Michael Thomas - Night of the Nazi Zombies

Even though half of the creatures were down an equal number kept pushing forwards. Archer, who had been loading more ammunition into his Bren gun stood up, the gun hanging down low to his waist and proceeded to fire from the hip. Round after round pounded into the rush, filling the porch with bone and gore. Chard, from his position at the window dropped a grenade outside; the blast came moments later and sent dust and debris in through the doorway and windows. A loud cry from outside signalled that yet more of the things were there but at least the immediate assault had been stopped.

Captain Scott looked down to see the wounded old man. M. Poulain had sustained multiple bites from the creatures and was losing blood at a rapid rate. Before the officer could even try to move him the old man reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling the soldier’s pistol to his forehead. The look on the man’s face told him exactly what he had to do. Closing his eyes for just a moment he fired a single shot from his handgun. M. Poulain, the crazy old man with the blunderbuss was dead. There was no time to grieve though as the creatures were still massing in numbers outside and more were making their way to the doorway. Moving the body up against the wall, Captain Scott approached one of the south facing windows where Chard was defending. Shouting up to him, Captain Scott passed up his grenade, which Chard deftly armed and then threw twenty feet out in front of the doorway. From the other window Jones threw out two more grenades. The men ducked down and the thuds and piles of debris announced the detonation of the devices. Chard looked back out of the window; the grenades had done their job well. At least thirty of the creatures were down, some still moving but none on their feet. Looking out further the numbers were still substantial but at least this part of the church had held.

Archer climbed on top of the stacked material so he could take up position with his Bren gun. Jones jumped down, giving him full access to the window. From there Archer had an unrestricted view of the southern face of the church. Popping in another thirty round magazine he started shooting, picking off the closest of the creatures from the pack. Though the weapon carried only small magazines Archer was carrying almost a dozen more, taken from the rest of the men who as a matter of course carried spare magazines for the Brens.

Several more explosions blasted around the church. The defenders in the main tower, and Humphreys along the northern wall of the church, did their bit to force back the attacks. With a loud wailing sound the attack seemed to stop just as soon as it had started.

Up in the tower Trent watched the unfolding battle with awe. The MG42 team had used up all their ammunition and had left him with just one spare MP40 and several spare magazines they had found earlier. The MP40 submachine gun seemed to be working pretty well and from his vantage point he was able to put a considerable amount of fire down into the area around the base of the tower. They had now withstood two pushes to break inside the church and though difficult had held them off, so far. Lifting his scope rifle up he surveyed the scene out to the south and then followed through to the west and up to the north. These main attacks seemed to have slowed. There were no major groups of the creatures within a distance of about a quarter of a mile to the south. To the west a large group of the things were shambling forwards, they were much closer and would probably reach the church in five to ten minutes. The north looked pretty clear, apart from the odd straggler. He saw one out on its own and without hesitation put a bullet into the side of its head. Normally he would be very pleased with a shot like that; today it just seemed it made no difference. He shouted down through the tower to the Captain.

In the nave the situation was pretty grim. Private Wilks was losing a lot of blood from his leg wound and Chard was trying to patch him up. M. Poulain was dead and all the spare ammunition had been shared out amongst the defenders. They were now left to just Clarke, Smith and one Frenchman at the chancel. After a quick check they found they carried only four magazines between them. In the nave Captain Scott, the young French resistance fighter and Archer watched the walls whilst Chard saw to the wounded Wilks and Humphreys whose wounds seemed to be taking a turn for the worse.

In the nave Lance Sergeant Jones spoke to the civilians. This small group consisted of the German soldier, the middle-aged couple, the two girls and an old French man who was still balancing against his walking stick. Jones put his hand on the shoulder of the middle-aged man. He looked in his late forties, maybe early fifties and was in no way capable of putting up much of a fight. He spoke quickly, the French girls translating as Jones spoke.

“I need you to take them to the basement,” he waved his arms around the group.

“Get them under the ground and hide them. Do not come out till we come and get you.”

The middle-aged man nodded and taking the small group headed for the tower. The German soldier made to move but was grabbed by Jones. He started to struggle until Jones held up one of the captured Kar98K rifles to him. After a brief pause he thrust the weapon into the man’s hands. The German looked confused for a few seconds but the meaning was simple and clear. Jones pointed to the windows in the nave and then to his eyes. The German had a job and looked almost relieved as he ran to the southern wall of the nave and climbed up to the window. They now had four to defend the centre of the church.

At the church tower Harris and Gardner had taken over from Lewis on the ground floor. From their position they had an excellent view in three directions and could also provided a small amount of fire into the nave if needed. Up the staircase was Trent, still shooting from the bell tower.

Though the church had held it had sustained damaged along its walls and windows and a number of the creatures had managed to break inside, inflicting causalities on the defenders. The attrition of the combat had taken its toll and the exhausted soldiers and civilians alike needed a break, even if just for a few moments. Sadly the next wave of the creatures was now only a few minutes away and another assault was imminent. Bizarrely though, the building was almost silent just the occasional rifle shot against any of the undead if they got too close.

Through the silence each of the defenders strained their hearing for the sound of the undead finally reaching the building.

Nothing though, the place was deadly quiet, as though the creatures had vanished. Trent looked out nervously from his high vantage point. He could still see the creatures but for some reason they had stopped, each of them just stood still, almost as though they had forgotten what they were doing. Some of them kept turning and looking out to the north-west. The horizon flashed multiple times as though a massive flashgun was being triggered. With each flash the distant trees and faint outlines of buildings were silhouetted by the light. Seconds later came the crump of heavy weapons, explosions and artillery. This all pointed to an epic battle underway, perhaps this was the start of the battle for the Orne River Bridge or maybe more of their forces had run into these undead creatures. Trent called down into the nave.

“Captain, you need to see this!”

Looking back to the horizon he could see tracer fire from anti-aircraft guns reaching high into the sky. Every now and then it was just possible to spot the outlines of dark aircraft, probably delivering more Allied troops to the invasion of France. On the ground in the distance though there was definitely a battle on the go, just a matter of a few miles away. Captain Scott entered the cramped room up high in the church tower and moved towards Trent.