Dead City 1

Dead City

Chapter 1

Wakefield city centre was dead the living dead shambled about looking for some meat to eat, the only sign of life was a sniper watching the walking dead through the scope of his L115A1 sniper rifle from where he lay overlooking the city centre. Already a veteran of Afghanistan where he had seen some nasty things whilst on his six month tour of duty but the things he had seen recently made Afghanistan seem like a distant memory, he watched a group of the walking dead through his scope as he picked a target and followed it for a while before deciding to put it down he squeezed the trigger and the walking corpse fell to the floor its head lay in a pool of its bloody brains.

“Scratch one more slack jaw.” He muttered to himself as he pulled the bolt of the sniper rifle back ejecting the spent round and pushed the bolt forward as he searched for a new target and soon found one a female vicar who had her throat bitten out, the sniper followed her movements for a moment “forgive me father, for I will sin” he whispered to himself as he squeezed the trigger and the bullet left the barrel and struck the vicar in the head and fell to the floor what he saw next shocked him. Several walking corpses gathered around the vicar and with what strength they had left in their decomposing bodies ripped the clothes off the vicar, some clawed at the stomach trying to get at the flesh they so craved whilst others bit into the flesh biting and tearing chunks off her arms and legs. The ones clawing away at her stomach soon got the prizes that they wanted as they tore into her torso pulling out her intestines and other various body organs and any flesh they could rip off of her body that were not protected by the ribcage, the sniper watched as the ground around the vicar was covered in blood, bits of flesh and guts that fell from the mouths and hands of the walking dead, the sniper decided to call it a day and flipped the switch that turned the safety on before standing up and slinging the rifle over his shoulder taking one last look at the scene he had just witnessed before turning round and making his way to the back of the roof which led to another smaller building below and lowered himself onto the roof of the building below, once he was on the roof of the other building he made his way to the edge of the roof to see how far it was to the ground below before deciding to once again lower himself onto the ground. Once he had lowered himself onto the floor he drew his sidearm from its holster and turned the safety off and started to make his way to the TA centre.

At the TA centre the surviving soldiers made several machine gun posts consisting of a mix of GPMG’s and Minimi’s, each post had two people one to hold the ammunition and the other to fire the machine gun. Those that survived the initial attacks attempted to make a stand in the city centre but were forced into the local shopping centre where they attempted to fight back, after a long and bloody fight they withdrew back to the TA centre and fortified it. They used to send out five man patrols but they stopped sending them out after one patrol went out and never came back, now they were trying to fight boredom when they weren’t trying to kill each other. The sniper knew he was almost home and was glad to make it back, when he reached the main gates he came into view of the machine gun posts which were all aimed at him.

“Watch where you’re pointing those!” he yelled as he turned the safety of his sidearm on and put it back in its holster before keying the combination to open the gates and entered the compound closing the gate behind him and started to make his way up to the main building. “How many killed toady?” one of the machine gunners asked making the sniper stop and look at the person who asked the question “just two today” he told them before he went up the stairs and past two machine gun posts and went into the drill hall where the rest of the surviving soldiers were maintaining their weapons at the back of the drill hall the youngest member of the soldiers sat by himself cleaning his rifle, he was the least experienced of the group having joined a few weeks before the initial outbreak. Before the outbreak he had been a college student studying ICT now he was one of thirty territorial soldiers left in Wakefield they compared the current situation to the like of Rorkes Drift and The Alamo. Some wanted to abandon Wakefield and fight their way to safety but the CO told them he would shoot anybody who wanted to desert “how you holding up kid?” the sniper asked the youngest member.

“Fine sir” he replied as he put the rifle back together “cut the sir crap I used to work for a living before all of this, its Cooper isn’t it?” the sniper asked as he un slung his rifle and cooper nodded in response as the sniper sat down beside Cooper and they started talking, upstairs the surviving officers and NCO’s were discussing the current situation and what to do next “the EU’s fucked us off, god knows about America” one corporal said.

“Wakefield is a city of seventy thousand plus, we cannot hold this place with just thirty people.” A sergeant added to the conversation as the CO walked into the room making the officers and NCO’s stand to attention; “at ease” the CO told them making them stand at ease “what is our current situation gentleman?” the CO asked making the officers and NCO’s look at each other.

“Well sir we’ve got plenty of ammunition, but it’s the morale of the men.” One NCO said as the CO started to think of the options opened to them, “sir we cannot hold Wakefield anymore” the only surviving lieutenant said as the CO sat down still thinking. “Anything on the radio?” the CO asked and they all shook their heads in response “dismissed” the officers and NCO’s left the room and joined the others downstairs just as a fight between two soldiers had just ended, “I’m not even going to bother asking what happened anymore” a sergeant said as one of the men had to be dragged outside to cool off. Blood was on the floor where the fight had taken place everyone knew that discipline had practically vanished as time went by.

