Adam Baker - Juggernaut

Lucy overturned a heavy table and slammed it across the hole. She threw the missile case on top of the up-turned table for added weight.

‘Use the grenades,’ she shouted.

They unhooked frag grenades from their webbing and pulled pins.

‘Keep them clear of the fuel truck. All right. Count of three. One. Two. Three.’

They hurled grenades from the carriage windows. They crouched and covered their heads.

One of the ghouls looked down as a grenade rolled in the sand at his feet, his expressionless face clouded by a moment of memory and doubt.

Eruption of dust and flesh fragments. Body parts littered the sand. Flesh and bone trampled by boots as comrades pushed forward to hammered the side of the coach.

The carriage was filled with blue combustion smoke and the bitter taint of chemical ignition.

Sat-com handset:

‘ Angel Flight to Carnival, over .’

‘ Go ahead. ’

‘ Approaching target .’

‘ Roger that. ’

‘We got to roll,’ shouted Amanda. ‘Forget the fuel line. Just rip it loose and take our chances. We’re out of ammo. We’re out of time. We have to go.’

Lucy distributed the remaining mags. Amanda kicked among spent cartridges on the carriage floor, searched for bullets ejected during gun jams.

They loaded their weapons.

‘That’s it. Last rounds. All I got left. Make them count. Let’s retake the loco, and get moving.’

Voss shook out a couple of ammo pouches. A single 40mm grenade fell from a pouch and rolled across mahogany. Gold tip. High explosive. He put in his pocket.

‘Lucy. Mandy. It’s been a privilege.’

He pushed the carriage door wide. He shielded his eyes from fierce sunlight. A horde of rotted creatures jostled for him. They reached and clawed his legs.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ shouted Lucy.

Voss shouldered his rifle and emptied his mag full auto. He dropped the spent clip and slapped a fresh magazine into the receiver.

He jumped from the carriage doorway. A carpet of bodies. Horribly deformed soldiers closed in on all sides. He raised his rifle and lay a sweeping arc of fire in a four-second burst. Chests ripped open. Republican Guard hurled backwards, sent reeling.

He hitched the empty weapon over his shoulder and drew his Glock. He edged towards the fuel truck, delivering swift headshots as snarling, mutated creatures lunged for him.

He shot the weapon dry, then used the butt as a bludgeon. Hammer blows. He cracked skulls.

A soldier tore at his face, ripped skin above his eyebrow. Voss delivered a vicious head-butt. The creature staggered backward.

He threw the pistol aside, drew his knife and punched it through the revenant’s eye socket. It toppled backward, knife jammed in its head.

Voss gripped the ladder and climbed. Fingers clawed his legs. Teeth sank into his calf and ankle, tearing fabric, tearing flesh. He yelled in pain and anger. He kicked himself free.

‘Motherfuckers.’

He rolled onto the tanker roof. He hit the red Off button with his fist. The steady hum of the fuel pump died away.

He stood. Lucy leant out of the carriage window.

‘Don’t do it.’

‘Good luck, bokkie.’

Voss limped the length of the tanker. He jumped to the adjoining bank truck. He slid through the side window into the cab.

His face was torn. Blood trickled into his eyes. He wiped with the cuff of his sleeve.

He cranked the handle and raised the side window, shutting out snarling faces and scrabbling hands.

He caught his breath. Monstrous creatures surrounded the truck. They massed, snarling and hissing. They pressed themselves to the glass. They smeared spit and pus.

Voss sat in pristine silence, no sound but his own panting breath.

He reached beneath the steering column and sparked ignition cables. Tortured grind. The engine engaged and growled to life.

The cash truck jerked forward. Tow straps sprang taut. The tanker shifted, lurched and began to roll.

The fuel transfer line ripped from the locomotive coupling.

The trucks laboured to cross waste ground. They gouged deep ruts in the dirt. The vehicles jolted and lurched. The disconnected fuel line dragged in the sand.

The engine coughed and stalled. Voss tried to restart the bank truck. The engine turned over, but didn’t engage.

He checked a cracked side mirror. He was a quarter of a mile from the train. A crowd of rotted Republican Guard had turned from the besieged carriages. They limped and stumbled towards the trucks.

Monstrous skeletal, creatures surrounded the cab. Voss sat calmly in the driver’s seat as hands, deformed grotesquely, slapped and clawed the ballistic glass around him.

A figure pushed through the crowd. Khaki camouflage gear streaked with blood and grime. A Sisters of Mercy tour shirt bulged tight over erupting carcinomas. Huang. His face was swollen and distended. Arms bristled with metallic spines.

Huang climbed onto the hood of the cash truck. He snarled and tried to punch through the windshield. He shattered his hand. He kept punching. Blood spattered the glass.

Voss cranked down the cab’s side window and squirmed out. Grasping hands tore at his clothes and rifle strap. He pulled himself free.

He climbed onto the cab. He walked across the roof.

He leapt and landed awkwardly on the hood of the fuel truck. Hands clawed for him. He climbed onto the Kraz cab, then walked the length of the fuel tank.

‘Come on, fuckers,’ he shouted.

He looked down at grasping, jostling soldiers surrounding the tanker. They reached up for him.

Voss wiped blood from his eyes with the back of his hand. He took a pouch of Red Man from his pocket and folded tobacco into his mouth.

A skeletal abomination gripped the ladder and began to haul itself rung over rung. Voss waited until the creature reached the tanker roof. He delivered a jaw-breaking kick to the head.

‘ Fok jou .’

The soldier drooled teeth and toppled into the crowd.

Voss stamped on the green Start button of the fuel pump. The segmented transfer line convulsed and gulped diesel. Gasoline bubbled from the pipe, washed into the sand, soaked booted feet, turned the ground beneath the truck into a viscous quagmire.

Huang scaled the fuel truck. He climbed from the heavy fender onto the hood. He climbed the cab to the storage tank.

He stood facing Voss. A simian crouch, like he was preparing to attack.

‘How’s it going?’ asked Voss. He slotted the high-explosive round into the grenade launcher. He snapped the breach closed.

Huang emitted a low, stuttering snarl.

‘Yeah,’ said Voss. ‘Me too.’

He took a last look around at the world.

‘Been a long fucking day.’

He pointed the rifle between his feet and fired into the tanker hull. The world winked out.

The cargo hold. Fuselage reverberating with the steady drone of Pratt and Whitney turboprops.

Tomasz conducted a last visual inspection of the bomb. He stroked riveted metal.

He checked the delivery frame. The massive thermobaric device sat on a scaffold bed. When the moment came to deploy, Jakub would pull back the joystick. The C123 would tilt and lift, Unchained Melody would be carried to the rear cargo door on greased runners and ejected from the plane. A hundred yards of tether would quickly play out and trip the drogue chutes. Jakub would bank the plane hard left and climb. Thirty seconds to fly clear before the primary barometric fuse initiated a Hiroshima-sized detonation wave, an expanding bubble of over-pressure that would smash the plane from the sky.

Tomasz checked the trigger panel.