The Barracks

[Wooodd]

Ok, I’m not a storyteller, but I’m at work and bored so here goes. Let me know if a chapter 1 is worth my time.

The Barracks

Prologue

We had heard rumours, I mean who hadn’t, but no-one really believed them. Rumours of “outbreaks” had been spread for some time but let’s be realistic here this is 1945 not the middle ages we don’t believe in such things there not real, or so we thought?

Let me start by giving you a rundown of who ‘we’ are. There are four of us in our little group, I’m Sapper David Evans, Sapper Alexander Wilson, Sapper James Howard, and Sapper Lewis Jones all four of us privates in His Majesty’s British Armed Forces. We four were all Base Wallahs and because of this we were labelled cowards and were ignored by the most part by the rest of the regiment. In reality this was how we liked it, we quite often found or volunteered for menial tasks to keep us indoors and away from the toffee apples falling outside.

Anyway I’m not here to reminisce; I want to tell you all what happened one Tuesday evening in January 1945. This was the first time I ever laid eyes on ‘them’. We were all stationed together in Linburg in the middle of an offensive that the CO’s are calling Operation Blackcock. We were pushing the Jerries back into their own back garden, and doing a damn fine job too on the whole. We four had managed to worm ourselves onto clean up in the mess hall after a rather bland bit of Bully Beef. It was a particularly miserable day out anyways and Jerry was having a right old time throwing them Blind Pigs everywhere. We were quite content to stay indoors and clean up just the four of us.

After cleaning up we noticed that there was an eerie silence. There was no gunfire, no explosions, nothing. “Howard, go outside and see whats going on ” shouts Jones from across the Mess Hall, to which he replied “Piss off, you go”, charming. “Stop your bickering you two, I’ll take a look” I interrupted as a walked over to the hall to the door.

As the door swung open all I could initially see was a deep grey mist had set in overhead. As my vision adjusted I noticed the Barracks, which were usually a torrent of activity mid-offensive, where like a ghost town. I glanced to either side of me and there was nothing but dirt. “Evans, what can you…” “Shhh!!!” I interrupted Wilson as I raised my left hand, signalling the others to pay attention. Off in the distance I could see a lone silhouette on the floor; it looked like a person laying there. I slowly began to strafe across the barracks towards the shadow, the other three came running up and followed me over. “It’ll be them fuckin Rhine Monkeys, there in the Barracks” Jones was ranting on behind me, He definitely had a mouth on him Jones. “Someone shut him up” I started to say as Howard clipped him over the back of the head.

As we got closer to the silhouette it started to take the shape of Sargent Perry Shepherd, he lied there motionless on the floor. “Sarnt” I whispered as I pushed his leg with my foot. “Sarnt, it’s Evans. Something’s going on get up off the floor.” nothing. I got down to my knees and leant over Shepherd to check his breathing and noticed something parculiar. It was only a few hours ago we were in the mess hall getting a drilling from Sarnt Shepherd over the state of our Bunks during inspection, yet he looked long dead. . “Look at the state of him” Wilson commented and I had to agree. He was dead alright, but his face. He looked like a corpse which had laid there for a good 6 months. “Something’s amiss here Evans” “Yeah Howard I agree, we need to find someone” and with this we headed off towards the armoury as it was the closest building to where we were.

As we approached the armoury, with our backs turned Shepherd’s rotting decrepit body rose to its feet and ran full bore at Howard letting out horrendous screeching sounds, his eyes lit up with a bright orange light. Wilson leapt into the air straight at Shepherd with his Cat Stabber in hand and plunged it into the Sarnt’s back several times. By this point Shepherd was atop of Howard “GET THIS FUCKER OFF ME, HE’S BITING, THE DIRTY BASTARDS BITING!!! ARGHH!!”. Wilsons attempts seemed futile as Shepherd just flung him aside like a rag doll. I drew my sidearm from its holster and fired three rounds straight between Shepherd’s eyes. This seemed to do the job as Shepherd’s body stopped moving once more as it slumped on top of Horward.

Kicking Shepherd aside Jones ripped the sleeve from his top and tied it around Howards left arm which had been gnawed pretty badly, as I lifted Wilson back to his feet. Howard didn’t look too good, his eyes were rolling around, he was as white as a sheet and he had lost a lot of blood. “We need to find a doctor Evans” Jones stated “grab his other arm and let’s get him to the infirmary”. As we walked towards the infirmary, which was behind the mess hall, there was a faint howling sound in the background. “What is that?” said Wilson “This is all wrong, we need to move… NOW!”.

Just as he said this we came around the corner of the mess hall to be faced with around 8 of our regiment all standing there. None of them were moving just staring at the ground, their faced rotting and their eyes ablaze in orange. We turned to go the other way, but the mist in the distance began to form the shape of people, people running, people getting closer. But these were not people, at least not any more. The orange from their eyes danced around in the mist at they got closer, their screeching and wailing getting louder. The sound seemed to stir the others, breaking from their trance they turned and stared at us and started heading towards us.

We were surrounded, former colleagues on either side of us heading towards us at pace, and with ravenous intent. We had no option but to drop back into the Mess hall, the building with only one exit. We kicked the door open and laid Howard on a table as Wilson held the door shut. We then used the other tables to board up the windows. This was only the start of our evening. In a room with only one way out and the windows boarded, surrounded by….. Zombies.