by RR Haywood
That sensation comes again. That feeling of things happening that she has no knowledge off. Town after town has been laid to waste and now the infected are massing here, waiting for whatever is coming. It was one army truck and one van. There are tens of thousands here. They can’t fight this many. They must see that. If they’re using that drone they must know how many are here. They won’t come. They can’t come here. Only a bloody idiot would come here.
They do come. Five minutes later she hears the roar of an engine and risks moving further to see down to the right side. The roar grows louder, throaty and full of bass. A blink of an eye and the army truck is there, ramming into the edge of the horde. She gasps at the sight of bodies bursting open as the hard metal front of the truck smashes into them. It keeps going too. Ploughing deep through the square to rake down the edge of the building line clearing them from the doorways at ground level. As it hits to drive in so a man pops up through the hole in the middle of the roof. A small man that grips the big machine gun fixed to the edge of the hole that he starts firing with strafes left right and ahead. The sound is immense. A solid thrumming beat of a heavy machine gun filling the air. The control the man shows is incredible. Burst firing with precision that slews bullets into the hordes ripping bodies apart and sending more flying back.
‘Oh my god,’ she mouths in shock, her blood running cold in her veins. She grips the window frame to keep her balance and watch the truck score a path from one side to the other.
The whole of the horde react as one. Surging in to attack and fling themselves at the vehicle. They dive for the wheels, the sides and the front. They try and vault the bonnet but slide off or get shot by the machine gun on the top. The huge wheels bounce and jolt but keep turning to spray blood from bodies squashed to pop open like ripe fruit. The wake behind them is a slick mess of broken bodies that is filled within a second by more infected rushing forward. The truck goes long to turn and drive through the crowds, killing tens at a time. It turns wide to aim back to gain the front. Too many things to see. Too many sights to understand. Pink mists keep hanging in the air like small fireworks exploding at head height. She can’t make sense of it. Her eyes flick from the truck to the man on the top and the muzzle flash of the machine gun then down to the infected being run over or shot down. Then she spots it. A head bursts apart to leave a pink mist hanging for a second. The man on the truck. The one firing the machine gun. He’s shooting into their heads from the top of a truck weaving and jolting through a whole square of people. The connection is made. She looks ahead to where the man will aim next and sees the heads go poof one after the other. Whole lines of heads that burst like melons. Staggering. Beyond comprehension but utterly devastating in effect. It’s not possible. What she is seeing is not real. A truck cannot do that. A man cannot fire a gun like that.
The infected react again. Screeching with such primeval noise it makes her skin crawl and the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Tens of thousands all giving voice at the same time amidst the roar of the engine and the machine gun firing. The infected charge harder, flinging themselves at the wheels to try and jam the forward momentum.
She can see they’re impacting on the steerage of the vehicle now from the way the truck slews and slides. Losing grip for a second before going hard the other direction. It powers on heading back the way it came. She looks over to see more infected people pouring in from alleys and side streets. Coming and coming with seemingly never ending numbers. The army truck reaches the edge. They can’t risk another run through. She can see it. The infected are reacting too fast. They’ll get bogged down like in the mud on that green. It does though. It turns to face into the square and starts the charge. She shakes her head, cursing them for the folly of what they do. It comes in hard, faster than before. Charging to batter them aside. Ahead she can see the infected compressing to prevent it getting through.
It comes to a slewing stop with brakes applied that anchor on as the rear doors burst open to men and women jumping out with machine guns already firing. Again the infected react and surge in with a message passed that the people in the truck are ready to be taken. She can’t see how many get out from the vehicle. Maybe a dozen. With a thrill she spots the huge bald man jumping clear of the back doors with the machine gun taken from the top of the vehicle now in his hands firing from the waist that shudders his body with the recoil. She sees young men firing quickly without panic. A blond lad, two with dark hair. Another smaller one with dark skin. Women too. Several of them. All working together to form a small line that gets beaten back towards the building line.
‘D…’
She flinches, startled and turning to stare at Paco now at her side. His face contorting with expressions that flood across his features. His head lunging forward in tiny motions as he tries to form words. ‘D…D…’
She can’t take it all in. She stares at him then back to the square.
‘D…’
A sound formed. She grabs his arm to pull him back but he refuses to go. His whole body tensed and rigid. His muscles bulging, his eyes fixed on the view through the window. He says it again. Forcefully with a stammer that he can’t overcome. She can see it in his eyes. The desperate struggle to grip the thoughts that spin through his mind. ‘D…D…’
She looks back out the window. A man with dark curly hair now in the middle of the line. The same man she saw driving the army truck earlier. The sight of him brings a wave of pure aggression rising up inside her gut. She grips Paco’s arm, squeezing hard with eyes glaring. He leads them. She can see it. He shouts something. The small man that was firing the machine gun from the truck runs out deep into the infected to be gone from view. Bodies fall that mark his route but she can’t see how he is killing them. A few seconds later the first explosion comes. A dull thud that flings a handful of bodies into the air. In the gap left she sees the small man running while biting the pin from a grenade that he drops before running on. He does it again and again. Running through them without heed or fear, dropping grenades that blow holes in the lines that ease the compression against the line of people fighting with their backs to a doorway.
