The Dead Walk The Earth (Book 4) (39 page)

“Yeah, but this guy is still in his uniform and sitting at his desk. Why would anyone stay here, all dressed up with nowhere to go? How did he die? Why didn’t he come back like all the others?”

Tommy suddenly realised what Al was getting at. He nodded, agreeing that it certainly was a little out of the ordinary. It was unclear how long he had been there, but judging by the pile of rubbish outside of his office, he had survived in there for at least a few months after the depot was emptied and closed up. He stepped forward and around towards the right of the desk, checking the area directly behind the corpse.

“That’s why he hasn’t come back,” Tommy grunted, shining his light over the back of the office chair.

Al stepped around and saw that a long, slender metal rod had been placed so that one end was wedged against the corner of the room and positioned so that it was incapable of slipping, while the other end disappeared into the back of the chair in line with the dead man’s head. Al looked at Tommy, his forehead wrinkling in a frown as his light travelled from one end of the rod to the other.

“What the fuck?”

“That’s dedication for you. To do that to himself must’ve took some real balls. He must’ve really loved this place,” Tommy shrugged.

Al picked up a book that was sitting on the desk in front of the body and wiped the dust away from the cover. It was a diary and long since out of date. Al flicked through and saw that the man’s name was emblazoned in large, thick letters across the first page.

“Nevil Cumberland,” Al read aloud. “The first entry looks as though it was written about the same time it all went to shit.”

Tommy leaned over and took a look at the diary as Al leafed through, sliding the pages across and noting that the entries appeared to be getting more jumbled and ranting as the days increased. It appeared that the man had kept a day by day journal of what was happening and how he was feeling.

“Poor bastard,” he sighed and then turned to look at the body. “His whole world came crashing down around him. This place was probably his entire life.”

“Aye, and it looks like he finally gave up about a year after it all started,” Al replied, reaching the last page containing Nevil’s scribblings. “Says here that he’s had enough, and there’s no hope left.”

“Hope of what? Someone coming to catch a bus?” Tommy sniggered. “Come on, let’s finish up and get back to the others.”

Al tucked the diary into his jacket with the intention of reading through it at a later date out of morbid curiosity. It was hard for him to imagine someone shutting themselves away from the world and other survivors, choosing to live alone and remain in the place that was most familiar to them. There was nowhere on the planet that held such strong sentimental value for Al. Even the base that had been his home for the last twelve years held no power over him. They had fled from the fortress, and he would never look back with even the remotest sense of longing for the place.

Possibly the only location in the world that could give him even the slightest sense of nostalgia was probably Aldershot, a garrison town in the south of England where he had been based for a large portion of his army career. He did not love the place, but he had many fond memories of the town and the time he had spent there. However, his emotional link with Aldershot was nowhere near strong enough to make him to want to die there.

He followed after Tommy and headed back towards the main garage. They found Charlie kneeling beside one of the long buses and shining his light into the engine compartment while the mechanic rummaged around, huffing and grunting as he carried out his checks.

“How’s it looking?” Al asked.

Charlie turned to him and shook his head.

“Not all that good to be honest. We’ve found one that they think just might work, but it’ll take some time before we’ll know for sure. It needs the tyres changing as well as the battery, bearings, filters, oil, brakes, fuel…the bloody lot. Even then, it still might not start.”

“Just one? But there’s two hundred of us.”

“Looks like it might be a little more cramped than we would prefer then,” Charlie smiled back at him. “Hey mate, I’ll be happy with anything as long as it rolls. We’ll tie people to the roof if we have to.”

A few minutes later, and Nobby confirmed that the other mechanic could not find another vehicle that he considered salvageable, but he had identified a number of buses that had parts that could be stripped and used.

“I’d better get out there and see if I can make comms with Stan. I hope he’s made it through,” Charlie said gravely. He then turned to Al and smiled. “Not to worry, big fellow. We’ll make it work, somehow.”

20

Stan was out in front, leading the survivors up the hill and towards the prominent observatory building that they had nominated as the location for the rendezvous with the advance group. It was getting colder by the second, and as they reached the high-ground the wind-chill increased, biting its way through their clothing. Above them the sky was now completely dark and devoid of any clouds. The stars were out in force, twinkling brightly against the impenetrable blackness of the vast galaxy that blanketed the heavens. In another time and place Stan would have been tempted to stop and admire the sight, but right now he needed to get his group into the relative safety of the rendezvous.

They had made it through the sewers without any major problems. The veteran’s gun group had led the way, blasting any straggling infected that crossed their path while Stan and Tina drove the others forward, refusing them any opportunity to rest. With the amount of injured that they were carrying they did not have the luxury of stealth, and the journey inevitably became a noisy affair. They thrust their way through the tunnels, screaming at the bark of the machineguns and the roar of the men and women who were relentless in their determination to keep the group moving.

It soon became a brutal affair. People were kicked, punched, and dragged as they collapsed with exhaustion and refused to move any further. On one occasion, Stan was ready to shoot a man through the head when he fell and was unable to continue. Paul saved him, seeing that the threat was not an idle one. After the incident, the civilians realised that the man leading them was as cold and ruthless as the dead themselves. However, their fear of Stan kept them mobile and forcing themselves forward through the darkness, terrified that they would become the victims of Stan’s lust for blood should they fall behind.

