The Dead Walk The Earth (Book 3) (7 page)

He had never seen the dead act in such a way or even remotely acknowledge the existence of the other bodies moving around them. Al began to wonder just how conscious these creatures could be and even whether or not they were self-aware. The thought made him shudder internally.

Fleetingly, he considered stepping forward and ending their existence but thought better of it. The bodies had passed them by, and he could not risk drawing any unwanted attention for the sake of putting two of the infected out of their misery. But there was something else. In the two meandering and eternally bonded walking cadavers, he saw a glimmer of what they once were. They were human at one time, with their own thoughts, feelings, and desires. Their own personal dreams, wishes, and ambitions. Neither of them had wanted to die and return as one of the walking dead, yet the love they had shared in life evidently held them together even in death.

He slowly turned his head and glanced back to where Tommy and Tina squatted. He doubted whether they had seen the spectacle, but now was not the time to enlighten them or discuss the matter. He would keep it to himself for now and bring it up at a later date. Checking to his left and right to make sure that the immediate vicinity was clear, Al pushed himself upwards and carefully stepped forward again, continuing to lead their stealthy patrol back to the Final Rendezvous point.

A few minutes later, as the meeting point came into view, there was a faint popping noise far off to their rear, quickly followed by a low fizzing sound, similar to the noise made by a burning fuse. Deep in his mind, Al instantly recognised what the scratchy resonance meant, but the rest of his brain was slow to catch up and force his body into action. He turned and saw the shimmering trail of sparks soaring up into the black sky behind them, appearing like a dull comet streaking across the earth’s atmosphere. Anyone that did not know any better could have been forgiven for thinking that it was a firework being launched into the air, but Al knew that it would not result in an explosion of pretty colours and cascading tendrils of light. For a fraction of a second, as the dimly lit object rose higher above the houses and buildings, he felt his stomach knot and his feet become heavy.

“Down,” he hissed loudly, lunging to the side and taking cover amongst the rubble of a collapsed wall. “Get down.”

Tina and Tommy wasted no time in obeying his commands. They jumped into whatever cover was nearest to them, burying their faces into the ground to protect their eyes and burrowing their bodies into the earth, trying to get as low as possible before the area was suddenly transformed into daylight.

“Shit,” Tina rasped as she took cover and screwed her eyes shut.

She cringed, clutching her rifle close and waiting for the inevitable burst of light that would bathe them in its brilliance while they lay cowering in their inadequate cover. Her muscles contracted, and her scalp began to tingle as a flood of adrenaline soared through her veins. Their patrol was about to be compromised, and she knew what would follow.

The flare burst to life with a deep resounding pop, instantly covering the landscape with its eerie, white glow and causing the long reaching shadows of the scorched trees and lifeless buildings to dance across the ground. Night had suddenly been changed to day. Suspended below the small white parachute, the intensely burning magnesium of the flare oscillated across the night sky, being carried on the gentle wind as it drifted along, high above the rooftops. Al and the others sunk deeper into the dirt, pressing their bodies flat in an attempt to become invisible and gain what cover they could. Every muscle and sinew became tauter with each anxious second that passed.

Thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack…

All around them the air erupted with a sudden and devastating torrent of gunfire. Deafening cracks shattered the silence of the night, accompanied by hisses and heavy thumps as the storm of bullets smashed into the ground and buildings, snatching the breath from their lungs and threatening to implode their eardrums. Hundreds of rounds were sent whipping along the street, snapping at the air, and flinging up veils of dust and fragmented rock like murky fountains as the bullets ploughed into the churned earth. The speeding rounds struck the cars, scattered bricks, and chunks of concrete that littered the road while bright red tracers, zipping along close to the ground at lightning speeds, slammed into hard objects before ricocheting vertically into the dark sky.

“Contact rear, contact rear,”
Al was screaming into his radio as a series of bullets chewed through the layer of bricks just above his head, showering him with dust and sharp fragments that nicked at his bare skin.

