The Sharp End (The Great Undead War prequel story) Page 4

  All that was left at that point was to wait to see what the enemy would do.

  Fifteen minutes later, the man beside him, a corporal named Ridley, suddenly stiffened.

  “There’s something out there, sir,” he whispered.

  Burke followed the man’s frightened gaze, out across the muddy battlefield to where the first of the barbed wire emplacements was buried beneath the weight of a thick curtain of fog, but didn’t see anything.

  After a moment, he heard it.

  The sound of movement.

  Out beyond the wire.

  It was a sound he’d become intimately familiar with over the last few years and one he knew he’d hear in his sleep long after the war was over.

  “Steady,” he told the men nearest him and the command was repeated down the line. Any moment now…

  The first of the shamblers emerged from the fog on the far side of the barbed wire, lumbering toward them with the peculiar gait for which they’d been named. Behind it came at least a dozen more, though Burke was sure that was just the first wave.

  They’d once been men; that was easy to see. Some were still dressed in the tattered remnants of the German uniforms that they’d worn while alive, scraps of grey cloth hanging on their desiccated frames; while others were naked, their rotting flesh exposing bone in more than a few places. The control devices they wore stuck out as the only intact thing about them; dark collars that encircled their necks and rose up on the left side of their faces to cover that side of the head in a mixture of leather and electrical components.

  But thinking of them as men was a grave mistake, however, for they had ceased being anything remotely human the moment their corpses responded to the call of the corpse gas and rose anew, hungry for the flesh of the living and driven nearly mad from their desire to consumer it. The control devices rendered them manageable, but only just. This was fine with the German commanders in charge of the shambler brigades for soldiers like these were best used as shock troops anyway, fodder to weaken the Allied lines and pave the way for the human divisions that usually followed in their wake.

  A rifle went off to his right, then several more, but Burke held his own fire, wanting to be certain of his shot, wanting to make it count.

  Back in the days before the war, most soldiers were taught to shoot for the center mass but that didn’t do much good anymore. Shamblers were long past the point of feeling injury or pain. You could knock one down with a shot to the middle of its chest and it would simply get back up again. Even blowing off a limb didn’t do much good; as long as it could move forward the shambler would do so, dragging itself forward with its bare hands or wriggling its body along the ground. The only way to stop one was to put a bullet to its brain.

  Even that wasn’t final, Burke thought. Being exposed to the corpse gas would cause the creature to rise once more, which was why his side had taken to burning the bodies of friends and foe alike in giant bonfires after every conflict. The air had become so saturated with the smell of burning flesh that he barely noticed it anymore.

  Burke had learned through long experience that if you waited until the shamblers got hung up in the barbed wire you’d have a better chance of making that head shot as they struggled to pull themselves free. He propped the barrel of his weapon on the lip of the trench and used his mechanical arm to hold it steady, sighting in on one of the enemy soldiers that was currently squirming its way through a hole in the wire. A moment to steady his breathing, a few extra ounces of pressure on the trigger of the rifle in his hands, and he put a bullet smack in the center of the creature’s skull. Without hesitation he swung the barrel of his rifle to one side, sighted it on another target, and began the process all over again.

  His men were firing regularly now, the sharp cracks of their rifles and their shouts of hatred for the undead blending together into a mad cacophony of sound. From somewhere farther down the line came the rattling burr of a Hotchkiss machine gun and he glanced that way, watching with satisfaction as an entire squad of shamblers were cut down in mid–stride. Once on the ground, it was an easy matter for the sharpshooters to finish them off.

  Just as he’d expected, however, this first group turned out to be just the tip of the enemy’s attack. Wave after wave of the ravenous creatures followed, attempting to make their way through the hail of gunfire and reach Burke and his men. Behind them came the German regulars, firing from the safety of the back of the pack and not caring if they accidentally hit some of the shock troops that were trying to clear the way before them. Burke kept up a steady rate of fire, alternating with the man next to him when one or the other of them needed to reload and snatching quick moments of rest in between waves of the assault.

  Some two hours after the attack began, it was finally over. The stretch of No Man’s Land directly in front of them was littered with the still bodies of the enemy dead. Thankfully none of the shamblers had reached the trench itself. If they had, the outcome would have been very different, Burke knew.

  He reloaded his rifle for what felt like the hundredth time that morning and then, seeing Sergeant Moore making his way back along the floor of the trench toward him, stepped out to greet him.

  They were still standing there, chatting quietly and comparing notes on how the new men in the platoon had reacted to the attack when the ground beneath their feet trembled.

  “Did you feel that?” Burke asked.

  Moore nodded. “Felt like an earthquake. We get ones like that back in San Francisco all the time.”

  An earthquake? Burke thought. In god–forsaken France?

  Before he could express his doubts, the ground trembled again, this time with more force. It shook them about for thirty or forty seconds and knocked several of his men off their feet. Rats burst out of their holes all along the sides of the trench, swarming around the soldiers’ feet before charging en masse down its length. Burke had a moment to stare after them in surprise before the ground began shaking for a third time.

