Taff and the others brought the vehicles in once Stan declared the building was clear. Both SUVs were parked close to the entrance, the keys in the ignitions, and ready to move at a moment’s notice. Before anything else the drivers needed to refuel and check them over for any damage sustained during the trip.
“Two hours,” Stan declared. “Get some scoff and doss, then we’re mobile again.”
It was virtually impossible for Mark to sleep. He had tried his best, but his brain refused to switch off. Hunkered down in a dark corner with a blanket draped over his legs, he checked his watch. The time seemed to have gone over far too quickly, and he saw that they would be headed back out onto the road again very soon. It was pointless now to make any further attempt at sleep, and he finally gave up on the idea. He climbed to his feet and checked his rifle before shaking the dust from the blanket and then rolling it up and tucking it away into his pack. The building was quiet except for the light crunch of footsteps as someone was treading across the piles of broken glass by the entrance.
He looked over towards the door and saw Bull pacing up and down while he carried out his turn on sentry duty. There was no one else around, and Mark began to feel confused. He was sure that he had not slept at all, but he began to doubt himself. If he had been awake the whole time he would have noticed the others move.
“Where’s everyone gone?” he called across to Bull.
“Stan’s still getting his melon down,” Bull replied and nodding towards the corner by the counter. Mark could not see their commander, but he could now hear the gentle snoring coming from that area. “Taff and Kyle are out back having a rummage, I think. Maybe even a gang-bang with a bus full of nurses.”
Mark turned and headed for the door leading out to the storage and staff area on the left of the counter. The door itself was missing, having been ripped from its hinges long ago. The walls, once painted magnolia, were now covered with grime and what he suspected was dried blood, and the floor showed similar stains. He passed by two more doorways as he headed towards the rear. Their rooms were dark, with more evidence of looting from the upturned furniture and shelving. He knew that it was pointless to take a look inside. The others would have already checked for anything left behind.
In the corridor there were more bodies, but it was hard to tell how many there actually were. He guessed that there were maybe two, possibly three of them. Now, they were nothing but a jumble of bones that had been savaged during a feeding frenzy and picked completely clean by the dead. He walked by them, carefully stepping over the remains in a sub-conscious attempt at avoiding disturbing them in their final resting place.
Outside the sky was still blanketed with thick cloud, but compared to the gloom inside the service station Mark found it intensely bright. Shielding his eyes, he looked around for any sign of Taff and Kyle. At the back of the building was a large open area with what appeared to be two warehouses roughly seventy metres away. It looked like the place had been used as a truck stop of sorts. A few heavy goods vehicles remained rotting away to the left, their cabs slumping towards the ground as their wheels corroded.
He heard someone cough close by. He turned and saw the two men standing just twenty metres away almost directly in front of him. He had not noticed them at first, and again he began to suspect that he had actually managed to sleep and was still in the process of waking up. Regardless, he did not feel as though he had. He was groggy, and before they moved off he would need to rejuvenate himself in some way. Kyle was the man he needed to see. The veteran always had a stash of decent coffee tucked away somewhere.
Mark walked towards them. They both seemed to be in deep conversation while smoking cigarettes and concentrated on something in front of them. As he drew nearer, he noticed that there was a large, but relatively shallow hole in the ground in front of them. Approximately sixty metres square, it was clear that it had been dug out for a specific purpose and was not due to the concrete or tarmac collapsing over time. Mark scratched his head as he peered down into the dip. There were strange objects inside, bright orange with black symbols, and filling the depression almost to the brim.
“What is it?” he asked.
Taff and Kyle turned to look at him. They had not noticed him arrive.
“Mass grave,” Kyle nodded towards the hole.
Mark turned to take a more concentrated look. He had seen the body bags with the bio-hazard stencilling, but he had not recognised them for what they were. Now, it seemed ludicrous that his mind had not registered the scene for what it was. The hundreds of orange bags contained the bodies of human beings. They had been slung into the grave without any kind of dignity, and on closer scrutiny, he was now able to see limbs and heads poking out from the torn material. On the far side, a pile of bodies had been partially cremated. The ground was black, and chard skeletons were clearly visible.
More of the orange body bags were lying dumped beside the trucks to the left and around the entrances to the warehouses on the far side, piled two metres high and left to rot. Something must have happened to prevent the grave from being filled and the corpses of the infected being completely incinerated. He doubted that he would need to find any evidence of what that ‘something’ could have been.
As the outbreak spread and order broke down, the dead multiplied rapidly. Nowhere was safe, and the mass grave areas were probably the worst place to be. The people tasked with the disposing of the dead would not have stayed around for long once a group of the infected showed up. Their task quickly becoming ineffective to prevent the spread, they had probably fled, and left the corpses to rot.
