Tide of souls, p.19
Tide of Souls, page 19
Dear God. Already.
It's started.
Chapter Seventeen
We'd left a radio with each of the groups of survivors we'd found. Each morning, Parkes hailed them to check their status.
That morning, the survivors at Roughlee didn't reply.
Hendry, Parkes, Mleczko and Joyce flew over in the Chinook. Doors stood open. There was only silence. No-one came out to greet them.
They made a landing, Parkes handling the Gimpy while Mleczko and Joyce searched the houses.
All empty. Blood on the walls. Torn flesh. Fragments of bone.
They'd hit, and hit hard. No warning, no alarm raised. And everybody gone.
No defence is total.
And for all the advantages of technology, training and equipment give you, numbers always win in the end.
In the evening, just before the light failed, Parkes got a transmission from the survivors at Blacko, nearby. The nightmares were gathering in the waters around the village - dozens, scores, finally hundreds. Standing in silence, with their glowing green eyes.
They were massing, but had made no hostile move. Yet. If I sent the Chinook for them, would that trigger an attack? Unknown. But if we waited till they did attack, we'd never reach them in time.
I sent the Chinook, with Mleczko and Parkes. Just them. We weren't there to fight. It was an evacuation, pure and simple.
The Chinook returned just before dawn. The villagers disembarked, pale and shaken and out of place; people with nowhere to go, reliant on the kindness of strangers. The shell-shocked look of people who'd had what security, what stability, what home they'd had, snatched away. I'd done some peacekeeping duties in the former Yugoslavia; I knew that look. Refugees.
No violence. None of the nightmares had emerged from the water or attacked.
Mleczko stepped off the Chinook and came over; he looked grim. "They were in the water," he muttered.
"We know that."
"Not around Blacko. As we flew back here. Sarge, I think they were on the move."
As dawn came and light stole across the landscape, Parkes' radio came to life again.
Hendry flew out to the other communities. As before, it was an evacuation, not a fight. Any food, fuel or weapons available were cleared out and brought back.
As Hendry flew in, the Chinook wobbled in its flight, the engine sounded an irregular, coughing and spluttering note. The rotors were skipping beats.
He brought it down in the meadow near the Hill, where Stiles' caravan stood. He came out to meet me as Parkes and Mleczko shepherded the evacuees clear, the rotors winding down.
His face was pale, lips moving without sound.
I said it for him. "It's fucked, isn't it?"
He nodded.
"Can you fix it?"
"I don't know."
"Shit!"
"I can try, Sergeant. That's all I can say. We'd never be able to move everyone, anyway."
"We could at least get some of them clear."
"Where to?"
"Right now, anywhere but here would probably be good." We looked at each other. "Just do whatever you can, Sir."
A few minutes later, my PC crackled; the first of the nightmares had been sighted in the waters round Pendle.
In the farmhouse, we held a brief council of war.
Joyce was in charge of the men while we talked. Jo was working with him to co-ordinate with the villagers. Katja, meanwhile, I'd put in charge of the refugees - we had close on a hundred of them. She was finding places for them to stay - hunting up tents or anything that could be used to jerry-rig them, spare rooms in farmhouses, abandoned buildings - while at the same time trying to pick out potential fighters. We needed to mobilise everybody capable of using a gun.
Round the table: me, Chas, Ged and Hendry. Parkes was on the Chinook's radio, trying desperately to hail Windhoven.
Hassan was clearing space in the abandoned barn, a couple of local women as impromptu nurses. Not much he could do for anyone bitten, but there was still the risk of injury from shrapnel, stray bullets, falls.
The sky was darkening. A thin, mizzling rain had started to fall.
"Focusing," I said.
"What?" asked Hendry.
"What Stiles said. Imagine having a billion eyes, all working independently. You couldn't keep track of it all. Drive anybody mad." An insane controlling intelligence? Fucking hell, it just kept getting better. "But as it becomes aware of survivors, it focuses on them, one by one. And it gathers its forces... and marches."
