The Dead Walk The Earth II (13 page)

Christopher turned himself side on to the mirror and folded his hands across his chest with a cocky and dismissive shake of the head.

“Oh yeah? Yeah, okay,” he said as a final statement before pulling his pistol out from beneath the rolls of fat that encased his upper arms and pointing it at his reflection. The movement was clumsy and slow and resembled nothing of the speed that the hero of the movie had been able to manipulate the weapon with.

“Yeah, fuck you, Tina,” he snarled and made a noise similar to that which a child would make when trying to imitate the sound of a gunshot.

He rubbed his sweaty palms over his face and then grinned at himself in the mirror as he tucked the pistol back into his jeans and headed for the door.

“You’re wrong about me, Tina,” he whispered before opening the door. “I’ll show you that you’re wrong.”

8

The sound of the alarms blasted out over the entire island. Shattering the morning air, their rising and falling wails sent panic coursing along the nerves and through the minds of everyone who heard their mechanical and endless shrieks.

Stan and his men gathered on the crest of the hill close to their home and looked down into the valley below. They were armed and ready to face whatever threat came their way. A habit grown from years of soldiering, their weapons and ammunition were never more than an arm’s reach away from them. They travelled with them, sat with them, and they even ate and slept with their rifles close by.

Although they were at a distance of nearly three kilometres, they could clearly hear the terrified screams of men, women, and children as they tore through the dense clusters of tents and makeshift corrugated iron shelters within the fenced areas of the refugee camp. They ran in all directions in fear and confusion as the outbreak spread like wild fire and up on the high ground, it was impossible to identify the healthy from the infected. It was complete chaos. Soon, the sounds of gunfire drowned out the horrified cries of the refugees and the blasts from the sirens. While the shots echoed out across the landscape, the team watched on as dozens of civilians died.

“Take William inside,” Stan ordered to Taff without taking his attention away from the scene in the low ground. “Get the place locked down and secure until we’re sure that none of them have broken out beyond the barricades.”

“Will do, Stan,” Taff replied gruffly. He turned to the young boy and began leading him back towards the barn. “Come on, Billy, let’s get you and your mum safe. You don’t need to be seeing this sort of thing.”

“What do we do?” Marty asked as he scanned the length of the camp with the scope attached to the top of his M-4 rifle.

“Nothing,” Stan replied indifferently. “It’s up to the camp guards to sort out. We’ll just stay put and keep an eye on our own perimeter.”

When they first arrived on the island and selected the barn as their base, their first action had been to make the area secure. While Stan, Bobby, and Taff lay recovering in the field hospital the others had set about building defensive positions that utilised the lay of the land. Obstacles and barbed wire entanglements were placed in key locations, denying access from the various routes in and channelling anyone who approached the house into a killing zone. It was virtually impossible for a person to sneak up on the position without someone having them in their sights. Any blind spots or dead ground was laced with trip-wires attached to a rudimentary early warning system of cans and bottles that would clash together and alert the team to someone approaching. It was simple but extremely effective.

Danny and Bobby remained on the hilltop observing the outbreak and guarding the area around their home. For a long while they did not speak. They just looked on in silence as the anarchy spread amongst the refugees.

“You see much?” Bobby asked as he reached across to Danny and took his turn with the binoculars.

“Not really, no,” Danny replied quietly and still watching the sprawling refugee camp. “I can see the militia at the fence line and in the towers, but not much else. Everyone seems to have disappeared over to the other side.”

Bobby scanned along the length of mesh fencing and barbed wire. At first, there was nothing of note, then something caught his eye. To the left he saw what he took to be a gaggle of infected but he soon realised that they were in fact living people who were running from the outbreak. After a moment of scrutiny, he guessed them to be a family group, trapped and attempting to find a way through the fence. He watched as they managed to make a hole big enough to squeeze themselves through but they were soon struggling to fight their way out from the multiple rolls of razor wire that encircled the entire compound. They became ensnared within the steel coils and the more they thrashed and struggled, the more entwined they became. Their fear was evident in their desperate actions and it was easy to make out the people shouting to one another for help as they wriggled and squirmed and all the while became more enmeshed by the sharp barbs of the wire.

