The Z Infection (41 page)

‘What about there?’ I asked.

‘I can land there,’ said Laura.  ‘But
it’s a half mile to the truck.’

‘I’ll jog it,’ I said.

She made another pass, to make
certain that the area was free of the dead and then brought us in to land.  It
was textbook stuff, perfect and smooth.  She taxied as far as she could, before
the way was barred by a car which had ended up on its side.

‘Get going,’ she said.  ‘I’ll wait
with the engines running, but if any infected come I might have to take off
without you.’

I knew the risk.  I grabbed the
shotgun and set of at a jog to the lorry, Pancho easily keeping pace with me. 
It took me about five or six minutes and when a got to it I had a cautious look
in the rear.  It was completely empty.  I walked around to the cab, weapon at
the ready and had a look inside.  It was clear too.  Whoever had been driving
this had left in a hurry.  The keys were still in the ignition but when I
turned it over the engine was dead.  I soon found out why.  There was no diesel
left in the tank.  It must have been left running and had eventually used up
all the fuel.

I locked the cab and the rear doors
and we ran back to the plane.  Laura was ready and eager for take-off and we
were up in the air within about a minute.

‘No fuel in it,’ I said, catching my
breath.

‘That’s that,’ she said.  ‘We’ll have
to think of something else.’

‘Not necessarily,’ I said.  ‘If we
can find some diesel, we could fill the tank and it should be fine.  We
wouldn’t need much to get us to the supermarket and then back to the island.’

She considered the idea. 

‘It could work,’ she said.  ‘Let’s
run it past Anna and the others when we get back.’

We followed the motorway as we made
our way back to the landing strip at the gliding club, satisfied that we had
some very useful information for our group.

At the town by the loch we banked
left and made a low pass over the island.  This was the cue for someone to get
out and pick us up on the boat.  Laura then flew us over the gliding club and
out over some fields.  There was no point in landing until the boat was almost
at the shore.

But over the farmland to the east of
a small village, we suddenly saw something we had not expected.  In a wooded
area, beyond the village, there was the tell-tale sign of smoke rising from a
camp fire.

‘More survivors,’ said Laura.

She dipped the nose of the aircraft
and went down for a closer look.  There was more than one fire, there were
several.  And among the trees we could see figures.  Twenty, maybe thirty of
them.  It looked like they had been there for some time.

‘Why haven’t they made contact with
us?’ asked Laura.  ‘They must know we are on the island.’

I didn’t know, but something about
that set up gave me a deepening sense of unease. 

Xiaofan Li

07:30 hours, Tuesday 26
^th
May, Central
London

Claire had looked at me in horror
when I had made the call on the radio.

‘We can’t leave them there to die,’ I
said.

‘But we don’t know who they are,’ she
replied.

 ‘They sound like army,’ I said. 
‘But we will guide them into the street and get an eyeball on them first,
before we make a decision about letting them inside.’

She still wasn’t sure, but it went
some way to allaying her fears.

Over the next half hour we had three
more conversations with them as we guided them through the streets to our
location.  Eventually I directed them to a point along the street from Ground
Z, where I could see them.

I knew instantly that they were
army.  No civilians would have been so well armed.  It was something too, about
the way they moved along the street.  They were professionals.

‘I think we should let them in.’ I
said.

Claire was still worried.

‘What if they are like the last two?’

‘They won’t be,’ I assured her.  ‘We
are going to have to make contact with other survivors eventually.  We can’t
survive on our own indefinitely.  This might be the time to make contact.’

‘Okay,’ she conceded.  ‘But only one
comes into the flat, until we know what we are dealing with.’

‘Agreed,’ I said.

I got back on the radio and directed
them to the rear of our building.

‘KS12, be advised that we will accept
only one of you into the flat, unarmed, until we are satisfied that you do not
pose a threat to us.’

 There was a dour agreement to the
demand.  They couldn’t have done much else in their situation. 

I ran down the stairs and put the
block of wood in the door frame.  I was back on the first landing by the time
they were in the car park.

I waited for them to enter and then
called down.

‘Whoever is in charge can come up to
the first landing,’ I called.  ‘Leave your weapons down there.  You won’t need
them.’

There was a sound as a rifle was laid
on the tiled floor of the hallway, then I heard boots on the stairs.  Moments
later a figure appeared below me, hands raised about his head.

‘I’m Callum MacPherson,’ said the
man.  ‘I’m an officer in the British Army.’

‘Xiaofan,’ I said.  ‘Welcome to
Samson-Li.’

Clive Westlake

07:45 hours, Tuesday 26
^th
May, Hounslow,
West London

After that first night, crowded into
the tiny flat, I knew we were going to have to find something better.  We found
it early the next morning, as I led my small group around the area, searching
for weapons and food.

It was a house.  A big detached
house, set in its own grounds and commanding a good view of a small park.  We
went in through the back door and searched it from top to bottom.  It was
empty.  There wasn’t much food in any of the cupboards but that didn’t matter
too much.  I knew we could scavenge.  That we had a decent sized building which
we could easily defend, was a greater prize.

We had found enough weapons to arm
ourselves too.  Axes and knives seemed to be the favourites among my new
friends but I was eager to find out more about them.

‘How many of you have killed one of
the infected?’ I asked.

Only three of them raised their
hands, including Peter.

‘How many have you killed?’ I asked.

