Designated (Book 1): Designated Infected (22 page)

'Just go, I got this.'

A
harsh hacking phlegm filled cough tore at his body as he turned away
lifting his rifle to his shoulder.

'Sparrow!'

The soldier raised his hand tossing his dog tags to Crow
and flipped a lazy half salute. Then through a half swallowed wad of
phlegm and mucus, all but screamed at them.

'Go
!'

With that, the rest turned and ran, dragging their
unconscious team mate with them. Sparrow stood his ground, the pool
of blood at his feet a deep red, his feet shifting in the clotting
molasses of death carpeting the floor beneath him.

The blood flow slowed to a trickle as his body began to
fail him.

'Well, at least it ain't got to my brain yet; although,
I know my heart has all but stopped, I can't feel it beating, heh
weird.'

He began to laugh as he lowered his gun.

'Besides who the hell am I talking to.'

Ejecting the magazine he fed a new one in and carried
on. He aimed at the ever present wall of flesh, his sights settling
on another target as an Infected broke off from the mass and came
sprinting towards him.

Its arms were raised, fleshless fingers extended as its
mouth gapped open showing blood stained teeth. The creature got to
within three feet of Sparrow before he fired, his reflexes already
dulled to be beyond useless. Knowing he only had seconds left to
live, the creature wailed in his face as Sparrow pulled the trigger
emptying the magazine point blank into the creature's torso.

'Yeah, fuck you to, ass hole'

With his parting words floating down the tunnel, the
charges detonated sending three million tons of rubble crashing down
on top of them. As the ceiling fell he stared into the vacant eyes of
an Infected lucky enough to be clear of the initial collapse,
grinning Sparrow pointed upwards.

'Hey buddy.'

The Infected seemed to acknowledge the fleeting call.

'Heads up.'

With that the tunnel caved in completely entombing all
beneath it in a deluge of rock, gravel, sand, and mud.

Crow glanced back down the tunnel, the rumble of the
falling rock and mud rolling up behind them as a displaced cloud of
dirt and dust snapped at their heels like the dogs of hell.

A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he
watched the cloud began to thin out.

'Oorah Devil Dog.'

Sparrows' tags jangled slightly as they bounced on his
vest, their soft dance sending out a tinny rhythmic lullaby, Rook
smiled tightly as the whispered phrase met his ears.

'Oorah Sparrow, Oorah'

****

Titan all but lost his footing as the mine shook beneath
him, he sent a hand out to the wall steadying himself, and all but
knocking the man next to him unconscious as his arm crashed into the
side of the man’s head.

'What the fuck was that, felt like the whole place is
collapsing.'

Wolf sniffed the air tasting fresh dirt on the air.

'Tunnel collapse, about seven hundred yards ahead.'

Titan looked at his friend sceptically.

'How can you tell that?'

Wolf
shrugged. 'Dunno just can'

Titan shook his head muttering under his breath. 'Damned
weirdo.'

Wolf just smirked and trotted ahead, his rifle pulled
close into his shoulder. A strangled yell echoed from the tunnel
ahead followed by sporadic gunfire and several dull thuds, the rest
of the team broke into a dead sprint rounding the corner in a very
unprofessional tight bunch. Glancing around him Titan grimaced; a
simple fact staring him in the face, the fact that if it had been a
set-up all of them would be dead.

Turning he stared around the room, darkness and death
loomed hand in hand. The stench of copper tinged blood mingled with
the overwhelming aroma of faeces. Blood dripped from the ceiling
pattering like rain over the men as they stepped forwards, weapons
pulled tight to their shoulders.

Wolf stood, his uniform running alive with the flesh and
blood of the Infected, the dismembered bodies, a halo of flesh, set
before him like an offering to a Mayan god.

His
weapon lay buried, secreted beneath the pile of steaming entrails, a
hidden treasure beneath a cairn of the dead. Spent brass casings
shimmered amidst the blood like diamonds on red silk; their smoking,
tarnished forms littering the floor.

