Ace of Spades Chronicles : Book One (7 page)

the M4 carbine. The first four targets went down in quick succession, but he missed the fifth and sent another stray over his head when Yates sent a hail of full auto' bullets from his SA80 into the still advancing cluster. He got to his feet and found himself running towards the tarmac path as Xander took the initiative and ran behind the Corporal, heading swiftly down into the woods.

***

The trees were mostly young or semi mature and spread thinly between parallel paths that took you to opposite sides of the road above, its barriers barely visible through the thin green canopy. Including the path that he now ran down, Xander counted eight possible directions to choose from when he heard the Sergeant shout from behind, "
head for the subways..."
This meant staying his present course, following the path around and to the right, skirting the back of the incinerated petrol station, where it collided with three more paths, each heading into or away from a double set of subway underpasses set at right angles to each other. One led up to and around the medical facility and the supermarket, the other over a short foot bridge crossing the storm drain described by Walker and into a maze of back alleys and a modern housing estate. In all directions there were pockets of infected prowling through the trees. Xander slung his sniper rifle up and over his right shoulder and pulled his Benelli semi-automatic shotgun forward. Selecting the subways as a temporary bunker would at least provide solid cover on two sides, so Xander sprinted for the one leading up to the storm drain and dropped to his knee. It would give them a clear view of the pathway leading back up to the supermarket. He quickly removed his sniper rifle, flicked out the bi-pod and rested it on the ground, then turning, dropped the Bergen and pulled the stock of his shotgun into his armpit and waited the few seconds for Yates and Zola to join him.

Yates ran the full length of the subway and skidded to a halt on the foot bridge over the storm drain. With a quick look he counted thirty plus hostiles shuffling along the paths and tree lined alleyways; some of these were children with fading face paint, but most were adults, with the nearest approximately one hundred and fifty metres away. The effective killing range of his SA80 was around four hundred metres. He nodded to himself and calculated how long it would take the infected to reach the foot bridge at their present speed and figured they had five minutes tops before the shit well and truly hit the fan and things became
F.U.B.A.R
. He walked backwards until he was standing behind Xander and turned to see Zola stabbing one of the subway lights with his knife. Beyond him, moving through the trees, were thirty infected approaching from the direction of the supermarket, with another twenty or more filtering down the other visible paths towards their position. Another calculation now gave them less than three minutes before they would be blocked in on both sides of the subway.

"This is a fantastic plan of yours. We're not going to last long if we stay here," he said with measured concern.

Zola quickly glanced at the gaining horde and back towards Yates, then resumed probing the subway lights for a weak spot. There were six in all, three on opposing walls; each were above shoulder height, around three feet long, eight inches wide and made of heavy duty, shatter proof plastic. More than enough room to stash his share of the money. His first attempt got him nowhere, so he moved on to the panel in the middle of the subway. Again, his knife found no way in, so he crossed the passage and tried the other middle light. "What the fuck are you doing?" Yates insisted, but Zola ignored him and continued checking the remaining lights until he had tried them all.

"Bollocks," he spat and turned to face Yates. Yates frowned, and using only facial expressions and a shrug of his shoulders, asked him again;
what the fuck are you doing?
From the corner of his eye, he saw Xander shooting from a crouched position. A shotgun cartridge pinged off the tiled subway wall and landed on the crud covered floor, spinning like a top.

"A little help…" Xander said over the resonance of the blast.

"Jesus H Christ," Yates cursed and raised his SA80. He flicked the rifle from full auto back to single shot and started to pick off the virulent wave with steady head shots. His training coerced him into firing double taps; both to the neck or mouth, severing the spine below the medulla. He calmed himself and tried to lower his adrenaline level, taking only one shot at a time to preserve as many 5.56 as possible. Xander stood and took a dozen steps forward, discharging shotgun rounds at neck height into an infected double act that had slipped through some snowberry brushes to the right. Faces and jaws got peppered with high impact pellets, and another blast removed the two heads simultaneously in a fountain of frayed meat. Xander saw something dark and spherical fly over his head and realised it was a grenade. He dove back into the subway entrance as the frag exploded sending dirt, twigs and infected body parts up into the air. He looked around to see Zola pulling the pin on another grenade and covered his ears as the second explosion tore through a group of infected in the middle ground, diminishing their numbers by at least half.

