The Z Infection (27 page)

I caught up with her as I turned a
corner.  She was standing looking at the ride, not speaking.  Every so often I
heard a whoosh as the car dropped down an incline.  I expected to hear screams,
as you do in those places, as people are scared out of their wits, but there
was nothing.

I looked at Sophie.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

I got my answer a few seconds later,
as the roller coaster dropped down a steep incline and passed us in a rush of
wind.  There were people on it alright, but they weren’t thrill seekers.  They
were infected.  They weren’t screaming, they were moaning and wailing.  Every
time they passed us, shrivelled hands reached out and their jaws opened and
shut instinctively.  We stood there in silence, horrified at the scene, as the
dead rode their perpetual roller coaster, over and over again.

Clive Westlake

08:52 hours, Sunday 17
^th
May, West London

The next day, to the west of the
city, near Chiswick, I found a small convenience store located on the corner of
two streets.  I was starving and thirsty and I decided to have a look for
something to eat.

The feelings of fear and trepidation,
as I pushed open the door, were intense.  Let me tell you, they never change. 
Any time you enter a place, where the dead may lurk, is a gamble.  Every time
might be your last.  All you can do is be careful and ready for any
eventuality.  Fight or run.  Always have an escape route in mind and never let
your guard down.  Never allow yourself a moment to relax, until you’re certain
you are in a safe place.

It was a small shop, selling the
usual things you would expect to find.  I waited at the entrance for a couple
of minutes.  Your ears are often the best things to use.  The dead shuffle
around, always active.  Making noise where it isn’t necessary.  So I learned,
very early, in the first days of the disaster, to listen.  Any sounds and I
would have been right back out of the door and cycling away as fast as I
could.  But it was all quiet.

There was a chilled cabinet on one
side of the shop and it had several sandwiches still in it.  I was actually
quite surprised that the shop hadn’t been locked up.  The owners must have got
out as a swarm approached, fleeing with the rest of the inhabitants.  That the
shop hadn’t been looted was another surprise.  There was still a lot of food on
the shelves.

My problem was that I didn’t have
anything to carry it in.  I went behind the counter, hoping to find some
carrier bags.  There was a small door, leading into a back shop and I gave it a
shove.  It swung open and I almost jumped with fright.  There was a man, lying
in the middle of a pile of boxes.  He was wearing a turban, which was about the
only way I could have told that it had been a man.  His face was ripped off and
his throat had been torn out with a savage ferocity I found hard to imagine. 
The infected had been here.  They must have cornered him – there was no other way
out – and finished him off in there.

I turned away and left him there.  I
was becoming used to such scenes.  All the way out here, from the centre of the
city, I had seen dead people of all ages, cut down as the swarm of infected
grew and caught up with them.

As I made to leave the room I noticed
a bag on the floor.  It was a satchel type.  A man bag.  It wouldn’t hold very
much, but it was better than nothing and it would do until I could find
something else.

I took it to the main shop and
selected several packs of sandwiches, some bags of crisps and a few chocolate
bars.  My bike already had a water bottle attached to it and I fetched it and
filled it with fresh water from a bottle in the chilled cabinet.  I then filled
the remaining space in the bag with some smaller bottles.

Once I was done I went back outside. 
The streets were completely deserted.  I had never seen London like this
before.  It was surreal.  I ate two packs of sandwiches and a chocolate bar
before cycling off, heading west.  I didn’t really have a plan about what I was
going to do.  The last text message I had received from my wife, was one telling
me she had collected the kids from school and was heading for her mother’s
house near Bath.  I was never going to be able to cycle that far, but I decided
to head west in any case.  Something would present itself eventually.

It was about another two miles along
the road, as I was passing Brentford FC’s football ground, when I was alerted
by a whistle.  I stopped and scanned the street, looking for the source.

‘Up here,’ said a voice.

I looked up and saw a figure at a
window.  It was a young man of about twenty, wearing glasses.  He pointed to a
door on the street.  I wasn’t sure about going up there, but I hadn’t talked to
anyone for a few hours and I wanted to know what was going on in the outside
world.  I decided to take a chance.

I pushed open the door and parked the
bike in the lobby.  Then I climbed the flight of stairs to the second floor. 
As I arrived on the landing a door opened slightly and a face peered out.

‘I don’t want any trouble,’ said the
man.  ‘But I need something to eat.  Do you have any food?’

I undid the bag and pulled out a pack
of sandwiches and a chocolate bar.  He held his hand out, through the door but
I held onto them.

‘I want something in return,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Do you have a working TV or radio?’

‘I do,’ he said.  ‘But there’s
nothing on except news reports every hour.’

‘That’s what I want,’ I said. 

He paused for a moment and then
closed the door.  I thought he had decided I was too much of a risk.  Who knew
what he had gone through?  Then, I heard the sound of the door unlocking and
the security chain being removed.  The door opened and his face appeared from
behind it.

‘Come in, before we get a visit from
them upstairs.’

I looked up but couldn’t see
anything.

‘Come in,’ he said impatiently.

I stepped into the hallway and he
immediately closed the door and locked it, removing the key and putting it in
his pocket. 

‘Food,’ he said.

I handed him the sandwich and chocolate
and he snatched them from me, tearing open the packaging and taking two huge
bites.  He obviously hadn’t eaten for some time.

He led me through to the living room,
where the TV was switched on.  A duvet was spread on the sofa and I got the
impression that he was living in this room twenty-four-seven.

‘I’m Brad,’ he said.  ‘Have a seat.’

