14:15 - 'The First Line'
Hell had broken loose. A surge of infected sprung out from the tree line towards us, a second smaller fire team was engaging the creeps elsewhere, but now I could not hear how they were faring. The barrage of gunfire erupting from the line was immense, it was affecting my aim. Or was that just the fear kicking in? I was not sure. The creeps were nowhere near close to us, getting to about 30 yards and then falling to the ground riddled with bullets, blood splatter cascaded across the field. A pile of bodies had started amassing, and the creeps were having to climb over their predecessors.
As the machine guns with hundreds of rounds emptied and needed to reload, the endless wave of infected edged closer and closer. I fired my gun at passing creeps, as soon as I confirmed a headshot I swiftly moved onto the next, loading another round and pulling the trigger. Rinse and repeat. It was a tense standoff for what felt like hours but in reality was more like half an hour.
They stopped charging, had we done it? No. The creeps still stumbling through the woods, but they were not near the clearing yet. We had two minutes of calm at best. Team 2 had returned, I heard whispers of trouble up ahead, they lost a guy. That didn't bode well I thought. The first wave was a mere puddle compared to the sea of infected close behind. They caught sight of us and sprinted towards us at extraordinary speed. Everyone was firing at them, some holding the trigger down screaming until their throats turned dry. The creeps began to get too close for comfort.
An infected man, dressed in overalls ran at line, his face contorted in rage. I clipped him in the head with a round from my Winchester, he staggered, but it didn't put him down. It was until the man next to me riddled his torso with rounds that it slammed into the tank trap, pacified. Its hand landed inches from where I knelt, fingers ground down to stumps, and its face. I stared at it as the battle still raged on around me. It looked different from every creep I had seen so far. The virus had made it go beyond discoloured skin, it was actually decaying. And it survived a bullet to the head.
The nearby cry of 'Breach!' brought me back to my senses. Panic ensued along the line, I turned to run. There was a man laying on the floor and knelt over him a creep clawing at his chest. I shot the monster, but there was nothing anyone could do for the guy. People retreated into the woods heading south, some stood valiantly covering the retreat of the others but immediately fell back at the sight of the horde behind.
Trucks were now parked along the dirt trail people jumped, but the drivers were too hasty and started drifting away. I was chasing the last truck down the road; I was practically touching the back. Two men gestured for me to raise my arms, of which they yanked upwards into the flatbed as gained speed.
'Thank you', I shouted over the engine. The man nodded, he looked foreign, but I guess saving a man's life was a universal language. 'There are still others, we need to stop for them!' It would be impossible for the driver to hear me, but that didn't stop it from it being wrong to abandon others and leave them to a fate worse than death.
'Too dangerous, infected would overwhelm us.' I caught someone say in the truck. The convoy sped off, leaving the march of the infected in the woods. We had some breathing space, but the next wave will come.
15:00 - 'No Man's Land'
Twenty minutes had passed. We are at the second line now. Tension was increasing in the new line formed at the perimeter wall of the airfield. The broken concrete 10 foot wall a testament to the last horde that penetrated its defences and infested the airfield now behind us. American and Russian voices were flying about as each grew annoyed with the others attitude. The odd straggler came out of the woods, exhausted from a run for their lives. They were taken to the tents, where they get 5 minutes of rest, and then they pushed out to the front line once more to face the threat coming from the forest.
A man dressed in military gear bellowed out for everyone to hear.
'C-130 inbound!' And the military cargo plane from this morning roared overhead, it made a pass. A few minutes later it returned, deployed its flares and dropped a crate from the sky. Its parachute opened it landed in the field between us and the forest. People desperate for ammunition raced to it like a pack of wolves, tore it open and stripped it bare. I had enough ammo still, I used half of my Winchester slugs so far, and I still had the ten SMG cylinders. They loaded their weapons ready for a second wave.
Coughing could be heard among the group. People were getting jumpy and restless. Recalling how close I got to the creeps, I took an antibiotic tablet to reassure myself and the nervous people around me.
