By the Blood of Heroes Read online

  No food and no water, unfortunately.

  He unfolded the map and studied it for a moment. He guessed he was about ten, maybe twelve miles behind the lines at Nogent. He could have crossed that distance in less than a day uninjured, but given his leg wound, he knew it was going to take him much longer than that. He figured that he could travel two miles a day in his current condition. Three, if he was lucky.

  He was going to have to forage for food and water along the way or he’d die of dehydration long before he reached the area where the enemy had dug in along the front. Hopefully, there would be something left to find between here and there; the German army was not known for its restraint.

  Ten minutes passed and he could no longer feel the wound in his leg, which he took to be sign enough that it was time to get under way. Using the tree behind him for support, he got one leg under him and pushed himself upright until he could stand on both feet without too much difficulty. The leg throbbed, but that was the worst of it. A few tentative steps gave him a bit more confidence and soon he was limping around fairly decently. He knew he was going to be in a world of hurt when the soporific wore off, but he’d worry about that when the time came.

  For now, he had to get away from the wreckage.

  A glance at the sky and he set off in an easterly direction, moving as quickly and quietly through the underbrush as he could.

  Chapter Seven

  BEHIND THE LINES

  At first, things weren’t too bad. The soporific kept him from feeling any of the pain from his leg injury so he was able to travel at a reasonable pace for a few hours and managed to cover four, maybe four and a half miles in the process.

  After that, however, things went downhill.

  The woods abruptly fell away behind him, leaving him looking out across a vast expanse of rocky scrubland, broken only by old shell craters, rusting barbed wire, and overgrown trenches. It was just one of the many stretches of land that had once served as the front lines in a war that seemed to go on forever. Too wide to go around, it left him little choice but to make his way through it.

  The rugged terrain didn’t help his injured leg, and he was forced to stop frequently to rest and to retie the bandage around the wound. The first two times he took care to clean it out, but after it began bleeding for the third time, he just let it go, figuring he’d deal with the dried blood and sweat when he got to whatever place he found to hole up for the night.

  After two more hours, the old trench lines gave way to overgrown fields, the farmers who used to work them long since having fled the coming of the kaiser and his undead army. Freeman kept going, crossing the occasional road. More than a few times he saw the ruins of a town or even an occasional intact farmhouse rising in the distance, but he avoided all of them, not wanting to stumble upon anyone who might be able to turn him over to those he was certain would be coming for him before long.

  Eventually, though, the effort of stumbling along over rough ground became too much and when he wandered across a road in the late afternoon that was going in the right direction, he decided to follow it. The paved surface would be much easier to walk on, he decided, and if he had to get undercover quickly, he could always head for the hedges that seemed to line every damned road in France.

  So it was that by late afternoon, tired, hungry, and in desperate need of some rest yet unwilling to stop for fear he might not get going again, Freeman found himself plodding along an old country track, his head pounding and his thoughts a thousand miles away. The combination of his condition and the monotony of walking hour after hour kept him from registering the sound when he first heard it. It just sat there, in the back of his consciousness, growing louder with each passing minute.

  By the time it broke into his awareness and he recognized it for what it was—the hiss and grumble of an approaching engine—Freeman had nearly run out of time to do anything about it. He hobbled toward a line of hedgerows that grew a few feet back from the side of the road, fought his way between them, and threw himself into the shallow irrigation ditch on the other side. He’d barely settled into place when the truck rumbled into view.

  With his heart pounding and his pulse in his ears, Freeman drew his pistol and positioned himself with his stomach against the side of the ditch so that he could peer out through the small gap between the ground and the bottom of the hedge, ready to go down shooting if his frantic rush for cover had been seen.

  The vehicle he’d been hearing was a NAG four-ton lorry, the kind with the rounded hood and the open front cab; he’d strafed enough of them over the last few years to recognize one on sight. A guard stood up in the front next to the driver, watching the sides of the road with his Mauser rifle in hand. Both men wore the gray uniform common to the frontline German infantry divisions and Freeman guessed that’s where they were headed.

  The cargo area behind the guard was open to the sky, the usual canvas cover missing, and Freeman could see that they were carrying a full load of wooden crates, each one marked with the word Minenwerfer. He didn’t know much German, but that was one term with which he was familiar. Mortar shells. And from the sizes of the crates, he’d bet they were the shells for the big boys, 25 cm mortars that routinely pounded the hell out of the men in the trenches. Seeing them made him wish he had an armful of hand grenades and a pair of uninjured legs; he would have lobbed a few explosives right into the midst of that cargo hold and gotten the hell out of there while the Boche were still trying to figure out what hit them.

  Might as well ask for a Spad to fly home in while I’m at it . . .

  A squad of soldiers marched two by two behind the truck, their rifles slung over their shoulders and their gaze on the ground in front of their feet. Most of them had that bored look that came with too many days of inactivity and for that Freeman was grateful. If they’d been paying attention, he’d probably be fighting for his life right now.

  He was just getting ready to congratulate himself on escaping their notice when the third and final element of the German convoy came into view, and the sight of them made his blood run cold.

