When There's No More room In Hell: A Zombie Novel (3 page)

It was obvious t
hat everyone was panic buying, maybe to stock themselves and their families up and sit and wait it out?

Steve found himself caught up in the moment and pushed his way in to the
large building. His theory was;
if the whole town is panicked, how could I be the only one with nothing to worry about?

He headed for the canned goods section. With a basket in hand, he grabbed as many tins of beans, meatballs, fruit and anything else he thought necessary
, as he could. Next, he headed for the drinks area and snatched up two cases of bottled water. Finding himself short on arms, he took to kicking the basket along the floor in front of him with a crate of water under each arm as he searched the aisles for anything he thought he would need. Twenty minutes later, he had finished his sweep. Armed with two full baskets and two cases of water, he played the strangest game of football of his life as he kicked his goods to the checkout.

Once he was back at home, he took stock of what he had. He put away his
shopping and placed the candles that he had bought in easy to reach places, making a mental note to make sure there was a lighter in every room. He didn't fancy the idea of Sarah panicking in a sudden blackout and running into a wall.

He sat down to gather his thoughts
;
Fuck me, what’s going on? It’s only flu, and the news says there’s nothing to worry about.

His inner con
sciousness told him different;
If it’s nothing to worry about, then why is the whole country in a panic? Why are people stocking up on food? Why are there blackouts?

3

Marcus had left the army five years earlier, and had become a private military contractor in Iraq, getting paid to escort and protect VIP’s as they travelled about. He didn't do it for the ‘War on Terror’, or so that he could make a difference
; he was in it purely for the money and many of his old army buddies had done exactly the same.

Since the flu had hit the Middle East, the situation had steadily deteriorated. The extremists believed that it was a sign from God that they must continue the fight to rid themselves of the Infidel from the Holy Land, and began to increase their attacks.

With the hospitals being run down and neglected, the dead were piling up and every day, more and more funerals were being held. The number of riots, bombings, shootings, rocket attacks and kidnappings had gone through the roof.

Many of the Western organisations were, as far as Marcus could tell, slowly pulling out and hoping that no one would notice. All the bosses and company directors had made their excuses, and had fled for home. Now,
the military was closing down and steadily retreating into the International Zone and a steady trickle of troops and material were loaded onto planes and flown out from Baghdad.

Many districts within the city had
been closed off as ‘Quarantine Zones’ by the police and Iraqi army. Within those zones, the population was left to fend for themselves or die. Militants attacked the walls and the checkpoints from both sides, some of them being trapped inside.  Their compatriots saw it as their duty to try and free them from the outside so they could continue the fight. The streets had become a battleground and casualties were mounting.

Very few people were arriving in country and more and more left each day. Engineers, diplomats, doctors, advisors, all of them headed for the airport and the airfields in
the hope of getting a flight out of the Hot Zone. The backlog was ridiculous and people even fought with each other in the terminals in desperation of getting a seat on a plane, any plane.

Marcus’
team snaked their way through the tight and congested dirty streets of Baghdad in their four, heavily armoured SUVs, with turret-mounted machine guns. Horns were blowing, people hollered, and in general, the Iraqi drivers did as they pleased without any consideration to the rules of the road, or other vehicles. It was like a game of dodgems.

They were on their way to drop their last two remaining clients at the airport
. The rest had fled over the previous weeks, and the two nervous and wide-eyed men that sat, strapped to their seats, were keen to get out.

The convoy had to push through and stay mobile, avoiding becoming a static target
in the narrow, confined streets. Every man in the team was poised, with their weapons ready for a possible attack.

They had all been in attacks, either from roadside bombs,
rocket attacks and even small arms, with the insurgents actually wanting a stand-up fight with rifles and machine guns. It was new to none of them, and they were a hardened and experienced crew.

Gathered from a wide range of military backgrounds and nationalities, Marcus had nicknamed his team, ‘The Foreign Legion’. He had two American
ex-Special Forces, three South Africans, and even two Serbians who were thought to be wanted for war crimes. With a couple of Australians and New Zealanders thrown in to the mix, they were a highly multi-cultural bunch and no one could ever accuse them of not being tolerant of other nationalities.

