Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #22 January 2016 | Page 46

Trouble at the Docks
Chapter Twenty
By Jim King

There were five soldiers left from the squad
that had advanced behind Greyhound and then been
cut off as walking corpses overran the street. Two of
them, Smith and Jones, had stayed behind in the alley
to fight the corpses. The others had run into the street
behind the houses and into more of the shambling
dead. The few that were able to fight their way free
had gone straight into the house in front of them. Now
they were piling what little furniture was available
against the front door while two of them braced it
against the pounding of several corpses.
“This is bloody hopeless. That door will never
hold. Check out the back. See where it goes.”
The two redcoats not holding the door jumped
to obey the corporal’s order, leaving him to push a
small heavy chest over to the door in a pointless effort
at blocking it.
“It’s another street. Can’t see any of them dead
things though.”
All of them turned to look as one of the planks
in the door cracked.
“Out the back quick as you can. You two hold
till we reach the back door then run for it!”
The two soldiers holding the door shut waited
perhaps three seconds, then they turned and ran,
neither bothering to check if the corporal reached

the back door yet. They crashed into each other in
the doorway and scrambled through together, using
elbows and arms to try and batter the other aside.
The five men were in a narrow street that ran
behind the houses; facing them were a few crude huts
and small brick structures and the wall of the fort. To
their left the street curved round the wall and seemed
to enter a wide open area. To the right a ramp led up to
the wall and a broad flat area mostly covered in rubble
and the remaining stumps of brick walls that marked
the base of a shattered tower.
As they stood there trying to decide what to
do, an explosion engulfed the broad area of rubble
on the wall and a handful of figures in Black Arab
robes emerged from the rubble and ran down the ramp
towards them. Both sides franticly took aim and fired;
the closest Bedouin was hit three times and went over
backwards, dead before he fell to the ground. The pair
behind took a round each, one staggered as he was hit
in the arm, the other stumbled and fell as he took a hit
in the stomach.
The Arabs tried to fire back but only one of
them held a loaded weapon; he fired from the hip then
screamed as the recoil tore the rifle from his grip and
broke his wrist. His shot took the corporal high in the
chest, and the redcoat was pitched over backwards and
died within seconds.
Then they were in amongst each other, and

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