  At first he thought they were just another group of shamblers. They had the same gray-green cast to their skin and wore the same threadbare uniforms. Even the stench of rot and decay drifting off them was the same.

  But they didn’t move like any shamblers he’d ever seen. They scurried along in a crouch, their hands touching the surface of the road in front of them almost as often as their feet did; Freeman was reminded of a wolf spider he’d once seen racing across the floor, all liquid motion and alien menace. Unlike the soldiers before them, who could have cared less about their surroundings, these strange new shamblers were constantly peering this way and that, their heads bobbing from side to side and then dipping back down toward the surface of the road, like dogs on the hunt, tracking a scent.

  Tracking a scent . . .

  Good God! he thought. Was that it? Had these things picked up his trail somehow?

  As if in answer, one of the creatures paused at the exact spot where he’d left the road just moments before. It slowly raised its head and let its gaze roam along the hedge running parallel with the road, the same hedge that he was hiding behind.

  Freeman froze, not daring to move, not even to blink.

  Could it see him? Smell him?

  Fear churned in his guts, and for a moment he considered attacking from ambush while he still had the chance. Going out under a hail of bullets from the soldiers’ rifles would be preferable to being torn apart at the claws of that creature in front of him.

  The rotting thing stopped moving, cocked its head to one side; its gaze locked solidly with his own, as if it could see him right through the protective cover of the hedge.

  Maybe it could.

  A drop of sweat rolled down the side of his face as his finger tightened on the trigger.

  He was a half second away from firing when a web of electrical current giving off green and purple sparks danced along the outside of the
creature’s control collar, indicating it was receiving a command. With one last glance at the hedge, it turned about and scurried off toward its companions.

  Freeman waited until it had moved out of sight with the rest of the convoy and then breathed a sigh of relief. He lowered his gun and rolled over onto his back, staring at the sky above as he tried to get his heartbeat under control.

  After a few minutes, Freeman holstered his gun and then got unsteadily to his feet. His leg was shouting at him to give it a rest, but he wanted to put some distance between himself and that convoy of soldiers. If he cut across country, he might be able to avoid them. He took a moment to brush off the dirt and leaves from his uniform, then bent over and checked to be sure the bandage was still wrapped securely around his injured leg. The wound had started bleeding again, and the bandage would need to be changed whenever he stopped for the night.

  He pushed his way back through the hedge only to find himself face-to-face with the strange new shambler that had been searching for him moments before.

  Time seemed to stop as they stared at each other. The shambler was only about ten feet away and Freeman had plenty of time to draw his gun and fire, but he didn’t dare do so as a gunshot was sure to bring the rest of the patrol running. He might be able to handle a single shambler, but a pack of them? Not a chance. Never mind the human troops that accompanied them.

  As Freeman stood rooted to the spot, trying to figure out what to do, the shambler took the decision out of his hands. It sprang at him with an eager dexterity that belied anything he’d previously seen, taking a few short, powerful steps before launching itself toward him, arms extended.

  Freeman reacted without thought, letting the creature’s momentum work against it as he grabbed the front of its tattered uniform and went over backward beneath its weight, heaving it over his head in a well-timed throw.

  Rolling over as he hit the ground, Freeman ended up poised in a crouch over his opponent. He snatched his knife out of his boot and plunged it deep into the shambler’s throat.

  He knew the strike wouldn’t kill it, but right now killing it wasn’t his primary concern. All he wanted to do was ensure that it couldn’t communicate, couldn’t shriek or howl or do whatever it was that shamblers of this sort did to summon others of their kind or its German handlers. Just to be safe he dragged the knife to the side as he pulled it back out, trying to cause as much damage as possible. As soon as his weapon was free, he scuttled out of reach.

  As quickly as it went down, the shambler was back up on its feet, spinning round to face Freeman where he crouched in a fighting stance a few yards away. It opened its mouth, perhaps to scream its defiance, but nothing but a weak hiss came out.

  Unfortunately, the injury did nothing to slow the creature’s attack.

  It came at him again, slashing with a clawed hand in an attempt to disembowel, and Freeman was forced to backpedal furiously, each step eliciting a stab of pain from his injured leg, as he fought to stay upright and out of the creature’s reach.

  He managed to land a few blows with his knife in the process, but they had little effect. The blade simply sank into the shambler’s rotting flesh and came back out again, with no harm done, as far as he could tell.

  You’re in trouble, Jack.

  Damn right he was. This thing was not only faster and stronger, but it had the added advantage of being impervious to pain. He, on the other hand, was hobbling around on an injured leg while exhausted from all the miles he had covered since crawling out of the wreckage of his aircraft.

  The shambler seemed to know it, too. Rather than rush him, as it had done before, it circled about him, darting in to deliver a blow here and there, testing Jack’s defenses. It was all Freeman could do to stay on his feet and fend off each attack, and before long he was bleeding from half a dozen minor wounds on his arms and chest.

