Juggernaut

They passed titanic ruins. Sinister silence. Domes, arches, colonnades. Courtyards and avenues half-choked with sand.

They entered the shadow of the baleful colossi that flanked the temple entrance.

The vast temple interior. Cool darkness.

A gangrenous soldier shambled from the shadows. A frail, mummified creature. Skin like leather. Dendritic growths woven through flesh. Clothes hung in blood-smeared strips. He had no eyes. He stumbled. He bumped pillars. He advanced like he was tracking their scent. The soldier was barely alive, but still compelled to rip and tear. An unquenchable thirst for flesh. That final thought dying slow, like campfire embers.

Gaunt kicked the creature. It stumbled and fell. He stamped on his head. Skull burst. He scuffed his boot on flagstones like he was scraping dog shit.‘Come on.’

They ran to the truck.

Voss reached into the fender well beneath the battery and tripped the starter solenoid.

Ignition. Engine roar echoed round the vaulted interior of the temple. The single, intact head lamp flickered and glowed steady. The beam shafted through swirling dust motes.

Half-dead soldiers lay sprawled over altar steps beneath the great, contemptuous bull god. They turned towards the sudden radiance, stirred slow and clumsy like they were waking from a long sleep.

‘Damn,’ said Voss. ‘Let’s go.’

They ran to the cab. They reversed away from the altar, swung round, and headed for daylight shafting through the temple doorway

A soldier crawled up the processional ramp to the temple entrance. Legs sheared at the thigh. Bone and ragged flesh. Tumorous tendrils trailed from each stump. He paused at the temple threshold, reached out like he was trying to grasp the approaching head beam. Tyres crushed his torso as the armoured truck rolled over his body and out into sunlight. His ribs crunched beneath the wheels. His skull crackled and splintered like glass ground under a heavy boot.

The truck rolled down the temple ramp. Two rotted soldiers reached for the vehicle, arms outstretched. They were smashed by ram bars, pulped beneath the wheels.

The cash truck rode over smooth flagstones, through ceremonial precincts and out the citadel gateway. It bounced over rock-strewn dirt.

‘Quarter of a tank,’ said Gaunt, checking the dash gauge. ‘If we can’t get the loco running, we use the truck to get out the valley. Throw some water and ammo in the back. Should help us cross a few miles of desert before we have to get out and walk.’

They reached the convoy. Gaunt revved and rammed the column of vehicles. He bulldozed a passage between cars. Body panels shrieked. Doors ripped free. A Subaru tipped and rolled.

They pulled up in front of the fuel truck. They lashed tow straps.

‘You got to walk me back to the train,’ said Gaunt. ‘Keep the fuckers off my back while I drive.’

Gaunt gunned the throttle. The armoured car crept forward. The tow strap slapped taut and creaked at full tension. High revs. Gaunt pumped the throttle and rocked the fuel truck free.

Voss stood guard. He climbed on the hood of a burned-out Lincoln. A row of automobiles, toe to tail. He jumped roof to roof. He kept pace with the lurching fuel truck as it rolled forward.

He climbed across the blistered hull of an APC. A soldier squirmed from a turret hatch, face a mask of knotted malignancies. Voss delivered a vicious kick to the head. Neck snap. The creature fell limp and slid back into darkness.

More grasping hands emerging from gaping hatchways, scrabbling like spiders. Snapping skull faces.

Voss pulled the pin from a frag grenade and dropped it into the dark interior of the APC. He heard it clang and clatter. He jumped clear.

Muffled blast. A jet of smoke from every vent and hatch. The hull resonated like a gong. The sound echoed round the high valley walls, and died slow.

‘How you doing?’ asked Lucy.

‘All right,’ said Amanda. She massaged her leg. ‘Riding the codeine wave.’

The sun high over the valley walls. Merciless, lacerating light. The carriage was starting to bake.

They watched the trucks lurch across wasteland towards the locomotive. They could hear the distant engine rev and labour. The vehicles kicked up a high dust plume.

Amanda looked up at the drone.

‘They must know there are people alive down here. Someone in Baghdad is watching us close-up. Examining every hair follicle and skin pore. Toying with us, like a kid frying ants with a magnifying glass.’

‘They want us dead. We are a loose end. This whole operation is a bleed they want to tie off and cauterise. Soon as we get back to Baghdad, we switch to fake ID. Destroy dog tags, credit cards, anything with our names. Collect our shit from the Rasheed, then vanish.’

‘Damn,’ said Amanda. ‘Check it out. The citadel.’

Lucy raised her binoculars. She focused. Half-dead soldiers were staggering and crawling from the citadel gate. A wraith army, relentlessly dragging themselves across sun-blasted terrain.