The Z Infection (31 page)

There was another noise, like a rattling. 
It sounded like wood on the stone floor.  And there was that familiar moaning
sound, only subtly different from others we had heard.

Kareef looked at me again.  ‘Perhaps
the infected person is tied up?’

It wouldn’t have been the first
time.  In those early days families often tied up their loved ones and left
them in a spare room, hoping that a cure would be found.

He pushed the door slowly and it
creaked open.  The rattling intensified.  The moaning became more excited and
insistent.  Dinner was about to be served.

Kareef peered into the room and
instantly averted his eyes, his hand shooting up to cover his mouth.  I thought
he was going to puke. 

‘Don’t look,’ he said.  ‘I’ll get the
water.’

He took the bottles we had brought
from the car and walked into the kitchen, leaving me in the utility room.  I
could hear the moaning increase as Kareef went to the sink and ran the water. 
Why wasn’t he being attacked?  What was in there?  It couldn’t have been
anything worse than all the other things we had seen.

The moaning continued, incessantly. 
The rattling intensified.  I couldn’t take it any longer.  I had to see what
was in that room.  I prodded the door open and walked in.  What I saw has
haunted me ever since.  Worse than anything I had ever seen before.  The person
was infected, true.  But he wasn’t tied up or restrained.

In a high chair, by the table in the
centre of the room, was a baby of no more than about a year old.  His eyes were
grey and dead and his skin was covered in lesions.  He rocked back and forth in
his chair, making the most awful noises as he reached towards Kareef.  He must
have been there since the beginning.  Of all the sights I had seen, this was
the worst yet.  I couldn’t imagine the feelings of the parents as they had
fled, leaving their child where he sat.  Perhaps they too were dead.

It would have been merciful to have
put the child down, there and then, but I couldn’t do it and neither could
Kareef.  We filled the bottles and quickly checked the fridge for food,
grabbing a couple of packs of sliced meat and some sausages. 

Then, leaving the child sitting in
his high chair, moaning and salivating, perhaps for the rest of time, we went
back out into the yard.

I was almost at the car when I
stopped and was sick.  Kareef put our looted food into the back seat and then
offered me a drink of water.  I swilled out my mouth, getting rid of the pieces
of sick and the awful taste, then took a long drink.

‘The children are the worst ones,’ he
said.

‘By far,’ I said.  ‘Somehow I don’t mind
the adults so much.  But kids shouldn’t end up like that.’

‘I should have ended it for him,’
said Kareef.  He was feeling guilty and I understood that.

‘I just can’t do it,’ I said.  ‘It’s
too hard, killing another person.  Even if they are infected.’

Kareef started to say something and
then suddenly stopped.  He was looking beyond me, out through the gap between
the buildings and into the fields.  I turned and looked and my heart sank.  Out
among the growing corn, were a number of figures, shuffling towards the farm.

‘In the car,’ said Kareef wearily.

We both jumped in and he reversed out
of the yard.  As he did so, I noticed several other figures on the road.  There
was no going back now.  We would have to find a way through. 

Kareef floored it and we raced down
the track, wheels spinning as we went.  About two hundred metres further on, we
came to another cluster of buildings, mostly barns and sheds.  At the entrance
to one of the barns we saw two figures, a man and a woman, hanging by their
necks from one of the rafters.  We didn’t say a word to one another, but we
both knew they were the parents of the child.

Further down the track we came to a
small stream.  There was a bridge crossing it, which had seen better days.  I
doubted that it would take the weight of the car.

‘You get out,’ said Kareef.  ‘That
will reduce the weight slightly and you can guide me across.’

I jumped out and stepped onto the
structure.  It was narrow and the wood looked like it was rotting away in
places.  I waved Kareef forward and he gingerly drove onto it. 

The infected were still coming.  I
could see the lead ones as they began to emerge from the farmyard.  I urged
Kareef forward, willing the bridge to remain intact.  If it gave way now, he
and the car would end up in the river and I would be at the mercy of the dead.

The structure groaned and protested
at the weight of the car, the timbers creaking and bowing with it.  But they
held and Kareef managed to steer the car across it and onto the other side,
just as the first of our pursuers planted her first foot on the bridge.

I jumped back in and we sped off
again.  The track led around a couple of fields.  It wasn’t great, but we
guessed that it had, at one time, been used by local farmers and must go
somewhere.

