When There's No More room In Hell: A Zombie Novel (43 page)

30

Marcus sat in his
seat in his SUV, staring out of the windscreen over the grassy hills and rolling countryside of Northern France in front of him. It looked like a patchwork quilt of different shades of greens and browns, broken by dry stone walls and high privet hedges. Here and there, he could see the outline of the cottages and farm buildings that dotted the land. It was beautiful, Marcus thought. The sun was beginning to set and it cast its golden rays over the scene, creating the impression that he was looking at an old sepia photograph from many years ago.

He
reached onto the dashboard and grabbed the handset to the Codan. “Steve, Marcus, you there, bro?”

He waited then he heard the voice of his brother coming through the speaker
. “Yeah, Marcus, how’s it going? Are you close to the coast yet?”

“Not far,” Marcus replied
. “We've gone static for the night, to the East of Calais and West of Cassel, about twenty miles from the coast.” He paused and thought, realising that Steve was probably looking at the Ordinance Survey maps that are measured in the metric system. “That's about thirty kilometres, give or take. Not sure what we will do once we get there, but I think we’ll have to ditch the vehicles and try and find a boat. It’s only about twenty miles or so across the Channel to Dover, so it shouldn’t be a problem. If all else fails, we’ll swim if we have to.”

Steve laughed
at the other end. “Yeah, Marcus, I don’t doubt that you're mad enough to try it.”

“After all we've been through
, Steve, we couldn't give up now. Home is so close, I can taste it. Speaking of which, how’s the food? Is that Karen lady still working miracles in the kitchen? It feels like we've been living off rations and tinned food for a lifetime.”

“Yeah, the food is good
, bro. We can organize a banquet for when you return. There's still plenty of food at the moment, but I think we are gonna have to look at going out for more eventually. We have time yet to plan stuff like that and look at the options. In the meantime, make sure you get here in one piece.”

Marcus looked to Sini, a grim expression on his face, a
nd then keyed the handset again. “Yeah well, are you in the radio room alone, Steve?”

“No, Jake is here with me. Jennifer will be here in a minute or so.”

Marcus felt a sense of urgency and sat forward in his seat, keen to say what he needed to before Jennifer was able to hear. “Okay, listen, Steve, if she turns up at all while I'm speaking, cut me off.”

There was a pause
, then a confused sounding reply, “Uh, okay, Marcus. What's up? Is everything okay there?”

“
Not sure, bro.” Marcus sighed. “We've been seeing a lot of bad signs lately and I think we’re in an area controlled by some rogue militia. We tried to backtrack, but it seems we’re pretty much surrounded. I dunno if they know we’re here or if they're even interested in us, but it could get rough. I just thought you should know mate.”

“Yeah, cheers bro. It’s best to be in the picture, even if it’s a shitty one.” Steve sounded quietly worried. Then his voice was back to normal as he put on a facade for Marcus’ wife, “Ah, here’s Jen.”

“Hey there, doll face.” Marcus said as he smiled. “How are you and the boys today? This time tomorrow, I’ll be speaking to you from within the same country.”

Her voice was soft over the speaker, “I can’t wait to see you
, Marcus. I miss you so much. Every day the boys are hounding me, asking me how much longer it will be before you're here. They need their Dad. All they have here is a bunch of retards to look up to.”

A round of ‘hey’ could be heard from her end as she was reprimanded by Steve and Jake.

It was good for Marcus to hear them all laughing.

After speaking to Jennifer for a while, he climbed from his vehicle and sat down next to Stu.
Marcus didn't like having to tell his brother of possible danger ahead of them, but he needed to know, just in case things went wrong as they moved closer to the coast. At least that way, Steve would have an idea of what might have happened.

“How
is the missus then, buddy?” Stu asked as he handed him a steaming, half full cup of coffee.

Marcus shrugged and smiled at his friend
. “Ah you know, the usual.”

Stu could see
Marcus was troubled and that his mind was elsewhere.

“You really think we’re in for trouble? I mean, we haven’t seen anyone. Granted, there's been plenty of sign
s, but maybe they've moved on.” He was doing his best to sound optimistic.

Marcus bit his lip a
s he sat, leaning against a tree and staring at the ground. “I don’t think they've moved on, Stu. Looks to me like whoever is in this area, they're very territorial, well armed, and well organised.

“
Think about it, we've seen very few infected in this area. Someone has cleared them out. Did you notice anything about the bodies we've seen, the ones hanging from trees and street lights? Some of them were soldiers. French, German, even British troops had been through here, and they weren’t travelling together.” He glanced up and swatted at a fly that buzzed around his face. “They were in different stages of decomposition, meaning they were caught at different times. So, whoever is here is here to stay and they see this area as their turf.”

Stu nodded. He realised that Marcus was right and when he thought back, he could see that it was obvious.

“Well, it won’t be the first lot of trouble we've run into. It’s just a case of fighting through, we’re well armed too and we have a good crew here.”

Marcus shook his head
. “I don’t think it'll be as simple as that, mate. They have armour. Those tanks that we passed, the ones burnt out and full of holes? They were Leopard 2’s, Stu, German tanks. I remember from my days in the Anti-Tank platoon, we were always told that, ‘
the only thing that can destroy a Leopard 2 is, another Leopard 2
.’”

Stu nodded
again, remembering being told the same thing. “Yeah, I heard that too. Well, whatever they have, they're effective. They'll cut through our SUVs like tin cans then.”

“That's my worry. We will have to look at the maps and see what routes we can find. We’ll travel the
roads least likely to be defended. Hopefully, they’re a mobile unit, constantly on the hunt and might not be around in this neck of the woods tomorrow.