The guard post down the road started firing, and the helicopter buzzing above us moved to position closer to the wave approaching from that flank. 'Hold the line, our wave will come soon.' I heard someone shout.
He wasn't lying. The horde was once again within sight, and the men with longer range weapons and scopes starting firing rapidly at them. The gunners in the chopper started discharging their heavy weapons both flanks, raining lead on the infected. They didn't stand a chance. But I knew that the horde had numbers, and were persistent as well.
The creeps started approaching the chain link fence, some falling into the wire mesh, others jumping through the many gaps, and fewer creating their own holes like vermin. They were getting close. A man behind me listened to the radio in his ear. 'Air support in one mike!' One Mike? What's that? I continued firing until they thinned a little bit. My mind was racing, my aim was getting worse and my arms were aching. And then it all when black.
The shriek of the fighter jet tore through the sky, and a moment later a deafening explosion engulfed the entire tree line in fire. The force of the blast knocked me to the ground. I don't how long it took me to get up, but the battle hadn't stopped. And thankfully I wasn't dead. I picked my Winchester off of the floor and began to load more bullets into it. I couldn't focus; the shellshock shook my hands and caused me to drop my bullets all over the ground.
Panicking, I threw my Winchester onto the floor and reached for my other gun in my rucksack. I grabbed it and looked up to see a creep lunge towards me over the sandbag wall, I fell backwards and held the trigger for what felt like an eternity. Time had slowed down and I watched the zombie fall backwards, his fractured skull gushing a fountain of blood over my legs. The man next to me pulled me back up into the fight. The field was thick with infected, coming out of the large wall of smoke where the bombs had struck. The ringing in my ears began to subside, and I regained some focus.
My new gun felt different, but I soon realised short controlled bursts seemed most effective. I heard cries of pain to my right. People on the floor, pleading for morphine from the doctors, who had suddenly been overwhelmed with casualties.
'The gates been breached!' I barely heard over the constant gunfire. I took a step back and jogged down the line, approaching the casualties lying in the grass. A stray creep started running towards the doctor, but fell to a few rounds to the neck and shoulders. I hadn't even realised I had pulled the trigger until the creep landed on the floor in a pile of its blood.
I glanced at the front line, which was beginning to show signs of stress as the fighters started to fall back. One determined man screamed 'We can hold this!' To which the reply of a group of nearby soldiers was "We can't!" My heart was pumping, my head darting around as the creeps entered the perimeter from all sides.
People started fleeing, turning round and shooting, allowing the others to catch up. I sprinted towards the group as they fired all around me. I felt an infected die close to my left in my peripheral vision, its slurring groan halted by the man in front of me with the smoking barrel. I knelt down beside him to survey the area. I raised my gun, finger on the trigger prepared to provide cover. The second defence had been broken.
15:45 - 'One Last Stand'
I ran for my life. I ran so fast that I lost sense of my surroundings; I just focused on the control tower. It is after all the reason I am knee deep in this mess. I plucked up the courage to look behind me, there were some men a few feet away, and the creeps weren't to be seen, they must have stopped at the perimeter wall, for now.
"Take positions. We need to hold the compound at all costs; I want people in the fire station and the depot. And get to work on removing the rubble from the control tower; we need to use that as a sniping position and station guards inside to defend them."
As soldiers and civilians alike built a makeshift barricade, I helped some men in removing the rubble from the entrance to the control tower, anxious to get at the equipment inside. I saw a gap in the rubble I could fit through, so I vaulted over and started to clear it from the other side. A few minutes and the group ascended the stairs to the top. There were a few clips lying around which were picked up by some. I looked down at my own gun and estimated I still had 30 rounds left in the cylinder. I climbed the last set of stairs to the control room itself. The monitors, smashed and bloodstained were strewn across the floor. A man sat dead in an office chair, a bite on his arm; and a bullet in his head. I picked up his gun off of the floor, the same model pistol as mine; I unloaded the pistol and took the magazine, only to find it was empty. That explains the dead bodies, I thought, 7 dead zeds lay on the floor which the others started to remove from the building. That left the last bullet for him.
