Bullets whipped and whistled past him as the gunner saw that he had another target. Burke did his best to ignore the hail of hot lead that filled the air as he charged back to where Perkins lay and threw himself into the mud beside him.
One glance was all Burke needed to know that it was all but hopeless; there was a hole the size of his fist in the younger man's abdomen. Perkins' uniform was turning black with the blood that poured out of the wound as he thrashed about in agony. It wasn't hard to guess what had happened; the bullet had entered through the man's back, probably hit a rib and started tumbling, tearing a bigger hole in his gut on its way out. Perkins was already dead; he just didn't know it yet. If the wound didn't kill him, the infection he was certain to get as a result of the battlefield conditions most definitely would.
But Burke had never left a man behind, no matter how badly injured, and he had no intention of starting now. Ignoring the bullets smacking into the mud all around him, Burke got to one knee, hefted Perkins over his shoulder, and then surged to his feet, charging forward toward the trench in the distance as fast as his legs could carry him. Perkins screamed once as Burke got underway but then mercifully went limp, no doubt unconscious from the pain. Burke was glad; it was hard enough carrying the wounded man without him thrashing about in agony.
The mud sucked at his feet, pulling at him, trying to drag him down like it was a living thing intent on keeping him from escaping. But Burke fought on, determined to see his charge to safety. Bullets whipped around him with the drone of angry insects.
The trench was thirty yards away.
Twenty.
The machine gun fire behind him suddenly stopped.
Reloading, Burke thought.
His foot caught on something and he stumbled. For a moment he thought both he and his charge were going to end up face first in the dirt, but then he caught himself and staggered on.
Fifteen yards.
The trench line was close now, just another few minutes...
"Incoming!"
Burke heard Moore's warning cry coming up from the trench right about the same time the shrieking whistle of a descending round reached his ears. He could tell from the tone that it was a big one, probably a 17cm, or maybe even a 25er. Getting caught in the open when one of those bastards went off was tantamount to suicide. There wouldn't be enough left of him to bury if the shell landed close by.
Burke frantically glanced about, looking for cover, but the ground had been so thoroughly devastated by repeat artillery engagements over the last few weeks that even the tree stumps had been pulverized into matchstick–sized splinters. The trench ahead of him where the others had gone to ground was too far away; he'd never make it in time.
The whistle of the incoming shells was getting louder and Burke knew he had mere seconds to find cover or he was going to become a permanent part of this landscape. He spotted a shallow blast crater a few yards away and altered his course to head directly for it. It wasn't much, a piece of scooped out ground where a howitzer shell had landed during some previous bombardment, but at least it provided some cover, limited though it might be.
He was only steps away from the edge of the shell crater when a shell impacted somewhere behind him, the shock wave knocking him to the ground and sending Perkins tumbling away from him. He must have banged his head in the process, for he spent a confused moment trying to figure out where he was and what he was doing before his senses returned to him and he realized he was still in terrible danger. With the realization came a burning pain from his left leg. A glance showed him the gash where a piece of shrapnel had caught him across the thigh. It wasn't bad enough to keep him from moving, however. As more shells began to impact the area around him, Burke scrambled forward, grabbed Perkins by the straps of his haversack, and dragged them both into protection of the shell crater, limited as it was. He covered the other man's body with his own and prayed they'd both live through the next few minutes.
The ground continued to shake and roll for a few moments before the enemy gunners found their range and the artillery barrage, never intended for the middle of No Man's Land, found its proper target a thousand yards farther south in the midst of the Allied line.
When the crash and boom of the artillery came to an end several minutes later, Burke cautiously raised his head.
He could see the rest of his men, including Sergeant Moore, doing the same in the trench in front of him.
Burke was about to breathe a sigh of relief when the sergeant suddenly began shouting something and frantically pointing back toward the German lines.
Burke looked behind him.
Grey–green tendrils of gas were creeping across the ground toward him, like questing fingers of some malevolent creature intent on strangling the life from him.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
All thoughts of dealing with the wound in his leg were forgotten at the sight of the gas. He'd never seen gas of this particular color before, but he had no doubt it was as deadly as any of the other kinds of chemical weapons he'd encountered so far and he needed to protect himself immediately. He grabbed the mask of his respirator from where it was clipped to the front strap of his haversack and pulled it over his head. He took the rubber mouthpiece that was attached to the chest box containing the neutralizing chemicals between his teeth and bit down hard to be certain of the seal and then made sure that the nose clips holding his nostrils shut were seated properly as well. If any contaminated air made it through the fabric or under the edge of the mask itself, the clips would keep him from breathing it in so it was worth the discomfort. Burke had seen too many men asphyxiating inside their masks not to wear the clips.
