Iain McKinnon - Remains of the Dead

“Fuckin’ busy!” Ryan shouted as he fired.

“Hold them off!” Cahz shouted. He called into his radio, “India Tango One, I know you’re there, Idris. Come on! We’re in deep shit, buddy!”

Ryan’s gun barked and flashed as he shot at the dead. Even as inexperienced with a firearm as he was, it was proving impossible to miss at such short range.

“What are you doing?” Ryan demanded to know.

“I heard a crackle!” Cahz shouted over the gunshots and moans. “I heard a crackle over the radio.”

“What’s that mean?” Ryan asked. “Has he seen us?”

“It means he’s transmitting.”

“He heard you?”

“I don’t know-look,” Cahz pointed at the sky. “He’s not moving fast-he’s searching for us.”

Ryan looked down at the backpack strapped to his chest. From inside Rebecca was screaming in terror.

“It’s going to be okay, honey. It’s going to be okay,” Ryan promised the child, tears of his own tumbling down his face.

“We have to close that gap,” Cahz said, pushing his back up to the desk.

Ryan moved to help him push. “How? There’s thousands of them out there now.”

“You cover me. I’ll push the desk back in place.” Cahz let his M4 drop in its sling.

“You’re a better shot. I’ll push.”

Cahz looked up at Ryan. “I’m out of ammo.”

“Here.” Ryan passed over his gun and braced himself against the desk. Cahz took the pistol and stood clear. “Here.” Ryan held out a magazine. “That’s my last one.”

Standing sentry over Ryan, Cahz took up his firing stance and started shooting. The knot of zombies around the breach were obliterated in seconds. Cahz turned to the fence and exhausted the remainder of the magazine trying to thin them out.

It was futile. The weight of zombies was so massive that the ones he shot refused to fall, pinned to the fence by the pressure from behind.

“Idris!” Cahz barked into the mic as he loaded the pistol for the last time. “Come on, Idris. We’re right next to the burning school. Look out your window!”

Beside him, Ryan was huffing and grunting as he forced the desk into the mass of zombies. He had almost plugged the gap, but a mound of dead were wedged between the desk and the opening, effectively jamming it.

Cahz holstered the pistol and set about clearing the space. He picked out the first inert cadaver and tossed it to one side. But as he cleared the ground another zombie pushed its way through the gap. He grabbed the scrawny bag of infected skin and bones and lobbed it back over the fence. As he turned to get back to his task another zombie pushed its head through the gap.

Cahz tore the pistol from its holster and pointed it at the gnashing zombie. He held his fire. He looked down at the loaded pistol in his hand. For all it was worth, it was useless to him. The fifteen rounds it held would never be enough.

“Ryan,” he said.

Ryan looked up from his exertions.

Cahz tossed the weapon to the young man. “You’ve got a full clip left,” he said before turning to the gap.

He delved into one of his pouches and pulled out a hard, slightly curved metal object. There was a knot of wires and duct tape strapped to the rear of the device. Cahz checked the modifications, reassuring himself that he could still use it without the jury-rigged timer.

He wasn’t fearful. A strange calm had gripped him. He knew he had to clear the ground so Ryan could seal it.

He sucked in a deep breath, girding himself for one more tremendous effort.

As he barged into the mass of cold bodies, he could hear in crystal clarity their hungry moans, Ryan’s grunting, the crackle of flames, the pitter-patter from a myriad of raindrops. And somewhere in those rain-swollen clouds, the sound of rotor blades chopping through the moist air.

Cahz felt the mud underfoot squelch as he powered forward. The solid metal body of his carbine bounced, suspended from its sling. The butt of the M4 was hooked under his forearm, the muzzle pointing at the sodden ground. With every awkward strength-sapping step in the slimy quagmire, he felt the barrel slap against his leg.

Cahz grabbed a corpse that stood blocking the desk and hurled it out of the way. As he did a zombie grabbed for him through the fence. He ignored its grasping hands and dragged a second corpse free.

The edge of the desk bashed against his shoulder as Ryan pushed it in. A few extra inches and the space would be blocked.

Another dead hand reached out and grabbed him. They were still pushing through the gap.

Cahz had to stop them. His legs ached all the way up to his backside, yet he had to muster every last iota of strength. Fighting against the resistance of the grasping hands, he pushed off against the desk and into the breach.

Spread eagled, Cahz barred the zombie’s entrance to the playing fields. All around him were the men, women and children who had found no rest in their demise, wretched creatures tortured by a malodorous and corrupt immortality, possessed by an insatiable hunger for living flesh-his flesh.

A multitude of dead hands clutched at his body; a crowd of rancid faces snarled and gnashed their shattered teeth with excitement. Their rain-soaked corpses were illuminated by flashes of light as they lunged in at him. The putrid breath of decay that escaped their rotting lungs as they moaned assaulted his nostrils and matched the rank taste festering in his mouth.

The dead hands tightened their grip and there was the sharp pain of a bite on his shoulder.

Cahz screamed, but the sound was lost to the downwash from above.

The constant heavy beating of rotor blades and the drone of a turbine encased him in noise. He closed his eyes and listened to the din from the helicopter’s engine. He pulled his arms in and flicked the detonator on the claymore.

Ali slowly surfaced from his sleep. He swallowed deep in his parched throat, trying to move the sticky mucus from his mouth.

“Time to get up, Ali,” he said to himself as he tentatively peeked out from behind his eyelids. He placed a hand against his brow to fend off the worst of the light.

He unzipped the sleeping bag and tussled with its embrace to get his feet free. As he kicked it loose he glanced around.

The sky was clear and bright. A few puffy white clouds floated in the azure blue, but it looked like it would be a fine day.

He heaved himself upright, his body giving a disparaging array of clicks and pops as he stretched out.

He looked down at his bare feet. His toenails were getting long and needing a trim. As he looked at his hairy toes he wiggled them, feeling the plastic groundsheet stick and cling to his soles.

He had been sleeping in his vest and threadbare underpants and he knew the garments, like himself, could do with a wash. He knew his long black beard was wild and unruly, his hair just as untamed. He knew he looked a sight.

The light wind whistling through the eaves made the rooftop strangely silent.

As he pulled his thick and well-worn shirt on, Ali listened for the moans of the zombies. He focused carefully and there it was, like an unending incantation. The incessant droning of a thousand coarse voices were conveyed in the air only as background noise to him. Like the constant drone of traffic outside the old apartment where he used to live. When the world was alive.

The drone of the dead were what he was used to ignoring now.

His head pounded. He knew he should be drinking more water, but had no idea when he would get some. The storm had passed and the puddles of rainwater long since dried up. His stomach growled, eager for some breakfast. But the food in the backpack had run out a couple of days ago.

Stiffly he walked to the edge of the roof. With each step his rigid joints eased off. It was even harder for him to get going in the morning these days. He would shuffle around this confined space until his ligaments and muscles had eased off.