He reached the top of the hill and looked back. The men and women behind him were suffering from exhaustion, shock, and now the cold. They silently hobbled along in his wake, struggling to keep their legs moving as their bodies wanted nothing more than to collapse from beneath them. They groaned and whimpered with pain, nursing wounds that they had sustained during the journey but were unable to treat due to the rapid pace of the retreat. Now they were almost there, the hill sapping the last remnants of their energy as they struggled on after the monster who was leading them.

Taff was already there with his group and waiting for them. He began to move forward when he saw Stan reach the clearing from the track that was surrounded by woods.

“We’ve been trying to reach you on the radio,” he reported.

“We haven’t got one anymore,” Stan replied. “That Ron guy didn’t make it.”

Taff nodded and watched as Stan’s group continued to drag themselves up the hill. After only a few minutes, most of them were out of the woods and headed across to where Bull and the others waited. There were still a few stragglers climbing the slope, but Taff could see that the majority of the people from Stan’s group were now in the rendezvous. He looked at Stan quizzically and then back at the survivors, forming a rough estimate of their numbers in his mind.

“Where’s the rest?”

“That’s all of them,” Stan shrugged. “The bastards broke through the gates, and at least half of the folk were cut off from the tunnel.”

“How many?”

“Not done a full head count yet, but I’d guess we managed to save about sixty or seventy of them. We lost some in the tunnel when we blew it, too.”

“Shit, been a bit of a rough one then.”

“Yeah, you could say that. Get the guns pushed out on the perimeter and covering the likely approaches. Make sure that one of them is covering the road, and get me an accurate ammo state.”

“No worries,” Taff replied and then looked towards the survivors. They were a pathetic looking bunch. “What about this lot?”

Stan shrugged and turned to look at them as they collapsed into heaps around him.

“What about them? Just keep them quiet.”

Before the evacuation each and every person had been carrying their ‘bug-out’ bags containing some food, water, and warm clothing that would help to sustain them for a period of approximately twenty-four hours. However, it soon became apparent that during the chaos and panic many of the civilians had tossed their belongings away in fear of being slowed down by the weight. Now the survivors sat huddled together in the open air, shivering uncontrollably and suffering from thirst and hunger. There were a number of wounded amongst the group and with most of the medical supplies, including all of the staff from the clinic being left behind, there was very little that Tina and the rest of them could do to help.

“You’d better come and take a look at Greg,” Paul advised her. “He’s in shit state, and I don’t think he’ll last much longer.”

He was holding the lead attached to the one remaining dog, ‘Lucky’, the Border Collie. Since the loss of his master, he had instinctively kept himself close to Paul, adopting him as his new owner. Tina glanced down at him. The dog was evidently mourning the loss of Sebastian, and the sorrow and uncertainty in his eyes was clear to see. Tina placed a hand on his head and ruffled his fur in an attempt to comfort him. Lucky whined and licked at her fingertips, grateful for the moment of reassuring contact between them.

Greg was lying on the cold ground, shivering and sweating. Flash was kneeling beside him and ignoring the pain he felt from the wound in his side as he tended to his dying friend. The infection had spread through Greg’s body much quicker than it normally would have done. With the adrenaline and exertion helping to carry the virus along his bloodstream at a rapid rate, the effects had taken hold and deteriorated his condition prematurely. He was thrashing his head and groaning, becoming noticeably delirious as he babbled incoherently.

“There’s nothing we can do for him now,” Flash sighed as he looked up at Tina. “He’s completely gone.”

They stood and watched him for a moment, knowing what needed to be done but no one wanting to bear the responsibility of even suggesting it. The man was still alive, and although he was surely going to die, he was one of their own and killing him before his time, even out of mercy still felt like an abhorrent crime to them. Tina had a sudden flashback to the incident in the complex and saw the smoking barrel of Stan’s rifle and the deformed and bloodied face of Ben. It had been a mercy killing, and she understood that now, but nevertheless, it had been a horrific thing to witness, especially when she saw the cold look in Stan’s eyes. There was not a trace of remorse. She would not allow for Greg’s passing to be treated with such indifference. He was one of their own, and he deserved more than a bullet to the head and being discarded and left for the dead to devour.  

Greg suddenly reached up and forcefully gripped Flash by the arm and pulled him close. In that moment the dazed and confused appearance seemed to lift from his eyes. He became focussed and coherent again.

“Do it, mate,” he snarled through pain gritted teeth and staring at him with pleading eyes. “It hurts. It really fucking hurts. Don’t let me come back. Do it.”

His grip loosened and he dropped back down as the mist of delirium drifted over him once again and sent him back into his fever filled abyss. He twitched and groaned, mumbling something that none of them could understand.