We were right.  The track emerged to
a narrow tarmacked road and Kareef took it gratefully, increasing the speed of
the car as we sped along, past fields and houses.

At the end of this road we discovered
we were in a small village.  We passed through it at a more sedate pace,
looking for road signs.  In the centre of the village was a crossroads and a
sign pointing to Windsor.  There was also one pointing to the racecourse and
Kareef took this one, using the logic that the course might be on the periphery
of the town and maybe less infested.

All along that road we saw infected
people.  They seemed to be increasing after every turn and I was beginning to
regret the decision to come to Windsor.

By the time we made it to the edge of
the racecourse we were really up against it.  There were infected everywhere. 
They seemed to be coming out of every field and building we passed and we sped
on, not knowing how we were going to get out of this one.

On the racecourse Kareef stopped and
got onto the roof.

‘There are hundreds of them,’ he said
as he jumped back into the driver’s seat.  ‘I’ll make for the river.’

We drove as fast as we could, heading
for the sanctuary.  We had heard, on one of the bulletins that the infected
were unwilling to get into the water.  Many people had been saved by swimming
to small islands on rivers and lakes.  In the Cumbrian Lake District there were
thousands living on the islands there.

We didn’t get as far as the river,
however.  As we approached a clump of bushes two figures, both dressed in camouflage
uniforms, suddenly leapt out, pointing guns at us.  Kareef was shocked but
managed to hit the brakes and come to a stop.

‘Let’s see hands,’ shouted one of
them.  We both put our hands out of the window to show we were unarmed.

One of them came and opened Kareef’s
door while the other covered him.

‘Please,’ said Kareef.  ‘We only
wanted to get to the water.  There are infected everywhere.’

The man looked up.  He could sense
the urgency in Kareef’s voice.

‘We should go,’ he said to his
comrade. 

We all ran towards the river.  As we
arrived there I could hear shooting.  One of them had stayed behind to cover
us.

I was so relieved when we got there
and found more men and a boat.  There was a quick conversation as they
discussed whether we should be allowed to go with them.  Thankfully common
sense prevailed and we were about to be allowed on board, when we all stopped. 
There was sound.  A beautiful sound.  It was the best thing I had heard in
days.

I looked up and saw a helicopter.  It
made a low pass before swooping back towards us and firing at the ranks of
infected, supporting the lone soldier.

‘In the chopper now,’ said one of the
others.

Kareef and I looked at each other in
apprehension.

‘You too,’ said the man and pushed us
towards the waiting helicopter.

We ran as fast as we could, ducking
our heads as we got closer to it and then leaping on board.  The man using the
machine gun seemed surprised to see us, but he returned to his job quickly, as
the others joined us.  He must have killed dozens of the infected, before the
last soldier jumped aboard and we took off.

I remember looking down at the
thousands of outstretched arms as we rose into the sky and left them there.  In
a matter of a minute or two we were over the castle, passing over the heads of
tens of thousands of the infected, who had surrounded it.

When we landed, a short time later, I
felt nothing but an overwhelming sense of relief.

Anthony Ballanger

13:15 hours, Sunday 17
^th
May, Windsor
Castle HQ, Windsor

When I received the good news, that
Dr Bryson had been picked up and was safely inside the castle walls, I slipped
on my shoes and took a walk down to the central lawn.  The helicopter was
there.  The rotor blades had all but stopped and there were several people
hanging around, including General Breck.

I approached and saw Dr Bryson.  He
saw me and held out his hand, which I shook warmly.

‘I’m so relieved that you are safe,’
I said.

He looked beyond me.  ‘Thank you,’ he
said.  ‘Where’s the Prime Minister?  I have some important information for him.’

‘The PM has been confined to his
rooms for the time being,’ I said.  ‘He has been removed from office by royal
decree.’

He looked at me, confused.

‘I’ll explain it all later,’ I said. 
‘In the meantime I am in temporary charge, supported by his Royal Highness, The
Prince of Wales.’

We walked to the building, where my
offices and private quarters were located, chatting as we went.

‘What’s it really like out there?’ I
asked.

I had seen plenty on TV and got
regular reports from various sources, but I hadn’t been out on the streets like
the doctor and I was eager to hear what it was like from someone who had seen
it at first-hand.  He just shook his head.

