Rise of the Undead 1943 (3 page)

Margrave leads them deeper into the earth. The flickering
torches are less frequent, and the tunnel is becoming darker. Johnson spits a
mouthful of chew onto the floor, “Krauts could be lying for us anywhere.”

Matty notices something on the ground and bends over, “Hey Sarge,”
he holds up a German Luger.

Monte nods, “Any rounds left in it?”

Matty checks, “Couple.”

Pilch points to the wall, pockmarked from bullet hits,
“Look.”

Matty looks up from the Luger, “Geez.”

Pools of blood and empty shell casings litter the floor.

“Somebody’s last stand,” Monte comments.

Pilch runs his hand over the chipped rock from the bullet hits,
“Who were they fighting?”

Monte looks to Yusif, “Any of your men come down here?”

Yusif shakes his head.

Margrave stops at the edge of the torchlight. The darkness
stretches out before him. Harris comes up behind him, “Get moving, private.”

Margrave pulls out his flashlight and turns it on,
cautiously moving forward. He hears a growl from the darkness and freezes.

Harris stays close behind him, “Gimme some light.”

Margrave shines his light straight ahead to reveal that the
tunnel ends in a “T” intersection with passages leading off right and left, “Which
way?”

Harris taps his shoulder, “Right.”

A replacement solider steps forward and shoulders his rifle
to cover them.

Clint looks around the dark passageway nervously, “Hey
Oddball, got another smoke?”

“Yeah.” Hand quivering, Oddball passes a smoke back over his
shoulder.

Clint looks at Oddball’s hand, “Relax buddy,” but his voice
cracks as he says it.

Camir whispers something to Yusif.

Oddball snaps his head over to look at them, “What’d he say?”
he inquires worried.

Yusif draws his scimitar, “Something waits.”

Oddball looks ahead to Harris and Margrave, “Watch your ass,
Abilene.”

Margrave looks back to Oddball, gulps and slowly pokes his
head around the corner. His flashlight illuminates the eyes of Radcliff
standing only inches from him. Margrave opens his mouth to scream but is choked
off as Radcliff locks his hands around his throat.

Harris draws his pistol and reaches over Margrave’s shoulder
and shoots Radcliff in the chest. Radcliff looks up to him and smiles. Harris
fires again and again with no effect.

“Good bye,” Radcliff tells him.

Two German soldiers step from the shadows behind Harris with
knives in hand.

Monte swings up his rifle to fire, “Look out sir!”

Harris screams as the knives are buried in his back. He
falls onto the floor as the two Germans drive their knives into him again and
again. The American that had stepped forward to cover them fires, and one of
the Germans is blown down with a round hitting him in the chest. The American moves
his rifle over to fire as the other German calmly walks toward him, knife in
hand. The American fires but misses, the German is almost on top of him.

Yusif jumps forward with his scimitar. The German ducks
Yusif’s swipe and punches him in the gut.

Pilch lines up on the German, and with a sniper’s calm,
fires a single shot, hitting him in the head before he can strike Yusif. The
German falls back with an inhuman scream seeming to come from everywhere and a
dimly glowing ball of light moves from the German’s head up to vanish into the
ceiling. Pilch rubs his eyes, unsure of what he saw. The American up front
looks back to Pilch and smiles.

Monte looks back to Pilch, “Nice shot.”

The American upfront is blown down by gunfire that stitches
him from his legs and up into his body; he falls back a bloody mess as rounds
ricochet down the hallway. Pilch looks to see the German that went down first has
risen from the floor and taken the rifle Harris dropped. Bullets spray the
walls. Yusif dives as another American goes down with a cry. Pilch stands his
ground and carefully takes aim, even as rounds whine past him. He fires,
scoring a head shot. The German falls back; another inhuman scream echoes
through the hallway, and a glowing ball escapes his head to disappear in the
ceiling.

Pilch shakes his head, “You guys see that?”

Margrave struggles in Radcliff’s grip, desperately beating
on his arms with his fists.

“The new kid, save him!” Monte calls out.

Radcliff looks up to Monte and smiles as he crushes
Margrave’s esophagus with a sickening crack of bone. He lets go of Margrave and
the young Texan drops to his knees and turns back to look at the platoon,
gurgling for breath, eyes pleading. Radcliff snatches Margrave’s weapon and
kicks him face down onto the floor.

Yusif draws his scimitar and moves forward. Pilch lines up,
but Yusif blocks his shot.

“Out of the way!” Pilch screams.

