Red Devils

28

Hunter’s men had just about managed to hold the airfield. Border patrols picked off the few undead stragglers that had followed the earlier rancid crowds but had taken longer to get here. Despite a sudden flurry of activity when Polonezköy had been rocked by fresh explosions, the Americans remained unquestionably on top. They were just waiting on their ride out of here and, the captain hoped, for the return of Wilkins and his men with their precious passenger. And all of this had been done with barely a single shot being fired. Stealth and savagery had been the order of the day.

Bryce Hamilton, a battle-hardened warrior who’d seen more service than most, had been patrolling the outskirts of the forest near the far end of the airfield when he saw one of his colleagues go down unexpectedly. The man had been on his feet one minute, on the ground the next. He ran over to see what was wrong.

‘Wassup, Wilder?’

Wilder was on his back, kicking out at something in the shadows. It was the remains of a Nazi that had hauled itself some distance to get here. Its legs were broken and useless, but it clearly still had enough brutal strength in its arms to move and was still completely fixated on destroying the living. It dragged itself further up Wilder’s body, having completely taken him by surprise. Hamilton knocked off its helmet, grabbed a handful of hair, and pulled its head and neck up high enough so that Wilder could kick his way free. The creature, unable to support itself from the waist down, flipped over onto its back and, before it could react, Hamilton stamped on its face until it stopped thrashing and lay completely still.

‘Thanks, man,’ Wilder gasped, picking himself up and brushing himself down. ‘Damn thing came outta nowhere.’

‘Yeah, and it wasn’t alone…’

Hamilton pushed past Wilder and struck another creature square in the face with the butt of his rifle. And another. Wilder was alongside him now, and they saw that more of the monsters were swarming through the trees, all moving in this direction.

‘Where the hell are they coming from so suddenly?’ Wilder asked, confused and concerned.

Hamilton didn’t answer. He called for assistance and was relieved when he heard other members of the battalion moving towards them. He stared into the blood-soaked face of the next corpse he dispatched. Female? Although his view was limited in the low light, he realised the woman lying at his feet was dressed in the uniform of a prisoner. Had she come from Polonezköy? ‘Wait,’ he started to say, ‘are these . . .?’

One of the vile creatures hurled itself at him at speed. He instinctively caught the cadaver and was about to smack the damn thing in its hideous face when it spoke.

‘Wait, don’t. It’s me, Lance Corporal Barton. Get me to Captain Hunter. Urgently!’

The accent gave the man away. It was one of the Brits. Hamilton obliged, virtually dragging the British soldier back to the airfield, then pushing him up the makeshift runway.

It took a couple of minutes to reach the captain. Barton could barely breathe, let alone speak. By the time they got to him, though, the captain was already well aware there was a problem. A vast swarm of the dead was beginning to emerge from the tree-line, rapidly encroaching on the airfield. Their shadowy shapes were everywhere. Hunter could see his men trying to keep them at bay; to a man they were doing everything they could, beating the hell out of everything that moved, but numbers meant they were already being forced to retreat.

‘Where’s Lieutenant Wilkins and the doctor?’ Hunter demanded, no time for pleasantries.

Barton shook his head and sucked in oxygen. ‘Not yet… Message from the lieutenant… He says to wait… almost done…’

‘We can’t afford to wait, goddammit. And where the hell did all these spooks appear from?’

‘The camp… the walls have been breached… Hundreds of them coming this way…’

‘Does Wilkins have the doctor?’

‘Not sure.’

‘And I’m supposed to risk the lives of my remaining men on your uncertainty?’

‘Lieutenant Wilkins won’t let us down, sir.’

‘Yeah, well it ain’t just us who’s in trouble, is it?’

Captain Hunter stormed away, barking orders at his men, moving them down from the top end of the airfield towards the trees to stem the ever-growing advance of the dead.

Someone asked an obvious question, and Hunter gave them an equally obvious reply, bellowing at the top of his voice. ‘Do whatever you have to. Shoot the shit out of those bastards, just keep them off this damn runway. I want that Douglas to get a clear approach and to be able to get away again. I do not intend on being stranded in the middle of this shit-storm. Do I make myself clear?’

His troops’ reply went unheard amongst the cacophony of gunfire which suddenly filled the air.