‘Two,’ said Peter.

‘One,’ said the married man.

‘Three,’ said one of the girls.

‘What did you use?’ I asked.

‘Axes and knives,’ said Peter,
answering for them all.

‘And how did that feel?’

They were silent.  It was as I had
feared and expected.  Killing at such close range was a hard thing to do.  It
didn’t take long for all that blood and gore to turn your stomach.

‘I find it easier with this,’ I said,
lifting my spear.  ‘You don’t have to get quite so close to use it.’

I handed it to one of the group and
he held it like a priceless artefact.

‘You were lucky to find this,’ he
said.  ‘The chances of the rest of us finding something like this are slim.’

‘Okay,’ I said.  ‘But we could make
something similar.  I saw a lot of golf clubs and garden tools which had been
sharpened and altered to make weapons.  All you need it something that has a
long shaft.  The longer the better, but anything is better than nothing.’

There was a murmur of agreement
amongst the group.

‘Eventually we are going to have to
fight back,’ I said.  ‘You will all have to be prepared for that.’

‘But we’ve seen what happens,’
protested one girl.  ‘They can’t be stopped.’

‘They can be stopped,’ I said.  ‘I
just need to teach you how.’

Over the rest of the day I showed the
group how to make effective killing weapons.  They put all their efforts into
it, devising some ingenious and frightening looking things, and when they were
finished I examined them.

‘What we now need to do is practice,’
I said.

There were some scared looks on some
of the faces, but eventually Peter stepped forward.

‘I’m willing to try this out,’ he
said, brandishing his new spear.

‘Good,’ I said.  ‘Let’s find some
prey.’

Mike Bradbury

15:45 hours, Tuesday 26
^th
May, Loch Leven,
Kinross-shire

I had taken one of the boats out to
the mainland that morning, to explore the builder’s yard near the southern end
of the town.  Anna had told me to take someone with me, but I had decided to go
alone.  I could move faster on my own and I could keep out of trouble better. 
Or so I thought.

I took a rifle and ten rounds of
ammunition with me, as well as an axe, a knife and a vicious instrument I had
made from a moulded piece of wood and three nails.  This fitted neatly into the
belt on my trousers and would come in handy at close quarters.

I rowed across the water and then followed
the shoreline as I made my way south from the tiny harbour, looking for any
danger as I went. 

When I had reached a point where I
could see the builder’s yard, I drew into the shore and hid the boat among some
trees.  I then edged along the side of a field, keeping to the cover of the treeline,
until I had found what I was looking for.

The yard was just off the main road
and occupied a large area of land.  It had been left unlocked in the staff’s
hurry to flee as the infection took hold.  There were several buildings,
including an office which was also unlocked and piles of materials, including
concrete blocks, sand and cement.  It was perfect, except for the fact it was
going to be extremely difficult to move them.

There was a shop too, complete with
all manner of tools, including trowels, spades and spirit levels.  Everything
we needed for construction was there.

I walked around the whole yard and
found a small forklift truck.  There were no keys in the ignition so I checked
in the office.  There was a key rack on one wall and I took a few of the ones
which looked like they might have been for the machine.

I smiled, as the third one I tried
worked and the forklift coughed into life.  This was going to be ideal for
transporting pallets of materials to the harbour.

I switched it off again and decided
to look in one of the large sheds.  The doors were lying open on the first one
and I took a look inside.  It was full of timber.  All sorts.  Beams to make
roofs, timber for making partition walls, doors and flooring.  The place was a
gold mine.

I was walking back out the door of
the first shed when I was suddenly aware that I was no longer alone.  A man was
walking through the yard, stumbling in that familiarly awkward bearing which
signified he was infected.  Or dead.

I ducked back inside.  He was coming
towards the shed but I wasn’t sure if he had seen me or not.  I unslung the
rifle and rested it against a stack of wood.  Then, drawing my axe, I lay in
wait.

It didn’t take long.  Soon I could
hear the noise as the man came closer.  He was snarling and making horrible
gurgling noises and as he passed the entrance to the shed I made my move.

I stepped out from the side of the
door.  He must have seen my out of the corner of his eye because he turned to
face me.  He was stinking.  His skin was yellow and he had, what I assumed to
be, a point of infection wound on his neck.  I had a fleeting moment of
sympathy for him.  He might have been an employee of the business, or perhaps
he had sought sanctuary in the yard before he had been turned.  Either way it
was only for a brief moment, before I buried the axe in the centre of his
skull, almost splitting it in two.

His body dropped to the ground, but
no sooner had it done so than I suddenly realised there was another one.  This
time it was a woman.  She was smartly dressed and had long dark hair.  I used
the knife on her, plunging it through her right eye and deep into her brain. 
She was dead before she hit the ground.

I grabbed my rifle and made for the
gates.  Experience told me that there would be others and I was right.  At the
front gate I saw two more, shuffling towards me from across the street.  To my
left was another three and to the right I saw two more.

I decided to go left.  This was where
my boat was and the three here were well spread out. 

I took out the first one with a swing
of the axe, cutting into the side of her head.  The second one I finished off
with the knife, but it got stuck and I couldn’t pull it out again.  This, many
of the survivors were to find, was a common problem.

As the third one approached me I
swung the axe again, but only caught him on the neck.  He fell on top of me,
teeth gnashing at my face.  I rolled him over and punched him with as much
force as I could muster.