Wolf's blunt ended, heavy machete was clothed in a
mingled sheath of flesh and blood, it clung to the razor thin edge
like wallpaper over plaster. Gore and flesh flowed along the blade's
sides coalescing into lumps of thick glistening filth, falling in
gelatinous globules to the blood drenched floor.

His chest heaved as he sucked in breath after deep pain
soaked breath, his chest creaked like a dead tree as the ends of his
broken ribs ground against one another.

Spitting out a lump of flesh he grinned at Titan as he
motioned revealing the deep bloody gouges in his side, they swelled
and bulged as the corded muscle beneath shifted oozing thick streams
of semi-clotted blood like pustular sores.

A hacking cough racked his body as he vomited; blood and
mucus pouring from his nose and mouth. The stench of liquid faecal
matter rose up from the ground as the hot steaming fluids splattered
the swirling mire at his feet. Titan heaved as he looked at the ever
expanding pool of liquid excrement pouring from the saturated legs of
Wolf's uniform.

'Fuckers tried an ambush.' His teeth glimmered,
shimmering with blood the pieces of flesh caught between them showing
just whose it was. 'It didn't work.'

Wolf swayed on his feet slightly as he bent to pick up
his weapon, his hand missing the sling by scant millimetres as Wolf's
vision swam, the world twisting, tumbling in on itself as he fought
to stay on his feet; as he did the collar of his combat jacket opened
out. The back of his neck was nothing but a festering pit of teeth
rendered skin and bone, white flecks of his spinal cartilage rising
like glacial bergs amidst a sea of twisting muscle.

The eight men present visibly winced as the cartilage
shifted pushing against the torn flesh, making it dance over the
bulging plate's of cartilage.

'Wolf? Buddy?'

Wolf's blade flared upwards even before the man himself
had registered the question fully.

'What?' He backed away machete raised, his body
crouched, defensive; his manic gaze dancing from soldier to soldier
as Titan slowly began to edge closer. Wolf's boots sent ripples
through the mire as he stepped through the swirling mass of his
bodies own evacuated content.

'Bud you're hurt, you need to settle down and let us
deal with it.'

The man was wild-eyed, his mind fraying second by second
like an over taxed rope, the strands of Wolf's mind peeled away one
by one spinning into a fathomless pit. The soft flicker of a torch
beam bounced across the tunnel mouth behind Wolf, its bodiless glow
shifting over the rough-hewn stone. As quickly as it came, it stopped
and went out like a flame snuffed between finger and thumb.

Wolf began swiping the machete from side to side, the
blackened blade swinging in long streaming arcs through the cloying
air. He swung in any direction he could, his shattered mind allowing
no one to get closer than the reach of the blade, as he searched;
desperate for freedom from his own mental prison.

Rook slowly leant out the tunnel mouth his eyes
alighting on Titan, the giant English man slowly raised his hand to
his collar; Wolf tensed at the sudden motion, he watched with a feral
interest as Titans middle and index fingers hooked round his throat
mike, the gargantuan soldier making a small show of relieving an itch
under it.

Nodding Rook lifted his hands, the black gloved digits
dancing over one another as he signed out his query.

'He Infected?'

Titan made a show of working a kink out of his neck as
he slowly nodded; the Americans fingers danced once more as he
replied in kind.

'Roger that. He coming quietly, it don't look like it.'

Titan slowly lowered his hands to chest height his right
balling into a loose fist, as he let his other sit open in the air
with his fingers closed and palm down, Wolf’s eyes took on a
quizzical stance as he watched Titan mime using a snooker cue.

Titan grimaced inwardly as he watched Wolf's features
contort in puzzlement; it was only alleviated by the fact he knew
full well that Wolf wasn't versed in basic sign language, and as much
as it hurt, he took full advantage of it.

