The Living Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Coast (19 page)

Everyone’s cards were on the table. No help would be given or received. Colonel Hamilton opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a bottle.

“Gentlemen, this is Glenfiddich Rare. My father gave me this years ago and I was saving it for my daughter’s wedding. I haven’t heard from my daughter or my wife for several days now. I have a feeling there won’t be a wedding anytime soon so-

He gathered some semi-clean shot glasses and poured each of them a dram. “May the Lord bless you and keep you. May He make His face shine upon-”

David drank his glass then slipped away. It was close to noon and the whiskey on an empty stomach was making his head spin a little. He needed food.

Laughter rang out somewhere ahead of him, delighted childish laughter that again seemed so out of place here. He left the shady colonnade and turned a corner toward the rock pool and stopped.

Children were splashing in the pool. A woman stood holding a toddler in her arms, dunking him in and out of the water as he screamed with delight. After a second or two David recognized Beatrice.

Sleek, bare arms and legs were now a light, golden shade that contrasted beautifully with a white bikini. Lighter streaks of blonde shone in her hair she had casually knotted in a loose bun. She saw David and, holding the toddler on her hip, beckoned him over,

“I’m glad you’re back! Brian told me you guys didn’t find the explosives?”

Droplets of water clung to her skin, making her appear to shimmer in the sunlight. The little boy demanded, “More!” She dunked him again.

David had a little trouble finding his voice. “True. It looks like there isn’t going to be a rescue by sea either so we’re brainstorming again.”

“We weren’t really counting on a sea rescue, were we? I mean, we have a pretty decent plan already, right?” Her eyes were anxious and her voice shook a little.

“Bea, I really need to get something to eat right now. Can we talk later?”

“Oh, sorry. Of course. I need to get Greg back to his mom anyway. See you at dinner, maybe.”

He agreed and finally made it to the kitchen, where a sympathetic volunteer offered him a bowl of rather tasteless bean soup accompanied by stale cornbread.

“We used all the eggs for the pancakes,” the cook said apologetically. “The cornbread is so much better if you use eggs. What we really need are some chickens.”

“Maybe we’ll find some next trip.” He took the food outside and sat down on a mound of ribbon grass next to the statue of Venus.

A commotion broke out near the entrance gate. He heard a metallic rattle and then a
screech
as the salt-air corroded gate hinges swung wide. A group entered, four people carrying a body on a stretcher. The dogs went nuts and started barking. A guard motioned the group in but kept the rifle trained on all of them. The stretcher was placed on the ground and the bearers passed by the dogs who were quiet this time. Their handler led them by the stretcher where they once again howled. The patient was handcuffed and a thick cloth gag stuffed into his mouth then tied around his head. They went straight to the infirmary. Poor bastard, whoever he was.

The cornbread descended to his stomach and sat there in a cold lump. He didn’t feel full, just less hungry. Surveying the camp he saw just how tired, how dirty everyone was. Almost all of them could use a haircut and most of the men sported ragged beards. The smell of the latrines competed with that of the dead. Sometimes he thought that smell would never go away.

A part of him hoped his brother would be here or he would at least get word of him. Continued attempts to reach the rest of his family failed too. More and more he thought of striking out and heading up the coast to find them. He had reunited Bea with her brother but he still felt reluctant to leave her. She aroused a protectiveness in him he wasn’t completely comfortable with. Sometimes he thought of introducing her to his parents, wondering if they would approve, then laughed at himself. Civilization had fallen, the living dead had risen and he was nervous about bringing a woman home to meet his parents.

He glanced back at the rock pool where Beatrice was fending off a splash attack by Ian’s little boy. Realizing he was staring, he lay back in the grass, concentrating on the blue sky, not wanting to look like a creep. A door slammed.

Mei hurried down the steps from the main house, heading his way. He stood and shaded his eyes against the now hot sun. Suddenly he felt dizzy and put one hand against the statue.

“David! You’re swaying on your feet.  Let me see your eyes.” She took his head in her hands and looked at his eyes.

“Your pupils look fine. Have you been drinking?”