Bobby presumed them to be a mother and father with a teenage boy and girl, along with another child who could not have been older than five or six. As the gunfire continued to reverberate up to them on the hilltop, he saw a vehicle approaching along the fence line from the north and come to a halt in front of the area where the family were trapped. He tightened his grip on the binoculars and adjusted the focus.

The truck, a large civilian flatbed, blocked his view of what was happening but he could clearly identify the small band of militia guards as they climbed down from the cabin. They disappeared from sight around the far side of the vehicle and a few moments later, they emerged again and climbed back inside the truck before driving away. Once that the flatbed was gone, Bobby could see the limp and bloodied family lying in the mud beneath the heavy coils of wire. None of them were moving. The guards could have helped the defenceless people but instead they had executed all of them with single shots to their heads to ensure they did not return. He felt his blood run cold and his anger rise within him.

“Bastards,” he snarled.

He panned the binoculars to the right and watched as the militia vehicle headed further along the fence to join up with the rest of their group and continue the battle to regain control of the outbreak. They jumped down from their truck and moved towards the fence where they began firing indiscriminately into the camp and at anything they saw moving within the enclosure. Their rounds boomed across the open ground and with each report, Bobby blinked involuntarily.

Danny glanced at him nervously and then back towards the city of tents that continued to echo with the sound of gunfire and screams.

“Some of those civilian militia are worse than concentration camp guards,” he murmured after having witnessed the events for himself and seeing the disgusted and rage fuelled expression on Bobby’s face. “You never know though, those people may have been bitten and infected.”

“Fucking bastards,” Bobby repeated, shaking his head and flexing the muscles in his jaw as he ground his teeth.

He knew in his bones that the family had not been infected and were just trying to escape from the virus. He looked back at the flatbed and watched it as it began to move again and finally came to a stop outside a small brick building that was used as their main guardroom. He counted the men and eyed the approaches along the track on the outer perimeter of the fence line. He grunted and nodded to himself as he made his mental notes. There were four of them stationed in that particular building. There may have been one more, possibly a regular professional soldier to act as their commander, but Bobby could not be one-hundred percent sure from that range.

When the ‘all clear’ was given and the clearance teams had confirmed that none of the infected had escaped from the camp, life returned to normal on the Isle of Wight. The doctors and soldiers moved into the refugee enclosure and cleared the dead for collection and incineration details. They checked on any wounds sustained during the battle and although it was never openly acknowledged, everyone knew what happened to the people who were taken away for ‘treatment’ of suspected bites. They were never seen again.

Bobby wondered how many men, women, and children had been dealt with in this way through wrongful diagnosis. The doctors and soldiers took no chances and to a degree, he could not blame them, but there was always the time and facilities available to afford a more thorough examination. Death and reanimation from a bite was never instantaneous.

Bobby’s mind drifted back to Danny’s statement about the militia being no different from the guards of a concentration camp. They rounded the civilians up like cattle and arbitrarily set aside anyone they did not like the look of.

“Bastards,” he snorted again.

“It’s done now, Bobby. There’s nothing we can do and besides, it’s none of our business what goes on down there. We have our own shit to worry about.”

Bobby said nothing but continued to watch the militia guards through his binoculars for a considerable length of time. He memorised every detail of them that he was able to see from that distance and watched how they contentedly returned to their posts in the guardroom once the emergency was declared as being over. He grunted and nodded to himself.

“You okay, Bobby?”

“Fine and fucking dandy, mate,” he replied with a nod and a grimace that conveyed his disgust.