A cacophony of ear-splitting cracks, thumps, and snaps was being played out above the heads of Al, Tommy, and Tina. It was impossible to think of anything other than sinking into the earth, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the overwhelming fire that ripped through the space above their heads, just centimetres from where they lay. They were instantly pinned down and could not dare to raise their heads.

“Stay down,”
someone was screaming from Tina’s left from within the crescendo of gunfire. She could not remember who was where as her head buzzed, filled with shock and terror, and struggling to make sense of what was happening.
“Stay the fuck down.”

Her body was shaking uncontrollably, and her legs instinctively kicked against the dirt as her nerves and instincts took control of her actions, trying to burrow her deeper into the ground. She was howling like a demon, screaming up at the mind rattling noise and the pressure that pushed against her ears. The bullets, hundreds of them, shot through the air faster than the speed of sound, creating a vacuum that snapped angrily and in quick succession like a thousand whips being cracked in unison. She twisted her head and looked up. Tracer rounds, blazing and glowing red, were tearing through the air above the small crater in which she was hiding. They were relentless, unending, and forming a canopy of deadly projectiles that would keep her trapped within the shallow hole. Clouds of fine, disintegrating plaster, asphalt, and clods of earth showered over her as she huddled into cover. Her mind was frozen with fear as she curled her body into a tight ball, screwing her eyes shut while she screamed back at the roaring thunder.

Al remained pinned behind the wall that was slowly disintegrating around him. The bullets punched heavily into the brick work, sending out splinters of high-speed masonry in all directions, steadily chopping away at his only cover. He pushed his body down, screaming silently as the streets boomed with the roar of machinegun and rifle fire. From his position below the terrifying lightshow that whipped through the street, he could see Tina and Tommy squirming in their shallow holes, writhing as the tracer continued to zip through the air all around them. He could not tell if either of them had been hit, and communication with them was out of the question due to the thunderous crescendo. Either way, it did not matter. They needed to get out of there before the enemy gunners adjusted their fire.

The flare suddenly died, and once again the streets were cast into darkness, momentarily lit by the flashes of ball and tracer rounds as they slammed into hard objects. The gunfire continued, but its intensity faltered for a few short seconds as the attacking gunners lost sight of their aiming marks. Al saw his opportunity and seized the moment. Working on instinct, he sprang from cover and leapt to the side as the burning tracers continued to race along the street, whipping past just centimetres from his huge frame, and snapping close to his head.

“Moving,” he screamed, informing the others that he was breaking cover.

Raising his rifle as he bounded away from the crumbling wall, he loosed off a hail of fire into the general direction of the enemy. His weapon juddered in his hands as the muzzle flash burst from the tip of his barrel like a series of lightning bolts. His fire was inaccurate, sailing through the air with no real aiming point, but that did not matter. All he wanted was to cause their attackers to flinch behind their guns, giving Al and the rest of his patrol the precious few seconds they needed to get out of the killing zone.

The enemy fire wavered, and for a short moment their bullets sailed high and away from Tommy and Tina. Al fired his rifle again, aiming at the multitude of muzzle flashes he could see from various points at the end of the street. His rapid fire caused the weapon to jerk violently in his hands, spraying his rounds over a wide arc as they smashed into buildings and glided harmlessly over rooftops.

“Move, move now,” he screamed across to Tommy and Tina. “Rally on me, rally right. Fucking move.”

Tommy was the first to react, leaping from the shallow depression he had been lying in and bounding towards where Al waited in the cover of the nearest building. He stopped in his tracks, realising that Tina had not moved and remained in the shallow dip behind him. He turned and lunged into the hole, grabbing her by the collar.

Again, the enemy guns opened up with the same ferocity as before, having recovered from their moment of shock when Al’s rounds had headed towards them. Their fire was still not as accurate as it had been, but that would soon change as Tommy became aware of another sizzling flare that was racing up into the black sky. It was only a matter of seconds before it exploded with its dazzling light and exposed them as they stood in the open.

