The Dead Walk The Earth II (29 page)

By now, everyone on board either had climbed to their feet voluntarily or had been dragged up by the people beside them. The smell of exhaust and aviation fuel was quickly becoming diluted by the stench of vomit, urine, and the distinct smell of human excrement. Peter’s nose wrinkled as the pungent odours drifted into his nostrils. With the interior being so tightly packed, it was impossible to tell who were to blame for the variety of stinks filling the aircraft. Accusing looks were swapped between many of the militia and soldiers but no one openly owned up to the responsibility. Peter suspected that most on board had played at least a small part in adding to the new and offensive atmosphere.

Peter was doing his best to remember the small amount of training that they had received. The rifle in his hands had still not become the extension of his body that the instructors had promised it would one day be. His equipment, packed with ammunition, was heavy and uncomfortable. The straps dug into his shoulders and caused his back to ache. He was far from being prepared for battle. He was a civilian and his brother was even less prepared. Peter would need to look out for Michael while trying to remember how to work his own weapon and keep himself safe.

“Thirty seconds,”
the Loadmaster screamed from the far end as he stood close to the tailgate with his hand hovering over the control panel, ready to lower the ramp.

The veteran soldiers, standing close to the tailgate, turned and repeated what the Loadmaster had shouted, passing the message along to the people behind them. Peter felt his mouth suddenly become dry and a cold hollowness form inside his abdomen.

Aircrew that had been sitting squeezed into the gap between the cockpit and the passenger compartment jumped down and pushed their way through the civilian militia that were standing in their way. Climbing over people and equipment with no regard for where they placed their feet, they reached for the machineguns that were attached to the side doors with their barrels pointed outwards. As soon as they were there, the aircrew pulled back on the cocking levers, chambering rounds from the long shining belts of 7.62mm ammunition leading into the feed-trays from the steel containers attached to the sides of their guns. They began to swivel from side to side, searching for targets on the ground.

Peter watched them with curiosity. They reminded him of the door-gunners he had seen in numerous Vietnam War movies, hanging from the Huey helicopters. Over the din of the engines, he saw the aircrew on the starboard side begin to judder and a flurry of brass casings began to fly through the air from the right of his machinegun. Then the muffled rattling of the gun as it fired rapidly reached his ears. It seemed an eternity before the gunner took his finger away from the trigger and began looking for more targets and Peter wondered just how many of the dead were down there, waiting for them.

“Five seconds,”
the Loadmaster by the tailgate roared and hit the button to begin lowering the ramp.

Everyone took in deep breaths, trying to control their fear in the face of having to step out into the hell that had once been the city of London. They had no idea what to expect when they landed. All they knew was that the forward elements of the air assault had made their break-in and were in heavy contact with the enemy. Every eye was now focussed on the ramp as it slowly lowered and more of the blue sky, swirling clouds of black acrid smoke, and eventually, rooftops came into view.

The faces of the civilian troops were pale and coated with sweat. Their knees shook and their stomachs twisted. The stench of fear and human waste suddenly became all the more overpowering inside the fuselage as the men and women prepared themselves to step out into battle.

With a heavy bump, the wheels touched down on the tarmac of a wide road, flanked by tall buildings and filled with the scorched remains of people and vehicles. Fires blazed all around within the structures and the nerve clawing sounds of battle could be clearly heard, even from within the helicopter.

The Loadmaster turned and began shouting into the depths of the helicopter as he waved everyone forward.

“Go, go, go…”

18

Time seemed to slow down to little more than a snail’s pace. The roar of the Tornado and Typhoon engines became a thunderous rumble in their ears, mixing with the sounds of their pounding hearts and the echoing voice of Stan as he continued to scream out to them to get down and into cover.

With his head cradled between his own elbows and his forearms locked tightly together to protect his face, Danny peered through the narrow gap between his wrists as he waited for the high explosive bombs to land. Seconds had turned into hours and it began to feel like he had been braced and expectant of the impacts for an eternity.

The walls of the factory suddenly caved inwards with a deafening roar. The old Victorian bricks and the stained glass windows shattered into a million pieces of flying shrapnel as the blast wave flung them through the air at lightning speeds. The floor seemed to rise beneath Danny and then tumble back to its foundations, dragging his shocked body with it and slamming him into the hard surface as everything around him was turned upside down and pulled and twisted out of shape. The heavy iron machinery above them swayed and strained against the brackets and bolts holding it in place. It juddered and clanged as chunks of masonry slammed against it, tearing valves and pipes away to join in with the flying debris punching holes through the remaining walls around them.

Danny felt his ears burst and his ribcage being squeezed. It felt as though his body was about to implode and then explode a moment later. Bobby was screaming something unintelligible beside him as the building collapsed all around them under the force of more detonations. Pipes and ducts showered down from the ceiling and crashed to the floor, bouncing from machinery and crushing the workstations throughout the factory. His vision blurred and he felt a heavy weight slam down on his lower legs. Something had landed on him and pinned him to the floor. With panic quickly rising inside him as he realised that he was trapped, Danny began screaming and trying to pull his legs free of the solid iron grate that had fallen from the roof and now ensnared him.

