Hurt World One and the Zombie Rats (28 page)

‘Refrain,’ replied Emsly forcefully. ‘They
are survivors from the polar bear sanctuary. American citizens
under attack. We are Marines. We will defend our wounded, our flag
and any citizen that needs our help.’ He fired a flare to guide the
tractor and turned to Robbie Dean, the garrison’s sniper. ‘Keep the
rats off that vehicle, sniper. And try not to shoot anyone
inside.’

‘Yes, sir,’ replied the Dean raising his
rifle. ‘But it will be hard concentrating on the target if there
are rats running up my trousers.’

‘Noted, soldier.’

Dean started picking rats off the tractor’s
windshield and doors. Even from a hundred metres away his aim was
unfailing.

Dr Flist’s reaction from behind the wheel was
one of panic. ‘They’re shooting at us!’ he screamed as rat blood
spattered the windscreen. He lowered the driver’s side window and
frantically waved his white handkerchief. A rat promptly ran along
his arm and sank its teeth into his hand. Flist screamed in pain
and furiously tried to shake it off, but it took a sniper’s bullet
to end its feasting, the shot only leaving its head behind,
protruding from his arm.

‘They’re not shooting at us,’ Kaur declared.
‘They’re protecting us.’ She looked down from the flare at the
smoke billowing from the base and the circle of Marines surrounding
the flag out on the parade ground. ‘Can you see them?’

‘Yes.’ With both hands on the steering wheel,
Flist made the turn. The environmentalist reached forward and
extracted the rat’s head still dangling from Flist’s arm.

‘Take it easy,’ she said. ‘If you run down a
Marine, they really might start aiming at us. Not that we could
easily tell the difference at this rate.’

Flist took in a deep breath and nodded.
‘Their base has been blown up and it wasn’t by rats.’

‘My God, is this another war?’

They watched through the bloodied glass the
Marines firing en masse upon the converging rats. It was a
deafening, blindingly bright, awe-inspiring display of firepower.
The rats were being pulverised into mounds of steaming meat and
still they kept coming. Some were getting through the cordon of
gunfire, leaping with demented fury at the necks of the Marines.
The razor sharp teeth were able to tear out throats with ease and
Marines began to fall in writhing agony. Once on the ground their
fates were sealed, for bullets were no longer a defence against the
weight of numbers, unless to put soldiers out of their misery. As
the realisation dawned upon those soldiers still on their feet,
their fighting grew every bit as manic as the rats, turning the
military base into a seething cauldron of laser-acid fire.

Major Emsly remained steadfast at the fore,
decimating wave after wave of airborne rats as they leaped off the
fast growing mounds of dead in desperate throat-high lunges.

By the time the first drones arrive from
Anchorage, only half the thirty Marines remained standing and had
been pushed back against the wall, having left behind anyone
immobile to their truly nightmarish death. The Marines cheered as
one as the drones strafed the parade ground with laser-acid fire
before incinerating the mounds of dead rats with napalm.

It gave Emsly the chance for his first
breather since the onslaught began. ‘Hope you’re hungry, Marines,’
he cried and gestured to the burning mounds. ‘Dinner is
served.’

‘It’s just what we’re used to,’ came a reply
and there was wired laughter from amongst the group.

Emsly’s roving eye came upon Jackie Kaur and
the petrified children she had taken under her care. ‘Welcome to
Camp Alabama. Was your sanctuary hit hard?’

‘As hard as this,’ replied Kaur, ‘and without
the means to defend ourselves, I have no reason to believe there
are any survivors apart from ourselves.’

‘We will send a search party the first chance
we get.’

‘Thank you,’ murmured Kaur halfheartedly.

‘Major,’ said Dr Flist, ‘we were wondering if
this is the start of another Arctic War.’

Major Emsly looked at him probingly. ‘I
imagine the President and the Pentagon are asking that very same
question as we speak.’ He noticed a rat feeding on a dead Marine at
his feet. He flicked it into the air with his foot and shot it to
pieces. ‘The people I sent for to answer those questions are not
yet here.’ He looked to the towering Marine beside him. ‘Sergeant
Hex Carter, where is my tank?’

