Shaun Harbinger - Wildfire - Destruction of the Dead

“Bandits?” Lucy asked as we reached the motorway.

Sam shook his head. “I think they were military vehicles.” He pulled into the center lane of the motorway to avoid a group of abandoned cars.

“Guys, we’re not supposed to be running from the military,” I said. “We’re going to a camp, remember? We work for the MoD.”

Sam let out a sigh of relief. “Oh yeah, I forgot.”

Everyone laughed. It was a natural release of the tension that had built inside us as soon as we had heard the vehicles. We were so used to running from everyone, including the army, that it was difficult to shake the mild paranoia that pervaded our worldview.

Sam took his foot off the gas, dropping our speed. He maneuvered around more abandoned vehicles, some of them sitting in the middle of the road.

“There’s a lot of traffic today,” he said lightly.

Tanya checked the map. “We’re approaching Carlisle, a fairly small city. This motorway becomes the M6 and it runs right along the edge of the city.”

That made me nervous. I could only imagine what a city would be like, how many thousands of zombies there must be walking the streets.

“Maybe we should take a different route,” I suggested.

“No can do, man,” Sam said. “This is the most direct way to get to the camp. As long as… oh, shit.” He applied the brakes, bringing us to a stop.

“What is it?” I asked, moving forward so I could see out of the windows.

Ahead, a bridge spanned the motorway. Next to it, a blue sign announced WELCOME TO ENGLAND and displayed the cross of St. George flag.

Beneath the bridge, a group of cars had been parked so that they blocked all the lanes on both sides of the motorway.

“Roadblock,” Sam said.

We waited, sitting in the middle of the motorway with the engine running. Sam whispered, “I’m ready to slam us into reverse and get out of here.”

Nothing happened. Nobody appeared on the bridge, which would be the best place for an ambush, or at the sides of the road to flank us. We simply sat there waiting for an attack that never came. Even the rain stopped, the constant pitter patter on the vehicle giving way to an eerie silence.

“Maybe they’re waiting for us to get out,” I whispered.

“Or maybe there’s nobody here at all,” Sam said.

“Only one way to find out,” Tanya said. She opened her door and slid out onto the road, M16 in hand.

Still no movement from the bridge.

“Nothing,” Tanya said from outside. “We need to move those cars.”

We all got out of the Mastiff, but I noticed that Sam didn’t turn off the engine. The big vehicle rumbled quietly while we approached the bridge and the cars parked beneath.

The surface of the road was wet and our boots splashed through rainbow-colored oil stains that floated on the puddles. There was a slight smell of rotting meat hanging in the air.

“Anyone else smell zombies?” Tanya asked, looking around for signs of trouble.

“Yeah,” I said. “But I think it might be coming from the city. If there’s a huge zombie population there, the smell would be noticeable from miles away.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding but still checking in all directions. She and Lucy stayed close to the Mastiff, keeping an eye on our surroundings while Sam and I walked into the shadows under the bridge.

The cars were parked at angles so they blocked all three lanes. Sam went up to a white Nova that blocked the middle lane and peered in through the driver’s-side window. He tried the door. It opened.

Sam took the Leatherman tool from his pocket and leaned below the steering column. After a couple of minutes, the car started. Sam climbed into the driver’s seat and reversed the Nova to the side of the road.

“Where did you learn to hot-wire a car?” I asked him as he came back to the roadblock and went to work on the next car in the line, a silver Honda.

“You pick things up here and there,” he said. He got the Honda started and parked it next to the Nova by the side of the road.

He moved to the next car, an old Ford Fiesta, and opened it. A sudden movement inside the car made Sam step back, surprised. “Shit!” He reached for his handgun but the zombie was already clawing at his legs, pulling him down onto the road.

They rolled in the oily water, locked together by the zombie’s arms and legs, which were wrapped around Sam’s torso. I fumbled the Walther out of its holster and ran over to where they were struggling against each other.

The zombie’s head shot forward and it sank its teeth into Sam’s upper arm. Sam cried out in pain.

I reached them and put the muzzle of the Walther against the zombie’s temple, squeezing the trigger as soon as I knew I wouldn’t miss. The shot rang out and the bullet passed through the zombie’s head, taking blood and brain matter with it as it exited through the other side of the creature’s skull.

The zombie collapsed. Sam pushed it away and scrambled to his feet, holding the bleeding wound in his arm. His combat jacket was ripped and blood was oozing out of the wound and staining the camouflage-patterned fabric.

Sam’s face was a grimace, his skin almost white. His eyes were glazed.

Tanya ran over and helped me support his weight as we led him back to the Mastiff. Lucy remained on guard. I could see worry in her face.

We got Sam into the back of the Mastiff. He lay on the steel floor, breathing heavily, still clutching his wound.

Tanya got the first-aid kit from beneath the passenger seat and opened it, tipping the contents out onto the floor. She grabbed a bandage and disinfectant.

“Get his jacket off,” she told me.

I began to pull at the jacket but Sam batted my hand away. “I can do it myself,” he said, his voice thin. He struggled out of the jacket and his T-shirt. The bite mark in his arm was a jagged red line just below his shoulder. It was still bleeding.

“I think he needs stitches,” I told Tanya.

She swept her hand through the first-aid items on the floor and held up a white packet. “We’ll use these. Skin closure strips.”

She opened the bottle of disinfectant and poured it onto the wound. Sam gritted his teeth as the brown liquid entered the rip in his flesh.

“Hold the wound together,” Tanya said.

I used my fingers to press the sides of the tear together while Tanya applied the skin closure strips. Then she cleaned the area with sterile wipes.

The skin around the bite was red and inflamed. The inflammation seemed to be spreading down the arm and over Sam’s shoulder and chest.

Tanya and I looked at each other, both of us thinking the same thing. “Now we’ll see if the vaccine really works,” she said.

I nodded. “I hope it…”

My words were cut off by the sound of gunshots outside.

Bullets began ricocheting off the safety cage. Lucy appeared at the rear of the Mastiff and said, “We need to get out of here, now .” She climbed inside and closed the door.

“What’s happening?” Tanya asked her.

“People on the bridge. They’ve got guns.”

Tanya went up front and climbed into the driver’s seat. “We’re getting out of here.” We began to reverse back along the motorway. Now I could see the shooters on the bridge. There looked to be maybe six or seven of them. They were all men as far as I could make out and they were dressed in civilian clothing.

“More bandits?” I asked Tanya as I got into the passenger seat up front.

“Looks like it.” Her eyes roamed over the dashboard as she tried to familiarize herself with the Mastiff’s controls. There were more switches and buttons than in a conventional car but that was to be expected when the vehicle had on-board computer systems, cameras, and weapons.