Faith put away the locket and instead picked up the gun, feeling its weight as she cradled it in her lap.
“He taught you how to shoot?”
“I hated guns. Still hate what they stand for. But Bwanbale insisted I learn. I guess it was his way of connecting with the 10-year-old girl entrusted to him.”
“Where is he now?” Tom immediately regretted the question. Faith’s expression went cold.
“My father wasn’t what you would call an honest man. In the end, the number of his enemies far outweighed that of his friends. He used to say that everybody pays. I don’t think he meant himself, but that is what happened. Bwanbale did his duty that day and paid the price, as did my father.”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
“As am I for it to have happened.” and with that, Faith clipped the holster into her belt, tapping it in memory of the only real father she had ever known. “Let’s head outside and see if the coast is clear.”
Amadou leaned against the top gun, enjoying the relative cool of its assembly against his back. Tom stood by the vehicle next to one of its giant front tires. Amadou and Gautier were busy entertaining David with a simple game of hide-and-seek, while Faith took the opportunity to spend some time alone with her thoughts.
“The way I figure it, we have two routes to choose from. Personally, I don’t like either, but I definitely don’t like one of them.”
Amadou chewed on a blade of grass, scanning the town as he imagined its streets.
“You have been to Juba before?” Tom asked, surprised.
“Once or twice, yes. A few years ago, our group was toying with the idea of joining the LRA. The Lord’s Resistance Army.”
Amadou thought about it for a moment and then corrected himself.
“Well, actually, it wasn’t so much a question, but we were ordered to join.”
Tom had heard about the LRA and its infamous leader Joseph Kony. Indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, he was allegedly still in hiding somewhere in the Sudan. The LRA’s reign of terror had been well-documented and included widespread human rights violations, murder, abduction, mutilation, and child-sex slavery, to name but a few of its heinous methods, and had led to the displacement of millions, along with the forced recruitment of thousands of children as soldiers into its barbaric campaign.
“So, you were part of the LRA?”
“Almost, but not quite. We were summoned to Juba back in 2008. We thought it was to take part in the ongoing peace negotiations. But we were wrong. They just needed some outsiders to do their dirty work.”
“Dirty work?”
“Some of them felt disenfranchised by the drawn-out process. They needed an excuse to bring it all to an end. On 5 June, we attacked a Sudan People’s Liberation Army camp and killed everyone in and around it. By 8 June, the peace negotiations were no more. And we? We went back to where we had come from.”
“Can’t have been easy…,” Tom didn’t know what else to say.
“Juba was fine. They entertained us well if you know what I mean. Basting us so we would follow without question. Coming from the DRC bush, Juba was like Las Vegas. For days on end, most of us were so high, we could barely remember our own names.”
Disgusted with himself, Amadou flicked his tongue.
“So which routes were you talking about?” Tom changed the subject.
Amadou jumped down from the roof and joined him.
“You see the area off to the right, where we shot up the gate earlier today? There is a road that leads from the hotel compounds along the river pretty much directly to the airport.”
He drew a line with his finger, pointing off into the distance.
“Now, see the road across the bridge and beyond? We will have to take it almost to the centre of town to reach the airport turn-off.”
“Which one do we take? You said you like one even less than the other?” Still adjusting to the low light, Tom’s eyes followed Amadou’s directions.
“You see, the one to the right is narrow, bumpy, and not as easy to navigate. Not only that, but it runs right through a number of small refugee camps, in addition to passing a big cemetery. It’s also flanked by compound walls for much of the way, meaning once on it, we’re committed.” Amadou shrugged. “At the same time, going through the centre of town…The road is smooth, but it’s going to be teeming with these things, not to mention the checkpoints I am sure whoever might still be in control is still maintaining.”
“Tough choice,” Tom mulled over the way forward.