  The makeshift tent he’d been using as a command post collapsed, as did the stockpile of crates containing ammunition and food stores just beyond. The sides of the trench itself even began to shake apart, great clods of dirt breaking free and falling around them so frequently that Burke began to fear that they all might be buried alive before the trembling stopped.

  He wasn’t the only one with the thought, apparently, for he saw several of his men praying aloud or gripping good luck charms as the shaking continued. A young private named Hendricks scrambled up out of the trench, silhouetting himself against the sky, only to take a sniper’s bullet through the throat a moment later, his body dead before he hit the ground.

  Just when Burke thought they wouldn’t be able to take any more, the trembling stopped as the trench wall ten feet in front of him burst open from the inside. Dirt flew in every direction as a strange machine rose into the morning sunlight, the three massive drills attached to its snout still spinning wildly as its tracks drove it up out of the earth.

  As Burke looked on, stunned into immobility by the machine’s sudden appearance, hatches clanked open along its length and a horde of shamblers spilled out of its dark interior, falling upon the men of Fourth Platoon with a vengeance. In seconds it was every man for himself as hand–to–hand combat stretched from one end of the trench to the other.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Toul Aerodrome

  Twelve miles away from where Captain Burke was fighting against a horde of ravenous undead, Major Julius “Jack” Freeman stepped out of his tent into the brisk morning, pulling on his thin leather flying gloves as he went. The sun was just breaking through the cloud cover, its feeble light barely visible through the smoke and dust that seemed to be the only constants in this never–ending war.

  Despite the early hour, the home of the 94th Aero Squadron was anything but quiet. The mechanics had taken the aircraft out of the hangers and had them facing forward down the airfield where they were being prepped for the dawn patrol. The enlist
ed men were already up, manning the machine gun pits that were scattered throughout the airfield, ready to protect the Allied aircraft on the ground in case of a German attack. If the enlisted men were up, so too then were the men of the hospital company, ready to drag the wounded to the hospital tents and the dead to the fire pits. The din of men at work filled the air around Freeman.

  He snorted at himself in disgust at his characterization of the enemy. Germans? Could they even be called that anymore? Each new assault swelled the ranks of the undead and they had long surpassed the number of living troops left under the German High Command. An army of the ravenous dead didn’t care about nationalism; all they wanted was their next meal.

  Freeman had been involved in the war from the very beginning of America’s support, when the 94th had been activated at Villeneuve in March of '18. It seemed like a long time ago now.

  He jammed a cigarette into his mouth and then removed a battered silver lighter from his pocket. It’d been a present from Rickenbacker, back before the invention of the gas, when this war had only been a war and not a struggle for the survival of the human race. He turned the lighter over in his hands and held it up so that he could read the inscription in the thin morning light. “A Gentleman and a Flier” it read.

  Instead of cheering him, the sight of it made the airman shake his head in near despair. Rickenbacker was gone now and Marr with him. At least they had perished in fires on the ground instead of rising to fight against their own men like so many of the others. Facing off in the air against his longtime friend would have been unthinkable.

  A glance at the weathometer on his wrist told him that it was just after seven, with the air pressure holding steady in the green zone. Another hour and the wind would disperse the clouds enough to fly. Then the real day’s work would begin.

  Might a well use the time to get some breakfast, he thought.

  The mess hall was set up in the old farmhouse. His squadron mates – Samuels, James, and Walton – were already there, waiting for the day’s briefing.

  Not that today’s mission would be any different than the hundreds of others they’d already flown.

  The aerodrome at Toul was only twelve miles from the front. Nancy lay fifteen miles to the east, Luneville ten miles beyond that. The highway from Toul to Nancy to Luneville ran parallel to enemy lines and was within easy shelling distance of their guns, making it difficult for the Allies to move troops and supplies up to the front in support of the men holding the line there. The 94th’s job was to patrol that long stretch of highway and do what they could to keep it clear so that the infantry wouldn’t be cut off.

  Freeman joined his men as they were sitting down to a breakfast of syntheggs and ham. They both tasted like paste, making it hard to tell them apart once they were in your mouth, but he was glad to have them; all the men were. Real food was growing scarcer than a pig in Berlin.

  As happened most every morning, the men in the squadron were discussing the enemy and the argument went round and round without really getting anywhere. There were far more questions than answers. Why did the shamblers crave human flesh? What caused their ravenous hunger? Why did a small percentage of the dead come back as revenants, their physical dexterity, their mental acuity, and perhaps even more importantly, their memories, all perfectly intact? Understanding the answers to these and other questions was an issue of the highest priority. Solving them could bring an end to the war, but there was no way this group of farm boys was going to manage that. Freeman kept quiet throughout the discourse, just nodding noncommittally over his coffee, for he had nothing new to share on the topic.

  After breakfast, while the men were still enjoying their coffee, a runner arrived with news that a wireless call had just come in from Nancy. Several enemy aircraft had been spotted heading in the direction of the aerodrome.

  “Time to earn our pay, boys,” Freeman said as he led the way out of the mess hall and to the field.