“Tina, move,” Tommy screamed down at her, yanking her to her feet and dragging her along behind him. “Come on, we’re bugging out.”

Tina’s legs refused to cooperate. She knew what she needed to do, but no matter how hard she tried, there was a part of her brain that would not comply. It was as though her mind had left her body. She could see herself being dragged along as tracers streaked between them and thumped into the ground at their feet. She could see Al, blasting away with his rifle on full automatic, hollering at them to get into cover behind him. Yet no matter how loudly she screamed at herself from within her skull, her empty body stumbled along in a daze, seized with terror and being hauled to safety by Tommy.

She was suddenly shoved forward, catapulted through the air and into cover by Tommy as he leapt across towards where Al was standing. As Tina landed, feeling her body crash into something hard and then collapsing into a painful heap, she became aware of the second flare bursting to life like an exploding star.

Thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack…
Another stream of deadly fire rained in towards them from along the street.

A cry rang out from somewhere close by. Tina looked up in time to see Tommy spin, his left arm flailing out to his side, and his body crumpling to the ground. More glowing red bullets zipped into the spot where Tommy had fallen, slamming into the earth and sending up splinters of smashed brick and tarmac. The noise was deafening as the cracks and thumps of the speeding rounds hammered away at the air, leaving all attempts at communication utterly useless.

Al was still firing while Tommy squirmed close by at his feet, trying to pull himself to safety before the enemy fire found its mark and chewed him up. Tina stared at him, unable to make sense of anything that was happening around her. She could see them all and hear their shouts, screams, and the barking gunfire, but none of it seemed real.

Suddenly, returning to her like a howling wind, her mind was released from the grip of stunned inactivity. Without thinking, she sprang forward, ignoring the burst of machinegun bullets that hissed and snapped by her head. She reached down and grabbed hold of Tommy by his wrists and hauled him towards her, pushing down hard with her legs until she fell back into the cover of the building. Tommy landed on top of her as a flood of snapping projectiles ripped into the patch of ground where he had been sprawled just seconds beforehand.

Al pulled himself back into cover, tearing the empty magazine from his rifle, and reaching for another. The air around them still roared with gunfire, but they were out of immediate danger for now. The building that they hid behind absorbed the salvos, but it would not hold back the rounds for long. Eventually, under a prolonged assault, the brickwork would weaken and the bullets would smash their way through the multiple layers of walls within the structure. He had seen it demonstrated on many occasions. He had even witnessed huge trees with trunks that were two metres thick being felled by sustained fire from a machinegun.

Tommy was howling with pain. He writhed on the floor, holding his hand against his smashed shoulder where a round had punched through, shattering his collar bone, and tearing the flesh. Already, he was soaked with blood and losing more by the second.

Tina, crouching beside Tommy and tearing at the wrapper of his field dressing, became aware of other distant sounds. She realised that she could hear more noises of battle coming from the north. The distinct echoing rattle of automatic fire and the low concussions of high-explosives that caused the ground to shudder were clearly audible. She knew what those distant sounds meant. Their base was also under heavy attack.

“Al,” she shouted, “the base…”

Al paused and looked towards the north, trying to focus his hearing as another volley of machinegun bullets hammered away at the walls behind them. He heard the raging battle in the distance, and his facial expression quickly turned from anger to confusion.

“Harry, send sit-rep, over,” he demanded through his radio, but there was no answer. “Harry, Al, radio check. Send sit-rep, over.”

Their personal radios only had a basic planning range of one-point-five kilometres and even less in a built-up area where tall structures could interfere with the signal. In a direct line, they were roughly nine-hundred metres from the outer walls of the FOB, but in their current situation, it could very well have been nine-hundred miles. The base was not answering their calls, and the patrol was completely cut off and pinned down.