The Dead Walk The Earth (Book 3) (15 page)

“Go tell the others, Rich,” Taff ordered. “Something must be up.”

10

A crackling howl filled the air as another mortar round came screeching in. It landed with a heavy and thundering crunch, causing the ground to quiver. Clods of mud and fragments of metal flung up by the explosion rained down upon the people sheltering behind the walls of the base. The debris landed with resounding clangs and thumps as it crashed into the walls and buildings within the perimeter.

Crouching beside one of the tanks, Al cringed, gritting his teeth and covering his head with his hands. For hours it had been quiet with no further assaults on the Forward Operating Base. For a while, the people inside had dared to consider that their attackers had given up and withdrawn. Now, that was clearly not the case. With renewed vigour, the enemy had begun suppressing the positions around the perimeter, pinning the occupants, and giving them no chance to return fire. Now they were dropping in mortars.

Al had never wanted to be their leader, but when their previous company commander had left, taking the majority of his men with him and with no one else to lead them, Al had found himself forced to step up. Before the outbreak, he had been a corporal in the army, commanding a fighting section of eight men, and he had been happy with his lot. He enjoyed being a soldier and had no real desire to climb higher up the ladder. Since becoming the commander by default, the responsibility had weighed heavy upon his shoulders. Every man, woman, and child within the walls turned to him to keep them alive.

Another loud thump caused the walls to judder. Al looked out and saw the men and women around the walls doing the same thing that he was, shrinking and curling themselves into the smallest target that they could.

“They’re not very accurate with those rounds, are they?” a familiar voice called out to him from his left.

Al turned and saw Harry racing towards him, bent double as he moved from cover and sprinted across the open ground. He came to a skidding halt when he reached the protection of the tank and dropped down beside Al, panting and grunting with the effort.

“They’re flinging them all over the fucking place out there.”

“They’re not trying to be accurate,” Al replied loudly, as the sound of yet another detonation faded. Again, he tucked his head into his shoulders and awaited the inevitable fall-out of debris to come crashing down around them. “They’re showing off. Letting us know what they have and are willing to use against us.”

Harry looked at him with a quizzical expression as a series of thumps and bangs echoed throughout the perimeter as shrapnel and clods of earth slammed into the base.

“They don’t want to drop them inside the walls. If they do that, they’ll trash the place. They just want to let us know that they have the capability and will use them if they have to. On top of that, it scares the shit out of the civvies. Physiological warfare, mate.”

“I don’t understand it,” Harry grumbled.

“What?”

“This place is big enough to hold more than two-thousand people. We’re well stocked and supplied, so why didn’t they just come and ask? There’s no need for all this hostility, especially when the dead are walking about and trying to kill us, too.”

“Maybe they have more than two-thousand troops and didn’t want the extra mouths to feed? Doesn’t really matter, anyway. They obviously don’t like sharing.”

Another shock rattled the base. The mortar rounds were getting closer to the walls as the enemy barrage crept closer in an attempt to demoralise those inside.

“Cunts.”

“They’ll need to wrap this up soon,” Al shouted over a volley of fire that rang out from above their heads as a machinegun opened up from the wall. “They can’t afford to take their time on this, and they’ll want to have the base under their control before the day is out.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because the longer they stay out there in the open, the more of those pus-bags will show up, and they can’t afford to defend and attack at the same time. They’ve done their probes and have a good idea of our defences, strengths, weaponry, and capabilities. Right now, they’ll be going through their final orders and prepping for an all-out assault.”

“We could just dig in and slot them as they attack. We managed to hold them off this morning,” Harry continued with confidence.

“Like I said, this morning was just a probe,” Al barked, shaking his head. “Their forces weren’t fully committed. If they attack and we hold them off, they’ll use their mortar and MILAN out of desperation and blast us to pieces. We wouldn’t stand a chance, mate.”

Tina appeared out from one of the doors leading into the inner complex. She immediately caught sight of Harry and Al and ran across to join them as more automatic fire broke out from various points around the wall. She looked shaken.

“What’s the doc said?” Al asked, wanting an update on Tommy’s condition.

“He’s going to be okay. They’ve patched him up and he’s now sitting there, grinning like a lunatic with a cocktail of pain-killers running through his veins. He’s smacked off his tits and hasn’t a clue what’s going on around him.”

“Sounds like he’s the lucky one.”

Up on the wall, the defenders were pinned down. No one could raise their heads above the parapet without the risk of being shot by enemy snipers. They had learned that lesson the hard way, losing four of their number in quick succession. As a result, it was hard to tell what was happening from their restricted viewpoint, but one thing that they could clearly see from the few observation holes along the walls were the clusters of walking corpses that were steadily filling the open ground around the base.

They stumbled through the mire, tripping over obstacles, and dragging themselves back to their feet as they continued their mindless meanderings. The noise of the gunfire and explosions had attracted them from far and wide, and it was clear that there would be many more of them on their way. Just the sight of a handful of them was enough to drive some of the defenders into a panic, jumping up from their positions, and racing for the ladders leading down into the compound. They did not make it far. Enemy snipers, seeing their heads appear over the protection of the reinforced concrete, made it devastatingly clear that the base was under close observation from a highly trained and determined force.

Down at ground level, in a space set aside in front of the northern gate, the bodies of the fallen were beginning to pile up. Since the siege had begun, the number of corpses being added to the heap had steadily increased. They lay there, covered with whatever blankets and sheets the men and women could find in order to afford the dead a degree of dignity and to save themselves from having to look upon the bodies of their fallen comrades.