The night would hold many advantages, but only if they were able to maintain a low profile. As always, it was a question of speed versus risk. Running full steam ahead into a fortified checkpoint complete with armed personnel could prove as dangerous as being mobbed by the dead. Given the limited amount of ammunition left on the .50cal, it would be a question of outwitting one or outrunning the other. Little did he know that soon they would need to do both.
“Let’s go with the camp route,” Tom eventually instructed.
“You sure?” Amadou asked incredulously. He had come to prefer the honesty of a gunfight to the evil of the creatures.
“No, I’m not, but we’re low on ammo. Besides, at this point in time, the more direct, the better. After all, neither is going to be a walk in the park.”
“I guess,” Amadou relented.
With the decision made, he kicked the tire and began inspecting the undercarriage.
Tom left him to it and made his way to the back for a final weapons check, but found the others already busy going over the equipment. He smiled. They had taken to the routine like a duck to water. In another lifetime and with a few added weeks of training, they could have easily been part of a professional team.
Packed, stacked, and racked, they took their places, and like so many times before, Papillon started the engine. Amadou once again had chosen the roof. Wedging his feet into the guiderails, he probed the dark, senses primed, and seeking out the slightest change in atmosphere.
With the blockade of walking corpses strung across the bridge dispatched, they crept forward across to the other side. The occasional moan from the hotel compound drifted over the water, but otherwise, the river banks lay still.
The sky was almost cloudless now, the moon’s waning crescent reducing the surrounds to a cipher of grey geometric shapes. Tom counted off the last pillars of the bridge foundations as they reached the other side and indicated for Papillon to lower speed. The engine noise reduced to a purr, he killed the lights, and they idled along the tarmacked road until they reached the first intersection. Amadou stayed low, fully expecting a floodlight to be trained on them at any moment. But there was nothing. No movement. No sounds. Only the river breeze carrying a sickly sweet smell. A gentle reminder of death nearby.
“So far, so good,” Tom whispered, and Papillon tapped on the accelerator, allowing for just enough momentum to maintain pedestrian speed.
Within a minute, Amadou's hushed voice announced they were approaching their turn-off. Curiosity roused by the metal behemoth rolling past in the dark, human shapes swayed and staggered in the open ground all around.
“Movement!” Amadou whispered from above.
“How many?” In the glow of the instrument panel, Tom struggled to make out any kind of detail outside.
“Enough not to go ahead. Take a turn next right.”
He didn’t need to see them. The nauseating stench of the corpses just ahead betrayed their number. Papillon followed Amadou’s direction, and the APC bounced and hobbled as it entered the back road. Repeated rainy seasons had turned indents into basins and potholes into craters deep enough to ground even a sizeable vehicle such as their own. Within a few yards, just as Amadou had foreshadowed, brick compound walls lined the roadway on either side, confining the carrier to the pockmarked road. Papillon hissed and gritted his teeth with each bounce of the vehicle.
“Only a little while longer,” Amadou f
eigned optimism.
He could see the walls easing, once again giving way to open ground. To their left, the pallid expanse of an old cemetery yawned like the marshes of Styx itself, its jumble of dilapidated headstones and gravesites, broken concrete tombs and withered shrubs silhouetted against the sombre skyline of Juba.
Tall figures of hundreds of corpses now haunted its boggy grounds, bones breaking and heads impacting on jagged rock as dead feet snagged on roots and debris. The carrier continued to struggle through the road’s deep depressions and with each roar of the engine excitement built among the dead. Soon Amadou no longer needed to rely on his sense of smell to pinpoint their location, as the sheer number of moving shadows began to blot out any other detail.
“We need to move a little faster, Papi, if we want to stay mobile at all.” He cautioned, scanning the dark mass of creatures converging on the vehicle with indefatigable persistence.
“Doing my best not to roll this thing!” Papillon hissed from below.
As if to affirm, the APC swayed from side to side, and its axle groaned as it pushed on through an exceptionally deep depression. There was a crack, then a thump, and for a moment, Tom thought they had run aground.
“Contact!” Amadou’s voice confirmed the noise for what it was.
