Page 3 of A Very Monstrous Desire

Julia shrugged. “Becky let me read all your files.”

“She shouldn’t have done that!”

Another laugh and Julia wiggled her eyebrows. “She was easily convinced.”

Theo was about to ask exactly how Julia had persuaded their instructor, but a screech sounded then. The entire squad acted quickly, grabbing their ear defenders to cover their ears, and keeping them in place until they were given the signal to remove them ten minutes later. Quite a few of the squad gave it an extra minute. Several MDF members were partially deaf now thanks to the screechers. Apart from that element of them, the screechers were generally quite friendly monsters, so Theo was pleased not to be on a mission to remove them.

“I was a runner as well,” Julia said once they could talk.

From the looks of the monitor at the front of the truck they were fast approaching the area that Becky had shown them on the map. Theo would have liked to actually look outside, but there were no windows on this part of the truck.

“Never had a marathon time as fast as yours,” she added. “Well, I only ever ran a half if I’m honest, but I managed a sub two hours, well just over, more like two-twenty if I’m really honest. By the look of your times, you trained hard, and you trained well.” She paused. “You’ve got discipline, Theo, and you’ve got some resolve to you. No one could run for miles on end without some of that, it's so bloody boring!”

Theo had managed a sub two hours thirty on his last official run. He’d been given a ‘good for age’ place for the London marathon as a result. But then, one of the very first dimensional rips had appeared in Hackney and the capital was suddenly busy dealing with an influx of spitting monsters. That was almost three years ago now. London had been intermittently covered in a slimy, orange mucus ever since.

“Besides, we’re here now,” Julia added. “We just have to make the best of it.” She paused and looked him up and down, as if making a decision. “Why don’t you and I stick together, keep an eye on each other? You watch my back, and I’ll watch yours.”

“If we’re about to get eaten I’ll be faster than you,” Theo said even as he nodded his agreement.

“Over long distances,” she replied. “I could probably outrun you in a sprint.”

“That’s doubtful,” Theo said. “But I hope we won’t ever have to find out.”

And Julia laughed once more. “Now that you’ve said it, Theo, I have a feeling we most definitely will!”

Chapter

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.”

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