Coffin Dodgers by Clarke Matthew A

Author:Clarke, Matthew A. [Clarke, Matthew A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-04-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

With Brick’s decaying body loaded into the tank, Wilhelm put the abandoned parade in the rear-view mirror and progressed deeper into the Unclaimed. The fetid stink of death rose from the corpse as the vehicle took a hard left and re-joined the main drag.

“I’m not leaving you to them, buddy.” He would give the big man a proper burial once all of this was over.

“Thank fuck for that.”

Wilhelm narrowly avoided steering the tank into a concrete divider as he slammed on the brakes. “You’re alive?!”

Dried blood caked Brick’s burly face. Most (but not all) of which could be traced back to the congealed hole in the centre of his forehead. “Pretty sure that bullet you gifted me is still in there somewhere. All I can taste is purple.”

The fist-sized hole at the back of Brick’s shaved skull insisted the bullet had vacated his head less than two-hundredth of a second after it had entered. “Listen, the last of our kind are about to be eradicated for good if we don’t get back there before the Greys. Even then, I’m not sure that it’ll make any difference.”

“That must be where that big shiny man was headed.”

“Yes,” Wilhelm said, watching a childish grin spread across Brick’s face, “the big shiny man. We’ll get you some medical attention as soon as we get back. Just hang on.”

​ ​

∆∆ ∆

The streets were now as dead as Emmett—the shufflers having either gone into hiding, or amalgamated into the assault force as the Grey army swept through the city. Finding his way back was not hard—he simply had to follow the trail of golden butterscotch wrappers that the military had left in its wake, which was fortunate, as after travelling for several miles, everything was beginning to look the same; towering buildings with cracked windows. Closed shops, shuttered bars (one of which had the doors blown off with the cannon for a quick top-up) and deserted streets.

The skyscrapers eventually fell away to reveal the mass of the Unclaimed city. The enemy troops had opted to head dead ahead, toward the long-since-boarded-off tunnel that would take them straight through, rather than circle around and take the longer (although also heavily guarded) route that the Greys were known to take. Wilhelm reasoned they’d likely chosen to do so because not only was it the fastest route, but once the last of the Resistance were dead, there would be no need to keep the two sides of the Unclaimed separate any longer. This was problematic because the caved-in tunnel entrance had not been guarded for many years, with the consensus being that it was no longer a viable threat, despite it being the most efficient route between the two sides. Up until now, the Greys had chosen to tread the same paths rather than attempt to tear through the cave-in.

“Shiny,” Brick said.

Wilhelm looked up and spotted the glint of a scope on a railway bridge to his right. He threw himself to the ground just as the bullet

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