“You heard the Lieutenant,” Lloyd said as he shouldered his way through the men to occupy the same spot on the railing as Palmer did, yanking back the charging handle of his rifle as he spoke. “Look alive!”
The boat swung around, revealing the raging battle that their own side was most definitely losing.
“Keep firing!” Captain Palmer roared, just as his own gun ran dry and he fumbled to replace the spent magazine. The area immediately to his front filled up with ragged bodies of former inhabitants of the island, mostly soldiers in various forms of torn and bloodied uniform, with civilians added in here and there for flavour. They flowed like water into the void that his reload caused, and the closer the enemy got to him, the more he struggled to seat the fresh magazine.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he hissed to himself as he couldn’t force his hands to work. He almost threw himself down in fright as a massive, clattering noise erupted to his right.
“Fuck off!” Dezzy, one of the SAS men, yelled at the Screechers he threw down as he fired the GPMG from the hip. He flashed a toothy smile at the captain and followed it up with a wink before opening up again with another long burst of heavy, rattling gunfire. Palmer seated the magazine and fed a round into the chamber as he stole a glance around their shrinking battlefield.
“They’re retreating,” Downes yelled over to him. He looked again and saw it was true; the enemy were falling back into the shadows. As welcome as the reprieve was, the connotations of what it meant chilled the cavalry officer to the bone.
Then he heard it again. The yelping noise, like a screech but speaking a language he couldn’t understand. It was animalistic, but it was clearly heeded as the wave of freshly turned undead slunk away into the darkness.
“Reload,” Palmer yelled. “They won’t stay gone for long.” The remaining men followed his instructions as voices called out names of their friends who they had lost in the confusion. Some lay bleeding on the wet ground of the docks, whereas others had been dragged away. Palmer kicked over the body of the thing that had caused all the commotion; a slim female with one missing hand from what he guessed was a recently earned gunshot wound at close range. There was something odd about her appearance, something different, other than the fact that she’d sailed twenty feet through the air from the nearest rooftop to land behind their front rank and bring chaos to the fight.
Bayonets had brought her down eventually, but her slashing nails and ripping teeth had done enough damage to open the gates to the surging attack from the darkness ahead.
That was when it hit Palmer. It was a concerted attack; not the kind they had seen from the swarms in the past but an infinitely more human attack.
It was deliberate. Planned. Orchestrated and executed well, and when it failed, the enemy commander had sounded the retreat. He sought out Downes in the huddle of surviving men and fixed the man’s eyes with his own. Something passed between them in that moment; some understanding of what had just happened. What they were facing was new, and far more frightening than just a mindless horde marching heedlessly into their bullets.
A noise behind them made them turn. A ragged, rolling cheer that swelled into a war cry of massed men ramping themselves up into a frenzy, ready to join the fight. Palmer couldn’t understand where these men had come from until he recognised the sharp profile of his younger brother’s face at the very front of the men, and his eyes zeroed in on his brother.
While their backs were turned, the next attack came.
The barking, shrieking yelp came from up high, revealing the position of a blooded man in a torn blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up above the elbows. He shrieked again just as a targeted mass of Screechers piled into the right side of their position and overwhelmed the men there.
Downes was their target. The bloody and blackened fingernails reached for him, ignoring the other potential victims within range, dragging him backwards and making him drop the weapon he was holding. Palmer didn’t hesitate; just slung his own gun and stooped low on the move, as he fast-paced forwards to scoop up the automatic shotgun and reverse it to point the dangerous end at things he wanted to render immobile.
He triggered off a burst of rounds, feeling the savage, violent recoil of the gun and not even blinking at the gore and destruction it wrought.
The heavy gunfire of the GPMG added to Palmer’s onslaught to ruin the attack, then as the major was left on the ground, Dez switched his aim back to where the enemy commander had showed himself.
He—it—ducked away before the bullets could walk their way up the wall towards its position, but the damage was done. The renewed attack on all fronts was met by a hail of bullets from the rear of the boat as the reinforcements came into range. Smiffy helped Dez, crouching beside their officer to defend him and pour fire at the Screechers, even though they must surely have known he was done for.
Palmer stepped up beside them, adding measured shots from the shotgun to blow away limbs and remove heads. He fired until the gun ran dry, slinging it diagonally over his body to retrieve the sterling and start rattling off more shots. A hand grabbed his shoulder, pulling him back slightly. He tried to shrug it away, thinking that someone was attempting to force him to retreat but instead he found his younger brother pushing in beside him to add his own fire to the desperate defence.
The attack failed again, and only a few shadows rippled in the middle distance. The barking noise sounded once more; so like a Lima and yet infinitely more terrifying, considering what they had just witnessed.
