When There's No More room In Hell: A Zombie Novel (45 page)

His body jerked
and bent at the waist and his eyes grew wide. His hand reached up to the side of his chest as he continued forward without reducing speed. His face screwed into a mixture of determination and agony. Then, Marcus saw a spray of blood as a round smashed through Yan’s neck. He stumbled to his left as the force of the bullet pushed him off course. A moment later, the side of his head imploded and an eruption of blood and brain shot from the other side as another round thumped into him. His legs buckled and his body slumped to the ground with a crash, then his body lay still.

Sini was close behind him, sprinting with the machinegun in his arms and the long belt of link
ed ammunition dangling around his legs. He glanced down at the body as he passed, unable to recognise it in the fleeting moment. He crashed into the embankment and began to set the gun up so that he could fire through the sparse bushes along the top of the dirt embankment. He looked about as he did so, then he realised the body behind him was his friend, Yan.

For a moment, he looked at Marcus bewildered
and questioningly. His face turned cold but his eyes burned wild as they filled with tears. He swallowed hard and nodded to Marcus, understanding that he had no time to mourn and they still needed to get out of the ambush.

Jim and Sini took up the firing and began
pounding away with their guns at where they thought the enemy was. Marcus glanced over the embankment and saw what he suspected was a machinegun position to their front. He could see heads moving and the flash from the muzzle of the gun. He glanced to his right and saw more tracer rounds coming from the high ground.

Marcus
looked at Stu; he was squatted over Ian, who lay at his feet, still clutching at his wound while Sandra tried to stop the bleeding. Stu motioned for her to pick up Yan’s weapon and Ian began to draw himself into a squatting position, using his weapon to steady himself.

Stu looked up to Marcus and screamed from further down the line of the embankment, “We need to move
, Marcus, we need to go forward. They've got us pinned down and we’re fucked if we stay here.”

Marcus
understood what he was saying. They were caught in an ambush. He knew that in an affective and well prepared ambush there is no way out, except to charge and take the fight to the enemy. It was a case of turning and facing the enemy and drawing from every ounce of aggression and determination and fighting through.

They were trapped in an ‘L’ shaped ambush. Meaning that they were caught in a crossfire, and no matter whether they went
, forward, back, left or right, they were in the killing area.

“
Sini, give us fire support.” He turned to Jim, panting and breathless. “You ready, Jim?”

Jim nodded and grunted
as he steeled himself for the assault.

Sini increased the rate of fire
and screamed that they were to move.

Marcus began screaming out his commands to the group
. “Fight through, fight through.”

Marcus and Jim bounded forward from the embankment, screaming and roaring as they ran.
He could see Stu, Ian, and Sandra also moving to his left. The team was rushing forward in an extended line together, toward the enemy positions to their front. Tracer rounds were flying both ways, from Sini and the gun and their own weapons as they fired on the move. The enemy position was also sending fire toward them. It cracked over their heads and pounded into the dirt at their feet, sending up fountains of mud all around them as they sprinted across the field. Red beams flowed in both directions, like mini flares being fired horizontally or lasers in a light show.

Marcus
couldn't hear anything other than his own hard breathing and the screaming inside his head as he willed himself forward into the fray. He was roaring with fear and the resignation of his impending death gripped him, and he felt anger. They had come so close and now he was about to die, just a few kilometres away from the narrow strip of sea that separated him from his homeland.

Everyone was charging, screaming and firing as they moved and sprinted toward the enemy
; their sheer aggression carrying them forward.

Marcus could feel the weapon vibrating in his hands as he squeezed the trigger. From the corner of his eye, he saw Ian doing the same thing; the pain of his wound forgotten as he charged for his life at the enemy posit
ions ahead of them, screaming and roaring as he took the fight to the enemy. His body folded as rounds impacted into his abdomen and legs, and at the speed he was running, Ian tumbled forward into the ground.

They couldn't stop, they had to fight through.

Jim and Marcus
continued forward, never slowing their pace. Sini fired from behind, the rapid fire of his machinegun sounding like a large piece of cloth being ripped.