“
But if they're as organised as I suspect, they will have observation posts and communications everywhere to dominate the ground. And mobile units acting as rapid reaction forces, placed in positions where they can deploy to any given grid in their area of responsibility.”

They moved back to where the rest of the team sat huddled around as they ate.

As was the custom, no one made a hot drink that was intended for just themselves, it was always passed round so that everyone had a drink from the ‘communal brew’.

Ian passed his cup across to Sini who took it in his hands as he looked up and asked, “What is it?”

“It’s tea, NATO standard,” Ian replied.

Sini’s brow creased as he
stared at the hot steaming drink before looking up again. “Serbia was never a part of NATO.”

Ian
rolled his eyes and grumbled, “You thick communist bastard. It means, tea, with milk and two fucking sugars.”

Sini smiled at Ian
. “Ah right, you mean a homosexual drink. Why don’t you drink real coffee?”

“Because the first and only time I drank that Serbian stuff was when I was in Kosovo. It caused my teeth to grow a fur coat and I didn't sleep for a month. On top of that, it was fucking disgusting.”

They were in high spirits. Morale was good and it was mainly due to the fact that the final leg was in sight. They were all fully aware of the possible danger and they had seen the scenes of battle and torture, but their confidence was soaring. Not because they dismissed the threat as something trivial, but because they knew what they would be fighting for; to get home.

Marcus looked over his men as he stood beside Stu, watching them laugh and insult each other.

Sini and Yan, as always, sat close to each other. They had been pretty much inseparable since their days in the Serb army together and now Sandra, the husky, raven-haired, Eastern European beauty, made up the trio. She didn't speak much English, but she could read people and anticipate what needed to be done most of the time. She had taken good care of Jim during his recovery, and as a result, a friendship had developed between them.

Ian, the human bulldog, as
usual took every chance to make fun of people. Especially Jim, who was seated to his right.

Jim still wasn't completely healed from his torture by the rebels in Serbia, but he was making a steady recovery. Marcus could see him wince now and then when he moved his upper body suddenly, causing the healing ribs to shoot a bolt of pain through him, reminding him of the damage they had sustained.
  He dismissed the broken bones of his face as “all adding character to my Hollywood-style looks”. Hussein and Ahmed had continued to grow with the group. They were always quick to smile and tried their best to join in with the jokes. Though sometimes, it did take a lot of explaining of the punchlines and by then, the moment was gone. When Zaid was executed, Marcus feared that they would become withdrawn but the opposite happened. Having been through the same torture and anguish as the team, they grew closer.

It took the
team nineteen days to reach the coastal area of Northern France after leaving Serbia. They had crossed into Hungary and on to Austria the next day. The journey hadn't been too difficult, and with the isolation and seclusion of much of the Austrian and Southern German countryside, it was easy for them to avoid the larger cities.

Most of the small
, picturesque towns and villages such as Salzburg, Augsburg, and Ulm were, to a degree, secure and still intact.

Army units had abandoned their posts within the
large urban areas like Stuttgart and Munich and fled, taking their equipment and tanks with them to the mountainous regions of the Austrian Alps and the heavily forested areas of Bavaria, in Southern Germany, and set up defensive rings around villages and towns.

Marcus noted to himself at the time,
Typical of the Germans, they always get themselves organised. The rest of the world falls apart, and they do the logical thing and turn back to their roots.

A few times, Marcus and his team were stopped by German patrols who wanted to take a closer look at them. At first, Marcus had considered
opening fire on the men of the checkpoints, but decided against it when he saw that they were lightly armed and of no serious threat.

In conversations of broken English and German, they were able to
retrieve snippets of information and advice on their journey and routes. The German soldiers and villagers always insisted that Marcus and his men should stay and rest, but they always politely declined, explaining that they needed to push on for the coast.

The team was warned of places to avoid, and always left with the well wishe
s of the soldiers and civilians, who understood how far they had travelled and what they had been through. Where possible, the German soldiers would radio ahead to other units, informing them that they were to offer what assistance they could to the group of ‘ragtag mercenaries’ headed West.

They passed close to Stuttgart be
fore they crossed the border into France. The once vibrant city was nothing more than a smouldering ruin and from a distance, through the binoculars and on elevated ground, the team watched the swarms of dead that moved around the outskirts and along the main roads leading in and out. Even from afar they could hear the noise the dead made. It was a continuous murmur, like an electric buzz, as hundreds of thousands of black distant figures massed together, staggering within the city and singing their haunting chorus as one.

The sound
sent chills down Marcus’ spine, and he knew in his own mind that there was not a living soul left in the city.

From far off to the N
orth, two tiny black dots appeared over the horizon. Soon, Marcus and his men could hear the distant roar of jet engines as the fighters drew closer to the city. They watched as the two planes dropped their ordinance over the buildings and saw the fountains of smoke and debris as they exploded. A moment later, they heard the report of the detonations as the sound travelled the distance to the team while they looked on. They circled and closed in for another pass. They began to fire their rockets and incendiary bombs into the crowds that stood and stared at the spectacle above them before being obliterated in the blasts.

The fire began to spread and grip the city, sending dark
plumes high into the sky as the orange flames licked at the buildings. The two fighter jets veered off and with a roar of thrusters, turned back North and flew from view.

Now, the team
faced possible trouble ahead as they thrust for the coast.

They had beg
un to see signs of battle and ambush along their route as they travelled through Northern France, and Marcus ordered a turn around, hoping to pick up another route to the South. As they backtracked, they saw clouds of dust in the distance and heard the rumble of heavy vehicles headed toward them from the East and further to the South.