‘It’s dangerous Anthony,’ he said.  ‘Without
those SAS men I would never have survived for more than a few hours.’

We went to my office and took a
seat.  A member of the royal staff came in with a tray of coffee and we sat
drinking it and talking through the current situation.  Dr Bryson had only
heard snippets of news.  He didn’t know about Bournemouth or the north and I
filled him in on as much of the small detail as I could manage.

But I was more interested in what he
could tell me.  We still didn’t really know what we were fighting against and I
hoped he had the answers.

‘This is something extremely toxic,’
he told me.  ‘It is highly contagious and seems to affect the brain primarily. 
It shuts down most body functions and major organs, but the brain is still
active until the virus is destroyed.’

‘How do we destroy it?’ I asked.

He shifted in his seat.  It was an
uncomfortable question and his answer was no less easy to digest.

‘You have to kill the host,’ he said.

‘The host?’

‘The body is merely a vessel for the
virus to move around.  It needs something to get it from one place to another. 
If you destroy the host, the virus cannot survive for long.’

‘And how do you do that?’ I asked.

‘Piercing the brain seems to work,’
he said.  ‘The trauma seems to be enough to destroy the virus.  I don’t know
much more about the mechanics of it, but we tested the theory a few times. 
Shooting a host in the body will not kill it.  A head shot does.’

This was news to me.  Up until that
point we hadn’t had any absolute guarantees about how to deal with the
problem.  Now Dr Bryson was providing some at least.

‘And what about a cure?’ I asked. 
This was what I really wanted to know.  Could we help those who were infected?

He shook his head.  ‘I don’t have any
reason to believe there would ever be any cure for this,’ he said.

I was stunned by his apparent resignation
to the idea.

‘Why on Earth not?’ I asked.  ‘We’ve
found cures for other diseases that looked like they would wipe us out, why not
this one?’

His next words were incredulous.

‘The infected cannot be cured. Because
they are already dead.’

Anna Hasker

14:00 hours, Sunday 17
^th
May, Loch Leven,
Kinross-shire

I rowed back across the loch, with
one of the men from the island, a guy called Dave.  On the way across he told
me he had escaped from Perth, a city a few miles to the north, after it had
exploded in violence.  He had driven south, expecting to find some safe haven
and had ended up in the nearby town.  Pretty soon, he told me, the infected had
shown up and he had ran for his life with hundreds of others.  What had saved
him was the island.  He had swam across at night, expecting it to be overrun
the next morning.  But the infected never came.  They stayed on the shoreline,
refusing to enter the water.  It was a miracle, he said.  I didn’t believe in
miracles then and I don’t to this day.  In fact I don’t even believe in God any
more.  Not after all the crap that happened.  But he did and I wasn’t going to
challenge him with some theological debate.

By the time I was halfway across I
could see Mike and the kids.  They came out of the trees and stood on the shore
and, as the hull of the little boat came to rest on the sandy beach, Mike
paddled out and steadied it for us as we climbed out.

I did a quick round of introductions
and told Mike that we would be joining the others on the smaller island.  I
think he thought that was a mad idea for a start, but I explained that there
was enough room for us all.  He liked the idea of the ruined castle though.

Before long we had packed all our
things onto the boat.  Mike put out the fire with some sand but left the
shelter intact.

‘You never know,’ he said.  ‘Someone
might have use of that sometime.’

We rowed back across the loch and
tied the boat to a small jetty which was located on the west east side, well
out of the view of prying eyes. 

We were welcomed by the others and
the children and Mike were given some hot food while I chatted to Dave.  He
seemed to be in charge, but he didn’t like the idea of it.  He was a quiet man
and didn’t have many ideas, other than just day-to-day survival.  I, on the other
hand, knew that if we were going to survive we would need to be ready to face
almost anything.

I started by taking a walk around the
island with him.  It wasn’t huge but it had a few advantages over the larger
one we had just come from.  For a start it had the castle.  It wasn’t much to
look at, but there was a small tower and a wall which went all the way around. 
The wall was in good condition, with the keep occupying one corner and a small
turret at the other end.  There was only one entrance, through a narrow gate,
which could be closed and, if we could find the means, locked.  The tower
didn’t have a roof, but the cellar was covered and would offer some protection
from the elements.