Al, Tina, and Harry moved up on to the wall and hunkered down on the walkway directly above the northern gate. They were trying to get a better idea of the enemy’s intentions, but it was difficult due to the threat from enemy snipers. A volley of distant fire erupted from the east. It was clear that the shooting was not directed at the base and seemed to be aimed at another enemy. Al cocked his head and turned to Tina.

“Sounds like they’re already having problems with the infected,” she concluded, reading his thoughts. “They’ll be wanting to get inside and out of the open.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be hanging around out there for longer than I needed to be. They’ll throw everything they have at us soon.”

“What do we do then?” Tina asked, kneeling on the grated steel walkway and using her rifle to prop herself up. “We can’t just sit here and wait it out, so what do we do?”

An upper portion of the western wall suddenly exploded with a deafening bang as it was hit by an anti-tank rocket. A number of men and women were sent hurtling through the air as the blast disintegrated the concrete and steel that they had been hiding behind. Everyone lunged into cover as the debris was flung out in all directions. Three more of their people had been killed in the blink of an eye, and a large gap had been created in their defences.

“Medic,”
an agonised voice was screaming from somewhere beneath the damaged portion of wall.
“Medic.”

“Fuck this,” Al snorted.

He jumped to his feet and sprinted off along the walkway, his feet clanging loudly over the steel grates while his large body moved at a pace that defied his size. At top speed, he headed towards one of the observation points that the snipers had burrowed through the concrete at the southern end of the perimeter. People looked up in surprise as he charged by them, wondering what was going on and calling out after him. Al had no time to stop and speak to them. He needed to take action.

“What are we doing, Al?” Harry panted as he chased after him, hurdling over equipment and people. “Where are we going?”

“Taking the initiative back from these bastards,” Al growled.

He was brimming with rage and frustration. Sitting there waiting to be attacked and slowly being picked off, one by one, was in stark contrast to his character. Finally, he reached the southern wall and dropped down beside one of the snipers that was stationed there. He knelt down and peered out towards the south through the narrow hole.

“Right now,” he said, gasping for breath as Harry and Tina caught up and fell into a heap beside him, “they hold all the cards and are assuming that we will go firm and defend. I say we go onto the offensive. They won’t be expecting it.”

“That’ll be suicide,” Harry exclaimed. “How the fuck do you expect us to launch a counter-attack when they outnumber and outgun us? On top of that, anyone poking their nose out from behind hard cover gets it shot off.”

“Look, they clearly want the base, and they’ll take it by any means. They’ll want to keep it intact, but if they have no other choice, they’ll use whatever they have to in order to root us out. If they attack and we throw them back, they’ll send in their mortars against us. We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Al looked from Tina to Harry as they processed what he was telling them. Their expressions, although reluctant, informed him that they agreed with his reasoning. Although it was more appealing to hide behind their walls, both of them quickly realised that they did not really have that as an option.

“Get Grandad up here,” Al ordered, referring to the base’s radio operator, Ron. “Tell him to move his arse.”

As they waited, Al pulled out a large piece of paper from inside his jacket. He unfolded it and spread it out over the floor. Tina looked down and recognised it as a detailed schematic of the base and the surrounding area. Next, he pulled out an ordinance survey map and placed it over the grated walkway beside the schematic. He said nothing, nodding and grunting to himself as he studied them.

“What you thinking?” Tina asked.

“There,” he said after a while, pointing to an area on the map that was south of the base. “Ron said he’s been picking up some encrypted transmissions. We can’t tell what they’re saying, but we may get a rough idea of their direction.”

“Then what?”

Before Al could answer, Harry and Ron arrived and huddled down beside them. Both of them were out of breath and sweating heavily. It had been a while since either of them had carried out any real exercise.

“We have a rough idea of their dispositions immediately to our front, but not what’s beyond,” Al began, indicating the various points upon the map and the sketch. “It’s obvious that they’ve approached from the south because the north and east are built-up areas, and they couldn’t have moved through there without getting overwhelmed by the infected. To our south and west is rural, mostly farmland and open countryside.”

Ron leaned in and opened up his note book, reading the information that he had been jotting down throughout the morning.

“From what I can tell, they’re somewhere to the south-west of us. I can’t give you a range, but I’m pretty sure that the bearing is right,” Ron informed them, confirming that Al’s guesswork had a degree of accuracy to it.

“I take it that that’s where you think their command post is?” Tina asked, grasping what Al was getting at.

“You’re talking about cutting the head off the snake, aren’t you?” Ron added with enthusiasm and a glint in his eye.

“Yup,” Al replied with a wink, impressed that they were on the same wavelength. “And I bet that their mortars aren’t far away from the command post, either. Eighty-one millimetre mortars have an effective range of up to six kilometres, but they won’t place themselves at the full extremity. They’ll want to be close enough to get in here and into safety once the base falls.”

“So we need to take out their mortars before they use them,” Tina concluded, hoping that she was following where Al was leading them.

“Exactly. We’ll twat their command element, too. Cripple them from the neck down.”

“How do you know they’ll both be close to one another?” Harry asked.

“Think about it, mate. With those things out there running about and with no other military forces to worry about other than us, they’re probably not being all that tactical in their rear. It’s not something
I’d
consider. They won’t want to spread themselves too thinly because they’ll need a tight perimeter to defend against the infected. I’d imagine that the command element is co-located with the support groups. Plus, I get the feeling that their commander wouldn’t want his mortars getting carried away and blowing the shit out of his new house. You know what blokes are like in the mortar platoons; they do everything to the extreme. Makes sense to me, at least.”