above the erratic crackling of ammunition cooking off. A figure staggered from the wreck, wreathed in hoops of flame. Levelling his rifle he brought the reeling Russian into his sights, and held his fire. The apparition collapsed and squirmed in the mud, vainly trying to defeat the rippling hell encasing it. A last arching contortion and it was still, only the guttering flame and ugly black smoke giving it movement.
Discarding the single shot rocket tube, Andrea ran to the cover of the house. ‘The other is close, I can hear it...’
Slinging his rifle, Clarence reached out to take her arm and propel her away, but instead suddenly ripped her M16 from her grasp and swung the butt at her head. As she half-ducked, half-stumbled aside, the crushing blow grazed past her and hit something soft and yielding.
The blow he had aimed at the apparition had stopped it, and now it stood stock still, the bone-exposing claws of its charred hands still extended towards Andrea. A desperate hooting noise compounded of agony and distress came from the sufferer, as he rocked on the burnt stumps of his ankles. Every stitch of clothing had been consumed by the flame that still played amongst hanging ribbons and lace-like pendants of sloughing flesh, and the white of exposed bone showed on the head and arms of the anti-tank rocket’s victim.
This time Clarence didn’t hesitate, bringing up the rifle to fire. Andrea’s hand clamped hard on the barrel and forced it down. ‘No, let him live while he can.’ She snatched the weapon back. ‘He has done it to others, let him feel what it is like.’
An imploring talon reached out for the sniper and he fended it off with a sweeping blow. It was too much for the furnace-roasted limb and the forearm snapped off at the elbow, eliciting a shrill screech from the Russian.
Clarence retched, thinking for a moment that he was going to throw up. Frantically, he scraped the wrist of his suit against the wall to wipe away the adhering blood-dappled soot-stained tissue. This wasn’t how he wanted to fight his war: he was a sniper, his war was clinically clean, precise, remote. It didn’t involve contact with walking corpses, loathsome spectres that had no right to be alive. Death for him was always at a distance, only on that messy job in the Hanover salient had he ever seen, close to, the faces of the men he was killing. Even then the action had been so wild, so fast, that the faces had blurred and merged until he couldn’t recall any individual one.
The burn victim took another tottering step forward, and before Andrea could move again to stop him Clarence unslung his rifle and pumped three fast shots into the sufferer’s upper chest and face. Blackened flesh and shards of bone burst from the Russian under the devastating impact of the big dum-dum bullets. They instantly and thoroughly completed the work of destruction the fire had started. Pink foam bubbled from the scorched cavity where the bottom jaw had been. A remaining eye stared accusingly at Clarence, made grotesquely large by the shrivelling of the skin about it, bulging out over the protruding splinters of cheekbone, restrained only by a fire-welded lid.
Shooting from the hip, Clarence put a last round into the unseeing eye. That entire side of the cadaver’s head ruptured and broke open, scattering lumps of white sponge and matted tissues of crisped hair. Andrea tugged at his arm. ‘We have little time...’
Beside them, the wall bulged and shed flakes of brick and mortar as a shell exploded inside the house.
Their escape route through the farmyard had been turned into an assault course. The deluge of high explosive had crudely dismantled and scattered the remains of tractors and harvesters, cluttering the area with razor sharp sheets of steel and blazing tyres. A row of silos spouted feed-pellets and fertiliser from irregular holes. Oil and fuel from split drums added another hazard. They passed between the dismembered components
Discarding the single shot rocket tube, Andrea ran to the cover of the house. ‘The other is close, I can hear it...’
Slinging his rifle, Clarence reached out to take her arm and propel her away, but instead suddenly ripped her M16 from her grasp and swung the butt at her head. As she half-ducked, half-stumbled aside, the crushing blow grazed past her and hit something soft and yielding.
The blow he had aimed at the apparition had stopped it, and now it stood stock still, the bone-exposing claws of its charred hands still extended towards Andrea. A desperate hooting noise compounded of agony and distress came from the sufferer, as he rocked on the burnt stumps of his ankles. Every stitch of clothing had been consumed by the flame that still played amongst hanging ribbons and lace-like pendants of sloughing flesh, and the white of exposed bone showed on the head and arms of the anti-tank rocket’s victim.
This time Clarence didn’t hesitate, bringing up the rifle to fire. Andrea’s hand clamped hard on the barrel and forced it down. ‘No, let him live while he can.’ She snatched the weapon back. ‘He has done it to others, let him feel what it is like.’
An imploring talon reached out for the sniper and he fended it off with a sweeping blow. It was too much for the furnace-roasted limb and the forearm snapped off at the elbow, eliciting a shrill screech from the Russian.
Clarence retched, thinking for a moment that he was going to throw up. Frantically, he scraped the wrist of his suit against the wall to wipe away the adhering blood-dappled soot-stained tissue. This wasn’t how he wanted to fight his war: he was a sniper, his war was clinically clean, precise, remote. It didn’t involve contact with walking corpses, loathsome spectres that had no right to be alive. Death for him was always at a distance, only on that messy job in the Hanover salient had he ever seen, close to, the faces of the men he was killing. Even then the action had been so wild, so fast, that the faces had blurred and merged until he couldn’t recall any individual one.
The burn victim took another tottering step forward, and before Andrea could move again to stop him Clarence unslung his rifle and pumped three fast shots into the sufferer’s upper chest and face. Blackened flesh and shards of bone burst from the Russian under the devastating impact of the big dum-dum bullets. They instantly and thoroughly completed the work of destruction the fire had started. Pink foam bubbled from the scorched cavity where the bottom jaw had been. A remaining eye stared accusingly at Clarence, made grotesquely large by the shrivelling of the skin about it, bulging out over the protruding splinters of cheekbone, restrained only by a fire-welded lid.
Shooting from the hip, Clarence put a last round into the unseeing eye. That entire side of the cadaver’s head ruptured and broke open, scattering lumps of white sponge and matted tissues of crisped hair. Andrea tugged at his arm. ‘We have little time...’
Beside them, the wall bulged and shed flakes of brick and mortar as a shell exploded inside the house.
Their escape route through the farmyard had been turned into an assault course. The deluge of high explosive had crudely dismantled and scattered the remains of tractors and harvesters, cluttering the area with razor sharp sheets of steel and blazing tyres. A row of silos spouted feed-pellets and fertiliser from irregular holes. Oil and fuel from split drums added another hazard. They passed between the dismembered components
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