Another brutal shove forward from the other side.
The heavy oak dresser was shunted back another six inches, leaving almost enough of a gap for the first cadaver to get through. It was the reanimated body of another SS-Totenkopfverbände guard, replete in its blood-drenched uniform, tunic still done up to the neck, silver buttons shining brightly amidst the gore. The vicious creature appeared to be straining to get through, but it quickly became clear that it was trapped, snagged on the door, and was being pushed forward by the force of other ghouls trying to get through from behind. Harris came at the monster again, this time stabbing it through its clouded right eye and doing enough damage to immediately extinguish all aggression and render the corpse completely useless. It dropped heavily, but even before it had hit the ground it had been shoved out of the way by more of the rabid dead surging forward. With no communication between them, just a terrifying, unspoken desire, they pushed the door open further and another two broke through. Harris gestured for the others to stay back. ‘I’ve got this. No point us all getting our kit grubby.’
He managed the faintest of laughs, but all thoughts of humour disappeared in a heartbeat. As he leaned forward to dispatch another of the hellish monstrosities, a rogue hand reached through the half-open door and grabbed hold of his over-jacket. He didn’t notice at first, so distracted was he by the vile soldier writhing at his feet which he kicked repeatedly in the face. Harris’ momentary delay in reacting enabled another one of the corpses to snag a loop of his belt with several rotting fingers.
And then another caught him.
Then another.
And another.
It happened so fast that there was nothing anyone could do. The smell of fresh blood seemed to drive the already wild crowd into an utter frenzy, and in seconds even more of them had reached through the gap and taken hold of Harris’ clothing and kit. He tried to fight back, but it was already too late. The more he fought, the tighter their grip on him became.
Barton, Wilkins and Jones rushed to help their colleague, but there was little they could do. Wilkins and Jones were caught up with other dead soldiers which had managed to squeeze through the gap. Jones tried to re-kill one of them which towered over him, but its frantic movements were so unpredictable that whenever he thought he had a clear chance of shoving his bayonet into its skull, it either moved or managed to push the barrel of his rifle away.
By the time he’d dealt with it and the others had managed to wipe up the other stragglers who’d broken through, it was too late.
Harris screamed as a smaller corpse, that of an imprisoned child, sank its yellowed teeth into the exposed flesh on the back of one of his hands. ‘Bastard!’ he screamed, and he dropped his rifle with the pain, then instinctively reached for the pistol he carried holstered on his belt.
‘No, Harris, don’t!’ Wilkins yelled, but it was too late.
Harris was a seething mass of grabbing hands now. It looked like there were hundreds of them pulling at his body, trying to drag him closer to their snapping mouths and deadly germs, but somehow he managed to make a half-turn to face his attackers and began firing indiscriminately into the writhing, squirming mass. The noise riled the despicable crowd to new heights, causing them to push harder and harder until the door was completely open.
Harris was swallowed up. At the last possible moment he slipped the pistol into his mouth and pulled the trigger. The back of his skull exploded outwards, showering Jones and the others. The young soldier stood his ground for a moment, too stunned to move, but the sight of the dead crawling over his colleague’s fallen corpse was enough to force him into action. ‘Run!’ he screamed. ‘Just run!’
The three remaining Brits sprinted back the way they’d just come, pursued by a slow yet unstoppable tsunami of the dead.
Jones hurtled past the kitchen door. Wilkins shot out an arm and pulled him back. ‘In here, lad. Quick.’
‘We need to get out of this place.’
‘No, Jones, we need to find the scientist.’
‘The lieutenant’s right,’ Barton said as he shut the door behind the other two. ‘After what just happened to Harris, there’s no way I’m going to let those damn things win.’
‘But the kitchen’s a dead end,’ Jones protested.
Barton shoved Jones out of the way. ‘Help me block the door, Lieutenant.’
Wilkins grunted with effort as he began to push a heavy table across the stone floor towards the door. Barton held it shut for as long as he could, then moved at the last possible moment. The dead army was already outside; he could hear them and feel them as they fought to gain access. Jones’ fear seemed suddenly to imbue him with superhuman strength and, like a man possessed, he snapped out of his malaise and helped shove the table into position then stack more kitchen furniture against it. The dead were hammering to get at them now but, for the moment, the door was holding fast.
‘They’ll get through eventually, won’t they?’ Jones said, watching the door as it rattled in its frame.
Wilkins was quick to reassure him. ‘There’s far less space out there. The last door was at the end of the corridor, not halfway along it. They’ll struggle to get enough numbers and weight behind them to push their way through.’
‘You sure about that?’
‘As sure as I can be.’
‘That means no, he isn’t,’ Barton added unhelpfully.
The three comrades stepped back from the door and waited nervously, panting hard with the effort of their exertion.
A pause.
A brief moment to collect breath and compose thoughts.
Six men down to three, Wilkins thought, and we’re no closer to finding Doctor Månsson.
‘About that wooden thing that was blocking the last door,’ Jones said.
‘What about it?’ asked Wilkins.
‘How did it get there?’
‘What kind of a ridiculous question is that? How am I supposed to know?’
‘I think it’s a very sensible question,’ Barton announced, siding with Jones. ‘Think about it, Lieutenant. Someone moved it from this side, they must have. But as far as we know, the only way of getting to it was the route we took to get in here.’
‘Then maybe it was that poor wretch,’ Wilkins suggested, gesturing at the cook’s headless corpse in the corner.
‘I don’t reckon you’re right. She don’t look like she had the strength, and where’s the weapon she used to kill herself? And why would she kill herself just after she’s got safe?’
‘There could be any number of reasons…’
‘Granted, but I don’t reckon she did it. I reckon it was someone else.’
‘So where are they?’
‘My question exactly. Either they’re in here with us, or there’s another way out of this kitchen.’
The three British soldiers immediately began to investigate their surroundings more closely. The vast kitchen was ice-cold and as silent as the grave and, apart from the solitary corpse they’d found previously, the place appeared completely empty. There were windows, but they had been covered with metal bars from outside, presumably to keep the prisoners working in the kitchen safely locked-up inside.
A heavy curtain hung along one wall. Barton looked under either end and found a discreet doorway which led into a narrow pantry. The shelves had already been largely cleared, but it wasn’t the supplies that interested Barton. Instead, he was intent on tracing a route through the mess he’d found there. It looked like someone had tried to effect an escape, using shelving stacked against one wall, but where had they gone? The light was virtually non-existent in here, and he was having trouble making sense of it all.