“At least we’re not in a bunker” Cooper said as he started to put ammunition into the magazines he was given for the SA80-A2 assault rifle “what do you mean?” the sniper asked as he helped Cooper with the magazines, “if they ever got in we’d end up like them, that’s if we didn’t kill each other first” Cooper replied as he put a full magazine into one of the ammunition pouches on his webbing. “Well, we’ve come pretty close to killing each other” the sniper said. Meanwhile in the radio room there was always someone manning the radio on the off chance that there was anyone on the airwaves. The person currently manning the radio was bored and wished he was doing something else.

“Stupid radio probably no one out there.” He muttered to himself as he doodled on a bit of scrap paper “don’t even remember why I joined the TA” he thought to himself as the radio suddenly came to life but the signal was faint “we go something, somebody get the CO quick!” the radio man shouted and someone in the drill hall ran upstairs trying to find the CO trying to find the CO after trying all the rooms he decided to try the CO’s office and burst into the office “what is the meaning of this!” the CO demanded to know and the messenger stood to attention and saluted “sorry sir but we got something on the radio” the messenger said as the CO stood up “do we know who from?” the CO asked the messenger who shook his head in response before they both left his office and went downstairs into the drill hall, when they entered the drill hall they found everyone gathered around the entrance of the radio room trying to find out anything new the crowd parted as soon as someone mentioned the CO was in the room.

“Next person that asks anything gets punched in the throat!” the radio man said as he fiddled with the radio to get a stronger signal, “you do not speak to your commanding officer like that!” the CO told the radio man who turned round looked at the CO then went back to the radio. “Sorry sir but when you’ve got people constantly asking, someone’s going to get punched.” The radio man said as he took the headset off and passed them to the CO who put one the headphones to his ear and listened to the message “what do you think?” the radio man was asked “seems genuine sir” he replied as he turned the scrap of paper that he was doodling on over as the CO kept on listening to the message “it’s from Leeds, what TA units are in Leeds?” the CO asked as he kept on listening “RLC… I think?” the radio man replied as he handed the headset back to the radio man and stood in the doorway “all officers and NCO’s will report to my office for briefing” the CO ordered and left the radio room and went to his office followed by the remaining officers and NCO’s. Upstairs they gathered in the CO’s office wondering what was going on.

“We got a message from Leeds, seems that there are other survivors” the CO said making the officers and NCO’s look at each other “looks like we’re going to Leeds” one officer said, they were glad to be getting out of Wakefield “we can’t use the vehicles, roads will be full of abandoned vehicles” one NCO said as the CO stood up from behind his desk and walked over to the window “looks like we’re walking” he replied as he watched the machine gun posts open fire on a couple of walking corpses. “What about stragglers?” one of them asked making the CO think for a moment “any stragglers will be left behind, as Charles Darwin famously said survival of the fittest” the CO replied making the officers and NCO’s look at each other before they were dismissed, “we all know who’s going to struggle” one officer said as they made their way downstairs and into the drill hall awaiting their next move.

As the day went on everyone started to get restless, more fights had broken out along with the talk of mutiny, the CO eventually decided to brief everyone on the situation “as you all know we received a radio transmition, it appears that there are other survivors.” The CO told the room, one territorial soldier put his hand up “this mean we’re heading to wherever the transmition came from sir?” the soldier asked and the CO nodded in response before continuing “the transmition came from a Leeds TA unit, those that can’t keep up will be left behind and we leave at 0800 hours so get as much ammunition as you can carry.” He finished before leaving the drill hall as everyone started to talk amongst themselves when an officer stood up “you heard the boss, break out the ammunition and the bergens!” the officer barked making the territorial’s quickly attend to their new orders, they hauled out the bergens and boxes of ammunition along with any spare weapons, “what about the LAW rockets?” one of them asked “those too” an NCO said as he opened a box of ammunition for the rifles and put it to one side, in the armoury Cooper grabbed a LAW rocket from the rack where they were held and passed it to another territorial who took it into the drill hall and placed it with the other LAW rockets. After the armoury had been cleared of weapons and ammunition they started to fill their magazines for the rifles, those that were given machine guns were sorting out boxes of ammunition for machine guns, “we got any under slung grenade launchers?” someone asked as he helped move some more boxes of ammunition “I got 7.62 rounds here!” a voice shouted and someone shouted a reply.

After they packed everything they needed they went over last minute details, rendezvous points and defensive positions were discussed along with the possibility of finding civilian survivors and worst case scenarios and so on the planning went into the night, after guard duty had been decided the territorial decided to get some sack time. Whilst the others slept Cooper found a spare notebook and pen and decided to write a detailed account of everything that had happened since the dead had started to rise, after he managed to find some space Cooper turned on his torch and put pen to paper in the hopes of knowing that one day someone may find the notebook this made Cooper think about his life before the current situation including the friends and family he lost among other things and after writing for a while Cooper put pen and paper away and decided to get some sack time.

this was originaly written last year, still havent gotten around to chapter 2 though