They all turned to look at one another. Their grimy exhausted faces and red-rimmed eyes reflected the horror that they had all been through, and they knew that the horror was not yet over. One of their friends lay dying and begging them to end his life. It was a responsibility that they all feared, but each of them felt that they must burden. Flash moved to carry out Greg’s final wish, but Tina reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder. She shook her head, and he stepped back. He nodded solemnly.

Tina crouched down, and cradling Greg’s sweat soaked head in her left hand, she lifted him from the ground slightly. She leaned over him and kissed his forehead as she brought her knife around with her right hand.

“Sorry, old friend,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Greg’s body stiffened and his head snapped back, his eyes springing open and staring up at her as Tina thrust the long blade through his ear canal. He slumped in her arms again and became completely still and silent. She quickly returned the knife back to its sheath, refusing to look at the blade and the blood that dripped from it. She sat holding him for a while, rocking him gently as though she was sending him to sleep.

“We should bury him while we have the chance. We can’t leave him lying here like this,” Flash insisted.

Stan was standing by the two SUVs with his men, talking quietly while the civilians remained centralised and doing all they could to keep warm. Time and again someone from amongst the group would hiss and demand that a whimpering voice be silenced. Fear had a strong hold over the survivors. They were in the open and vulnerable, no longer having the walls and machineguns of the base to protect them. Many of the children within the group had never set foot outside of the FOB in their entire lives. Now, to be out in the open where the dead roamed and dominated the ground, was a terrifying reality that none of them had ever wanted to face.

“Anything from Charlie?”

“Nothing yet. We tried contacting him, but I think this radio may be fucked,” Taff grunted, rapping his knuckles against the VHF set that was sitting on the hood of his vehicle.

“What about the HF? Anyone spoken to Steve?”

“Yeah, we sent a sit-rep to the ship about half an hour before you turned up. Told him that we’re bugging out, and that he’s to put the kettle on,” Bull added.

“What do we do now then?” the veteran asked.

“We wait, as per the SOP,” Stan replied with a shrug. “If Charlie doesn’t make comms by first light then we start making our own way out on foot.”

“I doubt that there’ll be many of this lot left by then. They all jacked and threw their grab-bags away, didn’t they? Look at them, they’re already turning blue.”

Stan looked at the clusters of people that were sitting around on the freezing ground. They were a sorry sight, and it was clear that staying out in the open for too long would have catastrophic consequences on the ill-prepared and untrained civilians. Lighting a fire, no matter how small, was out of the question. In an otherwise dark landscape it would be a beacon for the dead to close in on. For now, they needed to sit tight and hope that Charlie managed to make it out of the city with the vehicles they needed.

“Fucking civvies,” Taff grumbled.

“How’s your shoulder?” Stan asked, nodding to Kyle.

“Hurts like a bastard. I think I took some shrapnel when the charges blew. I can feel it moving about in there.”

“Here, let’s have a look,” Bull coaxed.

Stan helped him to remove his assault vest and jacket, and exposing the wound in his shoulder. As Taff held up his light allowing Stan to get a better view of the damage, he instantly recognised the foreign body that was embedded into the veteran’s flesh. At first he thought that Kyle may have shattered his clavicle with fragments protruding from the ripped tissue, but then he quickly realised that the object was never a part of the man’s make up.

“That’s bone,” Stan grunted. “And it isn’t yours, mate.”

The veteran frowned and looked down at the wound. To his horror he saw that there was a shard of white bone sticking out from his skin. Most of it had been buried deep into the muscle and leaving only the tip visible, but it was undoubtedly a bone fragment, and he knew in his heart that did not belong to him.

“Fuck,” he hissed with terror and revulsion. “Get it out. Get it the fuck out of me.”

“Grab the med kit,” Stan snapped at Mark as he took a tight grip on the panicking Kyle. “Get me all the ethanol we have.”

In a matter of a few short seconds Taff and Bull had taken a strong grip on the veteran and wrestled him to the ground, pinning him in place while Stan drew his knife, thrust it into the wound, and wrenched the bone fragment from his flesh. Kyle kicked and growled, biting down on the piece of cloth that had been shoved between his teeth to prevent him from screaming out. The operation had been a complete surprise to him, and for a spilt-second he was not sure whether the blade of the knife was headed for his damaged shoulder or intended for his eye socket.

“Easy,” Stan ordered. “Keep him still.”

He reached in with the knife again and began sawing away at some of the tissue around the hole, wanting to be sure that he had removed all of the bone fragments and any potential infection.

The veteran let out muffled, gut-wrenching howl from beneath the gag. He could feel the sharp blade slicing through the muscle tissue, sending his mind reeling and spinning as the pain intensified. He writhed and thrashed against the hands that were holding him down, his consciousness threatening to slip from him as the pain receptors in his brain flashed repeatedly and went into overdrive.

Stan leaned back, sweating and breathing heavily from the sudden flurry of action. Kyle’s blood glistened on the shining blade of the SS dagger he held in his hand, dripping from the point like a warm, black liquid.

“I think that’s all of it,” he huffed.

Kyle settled while tinkering on the edge of reality as the white hot pain of the knife cutting through his flesh slowly abated. The rag fell from his mouth, and he sat there for a moment gasping loudly with his eyes shut tight.