It took me five minutes but I found the radio. I had to touch pick up a dead creep to get it though, bastard was laying right on top of it. The smell made me gag but that was the least of my worries right now. I plugged the radio in, and judging by the escalated commotion outside I would hazard a guess that the horde is bearing down on us pretty quickly. I didn't have long. I turned the dials to the frequency, I had written down all those weeks ago. The voice rang out, just like before. Its electric tone was difficult to hear with all this background noise, all I needed was a fucking grid coordinate. Whilst I was waiting I noticed a scrunched up map on the desk behind me, it was a map of Europe, not too detailed but I could work out a general route to Moscow with it. I had never felt so close to getting home until now.
The explosion brought me crashing down back into reality. It shook the building and the bones in my body. I rushed out onto the balcony area on top of the tower, a plume of smoke rose from just outside the supply compound, I don't know what caused it but everyone stood there in horror for a brief moment. Then everyone's survival instincts kicked back in. Scattered shouting could be heard from all around me.
'I need two men guarding the ladder, snipers on roof and people shooting from every fucking window!'
'They're coming!' From my vantage point I could see the swathes of infected sprinting towards us 500 meters down the runway. That was close enough, everyone opened up on them, disregarding all rules on conserving ammo and just going for the spray and pray option. I leant my gun on the guard rail for stability, rested my head on the stock and looked down the sights. I fired single shots in quick succession, scoring a few headshots within minutes. It paled in comparison to the total number of creeps heading towards us.
I've used up three cylinders now, seven more left. Some people were running low on ammo, I glanced to my side as I heard the "click click" of an empty gun, and the owners eyes opening wide in terror. The guy who had put himself in charge shouted down his walkie talkie, supposedly to the chopper pilot. 'We need ammo down here!' And so it came, the chopper hovered above the tower, a steel cable hanging from its underbelly carrying a large crate. It descended onto the upper section of the tower, where the men disconnected it and the chopper went on its way, probably to pick up more for the firestation roof.
I looked down at my watch; 25 minutes had passed since the ammo drop. The creeps just kept on coming; I'm down to three cylinders of ammunition now. The creeps were approaching from all angles now; they had surrounded the airfield, smothered the compound and were beginning to breach the firestation. A man ran out of the control room onto the balcony and cried out:
'They are starting to breach downstairs!' I hurried down there to aid to find them backing up the stairs, zombies slowly approaching like the high tide from the sea. The last man got out of my way and I fired down the stairs at the infected, they fell backwards, causing a domino effect and a pile up at the base of the stairs.
The horde was thinning, for how long I don't know, but only the occasional gunshot was fired, the bulk of the horde having been killed or incapacitated. I was still guarding the stairs, which was showing no signs of activity downstairs. That was when I heard the radio message, and those grid coordinates. My mind went from concentration to elation, I had done it! Then I felt a tug on my leg. The creep grabbed my foot and attempted to take a bite out of ankle. Startled, I kicked out with my other leg, knocking it away and giving me enough time to raise my weapon, I fired rounds into its skull until the magazine was empty, turning the head to mush. I checked the stairs for more, and fired my pistol down there just to be sure.
More gunfire could be heard outside, but coupled with the echo of cheering all across the compound. I stumbled out, still dazed by all the adrenaline rushing through me. We had done it. The survivors had held the line. A man came up to me and patted me on the arm, it was Andrei, specks of blood covered his clothes, but a jubilant smile on his face.
'Time to get out of this dump, wouldn't you say? Everyone is scattering now, the bulk of the horde has been dealt with, only small packs are left now. I can't believe we did it!'
'Neither can I.' I replied. I then looked down at my feet for some reason, a thought crossed my mind, I looked back up at the airfield. 'I guess this is goodbye Andrei, I got the radio working, and there is one last thing I have to do...' I shook Andrei's hand, and he climbed down the ladder, I hope he survives, I hope everyone does.