The first of the dead had staggered into the oncoming vehicle’s path.
“Shit. That’s not good.” Tom leaned close to the windshield, attempting to get a better look to the side.
“If you think that’s bad, have a look out the rear window!” Amadou no longer bothered to speak in a hushed tone. They had been well and truly made.
Tom darted to the back and pressed his face against the small rectangular window recessed into the rear, only to jerk back with revulsion. On the other side, a pair of dead eyes widened as they spotted the living, their owner senselessly pounding and clawing at the glass in a futile attempt to reach its prey. As Tom looked on, rows and rows the dead soon jostled for their turn at the window; for a glimpse at the elusive warm flesh, they all longed for more than anything else. Hundreds now, they spilled from the cemetery onto the narrow road, covering every square inch of available space.
“The road will widen in a minute, as soon as we reach the stadium. We can lose them then!” Amadou could see the rectangular outline of a football stand in the distance.
The country may not have had enough to feed its people, nor its factions the ability to find a way from killing each other, but when it came to football, all that mattered little. Here, clubs like Manchester United were religion and the local stadium a church attended by all. A smile of relief flickered across his features as a southbound breeze dispersed the smell of death.
“About time,” Papillon grumbled, the vehicle’s nose now in constant battle with oncoming corpses, adding to the engine’s strain against the rough terrain.
The survivors tumbled and grunted as they fought against its nauseating pitch and roll, but then, as suddenly as it had begun, the movement subsided. The APC settled, and its tires stabilized against the once again even surface of the piece of road approaching the stadium. Papillon straightened up, ready to accelerate away from the dead’s swelling number, but Tom held him back.
“Easy does it. We may know what’s after us, but we have no idea what might be coming at us.”
The crack of a bullet overhead turned Tom’s words into self-fulfilling prophecy. Up above, Amadou took cover behind the top gun as another round whizzed past his ear. Instinctively, Papillon slammed on the breaks. The sound of survivors connecting with the hard metal interior mixed with the thuds of corpses impacting from the rear. Another round pinged as it zipped across the bullet-proof windscreen.
‘Small arms…’ Tom didn’t get to finish his thought.
Like a roman candle, somewhere in the stands some 300 yards ahead, the tube of an RPG erupted. In a fraction of a second, the primer ignited, and the propulsion system kicked in, sending an orange ball of destruction towards them at almost supersonic speed.
“TURN!” Papillon reacted before Tom could say the word.
Stomping down on the accelerator, he spun the wheel. Like a Jurassic creature breaking the ocean’s surface, the carrier’s nose heaved up and sideways, threatening to roll the entire vehicle in response. The windscreen rose skyward for a millisecond, revealing the starry sky above them. Then the machine and everything inside it slammed back into the ground. Amadou yelled something as the projectile wooshed past within inches, its smoke trail stinging his eyes.
The explosion behind them was instant. Disintegrating every creature in its vicinity, the all-consuming fireball and blast wave threatened to suck the oxygen from the survivors’ lungs. A fiery inferno momentarily engulfed the carrier, setting Amadou alight and sending him back onto the metal floor of the cabin below. Rolling around on the like madman, he fought the flames eating away at his uniform. Fiery imps already licked at his hair and face when a blanket thrown by Faith put an end to his ordeal. Tom’s mind raced in the chaos of the cabin.
Whoever had fired the grenade launcher, it would take them but seconds to reload. One well-aimed shot and their luck would finally run out. He looked over at Amadou. Sitting on the floor, smoke rising from his scorched clothes, the Congolese shook his head, thanking his maker for what looked like but minor burns.
“You. Faith. Get topside and light ‘em up. We have seconds at best!”