Men began to spring up from numerous positions ahead of them and
they turned and ran. Some stood their ground, only to be cut down by the wall of fire that the team had unleashed in their desperation as they charged.

A heavy thundering began to blast away from further to their front and spouts of dirt
and smoke flew up all around them, flinging shrapnel in all directions as a heavy calibre weapon zeroed in on them. The cracks and the impacts of the rounds as they smacked into the ground all around left them deafened and disoriented but the momentum of their assault carried the team forward regardless.

Marcus was panting
. He was close now, just a few more metres from the position.

A flash to their right, and Marcus felt himself thrown to the left and toward Jim. It felt like he had been
hit with a massive fist.

His vision blurred and his ears rang. Something burned in his side and the wind was knocked out of him as he
sailed through the air then crashed to the ground.

Everything
went dark.

31

Gary chopped at the frozen meat. He stood in the
cellar of the house with a cleaver in his hand and pounded away at the solid chunks of flesh he had spread out on the table. To save more power and ease the strain on fuel, all the stores of food for the animals had been moved to the basement of the mansion. Every chest freezer they could get their hands on had been carried across and placed into the spacious room below the house.

To save
space and to use as few freezers as possible to stop the drain on fuel, Gary and Sophie had suggested that they turn all the frozen meat into bite-sized chunks so that they could be packed tighter into the storage freezers.

There was a lot to get through and he needed to work fast before the meat thawed and spoiled. He stood panting an
d sweating in the gloomy room. He raised his hand and mopped his brow with the back of his sleeve before raising the hatchet for another chop.

A
voice from behind startled him. “You should take it easy, Gary. You're gonna have a heart attack.”

Gary spun, the cleaver st
ill held aloft. His face was red with the exertion and the veins stood out on his forehead. “Ah, Steve. You should be careful creeping up on people. I could’ve got carried away and cut your head off with this.” He waved the cleaver menacingly then lowered it and smiled.

“You need a hand?”

Gary shook his head. “Thanks, but I’m okay. I'm treating it as a workout. Since this whole end of the world thing started, I've lost about twenty five pounds and I'm feeling much fitter and more energetic than I have in years.” He patted his stomach with pride.

“Yeah, you're looking good
, Gary. Maybe we could make a gym?” Steve smiled, but it was forced. He looked down and kicked at the dust on the floor of the basement.

Gary
noticed his friend’s uneasiness. “Something on your mind, Steve?”

He looked up and sighed as he stepped closer and leaned against the edge of the bench, thrust
ing his hands into his pockets. “Marcus, he’s not been in touch since the day before yesterday. Last time we spoke, he said something about possible trouble ahead. They're in France, not far from the coast, and he said that they’d been seeing some bad signs. I know him well enough to tell when he's being vague, and if he has concerns, then it’s for a good reason.”

Gary hummed and looked down at the cleave
r in his hands. He placed it onto the table and then stepped closer to Steve. “Look, it’s pointless worrying about it. I know it’s easier said than done, but there's nothing you can do about it at the moment. Does Jen know?”

Steve shook his head.
“That's the other part, he asked me to keep it from her. He doesn’t want her worrying. But it must be something worth worrying about in that case.”

“I dunno what I can say to help you take your mind off
it, Steve, or stop you from worrying. Other than; so far, that brother of yours has proved to be pretty resilient and an expert at getting himself outta tight spots. I'm actually looking forward to meeting him.” Gary patted him on the shoulder. “Let me finish this lot, then we can go walk about and do our checks with ‘Crazy Lee’. Karen is doing something special for grub tonight too.” He smiled and squeezed harder at his friend’s shoulder. “Don't worry, Steve.”

Later, the group sat around the table
. Platter after platter of food was brought from the kitchen. There was beef, turkey, and even duck. Between the large plates of meat, there was a huge selection of side dishes and vegetables. Bottles of wine and whiskey were placed at regular intervals around the table and Jake and Lee had already polished off the better part of a bottle between them.

The children had their own table off to the side with balloons and hats laid out for them. The sounds of their laughs and shouts of excitement
echoed around the house.