Radcliff fires, and Yusif deflects the round using his
scimitar with a flash of sparks. Radcliff’s eyes go wide in amazement of the
timing, and before he can recover, Yusif runs his scimitar though his head. Radcliff’s
eyes roll up to see the blade in his forehead. Another inhuman scream echoes
through the hallway, and Yusif kicks the twitching body around the corner and
out of sight as a ball of energy emerges from Radcliff’s head.

Pilch lowers his rifle in disgust, “That was my kill!”

Yusif looks back, spins his scimitar and drops it back into
its sheath, “Not today.”

Lewis and Smith look over the beastly statues when a desert
wind blows into the room, causing the torches to flicker.

Smith glances to the entrance, “Pretty sinister if you ask
me.”

Lewis nods and touches some prayer beads around his neck. He
starts to say a prayer in a strange language.

“What the hell you on about now?” Smith asks.

Lewis finishes the prayer with a graceful flick of his wrist
and a bow. He looks up to Smith, “It’s an ancient Coptic prayer I learned from
a local. It should help.”

“Help?”

“Sure, got us through Kasserine, didn’t it?”

“Asshole, we lost most of the unit, might have been your
damn ‘ancient prayer” ya’ know?”

The wind picks up outside, howling and causing dust and sand
to blow into the room. Gunshots echo from the hallway, and both men look toward
the tunnel.

Smith looks down the hallway, “We should go help.”

Lewis shakes his head, “Sarge said to stay here.”

“You can stay and do some more chants,” Smith says and not waiting
for an answer, moves through the open door and down the tunnel.

Lewis looks around the room, his eyes landing on the statue.
He locks eyes with it and they seem to gleam in the torchlight. Lewis shakes
his head and follows after Smith leaving the room empty. As he passes the
threshold, there’s a metallic click from under the floor.

The group stands at the “T” intersection spread out with weapons
pointed into the darkness in both directions. The bodies of Harris, Margrave, and
the two other Americans have been wrapped in ponchos. The men are uneasy, on
edge. All eyes are on the bodies of the dead Germans and Radcliff. Oddball sits
with his head in his hands, rocking back and forth, “Sonofabitch sonofabitch
sonofabitch sonofabitch.”

Pilch lights up a smoke and sticks it in Oddball’s mouth, “Easy
buddy, it’s all over.”

Johnson kicks one of the Germans with his boot, “Why’d they
come at us like that?” he spits into the dirt.

“And what the fuck were those screams,” Clint asks.

Matty looks at Radcliff, “This guy ain’t even German; he’s
British.”

“Traitor?” Pilch asks.

“He probably just lost his fucking mind down here,” Oddball
says.

 “We should get the hell out of here,” Johnson says.

Oddball eyes Harris’ mutilated corpse, “Guess you’re in
command now, Sarge.”

Johnson laughs, “Yeah, right.”

“C’mon Sarge, whaddya say? Let’s get out of here,” Oddball
pleads.

Monte shakes his head, “In case you guys missed it, there’s
still a German unit down here somewhere.”

Oddball’s voice goes up several octaves, “But we just lost
four guys and…”

The men are startled by the sounds of boots echoing behind
them. They look up to see Lewis and Smith running down the hallway toward them.

“Sarge!” Smith calls, “The door leading out of here. It
ain’t there no more.”

“What?”

“It closed!” Lewis yells.

Pilch looks at Yusif, “God-damn-it, this rag-head led us
right into a German trap!”

As Monte steps toward Lewis and Smith, a thick rock door
slides down from above, Monte falls back narrowly missing being crushed. He
looks up to see they are cut off from Smith and Lewis.

“What the hell?” he says standing up.

Yusif bends down to inspect the door. It fits perfectly in a
groove, like the hallway was never there.

Oddball stands up, frantic, “We gotta get the hell out of
here!”

Monte looks at the door, “Who’s got those breaching charges?”

“Lewis,” Matty reports quietly.

The floor rumbles. Dirt falls from the ceiling. All eyes
look up. Metal on metal grinds beneath them. Monte leans down to the door to
listen to the growing rumble.

Yusif joins him, “It sounds like . . . water.”

Smith and Lewis stand on the other side of the door pushing
on the heavy stone block. They hear the rumble.

“I don’t like this. I really, really don’t,” Smith says looking
around scared.

Water starts filling the hallway, rising up from the floor.

“Holy shit!” Lewis cries out.

Smith starts to run for the other end of the hallway, “Come
on!”

Lewis follows splashing through the quickly rising water.

Yusif looks Monte in the eyes, worried. Monte leans close to
him a talks in a whispered voice so that the rest of the men can’t hear, “What
do you think?”

