Chapter 01: A daring plan
To Sven's amazement, the majority favoured the direct approach. Both Jacob and Dohon argued that it was too risky, but the others preferred to risk it all. Sven himself was also worried that drawing too much attention would lead to unwanted death, but the majority had decreed otherwise. There was sound logic behind the gutsy plan. The truck would allow more supplies to be brought along and make sure that all the members of the expedition made it to the camp zone. Besides, if they were speedy enough, their mountainhome wouldn't know about it till they were already well past the gate. As such, everyone finally relented and agreed upon the plan. That included Conan, a military medic. He had joined them when the debate was already well under way and had quickly added his support to the aggressive plan.
They would strike at dawn. Scuba and Conan with a few other soldiers would pretend to be relieving the guards from their post. Sven would join them too, as their so-called officer. Once the weary guards had left the gate (or were neutralised in case they refused to leave), Biff would drive up with his truck and drive away to freedom. Problem was that Biff still had to repair the vehicle first and then guide it across the central courtyard. Agish would perk himself in one of the towers and provide anti-sniper cover. Hank, Dohon and Jacob would go along with Biff and help him prepare the truck and load the supplies. The other members of the expedition would help out where needed. There wasn't a lack of manpower, but 23 souls in total hardly made for a quiet expedition. But time was against them and the need for speed dominated. Once the details were agreed upon, everyone went to prepare and snatch a few hours of sleep.
***
“How's it going?” Biff didn't turn away from the massive engine. “Almost set. The plugs are in place, but I'm checking the other parts. Don't wann'it to break it down when cruisin' outta here, y'a know?” Dohon whispered a curt acknowledgement, before scanning the walls. No movement so far, but then again, he couldn't see too far in the darkness. With sweat-slick hands, he reached for a small flashlight. He blinked the light 2 times as agreed with the sniper, Agish, last night. In response, a light far above blinked once. No trouble yet, Dohon realised. Jacob and Hank approached, clutching a barrel between them. As they heaved it on the back of the truck Dohon asked them how the progress was. “Teach thy tongue to say I do not know” was Jacob's reply. Dohon stared blankly and Hank rolled his eyes. “Just a few more barrels. The others are bringing them up.” “You see Jacob, that wasn't so hard, was it?” Jacob replied smugly: “Silence is the fence of wisdom, young man.” This time, Dohon rolled his eyes, causing Hank to grin. Biff joined them, wiping his brow with a stained hand. “All done, lads.” “Alright, let's help the others finish loading and then we drive off. Let's hope the others are ready for us.” The group chorused a grunt and got to work.
“You guys are early” said the guard after having checked the wooden slate. Sven smiled broadly. “First time I heard anyone complain about that.” The guard just shrugged. Too tired to care, Sven noted. He saluted the man, before they all shuffled away to their bunk. As soon as they were out of ear-shot, did Sven order Scuba and Conan to pry the gate open. The other soldiers took up overwatch-positions, checking both sides of the gate with sweeping arcs. Sven exhaled slowly. So far so good. He glanced at his watch. “Where are they?” Then Scuba grabbed his attention. “We have to leave now.” His gloved hand pointed at the horizon. Sven felt his heart stop. Infected. A whole horde of them. And they were coming this way at full speed.
Agish scanned the walls again through the scope of his Mosina. Nothing, not a soul. He knew that wasn't right. In the middle of lockdown, the walls would be swarming with two-man patrols. Not this time. His instinct screamed at him that something was very wrong and so he kept scanning the walls frantically, darting from left to right. “Bloody turtles down there” he hissed, irritated at the fact they were taking forever to load the truck. As if in response, he heard a throaty rumble emanating from below and a quick glance told them the truck was heading off. “Bloody time.” Agish got up, but before clambering across the roofs, he noticed something in the darkness. Dark shapes seemed to detach from the alleys and walls and ran after the truck. He trained his rifle on one, but recognition stayed his hand. “Oh, bollocks.” Suddenly filled with terror, Agish jumped down from his post with haste. He checked his rifle while on the run, booted feet pounding the dirt. This mission had gone from plausible-but-improbable to fucked-up-beyond-all-recognition. The wiry sniper cussed all the way to the gate.