To their right was a high curb with open waste ground beyond it and buildings in the distance
with a densely built-up area to their immediate left. They came to a junction controlled by Iraqi Police and began to slow, keeping their distance from the traffic in front in order to maintain manoeuvrability. The police were holding the traffic and allowing the vehicles across from the left. They were making a poor job of it, and with the volume of traffic in all directions, the crossroads was almost at a standstill, even for the drivers who were supposed to be moving.

A series of
loud cracks, like the snapping of a whip, rang out as incoming rounds flew overhead, causing the men to duck in their seats as they recognised the distinct snap of enemy fire.

“
Contact right!” Someone screamed over the radio.

Marcus spun his head around to try and identify the threat. From his position in the commander’s seat, in the second vehicle of the convoy, he heard the heavy 7.62mm
machine guns begin to fire from the turrets on top of their vehicles. The distinct rapid thump as they unleashed their deadly, heavy rain of fire at their targets was almost comforting. Sini, the gunner in Marcus’ own vehicle, was firing in three to five round bursts, never letting up the pressure on their attackers. His body was juddering as the recoil shook the weapon in his hands.

Green tracer rounds start
ed to pass over the front of the vehicle a second later, after the shooter had adjusted his position, and were smashing into the side. Up and down the whole length of the SUV, Marcus could hear the thwack as the rounds pierced the outer shell of the vehicle and thumped into the hard armour plating beneath.

The driver
, a burly guy from New Zealand named Eddie, began to try to push forward to get them out of the line of fire.

“All vehi
cles push through, push through!” Marcus commanded.

The turret gunner
s increased the rate of fire, and all the drivers accelerated to clear the immediate killing area. The fire coming in from the right had doubled and was now more concentrated and accurate as the insurgents became more determined not to allow the team to get away.

“Man down, Nick is down!” Marcus
heard through his ear piece. He looked back over his shoulder to see that the machine gun in the third vehicle was no longer firing as Nick was pulled back inside. By now, all four vehicles were taking heavy fire and with nowhere else to go, the driver of the lead vehicle began trying to push his way through the static traffic ahead of them.

Civilian drivers had either raced off, or abandoned their
cars to seek cover from the bullets whizzing through the air all around them. The Police had fled and the junction was now a mass of vehicles blocking all three lanes. It was impossible to push through and Marcus had to think fast.

“Reverse back. We’r
e gonna have to try and push back the way we came.” He gave over the radio. All four vehicles came to a sudden stop, and almost instantly began to back up, building up speed by the second.

Rounds co
ntinued to zip over them and into them. The gunners were screaming target indications to each other over the radios, trying to guide each other to the enemy positions, but for every enemy neutralized, another position took up the firing. The incoming fire never let up and soon the vehicles were beginning to smoke from heavy damage. Tyres and windows, even though armoured, were blown out. Everyone in the vehicles was being hit with shrapnel from the doors as they buckled under the continuous impacts, and also splinters of glass as the integrity of the armour was pushed to its limits.

The noise was beyond deafening, the continuous thunder of the machine
guns above in the turrets, and the high-pitched cracks and snaps as the vehicles took round after round.  The smell of cordite was thick in the air as the guns discharged their ammunition and the spent brass casings fell on to the floor of the vehicle. Marcus’ eyes began to sting and water.

Marcus
watched over his shoulder as his driver did his best to reverse at speed. The third vehicle was swaying as it tried to avoid debris in the road. A sudden ball of flame and a large puff of pale grey smoke erupted from the right hand side of the road between two buildings. It streaked across the open ground and smashed into the fourth vehicle with a heavy thud, quickly followed by a huge bang and flash of light. The SUV rocked from the impact and almost toppled onto its side. The vehicle was torn wide open, and debris flew in all directions. It exploded instantly and the three remaining vehicles slammed on their brakes.

For a short moment, Marcus watched in horror as a second rocket snaked in
their direction. “RPG right,” he screamed and instinctively crouched in his seat. The rocket was high, and passed over his vehicle. A third missile came at them, this time aimed at the front vehicle; the insurgents were trying to block them off by disabling the front and rear vehicles, causing them to be trapped in the killing area. It punched its way through the rear of the lead SUV, passing through without detonating but damaging the rear axle and drive capability in the process.