"And keeps attacking till they're all gone," said Chas.
"I think so."
"Lovely. Got a cig?"
I threw him my packet. "The attack this morning... testing its strength. Seeing how we'd respond."
"Are you trying to say they're using tactics?" Hendry looked at me as if I'd just dribbled on my shirt.
"I know how it sounds, Sir. But according to Stiles, there's a controlling intelligence. Primitive, only recently conscious. But if it's aware, it can learn."
Hendry leant back in his chair.
"But now we've pulled back, Sir" said Chas. "We're not gonna be trying to defend scattered, isolated positions, just one. And we've got high ground, a lot of warm bodies on the deck, weapons and raw materials to build defences. And we've had a lot more combat experience than it has."
"Question is," said Ged, "how does that help us in long run?"
"Well," I said, "that's the big question, isn't it?"
"Fair enough." Ged toyed with an empty glass; probably wishing there was something strong in it, but resisting the call. Getting blootered now helped nobody. "What the hell can we do?"
"One, Parkes is on the radio, trying to hail Windhoven -"
"Done us bugger-all good so far."
"She's also hailing on all other frequencies. If there's anyone else out there, they might be able to help."
"Or they might be as stuffed as we are."
Christ, I didn't need Ged cracking on me. "We're not dead yet. Any progress with the Chinook, Sir?"
"Not as yet. Engineering's not my area. I think I might know what the problem is, but fixing it -"
"Understood, Sir. Just do whatever you can, requisition whatever you need. What I'm thinking is this. We set up defences fast. Pull everyone who's not actually going to be fighting those things to the most central location we can."
"The Hill, most likely," said Ged.
"Aye. So we block all approaches to that location with anything spare - any barbed wire left over?"
"Might be a roll or two."
"Break it out. We've got the Landrovers and their armaments. We've also got farming vehicles - tractors, mechanical diggers. We can use them to run over the bastards."
"What if Parkes can't raise anybody?" Chas spoke quietly. I looked at him. His eyes were wide. He was thinking of Jo.
"We're not dead till we're dead, Chas. The important thing is to get the Chinook airborne again. If we can do that, some of us can hold the ground here while we fly the rest out, then it can come back for us."
"Fly out? Where to?"
"Any stretch of land that's not occupied or surrounded. It's taken them time to get here. They've got to march like any other army. So, we put distance between us. It buys us breathing space."
Chas nodded. After a moment, so did Ged. I was relieved to see he looked a little more energised.
"We build concentric lines of defence. They break through one, we fall back behind the next. The longer we can hold out, the better chance we've got."
Hopelessness folded round me, like pressure at depth. But I wouldn't, couldn't, must not give way. Don't think about the long game, Robbie, cos we all lose that in the end. Just think about the next problem. Except, like the nightmares, they just kept coming. No matter how many of them you dealt with there were always more, and bit by bit they wore you down. By sheer weight of numbers.
Because numbers always win in the end.
"If we can do them a lot of damage in that first engagement," I said, "From what we've seen, they'll pull back to regroup and reinforce. So the harder we hit them, the more time that buys us till the next attack. We need to show this Deep Brain it's got a fight on its hands, and we will not go down easily."
"Sounds great," said Chas. "How?"
"Simple. We invite them in."
We had SA80s, Minimis, sniper rifles, several Gimpys and the blooper. Plus some C-4 explosive and personal communicators from the army base. We still had a good supply of ammunition for each weapon, plus each man carried two frag grenades. The exceptions to that were Hassan, who had none, and Chas and myself, who carried three - frags, smoke, white phosphorous.
There were also shotguns, rifles and ratting carbines - .22 revolvers with ridiculously long barrels and wire-framed stocks. Not in the same league as what we had, but all it took to turn a nightmare's lights out was an accurate headshot.
Those who couldn't fight were put to work erecting defences. Barbed wire; furniture; farm machinery; unneeded cars. Anything that could block a path was dragged across it.