Biff punched the pedal to the metal, the engine roaring dangerously loud at the stiff treatment. Stealth was useless now and only the speed of the truck decided if they lived or not. He muttered prayers under his breath, hoping that the old girl wouldn't break down during their escape. With a deft twist, the truck hurled along the corner, balancing closely on one side. It jolted back to the ground with a thump, causing grunts and oaths from the other occupants. In the distance the gate loomed. Biff allowed himself a smile before clamping down on the brakes. His smile vanished when he saw gunflashes. His mouth fell open in fear as he saw what moved beyond the gate.
Scuba yelled “contact!” before opening up with his assault rifle, sending disciplined salvo's into the front of the Infected. Each trio of bullets took down one of the horrors, but he already knew it would not be enough. There simply were too few of them to keep them out, even with the extra soldiers Scuba had brought along for the ride. When his chamber clicked empty, he dove into cover and grabbed a magazine from his pocket. As he reloaded, he heard the heavy staccato of the 50 calibre machine guns opening up from the gatetowers. Heavy shells whistled down, separating limbs from bodies, blood spraying all over the place. The horde paused as the first line keeled over, entangling the next line of zombies and impeding their progress. They had a few minutes, tops.
Then Scuba heard the truck squeaking to a standstill behind them, with the passengers dismounting as soon as it had stopped. Sven called out for him and Scuba hollered at Conan to fall back. But then bullets whizzed past, forcing him into cover behind the truck. Conan wasn't so lucky and one of the bullets smashed into his shoulder, tackling him to the ground before he reached the safety of the truck. Sven crouched beside Scuba, his pistol spatting slugs at the attackers. “We are surrounded, Sven”. He yelled an agreement, but didn't take his eyes of the mysterious attackers. Scuba glanced back at the gate. The infected were slowly making their way through the enfilade. A peek from the side of the truck showed shadowy figures, firing from positions used to protect the gate in case it was ever breached. This wasn't good. A voice called out amidst the din. “Traitors! They have opened the gate! Spare none of them!” Scuba raised his rifle and fired off more shots. None connected.
Agish heard the voice and recognised it as a ghost from the past. His mind in turmoil, he crashed through a market-stall, sending splintered wood across the yard. The oblivious sniper increased his pace. He heard the snaps of assault rifles and the heavy rumbling of the gate-guns. But amidst it, he heard heavy whines of advanced rifles, sending their deadly payload into the others cowering behind the truck. Agish had heard those guns before, even used them himself in the past. But the fact they were here now, spraying fire and pain at his team, filled him with anger. They had been betrayed. When his eyes noticed an attacker, he stopped on a dime, raised his Mosina and blasted a round right through the helmet, splattering brain-matter at the wall. Knowing he was exposed in the open, he dropped Mosina and unsheathed his combat knife. With a roar, he dove into a trio of gunmen. His end might be near, but he would make the bastards pay. In blood.
Sven heard the roar and saw Agish bursting from cover, right into a trio clustered near one of the strongpoints. A blade flashed time and time again, causing bodies to careen to the ground. He shook himself from his reverie and finally heard Jacob shouting. “No disrespect intended, glorious leader, but we have to go!” Before he could reply, he heard throaty shrieks behind him. The Infected had broken through. Scuba had already shifted his arc-of-fire and drove lead and brass into the roaring mass of flesh thundering down the gate. One of Scuba's soldiers was piled-on by zombies, burying him beneath rotting bodies. His brother turned and fired point-blank into the melee, but a huge Infected smashed a heavy paw into his face. With half his head stoved in, the soldier fell to the ground without a sound. Someone else blurred past him. Screaming with fury, Hank charged the Infected, his pick swinging about with great arcs. Each motion smashed through a zombie, sending them cartwheeling backward, limbs flying through the air. Dohon followed in his wake, swinging a hammer in one hand and firing a snub-nosed pistol in his other, cursing and yelling at Hank to fall back.
