“Is he your boss?” She asked me.
“I've gotta go, but you look after yourself, I will look for you when I get back,” I told Olivia.
“Ok, talk to you later,” she said. I gazed at her for a moment too long, revealing my infatuation with her. I turned and walked across camp, past children jumping over skipping ropes and girls playing tag. Blake and Maddison were with Jake near the jeeps on the west gate.
“Hey,” I said. They were huddled around a map of the midlands, as Blake was giving instructions to them.
“Hussain. Where's Mason?” He asked, noticing me.
“He is coming, what did you want?” I asked. He sighed and walked over to a box with radio receivers in them.
“I’m going on a rescue mission, there's some communities out there near Nuneaton that might need help. If you want to come?”
I didn't want to, but how could I say no? Blake was my friend, and my only weakness was not letting my friends down. I suppose that's a pretty good weakness to have all things considered.
“Yeah, ok, I’ll come, but we better be back here before night,” I said, thinking of Olivia.
“Ok,” Blake muttered.
“I got plans,” I revealed to them.
“Me too,” Maddison said. Jake laughed. No one had seen him laugh in days. Blakes attention snapped back to us. “No, you stay here, Mads, the wounded will need you,” he said.
“Short range radio,” he spoke then, handing me a handheld radio.
“We’ll contact you on these,” Blake said, handing one to Maddison as well.
“Everyone rejoice, the sex god is here,” Mason announced, marching straight to his driver seat. He was such an annoying prick sometimes.
“Alright, let's load up,” Blake shouted.
“You ready?” Mason called, as me and Jake got on.
“Let’s go!” Blake ordered, and we set away. The small fireteam on the gate let us through, and we rode out over the road above the motorway, passing where Gunner Tom and his small unit guarded the junction. It was only a single tank, and even then, it wasn't a proper tank, it was an infantry tank. I didn't know whether I felt safe with it being there, in the hands of those thugs. Perhaps that was why Thomas had confiscated the only javelin launcher in the camp for himself, in case of a fight breaking out. He had been busy constructing defensive positions and reinforcing the fences. Two new mortar positions had been dug out in the grassy hills, one by the side of the motorway, and the other near the abandoned hotels. He had identified them as strategic points if the camp were to ever be attacked. We rode along a dual carriageway in the jeep, HMS Pussycrusher as Mason had called it. Me Blake, Jake and Mason. It was a long-distance patrol, to the communities in the shadow of the cities.
“What plans do you have later then Hussain?” Blake asked me.
“I met a girl in camp,” I said.
“The same one from yesterday, with the blue hair?” He asked.
“Yeah,” I laughed. Mason took the piss as usual.
“Ooooh,” he mocked.
Blake put his CD into the jeep, it contained all our favourite songs from the boot camp training three months prior. Africa by Toto was first. I loved this song. We glided across the empty roads and streets like ballerinas on the ice, maybe that was because of the frost on the roads. It was a bright afternoon, with the sun rising poignantly in the sky, and the air chilly. The woods all around us were silent and creepy. What made it worse, was that the closer we came to urban areas, the more we found dead husks, still walking in their dreaded droves. The sound of our engine drew them close to us as we sped onwards. Eventually we came to a stop outside a small estate, with modern nice houses on either side of the road. As we slowly braked, the CD stopped, right before the chorus to the song played. What a tease I thought.
“Nice neighbourhood,” remarked Mason in the deafening wake of the music's abrupt stop.
“It was,” Blake said as he jumped out with his rifle.
“Search houses one by one, shout if there's trouble,” said Blake to Mason and Jake.
“Will do,” Mason reluctantly said.
