Death Plague Omnibus [Four Zombie Novels] (15 page)

Chapter Fifteen

None of his training or experience could have saved him from her attack. One second the little girl was lying in the middle of the road; the next, she had leaped up and dived on the man. Instinct alone saved Colonel Marsham from having his face ripped off. He had managed to lift his arm up to protect his mask just before she flew into him.

The little bitch fastened her teeth on his forearm and bit down hard. He gritted his teeth, expecting to feel the agony any second. No pain came. Apparently the armored mesh that the pencil pushers had forced them to wear worked after all. The stuff had saved him from injury, and more importantly, from infection.

“Don’t just stare, for crying out loud,” he yelled at the three motionless men in front of him. “Get this thing off my arm!”

Marsham grabbed a handful of filthy blonde hair and savagely pulled. His attempt to dislodge the little girl resulted in him pulling her hair out by its roots. The girl hung on to his arm with the tenacity of a terrier.

A handler and two of his unit reached him. The soldiers each took an arm while the handler grabbed her ears. The three men tugged, but it only made the girl clamp down harder. Marsham clenched his teeth and attempted to push the sudden numbing pain away as the mesh pinched his skin. His vivid imagination calmly informed him that the girl’s teeth were about to tear through the armour as if it was made from pie crust.

“Let go of her!” he cried. How the hell could such a little thing hold so much power in her jaws? “Give me you knife, son,” he said to the thickly-set young man standing next to him.

Sergeant Rushworth took his grey eyes off the girl and hurriedly reached for his belt. The sergeant slapped the handle of a double-bladed eight-inch dagger into Marsham’s open palm. This lethal weapon was the man’s pride and joy; he kept both edges razor sharp.

“May the Lord forgive me for this heinous deed.”

He placed the tip into the little girl’s ear and rammed it in to the hilt. The little girl immediately released his arms and collapsed in an untidy heap at his feet.

Rushworth bent over and pulled his knife out of the dead girl’s ear. Even through the mask, Marsham could see the man’s tears rolling down his cheeks. Marsham had to turn away before he joined him. There’d be time for mourning later.

“I didn’t sign up for this bullshit,” muttered the sergeant.

Marsham sighed and gazed at the crumpled body at his feet. His squad had been involved in many assignments deemed too unsavory for any regular unit, but nothing compared to what his men had fought with so far tonight. At least this little girl was at peace now. Whatever malevolence had tainted her body was well and truly gone, leaving just a shell behind.

The words spat by Rushworth resonated through Marsham’s mind. The powers above must have known exactly what insanity lay before his men. Yet the fuckers chose to be deliberately vague regarding the possible scenarios that his team could encounter in this built-up area. The ambiguity stopped when it came to their core orders though. Marsham was to protect the civilian technicians at all costs and ‘put down’ any sign of hostile activity.

Well, they had certainly done that. This poor little girl wouldn’t be getting up again. He’d had to put her down like some kind of rabid animal. Jesus. Marsham swallowed down the hot bile as Rushworth wiped off the grey and scarlet-streaked mess from his blade before sliding it back into his sheath.

Marsham took a silent vow that his so-called superiors would find themselves in the company of his unit after they had finished cleaning up this fucking tragedy. His sergeant would need to sharpen his blade beforehand, as he’d need it.

“Sir, we have more hostiles at two o clock.”

He whipped his head up and followed Klinski’s coordinates. Marsham stared in shock at the interior of the shadowy garage. Oh, Lord, there were at least another dozen more little kids just like the dead girl crawling along the oil-stained concrete floor. He took an involuntary step back; the feeling that each one was stalking them wouldn’t leave him. Marsham didn’t think that any of the poor little blighters were over the age of nine.

“What do we do?”

Marsham ripped his eyes off the approaching kiddies and looked over at Klinski. The terror in the man’s eyes was palatable. He couldn’t do it. Marsham’s screaming conscience would not allow him to carry out his very specific orders. The colonel grabbed Klinski’s shoulders and pulled the man away from the garage door. The superiors could go screw themselves; nothing on this planet could make him shoot a bunch of kids.

