by RR Haywood
I press the talk button under my shirt, ‘Roy?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Straight down behind the survivors and into this apartment, I’ll find someone to take over from you. Paula?’
‘Here,’ she says coming into the room.
‘I need someone else on that GPMG to free Roy up.’
‘What about the bloke that’s with him?’
‘He can’t aim for shit,’ Blowers shouts from the window, ‘he’s wasting too many rounds.’
‘Er, Charlie?’ Paula asks, ‘can she do it?’
‘She can but I want every rifle at the windows firing down while Clarence gets the next wall down.’
‘Fuck me they’re going for the street door,’ Nick shouts, ‘it won’t hold.’
‘Keep the fire aimed at that door,’ I shout as the room starts filling with the survivors from the last two buildings pushing in.
‘Major,’ I say to ex-army officer, ‘I need all of our people firing. Can you get these survivors organised at the back.’
‘Leave it with me,’ he booms striding off.
‘May I make a suggestion, Mr Howie?’ Captain Thompson asks as I take a breath, ‘that chap that can’t fire can feed a belt and I can bloody aim a heavy machine gun. Might I assist?’
‘Thanks, go now.’
‘Right you are.’
Bedlam again. Chaos and noise everywhere. Guns firing. Major Hawthorn’s voice booming to get everyone at the back and down low. Clarence beating the shit out of the wall in the next room.
‘Mr Howie?’ Charlie asks running in.
‘Window, fire down.’
‘Sir,’ she says rushing over.
‘Not Sir,’ I mutter again with my voice lost in the din, ‘Reginald, It’s Howie. How many buildings in this line?’
‘Five, Mr Howie.’
‘Thanks.’ Three down, two to go then we’ve got to find a way out and get a shed load of people away from several thousand screaming ramped up psychotic infected fucking zombies. Fuck me I need some coffee. ‘Nick…’
‘Here,’ he says throwing his packet across the room.
‘We’re all in,’ Paula says as Marcy brings the last few in. ‘You two,’ she says pointing at two people that look only a bit less terrified than everyone else, ‘get water to those firing at the windows. They’ve each got a bag. Open them up and fill their empty bottles. Do it now. Go.’
I walk past leaving her to it and into the hallway to see Captain Hawthorn setting up the heavy machine gun with the other bloke kneeling at his side getting the belt ready.
‘Where do you want me?’ Roy asks.
‘Window firing down but be ready to drop back if we get breached. Dave?’
‘Coming, Mr Howie,’ he says jogging lightly into view. He gets through the hole and stops to look at the two men on the GPMG, ‘who are they?’
‘Er, Captain Thompson was in the Marines, dunno who the other bloke is.’
‘Sir,’ Dave nods politely to the ex-officer ignoring the other man.
‘Mr Howie, in here please,’ Blowers on the radio and I get back into the room and over to the window.
‘What?’
‘Look,’ he says pointing out the window and down the building line. I lean out grimacing at the sheer numbers still howling below and see a thick mound of gunned down corpses around the door to this building but a distinct lack of fresh infected trying to rush it. Instead they’re going for the doors back along the building to the apartments we’ve already cleared. Clever shits. They know we’re all in here which leaves those buildings safe to enter. I look down the building line in the other direction and see they’re doing the same to the last two buildings too and a fresh mound of bodies is starting to grow pyramid fashion underneath the last window and fuck me backwards if this day doesn’t just get worse by the hour. Speaking of which the afternoon is rapidly turning to evening which will inevitably turn into night. Fuck it. Fuck it fuck it fuck it.
What to do? I look down the building line to the left then to the right and watch the concerted effort as they throw themselves bodily at the doors at the end of the line thereby dividing our firing capability into two and across a much greater distance.
‘Paula.’
‘Yep,’ she runs over to join me and takes in the view without a flicker of panic.
‘What do you think?’
‘I think we’re fucked.’
‘Yep, me too. Ideas?’
She bites her lip thinking hard, ‘no.’
‘Seriously? You’re Paula. You always have ideas.’
