Red Devils

10

In a small walled courtyard behind the building in which they’d spent much of the last twenty-four hours, Wilkins, Parker and Gunderson had managed to find a safe pocket of space to explore, protected from the hordes of the dead by rubble and ruin. Wilkins uncovered a BBA035 motorcycle. It looked to have sustained only superficial damage. ‘Start it up, give it a blast,’ Parker suggested, but Wilkins declined. They spoke in hushed whispers.

‘What, and ruin the surprise? No, thank you. I’ll wait until we’re ready to leave.’

‘And if it doesn’t start?’

‘Then von Boeselager and I will be running.’

‘Quite a chance you’re taking.’

‘Less of a chance than if I was to start the engine here and now. I’ll wager the dead would find a way to pour through every available crack and crevice to get to us. Remember, wiping us out and adding to their ranks is all they’re interested in. It’s their very reason for existing. We’d all do well not to forget that.’

‘Don’t think I could forget it. I think about it every time I look at one of the damn things.’

A few minutes more work and Wilkins was ready. Gunderson – something of a grease-monkey – had checked the bike over as best he could and given it as clean a bill of health as possible given the circumstances. While he’d worked, Parker and Wilkins had cleared enough debris from an area of ground to enable the bike to be ridden out of this safe space. They’d placed a number of timber joists next to each other and rested them against the top of what had originally been a five foot brick wall, creating a makeshift exit ramp.

Done.

Time to move.

Wilkins leant back into the building and gave a thumbs-up to Coley who was watching from the top of the stairs. He, in turn, gave Escobedo the word, then escorted von Boeselager down to ground level. Wilkins gestured for the German to take the controls of the bike. ‘The hell are you doing, soldier?’ Parker asked. ‘You’re letting the kraut drive? You must be as stupid as Gunderson here looks.’

Gunderson grunted in disgust.

‘We’re both about to risk our lives out there, Lieutenant. I have to trust him, and he has to trust me. Otherwise neither of us are going to last long, are we?’

‘Don’t reckon you’re going to last long anyway, in all honesty.’

‘For all our sakes I hope we do. Now can we get things moving please?’

Parker nodded.

Coley shook von Boeselager’s hand. ‘Thank you. Good luck.’

‘You too, Lieutenant.’

Wilkins sat on the back of the bike and wrapped his arms around the German’s waist. High above them, Escobedo hung precariously out of the top floor window looking down. When he saw they were ready, he pulled the pin from a grenade and hurled it as far as he could across the packed square. Then another.

Two loud blasts in quick succession. Wilkins felt them travel up through his feet and into his belly.

One more grenade. Their meagre stock was being rapidly emptied.

Another explosion, then a deep, growling, thunderous noise as what was left of a café collapsed in on itself like a house of cards.

‘Do it,’ Wilkins ordered.

‘This is madness.’

‘I know. Fun, isn’t it?’

Von Boeselager kick-started the bike, and on the third attempt it roared into life. He rocked back, then powered forward, straight up the low ramp they’d built, and over the top of the wall.

If the grenades didn’t distract them, thought Wilkins, then we’re dead men.

The bike crashed down into an area of relative space on the fringes of the crowd, the suspension almost giving out under the weight but just about holding up. The back wheel threatened to kick out from under them, but von Boeselager instinctively hung out the other way to compensate, then swung back and accelerated hard.

The plan appeared to be working. When Wilkins looked up (he’d initially had his eyes shut and his head down) he saw that the explosions and the crumbling building had, mercifully, distracted many of the hundreds of rabid corpses which had continued to swarm here in the town square. It had left this side of the square – the area through which he and von Boeselager now rode at speed – relatively clear. Those members of the massive dead army which were interested more by the bike than the bang now found that they couldn’t get through. With half the rotting crowd trying to go in one direction and the rest of them the other, very few of the corpses were actually going anywhere.

Von Boeselager accelerated again, weaving this way and that, still nowhere near sure they were going to make it.

From his high vantage point Escobedo watched the motorcycle race away. The two men were out of sight in seconds, but the engine of the bike could still be heard minutes later. And, to his selfish delight, he noticed that their noise seemed to be of incredible interest to hordes of the dead. Sections of the vast rotting crowd had begun to move en masse, fruitlessly chasing after them.

The soldier ran down to the others who were waiting for him in the rubble downstairs.

‘This gonna work?’ asked Lieutenant Coley.

‘We’ll soon find out,’ Lieutenant Parker replied.

Their escape route had been planned, both in terms of getting away from the immediate area and getting out of Bastogne and on to Assenois. Working quickly and quietly, Parker and Gunderson scaled a wall then reached back for the others and their supplies. It took little more than a couple of minutes to complete the evacuation. Coley cleared a few undead stragglers out of their way. One of them came hard at him, but a fist to the face followed by a bowie knife between the eyes dealt with the threat.

Gunderson went for another one of the creatures, but Parker held him back. The dead woman was walking away from them, hypnotised like so many others by a combination of the ruins of the collapsed café building and the distant whine of the disappearing motorbike.

‘We good?’ Lieutenant Parker asked, looking around at the others. He didn’t need to wait for an answer. He knew that they were.