After the first set of detonations were over and the debris ceased falling, Bobby began pushing at Danny’s back, knowing that it would not be long before the next bombardment began, or until the infected made it into the building.

“We need to move, Danny,” he was screaming frantically as he heard more fighters approaching their position in the distance. “Danny, move.”

Danny was howling with pain and Bobby realised that his friend was unable to comply with his demands to crawl out from their cover. He glanced along the length of Danny’s body and saw the rusted piece of walkway that had dropped onto his legs. Even at just a glance Bobby could see that the skin had been broken and bones had probably fractured. He climbed over Danny and searched around him as he scurried out onto the remains of the factory floor. All around them were piles of twisted metal, smashed brick, and shattered glass. Up above, Bobby saw that the roof had disappeared entirely and all that remained were a few of the twisted and buckled iron girders that had once held the tiles and sheets of corrugated iron securely in place.

He crawled around to the side of the machinery that they had taken cover beneath. The metal plate that had landed on Danny sat flush with the side of a large cylindrical tank and would need to be lifted in order to free him. Just one look at the object confirmed to Bobby that he would not be able to move it on his own. It must have weighed at least two or three-hundred kilograms.

To his left, he saw the gaping hole where the entrance into the main factory building had once been. The S-Mine had done its job well and now it was nothing but a jagged hollow in the wall with the mauled bodies of dozens of infected mixed in with the rubble.

A figure appeared out of the dust that swirled around the gap, tripping over fallen bricks and body parts as it began climbing into the building. Its eyes fell upon the man standing just a few metres away and it let out a yearning moan as it doubled its efforts to negotiate the tricky ground underfoot. Bobby raised his M-4 and shot it squarely between the eyes. Its head arced backwards and it tumbled out into the factory yard. Another body soon appeared and there were more of them arriving as Bobby began taking well-aimed shots at their heads while Danny continued to struggle and scream beneath him.

A noise from behind made Bobby turn just as the huge bulk of Bull appeared out of the billowing dust and smoke. He vaulted over a large fallen iron pipe without it affecting his pace in the slightest and landed with perfect balance just a metre away from Danny’s head. With a look of rage and hatred stamped upon his face, Bull raised his Minimi machinegun and let off a burst into the crumbling doorway, shattering the heads of a number of the infected and splintering the bricks that were precariously clinging to one another around the hole.

Bobby looked back at him as the bodies began to fall under his heavy weight of fire. Bull’s face was smeared with blood and his wide terrifying eyes seemed to glow white from within the swathe of crimson liquid that covered his face. He had a long bloody gouge stretching from the corner of his mouth towards the curve of his jaw that exposed some of his teeth and the muscles around his jawbone. Bobby also noticed that an entire ear was missing from the left side of Bull’s head. The wounds were pouring with blood but they did not seem to have any disabling effect upon the big man.

Bull eased off the trigger and stepped across to the side of the machinery where Danny was trapped. He nudged Bobby aside and quickly evaluated the situation. Marty had by now arrived on the scene and took up position beside Bobby and continued to fire at anything that appeared from around the doorway.

“This is going to hurt a little, Danny,” Bull roared down at the trapped man and took a wide tight grip on either end of the iron plate.

With every ounce of his strength and growling through gritted teeth, Bull heaved the section of walkway upwards and away from Danny’s legs. He felt it move but already it was beginning to slip from his grasp. His shoulders, back, and biceps were screaming at him with the strain and his legs were beginning to shake as he fought to keep the heavy iron from crashing back down onto Danny.

“Grab him,” Bull cried as his face turned an even brighter shade of red than it already was from the blood. The veins protruded angrily from the skin of his neck as he jerked his head back and howled. “Bobby… grab Danny… I can’t hold it.”

Bobby jumped to Danny and Bull’s aid while Marty continued to cover them. He gripped the wounded man by his forearms and wrenched him out from beneath the machinery and onto the factory floor. Danny screamed in pain as his battered legs were dragged across the rubble, opening the wounds further and bashing his damaged bones. Behind him, a heavy metallic thud indicated that Bull had released his grip on the fallen walkway. With no time to waste, Bull reached down and hurled Danny up from the ground, slung him over his shoulder, and then turned and began to plough his way back through the ruined building. Marty and Bobby brought up the rear, firing continuously as the infected began to climb in through the shattered doorway.

A torrent of gunfire burst over their heads, forcing them to duck as glowing red tracer rounds zipped by just centimetres above them. Stan and Taff had climbed onto a walkway that remained intact and covered their withdrawal.

“They’re coming in,” Stan called down to them, referring to the approaching aircraft rather than the undead that were clambering through the doorway. He raised his MP-5 and fired off another group of rapid shots at the crowd that were quickly filling the building behind the fleeing men. “Move your arses. They’ll be here any second.”