26 Storm at the weather station

The weather station was a simple concrete
block-shaped building housing a satellite tower and was fenced in
by tall razor wire. It was located on a barren windswept bluff on
the east coast of the island, far enough away from the Marine base
that the raging gun-play was just a distant crackle. Private Murley
was wrestling with pangs of frustration as he sat with Kaptu and
Clorvine in the fast speed tank idling at the front gate and he
murmured, ‘No sign of battle here. Not so much as a solitary
mouse.’

‘Is it usually this quiet?’ replied Kaptu
suspiciously. ‘There are guard towers but no sentries in them.’

‘Like I said, I’ve never been here before.
The people in charge pass through the base from time to time, but
they never stay or have much to say about what they get up to
here.’

‘Are they tough looking sorts? They might be
special forces.’

‘In the Marines, even the cooks look
tough.’

A green light began to flash on the
communications panel.

‘That’ll be base wondering where we are,’
said Murley, flicking the line open.

‘Private Murley reporting.’

‘Where the hell is my tank?’ came Major
Emsly’s voice blaring over the speaker.

‘I’ve picked up the Hurt World personnel,
sir,’ said Murley, stiffening. ‘They insisted we come to the base
weather station. We are out the front right now.’

There was a long pause, which Murley fully
expected to end with thunderous demands for him return to base. The
voice that came, however, was disquietingly subdued. ‘Are there
sentries at post?’

‘No, sir. There is no one.’

‘You’d better check it out. Keep me informed.
And be careful of the rats. There are a lot of them.’

The call finished and Murley looked to Kaptu.
‘Alright then.’

Kaptu stared. ‘Before we go, what is the
biggest gun in this tank?’

‘The London Cannon. It can knock down an
entire building. It won’t be much good against an army of rats,
though.’

‘That’s not what I have in mind.’ He looked
to Clorvine. ‘If anything is launched from the weather station, I
want you to blast it. Give it everything.’

‘Even if it has an American flag on the
side?’

Kaptu nodded. ‘Any flag should be considered
a bullseye.’

Murley tapped out a quick code on the tank’s
control panel and a periscope lowered from the ceiling. ‘It is a
thought activation firing system.’

Clorvine peeked into it at the weather
station and murmured self-consciously, ‘This is three generations
newer than what I’d get back in the Congo, but I’ll manage.’

Kaptu picked up his rifle. ‘Come on, Private
Murley. Let’s go get the latest forecast.’

The Hurt World technician and the US Marine
left the tank with their guns poised at the hip and their eyes
aflutter.

‘I’ll go ahead,’ said Murley. ‘The uniform
might stop them shooting first and asking questions later.’ He
pushed on the front gate and it opened without resistance.

‘That’s strange,’ said Kaptu.

‘Well, it’s only a weather station.’

‘Do you really still believe that?’ Kaptu
looked over the multitude of locks evenly spaced from top to
bottom, seeing no sign of them being forced. But there was no
reason for them to be open either, especially when it was more than
clear the island was under siege. He studied intently the four
level concrete block of a building along the gravel path beyond the
gate. The entrance door was slightly ajar, the darkness beyond
carried all the way to the scattering of windows and gave no hint
as to what may have transpired there. But Kaptu knew it was
something. It was a twenty metre long path to the building’s
entrance, flat and with no cover. As Murley started down it, Kaptu
said, ‘Keep your eyes open. This is a kill zone.’

Rats came rushing from the front door,
heading straight for Murley. They were enormous and their faces
were dripping in blood – it was a gruesome spectacle that had
Murley going to his scatter gun in the grip of panic. Bullets
ripped up the gravel path and its surrounds, but somehow the rats
were making it through. Kaptu stepped in to assist, picking off rat
after rat with his rifle on single fire mode. An instinct, however,
suddenly yanked his eyes to the window, just in time to see a
sniper rifle taking aim upon him. He dived aside as bullets cracked
through the air, but with rats converging he had no option other
than to concentrate his immediate fire on them, shooting the
closest almost right off his neck.

‘That’s not one of ours,’ cried Murley,
stepping into space, grateful to have a bigger target than rats; he
gave the weather station a ferocious burst of gunfire. Windows were
decimated and chunks of the walls were blown away. Return fire
still came all the same, and with expert precision. Murley screamed
in agony as both his legs were hit. He collapsed into a fast
expanding pool of blood. His eyes widened with horror as he watched
the oncoming wave of rats. He lifted his gun at them only for his
arms to be shot as well. He was rendered helpless. The rats sprung
upon him, running up his chest for his throat.