Sven swore. The situation was lost. Caught between the shamblers and the mysterious attackers, they could not escape. Dohon yelled at him. “Get in the car and get out! We'll hold them off!” His hammer smashed into an intruding Infected, evoking a childish yelp from the fiend. One of the haulers was being ripped apart, screaming at the top of his voice before Scuba took him out with a mercy-shot. Dohon yelled again: “Some of us must go! Or all this will be in vain.” Then an infected grabbed him from behind and Dohon disappeared into the throng before Sven could reply. Sven fired some shots at the Infected in seething anger, before yelling at Scuba and Jacob to get in. Scuba refused, saying he would lay down cover-fire until the truck raced away. Sven cursed again and then yelled at the rabbi. He, however, was laying on the muddy ground, clutching his stomach. Blood seeped into the ground behind him. “I will meet my maker soon enough. Get out and save yourself. May Yahweh guide and light your path!” Sven kept cursing, one explicative after the other. With a heavy heart, he threw a long look before entering the seat beside Biff. The farmer didn't wait for a command and he once again hit the pedal, this time with desperation. The truck skidded off, Scuba jumping on the back before the car smashed like a roaring bull into the horde.
Dohon swung his hammer around, arcing through the mass of bodies like a whirlwind. He was bleeding from several cuts and gashes, with his back sending lances of pain through his nervous system. That giant thrown him far, but luckily, his pistol took revenge and blasted that deformed skull open like a piece of rotten fruit. Dohon knew that despite the tally he was racking in, he soon would be overwhelmed. After a few more heaves of the hammer though, he managed to break free from the mass once more. He saw that the truck had carved a path through, bowling Zeds over like pins. At least a few of them got out then. His weary eyes then found Hank, his motions a blur. Dohon felt tired to the bone, but the miner kept going like an Energiser-Bunny, chopping up the shamblers like an angry demigod. They reeled under his onslaught, hissing and spitting but nonetheless parting before that pick like wheat before the sickle.
Dohon's ears then noticed that there no longer was a steady
thump-thump-thump-thump in the background. The heavy machine-guns had fallen silent, their operators hanging limply over the smoking barrels. Having taken them down with precision-shots, their killers now took pot-shots at the Rabbi and Conan, who despite his injury was still blasting away with a side-arm. Agish was nowhere to be seen in the confusion. Gritting his teeth, Dohon grabbed his hammer two-handed and charged into the fray. He knew he was dead, but he would take some of them with him into hell.
The ghost of Agish's past ducked and weaved through the flurry of attacks that Agish launched upon him. Despite mind-numbing speed, he kept pace with the sniper. He laughed between grunts, feeding Agish's frenzy and spurring him on to even greater feats. Like the great action heroes of old, their knives clanged and whirled through the air, sparks flying everywhere. They dodged and whirled between the corpses at their feet, all of them the result of close contact with Agish. But then one of the duellists made a mistake. Agish felt steel slicing across his knife-hand and arm, forcing him to drop the weapon. In that instant, the enemy commander kicked his legs away, sending the cussing sniper to the ground. Wasting no time, he slammed his head a few times against the slick floor.
With a victorious snarl, the enemy commander raised the knife high, intent on delivering the killing blow. But then he heard others charging into the fray with oaths and whoops. “You can't kill me now, Ghost. Unless you want to swing from a gibbet, that is. You have to admit that their timing is impeccable.” Agish smiled wryly from the ground, but a huge fist knocked the light out of his eyes. “You always talked too much, Agish.” Ghost looked up and knew that he couldn't take out the traitors now, not with the regular militia breathing down his neck. Anyone firing upon survivors while there were zombies involved, received the death penalty. So, he ordered his soldiers to focus on the shamblers. He would deal with the humans later. But there was one small matter he had to take care off.
He fished a small box from his pocket. With one hand, he extended the antenna and then pushed a few buttons. A green light glowed back at him. The bomb was still active and in range. There would be no escape tonight. “A brave attempt, but foolish in the end.” With a grin, he twisted the central dial. A plume of fire and smoke erupted in the distance. Ghost savoured the sight for a moment, before putting the device away and picking up his gun once more.
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Topic: [Community] Angelgate, a Corrosion Community Fort (Read 12483 times)