Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #21 December 2015 | Page 47

pointed instead. Then he was hit and knocked down, a
shambling dead body grabbed him and dragged him to
the ground. By turning right the platoon had allowed a
dozen or so of the walking corpses to reach them and
now found themselves grappling with the bodies of the
dead that moved.
The gatehouse was overrun.
#
Lieutenant Engler was watching the action at
the gatehouse from across the market area in the town.
He had a good view of the action from there, he could
see the platoon firing into the town, he could even see
that madman of a quartermaster sitting on the wall.
Things seemed to be quietening down
somewhat anyway, the volume of firing from the
platoon by the gatehouse was falling as if less of them
were now firing. The sound and the clouds of smoke
were definitely getting less and less.
Then as he watched, the platoon turned and
began to fire at the wall to their right, the flat area now
covered in the remains of the tower he had dropped.
Why were they firing in that direction, there were no
enemies to be seen that way, just drifting clouds of
gun smoke.
Then he saw a figure waving at him and
pointing toward the place where the men were firing,
or at least where some of them were firing. Most of
the platoon seemed to have moved into the smoke and
most of the gunfire had stopped.
The figure suddenly fell and vanished from
sight and was quickly followed by the remaining
members of second platoon. What was going on?
#
First platoon had managed to get half their
number into the fort under the cover of second platoon
but, as second platoon suddenly seemed to collapse,
they found themselves trying to advance past the
quartermaster’s wagon with walking corpses now

everywhere.
One of the shambling dead grabbed a horse
and tried to bite it; the horse panicked at the sudden
attack and the stench of death, tried to turn and run,
but it slammed into the wall and fell. It was quickly
covered with walking corpses while the other horse
tried to kick and buck at the corpses attacking it.
Trapped by the harness and the weight of the wagon
it reared and flailed with its hooves as the dead tore
chuck after chunk from its flesh.
Then it collapsed, a rifle round had struck it in
the back of the head and killed it at once, by accident
or on purpose none would ever know.
The tall quartermaster’s wagon now found
itself under attack as the walking corpses tried to
push down either side or to scramble up on top. The
two men on the wagon were unarmed, one threw a
box of rounds at the closest dead and both jumped off
backwards.
First one then another pair of soldiers climbed
up onto the wagon. The bed of the wagon was over
four feet off the ground and the side walls made it a
tiny wooden fort, they were able to fire from a high
position. Several shambling dead started to climb
up on top of other corpses and reach over the walls
when General Summerby took command. He quickly
ordered a squad up into the wagon, half to shoot, the
others to use their rifles as clubs.
Most of the dead were still in the fort, only
a few dozen were out here. Why were the guns not
firing? He could clearly see Lieutenant Engler and
both guns b WBF