Kaptu drew his side pistol to have a gun in
each hand and sprung up onto one knee in a perfectly balanced
firing position. All in the same moment, he shot rats off Murley,
those converging upon him and the anonymous sniper taking cover in
the weather station. Clorvine’s London Cannon joined in with the
assault upon the weather station, hammering relentlessly until
whole sections of walls began to crumble. Kaptu hurried to Murley,
who had toppled onto his back.

‘Are you alright?’ Kaptu asked, brushing dead
rats off him.

‘That was some shooting,’ muttered Murley
through teeth gritted with pain.

‘Are you talking about me or the sniper who
shot your arms and legs?’ Kaptu pulled the wound sealing spray from
the Marine’s utility belt and gave the can a shake. Suddenly he
realised the ground was shaking too. In the centre of the weather
station grounds a giant surface hatch was opening revealing a deep,
dark vent below. Kaptu applied the spray haphazardly onto Private
Murley’s wounds and hurriedly scooped him up onto his shoulders.
The tank smashed through the gates as Clorvine rushed to pick them
up. She flicked the switch to open the rear door and hit the
blazing building with another burst of artillery. ‘Get in!’ she
screamed.

Kaptu sprinted with Murley up the ramp of the
rear entrance. There came a tremendous roar and shuddering that
sent his knees buckling and Murley flying off his shoulders into a
wall of the tank. Amidst a fireball that flushed the tank’s outer
skin with flame, a missile was launched from the underground silo.
Kaptu clambered his way to the side of Clorvine and put on the
noise-cancelling communications headset to block out the
excruciatingly loud roar of the rocket.

‘Shoot it down,’ he cried.

Clorvine was gazing up at the monitor screen
filled with the rocket flame. ‘We’ll have to wait,’ she replied.
‘The shells will explode inside the London Cannon at these
temperatures.’

‘The missile will be out of range before the
flames have dissipated. You’ll just have to risk it.’

‘Well, where will I aim? I can’t see
anything.’

‘Just shoot at the flames.’

Clorvine braced herself and opened fire. The
discharge of the London Cannon barely registered amidst the immense
forces of the missile’s rocket exhausts. The tank was being pushed
sidewards, rivets popping from its joints with the velocity of
bullets.

After what seemed an eternity, the flames
subsided and the bone-cracking shuddering began to ease. Kaptu took
Clorvine by the arm. ‘You can stop firing now. It will be out of
range. You’ve either hit it or you haven’t.’

Clorvine looked at him with perspiration
dripping down her forehead. ‘And what if I haven’t? A war is a hard
thing to carry on your shoulders.’ She was shaking with the
adrenaline.

Kaptu patched through onto the tank’s main
screen the live feed from the Hurt World’s North American satellite
directly above. The missile was black and red striped and was as
large as a three storey building. Apart from the flame and smoke
gushing from the tail rockets, there were secondary smoke trails
emanating from a side rupture.

‘Looks like a hit,’ he said. ‘But let’s see
how close it makes it to Russia before we get too excited. Any
closer than a hundred kilometres and we are going to have some
problems, and I mean by that the next Arctic War. It’s a Toppaz
nuclear missile. Accurate, big and nasty. The Arctic War treaties
explicitly prohibit their deployment anywhere within the Arctic
Circle, so it will be no good apologising and crying sabotage.’

‘Which means if I have missed, thousands and
maybe millions of people will likely die.’

‘You came closer to stopping it than anyone
else.’ He watched the screen carefully. ‘It’s losing altitude.’

Clorvine’s spirits rose. ‘Are you sure?’

Kaptu hurried to the driver’s seat. ‘We need
to get to higher ground. It’s dropping alright and we’re not even
close to a hundred kilometres away.’

*

Three rats were coming at Major Emsly. He
blasted the first two back onto the mound of carcasses from which
they had emerged but with the last rat upon him, he found that his
ammunition was spent. He resorted to clubbing the third rat to a
pulp with the metal stock of his rifle. He continued to hold the
rifle like a club as he looked out across the expansive mound of
the dead for any others still alive. There were none. The seething
torrents of rodents that had threatened to overrun the Marine base
had been checked; not a single rat was left moving. Emsly turned to
Lieutenant Beamy Carlitto who was gazing through binoculars at the
Toppaz missile’s faint image in the sky.