Shaun Harbinger - Wildfire - Destruction of the Dead

Two Volkswagen Golfs, one white, one black, took the left and center lane while a dark blue Astra stayed in the right-hand lane. Behind them, a silver Citroen Picasso and a black BMW hung back slightly. I could see men and women in the vehicles and it looked like they were dressed in civilian clothing.

A woman with dark hair hung out of the passenger-side window of the Astra, firing at us with a machine gun.

“Where did they get the weapons?” I wondered aloud as Tanya returned fire.

“They’ve probably attacked military vehicles before,” Lucy said over the booming of the top gun.

The Astra exploded in a ball of orange flame. The Picasso swerved to avoid hitting the flaming carcass but over-corrected and skidded off the road, ramming through a fence and into a field.

The BMW accelerated to join the Golfs. Two men leaned out of the back windows, firing at us.

Tanya fired again and the shots tore into the white Golf. I saw the driver slump to one side, the windscreen in front of her face cracked open by a bullet. The car veered to the left and came to a dead stop.

That left the black Golf and the BMW. They were getting closer.

“I’m out of ammo,” Tanya shouted down to us. “Pass me the M16.”

I passed it up to her. Her legs disappeared through the hatch as she pulled herself up onto the roof.

“Maybe we should help,” Lucy suggested, going to the rear door with her own rifle in her hand.

I grabbed my M16 and nodded.

She opened the door.

The noise of the vehicles cutting through the rain on the road filled the Mastiff, along with the roar of the engines and the cracks of the shots being fired from the BMW.

Lucy brought her M16 up and fired. The shots peppered the front of the BMW. The driver swerved slightly but remained on the road, accelerating toward us.

I heard shots from the roof. The front tire of the Golf blew and it slowed down but it kept coming until more shots from Tanya blew the windscreen apart and the car came slowed to a stop.

I fired my M16, trying to ignore the pain as the gun kicked against my sore shoulder. My three-round burst hit the BMW’s bumper and right headlights.

Lucy and Tanya both fired at the same time and the entire front of the car seemed to erupt with gunshots. It peeled off the road and into the grass at the side of the road. The men hanging out of windows were shouting at us and firing but now they were too far behind us for that to matter.

Tanya climbed down into the Mastiff and closed the top hatch. Her hair and face were soaked but she was grinning. “Big Betty six, bandits zero.”

Lucy closed the rear door and breathed a sigh of relief. I let out a sigh of relief myself but I couldn’t’ share in Lucy’s jubilation. The people we had just killed were living, breathing human beings. They weren’t infected with the virus, they weren’t zombies or hybrids. They were people like us, trying to survive in the chaos that had overtaken everything.

I kept quiet about it. I knew that those people had been trying to kill us and it was an “us or them” situation. I knew that we had been justified in doing what we’d done. I just wished we hadn’t had to do it in the first place, that humanity hadn’t devolved into this state of savagery.

Tanya took her place next to Sam, shaking her wet hair to shower him with rainwater. He laughed and cried out, “I’m melting! I’m melting!”

That lightened my mood a little. I had to forget about the bandits back there on the road. They were, after all, bandits. They could have chosen to go to a camp or survive on their own without trying to kill other living humans but they had chosen to steal and kill to survive. I wasn’t going to rejoice in their deaths but I refused to dwell on them.

By killing them, we’d probably saved the lives of many other people.

“Not far to the services,” Sam said, pointing through the window at a sign that said SERVICES 1M. Beneath the words were the logos for McDonald’s and Costa Coffee, and a symbol of a petrol pump.

“Anyone want a Big Mac?” Sam asked.

Nobody replied. We were all checking our weapons.

We left the motorway and drove up the short road that led to the services, which consisted of a one-level building that housed the eating establishments and shops and a petrol station located near the exit road that led back to the motorway.

The car park outside the main building wasn’t empty. There were twenty or so cars parked there. There were no people inside them.

Sam drove us into the car park and brought us to a stop near the glass doors that led into the building. The lights inside were off and all I could see beyond the doors was darkness.

“You guys want to check inside for food and water while Tanya and I get the fuel?” Sam asked, turning in his seat to face us.

I shook my head, looking at the dark building. “I don’t think we should split up. It’s too dangerous.”

“I agree,” Tanya said. “We’ll all check out the main building and then we’ll all go to get fuel.”

Sam nodded. “Sure thing, man.” He turned off the engine and said, “Let’s go.”

We got out of the Mastiff and stood looking at the doors, M16s in hand. “Let’s make this quick,” Tanya said.

I couldn’t agree more. This place gave me the creeps.

We moved forward, Tanya in the lead, Sam slightly behind her. Lucy and I brought up the rear, checking behind us every few seconds.

When we got to the automatic doors, they remained closed. Either the power was out or they had been locked.

Sam smashed the glass with the butt of his gun and used his boots to remove the glass from one of the panels in the door.

We climbed through, one after the other. I went last, checking behind us before climbing through the broken door.

The dark interior of the building smelled of sweat and rotten food but I couldn’t detect the telltale aroma of zombies. That didn’t mean the place wasn’t a bandit hideout, though.

“Let’s find the shop and get out of here,” Tanya whispered, turning on her flashlight. She sounded nervous.

We moved forward in a loose formation, Tanya and Sam taking the lead again while Lucy and I covered the area behind us. Our flashlight beams played off the walls and shop entrances.

We walked past the toilets and a dark, deserted Costa Coffee shop. The tables and chairs in the shop were arranged neatly as if the place was about to open to the public.

The next shop was a WH Smith bookstore that also sold food and drinks. There were no doors; the shop simply opened up onto the wide corridor we were walking along. We stepped into the aisles and searched the food shelves.

It looked like the place had been looted already. I found a couple of chocolate bars and Tanya found two plastic bottles of water that had rolled beneath a shelf. Other than that, the shop was empty except for the books and CDs.

“Damn it,” Tanya said. “Let’s get out of here.”

A noise outside the shop, in the corridor, caught our attention. My heart began to trip along and I brought up the M16, pointing it at the darkness. “I don’t see anything,” I whispered. Our flashlights lit up the area directly outside the shop but there was nothing there.

I tried to recall the sound. It had sounded like a plastic coffee cup falling to the floor. So who or what had knocked it over?

“Let’s head for the exit,” Tanya whispered. “But slowly.”

In formation again, we left the bookshop and stepped into the wide corridor. I saw movement in the coffee shop. It had looked like someone ducking behind the counter.

“There’s someone there,” I whispered, pointing my flashlight at the place I had seen the head duck out of sight.