Red Devils

31

Captain Hunter’s men guided in the Douglas. Before the plane had even stopped moving, troops were surrounding it on all sides, firing into the trees. The dead were being called to the airfield in massive numbers. There had been thousands of them at Polonezköy, and since the fence there had been down, they’d almost exclusively been drawn in this direction. The surrounding countryside was deathly quiet in comparison to this place. Captain Hunter’s men’s on-going battle to secure the site had attracted large numbers, but nothing in comparison to the flood of decay that was heading here now from the camp. Until now Hunter had resisted allowing his men to use firearms, but the choice had been taken out of his hands. ‘Hit them with everything you’ve got,’ he bellowed across the battlefield. ‘Wipe the damn things out.’

Barton was still struggling to catch his breath. His desperate sprint from the camp to here had been terrifying. ‘Lieutentant Wilkins will be here, sir,’ he said to the captain. ‘I know he will.’

‘We can’t afford to wait, soldier.’

‘We can’t afford not to.’

‘Maybe you don’t understand me, boy, and maybe you do things differently round your neck of the woods, but way I see it we need to get this bird back up in the air in the next couple of minutes or none of us are gonna get out of here.’

‘If the lieutenant’s not with us, I don’t think it matters, sir.’

Captain Hunter pretended not to hear. The ever-increasing noise of battle filled the air. Rickman had turned the Douglas around and was ready to open the throttle and get the hell out of Poland as soon as Hunter gave the word.

Barton yelled at the captain to understand, but got no response. He grabbed Hunter’s arm and tried to plead with him, but all that did was incense the American even more. ‘Get your hands off me, boy, and get your sorry ass on-board.’

‘But, Captain…’

‘Now, soldier! Get out of my sight or I’ll leave you here to fight those damn freaks on your own. Your man’s not coming back, and you just have to accept that. He tried, he failed. Now it’s time, and we’re leaving.’

Sergeant Prendergast, a kid who didn’t look old enough to be in long trousers never mind the army, rushed up to the captain. ‘We’re gettin’ swamped out there, Captain.’

Hunter nodded. He cast a look at Barton which told the British soldier in no uncertain terms that he needed to keep his mouth shut. Barton knew what was coming next.

‘We’re out of here,’ Captain Hunter said. ‘Get everyone on-board. Blow the shit out of the next line of corpses to stop any more getting through for a couple a minutes. We’ve waited here long enough.’

Prendergast nodded then sprinted back to the front line. Barton dejectedly boarded the plane. He looked back as a volley of grenades was launched into the forest. The tree-line exploded into flame. If Wilkins and Steele were caught up in the middle of all that, he thought, then between the explosions and the dead they didn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance of getting out of there alive.

But right now they were still fighting.

Steele sat next to Wilkins, cradling the grey-skinned, undead girl in his arms. Wilkins had taken an empty truck from the Nazi compound and had driven it out through the hole in the fence around Polonezköy at breakneck speed. At first, he’d tried driving around the swarming dead, but it had quickly become clear that such consideration was frivolous and unnecessary in the extreme. Instead he now drove through them, keeping his foot down hard on the accelerator, trying to focus on what was happening directly ahead and not be distracted by the thud-thud-thud of dead flesh on metal. Heads popped like balloons. Limbs were dragged under grinding wheels. Wilkins left the wipers on, but all they did was smear blood and decay in a greasy arc across the windscreen, obstructing his field of view.

‘Straight, Lieutenant, straight!’ Steele yelled as Wilkins yanked the wheel hard right.

‘I can’t risk driving through the forest,’ Wilkins shouted back, jumping up in his seat as they drove over a particularly obese corpse then through an ice-covered pothole. ‘I’m going to drive up and around the side of Polonezköy, then try and pick up a track near the entrance. There has to be a road from the camp to Leginów, don’t you think?’

‘You’re probably right, but I don’t reckon we’ve got time. We have to take the most direct route.’

‘And if we do that, Sergeant, I don’t think we’ll ever get through.’

Another volley of grenades. The next wave of corpses, crawling frantically over the remains of the last, were blown to pieces. In places the gore was inches deep.

But still they came.

As dawn’s light broke, the full horror of the scene was revealed. The dense forest between Polonezköy and the airfield was rife with teeming movement, the noise of battle having drawn almost every undead creature from the camp in this direction. Sure, the grenades and the gunfire would beat another load of them back, but it was clear there’d immediately be more to take their place. Captain Hunter reckoned there were far more attacking bodies than he had grenades for. ‘We’ve done enough, men,’ he told his sergeants. ‘We’re outta here.’

Hunter headed for the Douglas and disappeared inside, pausing on the step to look back once more. Much of the tree-line was ablaze, dirty smoke billowing into the sky. Soldiers still took pot-shots through the haze as they retreated, bringing down body after body after body. Almost as soon as the last man had stopped firing, the dead advanced again. And this time, with no suppressing fire to stop them, they made progress with terrifying speed. Less than a minute after the final shot had been fired and they’d already gained more than twenty yards ground from the trees. There was nothing left to hold them back. Clambering over the devastated husks of their fallen brethren, hundreds more of the dead spilled onto the airfield like an unstoppable slick.

Barton tried one last time to persuade Captain Hunter, but the American was having none of it. ‘Please, sir, just a minute longer.’