  The entire squadron now flew Spad XIIIs, and while Freeman missed his old Nieuport 28, he had to admit that the Spad was a nice substitute. Introduced in the fall of 1917, it had a maximum range of two hours flying time and a ceiling of just under 22,000 feet. Armed with two synchronized Vickers machine guns mounted in front of the pilot, it had quickly become a favorite among the fliers attached to the American Expeditionary Force (AEF). Rickenbacker had flown one until his death and Freeman had decided to switch to the Spad in tribute to his old friend.

  Mitchell, Freeman’s mechanic, had the Captain’s bird in the lead position and wasted no time getting the propeller spinning when Freeman climbed aboard. Being the careful type, Freeman took a few extra moments to be certain everything was in proper condition.

  He checked the tachometer first, watching it as he opened the throttle and then closed it back down again to an idle, making sure the engine was running normally. His gaze swept over the fuel pump and quantity gauges. Next he moved to the physical controls. Waggling the control column, he tested the aileron and elevator movements, taking them through their full range of movement. The rudder was a bit stiff, but he attributed that to the cold morning air and didn’t give it another thought. A quick tap of a finger on the altimeter, a brush of his hands over the petrol cocks and magneto switches and he was ready to go.

  Freeman lowered his goggles, made sure that the lenses were adjusted to the same polarization by nudging the selector on either side of the goggles with the tip of his finger, and then gave Mitchell the thumbs up.

  When the same signal was received from the rest of the pilots manning the aircraft strung out in a line behind Freeman, the mechanic turned to him and swept his arm forward in a wide arc.

  Freeman advanced the throttle, watching as the propeller’s flickering dissolved into a darkened haze. The Spad came to life, awkward at first as it tentatively moved onto the grassy field. As the engine surged into a throaty roar the machine picked up speed and its forward motion smoothed out, though the creaking and groaning of the undercarriage didn’t cease until the Spad eased itself off the ground and into the chilly air above. Just a few short minutes later the entire flight of four aircraft was up and headed east, following the roadway.

  Freeman flew low over the Allied lines, knowing the Jack of Spades painted across the underside of his wings would be visible from his current height to the men on the ground. As America’s top ace, he felt it was his duty to encourage the men every chance he could, and the sight of his distinctive plane was sure to give a rise to those in the trenches below. A dark cloud of smoke was already spiraling upward from an area a hundred yards behind the Allied positions, the stench of burning flesh wafting through the air along with it, and he steered slightly to the east to get away from the stink of the corpse fires.

  He couldn’t imagine the horror this infantry had to face on a daily basis. How the Germans had gone so horribly wrong in creating that hideous gas was anyone’s guess. It was bad enough up in the air, fighting aircraft flown by pilots who were long dead. How much worse it must be to sit there, mere yards from the newly risen opposition forces, knowing that the other side saw you as nothing more than that evening’s meal. Once when he was laid up in the hospital at Reims, he listened to the survivors of the battle of Soissons recount their experiences. The opposition made assault after assault, charging out of that venomous green gas and through No Man’s Land as fast as their rotting forms could carry them. The long miles of barbed wire became heavy with bodies and still they came, stepping over the still moving carcasses of their comrades to rush the trenches, dragging off those Allied soldiers unlucky enough to be near the break in the lines. The Allied troops fell back to the secondary and then the tertiary trenches before the attack had been repelled.

  While that was bad enough, the descriptions of the Allied dead waking up later the same night in the abandoned trenches and crawling under the wire to assault their former comrades was far worse. Freeman remembered vividly the look on one private’s face as he talked about the horro
r he felt bayoneting the man who he’d just spent the last forty–five days huddled with in a foxhole and of his shame at then having to burn the body in the bonfires to keep his friend from rising a third time.

  Remembering it now made Freeman shudder in his seat.

  Thank God the gas only worked on inert tissue. If it had the same impact on the living as it had on the dead, this war would have been over years ago.

  As they neared the outskirts of town Freeman began to climb higher, the possibility of being jumped at so low an altitude by the opposition’s pilots outweighing his desire to boost the morale of the soldiers on the ground. The haze was thick, the cloud cover fairly low, and Freeman wanted some clear sky beneath their wings before they were forced to engage the enemy.

  Fifteen minutes later they crossed into enemy territory and ended up getting lucky right away. The observation balloon first appeared as a small dark smudge against the blue–green earth below. Reaching up with one hand, Freeman pushed the magnification lenses into place over the left eye of his goggles and took a good, long look at the aircraft ahead of them.

  The balloon was one of the Caquot styles, a long teardrop–shaped cylinder with three stabilizing fins. There was a symbol painted on the rear fin, but it was too far away to see clearly with the goggles’ current settings. Reaching up with his left hand, he flicked through the magnification selections until the Black German cross painted on the dirigible’s rudder swam into view.

  They had the enemy in sight; all they needed now was an attack plan.

  Freeman had the flight in formation at 6,000 feet with his plane in the lead, followed by Samuels and James flying parallel. Walton brought up the rear, forming an aerial diamond. He didn’t give the signal to attack, at least not yet.