That afternoon the six remaining members of the team were called into headquarters to be given a set of preliminary orders on what their upcoming tasks would be during the counter offensive and from there, the team would build their own execution and concept of operations on the way they would conduct their mission. They all knew full well that in one way or another they would be leading the spearhead for the entire campaign but their exact role could only be speculated.

“You know we’ll be in the thick of the shit when it kicks off,” Taff grunted sourly as he sat down beside Stan and began sipping at his coffee.

Stan blew out a long sigh in agreement. They were
always
in the thick of it so Taff’s predictions were not exactly enlightening to him.

“You hoping for a cushy number, Taff?”

Before the Welshman could answer, the door opened and a long lean figure sauntered into the room. They recognised the man instantly even though his face was cast in shadow beyond the area that was illuminated by the bright spotlights set into the ceiling.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” General Thompson greeted them in his deep gruff voice as he strode across the briefing room.

His long legs covered the distance in a fraction of the number of steps that it would have taken a man of average height. He looked up at Stan and along the line of his men seated in a row and waiting for the briefing to begin.

“Are you and your boys up to this, Stan?” The General asked with a wry smile. “I know we managed to break a few of you recently.”

There was nothing malicious in his words and he had already expressed his deepest and sincerest sympathies for the losses the team had sustained. He knew each of them personally and had the utmost respect for each and every one of them. It was a friendly taunt that Stan was not going to allow himself to be sucked into. General Thompson was a tough man but he was well aware that the team were tougher still and there was very little that could pose a serious obstacle to them.

“Just a few cuts and bruises, sir,” Stan replied flatly. “Far from broken.”

Thompson placed his hands on his hips and nodded to the men with approval. He was proud of the team and relied heavily on their skill and capabilities.

“Good to hear it. I’m well aware of the hardships you have faced and the losses you incurred, but I wouldn’t send you back out there if I didn’t
need
to, Stan.”

Thompson nodded to a figure standing close to the door and the lights were dimmed. On the wall behind him, a large map of the United Kingdom was illuminated and a number of symbols of various shapes and colours, denoting troops and assets, were overlaid onto it from a projector stationed above their heads. For the next two hours, they were informed of the general plan to reclaim the United Kingdom.

London was the main objective for Group-South, which included the forces stationed on the Isle of Wight, Guernsey, and Jersey. Liverpool was to be taken by Group-West operating from the Isle of Man and Glasgow was to be cleared and secured by Group-North who were occupying the islands off the west coast of Scotland, namely Jura and Islay. Both cities in the north had deep-water ports and could be used as jumping off points for further operations once they were cleared and secured.

There were other units already on the mainland within the numerous fortresses’ that had been built at the beginning of the outbreak. These strongholds would act as Forward Operating Bases for support, intelligence gathering, and further offensives once the primary objectives had been secured. Although many of the hastily erected outposts had been overwhelmed during the rapid spread of the plague, there were still enough of them dotted around the country to allow the creation of a network of safe enclaves to facilitate forward command and control, as well as resupply and reinforcement.

Stan and his men watched with interest as the ‘Prince of Darkness’ pointed to the various cities and then the supporting FOBs. In theory, the operation was pretty straightforward. Although there were multiple objectives and large numbers of troops to support, the primary goals were feasible.

The General then moved onto the next heading in the orders’ process and began describing the situation of enemy and friendly forces.

There was very little to tell in the way of the enemy. The cities were swarming with the dead and in London alone, their numbers were estimated to be upwards of three-million. Biologically nothing had changed in the make-up of the infected or the virus itself. They were still easily despatched in small groups but it was their numbers and instinctive inability to retreat that posed the biggest threat to the offensive. The scale of the opposing forces caused a few members of the team to raise an eyebrow or two.

“We mustn’t allow their numbers to be a deciding factor in this operation. Their size counts for nothing. They’re dumb and very predictable. We need to take advantage of their weaknesses and utilise bottle-necks and choke-points when selecting our battle ground,” Thompson stated before moving onto the next heading.