The six of them crashed through a side door and out into the open. They were in a small open-air corridor that linked the main building onto one of the outbuildings. They needed to get out from the factory complex before the next wave began dropping their ordinance and causing the remains of the walls to tumble in on them.

Stan doubted that they could withstand another direct hit like the previous one. They were all hurt to some degree. Splinters of steel and glass had penetrated everyone’s flesh and flying lumps of heavy masonry and machinery had caused further injuries within the group. Virtually no one remained completely unscathed. Danny was badly hurt. His legs were bleeding and possibly broken but they could not yet afford to stop and check him over. Taff was covered in blood but he assured Stan that it could not be his, as he could feel no injuries. Bull had lost an ear and sustained a wound to his lower jaw and Bobby was hobbling. Only Marty seemed unhurt or at least, unaffected by any wounds he had suffered.

Stan continued along the short narrow alleyway and soon found himself looking out onto the courtyard. Fifty metres away, he could see the twisted iron rails of the factory’s main entrance and beyond it, the street they had entered from a few days before. There were infected milling around on the outside and headed for the gate but he concluded that their numbers were manageable. They had very little choice but to make a dash for the gate because the alternative could already be heard coming in fast overhead.

“Move,” Stan called over his shoulder as the first of the aircraft raced over the rooftops of the city. “Move now. Head for the street.”

Bull jumped out into the open and charged for the gate. Over his shoulder, Danny’s wrecked body bounced with each stride and he grimaced with agony as he fought to keep hold of his light machinegun and his consciousness.

Carrying his Minimi in his free hand, Bull wielded the weapon like a bat, swiping at anything that stood in his path and firing wildly at anything beyond the range of his forceful swings. He shouted and cursed as he pounded across the open, throwing caution and stealth to the wind and relying on his aggression and power.

Marty shot passed him and began leading the way and firing on the move, clearing a path for the others as they hurled themselves towards the street. Behind them the bombs began to obliterate the junction again, pulverising the buildings and the dead into a pile of rock and organic mush. Their heavy thumps shook the ground cracked the air. Chunks of debris rained down over the courtyard but the men had no intention of taking cover. They needed to get out of the danger area before they were all killed by their own people.

The shockwaves of the explosions ripped the apartment complex apart. Its walls burst outwards and its roof began to cave in on itself. It collapsed in a rumbling cloud of dust and falling girders as the team reached the gate. The factory took another hit and a fountain of iron and brick flew high into the air. More debris shot outwards from the centre as the remains of the building imploded.

“Jesus,” Bobby shouted over his shoulder as plumes of smoke, dust, and human wreckage rocketed into the air from the factory complex. “Those pilots are flinging their ordinance about like a mad woman’s shit.”

By now the six men were tearing along the street, barging through the lurching bodies and swatting away the clumsily reaching hands as they fled from the scene. The perimeter wall of the complex absorbed a lot of the devastation that headed their way and provided them with a degree of protection. However, the material thrown into the sky from the explosions still had to obey the laws of gravity.

Man-sized blocks of concrete and metal crashed into the streets behind the factory. Some pieces were close enough to cause the men of the team to adjust their stride and direction while other pieces of debris dropped far to the side or in their wake. The infected in that area were not spared either. A dense group of advancing corpses that were standing in Bull’s path were bowled over by the rear end of a Volkswagen Beetle that had been ripped apart and hurled out from the parking area at the rear of the apartments. Bull looked up and silently thanked the pilot responsible as the gaggle of infected were swept aside.

They turned right and into an empty street. Their footsteps seemed to grow louder, bouncing from the tall buildings on either side of them as the sound of the raging battle for the city faded into the distance, cushioned by the walls of the buildings. The ground still shook with the impacts of the relentless airstrikes, and the streets echoed with their
whumphs
and
thwacks
, but they were now out of the immediate danger area. The hordes of infected that had converged on the intersections were being decimated and mixed in with the booming thuds of the airstrikes, the sound of small arms and heavy machinegun fire could now be heard far off in the distance.

Apart from a few corpses that were badly damaged or too decomposed to move at a speed that was more than a crawl, the street appeared deserted. The team slowed their pace to a steady walk, having broken contact with the dead and extracted themselves out of the line of fire from their own aircraft. It was now time for them to find a place to rally and take stock of their condition.

Further along, Stan stepped off the street and moved to the left. He paused for a moment, checking along the road in each direction and then scrutinising the black chasm of a large doorway that led into one of the buildings. He looked up and read the sign that was embossed into the discoloured granite stone of the doorway’s plinth. Before the outbreak, it had been a bank.

Most of the windows, made from thick reinforced glass, remained intact. Some of the panes bore the signs of the turmoil that had broken out during the early stages of the plague. Bullet holes had caused craters, surrounded by networks of fractures stretching out across the glass but the building’s integrity seemed to remain more or less complete. The door had been left open but did not appear to be damaged. It was as good a place as any for the men of the team to go static and reorganise themselves.