The other advantages were two small
jetties, one on either side.  If we could find boats we would be able to tie
them up securely.  We would have ready a means of escape and we could also use
them to fish from.

On either side of the castle it was
thickly wooded.  This, I hoped, would mean that we would have enough firewood
to last in the short term, while we could use some of the trees for
construction. 

My main concern, however, was food. 

‘What do you have to eat?’ I asked.

Dave shrugged.  ‘Not much,’ he said. 
‘A couple of groups came from the mainland just after I arrived here and they
had some provisions, but we are steadily working our way through them.  What we
have won’t last for long.  And with more mouths to feed…’

He didn’t finish the sentence.  There
was no need.  I knew that four extra people were going to have a serious impact
on their resources.

‘That has to be our first priority,’
I said.  ‘Without proper food we are doomed.’

‘But there are infected people all
around,’ he said.  ‘The town is crawling with them.’

I walked onto the small jetty and
gazed across the water to the town.  It wasn’t far.  There were one or two
infected walking on the shoreline.  Could they tell that we were there?  I
couldn’t be sure, but everything about them seemed to suggest they might be
able to smell us, even if they couldn’t see us.  Or maybe they just had a sense
that we were there. 

It wouldn’t be easy going over there,
into their territory, but we had to do it.  We needed food.  We needed other
supplies.  The island was good and it offered us a degree of protection, but
without proper tools, shelter, food and supplies, we would suffer the same fate
as millions of others.

In that moment I had made my
decision.

‘We’ll cause a diversion,’ I said.

Thomas Buckle

16:30 hours, Sunday 17
^th
May, Loch Leven,
Kinross-shire

The flight north was something to
behold.  I realised, by the time we had reached the midlands, that there was no
way I would ever have made it through on my own.  And certainly not in a car.

We passed columns of refugees on many
occasions.  Around the Coventry area it seemed to be particularly bad, but
Derby and Nottingham were also seriously affected.  By the time we reached
Sheffield and then Leeds, it was clear that we were fighting a losing battle.

Tens of thousands of infected roamed
the streets of cities and towns.  And those were just the stragglers.  The main
bodies, or swarms, had moved out of the built up areas and were in pursuit of
the survivors.  It was incredible to see it from the air.  Massed groups, as
far as the eye could see, traversed fields and moors as they hunted for food.

‘How will we ever go back to what we
had?’ I was asking myself the question, but Laura answered.

‘I don’t think we ever will,’ she
said.

It was horrifying to see.  We were
almost God-like, safe in the sky, watching as millions perished beneath us.  I
felt shameful.  I didn’t feel like I had earned my survival.

When we reached the border area
between Scotland and England we noticed a difference.  There were still lines
of refugees and many swarms of infected, but it wasn’t on the same scale as
further south.  Outside the town of Hawick we saw a huge camp.  There must have
been ten thousand people there, all camped on a hillside, just sitting around
and waiting.  They were directionless and afraid.  It’s a guess, of course, we
didn’t talk to them, but it was the impression I got.  It was a sense of quiet
acceptance of what was about to come.

By the time we reached Edinburgh,
Laura was tired.  I had been poring over the maps of airports and smaller
airfields since we had left.  There were several in the borders but the sight
of those people had put us off landing there.  Laura suggested somewhere around
Edinburgh itself.  We headed for the National Museum of Flight, where there was
a runway we could have landed on, but again, when we arrived there, it wasn’t
suitable to be on the ground.  The area was teeming with infected.

So we carried on, across the Firth of
Forth and into The Kingdom of Fife.  At Glenrothes we turned west.  I had seen
something on the map and I pointed it out to Laura.  She gave me the thumbs
up.  It was worth a try.

When we arrived I could see that it
wasn’t an airfield as such, but a gliding school.  There were several of the
aircraft lying scattered around the field, but the most concerning thing was
the burned out wreckage of an airliner.  It had obviously crash-landed and had gone
through a building, taken out fuel tanks and erupted in flame.  Now there was
almost nothing left of it, except a smoking shell and a few charred bodies
lying nearby.

We circled the field twice, before I
declared it to be clear.  On the second pass I saw a boat on the nearby loch. 
It had two people in it and they were waving to us as we made our final
descent.  That raised my hopes.

When we landed it was a bumpier
affair than I had imagined.  The runway was simply a grassy strip of flat land
and we felt every rut on the surface.