“I was sent to a similar place in the early days,” Kyle mumbled, deep in thought as he remembered past events.
“You mean you got stitched with working in one of the body disposal units?” Mark asked while still staring into the pit.
Kyle nodded. He took another drag on his cigarette and sputtered. He was not a real smoker, but seeing as there were very little vices left, and Taff always seemed to be rich in cigarettes, he sometimes indulged himself out of boredom.
“Yeah. It was just after the Prime Minister announced to the whole country that the dead were coming back to life. My unit got dicked to help out with burning the bodies. There were fucking thousands of them, and back then it still wasn’t clear what was happening. A lot of the stiffs still had their brains in one piece. Lots of good lads were getting bitten when the corpses reanimated and jumped out of their body bags. It was fucking madness.”
“Jesus. I can imagine,” Mark replied, picturing the chaos.
“It was then that I knew we weren’t going to make it. Humanity was doomed, and for whatever reason, there was a new order on the horizon.”
“That’s pretty prophetic,” Taff mumbled.
“Yeah, I suppose.”
They all fell quiet for a while, lost in their own thoughts as they stared at the piles of corpses in front of them. The grave had probably been the main dumping ground for the entire outlying area. The disposal teams would sweep through the towns and villages in an attempt to stop the spread of the infected and then bring the bodies to that spot for the cremation parties to destroy and bury.
“Jesus,” Mark grunted. “It must’ve been a right fuck up.”
“Yeah, it was. A complete and utter fuck up.”
Mark had never been involved with any of the body collection details. He had been an electrician’s apprentice and then drafted into the navy when the dead began to walk. For the most part, his experiences of the outbreak had mainly been centred round the evacuations. He personally witnessed very little of the infected during the initial outbreak, but he saw enough on the news reports and in the papers. He also saw the madness and complete anarchy in the towns and cities. Crowds of people, numbering in their hundreds of thousands, including himself and his parents, had flocked to the harbours in the hope of escaping the mainland. It was there that he had become separated from his family, and eventually, recruited into the armed forces.
“You got a spare one of those?” he asked, turning to Taff and nodding at the pack of cigarettes he held in his hand.
“You lot must think I’m some kind of charity,” Taff grumbled as he handed the cigarettes across to Mark. “Smoke ‘em up. We’ll be rolling out soon.”
“I wouldn’t mind some of your coffee, too, Kyle. That’s if you can spare some?”
“You’re a fucking tramp at times, do you know that? It’s like looking after a kid. Do you want some sweets, as well?” the veteran grinned.
They turned away from the grave and headed back to the main building. Stan was up and ready, waiting by the door for them.
“Get your shit together, then we’re moving,” he ordered. “Bull is getting the brews on, so make it quick.”
Within a short space of time, the men were once again loaded into the vehicles, pulling away from the service station and the mass grave that was filled with the remains of thousands of people.
11
Al pressed his fingers against his eyes and saw a multitude of bright mottled colours dance across his vision from behind his tightly closed lids. He shook his head, coughed, and then spat a thick wad of phlegm over the lip of the sandbags in front of him. Next, he arched his back and stretched his shoulders before contracting his limbs again as a shiver rippled along the length of his body. He had been awake for less than twenty minutes and still felt dazed, but the cold morning air was helping to wake him up. He had slept far longer than he had planned to, and going by the way he was feeling he could have slept through the entire day, but he would not allow himself any more rest. There was much to be done, and he could never allow the others to take up his slack.
“Why didn’t you wake me sooner?” he asked while trying his best to stifle a yawn.
“I needed you well rested,” Tina replied. “You’d be no good to any of us if you were collapsing from exhaustion.”
Al checked his watch. He had done the same thing a dozen times since crawling out from his bed, but it was still not registering properly. It was now mid-morning, and he began to feel anxious, as though they were wasting time unnecessarily.
“Yeah, but—”
“But nothing, Al. I suspect that there’s going to be some rough times ahead of us, and while there was the chance, I wanted you to catch up on some down time before the fun and games really begin.”
In the light of the day they were able to see more clearly the gravity of the situation that they now faced. It was almost like a feeling of deja vu for Al. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, he had been in a nearly identical situation with Tommy while trapped at the top of the multi-storey car-park.
“Here we go again,” he sighed.
The perimeter of the base was now a hundred metres thick with the infected. The outer, lower walls did nothing to hold them back, and acted as a mere obstacle that needed bypassing. The space between the two layers of T-walls was packed with the screaming corpses, and with the ammunition and fuel that they had remaining, it would be impossible to force them to retreat again. It seemed that every reanimated cadaver in the district had been attracted to the area around the base.