The mask restricted his vision to just what he could see through the round glass lenses of the eyepieces. It also filled his ears with the panicked sound of his own breathing, but Burke didn't pay attention to either one; he just wanted to keep that gas away from his throat and lungs.
The gas was almost upon him when he turned to Perkins, intending to pull the other man's mask on for him, only to be met by the younger man's unseeing stare.
Perkins was dead.
Burke spit out a curse around the mouthpiece of his gas mask and pushed the body away from him, scrambling up the forward edge of the crater as best as his injured leg allowed. The gas was very thick, restricting vision down to just a few feet, and Burke knew that this was his best chance of escaping. Gas attacks were almost always followed up by a wave of men on foot, but Burke knew they would wait for the gas to dissipate a little before marching into enemy territory. If he could use the cover that the gas provided, he might be able to rejoin his comrades and make the safety of the Allied lines before the Germans caught up to them.
Burke left the crater behind and hobbled forward as best he could, heading for where he had last seen the others.
A light breeze was blowing in his general direction of travel and it wasn't long before the full extent of the gas attack was upon them. Clouds of gas would envelop Burke for several minutes and then he'd step free of the vapor for a moment, just long enough to get a look around and re–adjust his trajectory before being swallowed up again.
The thick material of the mask filled his ears with the sound of his own panicked breathing, but he barely noticed, his mind lost on another thought.
Something to do with the color of the gas...
His foot caught on something and he went down, hitting the ground hard enough to knock the mouthpiece of his gas mask free from his lips.
He rolled over and sat up, his hands coming up to fix the mouthpiece as he looked to see what he'd tripped over.
A hand jutted out of the earth, the fingers locked around his ankle.
Even as he watched in horror the grip on his leg tightened as the arm shook back and forth, freeing more of its length.
He could see the hand clearly, could see the rotting flesh peeling back from the bones, could see the black lines of what had once been human veins pushing out against the decaying flesh as it reacted to the gas seeping down into the earth.
A gas the Germans called T–leiche.
Corpse gas.
Fuck!
The realization that the rumors were true brought a wave of terror so strong it threatened to drown him in its grip. Burke fought it off even as he began kicking savagely at the hand with his other foot.
Once.
Twice.
On the third blow, several of the fingers holding his ankle broke into pieces, allowing him to wrench his foot free. He scrambled backward just as the corpse attached to the mutilated hand forced itself up from the mud in which it lay and turned its rotting face to snarl at him in hunger. Burke knew he would never forgot the sight of the gaping hole in the side of its head even as he brought his foot back one more time and sent it slamming into the creature's decaying face.
The force of the blow snapped the bones of its neck and tore its head right off its body, sending it bouncing away from him into the mist.
The suddenly inanimate corpse crashed back down at his feet.
Burke scrambled away from it, hearing a high keening noise in his ears and only realizing after several seconds that he was the one making the sound.
He climbed to his feet as the ground around him began to shift and stir, the bodies of other dead soldiers reacting to the gas and pushing up against the weight of the earth that held them in its grip.
Run!
his mind shrieked at him and Burke obeyed, lurching forward as fast as his injured leg would carry him.
The gas was everywhere now, making it nearly impossible to see. Burke stumbled forward, hoping like hell that he was going in the right direction. He hadn't taken more than ten steps when he spotted something moving through the mist off to his left. Whatever it was must have spotted him as well, for it veered in his direction. He caught the flash of a drab–colored uniform before it was swallowed up again by the gas.
Could it be one of his men?
Burke wondered. Did they leave the safety of the trench only to become disoriented by the gas?
He continued moving forward, doing his best to move quickly while trying to watch his step and be careful of his injured leg all at the same time. He'd gone another couple of yards before he began to feel that tingling sensation one gets when being watched.
Burke glanced behind him, didn't see anything, and continued forward.
A heartbeat passed.
Two.