‘What have we got,’ she says staring round, ‘big square…lots of shops…Reginald is busy being chased…we can’t get out. Yep, I’m fresh out,’ she says smiling at me.
‘Awesome.’
‘Ah, you’ll think of something,’ she says placing a hand on my shoulder, ‘you always do, right, back to it.’
‘Reginald?’
‘Yes, Mr Howie.’
‘How you getting on?’
‘I take it by that you mean have we finished yet because you are getting stuck again and need some assistance.’
‘Maybe. Yes.’
‘We are still somewhat engaged with our followers and are currently working to draw them away from you.’
‘Okay, mate. No worries.’
Right. I am fresh out of bloody ideas and getting irritated because of it.
‘Reginald.’
‘Yes, Mr Howie.’
‘Was there a fuel tanker at that supermarket?’
‘I do not know. I did not see it.’
‘Where’s the drone?’
‘On the roof above your head but we left the feed in the van.’
‘Okay, mate. No worries.’
I release the radio button and stare out trying to think of the next move and it’s like Reginald said, this is a game. Life and death maybe but still a game. We move and they counter. They move and we react.
‘Damned mess if you ask me,’ Major Hawthorn falls in next to me at the window staring out with his ramrod posture and firm jaw jutting forward, ‘civilians are in order,’ he reports briskly.
‘Thanks, what would you do?’
‘Me? Against this lot? I’d call in a bloody airstrike and be done with the lot.’
‘We don’t have an airstrike.’
‘Shame,’ he says deeply reminding me of General Melchett from Blackadder.
‘It’s just us.’
‘Pah. Bloody rotters.’
‘We don’t have enough ammunition. The GPMG will probably run out during the next attack then we’ll be down to assault rifles and pistols…after that it’ll be axes, knives and fists.’
‘Humph,’ he snorts full of disdain, ‘damned mess. How many men do you have?’
‘Twelve of us plus the dog, and four are women by the way.’
‘Twelve eh? Against an enemy that size?’ He says nodding at the infected in the square, ‘don’t try and fight ‘em. That’s my advice. Get the hell out of it and live to fight another day.’
‘We can’t get out and protect the survivors at the same time.’
‘THEY’RE THROUGH,’ Blowers shouts pointing down the building line to the first door at the edge of the square. I lean out to see the infected pouring through the door into the building.
‘MAKE READY ON THAT HOLE,’ I shout.
‘WINDOW, MR HOWIE,’ Mo Mo shouts making me turn to face down to the other end of the building and the mound of bodies now reaching the bottom of the window.
‘Howie, Clarence is through,’ Paula calls from the bedroom. I push away from the window running into the room as the GPMG starts firing sustained bursts.
‘Get them in here. Major, we’ve got more survivors coming in. Clarence, they’re almost at the window of the last building…’
‘THEY’RE THROUGH…’
‘Fuck,’ I sprint back to the window to see the top of the mound explode to life as they swarm up and throw themselves bodily throug
h the glass of the bay window. Instant terror grips my heart and the sounds of people screeching in pain comes a split second later.
‘No…no…no…NONONO…’ I go to lunge for the window intent on jumping down to attack the whole fucking lot of them. Hands grip my shoulders and body dragging me away as Mo’s face screws up at the sounds reaching us. Every one of us can hear it. The unmistakable noise of people being killed. Of woman screaming and children crying out and the deeper tones of men trying to fight but getting ripped apart as they do.
The shock comes quick and ripples through us. We failed. Our cocky swaggering defiance failed and because of us more people have been killed. No, they are being killed right now because of our stupidity and the blind reckless actions of what we’ve done. We can defend ourselves and fight and we accept the death if it comes but we’ve put others in the line as a result of what we did.
I look round wildly and see Blowers at the far end of the window with tears streaming down his face and Cookey still firing into the square with his own tears dripping. Nick grimacing with glistening tracks sliding through the grime on his cheeks. We all know it. In that instant we know what we’ve done.
