For Those In Peril (Book 2): The Outbreak (4 page)

Tom
placed the cigarette he’d just made between his lips as he prepared to light it.
‘So you think the PM was right to close the borders?’

‘Damn
straight! I think it’s probably the first time in his life he’s actually done
the right thing at the right time. It’s the only way we can stop it coming over
here, at least for now.’

Tom
took a long draw on his new cigarette and blew a steady stream of smoke into the
air. ‘Maybe if they can keep it out long enough, someone will be able to come up
with a cure.’

‘I
doubt it.’ I leant back on the steps, watching the people around me. ‘They’ve
been trying to cure rabies for 150 years, and they’ve got absolutely nowhere.
Once you start showing symptoms, that’s pretty much it.’

‘Shit!’ Tom paused for a second and we both stared off down the street. ‘Did you
see the footage where the man got ripped apart by those children?’

I had;
I think everyone had by then. A reporter had been standing in the street doing a
piece to camera somewhere in Miami when some kids appeared out of nowhere and
set upon him. The oldest was maybe about ten, the youngest was dressed in
Spiderman pyjamas and couldn’t have been older than four or five at the most.
The cameraman dropped his camera and ran, but it had carried on broadcasting
live to the world. The reporter tried to fight them off, but there were too many
of them. Eventually, he stopped moving, but the children kept on attacking him.
The network finally pulled the plug when they’d started eating him, but not
before everyone watching saw the oldest child tear open the man’s abdomen and
pull out his intestines.

I
looked beyond the end of the street, across the Clyde and out to where a group
of wind turbines turned slowly on the distant hills. There seemed to be no way
the virus could be stopped now; it had grown too big and spread too far. I
wondered how the world would cope, and how long it would be before it found its
way through the closed borders and into Britain.

I took
a deep breath. ‘Look, Tom, I think this is it: the big one. Sooner or later it’s
going to turn up here and we need a plan for what to do then.’

‘What
d’you mean?’ There was a confused tone to his voice.

I
turned to him. ‘We need a strategy, just in case. We need to think of a place to
go where we’d be safe. Somewhere like ...’

I
never finished the sentence. Something had caught my eye: a riderless police
horse galloping at full speed up Buchanan Street, scattering people left and
right as it went. Once it was nearer, I could see it was foaming at the mouth
and dripping with sweat from the exertion. It turned left and headed up the next
street. From behind, I could see what looked like blood smeared down its right
side. The horse made it across the first road, but at the second a speeding taxi
smashed into it, bringing the animal crashing down onto the vehicle. Tom leapt
to his feet. ‘What the hell was that all about?’

‘No
idea.’ I jumped up, too, ‘I wonder what spooked it.’

‘And
where’s the policeman who should have been keeping control of it?’

While
everyone else around us was still staring at the accident, and the people
rushing to help, I turned to look back down Buchanan Street. All seemed normal
and you’d never have guessed that a runaway horse had just galloped along its
length. Then, at the far end, something changed. At first, I couldn’t really see
what, but something was different.

‘Hey,
Tom, look down there.’ I craned my neck, trying to get a better view. ‘D’you see
anything odd?’

Tom
did the same. ‘What d’you mean?

‘Down
at the far end, by Argyle Street.’ I pointed to the spot I was talking about.
‘Something doesn’t seem right.’

At the
bottom of the street, everyone was pushing and shoving against each other, as if
they were trying to get away from something.

‘Ben,’
Tom dropped his half-smoked cigarette onto the ground, ‘I don’t like the look of
this.’

Suddenly, a wave of people started surging towards us. Soon, it seemed like the
entire lower half of the street was moving as one. Then I noticed something odd.
While everyone in the approaching crowd was running, some, it seemed, were
chasing and grabbing at the others.

I
thought flashed into my head. ‘Tom, we’ve got to get off the street right now.’

‘What?
Why?’

‘I
think the virus is here.’

‘How?’

‘I
don’t know, but look at the crowd. See that person there?’ I pointed to the man
I meant. ‘And that one there? Look how they’re acting! I think they’re
infected.’