Their noise was relentless; the hum of their conjoined moans, the wails of excitement, and the steady drumbeat of their bodies against the walls and barriers, gnawed at the minds of the living. Their stink was almost as frightening as their sound. It permeated the base completely, crawling over the walls and filtering through even the smallest of cracks. Most of the guards had taken to wearing makeshift masks made from scented scraps of cloth to cover their mouths and noses.
“There’s so many of them,” Tina shuddered.
“Yeah,” Al nodded. “I’ve never seen so many of them in one place.”
“Me neither. Even in Colchester at the beginning, there wasn’t this many.”
“There’ll be even more of them soon, Tina.”
“Yeah, I know,” she replied thoughtfully.
She was looking down into the crowds of bobbing heads and outstretched arms. There was one in particular that caught her attention. It looked no different than any of the others. It was heavily decomposed and difficult to tell whether it was male or female. But it was staring straight back at her. Even as the bodies around it swarmed and pushed, tearing at one another, its eyes remained locked on hers.
“It’s sometimes hard to believe that these things were once human.”
“Don’t get sentimental on me, boss. They’re dead now, and that’s all there is to it.”
Al was amazed at their sheer numbers and wondered how the base could possibly hold out against them. In the early days they had barely managed, and back then they had been blessed with an abundance of ammunition, fuel, and troops. Now they were down to the bare minimum, and there seemed to be many more of the infected than there had ever been in the past, and more were arriving by the hour.
There was a loud splash to their right as a deluge of fluid was tipped over the side of the wall. They turned to see one of the militia holding a large bucket, bashing the lip against the concrete to dislodge some of the heavier material that remained inside. With a final shove and a heave, the man tipped the remainder of the latrine over the side. Dark sludge spilled from the container, spattering over the heads of the infected below who then proceeded to fight and tear at each other, biting into one another as they attempted to eat the human waste. The soldier began to laugh and hurl abuse at the thrashing bodies that were coated in excrement.
“Why do you insist on riling them up like that?” Tina asked.
“What else are we going to do with two days’ worth of shit and piss?” the soldier shrugged. “Fuck ‘em. What are they going to do? Get angry, and attack the base?”
Al and Tina turned away and walked a little further along the wall. The smell of the dead now mixed with human filth was nauseating beyond description.
“How’s everyone coping? Any dramas?”
“Anyone who isn’t on duty is still in the assembly areas. They’ll stay there for the foreseeable future. They’re calm at the moment but scared shitless,” Tina replied, keeping her eyes fixed on the ocean of walking corpses.
“I don’t blame them,” Al murmured. He too was scared. Anyone that was still clinging to their sanity would be harbouring a great deal of fear and uncertainty at that time. “What about the walls and the gates? They holding up to the pressure?”
“For now, yeah. Paul reported that there were concerns about the western gate a few hours ago. Lots of creaking, and the supports were showing signs of cracking. We reinforced it, and it seems to be holding up okay.”
“But for how long?” Al asked, rhetorically. “What about the militia?”
“Most of them are flapping like budgies,” she replied. She turned to him and gave him a faint smile. “Understandable, don’t you think?”
Al looked around him. There was very little movement happening within the base now. Everyone was at their posts, alert, and ready to move. He could sense the anticipation, and he had no doubt that if they were to suddenly order a full evacuation, it would take only seconds before the walls were totally empty.
He could see the piles of ammunition crates and stacks of spare, fully loaded magazines interspersed along the walkways and close to hand. It seemed that every bullet and weapon that they had was there. The militia troops themselves looked laden with bulging pouches and linked machinegun ammunition draped over their shoulders and chests. The scene reminded him of old film footage he had seen from the battle of Khe-Sanh during the Vietnam War when six-thousand US Marines held out against twenty-thousand NVA soldiers during a siege that lasted for months.
Al smiled fleetingly. He knew how comforting it felt to be heavily encumbered with ‘bombs and bullets’. The more they had on their person, the more confident and reassured they would feel. He raised his eyes and looked towards the towers. The machinegun crews were in position behind their menacing weapons with piles of boxed ammunition close by.
At that moment, Al actually felt proud. The men and women had stepped up to the mark regardless of what they had once been in their previous lives. They were scared and sometimes showed signs of being close to breaking point, but through hard and repetitive training coupled with strong leadership, the militia soldiers were ready to fight for the survival of the base and its people.
“At least they’re holding firm. Paul seems to have a good grip on them. What about the recce? When do you want to go down into the sewers?”
Tina turned. She suddenly looked sheepish and unwilling to look directly at him. She shuffled her feet awkwardly and then finally met his eyes. Al’s body stiffened, and his jaw muscles clenched. He knew exactly what she was about to say.
