Chapter 3

Three

Their backpacks were designed to carry enough supplies to last them for three days only, and that was three emergency days.

"Last resort supplies!" the instructor had boomed. "You use them only when you're out of all other options!"

The expectation was that they would gather up any supplies they needed from the abandoned houses and businesses within the infestation zone. Of course, that assumed that the munching monsters hadn't eaten everything already by that point but perhaps the MDF thought it would give their soldiers some added motivation! Kill the munchers before they eat your food and before they eat you!

With only three days of supplies the backpacks were light weight, though it wouldn't have caused Theo a problem had they been heavier. He'd once trained for a ‘tough ten miles' race by running with a twenty kilo weighted backpack and only a single pineapple flavoured energy gel to sustain him.

Theo hoped the same could be said about the rest of his team. There were seven of them in total, including their team leader. He was a tough-looking guy called Joel. Older than Theo by a good decade, he too was proper army, and he looked it, which Theo actually found quite reassuring. Overly tall and overly muscled, Joel carried his much bigger backpack with ease, and he had an additional, regular style handgun strapped to one thigh along with their standard issue knife on the other.

If Theo had met Joel at running club, or even at a board game night—though he reflected that was unlikely—he would probably have ended up with a huge crush on the other man…an unrequited one, no doubt! Big bearish men were Theo's weakness but rarely did those men go for slender, slightly neurotic men like him!

As well as himself and Julia, the other four members of the team were two university students who were also accomplished swimmers, a slightly older woman called Gill who had won a silver medal at the Olympics in boxing, and Dimitri, a Greek chap who had been living in Bristol for well over a decade and had volunteered for this. Many of the Greek islands had been heavily hit by the munchers, so this was his opportunity to get some well-deserved revenge.

"Right, team," Joel begun, gesturing them to gather around him. "I've got the containment bomb in the car. We'll be setting it off in…" he checked his watch, "nineteen minutes. Once it's set, we'll not be leaving the infestation zone until the job is done. Till every one of those fuckers is dead. This is our rally point. The truck will be waiting for us when we get back. I've got some additional supplies stashed so we can have a bit of a celebration when we return but don't tell Becky that! You know what she's like, and she'll just moan that I stole all the jaffa cakes."

Gill perked up at that. "We can't take the jaffas with us?"

"Delayed gratification," Joel said. "Now, listen up, all of you. I asked for each and every one of you on my team." Theo started at that, and Joel nodded at him. "Yeah, you heard me right. I remember watching your Olympic match," he said, pointing at Gill. "You were robbed in my opinion! The gold should have been yours. I can't wait to see how you knock out a few munchers."

Gill grinned and threw a right hook. Joel gave her an approving nod.

"As for you two," he said gesturing at the university students. "Both training to be doctors, both with the highest scores in class, usually that would be enough to keep you in uni, god knows we need all the doctors we can get, but your swim times are impressive, and I understand you both volunteered?"

"I can do more as an army medic," the first student, a fair-haired and blue-eyed chap called Liam, said.

His friend, Simon, originally from South Sudan, nodded in agreement. "We couldn't just sit back and watch this happen," Simon said. "My family had a holiday cottage down in Woolacombe. The munchers ate right through it!" He was clearly quite outraged at the loss of the holiday home, and Liam gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

"Volunteers, nothing better," Joel said before turning to Theo. "But conscripts will do as well."

"I'm not here willingly," Theo said.

The group sighed. They were all well aware of it.

"Not an issue, mate," Joel said. "Just means you'll want to get the thing done as quickly as possible. Besides, you're an endurance runner, which means if the shit hits the fan you'll return here and let the bosses know what's happened." He pointed south. "The route we're taking to clean them out is almost twenty miles in any given direction from here to there. You can run that in two and a half hours."

"Less," Theo said, looking down at his feet. He understood now why they'd let him wear his favourite pair of running shoes.

"So, you're our back up plan," Joel added before pointing at Julia. "And you after him."

"Might take me a bit longer to run that!" she said. "But I have no intention of running anyway. We're going to clean these fuckers out!"

The group all agreed, even Theo, because he was rapidly coming to the realisation that he was stuck in this now, and it also felt quite good to have been assigned a key task. It was true that the task would only happen if they were all eaten or killed, but still, it was the thought that counted.

Joel continued his motivational speech, complimenting Julia and then Dimitri. Theo was impressed. As well as being very good looking in a heavy gym-goer sort of fashion, Joel was shaping up to be a good team leader. He was absolutely an improvement on Theo's line manager in his regular job. Despite the fact they'd all worked remotely for years, Cara still didn't understand that she needed to aim her camera at her face on teams calls, meaning Theo often spoke exclusively to her forehead.

Not long after the speech concluded, Joel made his way over to the truck and pulled out the containment bomb. They all stood back at this point to let him work, chatting amongst themselves, though Dimitri and Julia had taken watch lest something sneak up on them. The munching monsters weren't the only monsters in the area.

"It's ready!"

The containment bomb had been designed by a combined team of English, French, and German scientists. Desperation was often the mother of invention, and in this case, they had come together to invent something that would allow them to keep the munching monsters contained whilst they exterminated them. It worked by surrounding the entire area with a sound barrier pitched at a particular frequency overlaid with a pattern of vibrations. Theo didn't quite understand how it worked but he knew that the munching monsters would not cross the barrier. Most of southern Cornwall, almost the entire coast of southern Wales, the channel tunnel, and various areas in northern France were live infestation zones surrounded by these bombs. Soldiers went in and they did not come out until the munchers were dealt with. That was easier said than done though, especially as the Normandy infestation had started before the bomb had been invented and the munchers had spread rapidly. MDF soldiers had been working there for months.

A humming suddenly filled the air and a few moments later Theo also thought he sensed a static sort of feeling, like a spark of electricity. The university students clearly felt it too, as they took a step back.

"We're all set!" Joel said. "Everyone got everything they need?" He laughed. "Well, it's too late now if you haven't!"

"What causes the static?" Theo asked as Joel joined the group again.

"Static?"

"Can't you feel it coming off the bomb?"

Joel frowned and lifted his gun. "It doesn't produce any static. Look alive, troops, something else might be here with us."

They did as he asked instantly, guns lifting and adrenaline suddenly spiking. They were far from the infestation here it was true but that didn't mean they were far from everything that was a threat. The munching monsters in this part of England were not the same ones that were in Normandy or in Wales or even in Cornwall. They had come through a different dimensional rip somewhere in Somerset, which meant other things could and probably did come through as well.

Another screeching monster, maybe.

A manganese monster, unlikely.

But they were just two of the dozens and dozens of monsters that had flooded mainland Europe and its surrounding islands since the dimensional rips had started three years ago.

What had caused them? No one knew.

How many other dimensions did they lead to? Just one it was thought.

Was that confirmed? No.

Why were there rips in France and not America? England and not India? Italy and not Australia? No one knew that either, but Europe was on the front line and the rest of the world were either actively helping or were watching and waiting to see if they were going to be next.

"Let's get into formation," Joel said after a moment, and they all responded in the way they had been taught in their drill classes. Joel took point, followed by Gill and then Julia. Theo was next followed by the university students. Dimitri brought up the rear. "We're not likely to see any signs of infestation today," Joel added. "We're too far out, but it's important we start here, can't take any chances, and you never know, and if in doubt, you damn well shoot."

"Everyone human has been evacuated?" Gill asked. "Right?"

Joel laughed. "Evacuated or eaten, champ. It's one or the bloody other!"