trooper’s face allowing Cooper to see only his eyes. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Vents are blocked,’ he answered in a muffled but clearly young and anxious voice.
‘So what’s the plan?’
The soldier looked from side to side, not sure whether or not he should even be speaking to Cooper. He figured that the preparation of the troops and equipment closer to the front of the hanger was a sufficient distraction for him to risk saying a few more words.
‘They reckon we can get by for now with at least two of the vents clear, so we’re going out there to sort ‘em and to make sure they stay working.’
‘Are you staying out there?’ Cooper whispered. The soldier shook his head.
‘You’ve got to be fucking joking,’ he replied quickly.
‘No, that’s what the jeeps are for. The vents are low on the ground. Plan is to leave a jeep straddling each vent to block them off and stop those bloody things out there from clogging them up again.’
The soldiers began to move forward. The trooper next to Cooper pulled himself free from the survivor’s grip and moved up to retake his position in formation next to his colleagues. Still curious, Cooper jogged across the width of the hanger towards the others. Instead of getting into one of the vehicles with them, however, he instead clambered up onto the front of another huge military transport to try and get a better view of what was about to happen. Out of breath and red faced, Baxter appeared at his side.
‘What’s happening now?’ he asked, panting with effort and nerves as he pulled himself up level with the other man.
‘They’re going to try and clear a couple of vents,’
Cooper replied. ‘They’re planning to leave those jeeps parked on top of them to try and keep the bodies away.’
‘Got to get to the bloody vents first,’ Baxter mumbled.
‘Do they realise what it’s like out there?’
‘They will in a few minutes. Anyway, they don’t have any choice if they want to keep breathing. If there was another way I’m sure they’d have tried it by now. No matter what we think of them, they’re not stupid…’
The conversation ended quickly as the doors began to open. At first nothing seemed to happen. But then, slowly and steadily, a dull scraping noise became audible over the rumbling sound of the military machines which stood poised to drive out into the open. A few seconds later and the first chink of light appeared. A slender shaft of harsh grey-white brightness appeared between the two gradually separating halves of the door. As Cooper and Baxter watched the width of the band of light increased as the entrance was opened further.
‘Christ,’ muttered Baxter under his breath. Rooted to the spot with fear he desperately tried to contain his rapidly mounting panic. ‘Jesus Christ.’
As soon as the gap was wide enough bodies began to spill into the hanger. Forced forward like a thick and viscous liquid by the sheer weight of rotting flesh pushing hard against them from behind, the first corpses stumbled and lurched down the ramp towards the soldiers with surprising speed, many tripping and falling at their booted feet. The soldiers responded instinctively, pushing the bodies back and firing at them until they had managed to temporarily stem the flow of dead meat. From somewhere deep within the ranks a muffled order was given and a row of four soldiers armed with flame-throwers stepped out of the darkness. They pushed their way closer to the diseased crowd and unleashed their devastating weapons on the nearest creatures, sending controlled arcs of dripping, incandescent flame shooting out of the bunker door and up into the cold morning air. Tinder dry, the bodies caught by the fire were almost immediately incinerated.
Another order was given and the personnel carrier began to creep slowly forward, climbing steadily towards daylight and then emerging out into the open, pushing and probing deeper into the burning crowd and grinding charred flesh and bone into the ground beneath its heavy and powerful wheels. To the front and on either side the flame-thrower carrying soldiers took up protective positions and advanced cautiously, matching the massive vehicle’s laborious pace and continuing to destroy as many corpses as their flames would reach. Beyond the mass of burning bodies countless more continually pushed themselves closer and closer to the disturbance, ignorant to the danger and devastation and attracted by the noise, fire, smoke and sudden movements.
At the bunker entrance the two jeeps finally emerged into the mayhem, each one of them surrounded by more soldiers carrying flame-throwers and other, more conventional and clearly less effective weapons.
As the military convoy eased itself away from the front of the base uncomfortably slowly, the remaining troops formed a heavy protective line of defence across the open entrance. The cool air was filled with billowing clouds of thick, black smoke and the choking, suffocating smell of burnt meat. Suddenly unable to see what was happening from where he was watching, Cooper jumped down from his high viewpoint and moved closer to the troops.
‘Cooper,’ hissed Baxter, ‘what the hell are you doing you bloody idiot?’
Cooper ignored him and continued to edge further forward. Now standing just short of the heavily armed soldiers he could see that the personnel carrier and its entourage had managed to carve a deep, curved groove through the centre of the immense crowd of corpses. The vehicles moved painfully slowly through the bloody mayhem, still surrounded by a circle of troops who aimed their weapons into the rotting masses which writhed and squirmed and surged all around them. Hundreds were obliterated by flame and gunfire. Undeterred, more bodies continued to stagger across the mass of burning remains.
Some three hundred metres away from the entrance to the base, the driver of the personnel carrier turned to the officer next to him.
‘Where’s the vent?’ he demanded. ‘Where’s the fucking vent?’
Perhaps naively the troops had not stopped to consider the disorientating visual effect of so many bodies being packed tightly together on the ground. Shaking with nerves and fired up with adrenaline, the officer traced the path they had already taken on a map. He glanced up briefly to check his bearings but could see little through the front of the vehicle. Frantic, uncoordinated movements, jumping flame and dense clouds of heavy, noxious smoke were all that he could see.
‘Should be over there,’ he yelled, pointing over to his right as he continued to try and find a more accurate visual reference. The driver steered the carrier as directed, shielding his eyes from a blast of sudden brightness as more bodies were drenched with fire and destroyed. He watched in petrified disbelief as the creatures burned and yet continued to move. Inexplicably ignorant to the flames which quickly consumed them, the rotting cadavers staggered relentlessly forward until their last decaying muscles, nerves and sinews had been burnt away to nothing.
‘Got it,’ the driver gasped as he caught sight of the exhaust vent amongst the seething sea of figures. Standing just a few inches above the ground and surrounded by mud, moss and weeds, the location of the vent was made suddenly obvious by the movement of the bodies nearby and also by the mass of once-human remains which had accumulated around it. Drawn there by the comparative warmth coming up through the vent from the depths of the base, many bodies had become entangled with the low metal structure and had been trapped and wedged in place by the weight of countless more figures pressing forward against them. Clumsy, barely coordinated feet and legs had been twisted and had buckled under the combined weight of the huge crowd, leaving the metal vent partially obscured under mounds of cold grey flesh.
‘Drive straight over the top of it,’ ordered the officer.
The driver did as instructed, turning the heavy vehicle towards the vent and accelerating through the bodies. The soldier moving in front of the carrier continued to soak the apparently endless crowd with fire, burning away the nearest of the hordes of lumbering cadavers which scrambled towards the convoy.
Apart from the vent this area of the field was otherwise relatively flat and featureless. The driver of the personnel carrier powered over the top of the metal covering, smashing more burning bodies away to the side and scraping away a thick layer of once-human remains. Seeing that the way was now slightly clearer, the driver of the first jeep following behind gestured for the driver of the second to leave his vehicle straddling the vent as arranged. The second driver pulled forward and stopped when the metal opening was directly under the centre of the jeep’s mud and blood-splattered chassis. Leaning precariously over the side of his vehicle he saw that there was just a couple of inches clearance between the top of the vent and the bottom of the jeep. Perfect.
The other two vehicles had continued to move forwards, changing course and heading towards the next nearest vent to repeat the manoeuvre. The second driver, now suddenly vulnerable without the protection of his jeep, sprinted after the others.
