Dystopian Falls

Banchory is a dystopian landscape. Infected attackers are rife. They feed on survivors. Only two people can stop them.


RAF Flight Sergeant Jason Harper and his civilian partner Imo Pritchard, along with their dog Sabre, are fighting their way through these ferocious fiends on their latest mission. They must save a group of children trapped in a Guide hut, along with their leaders.

Can they save the Rainbow pack and take them to the safety of the fence, erected at the Aberdeenshire and Angus border that has kept the infected from spreading to other parts of Scotland?

Dystopian Falls is the third book in The Fence series of military post-apocalyptic novels by British horror writer C.G. Buswell.

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Read the opening chapter:

The youth snapped his head back, bloodied hands grasping at his black hoodie. He flung the fabric back. It bounced to rest between his shoulder blades. As he craned his neck to emit a howl, several 7.62mm rounds tore into his neck, severing his head. His body twisted and cavorted from the impact from the L7A2 General Purpose Machine Gun. The violent movement unfurled his hood, and his head was flung into it like a basketball player slamming home a reverse dunk. The teenager’s red eyes dimmed. His body dropped to the concrete skatepark boundary floor, landing on top of his victim, a desperate mother looking for her lost child. They had found each other. Mother and child were now reunited in death. She’d ventured into Bellfield Park after weeks barricaded at home a few streets away in her Banchory home. The two bodies slid down the flat bank of the ramp’s bowl, a thick red slime tracing their route to the shallow end. The couple thudded into a lone skateboard, and it rolled its lonely way along the grey course and came to rest by the bloated corpse of a small girl. Infected victims from the Russian chemical air attack had fed on her throat, exposing sinews. Crows in the nearby trees had eaten greedily upon her, stripping her of clothing in their fervent search for flesh.

Up the hill, parked on the pavement by the main road into this Aberdeenshire town, a battered Land Rover was parked. Through the grey and white smoke from the mighty weapon, two figures, dressed in military multi-terrain pattern combat uniforms, were hunched over a huge black gun. It was mounted on a tripod and swivelled as the GPMG operator aimed down the sights. The butt was nestled tight into the right shoulder of the man and his left hand was on the thick black butt, like he was cuddling a lover. Beside him, a small, thinner, almost emaciated figure was grinning as she fed the link belt containing one hundred of the deadly bullets. The rapid fire was making its way through her gloves quickly, like a grocery checkout assistant at Aldi.

‘Fuck me!’ shouted Imogen Pritchard above the blasts of the deadly firepower. ‘Did you see that head? What a catch!’ She turned to her partner and beamed a toothless grin.

Ignoring her, Flight Sergeant Jason Harper continued his short, aimed bursts. Below them, a man in tattered clothing was sniffing around the recently killed, like a dog on a deer carcass. He threw his arms up, as if flapping, as three of the rounds from the disintegrating link belt burst through his chest and exited from his back. A ragged hole the size of a toddler’s football burst through the back of his shirt, stripping the fabric from his torso as it continued its trajectory.

A guttural wail erupted from Jason’s mouth, coming from deep within his soul. Springing from the machine gun, tears still in his eyes, Jason left the weapon to turn on the free-swinging mount. He scrambled over the side of the Land Rover and puked on the main road into Banchory.

‘You’ll have to get out of that habit one day, Cowboy,’ mocked Imo as she clipped another link belt into place. She slammed home the weapon’s feed tray lid, thumping it into place with her fist. The civilian looked across to her forced upon military companion. He should have been taking the lead in this mission to rescue anyone not infected. Shrugging, she pulled back the silver-edged, round cocking handle. Ramming it as far back as she could, she then allowed it to return to the forward position as it fed in a fresh round. Rolling her eyes, she sidled across the Land Rover, kicking aside a pile of spent brass bullet casings. She flicked the link belt over the left side of the vehicle so it went rigid and would self-feed. Aiming at a woman, red-eyed and snarling as she ran up the grass bank towards them, Imo gently pulled the trigger. Several bursts of fire took out the woman’s legs, ripping bone and flesh just below her kneecaps. She fell flat on her face, eating grass as she roared. Imogen was flung back during this rapid fire, the recoil forcing her to the back of the Land Rover. She landed on Sabre’s blankets, their German Shepherd dog whined as it cushioned her fall.

Jason, climbing back on the vehicle, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve, roared with laughter. ‘Serves you right. I told you not all weapons are like Call of Duty. You can’t learn everything from a computer game or from prison. Top marks on the reload, though. I taught you well.’

Imo winced as he brought up her incarceration spells for drug offences and stealing over the years. Then she gave a scowl as she rubbed her hip. Sabre was a big dog and on the lean side. She tickled his ear and heard Jason whip out his Glock 19 from his holster.