He didn’t need to ask twice. Faith grabbed an M4 and followed, pushing a still-dazed Amadou through the hatch. The open air reeked of burning flesh and plastic, the fire from the explosion rapidly spreading through a nearby junkyard, where stacks of tires provided ample fuel for its hunger. The dead blindly stumbled in and out of the flames, bumping into one another and spreading the inferno among their own. Broken tombs flickered in an endless parade of human torches undeterred in their pursuit of the living. Flesh crackled, and skulls popped, putting an end to the unholy existence of many, as others stomped over the carcasses of their fallen peers, catching fire themselves and joining the burning procession. In the light of the fire all around them, the white APC stood out like a sore thumb.
“Papi, I need us to move. If we sit still, we’re done for.” Tom ducked instinctively but immediately froze.
The report of Faith’s M4 had started echoing through the cabin as soon as she had reached the roof, but the .50cal remained silent.
“It’s jammed!” Amadou’s shouted, desperately pushing down on the twisted cover assembly.
“Papi, hold off on my last.” Tom cancelled his instruction.
Without the destructive power of the top gun, it would be but a matter of time before their opponents would break cover, and from there, mere seconds before they would unleash another grenade.
“Now, listen carefully. I need you to keep up suppressive with everything you got. Do not, I repeat, do not give them an opportunity to flank.”
Tom looked up. With Faith’s M4 running dry, the firing had stopped. Amadou’s hand reached through the hatch, and Tom handed him his own rifle.
“Coordinate your mag changes. Do not let up.”
“What are you going to do?” Papillon revved the engine, eager to move.
“Look for my flare. When you see it, hoof it straight down the road. Stop firing and kill the engine as soon as you get to the stadium, then roll to a stop.”
“And you?”
“I will find you.”
Tom winked at Gautier, and the old man handed him his Glock. Shielding David’s eyes from the carnage outside, he squeezed into the corner and grabbed hold of the netting covering the inside of the hull, readying himself for their next move.
Amadou barely noticed the shadow slipping by behind him as Tom made his way to the edge of the roof. Facing away from the fire, this side of the APC was cast in darkness, the dancing shadows of the flickering flames providing ample camouflage for him to make his move. He jumped and hit the ground running. The corpses, still confused by the commotion of th
e fire and the flailing movements of their burning peers, paid little attention.
Rolling sideways into the grass along the road’s shoulder, Tom glanced back. Satisfied with Faith’s and Amadou’s rate of resumed fire, he jumped up and began to sprint. Their opponent’s vision would struggle to adjust between the brightness of the flames and the blackness on the other side of the road. Zigzagging in the dark at first but drawing no fire, he soon headed straight for the small stadium’s stands.
CHAPTER 25
The two men cowering behind the stadium’s retaining wall rejoiced as they watched the warhead explode in a bright phosphorous sphere engulfing the target and everything around it but then frowned as the initial fireball waned, revealing the still-intact carrier.
They inspected the two remaining warheads, neatly lined up along the concrete ledge in front of them. They would have to make them count.
“Radio contingent command. We have visitors. UN, no less.”
The older of the two men hazarded another glimpse at the vehicle just as the first M4 round impacted the wall next to him, sending him scrambling back into cover in a hurry. The other man, a soldier in his 20s in a mix-and-match of fatigues and Nike sports clothing, fumbled with the radio.
“Charlie, Charlie, this is Manchester One. Contact. I repeat, Contact.”
“Charlie Charlie? Manchester One? What is this nonsense?!” The older soldier reprimanded.
“But Colonel Okot, these are the call signs!”
“And is anyone responding?” The colonel smirked. There would be no answer.
The young soldier looked at the radio and shook his head. “No, Sir.”
“That’s because they are too busy laughing at us.”
They had sat in the stands of the stadium for over two weeks now, without anything but the dead for company and no other contact than the occasional target practice when they thought safe enough to do so. He had spent years crafting his career, carefully avoiding the pitfalls of shifting alliances and rising through the ranks of an army that was known as much for its disregard for conventions as it was subject to the throes of the tribal tug-of-war between the country’s leading political figures. He had done well for himself up to a certain point.
The Virophage Chronicles (Book 1): Dead Hemisphere Page 27