He explained and she laughed. “Sober up now. Ian wanted me to find you and bring you to a meeting immediately.”

“Again?”

“We have one of the enemy.”

“The enemy. You mean the Chinese?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“A team of foragers found him on the beach this morning. He was trying to get back to a dinghy he’d hidden amongst some rocks.”

“What’s he like?”

“Young. Scared to death. Infected.”

“I think I saw them bring him in. What was he doing?”

“He was apparently part of a team sent ashore looking for medicine. Only one of the ships had medical supplies and facilities and that one was supposed to serve both of the others. Probably to try to contain the virus on one ship in case something went wrong. That ship is one that went dark. We have him under restraint but he’s still very coherent and I’ve been talking to him in the infirmary. We don’t know how much of what he’s telling us is true but we’re trying to get as much info as we can before we lose him.”

“Let’s go.”

B
ea, still fending off Greg who seemed determined to drown her, watched as Mei and David talked. When she saw Mei touch his face she again felt that stab of jealousy though she knew she was being ridiculous.

“More!” Greg shouted.

She scooped him up and blew raspberries on his belly. He chuckled in delight.

“More!”

“No, I think a nap is what you need right now, little guy. Let’s go find your mom.” She pulled on a worn, faded, Silver Chair tee shirt and flip flops.  Holding on to a tired, wet, and slippery toddler was more of a challenge than she had anticipated and it was with a feeling of real relief that she handed him over to Virginia.

“Thanks, Bea.” She took him in her arms and wrapped him in a well-worn blanket. His eyelids were already heavy with sleep and he lay against his mother’s shoulder, suddenly quiet. Virginia smiled.

“I never get tired of this feeling. Just to have them in my arms is heaven. For a while I thought- never mind what I thought. I have them back now. I just have to find a safe place for them, for all of us.”

Bea wandered back up the hill and found Fitz reclining in an old Adirondack chair, a bottle of beer in one hand and a shotgun across his lap. An open laptop rested on the grass beside him.

“Fitz! Can I use that for a few minutes?”

He grunted, “Go nuts. A lot of sites are down. Some haven’t been updated in a week.”

“That’s okay. I’ll take what I can get,” she said.

“How do you feel? I heard they had typhoid fever at the camp in the Midwest.”

“I feel fine. Just a little tired.”

“They say that’s the first symptom,” he said with gloomy satisfaction. “We’re living on borrowed time, all of us. Even-
especially
the one we just caught.”

“What did we just catch?”

“A comrade of the People’s Republic of China, that’s what. An infected one if the rumor is right. Found him on the beach about an hour ago. I’ll be happy to put him out of his misery.” He patted his shotgun and took another swig of warm beer.

Bea opened the browser. It took a few tries to get connected but she finally logged on and pulled up her email, hoping against all rationality to hear something from her mom, dad or even Evan but there was nothing.

She clicked to the World Health Organization website searching for updates.

World Health Organization

Update-Z-virus from acting Director General, Keiji Jama

(Revised version. Please disregard earlier communiques.)

Since March 20__, the so-called ‘Z-virus’ has taken the lives of roughly 90% of the world’s population. To say that we were caught napping with regard to this disease is no exaggeration. Over the last few weeks health officials have sorted through vast amounts of data from around the world. We have authorized the release of the following information:

Diagnosis and symptoms

Chilling and vomiting are often the first symptoms if the victim survives the initial attack. Caution must be used not to confuse the bacteria-caused bubonic type illness with full-blown Z-virus. It is best to restrain all victims, especially when in doubt.

Transmission

The vast majority of infections have been transmitted directly by bites, human-to-human. There have been cases reported that may have resulted from deep puncture wounds inflicted by the infected. The bubonic-type comes from contact with the bacteria that develop in the decay process of Z-virus victims.

The incubation period varies considerably from case to case. The time from first infection to full-blown disease can depend on location of bite, overall health of the victim, or other factors we have yet to confirm such as weight or age.

Treatment

The rapid progress of the disease makes treating it somewhat problematic. Amputation has been attempted when the bite is in an extremity but victims usually succumb to blood loss or secondary infection in the cases reported.

