‘We’re in business. She’s fuelling.’
Voss descended the ladder. Gaunt jumped from the locomotive. They faced each other.
Gaunt gestured towards the convoy. They could see creatures, twisted by strange cankerous growths, weaving between burned-out vehicles.
‘Think we can hold them off?’ asked Gaunt.
‘Smart fire. Clean medulla shots. Let’s not waste a single bullet.’
‘Okay.’
Gaunt fetched a backpack full of ammo from the truck cab.
‘Better get ourselves a fire position.’
He headed for the carriage. Voss held back.
Gaunt reached up and gripped the door handle.
‘What’s up with you?’
‘Nothing,’ said Voss.
Gaunt took the locomotive ignition key from his pocket and held it up.
‘Don’t forget. You still need me. You want to get home? You want to get rich? Then you need me alive.’
Gaunt pulled open the carriage door and hauled himself up into the carriage. Gunshot. Windows momentarily lit by muzzle flare like a camera flash. Gaunt was hurled from the coach. He rolled in the dust.
Lucy and Amanda climbed from the carriage. Smoke curled from the barrel of Lucy’s AK.
Gaunt was shot in the hip, just beneath the hem of his flak jacket. He crawled, dragging his injured leg, blood soaking into the sand. He gripped the side of the carriage and slowly pulled himself upright.
Lucy picked up the locomotive key and put it in her pocket. She hoisted Gaunt’s backpack from where it lay and slung it over one shoulder. She raised the AK and took aim.
Gaunt popped an ammo pouch on his chest rig and held the virus cylinder above his head.
‘You want to shoot? Want to crack this baby open, see what happens?’
He backed away, sliding along the side of the carriage, dragging his injured leg.
‘Back up. Back the fuck up.’
Lucy lowered the gun.
‘You’ve got nowhere to go, Gaunt. This place is going to burn.’
Gaunt began to limp away across the sand, still holding the virus cylinder.
Amanda took a couple of steps but Lucy held her back.
‘Leave him,’ said Lucy. ‘Better this way. Let him piss in fear as the bomb drops.’
‘What about the virus?’
‘Let the firestorm do its job.’
They watched Gaunt reach the valley wall. Dripping sweat, dripping blood, dragging his useless leg.
‘How long can he last?’ asked Amanda.
Lucy shrugged.
‘I’ve seen Talib last a whole day with their guts hanging out.’
Gaunt struggled to climb. A slow scramble. Behind him a cadaverous soldier clawed upward in slow pursuit. Fingers raked dirt. Boots gouged loose an avalanche of scree.
‘Tempted to shoot him as mercy.’
‘No,’ said Lucy. ‘He brought this on himself.’
A skeletal hand locked round Gaunt’s ankle. He screamed. A thin, girlish wail. He tried to kick himself free.
The creature gripped his legs. It dug fingers and teeth into the wound at his hip, like it was drawn by the scent of blood.
Gaunt pounded the revenant’s head with a rock. He was too weak to shatter the creature’s skull.
They rolled down the slope in a stone-chip landslide. The soldier pinned Gaunt’s chest and tore at his shoulder and neck.
‘Adios, fucker,’ murmured Lucy. She turned away, ignored the shrill screams that echoed round the valley wall.
She turned to Voss. ‘How long will it take to fill the tank?’ she asked.
‘Couple of hours. She’s pumping at thirty-five, maybe forty gallons a minute.’
‘We don’t have much time. We pump for one hour, then unhitch and haul arse no matter what. She’ll get us part the way home. Get us halfway across the desert if we are lucky. After that, we walk.’
‘All right,’ said Voss.
‘You want to live? Then earn it. Get up on that carriage roof and give us cover fire. Let’s hold off these fucks as long as we can.’
Voss shouldered an assault rifle and climbed an iron ladder to the coach roof. He sat cross-legged on hot sheet-metal.
‘Watch your fire,’ shouted Lucy. ‘If you put tracer in that fuel tank, you’ll blow us all to hell.’
Voss lowered the brim of his baseball cap to shield his eyes from the merciless sun. He hooked his radio earpiece to his ear.
‘Bastards are massing. They’re moving out the citadel, heading this way. Looks like we stirred the hornets’ nest.’
Lucy’s voice:
‘I guess we sit tight long as we can, then get the hell out of here.’
‘We should leave. Right now. I got a bird’s-eye view where I’m sitting. Dozens of the fuckers moving through that convoy. Won’t take them long to cross open ground and reach us.’
‘We’ve got to keep our nerve. Every minute that pump is running we put more fuel in the tank and get closer to home.’
Voss swigged from his canteen. He took off his baseball cap and wiped sweat from his brow.
‘Christ. Bastard fucking place.’
Lucy upturned Gaunt’s backpack. Ammunition spilt across the floor. Pistol clips and rifle magazines.
‘Back in business,’ said Amanda.
They slid knives into belt sheaths. They slotted fresh magazines into their Glocks, and dropped them into hip holsters. They tucked STANAG clips into ammunition pouches strapped to their chest-rigs. They slapped mags into their carbines, racked the charging handles and each chambered a round.
‘Like it?’
‘Love it.’
They smashed out windows. They set up fire positions.
Amanda shunted an ornate Queen Anne table beneath the window and laid out the SAW.
Lucy pulled a couple of chairs to the window. She sat and rested her rifle on the sill. She stacked STANAG clips on the chair beside her.
They took aim at the convoy, waited for incoming soldiers, waited for a clear shot.
Radio crackle. The sat phone lying on a nearby table. The winking red light of an open channel.
‘…Roger, Papa One. Maintain at sixteen…’
Lucy pulled a map from her pocket and shook it open.
‘Papa One. That’s the QTAC call sign for Baghdad International.’
‘Shit,’ said Amanda. ‘I didn’t think they had reached the coast.’
‘Puts them about three hundred miles south-east of here,’ said Lucy. ‘A cargo plane, hauling a heavy load. Flying between one-fifty, two hundred knots. A straight run across the desert. I reckon they’ll be overhead in ninety minutes.’
‘Be lucky to live that long,’ said Amanda. She looked towards the convoy. Soldiers, dozens of them, weaving between cars.
Lucy focused her binoculars. Soldiers slithered from the turret hatches of APCs, crawled from beneath trucks, tumbled from the trunks of wrecked sedans.
‘We’re starting to pull a serious crowd.’
Movement from waste ground in front of the convoy. The sand crust began to ripple and bulge. Skeletal hands broke from the dirt. Dozens of naked, half-dissected creatures squirmed upward into daylight.
‘My God,’ murmured Lucy. ‘Must be some kind of mass grave.’
The vivisected soldiers climbed to their feet, trailing shroud-sheets. Skin half-melted by caustic lime. Their chest cavities were wired open. Their scalps were peeled back. Their skulls were drilled.
The skeletal army began to stagger and crawl towards the locomotive.
‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ murmured Amanda.
Lucy aimed her rifle. Amanda pressed the butt of the SAW to her shoulder. They both opened fire. Muzzle roar and flame.