‘Shit!’ Tom eyes darted across the crowd. ‘Are you sure?

Before
I could say anything, the man seized an elderly woman and pulled her to the
ground. As the pair struggled, they disappeared from sight amongst the crowd,
but soon the attacker was back on his feet and had chased down someone else.

‘Frickin’ hell!’ Tom ran his hands through his hair. ‘Ben, what’re we going to
do?’

I
glanced round. At the top of the steps was a series of doors; I knew we had to
get off the street and we had to do it now.

‘Let’s
get inside.’ I ran up the steps. Behind me, Tom grabbed his case and followed.
The first door I tried wouldn’t move, nor would the second. I kept going,
eventually finding one on the far right which opened. Once inside, I locked the
door behind us and looked round to find a flight of stairs leading upwards. We
raced up them, all the time glancing back over our shoulders. At the top, we
emerged into a restaurant filled with empty tables set for lunch.

A
blonde waitress in her mid-twenties appeared through what I presumed was the
door to the kitchen and hurried towards us, shouting. ‘Hey, we’re not open yet.
You need to leave.’

I
pushed past her and ran up to the windows which stretched from floor to ceiling.
From there, I had a clear view down the length of Buchanan Street. 

‘I
said: we’re not open yet.’ The waitress strode towards us. ‘Are you deaf or
something?’ Finally, she reached a point where she could see the street below.
‘Hey, what’s going on out there?’

The
stampeding crowd had now reached the entrance to the underground station. I
searched for the people who were chasing the others, but I couldn’t find them. I
wondered where the infected had gone; maybe I’d got it wrong. Then I realised it
wasn’t that they’d disappeared, it was that almost all of them were now
infected.

I
tried to say something, but I couldn’t find the words. Instead, I just stared,
paralysed by fear and disbelief at what I was witnessing.

As the
crowd reached the statue in front of the steps, the people lingering there,
watching the aftermath of the crash further up the next street, finally realised
what was happening around them and they scattered. Some ran up to the locked
doors, while others sprinted along the street to the right. As I watched, the
first of the infected reached the steps and raced up them, while the rest
followed those who’d fled up the next street. One man climbed up onto the
statue’s plinth and started to pull a woman up after him, but before she was
beyond its reach, an infected grabbed her legs. There was a tug of war between
the two, with the woman screaming in the middle. Then another infected grabbed
hold, then another. The man refused to let go of the woman even though I could
now see her guts spilling out onto the street. He tried to keep his footing, but
there wasn’t enough space and he slipped, falling into the mass of infected
people which were now feeding on the woman’s remains. They set upon him, clawing
and tearing at him until he’d been pulled apart and scattered across the street.

There
was a noise behind us and I turned to find the waitress talking rapidly into a
mobile phone. I didn’t recognise the language, but from the way she spoke, I
could tell she was as confused and horrified by what was happening outside as I
was.

I
returned my attention to the window: the crowd was starting to thin as the main
mass passed us and headed away up the next street, those who had the disease
pursuing those who didn’t. Here and there, small knots of infected squabbled
over bodies, pulling at them with their hands and teeth, feasting on those
they’d killed. After a while, even those stragglers had dispersed in search of
others to attack, leaving the street devoid of life. Nothing moved, and if it
wasn’t for the bodies scattered along its length, it would have been impossible
to believe what had just happened. Yet it had, and I was struggling to take it
all in. I just didn’t understand it: where had the disease come from? How had it
made the leap across the ocean? Was it just Glasgow or was it in other places in
Britain, too?

It
took a few more minutes of standing there, transfixed by the devastation, before
I managed to get my brain back into gear. ‘Tom, we’ve got to get out of here.
We’ve got to get out of the city while we still can. You think we could make it
to my boat?’

Tom
was still gazing down at the street. ‘Where are you tied up?

‘Down
by the conference centre.’

‘I
don’t know.’ Tom looked at me briefly before returning his attention to what was
happening outside. ‘It’s a long way to go.’

We
both stared out of the window, but nothing moved.

Tom
was the first to act. He stepped forward and leant against the glass, looking
from side to side. ‘Where’ve they all gone?’