“Be careful,” Jake sounded from the back of the jeep, as me and Blake readied to search the houses. Jake didn't want to be here, he didn't want to be anywhere in fact. He had no one left, his family were gone, his brother had disappeared on that horrible night. Whereas I on the other hand had a great family to return to after all this. My family was large and close to one another, when this was over, I will be overjoyed to see them again. We stepped up the garden path as crows cawed in the trees all around us and entered the first house together. The door was unlocked. We opened it to a horrifying smell of rot and decay, and the gut-wrenching sight of a red blood splatter on the wall. But the smell, even with our masks we could still smell that awful smell. It was coming from the kitchen. Where flies whizzed around in excitement. The source of the smell came from the tiled kitchen floor. It was a dead girl, and an old couple. She had attacked them it seemed, as sunken and rotting bite marks were to be seen embedded in the elder couples rotting skin. They wore the same clothes, with the same initials. The girl was probably related to them. Maybe she was a granddaughter who was sick, who came to her grandparents for help and unknowingly brought death to their door. I almost forgot the state of the world, being in the camp for so long.
“This is sick,” muttered Blake as he rounded a corner in the house. I searched the garden, and found a dog decaying in the grass. Maggots were eating it from the inside out. I was sick then and there on the patio, this was all too much. The sicked-up meat paste from my own ration pack was stuck between my face and my mask. About a minute later we came back out front and I had removed my masks.
“I can't do this,” I said aloud to the others.
“No, me neither, let's go back,” Blake said, as Mason rolled his eyes. He then suddenly became serious.
“Too bad, we got freaks, two of them up front,” he said. My eyes wandered ahead to where three ghouls were rushing to us. Two fast approaching while the other lumbered along. I raised my rifle and fired into them. But as soon as they fell another seven of them came hurtling at us from the playground near the houses. They were children. Blake froze in fear.
“Alright people, we know the drill, let's go get some,” Mason said, as behind his jeep were more advancing on him. He hadn't noticed that there were so many in front of us.
I heard the start of an engine; it was a motorbike down the road to my right. One person was on the bike all in black with their hood covering their face. I saw a boy jumping on the back of the biker.
“Hey!” I called. “Who are you?” My voice echoed off the dead houses. The one riding on the back pulled out a sidearm to my surprise, then shot me in the leg as I raised my rifle to shoot back. The impact made me fall in hot pain, as my sight fell on the blood on my leg and them riding away, speeding fast from the scene.
“Nooo!” Blake screeched, blaring his throat out, as I fell. He called for help and tried to drag me back to the jeep, but the children, they were relentless. I had never been so scared in my life as they ran toward us, their teeth snapping and open so fast. They ripped right into my clothing, straight through to the flesh, their rotten teeth scraping against my bone. Blake screamed and unloaded his magazine into them, but he ran out of ammunition before he could finish the last two. One of them grabbed a hold of me. I tried to push him off but the other bit down into my shoulder and crunched into my neck. She whispered things while chewing on me. She whispered and growled. I was numb after a moment, it was a sharp, searing, unbelievable pain like nothing I had ever felt before in my neck. I could hardly breath, let alone talk. After a few agonising moments, my feral aggressors were gunned down from far away and I lay there bleeding onto the tarmac and looking up at the bright blue sky.
“Hussain!” Blake kneeled down beside me. I was in so much pain. I was hurt so badly I wanted to die. It would be over soon, I thought. I thought of my family, and Georgia, the g
irl from the camp. No wait, that was not her name, it was Olivia. She wanted to die, why did she want that, this feeling was horrible.
“No, fuck,” I heard Blake say.
“What's happened?” Mason asked, before gasping coarsely and turning around from me. I just gazed up to the blue sky, and the clouds above circling up high. It really was beautiful, I hadn't looked up at the sky in years, not properly anyway. I’d forgotten how amazing it was. I brought up phlegm and blood, it was bubbling at my mouth like a special effect from a movie every time I breathed. I gave Blake my necklace, the crescent moon necklace my aunty had given me when I was five. There was also a bracelet I had worn but I could not get it off without a struggle.
“Give this to her, or keep it,” I spoke harshly. He knew who I meant. I moaned as the blood poured from my neck wound.