A silence descends that stretches out from this apartment right across the square and like a drunken man I stagger to the window and see every single infected standing still and inert. My heart pounds harder and my stomach grips as I begin to realise what they’re doing and I beg them not to do it. I beg and plead shaking my head as my heart breaks and shatters into a thousand pieces.
When it comes it’s worse than I could ever have imagined. The most terrible sound floating down from that last building of a single solitary female voice screaming in agonising pain. The infected wait, letting that sound stretch out and break our hearts one by one. That scream slowly fades to a death that I was praying would be delivered swiftly and for one second I try and cling to the hope that it’s done. But it isn’t. The sound comes again from another voice that wails and screams for a mother that cannot help. A child crying and sobbing high pitched and full of despair. Mummy. Daddy. Stop them.
Cookey sinks onto his knees sobbing openly. Blowers sags against the wall shaking his head in desperation with his bottom lip trembling. Nick and Mo dripping tears where they stand and I turn to see Clarence just standing with his head bowed.
It goes on and on. Those awful terrible screams that fill the air. Begging and pleading but the words cut off with the pain coursing through that body. It’s more than I can take. More than I can hear. I want to die and end this and give in. Let them know they’ve won and if I thought it would make a difference I would offer myself to them right now but they won’t stop. It will never stop and that evolution comes more human by the second as it gives over to the torture of innocents.
I circle on the spot rubbing my face and pushing my hands through my hair with hard movements. I pant and struggle to draw breath as my chest tightens but still that solitary scream sings out giving a glimpse into a world full of pain.
‘Stop stop stop,’ I mutter over and over, ‘please…PLEASE STOP,’ at the window I scream at them, roaring the words, ‘PLEASE STOP…’ but they pay no heed to me for I am nothing and they have the power to do this. To inflict pain and hurt. To give hurt and take the innocence of a child and the thought, just the sickening thought of a child being hurt while her mother and father are made to watch pinned and silent and unable to even give words of comfort is a thing so bad. So very bad.
A hand on my shoulder and I lash round to see Marcy reaching out with tears tracking down her cheeks and every line and pore on her face burning with pain at what we’re hearing but my hand is on her throat squeezing as I drive her back.
‘You did this…you…’ I see what she did now. I can hear it. I can hear the pain she caused and the misery of the lives she ruined. She did this to people. She took life and hurt and I can’t get to the infection but I can fucking hurt her except the person I hurt now is not the person that was. Figures move as though to pull me away but Marcy waves them back and locks eyes on me urging me to kill her, urging me to do it because she knows what she did and nothing will ever take that away. I close my eyes and relax the grip that was cutting the blood and air and she comes to me. Fast and into me with an embrace that holds me close and I cling to her as that sound keeps coming. It keeps coming and cannot be unheard. She presses hands against my ears trying to blot the screams but still they come and I pull away.
It gets louder. It gets worse. It becomes inhuman and the noise of an animal suffering unimaginable agonising pain at the hand of another. It becomes a real tangible thing that can almost be touched and seen. It fills my heart that breaks over and over and we’ll always be here in this room listening to this. This is what we deserve. This is our hell. To listen and to know and to be unable to stop it.
Despair grips and mutates into a thing that renders me unable to think and like the rest I sink down onto my knees weeping and the room fills with the mournful howl of a dog giving voice to a little one she cannot save. Meredith sinks next to me. Lying flat with ears pressed down but her head raised and facing up as she sings into the air. Long drawn out and high and it gets louder as the child once more screams out. Meredith scrabbles forward howling and pushing her nose into my face. Pawing me. Do something. Her voice in my head but not a voice but an image of a fleeting idea. Pack leader. The essence of leading. Of what the pack do. I am he. I am pack leader and she is pack. Pawing me and that image grows. The idea of that image of something being willed into me. Little one. Protect the little ones. We are pack. We are strong. She howls and pushes her nose into my face raking my bare skin with her claws. Do something. Pack leader. We are pack. We are strong. Do not cry. We rise up. We fight. We rise up and fight. The noise of the little one. Pain. Rise. Fight. End it. RISE UP. BE PACK LEADER. WE FIGHT.