"No time to piss about, boys", the Sergeant said as he pulled yet another pin and tossed it in the opposite direction, out toward the bridge spanning the storm drain. A number of infected face painted children were now within inches of the grenades killing zone. Yates and Xander squeezed their eyes shut and cupped their ears as the blast reverberated off the subway walls. When they looked up, the bridge seemed to hover for a few moments, then buckle under its own weight before slowly falling from view into the storm drain. Chunks of torn meat and globs of infected blood, dripped from the subway ceiling and walls, adding to the impression that they were now standing in some hellish cavity rather than an innocuous public walkway. Infected approaching
lunged
over the edge and also fell from view into the storm drain, tumbling head first into the sudden drop. "Ha ha," Zola yelled with delight. "Don't fuck with the bull, you bastards, or you'll get the horns."

"Are you touched in the head?" Yates screamed, his ears ringing.

"I'm getting there," Zola replied with a crazy grin. He looked out of the entrance and over to the other subway, then ran towards it. "Hold this ground," he called over his PRR, his voice barely a whisper. He twisted and launched a pair of rapid grenade rounds from the belly of the M4 into a small group of infected descending the path that ran back up to the supermarket, followed by a couple of tidy head shots. "I'll be two minutes." And then he was gone; inside the long, shadowy tunnel.

***

Zola flicked on the torch attached to the rail platform of his barrel and tried to control his breathing. The sun was still in the process of rising, and the tunnels aspect faced north south, forcing the creeping, morning light to have practically no presence at all at this early hour of the day; the dark seemed to be ensnared by the walls, ceiling and floor. Only the pavement, the trees and shrubbery beyond the exit were visible, everything else stood in silhouette or cold, damp blackness. On the far left lay the dismembered body of an elderly man; he had been lunch for an unknown number of infected many days before; what remained of his face stared back at Zola down the beam of his torch as he slowly panned the interior of the subway. The old man startled him and he flinched, ready to fire a shot into his skull if he moved even an inch. But the corpse sat still and did nothing, just stared back at him with long dead eyes frozen in terrible fear and pain. "Poor bastard." Zola muttered and turned his attention back to the matter at hand. He shouldered the M4 and pulled out his knife, jamming it into the tiny gap between the nearest lighting panel and the casing that anchored it to the wall. He worked the knife as if he were opening an oyster, coaxing the plastic housing out just far enough for him to force the tip of the blade in further until there was a release of tension and the panel snapped away from its housing. Zola caught the plastic covering and gently placed it on the ground by his feet. Pausing only to check over both shoulders, he took off his rifle and leaned it against the subway wall; he did the same with his Benelli semi-automatic. Following another quick glance over his shoulder and a reassuring stroke across his SIG-Sauer, he started to remove the money bags that were concealed around his person and within his uniform. Ignoring the constant sound of gun shots coming from the other subway, he had packed the equivalent of seventy thousand into the compact space when he started to smile;
this is going to work
, he thought. A sudden chuckle, more like a hiccup, accompanied a bigger smile as he pictured himself returning to this spot at a much safer time to collect his treasure.

***

The pathways were beginning to get choked with infected. They drunkenly rambled through the trees, unrelenting in their onward march towards the subway mouths. They tripped and stepped over the bodies of those downed seconds earlier by bullet fire, and their rasping grunts and groans grew louder as their numbers increased.                        Yates and Xander were like a couple of cats on hot bricks. They kept firing and were able to keep a large area of open ground where all the paths converged free of any trespassers, but there was a blind spot to the far left, and it was here where Yates suddenly caught peripheral sight of three infected, who had avoided taking a bullet and were now just yards from the subway where Zola was doing
whatever
it was he was doing. He slapped Xander on the arm, motioned towards the other subway, and ran over to the entrance. Xander immediately grabbed the L115A3, span back around on his knee and took aim at the first of the infected, who was approximately sixty yards away and about to enter the subway. The shot zipped by Corporal Yates and sent the infected sideways, catching him centre neck, just below the ear. Yates came to a full stop and stood in the centre of the subway mouth. He raised his SA80 and sprayed the other two infected around the neck area with a hail of 5.56 rounds, then turned and entered the tunnel as he released the empty magazine and swiftly reloaded with a fresh clip from his waistband.

