, but eventually they’d be climbing over the top.
‘This won’t’ work,’ I said, ‘we can’t kill them all, not without building a ramp for those that come after.’
‘Watchtower to Barnyard, be advised,’ Hale said from my belt, ‘we are pulling out of the fields. I repeat, we are pulling back from the fields to the secondary defensive point. Over.’
I lifted the radio. ‘What happened, is everyone okay?’
‘End transmissions with “over”, Barnyard. No losses sustained, Alpha, Charlie and Echo’s walls have fallen and the enemies present at Beta and Delta’s positions have split to enter via the breeches, so they cannot be held with our present firepower. Over.’
‘The ghouls are directing them. Over.’
‘That’s what we’re thinking. Watchtower out.’
‘What do we do?’ James asked, tilting his head to the zeds below, still clawing at the gate.
‘Hold fire. Hold fork. Hold whatever.’ I waved, ‘The gate will keep and the secondary defensive point is only the lane into the fields. With all those teams heading back here, we’ll be getting reinforcements. Keep breaking fingers, and we’ll keep the gate.’
‘Understood…’ Nat said, who I think might have left catharsis behind and found inner peace.
Thirty Three
It wasn’t long before the first of the field teams started arriving back in the courtyards. Staggering and slow, I took the first of them for zombies for a second, until I realised they were people supporting the wounded. I couldn’t assess their injuries from this distance, but they were being taken into the house – whatever had happened, zombies or self-inflicted, they were probably out of the fight.
Like at the hospital and the checkpoint, the field teams seemed to be covering their retreat in stages, as each squad arrived one after the other. Even as the wounded cleared the lane however, someone broke off towards the cars and began to reverse Rob’s ATV into position, partially blocking the lane. As the last squads returned, pairs of people began to manhandle more hay bales to fill the gaps down either side of the truck, making the same kind of rampart setup we had.
The Suburban Dead (Book 2): Emergency Page 30