Sample from Chapter 6 - "Ship of the Dead"

McGagh led his squad along yet another dark, foreboding corridor. The damage was worse in this part of the Seishi. It looked as if a running battle had been going on. He stopped by part of the wall. A long sword had been thrust deeply into the metal wall and was surrounded by a huge pool of blood.

‘What the feck happened here?’ he said with a furrowed brow. ‘What’s a sword doing stuck in the wall?’

Vinny peered closer and leaned in next to McGagh. ‘I think that’s one of Proteus Pharmaceuticals guard’s weapons,’ he said. ‘I saw a documentary on Nakamura once. He’s very traditional Japanese, thinks that his guards are some kind of modern day Samurai.’

McGagh tried to pull the sword out from the wall. It wouldn’t budge.

‘Whatever was pinned to the wall here must have pulled itself free over the hilt of the sword.’ McGagh said in amazement.

‘That would hurt quite a bit,’ Coloroso chipped in.

‘Why are all the lights off here? Surely these zombie things wouldn’t be clever enough to take the power out?’ Coloroso asked.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Vinny replied. ‘The sword has severed a main power line. It must’ve taken out all the power in this section, thrown the fuse. We…’

‘Sir!’ another trooper who was exploring further down the corridor yelled. ‘I think that you should see this.’

All heads turned towards the shout. McGagh, Vinny, and Coloroso tore their attention away from the bloody sword and followed the trooper down the corridor. It opened out into a metal gantry that ran around the wall of a huge space to the left and right. In the middle of the room was a drop to a large open pit below. McGagh could just make out roller hatches that led to kitchens off to one side. The area below was obviously a mess hall. There were vague shuffling and banging sounds coming from the darkness of the level below them. As the troopers stared into the undulating blackness, they began to make out a multitude of tiny blue lights that blinked on and off at random intervals. It was like viewing bio-luminescent flashes of light at the bottom of the deepest ocean.

‘What the hell?’ Coloroso exclaimed.

McGagh switched on the powerful mag-light that was strapped to the side of his rifle and carefully lowered the barrel of the Vicar rifle over the edge of the gantry rail. Illuminated in the bright spotlight beam, standing in front of a massive Proteus Pharmaceuticals logo that was painted on the far wall, was what was left of the crew of the facility. As if they were a single organism, the crowd of zombies lifted their heads up to stare at the flashlight, fascinated by the dancing beam. Illuminated in the bright glare, their faces looked plastic and polished. Their skin had an artificial lustre, almost as if they had been photo-retouched. It gave them the appearance of burnished marble statues. Their eyes sparkled in the darkness and gave out a gentle blue glow from somewhere deep within.

‘Jeez…’ Coloroso whispered under his breath. ‘How many of them are there?’

‘A couple of hundred or so I’d guess. Back away slowly,’ McGagh ordered. ‘We don’t want to…’

But before he could finish his sentence, the crowd of infected crewmembers suddenly rushed towards the gantry. The platform that the troopers were standing upon was at least twenty feet in the air, but the creatures began leaping and crawling, jumping on top of each other like bees scrambling into a new hive to follow the queen. They clawed at the walls and clung onto pipes and cables. Slowly but surely, the mass of scrabbling zombies began to ascend towards the terrified squad of troopers like a living tower of aggression.

The first zombie reached over the parapet, clinging on to the gantry rail with hands that looked like Alabaster. His skin was perfect and shining, although his clothes had been tattered and torn by the climb. McGagh could see the creature’s veins and arteries pumping below translucent flesh. Its whole body was surrounded by a faint purple-blue glow that crackled with raw energy like an electric eel discharging. The thing that was once a man turned its head towards McGagh and snarled, baring teeth that had somehow grown longer and sharper.

‘Stitch this you freakin’ bampot!’ McGagh shouted, before taking aim and firing a single clean shot into the centre of the snarling thing’s forehead.

The surprised zombie let go of the rail and fell backwards in a graceful arc on top of his comrades, knocking the pyramid of writhing bodies to the floor. Eagerly, the squad of troopers craned their necks over the gantry to see the result.

‘See,’ Vinny crowed. ‘One clean shot to the brain. I told you that was the best way to deal with them.’

‘You think?’ McGagh growled. ‘Look!’ he said, shooting out a finger and concentrating his torch light on the man that he’d shot.

The zombie began to shake and tremble. A strange blue glow surrounded its whole body and a shaft of blue light spewed forth from the bullet hole. Gradually the wound closed and the shaft of light diminished until blinking off. With a growl, the zombie stood up, shook its head as if to clear it and then coughed as if it were choking. It took a deep intake of breath and then gave a violent hacking sneeze and something shot out of its nostril and pinged onto the floor.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Coloroso shouted. ‘That was the bloody bullet!’

The zombie looked up towards the troopers and ran, scrambling up the backs of its comrades towards the gantry once more. McGagh was transfixed with fear. Vinny laid a gentle hand onto his shoulder.

‘Do you think that it might be a good idea if we withdrew, Sir?’ he said quietly. ‘Quite rapidly?’

‘Yeah,’ McGagh said, unable to take his eyes off the seething mound of zombies. ‘I think you may be right. Let’s get the fuck out of here!’

As the squad turned and ran, McGagh spoke into his internal comms unit. ‘McGagh to Captain Trenchard. I have some important information for you about the infected crew. Over.’