***

Xander cursed the two senior team mates. As he turned, exasperated and frustrated by their actions, he saw an infected male attempting to climb the twisted remains of the foot bridge. The fiend had managed to get both forearms onto the subway floor and was struggling to lift his body weight up onto the edge. Xander fell to his stomach and pulled the scope atop the L115A3 towards his right eye. The creature’s dull face came into sharp contrast with the bright background of shrub and panel fencing; the reticle pinpointing an area of grey flesh and exposed bone, precisely between the eyes. Xander pulled the trigger and watched the body fall back in a puff of dark red mist, then he quickly resumed his firing stance from the subway mouth. Both his and Yates’s efforts had thinned the herd, and the fallen had created a knee high wall of bodies. Even so, there were still several hostiles progressing along the network of paths. A small group of five were upfront, with a gap of perhaps one hundred yards between them, and another, much larger group. A quick look to the right confirmed even more heading their way, barging each other as they shuffled down a pathway fenced on both sides. He shouldered the shotgun and tore open the Bergen. He pulled out Walker's SA80 and with nimble fingers, reassembled the weapon, loaded it with a full clip and put it to one side. He ignored Walker’s dismantled shotgun, but removed the side arm, its holster and magazine cache, placing this on the ground next to the SA80. Once he had found what he was
really
looking for, he tucked these items into his vest, reloaded his shot gun with seven rounds and ran out towards the group of five. Immediately, they became frantic and jerked with renewed energy, turning all their attention and aggression in his direction. He skidded and purposely fell down onto one knee, took aim and discharged three consecutive blasts at group. The first shot disintegrated one head in a spectacular cascade and damaged the next. The second shot finished the job of the first, and the third shot removed another head from the soft underside of the chin. He stood and aimed from the shoulder; he took his time. He knew he had one chance to get this right and only a few seconds to steady his nerve. He pulled the trigger and took out the last two of five with one shot, removing both heads as they lined up for him, less than three feet away. Before they hit the dirt, he shouldered the shotgun and removed the Bergen items from his vest; two anti-personal claymores. He placed the first in-situ, with the 'Front Toward Enemy' side facing back towards the larger group of infected, and with as much haste as he could muster, set the trip wire at an angle, so as to take out as many as he could face on. He set the second claymore at the foot of the long, fence panelled path, then ran back to the subway, reloading his shotgun on the fly.

***

As Yates entered the subway, he could see Zola frantically packing plastic wallets of money into the lighting fixture above his head; his form and motion outlined by the bright morning sunlight that was fast ascending into the clear, blue sky, illuminating the far end of the tunnel. For a brief moment, he was transported back to Kandahar, when a Taliban skirmish line coming out of the low morning sun, broke through a tree lined defence and fell on his patrol like black leaves falling in autumn. He blinked and shook his head, as he realised with impending distress, that the

shadows dancing in the exit weren't trees backlit by the sun, but were in fact multiple hostiles approaching down the northern pathway from the direction of the medical facility and the supermarket car park. The bastards were performing a pincer movement! He slapped his hand around Zola's shoulder and pulled him back, but Zola shook off the Corporal’s grip and continued to squirrel away the last remaining bags of pilfered cash. Yates angrily sniffed and caught the pungent aroma of urine and decay that loitered in the shadows. "Have you seen what this plan of yours is going to cost?" He hissed and punched Zola between the shoulder blades with his meaty hand. Zola span to counter a second fist, but Yates easily hooked his incoming arm and turned the Sergeant to face the wall of infected that were entering the tunnel from the exit end in a skirmish line of their own. Zola struggled from Yates’s grasp and hurriedly replaced the plastic light cover to the housing, bashing it with the ball of his fist. For a moment, it seemed to hold, but then it sprang from the metal casing and clattered to the floor, swiftly followed by bags of money falling one by one to land at his feet.

"No!" Zola half whispered, half moaned. He fell to his knees and gathered up arm loads of the plastic wallets as they continued to fall like copper pennies from an amusement arcade coin log. Yates watched as his friend of eighteen plus years became a wretched, sorrowful sight to see, scrambling through the muck and litter to recoup his stolen money, completely oblivious to the accelerating mass of
undead
heading straight for them. Yates backed away as one grabbed Zola's boot. Zola turned and in an instant, came back to his senses. He kicked the brute in the face with his heel, tearing putrefied flesh from the cheek bone and managed to stumble backwards to the wall where his rifle stood. But it was too late. Even as he rolled onto his back and readied the weapon, they fell on him. Yates opened fire and the darkness of the tunnel flashed with sporadic images of the attacking horde.