“You’ve already sent them out there, haven’t you?”
“Uh, yeah. I sent Greg and Flash with a couple of others.”
“Why?” he demanded in a growl. “I told you I needed to be with them for it.”
He felt hurt that she had left him out, but that was not his main concern. He knew the area, and he had already covered half of the route with Tommy during the previous day. The sewers were a warren with all kinds of hazards that could pose major problems for someone who did not know where they were going.
“You should’ve sent me on that task, Tina.”
“I know,” she admitted, shrugging her shoulders. “I know. But like I said, I needed you rested, and Greg is more than capable. You explained the route to us, and I sent him out to follow the sketch map that you and Tommy made.”
He grunted and shook his head and leaned against the sandbags. He was at risk of slipping into a sulk over the matter but quickly checked himself. Now was not the time to be acting like a jilted lover. After a few moments silence, he shrugged and stood up straight. There was no point in crying about it. It was done now, and Tina was right about Greg’s abilities. He just hoped that they did not get lost and made it back safely.
“When are they due back?”
“Soon,” Tina replied as she watched the brown and grey masses of decomposed faces. “Sebastian and one of his dogs went along, too. I told them that I wanted them back here by eleven regardless of whether or not they had found a viable exit point.”
“And if they don’t find an exit?”
“Then we’ll go again, and we’ll keep going until we find a way out. I just don’t want them searching around down there in the dark getting tired and making mistakes.”
“Then I’ll go on the next one.”
“Sure thing. I’ll go too. If they come back empty handed, Sebastian and Greg can keep an eye on things here while we head back out with Flash. He’s keen and young.”
“Have you thought anymore about where we can head to once we get out of here and through the tunnels?”
“I’m thinking westwards. There’s a few rural towns we could look at, but without vehicles we’ll have a hard job of it. We can’t stay in the open and on foot for too long. We’ll need to find somewhere fast. At least just to catch our breath.”
“Roger that,” Al said and turned away.
He would collect his gear and prepare for the coming task, but first he wanted to check on Tommy. The news of Lucy being bitten had hit his friend hard and he had refused to leave the quarantine cell where she was being held.
It was cold inside the complex as Al made his way towards the quarantine cells. He worried that the inevitable death of Lucy would leave his friend so grief stricken that he would become useless at a time when the men and women of the base needed him the most.
He stopped at the cell and looked in through the small window set into the door. Tommy was cradling his beloved Lucy as she lay in his arms shivering and sweating with the fever that was tearing its way through her body. Al could not hear what Tommy was whispering into her ear, but he could imagine the man would be telling her that he was there for her and promising that all was going to be okay. Neither of them would have believed what he was saying, but nevertheless, his words and his presence were no doubt a comfort to her.
Al considered going inside, but decided against it. He watched them for a while longer and looked on as Lucy went through a series of convulsions. Blood and bile dripped from her lips while Tommy clung on to her tightly and still speaking into her ear. After a minute or two, Lucy’s shaking and twitching settled while Tommy looked down at her helplessly.
Al could not watch any longer. He could feel Tommy’s pain radiating out from the room. He was about to leave, to begin preparing for the possible mission back into the sewers, when his friend looked up at him. His eyes were rimmed red and his cheeks were awash with tears. At that moment Al felt his stomach churn as he saw the heartbreak in his friend’s face. He felt helpless; unable to say or do anything that would be of use to Tommy. The man was about to lose the person he loved despite the fact that she had never loved him in return, and it was clearly tearing him to pieces.
He turned away and headed back along the corridor to wait for Flash and the others the return from their mission. Somewhere outside, shots began to ring out. Tina had given strict orders to hold fire, so he knew that there must be a good reason for someone suddenly opening up. He broke into a run.
Out in the open air he could hear people hollering, firing, and shouting orders. The commotion was coming from his left towards the west. He made his way there without bothering to look for Tina first. He knew that she would be making her own way to the scene. He reached the gate and instantly saw the problem. The barricade that had been thrown up to reinforce the weak point was moving. The steel gates were swaying at the top, and the pillars were cracking and coming away from their foundations.
“Shit,” he gasped as he ran up the steps.
At the top of the defences he saw Paul. He was screaming out commands to the men and women around him as they tried hard to mow down the corpses that were closest to the gate and attempting to create a buffer zone made from organic material. A lot of ammunition was being used up in the process, but there was no other option.
“Is there anything that we could throw down there?” Al shouted to Paul over the gunfire. “To keep them back from the gate?”
“Already tried that,” the man replied, leaning over the rim of the wall and looking down into the area in front of the entrance. “All we could do was throw a load of barbed wire down there and hope that it would be enough. So much for that idea.”