“You really don't understand what you have until after you lose it,” I croaked, looking to the picturesque sky, and thinking of the life I had lived. God would welcome me happily. Jake murmured something I couldn't understand. I couldn't hear anything. In fact, I was losing my senses. I coughed up more blood that spilled out across my face and landed in my eyes. The sky was red now, everything was red, but I could still see him over me, Blake, holding me, like an angel. I prayed to God for it to stop, but it seemed he wouldn't come…
“Blake. Do you think Africa is still out there?” I painfully croaked, as if shards of glass were embedded in my throat. I imagined the song in my head, playing, anything to relieve the pain in my throat.
“Yeah,” he said, as a tear fell from his eye and down his face. A blood tear streaked across my own, falling down into my drenched hair.
“That's good. That's really good,” I winced and eked quietly, then I stopped talking, and moving, as the pain was too much. In the end I thought of stopping breathing, as that hurt as well.
“Private you aren’t leaving this squad you understand me,” Blake spoke. I wanted to close my eyes, but I didn't want to die. I wanted to live. I can't die.
“Private? No, no, no, no, no, no!” I heard Blake say, as the pain overcame me, and I lost consciousness.
“Yeah,” I breathed my last breath miraculously, even to me, it was with all the strength I had left, but something was pulling me away, something I couldn't control anymore.
Hussain’s Farewell - Day 18 - Blake
I looked down on his body as the light faded from his pulsing eyes. His clothes were soaked with the blood of the children and his own that poured from his neck, shoulder and calf where he had been shot, bitten and savagely clawed at. He had lost so much blood, it was shameful of me. I should never have brought him here.
“Private,” I said to him, but he was gone. I could have done something, I could have saved him. All I had to do was shoot at the children, they were already long dead, they had been for days. It was a nursery playground. Damnit.
“They were on a motorbike, two thugs, they shot him in the leg, so he couldn't run and then they sped away,” I told the others while looking at the skid marks on the road, then to Hussains corpse. I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry.
“He's done man. Take care of it,” said Mason, telling me to shoot him in the brain, lest he rise up again.
“Shut the hell up,” I told him. How insincere could he be?
“Or what. Man, you ain't shit,” he said flippantly, while nonchalantly resting his rifle on the jeep.
“I said shut your mouth,” I spoke again, still staring at Hussains corpse. He wanted me to shoot him in the head, to make sure he wouldn't come back.
“You led us into this mess,” Mason growled, as Jake looked to me in his depressed state.
“You say another word,” I warned him, while getting to my feet.
“This place is gone man! It's gone, you dragged us out here and for what, now Hussain is dead, what you gonna shoot me too huh!?” He goaded me. I grabbed him and slammed him onto the side of the jeep.
“You already shot the lieutenant,” he whispered as I came threateningly close to hitting him.
“I get it, this is your way of mourning,” I said as I realised, then I glanced at Jake. “We need to get back to camp.”
“If there's anything left of it,” he muttered.
“We go, and we go quietly,” I said with a stern look to them both.
“What about those bitches on the motorbike? Blake?” Mason said. I was turned around now, my back to Hussain.
“They’re long gone now, we need to go,” I said. It was the hardest decision I had ever made. But if we were to follow them, I could endanger more lives. I walked over to his corpse and kneeled, taking the bloody necklace from his hand.
“I'm sorry Hussain,” I said. Ahead of us, an entire legion of the dead were coming. I gasped seeing them, then looked down to Hussains blank expression. I dragged him over as gently as I could and propped him up against a lamppost out of the middle of the road, then closed his eyes and left him there. Mason and Jake were silent as I jumped on the back of the jeep. The infected masses came up closer, and began to stumble and run toward his body. Jake raised his rifle, but that would just attract more of them.
“Don't waste your bullets,” I told them both, and Mason had no complaints. If we stayed, we would be putting ourselves in more danger. I felt like shit leaving him there, but what could we do? Hussain was gone.
“Maddison, you there, over,” I spoke into my handheld radio.
“Yes, Blake, over,” I heard her respond.
