When There's No More room In Hell: A Zombie Novel (39 page)

Vlad
was screaming, a faint spluttering squeal that didn't reach far. He didn't have the strength to carry his voice and his scream became lower and lower until it was nothing more than just a whimper as Marcus continued to headbutt his face into oblivion.

Marcus brought his head down again and gripped his throat between his teeth. He clamped them shut
, feeling his incisors meet on the other side of the windpipe as they punctured through the skin. He pulled his head back as hard as he could. He felt the skin tear and pop as the warm blood gushed into his mouth and over his face.

He released his grip and stepped back, looking down at the jerky movements as
Dracula
died below him. He finally lay still and Marcus reached down and grabbed the pistol from the belt of the dead man.

The battle outside still raged and men screamed as they were hit. Holes appeared in the walls
as rounds punched through the brick and into the room, sending splinters of stone and plaster flying around him. He opened the door and peered down the corridor.

A
man crouched at the end, holding an AK47 and taking cover around the corner. Now and then he reached around and let off a long burst at his attackers outside.

Marcus quickly made his way along the narrow walkway and came up behind the man, placing his pistol to the back of his head. The man didn't even realise Marcus was behind him, and probably didn't even realise he was dead when the bang of the pistol blasted out from behind him. Marcus had shot him through the base of the skul
l, and he dropped like water into a heap on the floor, sending his rifle clattering on the tiles.

H
e reached down and picked up the weapon and ammunition and began to make his way back along the corridor, hollering for the rest of his men. He could hear Ian further along, shouting his name from within a room. He kicked the door open and found him laying on the floor, his hands and feet tied together.

He could hear more familiar voices from other rooms close by, and after releasing Ian, they went and collected the rest of their men.

Jim was in a bad way. He was virtually unconscious with only fleeting moments of clarity. Marcus feared that he had a skull fracture as they helped him along the corridor and to the light of the open door at the far end around a corner.

Shots still rang out, but they had now become intermittent and Marcus began to hesitate again as they approached the corner. Thoughts raced through his head.
It could be another rebel group, or it could even be the same rebel group, just making a few changes to their leadership.

It had gone quiet outside now, and Marcus and Stu decided to try and creep around from another angle, leaving Ian, wit
h the rifle, to defend the doorway.

They walked in a crouch along the hallway and to what they thought was the back of the building, exiting through an old rickety wooden door. They hugged the outside of the building and followed it around to the right, hoping to remain out of sight and able to come up on the flank o
f whomever was outside.

They rounded the corner.
Marcus held the pistol out in front of him, trying to focus with his good eye. It was hard to see anything, let alone aim. He paused before peering around the corner into the courtyard of the house. Their vehicles were there, though one of them looked worse for wear, full of holes and with steam spouting from beneath the bonnet. Men lay sprawled all around in the open, weapons and ammunition mixed in with the pools of blood as the bodies continued to leak.

To his front, twenty metres across the courtyard, stood a man staring at him, an M4 rifle clutched at the ready in his hands. He didn't move
and he didn't raise the weapon. Marcus also paused and strained to focus on him.

Then he heard a
voice from his left.

“What do you intend to do with that little thing in your hand then
, Marcus? Throw it at us?”

Marcus spun
, the pistol at the ready, but he saw nothing.

“Don't shoot, don’t shoot
. Marcus, it’s us, Sini and Yan.” The man across the yard was quickly walking toward him, waving his right arm and his rifle pointed to the ground with his other.

Marcus became dizzy, his head spun and his knees weakened. He leaned against the wal
l of the house and collapsed into a sitting position. “Fucking hell,” was all he could manage.

Stu sat down beside him, wincing with pain and giggling at the same time. It was the laughter of relief
and the pair sat there watching Yan as he approached from behind a wall.

Yan and Sini had followed Marcus after reaching their home town and seeing that everyone had either run or died there. They reached the field of the impaled dead and noticed the tracks
formed from the SUVs in the dirt and the unknown trucks that accompanied them. They followed, and come across the farm complex the night before. They watched the comings and goings through the night and listened to the torture and decided that they would attempt a rescue the next day.

Sini had found only his girlfriend in the ruins of their town. She had been hiding in the loft of her home and they soon realised that they would find no one else, and decided to
try and join back up with Marcus.

Sandra
was used as a decoy. Sini and Yan knew that the prospect of a woman to beat and rape would put the rebels off-guard and bring the majority of them into the open, easy prey to be gunned down, and they sprung their ambush. Yan had moved to the right flank and while Sini drew their fire, he was able to pick the rest off from his position.

The team was reunited
, and they immediately began to collect weapons and ammunition from the dead rebels. Sini walked into the interrogation room and looked down at Vlad’s body and whistled.

“You really didn't like this man
, did you Marcus?”

Marcus shrugged.
“The fucker was gonna impale us.” He looked down at the body with disdain and spat. “We better round them all up before they all come back.”

Sini turned to him.
“Don't worry about them; me and Yan will take care of that, you see to the others. I think Jim is in serious need of Stu’s med skills, Marcus.”

Marcus nodded and left the room.

Stu had already carried Jim into another room and lay him down on a cot, stripping him and assessing his wounds. He looked up at Marcus as he entered; a grave look on his face.

“He isn’t doing too well
, Marcus. I don’t think his skull is fractured, but he definitely has a serious concussion, at least two broken ribs, a fractured jaw and sunken cheek bone. His eyes are so swollen I can’t get a proper look to see what damage has been done.”