He drew the pistol into the classic firing stance, one foot slightly forward than the other, arms out straight. He fired one shot. Straight into the forehead of the infected woman who was crawling through the wooden fence they were parked by. She had trailed a leg, as she had moved, hanging by her tendons at an awkward angle. It looked like an oversized chicken wing. The heavy-calibre rounds had shorn the other lower leg clean off.

‘You missed her. The recoil made you swing low. Normally it causes the gunner to hit higher, but you aren’t as tall as most in my regiment.’

‘Bollocks to your Royal Air Force Regiment. It’s not like you’re a proper army, is it?’ she teased. ‘What’s with the roaring and tears? Pippa?’

Jason shook his head vehemently. ‘Not just her. I promised I’d never fire something like that again.’

‘A GPMG? Is this to do with what the colonel keeps bringing up? The failed mission. I thought you’d be over that by now.’ She waved her hand about as she stood up. ‘What with all the killing we’ve done recently?’

He wrinkled his nose. ‘The cordite smell is stronger with this weapon. I couldn’t shoot that woman in Yemen.’

Flicking her head across to the new corpse, she laughed. ‘Looks like you’ve no trouble in that department, Cowboy.’ Taking a step forward, she thumped his back, interrupting his dry retching. ‘Best you get something to eat. Besides, we haven’t looked in all the kit-bags yet.’ Imo thought back to their meeting at the huge fence erected around Aberdeenshire. Built to contain the infected from the testing of the Russian chemical weapon. It caused the population to tear at each other's throats. An ideal weapon designed to decimate and depopulate an area before an invading army’s ground troops moved in. Not so good for those uninfected and trapped. Or for those ordered to kill the infected because there was no cure. Military experts thought that the Russian President would be sanctioning its use in Ukraine. NATO scientists were busy trying to find a cure and vaccination against it. Until then, COBRA had ordered the infected in Aberdeen and the surrounding Shire to be killed. Anyone lucky enough to have survived the attack was to be sent for testing and processing at the Angus border on the A90.

Jason swivelled the GPMG barrel, so it was facing into the town centre. The T-junction with the traffic lights was switched off, along with all the electrics in the Shire and City. Unless ordered by the colonel to be switched back on. He and his staff controlled the power and water supply from their HQ near the fence.

‘What did Pippa say to you when I was crying into the phone?’ asked Jason, gently.

‘I promised to look after you,’ stated Imo as Sabre nudged her hand for another ear stroke. She obliged as she thought about her other promise. No need to tell the recently re-enlisted Jason in case his loyalties had switched back to the RAF.

‘Thanks. You did, and I know you always will. I doubt the colonel will let us through that fence. We are too valuable to him as a killing team. Banchory isn’t the only town he’ll send us to.’

She nodded. ‘But the bastard re-armed us and supplied us. Those technicians didn’t hang around when they bolted the tripod to our Land Rover. Some others threw in the kit-bags. You were still crying when they slapped a handful of combat clothing into our open arms.’ She tapped the earpiece wrapped around her ear. ‘These will be brilliant for when we get separated. Those people returned to the other side of the fence quick enough. One day we’ll get through and you’ll be with Pippa again.’

‘Sorry.’ Jason looked down at the mountain of brass casings.

‘Don’t be. You’ve shown me her photo. Pippa is beautiful and glowing. You are blessed to have such a beautiful wife.’ She grinned, revealing a toothless mouth again, caused by years of drug abuse and self-neglect. ‘You are lucky to have her and to know she and your unborn baby are safe.’

Jason gulped, fighting back tears. As he looked up, he heard the twang of elastic and felt a rush of air pass his left ear, the one without the personal comms attached. A body fell as it was climbing over the side of the vehicle.

Imo kissed her catapult and patted her ammo pouch that was filled with lethal ball bearings. She curtsied, lost her footing amongst the brass casings, and quickly corrected herself. ‘You’re welcome! Keep your fancy phallic-like weapons. The old ways are the best ways for this old poacher.’

‘Ha!’ exclaimed Jason, as he reciprocated the back slap. ‘I’ve been trying to think of a nickname for you. Well, one that I can say to your face and not get a kicking! “The Poacher” that’s what I’ll call you.’

Imo beamed wider. ‘I’ve never had a nickname before, not even in the kid’s home or prison. Does this mean we are proper partners now?’ she asked eagerly.

Jason drew out his combat knife, aimed it at her, and hurled it. The blade whizzed past her face as she swerved from it, shock upon her face. It squelched into the left eye of a snarling man climbing onto the tailgate of the Land Rover. He thudded to the floor. Jason tipped an imaginary hat at Imo and drawled in his best American accent, like Bob tried on their last mission, in Stonehaven. ‘Well, I guess this cowboy just got himself a partner!’ He elongated the last word and pronounced the middle letters with a prolonged drawl. Winking at her; tears now forgotten.

A proud smile erupted on Imo’s blood-streaked face, and she struck out a hand and pumped Jason’s for all she was worth.


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