Laura brought us to a taxi speed and
then turned around and headed back towards the loch.

‘Those people on the boat might be
able to help us,’ she said.  ‘And I don’t want to be too close to that crash
site.  You never know what might happen.’

We drew to a stop and I pushed open
the door.  Pancho leapt out and stretched his legs, before relieving himself on
a bush and then joining me by the edge of the loch.  The people in the boat
waved to me as they approached.  It was a relief that they were friendly.

When they landed they introduced
themselves as Peter and Catriona and said that they had come from one of the
islands.  We were joined by Laura, who had finished all her post flight checks.

‘Where have you come from?’ asked
Catriona.

‘London,’ I said.  ‘Laura came from
Bournemouth.  What about you?’

‘We’re from a few different places,’
said Peter.  He had a Scottish accent.  ‘There are a few of us on that island.  We’ve
all ended up here by chance.’

‘We’re looking for a place to stay
for a night or two,’ I said, hopefully.  ‘Any chance we could impose on you?’

They looked at one another, trying to
decide what to do.  Apparently the fabled Scots hospitality had suffered in the
last few days and they were reluctant to invite us.

‘We have food,’ I ventured.  ‘Quite a
lot.  We’ll share it out.’

That did the trick.  Food, it
appeared, was the new currency.

Before long, we had emptied most of
our belongings from the plane, as well as all the fresh food we had, and we
were being rowed across to the little island.  How could we have known that it
was to become our home and the model for resistance against the infected? 
Before a year was out, there were people all over the world who looked to us as
an example of survival to them all.

Kareef Hadad

16:38 hours, Sunday 17
^th
May, Windsor
Castle HQ, Windsor

Windsor was like paradise, compared
to what we had endured in the outside world.  We were given a small room
adjacent to each other, in one of the wings where the staff had their
accommodation.  It was basic but comfortable enough and we had an en suite
shower each.  That was the first proper wash I had had, since the day I had
gone to open my shop and saw the bus crash.  I stayed under the tap for a long
time, allowing the hot water to seep into me and wash away the smell of death.

Once we had washed, we were shown
into a large hall where there was hot food and drinks available.  We both had
chicken curry with rice and a litre of water to wash it down.  It wasn’t
anything like my old friend Saeed would have made, but it was passable.

We were left to our own devices that
first day there.  We were allowed to go to most parts of the castle.  The only
place which were out of bounds were the royal apartments and anything which
held sensitive military information or weapons.  We were told that we would be
expected to help out with the defence and with other tasks as they arose, but
that formal training with an army rifle would take place the following day,
once we had rested.

I wouldn’t say that we were welcomed
exactly.  We were accepted, as survivors.  One man said to me that we deserved
our places there, just because we had managed to stay alive for so long. 
Anyone who could have done that, he told me, had to have some value.

Others were not so accommodating. 
Some grudged us the food we were eating, while others questioned why they
should fight, while we didn’t.  I soon learned to ignore the ones who made
disparaging comments and kept out of their way as much as I could.  Luckily the
majority of those inside the walls were decent people. 

Apart from the royal family there was
the garrison.  This was usually small, but had been augmented by a unit which
had turned up just before the siege had commenced and by the remains of a
contingent who had escaped from the battle of Hampton Court and had fought
their way through.

The rest of those officially supposed
to be inside the castle were castle staff, the remainder of the government, their
families, some scientists and other important people who could run the country
in an emergency.  The last group to be found was a collection of refugees,
residents of nearby towns and stragglers, like myself and Sophie.  This group
was by far the largest, making up about two thirds of the total survivors.  All
in all I estimated that there were about a thousand of us.

I met Sophie on the western
battlements after dinner.  She was standing staring at the infected, who were
congregated in vast numbers below. 

‘You okay?’ I asked.

She nodded.  ‘Just tired.’

‘At least we should be able to get a
decent sleep in here tonight,’ I said.  ‘This must be one of the safest places
in the country.’

She smiled.  ‘It was a good idea
coming here.’

‘Hands up,’ I said.  ‘You were
right.’

We stood, watching the infected for a
long time.  It was almost hypnotic.  They seemed like they were moving
together, as if they were one living entity and not a mass of individuals. 
They swayed and moaned in harmony, like a fiendish chorus, reaching up towards
anything that moved.