‘D…D…’ Paco seethes with air rushing out. His voice choked and rough. He keeps trying. The pendulum inside swings harder and deeper. He can see it. The image that came into his mind is out there now. He can grasp it, he can speak it, his mind whirls and tries to grip the word.
Heather sees it. A German Shepherd but big with paws like a lion. A huge shaggy haired thing that barks with a sound that punches through the rest of the noise. Black hair and big white teeth showing in the mouth that opens to bark. It stays between the legs of one man firing a gun. That man says something and it goes off like a rocket. Surging away from the line to attack the infected. It lifts with a high leap to lock teeth on a throat. The dog rags its head once and the throat is gone, ripped out. As the body falls it’s already onto the next with a blur of speed. Heather watches it with creeping horror then turns her head slowly to see the injuries on Paco’s throat.
‘D…D…’ he gets angry the way he says it, frustration showing from his inability to say the thing in his mind.
‘Dog,’ she breathes the word in a gasp. His head snaps to stare, sending chills down her spine.
‘Dog,’ his voice. Paco’s voice. Gravely, damaged and rasping but his voice. ‘Dog,’ he says it again. ‘D…D…dog…G…G…’ he nods at her, his eyes imploring her to say it. She shakes her head at him. Glancing to the window at the chaos outside while seven children hide in the kitchen. ‘G…G…’ he spits the word, glaring balefully at her for not saying it.
‘What?’ She can’t think fast enough to keep up.
‘Ger…Ger…’
A solid G. Golf. Gown. Not a soft G for German. She blinks and frowns then looks outside to the incredible sight of so many charging at so few yet being held back. The ground between them is already thick with bodies. She spots the tactic. The simple brilliance of it. The infected are impeded
to get over their own kind already killed. It buys a second or two at the most but enough for more bullets, more grenades and more throats to be bitten out.
‘Ger…’
‘Heather?’
Her eyes flick to Subi in the doorway, the young girl flinching with each bang coming from outside.
‘Girl,’ Heather says, looking straight back at Paco.
‘Gerl,’ the word comes out snarled and wrong but distinct in the meaning. ‘Dog…ger…ger…Gerl…’
‘Wh…I…what…’
‘Gerl…dog…’ Paco growls, his voice broken from the injuries to his throat. The image of the dog in his mind. The dog he knew. The dog that saved him. The dog is a girl.
‘Heather?’
‘Go back in the kitchen,’ Heather snaps, rushing the words out.
‘Amna needs the toilet…’
‘In a minute. Go back in the kitchen and stay quiet…Paco? What? The dog? A girl?’
‘Gerl gerl gerl….’ His eyes come alive. Searching hers with yearning.
‘Okay,’ she says for lack of anything else. ‘Okay…’
He looks back out through the window, his eyes locked on the dog that savages them one after the other. Heather hears a shout. An order given. A door behind the men and women opens and they rush back to get inside, slamming the door closed as the infected close in fast.
‘BUT I NEED A POO…’
‘Christ,’ Heather runs from the window through to the kitchen to see Subi and Raj desperately trying to placate Amna now stamping her foot with her arms folded and chocolate smeared across her angry face.
‘NEED A POO…’ she gets lifted on the last word, rising up through the air in Heather’s hands to be carried into the bathroom and plonked down next to the toilet.
‘Do not flush it.’
Amna nods, happy now her wishes have been complied with. She does her business with Heather standing close, wrinkling her nose at the smell. She would move away but she can’t risk the child flushing the cistern that will send water cascading down the waste pipe.
‘Anyone else?’ She asks, taking Amna back into the kitchen. There starts a steady rotation of child to the loo, wait with the child, stop the child flushing, take the child back and get another child. Outside the gunshots keep coming. The snarls and howls rip through the air. Glass breaking. Loud bangs and snatches of people shouting but there are seven children that need her focus. She wipes faces and hands to get rid of the chocolate smears and checks on Tommy staring with glassy eyes.
‘I’ll stay with him,’ Subi says as Heather looks at him.
‘Good girl.’
It grows dark. Night comes. The sounds from outside keep coming. Paco stays at the window, refusing to move away or come back to kitchen. He seems more human than ever before now. Whoever those people are they mean something to him. She can see it. She thinks back to the time she met him and the town that was thick with bodies. Bullets on the ground. He was with them when he died and turned. That much is obvious. What’s also obvious is the people that came in the army truck are now trapped in those buildings the same way Heather and her group are trapped in theirs.