“Look at them,” he murmured. The kiddies’ bodies stayed statue-still. The fourteen kiddies packed inside that garage now reminded Marsham of tiny showroom mannequins. Just like the girl by his feet, all traces of malevolence had disappeared. “Wait here, I’m going to shut that garage door.”

The handler frantically shook his head. “Are you fucking insane? Those things will rip you apart!”

He didn’t know who this guy was. The superiors had assigned this joker to his unit, and Marsham had no choice but to allow this civilian to tag along. Apparently the guy was called Jeff. Marsham could tell a false name from a mile away. “It’s isn’t your life on the line, buddy,” he snarled.

Marsham blocked out the guy’s whining voice and prepared to run over to the door. The garage looked old, which meant he’d have to physically pull the door down. The kiddies hadn’t moved a muscle, but Marsham remembered the little girl’s lightning-fast movements. He wouldn’t have much time to do this.

“Sir, be careful,” said Rushworth. He dropped to his knee and pushed his assault rifle into his shoulder. “If they do react, I will have to take them down.”

Marsham nodded. “Understood.”

He suddenly whipped his head around at the sound of Klinski’s muffled scream. The man had hit the pavement and curled up into a ball. Marsham glared at the handler who now held Klinski’s weapon in his hands.

“Yeah, ain’t you the big hard soldiers. Well, no amount of press ups can stop a kick in the bollocks.” He took a step back. “One blink, and I’ll ventilate the pair of you.” The handler turned to the garage.

“Don’t do this! Look, let me close the door. It’s me who’s taking the risk here. They’ll change back in a few hours, Jeff.”

The handler stifled a chuckle. “You poor, naïve bastard. Did you really fall for that line? Shit, man. No fucker is going to turn back. They are already dead, you bloody fool. It’s as simple as that.” He swung the weapon towards the garage and sprayed the interior with bullets.

“No!” Marsham cried. He saw the man’s finger ease and knew that he was next. Before he had time to react, the handler dropped to his knees and fell face down onto the pavement. Marsham looked over at Klinski who stood there holding a tranquilizer gun. They were supposed to be using that to grab a live specimen for the scientists back at the base.

“Are you alright?”

Klinski managed to nod. “Define alright,” he answered. “My wedding tackle’s still making its way down from my guts. Shit, I can’t believe that clown just dropped me.” He struggled to his feet and looked over at the garage. “Sorry, sir. I let you down.”

Marsham shook his head, “No, son. That regret belongs to me. I should have left this white-suited moron in the house.” Of the five kiddies that the handler had managed to take down, only one of them was on the floor. The other four got back on their feet, and despite the appalling injuries afflicted on them by Klinski’s assault rifle, resumed their original positions.

Rushworth walked over to the man and rolled him over onto his back. “There. With luck, the fucker will choke on his own vomit when he comes around. Sir, that stuff he said about this being permanent, do you think it’s true?”

Marsham shrugged. He did believe that. This fucker had no reason to lie. After all, once he’d finished slaughtering the kiddies, Marsham had no doubt that his unit would have joined them. As for those kiddies being dead, that piece of info was a little too hard to swallow. Marsham stooped and grabbed the handler’s shoulders and started to pull his body closer to the garage.

“Sir, those kiddies are starting to move.”

He ignored Rushworth’s warning, feeling the man in the white bio suit begin to stir.

Marsham looked up at the sound of both his men cocking their weapons. He heard the handler groan just before he caught sight of movement behind him. He dropped the body, ran back to his men, and spun around, watching in amazement as all the kiddies, including the shot ones, dove on the handler.

