Designated (Book 1): Designated Infected (26 page)

Davies' vision began to swim and blur, the blood
pounding 'round his skull as more and more of it forced itself into
his cranium, flooding his sinuses and brain. Darkness swam at the
edges of his vision as he stared downwards into the face of imminent
death. The room exploded in a flash of bright white light, his ears
rang as the heavy pressure and high pitched screaming blast of the
flash bang rolled over him. The creatures bellow bellowed in rage and
what seemed to be pain as the concussive explosive device went off
amongst them. Jones and the rest of the secondary team rolled through
the door, silenced rifle fire reverberating through the room like the
stuttering of an aged lawn mower as darkness edged ever closer in his
vision.

As the smoke dissipated, Davies stared down through
bleary eyed semi-consciousness into the concerned gaze of his second
in command and the rest of his team.

'Need a hand boss man?'

Davies' face was flushed, almost glowing from the blood
rushing to his head. He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came
out was a strangled gargled slur as unconsciousness fought him for
dominance.

'Jones, that you mate?'

Hamilton called out as he strained to hold onto
Clarkenwell and the now rapidly fraying para-cord line.

'Yeah, it's me. We missed a room on our swing through
this floor, good thing we doubled back too.'

Hamilton’s anger peaked as he struggled to
maintain his grip.

'Shut the fuck up and listen, I am going to let go of
the boss and Clarkenwell, be ready to catch em.'

'Right'o buddy, send 'em down.'

Hamilton released his hold on the two men and watched as
they slid away from him and over the edge of the hole. Davies' eyes
snapped open as he rocketed to the floor, the up rushing concrete
below filled him with fear as he plummeted head first towards it.

'Fuck me!'

Closing his eyes at the last second, Davies felt himself
impact a yielding soft mass, glancing down he came face to stomach
with the groaning form of his second in command.

'Sorry Chris.'

A shaky thumbs up came into his field of view. 'No
problem.' He wheezed out. 'But would you mind next time not landing
on my balls.'

Davies scrambled off, Jones wincing and groaning as
Davies' knee slammed into his groin several times in the process.

'Shit, sorry mate.'

Staggering to his feet, Jones shoved a hand out patting
the air.

'Shut up, just shut up.'

The others set Clarkenwell down on his feet, as they
surveyed the room around them. The corpses of seventeen Infected lay
abound; their skulls split wide open like overripe watermelons.

'Hamilton.'

The man's head popped up over the edge of the hole as
Davies called up to him. 'Yeah chief, what's up? Well me obviously
but what ya want?' Groaning to himself, Davies Gritted his teeth.

'Shut the hell up and listen, ya idiot.'

A cautious silence enveloped the pair as Hamilton
weighed up the pro's and con's of responding. Staring down into the
room Hamilton's eyes widened slightly as he looked upon the carnage.
The settee in the centre of the room was stained a deep burgundy as
the blood and gore soaked through the heavy fabric. The body of the
poor soul who had played dinner to a quartet of the dead was in
tatters.

Flesh and torn skin hung from the bones in limp ragged
strips stirring slightly on the soft breeze moving up from the open
stairway door down the corridor, fluttering like curtains on a summer
wind. The ribcage lay splayed open, ripped from the cartilage; ragged
lumps of flesh hung from the gore encrusted slabs of sinew and bone
as the tattered remains of the man's lungs glistened in the light of
the window.

The clotting pools of blood shimmered like stagnant
water, shining like ruby mirrors; sending Hamilton's reflection back
up at him from amidst the half-chewed lungs and butchered heart.

The man's pale, milk coloured eyes stared up from his
slack face, pleading for the pain to end. His broken neck, stretched
like overtaxed rubber, left his head swinging from the twisted sinew
like a string-less marionette, lolling with a soft sickening grind
that seemed to reverberate louder and louder the more Hamilton
stared.

As he once more locked eyes with the dead man the
shattered and dislocated jaw flopped open in a silent scream making
Hamilton flinch with a cold lance of fear as Jones moved past the arm
of the sofa, staring at the vacant gaze, he could have sworn for a
second that the dead, milk coloured eyes were pleading with him,
shaking his head he turned his attention back to Davies, whose voice
was swimming into focus once more.

Hamilton stood, keeping his gaze locked with Davies, he
nodded as a soft shuffling echoed behind him. Hamilton stepped
backwards out of view of the hole, his brow furrowing as a mumbled
thought slithered from his lips.

'What the fuck was that?'

Turning he slowly teased the door open, the handle
gripped tightly in his hand as he pulled it open a scant few
millimetres at a time. His eyes widening further than he ever thought
they could, he let his gaze rest on what lay beyond the now ajar
door.

He snapped his rifle up as he hurriedly stepped
backwards, an out stretched arm shooting towards his head as he
kicked the door closed. Stumbling, his arms flailed, as he fought
against his now, off kilter backwards momentum; he felt the coils of
para cord as his feet became entangled in its vine-like lengths. With
the sudden seizure of his feet he pitched backwards, his rifle
stuttering a staccato burst into the plaster-coated concrete above
him. His arms whirled as he grasped at anything in reach as he fell.
His gaze lingered for only a second more as he watched the door
bounce off the curled, callous covered fingers of an Infected as it
levered their aged and decrepit form through the slowly widening gap.

Everyone froze as Hamilton’s cry of shock echoed
around the enclosed room followed by his fear-pinched form landing
harshly amongst them as he screamed.

'
Contact,
contact
.'