And then Burke swung back around, his sixth sense telling him there was something there after all. He paused, waiting for the gas to clear, and as it did so he found himself staring in horror at the thing lurching awkwardly along in his wake, its arms held out hungrily toward him.
It was Perkins.
For a second Burke thought perhaps he'd been mistaken, that Perkins hadn't actually been dead but merely unconscious, that he'd left a wounded comrade behind in his haste to save his own skin. But then his gaze fell upon the savage wound in the man's chest and travelled up to that pale, waxy face where an unholy fire burned in the creature's eyes and he knew he hadn't been wrong.
Perkins had been dead.
And now he was...not dead.
How Burke kept himself from screaming in terror, he didn't know; perhaps he'd already passed that point given what he'd dealt with so far. What he did know was that he couldn't let that thing get any closer. He drew his Browning M1911, pointed it at his former comrade, and pulled the trigger.
The bullet struck the Perkins–thing right in the center of the chest. Perkins slowed for a second, more a result of the kinetic force of the impact than anything else, and then continued forward.
No way...
Burke fired again.
And again.
Every shot hit the Perkins–thing dead on target, the three bullets ending up in a tight group less than an inch apart from each other, but none of them had any effect whatsoever on the undead creature before him. Burke wanted to scream in frustration as the thing continued shambling toward him. It was less than a dozen feet away at this point and he didn't know what the hell he was going to do if this didn't work...
He shifted his aim, centered the barrel of the gun right on the Perkins–thing's forehead, and pulled the trigger.
Click.
Not believing what his ears were telling him, he tried twice more.
Click. Click.
Either the Browning had jammed or he was out of bullets.
He stared down at the gun as if it were a lover he'd found in bed with another man and then glanced back up just as the Perkins–thing pounced.
It threw itself upon him, carrying them both to the ground as it shoved its face forward, knocking Burke's gas mask partially off his face as it tried to reach his throat.
The gas stung his eyes but didn't seem to do any other harm, so Burke focused on beating at the creature with his fists, striking it again and again in the face, momentarily holding it back with the sheer ferocity of his blows but knowing at the same time that he couldn't keep it up forever. He bucked and twisted beneath the dead thing's weight but couldn't throw it off of him.
He brought the hand holding the gun lashing back down, hammering another blow into the Perkins–thing's head, but the creature ignored it, snatching at Burke's free hand, instead. It caught the hand between its own, brought it to its mouth with a jerk that felt to Burke like it was trying to pull his arm from its socket, and then clamped its jaws shut on his hand.
Burke shrieked in agony.
The pain was incredible; it felt like he'd just thrust his hand into a pool of molten steel and the pain grew worse as the creature ground its teeth together. He pounded at its face with his the butt of the gun while trying to wrench his trapped hand loose.
The creature ignored his blows; might not have even felt them for all Burke knew. It just kept biting down, inexorably bringing its teeth closer and closer together until with a sudden snap it bit clear through his hand.
The Perkins–thing reared back, the last two fingers of Burke's left hand dangling from its mouth for a second before it sucked them inside and swallowed.
Burke was screaming non–stop now, from both the pain and the horror of it all, but still he fought on, refusing to stop fighting until the very end...
A trench knife was suddenly thrust over his head and into the Perkins–thing's eye, burying itself right to the hilt.
The creature jerked once and went still.
Sergeant Moore put one foot against the creature's chest and simultaneously pushed the corpse away while yanking the trench knife free of its skull.
Burke barely noticed. He was staring at his injured hand and the blackish pallor that was moving in a slow trickle beneath his skin in the direction of his wrist.
Somehow he knew that the minute it reached its destination the major veins in his wrist would swiftly carry the infection, for that was what it was, he was sure of it, an infection, directly to his brain and his heart. He had a sudden image of his own corpse rising again, becoming the same kind of shambling ghoul that Perkins was, and the vision was enough to spur him to action.
"Cut it off," he said hoarsely.
Sergeant Moore was trying to get Burke to put his mask back on and not paying attention to Burke's injury. "It'll be all right, Lieutenant," he said, his voice muffled by his own mask.
Burke was not going to be denied.
"My hand!" he shouted, knocking Moore's hands out of the way and brandishing his own in front of the sergeant so he could see the changes already taking place near the wound. "Cut it off before it's too late!"
The sergeant looked at it, turned away, and then looked back a second time as the full import of what he's seen finally registered. Behind the goggles of his mask Burke saw his eyes open wide in horror.
