The dead were still running after them. It was like something out of a nightmare. Would they never stop?
Captain Rickman opened the throttle fully and pulled back on the controls. The plane bounced along the uneven grass, rapidly running out of airstrip. He glanced across at Garfunkle and saw his co-pilot had his eyes screwed shut.
The Douglas lifted off the ground, its landing gear clipping the trees as it climbed into the air.
Wilkins kept looking down, watching the bodies below them disappear. Polonezköy looked impossibly bleak in the cold light of morning, like a scab on the face of the planet. Poisoned. Overrun by the dead.
Was this to be the fate of the entire world?
Or had he and his men done enough?
32
Private Fred McCarthy took aim from the hayloft hideout where he’d spent what felt like forever since the dead had attacked. He fired, felling another one of the foul monsters, then put down his weapon and scratched another mark on the wooden window frame. Sixty-eight in total.
Gunfire came sporadically from the farmhouse across the way, but McCarthy reckoned only one or two of the boys were left fighting now. Most others were gone. He hoped they’d got the hell out of here, but he knew they probably hadn’t. He thought it most likely that they were undead now; damned to keep fighting and keep killing until their decaying bodies failed them.
McCarthy had only a couple of shots left. He thought he should make them count, but he knew it didn’t really matter. A few more of them taken out would barely make any difference now when so many remained. The one he’d just brought down had been already replaced by many more, and as the sun rose and cast long, dragging shadows towards the village of Namur, he saw that there were hundreds still coming across the fields.
The ground floor of the barn was full of dead flesh. The place was surrounded, too. McCarthy couldn’t see a way out. And they knew he was up here, he was sure they did. He’d heard them on the steps, and one of them was hammering at the hatch trying to get to him now. It wouldn’t be long before they got inside. They’d keep coming until their sheer combined bulk forced the hatch open.
He slumped in the corner with his back against the wall and waited for the inevitable. It was just a few minutes later when the wood splintered and they came surging up into the loft.
McCarthy saved a bullet for the first of them, but wished he’d held onto it for the creature following immediately behind. Sergeant Phillips. The reanimated corpse of his squad leader was trapped halfway through the hatch. McCarthy had a single bullet left. Did he put his sergeant out of his eternal misery, or end his own suffering before it began?
The shot rang around the flesh-filled farm, echoing across the emptiness, causing the dead to surge and herd again, converging on the isolated outpost. McCarthy lowered himself out of the hayloft window and dropped into the decaying crowd below, using them to cushion his fall.
He was up and on his feet again in seconds. Punching and shoving with one hand, slicing and stabbing with the blade he held in the other. From here it looked like all of mainland Europe had been overcome by the dead, but McCarthy was still alive, and by God, he was going to go out fighting.
33
The shells were fired as quickly as they could be delivered to the front. In the space of a couple of days, the entire area had been all but destroyed, changed beyond all recognition. Virtually no tree remained standing in the Rocherath forest. Craters were filled with ice- and snow-covered bodies. For as far as anyone could see in any direction, human remains covered the ground.
But still they kept fighting.
The decaying enemy continued to advance, their numbers undiminished, but the 99th Infantry Division would never surrender.
34
They’d spent too long on the back-foot. It was time to reverse the tide.
Lieutenant Coley ordered a group of men to advance onto a section of land that had just been hit with a barrage of shells. ‘Get in quick,’ he shouted over the chaos. ‘You find anything moving out there, you hit it hard until it lies still. Understand?’
‘Yessir,’ came the reply from several American soldiers as they piled forward.
Coley felt a hard slap on his shoulder and he span around fast, rifle primed and ready to fire. ‘Whoa, now, take it easy,’ said Escobedo. ‘Good to see you too, Lieutenant.’
‘Sorry, Escobedo. Never been so tired, but I’ve never been so keen to keep fighting, neither.’
‘I know what you mean.’
‘Can’t remember the last time I slept for anything longer than a couple of minutes.’
‘You making progress here, though?’
‘It’s damn slow, but yeah. We’re getting there. We’re moving in the right direction now, at least. Tactics are pretty straightforward – hit ’em hard, then clear the way through.’
Escobedo went to move on, but then stopped. He checked himself. Munitions exploded in the near distance, and a prolonged barrage of machine gun fire ripped through the air nearby. Foul-smelling smoke drifted between the two men. ‘Reckon we’re going to make it?’ he asked.
‘Damn right we are, soldier,’ Coley said without hesitation. ‘There’s no way we’re going to let all this have been for nothing. Get your head down, get fighting, and keep fighting ’til there’s not a single one of those diseased bastards left standing. You hear me?’
‘I hear you, sir,’ Escobedo said, and he shouldered his rifle and charged headlong into battle.
Coley surveyed the devastation ahead of him. A world in ruins. Americans killing Americans who’d already died once before. Nazis fighting alongside sworn enemies to defeat an even greater foe. Civilians burning corpses and delivering supplies.
This was a battle which had to be fought.
A war which had to be won.
35
Wilkins barely had time to get himself clean and his wounds seen to before he found himself in front of Colonel Adams again. ‘Good job, Wilkins,’ the colonel said. ‘It appears that strange little girl you brought back with you might just be the key. Our scientists believe she carries enough information to enable them to understand this abhorrent condition and put an end to it. She’s infected with a variant of the germ, by all accounts.’
‘Doctor Månsson gave his life to protect her.’
‘Then let us hope his sacrifice wasn’t in vain.’
The colonel seemed downbeat. Broken, almost. Wilkins tried to focus but all he wanted was to go out into the operations room and look for Jocelyn. He thought he’d caught a glimpse of her through a window a few moments ago. There’d been times in the last few hours he’d thought he’d never see her again.
‘The news from the front isn’t good, Wilkins. The situation is at tipping point. Between the Nazis and the undead, our forces are being beaten back. We’re struggling to hold ground.’