27

A cold chill ran down Baker's spine as he strolled
through the barracks, staring at the beds of the eighteen men under
his command, images dancing through his mind of those gone before.
Shaking his head, he vainly tried to pry lose the image of Wolf's
piercing ice blue eyes; he wanted to be rid of the image of them
staring relentlessly out from behind the ballistics mask he had worn.
Their accusing gaze screaming at him, that he was responsible for
their deaths, their blue countenance begging him to make it right,
taunting him relentlessly from the recesses of his mind.

For all he knew, and all he had done, he could not let
go of those final furtive images, images of the men sat, waiting for
their orders, waiting for him to come back and lead them.

'Sorry Lads, I am truly sorry. More than you could ever
know.'

Snapping off the light he walked from the room. Baker
entered the communications centre, his dominating presence drawing
more than one nerve-edged glance. Striding forwards briskly, he moved
past the staring faces of his communications team. His stance and
bearing screamed out an unfounded sense of urgent concern as he
snatched a microphone up from the desk and keyed in to the team's
frequency.

'Team Two, Team Two, this is central, respond.'

Static crackled and hissed as he released the talk key,
a cold bead of sweat sliding down the side of his face as he stared
at the speaker, willing it to crackle into life. Stabbing the button
down with his thumb he called out again, a thin edge of nervous fear
creeping into his voice as he spoke. 'Davies you English prick,
answer me.'

Silence enveloped them once more as every eye in the
room fixed itself on the speaker in front of Baker.

'Didn't your mother teach you not to yell at people.
Honestly the manners of some people these days.'

Baker's face split into a grin as a louder shout of
relieved applause ran through the room.

'Report soldier.'

A barked laugh echoed through the speaker at Baker's
request. 'Bit busy to talk now mum, I'll call you back.' With that
last sarcasm laced sentence the link was severed leaving Baker
staring at the now silent radio.

The large wall mounted VDU screen buzzed into life, the
smug condescending visage of Colonel Ridgmont slowly unfurled itself
across the high resolution screen.

'Baker.' His curt tone conveying quite clearly the
distaste with which he regarded the man he addressed.

'Colonel, to what do I owe the pleasure.'

Baker smiled slightly as he watched the man's eyes widen
at the barbed twist belying his words; sitting up further in his
chair, a blatant attempt at increasing his rake thin stature as he
leant forwards over his desk. Skeletal hands pursed as he balanced on
his elbows.

'People are talking Baker, the incident in the tower
block has caught the attention of more than one member of the Special
Forces Task Group, and we want to know what your contingencies are.'

Baker shook his head slightly as he prepared to answer.
'We have very little in the way of “Contingencies”, as
you put it, simply because of the location of the outbreak. The team
inserted into the building are more than capable of handling the
situation.'

The colonel smiled, his tobacco stained teeth setting
Baker on edge as he looked up into the smug, smarmy face of a man he
loathed.

'Besides, you know full well I do not answer to you.'

The man's smugness soon fell from his face at the clear
and direct challenge.

'Baker you may want to rethink your strategy, or have
you not read the reports of the level of contamination.'

Baker's brow furrowed as he heard the whirring of the
high speed fax machine behind him, turning he snatched the pages as
the spewed forth from the printers mouth.

'You, how did you get this?'

He smiled once more at Baker's distressed countenance.

'Little passes us by Baker; you of all people should
know that. You used to be a good soldier Derek, you used to follow
orders and take the “correct” course of action.'

Baker smirked at the screen on the wall.

'That is of no consequence and not the damned point, how
did you get these Colonel. I was never sent this and I now have a
team in contact with a force greatly outnumbering them'

A
small light bulb went on in the back of Derek's mind as he looked
from the pages to the screen and back again.

'Kabul.'

The words were little more than a whisper as they left
his lips.

'What was that Staff Sergeant?'

'Kabul, this is all about Kabul, you pathetic bastard;
this is all because they passed you over for the operation and gave
it to us the same as they did,' he faltered his gaze locking on the
eyes staring at him from the VDU on the wall, 'Russia.'

The pages fell from Baker's grip, scattering across the
floor in front of him as Ridgmont's high pitched fanatical squeals
echoed past Baker's ears, the pieces of a very chequered past slowly
falling into place. A cold fire bloomed into life raging through him
as he stepped away from the screen.

****

Davies stared upwards, the only way out for the team was
blocked by a mass of writhing Infected, their slavering, degenerate
forms pacing the hole like a pack of starved hyenas. The slow trickle
that had started at the door above them had turned into a flood, in
seconds, several Infected tumbled from the hole's edge to land with a
bone shattering crunch amongst the trapped soldiers.

Hamilton
pushed himself up off the floor shaking his head as his vision swam,
images sliding across one another in a kaleidoscopic dance making him
want to heave his stomach dry. Glancing around him, he cursed.

'Fuck it, watch that first step it's a big one.'

Davies chuckled involuntarily as he looked about him.
Tendrils of fear were pushing at the doors of his mind as he saw the
Infected fall from above, cast like rain from a cloud as more and
more of the crazed cannibals vied for room.

Turning to the men and women behind him, Baker bellowed
out one single command.

'Mobilize the R.R.T.'

As the room burst into a babble of combining voices he
turned back to the screen and its wildly gesticulating occupant.

The soft tapping of keyboards reverberated round the
room like gnats in a greenhouse, as line after line of encrypted data
was sent out.

'You,
and me, “Colonel” are not, done, we are going to square
this away once and for all. Believe you, me; I will
not
forget this.'