I didn’t answer him, but sat in an
armchair and watched, as a TV crew in a helicopter filmed a large swarm of
infected and commented on them. 

‘As we film this scene, to the west
on Manchester, it has become apparent that there is nothing standing in the way
of this swarm as it heads towards Liverpool.  As we reported earlier, there is
another large swarm, equal in size to this one, now travelling east from Liverpool,
in pursuit of several thousand refugees from that city.  The two are converging
and will meet in less than an hour at present speeds.  There is nothing that
can be done for those refugees, other than the warning leaflets we have already
dropped.  They are in God’s hands now…’

‘Jesus Christ,’ I said.  ‘God’s
hands?  Is that what we have been reduced to?  Relying on God to get us out of
this mess?’

‘It’s worse in other places,’ said
Brad.  ‘The centre of Bristol was completely destroyed by fire.  Cardiff is
completely cut off and there have been outbreaks in almost every city and town
in the country.’

I turned back to the television.  The
reporter was talking again…

‘…and as I speak I can see two Apache
helicopters, flying in close formation, approaching the swarm.  This might be
the last chance for those people trying to escape…’

Suddenly there was a burst of fire
from the lead chopper as it sent a volley of rockets into the mass of bodies
and followed them up by raking across the lines of infected with its machine
guns, as they staggered forwards.  Hundreds were killed or rendered limbless by
the blasts.  Once it was finished, the helicopter banked away to the left and
the second one swooped in and delivered its weapon load.

It was all over in a couple of
minutes.  The entire arsenals of both aircraft had been delivered and yet,
through the smoke, a huge army of infected still walked.  The Apaches hadn’t
even scratched the surface.

Brad picked up the remote control and
switched off the TV. 

‘I don’t want to watch anymore,’ he
said.  ‘They’ll show the infected killing all those refugees later.  I’ve seen
it so many times and I’m sick of it.’

I couldn’t argue with that.  I
suddenly realised that he had finished his food and was staring at my bag.  I
reached in and took out another sandwich, tossing it to him.

‘Do you not have any food in here?’ I
asked.

He shook his head as he tore open the
packaging and began to devour the meal.

‘The people upstairs,’ he said,
between mouthfuls.  ‘They came down and took everything I had.  Said it was a
tax.’

Poor sod, I thought.  He wasn’t quite
the full shilling and there were fuckers upstairs who knew that and were taking
full advantage of him.

‘Why don’t you come with me?’ I
asked.  ‘I’m going west.  There might be somewhere better for you there.’

He shook his head.  ‘I’m not
leaving.  I’ve seen what’s happening on TV.’

‘But you can’t stay here,’ I said. 
‘You’ve got no food.’

‘I’m not leaving,’ he repeated. 
‘It’s dangerous.’

‘So is staying here,’ I said. 
‘Eventually the infected will come back this way.  You’ll be trapped in here.’

He shook his head.  His face was a
mask of fear.  There was nothing I could do to persuade him to go with me.  I
considered showing him my warrant card and making up a story about being sent to
save him, but I knew that would be wrong.  Besides, he would slow me down and,
if I am absolutely honest about things, I think he would have been more of a
danger.

I stayed for a few hours and managed
to grab some sleep, grateful for the uncomfortable, hard floor.  Later, I left
him there.  I emptied all the food and water from my bag, onto his kitchen
table and told him to ration himself.  It might last him a few days if he was
careful and didn’t get robbed again.  I was sure I would be able to scavenge something
from another shop along the way.

What happened to him?  I have no
idea.  He was probably one of the tens of thousands who stayed in their homes
and died there.  We know that many did.  Some starved to death, afraid to go
outside.  Some fell victim to roaming bands of survivors who didn’t care if
they were infected or not.  Others waited until they could not wait any longer
and then tried, in a weakened state, to make a run for it or look for food. 
They were easy prey for the dead.  And then there were the suicides.  How
many?  Nobody knows, but I can tell you, that for every house and building I
entered, every fourth of fifth one had someone inside who had taken the easy
option.

So I cycled off to the west,
determined that I would find something better.  Somewhere away from the horror.

Kareef Hadad

10:58 hours, Sunday 17
^th
May, West London

We left Thorpe Park in a daze.  Of
all the things we had seen, the sight of the living dead riding a roller
coaster was by far the most bizarre.  Their faces are still in my mind, howling
at us every time they passed by.

Before we left, Sophie managed to
break into one of the food stalls.  In a fridge she found several packs of
burgers.  She put them into a bag and we walked back to the car.

‘Where do we go now?’ she asked.

I shrugged.  I was out of ideas. 
What I really wanted was my family, but I had no idea where they were and no
idea how I could find out.

We sat down on a wall, just at the entrance
to the park, and shared a bottle of water.

‘What about Windsor?’ she asked.

‘I thought you said they wouldn’t let
us in?’ I said.

‘They might not,’ she replied.  ‘But
we’ll never know unless we try.  It isn’t too far from here.  We could be there
in an hour or so.’

We had nothing to lose.  If we turned
up there and they turned us away, then we would just have to think of something
else.  If they let us in it would mean we would be safe and I could have a
rethink about how to go about finding where my wife had gone.

‘Okay,’ I said.  ‘We might as well
try, but let’s listen to what’s on the radio first.  It might give us something
of an idea about what that area is like.  If it’s too dangerous we don’t go.’

We went to the car and I started the
engine and switched on the radio.  There was a news bulletin already playing.

‘…on the motorway between Liverpool
and Manchester.  Reports indicate as many as ten thousand may have perished or
become infected.