Yusif glances at the wall, “There is an aquifer in this
area.”

“Damn.”

“You have engineers?”

Monte nods, “Three days back.”

Yusif rubs his jaw thinking, “There may be another way out.”

Monte nods, “Yeah, let’s keep this quiet; I don’t want the
men to panic.”

Yusif nods in agreement.

“I got an idea,” Matty says pulling out two grenades as Monte
stands.

“Put ‘em away,” Monte orders him.

“We’ll blow it open,” Matty says hopefully.

Monte shakes his head, “No, we’ll have to find another way
out.”

Johnson steps forward, “No disrespect, ‘Sergeant’ . . . but
what the hell are you talking about?”

“Oh, man. That’s it. We’re gonna die,” Oddball says
panicked.

Pilch steps up to Monte, “Come on, Monte; we gotta blow the
door.”

“That’s Sergeant.”

Johnson spits on the floor, “Shit, you ain’t even got dirt
on those stripes.”

Monte snaps his head to look at Johnson, “You watch your fucking
mouth.”

“Or what?”

The Americans break into a shouting argument. Pilch and
Matty have to restrain Johnson to stop a fight.

Yusif steps between the men and Monte, “This is getting us
nowhere!” The men stop squabbling and look to Yusif, “The tunnel behind us is
flooding!”

Monte glares at Yusif who shrugs.

Johnson leans down to the door and listens, “He’s right.”

Pilch leans back against the wall, “Oh man.”

“What about Lewis and Smith?” Clint asks.

All eyes turn to the door.

Lewis and Smith make it to the outer temple door. Lewis
starts to beat on it with his fists.

“Get it open! Get it open!” Smith cries.

The water is now up to their waists.

“You have any grenades?” Smith asks.

Lewis takes off his pack, “Better, breaching charges.”

Smith nods as Lewis starts fumbling in his pack. From deep
under the water, a screech of metal reverberates.

Smith looks around nervous, “What was that?”

The water extinguishes the torches, and they’re in darkness.
Lewis flinches as something brushes against his leg.

“Something’s in here,” Lewis tells Smith turning on his
flashlight.

The water churns near Smith as he fumbles for his rifle. A
hand breaks the water behind him and grasps his head. He screams as he fights
to knock it off. Lewis watches in horror as Smith is jerked below and
disappears.

Johnson is face to face with Monte, “We can’t just leave ‘em
behind!”

“Just blow the door! We can swim for it!” Matty says.

Oddball nods enthusiastically, “Yeah, we can swim.”

“Everyone calm down!” Monte orders.

“Clinty, you can swim? Right? Pilch?” Oddball continues.

“Oddball, shut up,” Monte tells him.

“Johnson, you can swim?”

“Shut up! Who knows how much water is behind there? What if
it’s some kind of underground river? You want to drown us?”

Johnson shakes his head, “This ain’t no place for a
Christian man.”

Pilch looks around, “Hey, where’d the A-rabs go?”

Yusif and Camir have disappeared.

Matty indicates the right branch of the intersection, “They
didn’t go this way.”

Monte looks to him, “You sure?”

“I’m standing here, ain’t I?” Matty says defiantly.

All eyes turn to the left.

“Johnson, go check it out,” Monte orders.

“Hell with that.”

“Oddball, go with him.”

Oddball looks around scared, “But we don’t even . . . I mean
. . . Jesus, Sarge.”

“I’ll go,” Pilch volunteers.

“Yeah, he’ll go,” Oddball whines

Monte glares at him, “I gave you an order.”

“Come on Sarge, Pilch’ll go; he’s more reliable anyway.”

Pilch pulls out his flashlight and moves into the darkness.

Johnson watches Pilch walk away and sighs, “Best if I go
with ‘em,” and follows.

Monte turns to Matty, “Put those god-damn grenades away.”

The water is up to Lewis’ neck; he fumbles with his
flashlight and the breaching charge, takes a deep breath, and dives underwater.
He places the charge on the door, pulls the fuse, and comes back to the
surface. He shines his light down the tunnel, something moves.

“Bless me father for I have sinned,” he fires into the
darkness.

The fuse burns underwater, bubbles rising to the surface.

Lewis speaks in Arabic, “May peace and God go with you.”

He fires again. The water is almost to the top of the
tunnel, Lewis has to turn his head to breathe.

He starts a Hindu prayer chant. The water is inches from the
top. Lewis continues his chant, only to be silenced by the water covering his
mouth. He holds his breath and frantically looks around with his flashlight.
His eyes go wide with fear as two Germans swim up to him; he tries to draw his
knife, but they grab him, pushing him toward the breeching charge. He looks
back at it and struggles. They swim him down and push him onto the charge
holding him tightly in place.