***

Xander saw the muzzle fire centred in the subway tunnel and the scattered faces of the infected captured in the white flashes, but he couldn't see the Corporal or the Sergeant. Far too many developments sprang into his mind as he quickly looked over his right shoulder and saw that the first claymore was about to be triggered by the large group advancing from the supermarket. Another hasty glance over his left shoulder informed him that the infected coming down the long, fence panelled path would soon meet a welcoming ball of flame and shrapnel. As he looked back, however, he saw that there were countless infected clambering over the road side crash barrier above his head. Shooting your team mate in the face at point blank range on a breakfast of granola bar and luke warm cauliflower cheese was not the best way to start the day, he considered, as a plume of anxious nausea made it all the way up to his throat, but was forced back down his oesophagus with a defiant gulp. He ran back to the subway and ripped open the Bergen. He pushed the bags of money that were meant for Walker's mother and his share to one side and extracted every piece of gadgetry and explosive device from the deep well and side pockets and made a quick inventory. His eyes snapped to an incendiary grenade and without hesitation, he pulled the pin and lobbed it as far as he could towards the supermarket infected. His throw could not have been more perfectly timed; just as the grenade bounced once and exploded, sending a white hot ball of flame across the ground, the leading infected from the group tripped the claymore and they were cooked or cut to pieces from both sides. Some continued to walk, heads and clothing ablaze. The leaves of a young oak tree crackled as flames licked its branches. Xander snatched Walker's SA80 and started firing single head shots into the crowd. He heard the second claymore detonate and sneaked a look around the wall of the subway. The fence panels on both sides of the path were destroyed or on fire and at least ten of the infected lay in smouldering bits, but those bringing up the rear simply walked through the flames. Others were slipping or rolling down the subway embankment, toppling over the road side barrier. He side stepped to the left, exited the tunnel and took out those nearest with clinical, decisive shots, then stooping quickly to pick up a frag grenade, tossed it under arm with his left hand up the slope and ducked back into the subway. The explosive blast threw a half dozen infected into the clearing where the paths met and Xander tossed another grenade into their heart. They were devastated before they could get back on their feet. Movement to the left forced him to turn the SA80 towards the other subway entrance. His reactions paused, instructing him to wait long enough to identify the figure walking backwards from the underpass as Corporal Yates. He was dragging Sergeant Zola brusquely out of the subway mouth by his collar, and both were shooting randomly back into the dark passageway. A line of infected appeared from the dank opening, and Xander stepped into a solid firing stance. He fired and the head of an infected male flicked upwards as the bullet tore through his temple and exited the back of his head. The Corporal had stopped firing but

was unable to reload because his left hand had a firm grip of Zola's uniform. He dragged him with both hands away from the entrance, giving Xander a clear firing line. He downed three more when a severed head came soaring out of the shadows and bounced, then rolled towards the feet of Sergeant Zola. Zola reacted by emptying his clip into the detached head as another rolled out of the gloom. Within a few seconds, four more heads flew out of the subway, followed by a petite figure with blue hair, adorned with limb and facial protection and wearing a police anti-stab vest that was at least two sizes too big. Xander realised that it was a young girl; and she was armed with a sword.

***

A squadron of flies performed a mass dog fight above the two soldiers’ sweaty heads, as Yates dragged Zola by the scruff of his neck back to the subway where Xander stood waiting, watching aghast as the slight female figure walked behind them. PAGAN had expended over three quarters of their combined ammo, and there were still over one hundred infected bearing down from numerous approaches. Their only saving grace was that the infected weren't firing back at them; at least that was something.

Xander measured this thought as he collected more magazines from the Bergen for the SA80 and resumed his position in the mouth of the subway. If providence was on his side, he could keep the hordes at bay as they planned their next move.

"Thanks for the assist," said Yates as the girl entered the underpass.

"Thanks for not shooting me! I heard your guns. Can you get me and a friend out of here?" She asked through the dust guard covering her mouth.

"Funny,” Xander said over his shoulder between shots. “I was just going to ask you the same thing."

With sweat dripping from his face, Zola looked up at her. He was grinding his teeth and frantically rubbing his leg. "Your friend is a dead man!" she said in an understated, matter of fact tone.

“What’re you talking about?” Yates challenged, turning first to the girl, then back to Zola. Zola used his knife to slice open his trousers and revealed a large, deep and vivid scratch, just above his boot.

"She's right. I zigged when I should have zagged."

"Oh bloody hell." Yates uttered under his breath.

Zola panted. The reality of his situation rippled through him akin to an icy palpitation. He looked at his leg; already, the capillaries around the wound were bulging through his skin. He watched as dark blue knots wormed beneath translucent flesh like ink. He swallowed and felt a mounting blockage at the back of his throat that tasted of Bolognese sauce and metal. Deep down, he knew that he was damned. He jumped as Xander fired a volley of rounds into a pack of infected, half expecting one of the bullets to have his name on it; then licking his lips through the pain and slapping his leg he said, "You need to call in this position and get back to base. There’s no way you can regulate this many hostiles on your own."              

“On our own?“ Defensively, Yates started to repeat Zola’s words but he cut him off.