Rook's jaw clenched as the answer became all to clear,
stifling a curse he let his hands talk once more. 'Fuck it all to
hell, didn't think he was going to be playing nice. Need him
decommissioned, say the word and I will. I don't want to, but it's
better than him being a toy for the boys in yellow.'

Titan unintentionally quickened his pace, losing focus
for no more than a second as he watched Rook over Wolf's shoulder.
Wolf's already virally frayed nerves snapped at the sudden burst of
speed and began to wildly swing the blade, narrowly missing Titan's
throat.

Rook's patience died in that instant, grinding his teeth
he mumbled to himself as he snatched his pistol from its holster on
his thigh. 'Fuck it, I'm doing it any way. Not losing any more men
than we have to down this shit hole.' He rounded the corner his
side-arm raised, the fibre optic sights settling squarely on the
centre of Wolfs head, as it loomed large in his vision.

Rook fired three quick precise almost surgical shots,
watching as they impacted into the back of Wolf's head. The soft
nosed rounds caved the back of his skull completely, dragging the
shattered remains of Wolf's cranium with them as they surged forth.
Titan's chest was spattered with a mix of brain and bone as one
bullet passed through Wolf's right eye the others settling in his
nasal cavity.

The man's body dropped like a bag of stones as he folded
limp to the floor, the blade in his hand falling from his grip,
clattering to the floor with a hollow metallic clunk.

Titan stood, as he watched the red ooze roll away from
Wolf's lifeless form, the sucking muck licking at the toes of his
boots as it swelled, ripples crashing over themselves as they drifted
away to nothing. Titan said nothing as he watched Rook kneel beside
the body of his friend and gently lift the tags from around his neck.

The round, embossed discs clinked off his carbon fibre
knuckled gloves as Rook held them out.

'I did it to save you the weight of the pain my friend.
Sounds cheesy but it is better if someone he didn't know ended the
issue rather than one of you. I can bear the weight easier than you
can.'

Titan nodded. 'I know.'

Reaching out a spade-sized hand, he ensnared the small
metal disks and slipped them into a pouch on his hip.

Dictator came storming through the passage seconds
later, skidding to a halt his boots aqua planing on the blood and
bodily fluids that coated the floor. A sad, pained look haunted
Titan's eyes as he stared at his unit chief.

'Finally snapped didn't he?' The giant man simply nodded
in response. 'Thought he might, who did it?'

Rook stepped forwards as he held up his hand. 'Me.'

Dictator nodded. 'Thanks.'

Rook's world cartwheeled past his vision as he suddenly
found himself flat on his back, shaking his head he looked up as
Dictator stood over him shaking the ache from his knuckles.

'No offence bud, but it needed to be done.'

Rook clambered to his feet, Raven helping him as he
rubbed his aching jaw. 'None taken.' Dictator smirked as he glanced
at the men behind Rook. 'One short, I'm guessing it's Sparrow'

Rook nodded. 'Sorry' The words sounded flat and
meaningless as they hung in the air between the two team commanders,
Rook nodded again, anything said at that point would have been a
waste of breath; turning away he shut down the conversation and
stepped away towards his men.

'Nothing to be done, same as yours got bit, end of.'

A soft, derisive snort left the Glaswegian as he turned
raising his weapon in the direction he had just come, the sound of
harsh shuffling and deep guttural moaning filling the room.

'Incoming' His words held a soft singsong quality as he
pulled the gun tight to his shoulder, the noise of shuffling feet
intensifying by the second.

The seventeen remaining men of S.A.U. Templar and the
four remaining Americans spun to face the emerging threat. The moans
and shuffling reached a crescendo that rang in through the tunnel
like bells from a church tower, enveloping the men, oppressing their
very soul to the point of breaking as they struggled to hold their
position.

Dictator and Titan stood, their bodies stalwart and
unmoving in the face of the enemy even as they struggled with the
fear they were desperately containing. They watched as hands,
scabrous and bloodied emerged from the darkness clutching and
grasping at the gnarled stone work as they dragged their slashed and
ripped forms from the darkness.