Steadying himself with iron determination, Burke said, "Cut it off, Sergeant. That's an order!"
Moore finally must have understood, for he grabbed Burke's hand, knelt on it with both legs, and pulled Burke's bayonet from his belt.
"Look away," he said.
But Burke couldn't. His gaze was locked on the black line that was now almost to the base of his palm, a few more inches and it was all over...
"I'm sorry," Sergeant Moore said, then he brought the bayonet whistling downward toward Burke's left arm.
Raw instinct caused him to try to pull his hand back at the last moment, but Moore had anticipated that. He was a bigger, heavier man than Burke; the lieutenant's arm wasn't going anywhere.
The bayonet had been designed more as a thrusting implement than a cutting one. It had a blade, and Moore kept his pretty sharp, but it still wasn't strong enough to take Burke's hand off with the first blow.
Nor the second.
Or third.
Moore was crying and Burke was screaming as the big sergeant brought the blade down for the fourth and final time.
Burke watched the remains of his hand leap free of his wrist as if it had a mind of its own and then mercifully all went dark.
*** ***
Burke came to briefly some time later; how long he was unconscious, he didn't know. He could hear men crying and moaning all around him, could smell blood and the stink of internal organs and burned flesh.
A large shape loomed over him and it took his gas–irritated eyes a moment to focus. It was Sergeant Moore.
"You're in the CCS, Lieutenant," Moore told him, referring to the casualty clearing station where injured men were brought for triage. "The doctor's going to look at you soon."
Burke was swimming in the depths of shock and wasn't really sure what the sergeant was talking about. He lifted up his left arm, saw the stump of his wrist wrapped in a bloody bandage, but it all seemed distant, removed somehow, as if it were happening to someone else.
He tried to say something and drifted back into unconsciousness.
*** ***
When he came to a second time, Burke found himself surrounded by a doctor and several nurses. A man in a white lab coat stood off to the side, watching Burke intently as the doctor unwrapped his arm.
Burke still felt removed from it all, but this time there was a slightly euphoric feeling that he recognized despite his injures; someone had given him morphine.
He could hear the doctor and the nurses talking urgently about his injured arm, but Burke ignored them, his attention locked on the figure of the dark–haired man in the lab coat. Something about him was familiar.
Thankfully, he didn't have to think too hard to figure out where he had seen him before, for after a moment the man approached the bed and introduced himself.
"Lieutenant Burke, can you hear me, sir?"
Burke nodded. He noted that animation of the man's face and the fact that he spoke with a slight east European accent that caught Burke's attention. Austrian perhaps? No, that wouldn't make sense...
"My name is Nikola Tesla. You've heard of me, no?"
Again a nod. He was an inventor of some kind, if memory served...
"The doctor tells me he wants to cauterize your arm, put a brass cap on it, but I'd like to offer you a better option. How would you like a mechanical hand to replace the one flesh–and–blood one you've lost, hmmn?"
A mechanical hand?
Burke looked down. The doctor had his wrist completely unwrapped and Burke could see the empty spot where his hand used to be, could see the bloody stump lying there looking so helpless against the white background of the bed sheet.
Why not?
he thought through his drug haze. A mechanical hand was better than no hand at all, wasn't it?
He didn't realize he'd spoken aloud until the sharp–looking inventor answered him.
"Of course it is, Lieutenant, and I guarantee you will have the best mechanical hand my laboratory can produce. Now just breathe deep and we'll take care of the rest."
As a sharp–smelling cloth was placed over his nose and mouth and a fresh wave of dizziness overwhelmed him, Burke caught sight of the emotion in Tesla's eyes and recognized it for what it was.
The burning light of fanaticism.
He had one last thought – What have I gotten myself into? – and then unconsciousness wrapped him in its soft embrace and carried him gently down into the darkness that awaited him.
THE END
THE SHARP END is a prequel story to the Great Undead War series, where the adventure of Captain Michael "Madman" Burke and his team of Marauders continue as they fight the zombie enemy in the muddy trenches and above the battlefields of this alternate World War One.
By the Blood of Heroes - book one of the Great Undead War series - is available now at Amazon - http://amzn.com/B00655VJL8
THE SHARP END
Copyright © 2012 by Joseph Nassise
Cover art by Brad Cooper
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission.