Shaun Harbinger: Wildfire: Destruction of the Dead

Some of the cars had been burned out and were now only charred metallic shells. Others bore black scorch marks where flames had licked the paintwork.

“What the hell happened here?” I asked out loud.

Tanya answered, her eyes scanning the vehicles, which were now only so much scrap metal. “It looks like the villagers barricaded the road. They probably thought they could keep themselves safe from the madness that was going on in the rest of the world by keeping it out. It’s like when the plague swept the country in the Middle Ages and townspeople and villagers kept strangers away in case they carried the disease.”

“But why destroy all the cars?” Lucy asked.

I pondered that for a moment. I could see why they might barricade the road to keep strangers away but why wreck the vehicles as well? When the answer came to me, I felt a tinge of sadness for the people who had lived here, who were now existing as walking corpses in the place they had spent their lives.

“They weren’t keeping people out,” I said. “They were keeping themselves in. They must have known that a virus was spreading among them and they were quarantining the village. They destroyed the cars so that nobody could leave.”

“That’s so sad,” Lucy said. “They knew they were all going to die, but they still wanted to stop the virus escaping to the rest of the world.”

I looked around at the stone houses. “This place is very isolated. Maybe they didn’t know that the rest of the world was infected. By the time they found out, they had probably already destroyed the cars, their only chance of escaping the village.”

Sam sighed. “Great. So we have to find a car somewhere else. Their act of self-sacrifice has caused us a big problem, man.”

“We also have another problem,” Tanya said. “The rain has stopped.”

Tanya was right. We had been so busy looking at the barricade that we hadn’t noticed the sky brightening. I picked up the M16. “We need to get back to the Zodiac.”

I could hear doors opening all around us and the zombies, quiet until now, began to emit low, hungry moans.

“Fuck,” Sam said. The road that led back to the harbor was crawling with zombies.

The people of this community had sacrificed themselves to stop the spread of the virus beyond their village, but that self-sacrifice had been pointless. They were all zombies now, controlled by the virus they had been trying to isolate.

“We’re going to have to shoot our way through,” Lucy said, lifting her M16 and aiming at the crowd of bodies staggering along the road toward us.

Zombies came from every direction, shuffling out of the houses and heading for us with arms outstretched. There were so many of them, I didn’t think we had enough ammo to kill them all.

Every front door had opened now, and the rotting monsters filled the streets.

Only the pub was quiet. Its doors remained closed, its windows dark.

“In here,” I said, stepping back to the door of the pub and twisting the cold metal handle.

The door was locked.

The sharp crack of gunfire filled the air as Lucy and Sam sent bursts of bullets into the brains of the advancing horde. But instead of moving forward, they were backing up as they fired. The way ahead was blocked by a mass of stinking, staggering creatures. The stench of rotting flesh made me gag.

I ran to the pub window and rammed the butt of the M16 against the glass. It shattered loudly. I threw the boxes inside and then scrambled through after them, tiny shards of glass cutting my hands as I clambered over the windowsill.

The pub was gloomy and smelled of stale sweat and beer. I swept the barrel of the gun around the room, bracing myself for an attack from the shadows. None came.

Tanya and Lucy climbed in through the window. Outside, I could hear more shots above the incessant moaning. Sam vaulted into the pub and spun around, sending a hail of bullets out onto the street. The noise of the gun was louder in here, making my ears ring.

“We need to keep moving!” Sam said.

Grasping arms and clawing fingers reached into the pub through the glassless window. Blue rotting faces with yellow eyes and gnashing teeth glared at us as we backed away from the opening.

Lucy fired her M16 in three-round bursts, standing calmly as she dispatched the zombies at the window one by one. Their heads jerked back as the bullets penetrated their brains. Dark blood sprayed wildly.

As each zombie fell, another took its place. It wouldn’t be long before they climbed in through the window and overpowered us. We only had a limited number of bullets.

I went in search of an exit and found a door that opened onto a dark flight of stairs leading up to the next floor. “This way,” I shouted to the others. “Bring the boxes.”

I ascended the stairs, keeping the M16 pointed in front of me. The others came through the door and closed it.

“This won’t keep them out for long,” Sam said, sliding home a small bolt that was no thicker than a pencil.

At the top of the stairs, an archway led to a kitchen and a small living room. The air smelled of old cigarettes but there was no telltale rotting-meat stench. The owners of the pub were probably out on the street with the other zombies.

A banging noise came from the bottom of the stairs. The monsters were pounding on the door, trying to break it down.

Sam took up a firing position at the top of the stairs. He might have a good chance of defending the stairs for a short time as the zombies stumbled into the confined space, but eventually they would get up here.

I ran to the back of the living space, looking for another way out. All I found was a small bathroom and bedroom.

Stepping into the bedroom, I was surprised to see that the bed was made perfectly, as if whoever had last slept there expected to return soon. There was a dressing table with makeup arranged neatly across its top, and two dark wooden nightstands and a matching armoire. A faint odor of rotting meat hung in the air, making me check under the bed.

I crossed to the large window on the back wall and looked down. There was a small paved yard below, hemmed in by a tall wooden fence. Beyond the fence panel at the far end of the yard, a grassy expanse of dead ground followed the top of a small cliff along the coastline.

Tanya came into the room. “Any way out?”

“Not unless we can get down there,” I said, pointing out of the window.

She took a glance at the yard below and nodded. She opened the window. Fresh, salt-tanged air rushed into the room.

“It’s too far to jump,” I reminded her.

Without answering, she reached into the pocket of her combat jacket and took out a coiled length of paracord. Unrolling it quickly, she scanned the room. “We need an anchor point.” She went to the armoire and tested its weight by pushing against it. Seemingly satisfied, she looped the cord around the front legs of the armoire. As Tanya began tying knots, I looked at the cord snaking across the carpet. It looked very thin. “Do you think that’s going to hold us?”

“Yeah,” she said, thinking I had meant the armoire and not the cord. “The wardrobe is made of a heavy wood, probably mahogany. And whatever’s inside it is pretty heavy too. Don’t worry, it’ll hold.”

I nodded, unsure.

Sam and Lucy appeared. “The door is starting to give way,” Lucy said. “It won’t be long now.”

“We’re going out the window,” Tanya told them.

They both nodded, bringing the boxes into the bedroom and then throwing them out of the window one by one. MacDonald had said the syringes inside were protected by plastic tubes, so being thrown out of the window shouldn’t damage them.