We had stocks of Molotov cocktails. Torn bits of fabric, old bottles - add something flammable and Bob's your uncle. Fuel siphoned from vehicles, bottles of spirits. Any spare reserves were now pressed into service to make more; I saved the last of the Inn's Isle of Jura for myself.
Katja was on lookout on top of the Hill. The Dinkies were back at the farmhouse, to be deployed where they were needed.
On the higher slopes, we'd set up fougasses for when - if - we were pushed back. A kind of improvised mine. Take one fifty-five gallon steel drum, readily available on any farm. Pack explosive at the bottom - C-4, fertiliser mixed with petrol - and pack the rest with pieces of metal, stone chips. Anything that would do damage. Bury in the earth with the open end sticking out, and then you just had to set it off and watch your enemies blown to shreds.
Chas was on Pendle Row, Jo round the opposite side of the Hill.
As well as guns, everyone carried a hand weapon of some kind. I had a hatchet tucked into my belt; others carried old police truncheons, baseball bats and pick-axe handles and spades and shovels, axes and hatchets, pitchforks. Even knives lashed to broom handles as crude spears. No-one was completely defenceless.
God help us if it got to that stage. We weren't special forces, knew nothing about hand-to-hand fighting. If a position was overran, you fell back and fired again. Hopefully driving them back.
But there were so many of them.
And we could only fall back so far.
Just north of the Hill the road leading towards Downham vanished into the sea; beside it lay a stretch of flat ground containing the two pools where the nightmares had attacked the night Tidyman died. The space was wide open, up to the encircling drystone walls, and below a wooded slope. From the water, all they'd see were two men with rifles - Mleczko and me. Not even a Minimi in sight. Short of putting up a sign saying picnic area, there wasn't a clearer invitation.
Behind the wall, however, Ged crouched with his shotgun beside me, and Billy with his beside Mleczko, gazing up adoringly. Mleczko did his best to pretend he wasn't there. Beyond them was a long line of villagers and soldiers with rifles and crateloads of Molotov cocktails.
The rain intensified. A slow, low hissing from the blackening sky. A white fork of lightning left floaters in my vision - red, gold and green.
"Brace yourselves," I said. "Any minute now."
"How do you know, Sarge?"
"Storm's coming in, Mleczko. Heavy rain'll cut visibility and give them a better chance."
I could see the question in his eyes: You really think they're smart enough to plan like that?
Maybe not, but the Deep Brain is.
Stiles was in his caravan. Katja said he'd been brooding, silent. She didn't say she thought he might have an idea to save us, but I read the hope in her eyes. She was afraid to think about it, let alone give it voice.
The lightning flashed again, dazzling me. Mleczko sucked in a breath; in the murky distance dark, shadowy figures stood in ranks at the water's edge.
The thunder rolled in. The rain was driving down now with merciless force, pounding and hammering on my skull. Water danced on the ground, in puddles and on any hard surface. Splashing into my eyes. Hard to see through it. Visibility thinned down by the driving haze of it. The thunderheads were almost directly above.
Then a sound.
Like a huge breath, let out through a phlegmy throat.
Like a thousand hissing snarls, unleashed as one.
And the nightmares came for us.
Hundreds of the bastards. Closely packed. No room to manoeuvre.
"Hold on," I said to the men around me. "Hold on," I said into the communicator.
The nightmares staggered forward, forward, forward. Mleczko and I began firing. Some fell. But the army came on. Closer. Closer. So close I could see their faces.
"Sarge?" Joyce's voice crackled out of the communicator.
"Wait for it."
The front row of nightmares erupted into a run.
"Now!"
The men hidden behind the wall stood and fired, fast volleys. Two GPMGs laid down sweeping arcs of fire further down the wall, tearing into the nightmares still swarming out of the water. The nightmares were falling. But there were so many more.
Aim and fire.
Got one in my sights. God, that face.
The empty sockets of the eyes, round and pale and glowing.
I pulled the trigger. Its head snapped back, spraying dark matter. It fell.