Everyone was in a bad way. Marcus moved through the house with Ian
, hobbling and wincing with pain, checking each room and ensuring that there was no one left alive from the rebel group. Specifically, they looked for any evidence of other rebel forces in the area, maps showing their dispositions and radios with call signs and frequencies. They couldn't find either in any of the buildings they searched.

Marcus felt relieved.

“This means they were on their own, Ian. They aren’t part of any higher organisation and no one probably knew they were here or even existed.”

Ian screwed his face up
. “Yeah, so, what you getting at?”

Marcus smiled
. “It means we have free bed and board for as long as we need it while we recover. There isn’t likely to be anyone coming here, especially other rebel forces. We’re out of the way and not likely to be stumbled across.”

The realisation hit Ian and a grin spread across
his bloodied and battered face. “So does that mean I can have a shit in a real toilet then instead of the bushes, or my trousers ‘cause you won’t let us pull over?”

It was decided, they would stay and recuperate. Jim needed a lot of attention, attention he wouldn't receive if they were back on the road and pushing hard across Europe. Wit
h the state he was in, he was no use to the team and his condition would probably worsen if they were travelling.

“This is Sandra,” Sini presented his prett
y brunette girlfriend to Marcus. “She is coming with us.”

Marcus raised an eyebrow
. “With us?” he asked.

“Well, I have no reason to stay here, so we may as well come with you.”

Marcus nodded his approval, and smiled at Sandra. He turned back to Sini. “What about Yan?”

“You know
him; he always does whatever I do. He was like that when we served in the army together. He doesn’t have any close family anyway, why do you think he rarely went on leave? He was saving most of his money to move to the States and become a porn star or something like that, knowing him.”

They recovered their vehicles.
Ian’s SUV was beyond repair. It had taken too many rounds in to the engine. Even the armour was damaged in places and it had taken on the appearance of a colander. They began stripping it out to use what parts they could salvage, to refit the other vehicles.

Marcus got to work on the Codan.

“Steve, this is Marcus, you there?” He waited for a reply. It took a long time to get the Codan to work properly again but eventually he was able to hear the faint reply from the other end.

“Marcus, thank Christ. We've been worried about you bro.”

Marcus smiled and began to explain the situation. He refrained from going into too much detail and ambiguously referred to the incident as ‘trouble with the locals’. He gave them their location and intentions, explaining that they would be going firm and staying at that location for up to two weeks then pushing on, headed across Hungary, Austria, Southern Germany and into France. It sounded a lot easier than it would be, and Marcus knew that there were a lot of miles to cover and possibly more trouble, similar to what they had already encountered.

After the brief conversation with Steve, he had his usual ten minutes with Jennifer and the boys. They all sounded strained, but relieved to hear from him. Marcus could tell that Jennifer had been at her wits
’ end, wondering what had happened to him.

That
night, Marcus took his first bath in over a month. He dipped his foot into the hot steaming water and felt the tingling heat race up his leg. He placed both hands on the side of the bath and slowly lowered himself. The water gave him a shock as it reached his backside and as he sat his breath was momentarily taken away from him as the water swished up to his chest.

Every sore and niggling ache and pain screamed at him in protest from the hot water. His body ached from the weeks of travelling and scurrying about in the wilderness. Now, he had the cuts and bruises from the countless beatings he had sustained over the last few days to add to the moment of agony before the pain settled in the hot water.

As he splashed his face, he almost howled. His lips screamed at him and threatened to explode while his cheeks and eyes throbbed as they swelled up again with the heat. His beard was matted thick with dried blood and snot and his hair was a greasy mess of tangled, overgrown locks. It took forever to get himself washed. But once he was clean, all the pain and suffering seemed worth it.

Now it was time to shave, and get some kind of haircut.

He walked into the room where Stu was tending to Jim on the bed. The cool air felt good on his freshly bare face. For weeks he had forgotten how it felt to have a smooth chin and the sensation of a breeze on his skin.

Stu looked up from Jim as Marcus entered. He
did a double-take, and his eyes showed surprise at the sight of him.

“My God
, Marcus, you look like a new man.”

“I feel like one,” he replied, “b
ut it was fucking agony getting this way. I never knew that shaving with a blunt razor could be so painful. You should try it, you look like a tramp. How’s our patient doing?”

Stu turned to look at Jim.
“Early days yet mate, but we should have a more solid answer after tonight hopefully.”

Marcus nodded, rubbing his smooth chin
, understanding that the first twenty four hours would be critical to Jim’s recovery. “Go get yourself sorted, Stu. I’ll keep an eye on him for a while.”

Stu left to get cleaned up.

Marcus moved over to the cot where Jim lay. His breathing was shallow and his body was still.

“Jim buddy, you've got a lot more sightseeing of Europe to do yet, so get yourself well. You hear?”

For twelve days they stayed at the farm. They collected weapons, ammunition, repaired their vehicles and filled up on what supplies, fuel, and equipment they thought they could use. By the end of their stay, they looked like a ragtag bunch of mercenaries in a mixture of clothes and vehicles.

They
discarded their M4 rifles and opted to use the more robust, larger calibre AK47s that they took from the dead rebels. They were low on ammunition for their old rifles anyway but there was an abundance of rounds and magazines for the AKs. They also took one of the smaller rebel trucks, fitting it out as best they could with a machinegun and communications equipment, but it would be used mainly to hump and dump the majority of the ammunition and supplies.