Pilch and Johnson emerge from the dark corridor into a small
room. Crude cots line the walls. A metal grate sits in the middle of the floor.
A muffled explosion knocks dust from the ceiling and water splashes up from
beneath the grate. Yusif stands over a headless body of a German solider that’s
still twitching.

Johnson looks at the river of blood running from the corpse
and into the grate, “God almighty.”

Pilch turns on Yusif, “Hey. Someone tell you to go running
off on your own?”

Yusif ignores him, wiping his scimitar off on the corpse.

“You hear me?” Pilch demands.

Yusif puts his scimitar away, saying nothing.

Pilch takes a step toward him, “Hey, I’m talking to you.”

Yusif looks to him, “And I am ignoring you.”

They stare each other down.

Johnson tries to break it up, “No other doors or exits?”

“No,” Yusif answers, eyes still locked on Pilch.

“Then come on, we should get back,” Johnson tells them.

Pilch waits for Yusif and Johnson to pass and then falls in
behind them.

“Where the hell’s your friend?” Pilch asks.

A hand grips the metal bars from below as they leave.

Oddball looks at a life-sized drawing of an ancient warrior painted
on the wall. The chest cavity is opened up, and there’s no heart.

Matty walks up behind him, “That had to hurt.”

Oddball doesn’t hear him, his eyes slowly growing wider
looking at the split open chest of the victim in the picture. He can hear the
ripping of flesh and the wet pops as the chest is forced open. He shivers at
the sounds of the victims gurgling screams of agony.

Yusif, Pilch, and Johnson arrive back at the intersection.
Pilch shoves Oddball knocking him out of his trance, “What’s the matter with
you?”

Oddball looks to him, horror in his eyes. Pilch looks to
Matty and then to Oddball, unsure what is going on.

Monte turns on Yusif, “Where the hell did you run off to?”

Pilch turns from Oddball to Monte, “I asked the little pecker-head;
he wouldn’t say squat.”

“Well?”

Yusif locks eyes with Monte but says nothing.

“See what I mean, like he’s a fucking mute,” Pilch says
shaking his head.

Yusif takes in a deep breath and sighs, “I did not see any
point in standing around squabbling like school girls.”

Oddball looks to him, “Ohhh, I guess this kind of shit
happens to you everyday!”

“He chopped some Jerry’s head clean off, too,” Johnson says.

“Fucking savage,” Pilch mutters.

Monte sighs, “Just let somebody know next time.”

Yusif nods, “I believe the rest of the Germans are still
inside.”

“Well let ‘em stay here. I don’t care,” Oddball cries out.

Pilch nods in agreement, “Damn straight.”

“Pilch, shut your damn mouth!” Monte snaps.

Monte and Pilch glare at each other. Some of the other men
nod in agreement. Pilch walks away, eyeing Yusif.

“Where’s Camir?” Monte asks.

Yusif points to the tunnel that Matty said no one went down.

“How the hell?” Matty exclaims and turns to look into the
darkness.

“What we gonna do, Sarge?” Clint asks quietly.

“Anything down that way?” Monte asks.

Pilch shakes his head, “Dead end.”

“Then, we ain’t got much choice.”

“What? No! Why not stay here? The Army’ll come and get us,”
Oddball pleads.

Monte shakes his head.

“But Lewis and Smith, they’ll tell ‘em where we are,”
Oddball continues.

“We don’t even know if they’re alive,” Monte tells him.

Panicked, Oddball looks around the dark corridor, “But . . .
”

“No! We move,” Monte barks.

“I hate to say it, but Oddball has a point,” Johnson says coolly.

Monte puts his hand on the butt of his pistol and glares at
the men, “Anyone questioning my orders?”

No one speaks. Johnson spits on the floor while glaring at
him.

Yusif steps forward, “I will lead.”

Monte grabs his arm, stopping him, “I’d feel better with one
of my men doing it.”

Yusif shakes his grip loose, “Camir has already gone this
way. I will lead.”

“God-damn-it, I’m in charge here!” Monte shouts.

Yusif smiles, “Well, of course you are, Sergeant,” and bows
his head, letting Monte lead them into the tunnel.

Smith is under the grate, pushing hard to break it free his
face barely able to get out of the water for air, “Come on, you bastard.” He
works harder, struggling to get a good hold as blood runs from the headless
German corpse and onto his face, “Guys! Hey, guys!”