"That’s an order, Corporal. We've fulfilled our mission and found a survivor... besides, I’m not going anywhere."

"When the almighty put teeth in your mouth, he ruined a perfect asshole! You and your bloody plan," said Yates.

"Seemed like a good idea at the time." Zola replied. "How long do you figure I've got?" The girl shook her head and looked at the ground. Zola winced. “I don’t want to go the same way as Walker. You hear me Xander? Shooting your Sergeant will only get you a court-martial. You‘re not putting a bullet in my head.”

"Shit man... you're a fucking idiot! In fact… idiot doesn‘t even come close. Calling you an idiot is an insult to idiots…" Yates said with an uptight pace.

"I get your point, Corporal. And it’s ‘you're a fucking idiot‘, Sir," Zola sniggered, but it was a desperate laugh, full of despair and dread. He flinched yet again as Xander fired another volley. Sighing, he said in a comical German accent, “you have your orders,“ then pulled out his loaded SIG-Sauer and raised it to chest height. These were the last human sounds to come out of his mouth, or indeed any sound to come out of his mouth, before he put the pistol to his chin and blew his brains out the top of his head.

Xander span around when he heard the shot. He saw Zola’s body slump over but his judgment insisted that he return his awareness back to the approaching infected. The girl jumped at the shot but showed no sign of shock. Yates couldn't believe what he had just seen. No explanation. No apology. No
'it's for the best'
speech and no verbal love letter to his wife; his sister. Lucky bastard, my arse. He grabbed Zola by the collar and shook him. "No no no, you self-centred, fucking prick. What the hell did you do that for?" he sobbed.

"He would have turned," the girl said as Xander fired the last of the magazines contents into a procession of infected and quickly reloaded. Yates dropped Zola and turned, rubbing angry tears from his face. He fell to his knees and started to add up the supplies. He counted twelve magazines of 5.56 and one hundred and fifty shotgun rounds.

They still had twenty four mags for the four SIG-Sauers (minus two rounds.) He took the pistol from Zola's dead grasp and handed it to the girl. "Like he said. We have to get back to base. Do you know how to use one of these?" 

"Point and shoot!" She replied with the same matter of fact tone. He quickly showed her how to load a magazine and release the safety. "Take his holster and ammo," pointing at Zola. With no trepidation, the girl unbuckled the holster from Zola's leg and strapped it to her own. She strapped the clip pack to her other leg and watched as Yates gathered up the array of explosive devices and stuffed them back into the Bergen. All the time, Xander continued to empty round after round into the infected, which were constantly pushing forward. Yates stood and pulled the Bergen onto his back. When he saw how many infected were covering the woody paths, he loaded his SA80 with a fresh clip and joined Xander, who was now crouched in the entrance, firing single shots from the shoulder with rapid precision. "I think we need a distraction," Yates said, turning to look at Zola's dead body.

***

Xander retrieved his sniper rifle and his shotgun and crossed them uncomfortably over his back, leaving Walker's rifle to hang from his shoulder and the P226 attached to his right leg. Yates passed him two clips for the SA80 and a dozen shot gun shells, which he secured in his pockets, then he grabbed Zola's legs as Yates grabbed his arms. They heaved his dead weight out into the clearing, where they stopped and began to swing the Sergeant’s corpse. When they had achieved enough momentum, they launched Zola at the feet of the nearest approaching horde, then turned tail and followed the girl, who was waiting for them at the top of the embankment between the two underpasses. Pausing long enough to see the infected rend Sergeant Zola like ravenous diners at a Jacobean banquet, the trio clambered over the metal road side barrier and came out on a roundabout that was blocked from every angle with abandoned vehicles. Though it was a relief to escape the dullness of the woodland subway pit and step out into the bright, early morning sunrise; what greeted them at the top of the slope was not so uplifting. To the front and left stood burnt out houses and several burnt out cars. A crooked traffic jam in both lanes stretched out before them for at least a half mile, and apart from the vehicles, there was very little cover. Infected wandered through these in all directions; there were so many, the entire neighbourhood must have turned. The remains of bodies that had been dead for a long time, lay rotting on the tarmac, permeating the air with a fetid bouquet. "This is your neck of the woods, young lady. What now?" Yates pressed.

She pointed down the road. "You see those traffic lights?" She said. "If we can make it there, I know somewhere safe. You'll be able to use that radio thing of yours and get us out of here." Xander and Yates looked down the road then at each other. The traffic lights in question were at the far end of the carriageway; at least the full half mile that they would need to travel. There was no direct path and the infected easily outnumbered their bullets. "That's a tall order, even for us," said Xander.