  The damn thing seemed to be toying with him, forcing him to expend what little energy he had left, and he had no choice but to follow along. He couldn’t turn and run; he wouldn’t get three steps before it would catch him and bring him down. Getting in close enough to deliver the kind of blow that would put the thing down for good meant he’d have to expose himself to the creature’s attack at the same time.

  They’d been at it for several long minutes when the tide turned against him.

  Scrambling backward to avoid the creature’s latest attack, Freeman’s heel struck a rock jutting out of the earth, tripping him. He pinwheeled his arms in an effort to keep his balance, knowing all the while that falling down would not be good for his life expectancy.

  It was just the kind of opening the shambler had been waiting for.

  It leaped atop him, its weight forcing him to the ground as it thrust its face forward, trying to sink its jaws into his neck.

  Freeman responded by grabbing it by the hair with one hand and pulling backward, dragging its lips away from his flesh and holding it off him, but just barely. It twisted and turned, trying to break free of Freeman’s grip, and he felt its scalp starting to give way, the pressure on its hair causing the rotting flesh to peel away from the skull. One good yank and it would break free in his hands, leaving Freeman at the thing’s mercy.

  Reversing his grip on the knife, Freeman jabbed the blade right into the shambler’s eye, digging for that vital spot deep in the creature’s brain that kept it animated long after the man it once was had died.

  The shambler reared back, its hands going to its face but unable or unwilling to pull the blade free. Freeman took advantage of its distraction to buck his body upward, throwing the shambler off him. He scrambled away from it, watching in horrified fascination as it began to twitch and jerk like someone caught in the grip of an epileptic fit, thrashing about on the ground for a good minute before it finally went still.

  “Sonofabitch!” he swore, panting in exertion, his hand unconsciously going to his neck as if checking to be sure he hadn’t lost a chunk of it to the shambler’s teeth.

  The fight had just about done him in. His leg felt like it was on fire, and he could see that the bandage was now dark with blood. He needed to get off his feet and let the wound seal itself over, but he couldn’t afford to do that quite yet. He had no idea if the soldiers would come looking for the missing shambler; if they did, he needed to be long gone.

  A glance at the shambler’s body showed his knife still stuck deep in the creature’s eye socket. He hobbled over, pulled out the knife, and wiped the blade off on the shambler’s uniform, and then returned it to his boot.

  The convoy had been moving in the same direction he had, southeast, and so he decided to leave the road behind and strike out cross-country in a more easterly direction. He’d still be headed toward the front; he’d just have to angle southward once he drew closer.

  Satisfied with his decision, he was about to head out when he felt a hand clamp tightly about his ankle. Glancing down, he found to his horror that the shambler had returned to life, the removal of the knife having restored whatever unholy force it was that animated the creature!

  Before he could figure out what to do, he was yanked off his feet to fall directly onto his injured leg.

  Freeman howled in agony, the pain sweeping over him like the tide and nearly rendering him unconscious. That surely would have been the end of him, for it would have given the newly reanimated shambler all the time it needed to finish him off.

  Right now it seemed to be having trouble getting its lower limbs to work, but that didn’t stop it from trying to find an unprotected piece of Freeman’s flesh to feast on. It reached out and began pulling itself up his body, hand over hand, its teeth clacking together like some kind of deranged castanet, its one good eye rolling around in the socket as if no longer under control.

  The shambler’s spastic movements jostled Freeman’s injured leg and sent waves of pain crashing through his system, forcing him to fight to stay conscious as he flailed at the creature, pushing against it with both hands in an attempt to get it of
f him.

  It clung tightly despite his every effort to dislodge it. Its face was even with his stomach, and he suddenly had a horrible vision of it rooting around in his guts, its teeth sawing through his intestines as it burrowed deeper . . .

  Better do something, Jack, before it’s too late!

  With his head spinning, Freeman did the one thing he’d been trying to avoid since first laying eyes on the hideous creature.

  He drew his pistol, shoved it against the rotting flesh of the shambler’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. Blood, brains, and bone splashed across his face as the shambler’s skull exploded beneath the force of the bullet.

  Heaving the now unmoving body off him for the second time that day, Freeman dragged himself several feet away and sat with his pistol aimed at the corpse, afraid that it might still find some way of coming after him despite all the damage.

  That was how the German soldiers who had been summoned back by his gunshot found him some time later. So unnerved was he by the shambler’s ability to continue fighting long after it should have stopped, he didn’t even look away from the corpse as the soldiers snatched his gun out of his hands and dragged him to his feet.

  Chapter Eight

  THE LABORATORY

  Burke had been awake for over an hour by the time Sergeant Moore showed up to escort him to his appointment with Professor Graves. Burke probably could have gone on his own, as it wasn’t that far, but since he was still under the doctors’ care they wouldn’t let him out of the facility without an escort.

  So with Charlie there to steady him if the distance proved too much for his recovering body to handle, Burke headed off down the hall and out into the early morning. He could smell the corpse fires the minute he stepped outside; they had been burning overtime to deal with the aftermath of the latest attack. The air had a greasy, sooty feel to it, and the taste of ash clogged the back of his throat.

  Another beautiful day in the war effort, Burke thought sourly.