I
moved forward to stand beside him. ‘I guess they must have chased the crowd as
they ran away.’

Tom
was now eyeing up the far end of Buchanan Street. ‘If we can make it to the
river front, I think we should have a pretty clear run from there down to where
your boat is. There won’t have been many people down there at this time of day.’

Suddenly something struck me. ‘Have you got anything we could use as weapons?’

‘What?’ Tom looked confused. ‘Why?’

‘Because if we run into any of
them
, we’ll need to be able to defend
ourselves.’

‘You
mean like …?’ Tom’s voice faltered; he cleared his throat. ‘You mean like
kill
them?’

I
shifted uneasily; I didn’t like the idea of it any more than he did, but if we
did meet any infected, we’d have little choice: it would be them or us. ‘If we
have to.’

‘Jesus!’ Tom was as white as a sheet. For a moment he stood still, then he knelt
down and opened his case, ‘I’ve got these.’ He pulled out the large, curved
machetes he used as part of his act. They weren’t sharp, but they were still
formidable weapons.

I
picked one up, and ran a finger along its length. ‘They’ll do.’

By
then, the waitress had turned off her phone and spoke to us for the first time
since the crowd had rampaged up the street, her voice trembling. ‘What’re you
going to do?’ There was a trace of an Eastern European accent in her voice.

‘You
saw what happened in Miami last night?’ I glanced across at her and she nodded.
‘Well, the same thing’s happening here. We need to get out of the city as
quickly as possible. I’ve got a yacht down on the river. If we can get to it, we
can get out of here. D’you want to come with us?’

She
glanced at her phone and then out the window before coming to a decision. ‘Yes.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Iliana.’

I held
out my hand. ‘I’m Ben and he’s Tom.’

She
looked at Tom as if seeing him properly for the first time. ‘Hey, I know you;
I’ve seen you before. You’re the juggler, aren’t you?’

Tom
gave a slight bow, used to people recognising him like this, ‘That’s me.’

I
turned and stared out of the window again: still nothing moved.

‘Right,’ I took a deep breath and felt my body start to shake as I thought about
what we were about to do. I looked at Tom and saw he was shaking too. I did my
best to calm myself. ‘Let’s do this.’

Chapter Two

We
made our way over to the stairs and crept slowly down to the entrance. I peered
through the window in the door; there were bodies on the flag stones just
outside, lying like rag dolls, limbs at odd angles, covered in blood. Many had
chunks of flesh missing from their arms and faces, and one had a leg missing. My
eyes searched around, stopping when I saw it lying several feet away. Despite
the carnage, there was no movement.

As
quietly as possible, I unlocked the door and inched it open. I adjusted my grip
on the machete I was holding and nervously stuck my head outside. Everything was
still. I crept forward to the edge of the stone steps where I could finally see
not just down Buchanan Street, but also up the street to the right; it, too, was
littered with bodies. Off in the distance, I could make out some movement, but
nothing closer. I beckoned the others to follow and together we picked our way
along Buchanan Street, alert to any signs of life.

As we
passed the dead lying in the street, I couldn’t help but stare. Some bore deep
wounds and had clearly been killed by those with the virus; others had bruises
and broken limbs, and looked more like they’d been trampled to death in the
stampede. We reached the steps at the entrance to a shopping mall and I glanced
through the glass doors: bodies were piled at the base of the escalators, some
having fallen from a great height. Above them, I could see others hanging over
handrails, held there by the mass of people that had pushed up from behind in a
desperate bid to escape. In amongst the bodies, there were movements from those
trapped in the crush, or who’d been so badly injured they couldn’t get up again.
Then I saw him: a man dressed in loose-fitting chinos and an open-necked Oxford
shirt, both of which were soaked in blood, chewing on the face of a teenage
girl. From the way she was lying, I could tell both her legs were broken, but
the fall hadn’t killed her; she was trying to fend him off, but she was no match
for him and he buried his teeth into her flesh again and again. Knowing there
was nothing I could do to help and unable to watch any longer, I turned away,
feeling the bile rise in my throat as I did so.