The screaming man disappeared under the pile of wriggling bodies. Before he turned away, Marsham saw that the blonde-haired boy at the top of that pile had taken hits to his chest. Those bullets had shredded the kid’s heart, and yet there he was, still trying to clamber his way through the squirming bodies. The dread that the handler hadn’t been lying about these kiddies being dead began to take root.

“Come on, I think it’s time to get some answers.”

Klinski looked in the window of a nearby car; he then lifted his rifle and knocked out the side window before reaching in and pulling out a grey blanket.

“If we live through this,” said Klinski, “I swear to God that I’ll make the people responsible pay for this.”

He placed the blanket over the little girl’s crumpled form and bowed his head. The other two joined him in a very short prayer. “When we get back to base, I need you two to stay outside in the garden. Don’t acknowledge anyone. We need more info before acting.” The more he thought about this fuck up, the less Marsham believed. Had even the little information given to him been bullshit?

At his insistence and refusal to do anything unless they told him something about the situation, his superiors had revealed a hint of what he would be facing. They told Marsham that a weapon had been developed that, when used on an enemy, would temporarily block all higher brain functions. In short, they’d just turn on each other. The beauty of this designer chemical was that all traces would disappear within a few short hours, leaving the dazed survivors looking in horror at the devastation they’d caused to everyone around them.

None of them had given him a good reason how this weapon had somehow ended up in the middle of a vast urban sprawl, only that the flight navigator must have made a miscalculation.

“Time to leave then,” Marsham said, turning around and hurrying towards the intersection that led to their base of operations. He took the tranquilizer gun from Klinski. “You men don’t have to stay with me.” He stopped and looked at the pair of them. “I’m technically deserting here. We all know the penalty for that particular crime.”

Rushworth sighed. “You know we won’t leave your side, sir. Not after what we’ve just seen.”

Klinski nodded. “Get the information, sir.”

Marsham took a deep breath and ran along the pavement, his men following him, keeping their ears tuned for any other signs of activity. They passed another unit on their way and exchanged brief nods, knowing that the next time they met an exchange of fire was most likely.

They reached their destination and stopped outside the gate. He waited for his men to take up position before continuing on in. Two white-suited technicians nodded to him as he passed them. Marsham couldn’t find the energy to return the greeting.

They had chosen this house due to its location. From here, the teams could easily reach any other area of this housing estate within minutes. Right now, though, all the action was occurring at the far end of the estate. Most of the unfortunate residents exposed to the weapon had clumped together into one huge swarm. Before he’d left to supposedly capture a specimen for the head scientist, the nerds behind the monitors had shown him the satellite imagery of the swarm. Back then, it hadn’t occurred to him to ask these know-it-alls why these poor people were behaving completely opposite to what he been told. These people were supposed to be tearing into each other, not acting like a swarm of locusts actively hunting down and consuming single victims who, it seemed, were immune to this weapon.

He wondered what these idiots would do if this swarm changed direction and started to head for this house. The white-suited geeks, all spouting indecipherable gobbledygook into their microphones, wouldn’t stand a chance. Marsham decided that he liked the idea of these fuckers dying at the hands of their creations; it was wonderfully ironic.

“I must say, Colonel, you’re back quickly. Is my new sample outside?”

Marsham gritted his teeth and tried to calm down as he spotted the head geek rushing over to him. This was one guy whom he’d enjoy to see screaming at the mercy of those kiddies. Dr. Marious, despite his diminutive stature and annoying mannerisms, had complete control over this project. Just like everyone else, Marsham had been taken in by the doctor’s eccentric attitude and his timid behavior. He should have known better. It was all an act. This fucker made Dr. Frankenstein look like Dr. Doolittle. All of this mess could be put squarely at his feet; he was the one who had created this vile weapon in the first place.

“Well, before I see what you’ve brought me, I need to show you this. This test has proven more spectacular than I could have ever imagined.”

The little man hurried off, obviously expecting Marsham to follow him. He sighed and left the cramped kitchen, knowing that if he needed answers, he’d have to stroke this man’s ego as well as play the dumb soldier.