Prevention

Avoid any contact with the infected.

Mortality Rate

100% in all known Z-virus cases. Numbers for the bubonic-type illness are unknown but we do know it is survivable. There is no data on the long-term effects of the bubonic-type due to lack of any opportunity for long-term studies.

No new information there and she clicked back to her email. The docs that Sylvie sent were still there. She wondered if anyone else would ever read them, if there was any way they would be used in the future. She opened a document titled
Hythe Incident Report.

An unfortunate peculiarity of the Kentish coast in southern England is that, due to its terrain, it cannot be easily defended against an enemy force. The invading Jutes, Saxons, and Romans were aware of this and used it to their advantage. Winston Churchill, whose home occupied several acres of that lovely region, was cognizant of the area’s weakness. So too was Adolf Hitler.

When the aerial horrors of the Blitz that destroyed over a million houses as well as factories, docks and killed over 20,000 people failed to break the spirit of the British people, Hitler made the decision to inflict schrecklichkeit (frightfulness) by invasion, but not of the traditional kind. He did so with biological “weapons” first encountered by Rommel’s troops in the deserts of Egypt. What follows is a survivor’s highly classified account of an unusual land assault that occurred in May of 1941 upon the beaches near Hythe in Kent. This brief recounting was expunged by the MI5 from the BBC’s “As We Saw It” project, a compilation of first-hand accounts of the war told or written by the men and women who survived it.

“The weeks leading up to the Blitz were ones of preparation and I must say, excitement, for me and for my brother. Trenches were dug in all the parks, gas masks issued and most of our garden dug up and an Anderson shelter placed in the ground there. Dad parked the old Austin Seven in the shed and removed the tires before covering it with a tarp. There would be very little petrol for anyone but the military for several years. We all walked a lot or rode bicycles if we had to go far.

Dad sealed all the windows in the front room and Peter and I stuffed paper up the chimney. We were meant to keep a blanket and bowl of water in there at all times so that we could soak the blanket and hang it in the doorway and this became our “safe room” in case of a gas attack. I did not like wearing the gas mask and felt I would suffocate if ever I had to use it. Nevertheless we were meant to keep them handy at all times and usually wore them around our necks and shoulders somewhat like a rucksack. If a policeman or warden saw us out without ours we would be ordered home to fetch it.

When the first silvery, sausage-shaped barrage balloon went up we spent some time admiring it and felt quite safe thinking that enemy planes would get entangled in it and crash. I suppose we should have thought about what that plane and its cargo of bombs would do when it came down.

The beaches were out of bounds as they were barricaded with concertina wire as well as mined in places. At night we listened to Mr. Churchill speak on the wireless and his speeches were somber yet thrilling and filled us all with hope that we would prevail in resisting the Hun.

The Blitz, when it came, was the most frightening time ever in my life. The air raid sirens shrieked their shrill warnings and we would evacuate to the Anderson and sit waiting for the all clear. Soon we spent most nights out there and moved a mattress and tins of food into the hut as well. We even moved a cot in for Baby Eileen but she usually slept with all of us on the mattress.

Being outside London and in a small town we thought our biggest danger would be from a sea invasion but we failed to reckon with the German planes flying over us on their way to London. They would often drop some of their bombs to lighten their planes and gain altitude and we suffered several hits. One night, Mr. Bloom, the air warden on duty, settled his wife and their infant twins into their Anderson before heading out to his post, only to see the shelter suffer a direct hit before he left the block. Everyone inside was blown to bits. Mr. Bloom moved away after that and we never saw him again.

I think none of us were the same people we had been before. Many of our friends were sent away to stay with family in the rural counties and the schoolrooms were at times almost empty. After the Germans started sending the doodle bugs* every night Mum and Dad began to look for some place to send us but I’m afraid Peter and I threw tantrums until they gave up, saying no one would take us for very long anyway. At times Mum would grab us and hold us so tightly that it hurt.