“Onto the boat,” Palmer Junior yelled, repeating the order as the men fell back without turning their vulnerable backs to the face of the enemy.
“Onto the boat, Julian,” he added in a low voice.
“We must help Major Downes,” the captain answered, just as Mac burst through the men to fall beside his teammates.
“Oh, no, Boss,” he crooned with more sadness and emotion than anyone thought him capable of, “what the fuck have they done to you?”
Downes choked, bubbling blood out of his mouth as he looked down to see the puncture wounds caused by fingernails in his ruined abdomen. He turned his head and pointed with a shaking hand, unable to speak as he fought down the convulsions the pain caused him.
Mac saw it. Saw the neat row of teeth marks in his neck and knew it was over for the officer. Setting his face in a grim line he nodded, trying to convey his feelings and coming up woefully short.
“I’ll… I’ll stay with him,” Smiffy said, handing up his weapons and shaking them until they were taken. His hands fumbled for the pistol and the spare ammunition before he was asked by the dour Scot just what in the hell he was doing.
“Bastards…” Smiffy said between gasps of breath, “bastards got me too,” he admitted, rolling up his right sleeve to expose the raged chunk torn from his forearm. “I can already feel the burn,” he said as he turned to Dez and gave him a wan smile. “Look after that Ruski rifle,” he said, pointing a bloody finger at the stolen VAL from a lifetime ago.
“Time to go,” Lloyd said, turning to shout more orders. Palmer looked up to see the shadows moving again, no doubt swelled with slower reinforcements in preparation for another wave of attack.
“Go on,” Smiffy said, cradling his boss’ head in his lap, “fuck off now.”
“No,” Dezzy snapped, “I’m not leaving you like this.”
In answer, Smiffy took back his pistol and gestured with his head for them to leave.
They left before the next attack came, leaving the docks empty but for dead and turning soldiers, and two dying SAS men.
As the boat followed the reverse course out of the shielded bay, two small calibre shots echoed out to sea after them.
Epilogue
The handful of fishing boats eventually sailed through the choppy water to slide into the small bay on the uninhabited island of Hirta in the Outer Hebrides. They were freezing cold, frightened and so uncertain of any future that the numbness they felt was just as likely to be from
the emotions coursing through them as from the exposure to the elements.
Palmer jumped down first, paddling through knee-deep water until he stepped clear onto the sandy beach. The dawn hadn’t fully broken yet, providing the steely grey ambience that made the whole situation even more surreal.
“Where to now, Captain?” asked a rich voice he knew well, only now it carried an edge to it that only battle could muster.
“Up the hill,” he answered, “to the military base, I presume?”
“And hope to find a roaring fire and a hot bath?”
“Indeed,” Palmer said, before bowing his head and regarding his bloodstained hands holding two weapons. He looked at the shotgun, staring at it for a moment until snapping himself out of the numb reverie.
“Olly,” he said quietly, “I… I owe you an apology. What you did saved the lives of the men—saved my life—and you have my gratitude.” As soon as he said the words, he felt as if they hadn’t been enough to convey his true feelings. They felt too formal, too wooden and not believable enough.
“Orders, Captain?” Lloyd asked, arriving with a squad of marines looking ready for work.
“Press on ahead, if you please, Mister Lloyd, recce the base and see if you can’t find a way inside.” Lloyd nodded and urged his men onwards with some kindly insults to get them moving. Behind them trooped the rest of the survivors, some of whom had been with them since even before the captain had arrived in the commander’s seat of his Annabelle so many months before. They had saved none of the Germans who had saved their lives, and of the special air service patrol, the surviving fifty percent stopped beside the two brothers.
“That answers the question of what the bloody scientists were doing on Skye,” Mac stated flatly. “They’ve taken the Limas and made the bastards even faster and smarter.”
“Did you notice how none of the ones attacking us were the Screecher type?” Julian Palmer asked quietly.
“Like life couldn’t get any fucking worse?” Dezzy asked rhetorically. “So what? They’ve made the virus or whatever worse?”
“Perhaps,” Captain Palmer opined. “Perhaps it’s just nature. Perhaps the Screechers have adapted and evolved. Which begs the question of what our next move is.”
“We do the same as they’ve done,” his younger brother answered with strength and more than a little vehemence. “We survive. We fight back. We adapt.”
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Thank you for reading Adaptation, the fifth of six books in Toy Soldiers.
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Also in the series
Toy Soldiers:
Apocalypse
Aftermath
Abandoned
Adversity
Adaptation
Book six yet to be named (coming 2020)
Toy Soldiers (Book 5): Adaptation Page 22