‘Lieutenant Wilkins is gone, son. He failed. Accept it.’

‘But, sir…’

‘Get this kid out of my face,’ Hunter bellowed. He turned and shouted to the pilot. ‘Captain Rickman, get us out of here.’

Wilkins’ intuition had served him well. After racing along the western edge of the concentration camp, they eventually hit the gravel track which connected the camp to the airfield at Leginów. He kept his foot down on the pedal, trying to wring every last scrap of speed out of a tired old vehicle that was less racehorse, more packhorse.

Steele clung onto their precious cargo. ‘Think we’re going to do this?’

Wilkins’ silence was as good an answer as he was going to get. Steele understood. He didn’t think they were going to make it either.

Over a rise, through a water-filled dip, up another grinding climb, and they were almost there. Wilkins glanced across to his left. They were driving parallel with the airfield landing strip. He could see the Douglas’ tail fin between the trees. Damn thing was moving!

‘Hold on, Steele.’

‘I am holding on. I’ve been holding on since we got into this damn jalopy.’

‘Then you may need to hold a little tighter.’

Without warning, Wilkins steered hard left, almost tipping the truck over onto its side. A fortuitous glancing blow against a tree knocked the vehicle back down onto all four wheels and Wilkins accelerated again. The truck crashed through the undergrowth, bringing down saplings and bushes, and weaving between more established trees, then smashed through a wire-mesh fence which ran alongside the runway. They emerged perhaps two hundred yards ahead of the Douglas, which was already taxiing down the bumpy strip, ready to take off.

‘He’ll never stop now,’ Steele said.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll make him see us.’

And for the second time in a minute, Wilkins steered hard left. The truck turned in a wide arc, facing back down the runway, and he accelerated again.

Wilkins was driving headlong at the Douglas. And behind the aircraft, hundreds of crazed bodies raced towards them.

‘What the hell is that idiot doing?’ Garfunkle asked. ‘Damn Nazis. Do they think we’re gonna give them a lift home or something?’

‘We’ll keep going,’ Captain Rickman told him. ‘Fly right over that crazy fool and let him run straight into that lot following behind us. Serve the damn kraut right.’

Garfunkle kept the throttle open, trying to work out if they had enough space to get up off the ground and clear the truck. He thought they’d make it. Just.

‘Wait…’ Rickman said. ‘Is that…?’

He’d recognised Wilkins and Steele at the last possible second and slowed the plane down. Captain Hunter was up with the pilots almost instantly. ‘What the hell? Get us out of here, for Christ’s sake.’

‘It’s the Brits, sir, look,’ said Garfunkle.

‘God damn,’ the captain cursed before turning to shout an order to the troops out back. ‘Get them on-board, and quick. Wait any longer and we’ll never get off the ground.’ He turned back to Rickman and Garfunkle. ‘How much space do you fellas need to get us up in the air?’

‘A little more than we’ve got,’ Rickman answered.

They’d seen them, they must have. Wilkins thought his eyes were deceiving him at first but no, the Douglas had definitely stopped on the runway. He accelerated again until they were level with the plane, then steered right and made sure he stopped more than a wing’s width away. ‘Come on, Sergeant, let’s go home.’

Steele hoisted the child onto his shoulder again and began to run alongside Wilkins, but both of them stopped when they saw the size of the crowd of foetid corpses coming their way from the direction of Polonezköy. It looked enormous. So many that they both knew beyond doubt there was a real chance the plane could be surrounded by dead flesh in the next couple of minutes.

The hatch in the side of the Douglas opened. Barton was there with a couple of yanks, beckoning them to move. ‘Lieutenant Wilkins! Quick!’ he screamed.

‘As if that hadn’t occurred to me,’ Wilkins muttered under his breath. He pushed Steele forward first, and Steele offered the girl to the first soldier who reached down. Captain Hunter pushed himself between the soldier and Steele.

‘What the hell is that thing?’ he demanded. ‘You ain’t bringing one of those damn creatures on this aircraft.’

‘All due respect, Captain,’ Wilkins explained, ‘this girl will probably save more lives than you and I and our respective companies put together. There’s no time to explain. Please trust me.’

Hunter reluctantly moved aside, and Steele and Wilkins boarded the Douglas. ‘Let’s get outta here,’ the captain shouted, and the plane immediately began to lurch forward again. Wilkins was still half-in and half-out, hanging back. He could see the dead getting perilously close behind. Some of them were in touching distance now. Some had their decaying hands on the plane’s fuselage and were attempting to work their way towards the wings. Two Americans pulled the door shut and he dropped down into the nearest available seat and strapped in. He craned his neck to look back.

The dead were still running after them. It was like something out of a nightmare. Would they never stop?

Captain Rickman opened the throttle fully and pulled back on the controls. The plane bounced along the uneven grass, rapidly running out of airstrip. He glanced across at Garfunkle and saw his co-pilot had his eyes screwed shut.

The Douglas lifted off the ground, its landing gear clipping the trees as it climbed into the air.

Wilkins kept looking down, watching the bodies below them disappear. Polonezköy looked impossibly bleak in the cold light of morning, like a scab on the face of the planet. Poisoned. Overrun by the dead.

Was this to be the fate of the entire world?

Or had he and his men done enough?