Thirteen on their feet. WE FIGHT. Thirteen running. HOLD ON. Thirteen moving as pack as a feeling is willed into us. Thirteen down the stairs with our biggest at the front who makes the door not be there. Thirteen running into the square. Thirteen charging with snarling fury. WE ARE PACK. HOLD ON. PAIN. LITTLE ONE. WE COME. WE ARE PACK. HOLD ON.
All thought is gone. All conscious thought ends as thirteen reach the door and let our strongest take it away but I am pack leader. I am he. I go first and I go up to the sound of the little one and into that place where the scent of them is strong and I see them. Little one on the floor held down by many that hold her. She bleeds. I smell it. We are pack. I come for you. No thoughts. No images. No weapons. Hands. Teeth. Enemy. Kill. I see those that hurt this little one. I kill them. We are pack. Pack kills. Pack fights. Pack protects.
She bleeds. They infect her. The badness of them goes into the little one but she lives. End the pain. End it. Kill for mercy. Pistol out. Aimed. Fired. Dead. The pain is gone and I stand over the body of the child with the gun in my hand as her parents scream and rush over the broken corpses to lift their girl from the dirty ground.
Death all around me. We killed so many so quickly. Every one of us dripping blood and gore from our fingers that were used to rip throats out and our teeth that bit into flesh. We broke necks, backs, severed arteries and we did it bare handed but there is another image being willed into us.
More little ones.
I look round to see children pressed against the wall with parents holding them tight who look upon us as though we are monsters.
The silence ends as the infected give voice to the air and gunshots from our dropped rifles boom from the windows as those inside take the weapons up.
‘Move now,’ I shout to the men, women and children at the back but they cower away from me, ‘GET UP AND MOVE…’
Still they cower and scream so I grab arms forcing them onto their feet as the others wade in beside me. We have to get them out of here. We push and pull, we order and shout and bully them down the bloodied stairs and into the square and force them to run down that pavement to see Major Hawthorn leading a group of
men outside with our axes held and ready to defend the door.
We have to go now. Going back in that building is to invite death. ‘GET THEM OUT…EVERYONE OUT…’ I run ahead and snatch my axe from the hands of a man before spinning and cutting through the neck of the first infected coming at us.
*
‘I think it will be dark soon,’ Neal says leaning over the steering wheel to stare up at the sky.
‘I think you may be right,’ Reginald says leaning out the open window of the passenger door on the fire engine, ‘they’re almost here,’ he says staring at the infected host bodies still chasing after them.
‘Right you are, say when,’ Neal says selecting reverse and getting ready.
‘Not yet, not yet,’ Reginald says watching them run and wondering if they ever get tired then remembering he once was one and he never got tired, ‘now please.’
Neal pushes his foot down forcing the engine to drive backwards and once again slamming into the undead charging head first into the back of the appliance. More thuds, bangs and pings sound out as the wheels thump over a few more bodies until the engine comes to a stop as Neal changes gear and starts going forward again.
‘Many left?’ He enquiries politely trying to see the rear from his wing mirror that is covered in blood and filth.
‘Only a few,’ Reginald remarks, ‘but we’ve done our bit,’ he adds looking over at the scientist, ‘Mr Howie cannot moan that we did not join the battle or that we stayed safely at the farmhouse. No no, he cannot say that today. We have joined the fight and even reduced the numbers by at least two hundred.’
‘Hmmm, I would say less than two hundred. A few did turn back for the square.’
‘Be that as it may, we still joined the battle at the front line and if not for our quick reactions and diligence they would surely have come unstuck. Yes, when we gather tonight I shall be able to add my own tale. Not that I would of course,’ he says quickly, ‘not one to boast.’
‘Of course not,’ Neal says agreeably, ‘but we have endured through a skirmish of our own. Tell me, this Mr Howie. Decent enough chap is he?’
‘Mr Howie? Oh yes, very decent chap. Apart from the undeniable thirst for killing the infected hosts that is. Other than that yes, he is a very nice man.’