The crew of the lead vehicle began to bail out on the left hand side, using the SUV as cover
from the enemy fire. All three of them began to hammer the numerous firing points with their rifles and machine gun.

The turret gunner, a
tall skinny American named Jim, was naked from the waist down. The rocket, as it had passed through, had created a vacuum inside the vehicle, taking Jim’s trousers with it as it punched through the other side. If it wasn’t for the desperation of the situation, it would’ve been almost amusing to Marcus, watching him running about with his balls on show, firing a machine gun.

Marcus made a quick
appraisal of the situation; moving forward was out of the question, and their retreat was blocked. The tyres were shot to pieces and they had no way of crossing over the central reservation. Civilian vehicles were left and right, with their drivers either dead or wounded, or having run for cover as soon as the shooting started. They were stuck in the killing area.

“Okay boys, abandon ship. We need to get out of this rocket magnet and get out on foot.”

Eddie and Sini didn't need to be told twice. They grabbed their weapons and ammunition and bailed out to the left, taking up firing positions to the front and rear of the vehicle.

Marcus thumbed his radio
. “Ian, we are gonna have to bug out on foot. How’s Nicky? Have you got eyes on with the rear vehicle, any survivors?”

Ian’s
booming voice came back, “Nick is in shit state. He took one through the jaw, but he’s still conscious and able to move. The rear vehicle is fucked mate. I haven’t seen anyone crawl out and I think they're all dead, Marcus.”

He
couldn’t afford to lose his head over it just yet. He needed to get what remained of the team out of the immediate area. “Roger that, Ian. You, Yan, and Nick, keep the clients close together and push to the far side of the road. The more vehicles we have between us and them, the better. All acknowledge.”

A chorus of “roger”
and double clicks came through his ear piece as everyone understood what needed to be done. Marcus remained crouched behind his damaged and smouldering vehicle as the crack of rounds continued to fill the air around them.

He pulled
a smoke grenade from his tactical vest. “Stu, you got smoke?” he shouted to the lead vehicle. Stu didn't hear him due to the noise of the guns around him, including his own as he continued to suppress the enemy positions.

Marcus
keyed his radio and asked again, “Stu, any of you lot got smoke?” He had to shout to be heard in his own head. By now, the whole team was throwing a hideous amount of fire power down on the insurgents, as they covered the retreat of the men from the third vehicle.  The loud growl of the machine guns and the rhythmic crack of the rifles filled the air.

Stu looked in his direction and gave
the thumbs up then, pulling a smoke grenade from his own belt kit, placed his finger into the ring attached to the pin. At the same time, Stu and Marcus stepped back and threw their smoke grenades over the vehicles as far as they could. A few seconds later, plumes of orange and purple were billowing in the waste ground, creating a smoke screen for them to retreat behind.

They had to act fast. Marcus knew that once they began to move and their suppressive fire stopped, the insurgents
would release a hailstorm into the smoke, knowing that the team was covering their retreat.

“M
ove, move back to the others!”

A
final long burst from the two machine guns and both Stu and Marcus’ crews were sprinting across the road, running between vehicles and jumping high curbs as they headed to the rally point with Ian.

Rounds
were zipping all over as the insurgents recovered and began firing into the smoke in the hope of hitting something. Some rounds smashed into vehicles as the men ran past them, others streaked and ricocheted off the road, while others flew overhead. The very air seemed alive with deadly flying pieces of metal.

Sini and Jim stopped ahead and, using a civilian car as cover, fired long
shuddering bursts from their machine guns into the smoke, covering the rest of the team as they moved back. Marcus was bringing up the rear, screaming for his men to move faster, to get to cover. Once they were in position with Ian, Marcus and Stu returned fire in order to give Sini and Jim support as they moved to safety. Sini and Jim stopped firing as Marcus and Stu released a hail of rounds in the enemy direction and sprinted, bent double, towards the rest of the team.

They reached
the area where Ian had mustered his crew and the two clients. Nick was sat leaning against the wall that separated the main road from the houses and flats beyond, holding a bloodied field dressing to his face and still carrying his weapon. Just from that split second of eye contact, Marcus knew that there was still plenty of fight left in him.