Lee’s mouth watered as he gazed at the feast. He tu
rned to Carl who sat beside him. “What's the occasion?”

Carl
shrugged, “Haven't a clue, it’s definitely not Christmas.”

“It’s Gary’s birthday,” Karen
announced as she appeared from the kitchen with a large bowl of gravy in her hands. “I just thought it would be nice to celebrate it.”

“Ah, how old are you Gary?” Claire ask
ed from the other side of the banquet.

“Let’s just say, I'm as old as my gums, and a little older than my teeth
,” he replied with a grin.

Jak
e looked up from a bowl of soup. “Bollocks old timer, you haven’t got any teeth of your own left.”

“Yeah,” Lee added, “n
ext year, we’re making you a coffin as a present.”

Gary wagged his finger at him. “No
, there's plenty of years left in me. Don't write me off just yet. In fact, Steve and I are thinking of building a gym here, aren’t we?”

Steve nodded, trying his best to seem jovial
. “Yeah, and next year, we’re holding our own Mr Universe. It shouldn't be too hard to win it by then.”

S
ophie appeared from the kitchen. “Check this out everyone, Karen’s own homemade sausage.”

“Mmm sausage,” Jake murmured.

Lee saw an opportunity and lowered his glass of wine as he swallowed. “Yeah, we all know how much you love the sausage, don’t we?”

Jake shrugged.
“It’s my favourite. You should try it. I bet you would love it too.”

“No thanks. I'm strictly off the sausage in that sense.”

“Ah, come on,” Jake was taking advantage of Lee’s homophobic side, “I wish I had a pound for every straight man I've shagged.”

Shocked laughter rang out around the table and Lee squirmed in his seat.

Since Tony’s execution, a number of the people at the mansion had left. Julie, who had spoke out against it, decided that it was too barbaric for her to live with and decided to leave with her husband and son. Also, no one had seen or heard anything of Stephanie or Jason since the following day.

“Where do you think they are?” John asked as they were brought up in the conversation.

Helen answered, “I don’t really care to be honest. That Stephanie was a real nasty piece of work.”

“You think they're still alive?”

Steve shrugged, “Dunno.” He looked across at Lee.

Lee lowered his glass,
and poked his finger into his own chest as he spoke. “Hey, don’t look at me. You lot are the ones who feed the people you don’t like to the infected. I just broke her nose and gave that skinny little shit husband of hers a hiding.”

Th
e party raged into the night and Steve, having drunk very little, saw an opportunity to slip away and take over in the radio room. As he sat twisting dials and adjusting frequencies, Helen walked in.

She sat
his side on a stool and rubbed his thigh. They had become an item over the weeks and now she sat watching him, a look of concern on her face.

“You're worried aren’t you? You think something bad has happened?”

Steve continued to play about with the radio, avoiding her gaze. “Yeah, I just have a feeling, Helen.”

They stayed in the radio room the entire night, monitoring the airwaves and hoping beyond hope that they would hear something.

When Steve awoke, it was early in the morning and the sun had not yet risen. He had fallen asleep at the desk with his head in his folded arms. Helen had also drifted off beside him, her head resting against his shoulder.

He raised himself and He
len stirred and rubbed her eyes. “What time is it?” she asked in a croaky voice.

Steve glanced at h
is watch. “Just gone four. I'm gonna go and see about getting us some coffee.”

He stood up and stretched, feeling his stiff joints loosen, and the bones in his spine crack. He walked toward the door then stopped. He turned and cocked his head, his brow furrowed. He took a step closer toward Helen, who sat watching him, squinting with sleep.

“Did you hear that?” he asked as he moved closer.

Helen looked confused, “Hear what?”

“There, I heard something.” He rushed to the radio and increased the volume and adjusted the signal strength. A hiss of static and a faint crackle could be heard in the background. He continued to twist and turn the knobs, ever so slightly.

He paused, holding his breath to cut down the sound
in his own head and enable him to focus his hearing. Very faintly, almost inaudible, he heard a voice.

“Steve, can you hear me? Steve?” It was Marcus.

END

When There’s No More Room In Hell 2