Another in my sights.
Aim.
Fire.
Gunfire all around now, almost lost in the roar and the drum of the rain.
The panic burning, gnawing at your control. The urge to fire wildly, pray you hit something, anything to hold back the tide. So many of them, and for each one you dropped, ten more still surging forward.
Bodies jerking under the bullets that hadn't hit the mark, then carrying on. Bullets hit chests, stomachs, legs, arms - hit and changed nothing.
But other shots hit home. Retain control. Panic is a choice. I remembered Katja saying that. Her father had said it. He'd been a soldier too. "I think you would have liked him," she'd said.
I wondered if he'd have liked me.
Heads snapped back; brains flew; glowing eyes went out. Bodies toppled and crashed to the ground. The ones behind trampling over them.
Firing. Firing. A SA80 rifle holds a thirty round magazine. The bolt locked back. Empty.
Pulling out the magazine. Steam floating up from the barrel and breech as the rain hit it.
Ram the fresh clip in. Lightning flashed. Thunder rolling in and down.
And on they came, in rags of clothing, rotten and torn. Some naked. Maybe they'd died that way; maybe the clothes had rotted off. Irrelevant now. Some male, some female. Some showed signs of their former youth or age, under the green moss. But you hardly noticed now. Death the leveller.
A poem I'd read once - Great Death hath made all his for evermore.
If he hadn't yet, he was bloody well working on it.
Bodies piled on bodies like sandbags.
So many soldiers, expendable, uncomplaining, to be flung into the meatgrinder, again and again and again. I'd once seen a film about Stalingrad. The Germans kept on driving into the fray, the Russians too. Each more afraid of their own leaders than the enemy. Or drunk on their own propaganda.
But the living tire. Even the most professional soldier, or the most fanatical, runs out of steam. But not these. A General's wet dream. They'd never complain about inadequate equipment, never crack under the constant threat of destruction or seeing their comrades fall, never question the morality of their task.
Like I had.
After the desert road.
Baba. Baba.
Another face in the sights. Aim. Fire.
Now.
"Wall of fire!"
The Molotovs started flying. Two-person teams - one lit the cocktail, the other threw. The Molotovs hit the nightmares' front rank and erupted into sheets of flame.
Nightmares blundered through, aflame head to foot. No pain, but blinded. And the flame eating through soft tissues. A skull burst in the heat.
But there were always more.
They thought - the Deep Brain thought - there were still the numbers to push through our weak spot.
Which was the whole point.
I grabbed the communicator. "Joyce. Now."
From the wooded slope above came the roar of engines.
Rotting heads turned.
They surged down the slope towards the nightmares. Tractors and mechanical diggers, scoops and ploughs extended. They drove into the nightmares' left flank.
The mechanical diggers' scoops scythed bodies in two, shattered skulls. Caterpillar treads rolled over what remained, leaving lifeless pulp.
The tractors smashing nightmares aside; the heavy wheels crushing, flattening.
They went down in droves. Severed limbs flew free. Survivors writhed and thrashed on the ground, still 'alive' but helpless.
Each driver had at least one armed man in the cab, who picked off any undamaged nightmares trying to attack. And from behind the drystone walls, still we fired.
Because there were plenty left.
The farm vehicles roaring in towards us. The men stumbling back from the walls. Me yelling to Mleczko to move a dozen men further down, towards the water, and hammer any still emerging or trying to retreat. Hitting the ground as a tractor grates to a halt inches from my position. Joyce looking sheepish behind the wheel. "Sorry, Sarge."
The bodies, piled up across the once-green field. Well, it's still green, I suppose. Except where the nightmares had been burned black. Not the same kind of green, not the kind I wanted to see.
Scattered shots and bursts. Twenty nightmares left now. A dozen. Dropping like flies. Heads exploded as high velocity bullets smashed into them. Blood and brains, spilling over the grass and the dead in the rain.
A last one standing, weaving, twisting this way and that from threat to threat.