One Sunday evening Peter and I were up in the Wendy house in the oak that looked out over the lane. A strong wind blew in from the sea and the old planks groaned as the tree branches swayed. There hadn’t been any bombers for two nights and we thought maybe the Blitz was over for good. From up high we could look out over the neighborhood and to the sea. Peter had Dad’s field glasses trained on the beach. He said a lot of people were heading from the beach into town. I told him he was fibbing and made him let me look through the glasses.

He hadn’t made it up. Shambling along the streets, water-bloated figures invaded our little town and spread out. Two men with no clothes on at all, came down our street. I remember being embarrassed that they wore no clothes and thought they must be really ill as their skin was so mottled and gray. Then I saw that they had no eyes, only sockets out of which crabs were busy crawling and feeding on the flesh. Peter screamed and Mum came outside, looking round and calling for us.

Those people in the street stopped when they heard all the noise we were making and they started clawing at the hedge. Our hedge was the old-fashioned kind, tightly woven ash and hawthorn so of course they couldn’t get through but they kept at it. The hens squawked and clacked to high heaven and retreated to their coop.

One of the men got his hand stuck in the hedge then slipped and fell down. His arm pulled away at the shoulder socket and hung there in the branches whilst he struggled to get back up. There was no blood just some sort of black goo dripping from the socket. He didn’t seem to notice that he had just lost an arm.

Mum saw us in the tree and called for us to come down. Dad came outside, saw the two men and his face went white before he ran back into the house and came out with Granddad’s ancient shotgun. He yelled at us to go inside but by then Mr. Ollie from next door was out there too, wielding the curved scimitar that usually hung on the wall over his fireplace. I recall that it had silk tassels dangling from the hilt and he held it with both hands out in front of him, knees slightly bent and looking round frantically for the source of the trouble.

Dad went out the garden gate and fired the shotgun, hitting one of the men in the knees. He went down but, incredibly, was soon back up and now coming after Dad. Mr. Ollie then moved in with his scimitar and slashed the man in the belly but that barely slowed him down. Mr. Ollie’s eyes went wide and he swung the blade again. This time the man’s head rolled in the gutter.

To our fright the mouth continued to move and Dad, looking more disgusted than anything, stomped it. I remember a cracking sound and then seeing black fluid running in the cobbles. Then Mr. Ollie screamed.

The one-armed man hadn’t got back up but he was still moving and he got close enough to bite Mr. Ollie on the leg. He continued to scream whilst trying to shake the man off.

Gunfire, rapid and loud, rang out and a company of the Home Guard came down the lane. Struck, Mr. Ollie sagged to the ground, his attacker still firmly biting his leg. Though riddled with bullets, the one-armed man pulled away a mouthful of flesh and chewed noisily.

No one seemed to know what to do. Poor Mr. Ollie was quite dead, shot down by his own neighbors who stood over the unbelievable scene, aghast.

With a roar of engines and the screech of brakes a company of regulars arrived. They took immediate command, gathering all of us in our garden whilst they used flamethrowers to burn the bodies, including Mr. Ollie, in the streets. I shall never forget the smell of the roasted flesh nor how sick I was from the ghastly, oily smoke that soon filled the village. Contained fires burned throughout the lanes.

We were all checked for bites and scratches and were told to never speak of what we had seen that day. We were told the war effort hinged on our silence but they never gave us any further explanation. We all gave our word and I don’t know that anyone ever broke the silence. I am breaking it now as an old woman as I want my grandchildren to understand some of what their ancestors went through during a war that is only a dull spot of history in a book to them.”

Researcher’s note: This extremely small-scale invasion did not bring about the mass panic intended but rumours did circulate for a time. This researcher likes to think that it merely strengthened Britain’s resolve to prevail. For additional information from this timeframe see vault # 32, Whitehall sub-basement 4.

*doodle bugs-unmanned flying bombs that dropped once they ran out of fuel.

Bea read the account with growing frustration and then read it again looking for tips, a clue, anything to help her deal with this nightmare ravaging her world. Again it brought home to her that the virus must be contained quickly and ruthlessly if needed. Draconian tactics must be used as soon as it appeared or it would simply be too late. Then she remembered.