“We’re coming back now but, Hussains gone, over,” I paused and held it tight. She didn't respond, she was probably in shock.
“Come home,” she then sounded.
The drive back was horrible, hopelessness returned to my side, the same feeling we had all felt after the plane crash that wiped out HQ and killed our loved ones. It was a sombre feeling of loss that we could not shake nor ignore. When we returned, Thomas was waiting with Maddison and a few members of Bravo Squad.
“I dont wanna talk about it,” I said to him as I unloaded off the jeep.
“Well, your gonna!” Thomas shouted. “Where is he?” He asked of Hussain. I just gave him a tired look.
“Is he…”
Thomas backed up, and realised from the looks on everyone’s faces what had happened.
“I told you, playing the vigilante helping those in need is only going to kill you and you ignored me,” he said. I marched away, my rifle in hand, and threw my helmet to the ground. “You know we have exceeded our limit, in two days we will have no food!” He exclaimed. I sat on my bed inside our tent.
“I wanted to save them,” I spoke to the idle tent.
“You got them killed,” Thomas whispered entering behind me. “None of them will eat, they will go hungry and then they will lash out, and we will be forced to do things we don’t want to do.”
He was right, I couldn't make the hard decisions, I was weak. “The world isn't the same anymore Blake. We have to look for our own, we cannot,” he stopped and looked around.
“We cannot pander to those that are weak, they will drag us down,” he told me of the citizens, but I was weak too, is he telling me that I’m dragging him down?
“What are you saying?” I asked him. “Its not my fault we’re running out of food.”
“I’m saying, we might need to take action, when the time comes,” he said, choosing his words carefully. I knew what he meant, I just couldn't live with it. We were meant to serve and protect; at what point did we stop serving the people and started serving ourselves?
“How did Hussain die?” He then asked.
“A group of bikers shot him in the leg and left him for the gnashers,” I said, using the word he called them. Gnashers. Thomas sighed.
“May god rest his soul,” he muttered. “That's on you Blake, you do things my way, we’ll get through this.”
Thomas left, leaving me with my thoughts. I just wanted to go home to a home that no longer existed. I’d had enough of this, I wanted thin
gs to go back to how they had been. When everything was fine. Hussain was right, you didn't know how great you had it until it's gone forever.
“The end is near! Admit your sins now before it is too late!” A man, an Islamic believer, preached to our ears. He was so loud, right near us, to us the soldiers who had blood on our hands. If only he knew the full truth of it.
“Admit your sins or be doomed forever, inshallah you will be saved. The end is here, admit!” He screamed, raising a metal pipe in his hands as he gestured, right as Mason stormed past him. In his other hand he held his holy book. Mason stopped and turned to face him after he preached in his face. It was rude, but I imagined Mason would unload all his frustrations on him now.
“Right, listen here you little muppet, shut the fuck up or I'll shove that fucking pipe so far up your fat arsehole, you’ll be shitting out in bursts! You little muppet, you little knobhead, I'll take that fucking book, and I'll fucking eat it up and shit it out!” He raged, spitting unintentionally to his victim’s face. His outburst made the religious man arch back, and hold his holy book close to his chest, but Mason leaned forward to scream at him even more.
“You want to fucking brawl?!!” He shouted, his neck bulging with veins, his face red in agony of losing a friend he never really knew he had.
“You get in my face one more time with that fucking book, I swear to god, I'll fucking kill ya!”
The holy man grew quiet as Mason charged away, and looked around in embarrassment. He deserved it for trying to shouting his beliefs to his face. I left and searched the camp for the girl with the blue hair as the sun went down. It was Hussains last wish, to give her that necklace. She would probably reject it, spitting at his last wish in the process. He’d only known her for a few days. I was just hoping she would take it and respect his wish. I found her in the same tent as Susie and her mute friends which was odd for a start. She had blue hair and wore jeans and a blouse, and she noticed me straight away in my army apparel. She was overly anxious, looking for ways to escape, glancing to the left and right, then at me.
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