She goes through cupboards to find what tins she can and while the world goes to hell outside so she struggles to get food into seven exhausted terrified children. They might have to run so they need strength and energy. She forces more water into them, making them drink it down. They grow sleepy despite the noises. Bodies need rest. Minds can only take so much before they shut down regardless of what’s going on. She finds bedding and drags it into the kitchen to lay on the floor to keep them in one room. Pillows and cushions are brought in, duvets and blankets. The kids drop to sleep where they land. Subi stays close to Tommy. Raj with Oliver. Amna just sleeps flat on her back starfishing without a care in the world with the complete belief that the adults will make everything better.
Finally she goes back into the lounge to Paco still staring out the window. She joins him and finds her heart hammering again at the sight. Mounds of infected have been built like pyramids underneath the windows to form climbing frames for more to climb up. She can see through the windows that the people have worked their way through walls to get further down the buildings. She spots the people from the army truck firing guns from the windows. A bottle with a flame goes sailing out to smash and burst on the ground. More follow. Missiles get sent down. Deaths are taken and the scores mount up but still they keep coming. They’re brave. She gives them that.
‘Come away,’ she takes his hand to pull him back. The risk of him being seen is too great. He has to move. ‘Paco…come away…’
‘Gerl,’ he growls softly.
‘I know, come away now…’
He stiffens, resisting. Not a monster or a puppy but a man. Energy pours off him. A restless vibe that clenches his fists. His chest inflates with deep lungful’s of air sucked in to be blasted out in the first show of a mood other than anger directed at the infected. She knows he wants to go out to join the fight. His hatred for the infected becomes palpable, his lips forming a snarl, his arms twitching and trembling from the buckets of testosterone and adrenalin flooding his system. She watches him closely, every now and then trying to turn him back but it’s like trying to push a tree. The man is too solid. She sees the battle centred on one window with the infected pouring up over their own kind to breach and burst through. Again she thinks it’s over. There is no way they can withstand such a thing. She hears snatches of a deep voice booming orders but the distance is too great and the other noises make the words indistinct.
A weird feeling descends on her. The battle taking place is important but it’s not her fight. She can’t control anything about it, what they do or why they do it. Her job is to keep her group safe by keeping them hidden and quiet. She grows detached from it. A viewer watching it play out while subconsciously distancing herself from an end she knows is inevitable. It’s been over an hour already and the square is still thick. The heat is immense. The humidity is exhausting just standing still. To fight with so few against so many in this is brave beyond reason and she roots for the fighters with everything she has but they’re dead already. Paco has to stay here. If he goes out there he will die like them and he doesn’t deserve that. Not for everything he has done. No. He deserves life and she needs him. The children need him.
‘Move back,’ she says flatly with a tone that makes him turn to look at her. She stares back without emotion. ‘Now…’
This time he yields to her touch to turn and move away. She gets him halfway across the lounge before he stops to go back. She holds him fast. A status quo reached. A stand-off gained.
Things happen outside that she has no concept off. Lights flashing. The sound of water being sprayed. Shouts and the thudding of bodies falling to the ground. Still it means nothing to her. That fight is not theirs. It is not his. This is their battle ground where they will stay until they can run. The children need to sleep and recover to be ready for tomorrow.
Time becomes meaningless. Whatever is happening out there is another world. She listens to him breathing, sensing the violence rippling under his surface that grows until the very air becomes charged with static.
The silence comes sudden. A cessation of noise that makes her frown and stare at the window with a creeping horror that something very bad is about to happen. A sense of impending doom that makes her want to not be here. The silence breaks with a single shattering scream of a child. High pitched and agonised. Her eyes widen, her mouth opens, her stomach tightens to a ball that twists and heaves. Paco growls. His whole body trembling. His jaw clenched so tight she can see the muscles in his cheeks flexing. The child screams on into the night. So forlorn and pitiful it makes every sadness of her life seem paltry. He goes towards window and not a thing she can do will stop him. His strength is incredible. His steps sweep her along until they see the square full of silent infected staring up at one set of windows within which she can the people from the army truck breaking d
own to weep and cry. The fact it’s a taunt sickens her to the core. The scream comes from the next window along from the building the fighters are in. She clenches her own jaw, biting down with gasps of air at the sound that keeps coming. The child screams for her mummy and daddy. Tears fall from Heather’s eyes. Spilling down her cheeks. Another noise joins in. The dog howling long and mournful that makes her sob for the meaning of it. Paco shakes with a pulsing energy. Heather feels it. A sensation like warm electricity flowing into her. She finds her head lifting to stare with eyes growing cold and hard.