The Z Infection (9 page)

       One of them had me.  I panicked.  He had been
buried under a pile of corpses and had been unable to move.  I had missed him
when I came down the stairs and now, on the way back, I had drifted too close
to him.  I struggled, screamed and kicked my leg to try to break free.  His
grip was like an iron shackle.  I couldn’t break it.  And all the time the rest
of them were closing in. 

       I reached out, grabbing for something to use as
a weapon.  Anything that might give me a chance.  My hand came to rest on the
handrail of the stairs, just where it was joined to the floor.  I gripped it
with both hands and pulled.  He still refused to let go.  I pulled again.  The
crowd was bearing down on me.  I could hear their moans and smell the fetid
breath as they got closer and closer.  I closed my eyes and tried to block out
what was about to happen to me.  It was going to hurt.

       Then, suddenly, I felt hands on mine.  They
were warm.  Not what I expected.  I had imagined them to be cold and clammy,
full of spite and malice.  These were warm and friendly.  I opened my eyes and
saw Mike.  His face was full of fear, but he was there for me, pulling me to
safety.

       The grip on my ankle loosened and then broke as
Mike’s strong arms pulled me free and onto the steps.  The first one was almost
on me as I got to my and feet and we sprinted up the stairs.  They followed, of
course, but the good thing about them was that they were slow and clumsy.  That
made it easy to get away from them in the short term.  The down side was that
they didn’t tire, so they just kept coming.

       When we got to the top of the stairs I stopped
to make sure they were following.  They were.  All of them.  What I hadn’t
realised was that there were far more.  Just around a corner, mercifully away
from the direction we were heading, was an army of hundreds and they poured
into the concourse and headed for the stairs.

       ‘Run,’ I said to Mike.

       As we raced along the walkway I could see that
not all of them were coming up the stairs behind us.  Hundreds were heading for
the same place we were, the opening at the far end.

       We made it to the far stairwell and leapt down
the stairs, taking as many as we could manage in each jump.  By the time we
reached the bottom the concourse was filled with them.

       ‘Fuck,’ said Mike.  ‘There are thousands of
them.’

       There was no time to delay.  We had to keep
moving.  I pulled him by the arm and dragged him towards the exit, the baying
mob following us in that shuffling, shambling walk that they did.

       In the wide walkway we were able to make better
progress.  There were still bodies lying around the place, but surprisingly
there were none of those things in there.  We ran as fast as our legs would
move, looking back every so often as the space behind us gradually filled with
our pursuers.

       ‘I hope to God that plane is still there,’ said
Mike.

       ‘It will be,’ I said.

       I had no idea if it was or not.  What I did
know was, that if it wasn’t, we were dead.

Dr Richard Bryson

20:30 hours, Friday 15
^th
May, South London

     
Having seen what had happened at Blackfriars Bridge, I was now working on
an assumption that what we faced was a fast acting virus which we had never
encountered before.  It appeared to be taking over the bodies of those it
infected and causing them to attack the uninfected.  What I needed to do was
get this information to the government as soon as possible, so that we could
formulate some sort of plan and try to find an antidote.

       Taff had tried to get through on his mobile,
but every number he dialled was either engaged or unavailable.  The telephone systems
were creaking under the weight of calls.      

In order to get an antidote I knew that
I was going to need one of the infected, as a subject to examine.  I talked it
over with Taff.  He wasn’t keen on the idea, naturally, having seen what an
infected person was capable of.  He was of the opinion that we should get to
Earl’s Court and report our findings as they stood.  My argument was that the
virus was acting so fast that it was likely to have spread throughout the
entire city before the end of the week.  That could mean death for millions of
people.

       Eventually I persuaded him to follow my plan of
action.  We would capture one and bind its arms and legs to stop it thrashing
around.  We would have to be careful, of course.  Avoiding the mouth would be
essential.  Bites and scratches, it seemed, were one hundred per cent fatal.

       We stopped the car and I quickly phoned through
to the dedicated government number.  Thankfully I got through and Anthony
Ballanger answered the phone.  I could sense the relief in his tone, when he
heard my voice. 

       ‘Where are you?’ he asked.  ‘We’ve had
information that some of the hospitals are being overrun with the infected.’

       ‘We never made it that far,’ I said.  ‘We
turned back before we got to Holborn.  We’re back on the south bank now.’

       ‘Did you come over Blackfriars Bridge?’ he asked. 
‘Did you…?’

‘We did.’ I replied.  ‘It was
carnage, but that’s what I want to talk to you about.  I have a plan, but I
need to capture an infected person first. ’

He wasn’t sure about it, but I told
him it I needed a living subject to examine.  I gave him no choice in the
matter.  In order to understand our enemy, we were going to have to take one
prisoner. 

       Of course it is an oddity, when you are at war
with the dead, that they never surrender.  They don’t suffer from a dip in
morale, they never give up and they don’t understand pain.  Those things make
normal humans vulnerable, but it also makes us careful.  The major fatal flaw
of a Zombie, from what I had seen, was that it had no concept of fear.  That’s
why they continued to walk towards you in droves, while you systematically popped
them off, one at a time, in the head.  They didn’t realise they were being
wiped out and they didn’t fear death like us.

       So that made taking them prisoner almost
impossible.  They fought to the death.  Every time.  No exceptions.  They were
the Samurai of the netherworld.  The Kamikaze pilots, or suicide bombers of
hell.  Even the Japanese, so proud of their fighting traditions in World War II,
sometimes surrendered.  Even the Spartans of old, who
always
fought to
the death, surrendered in their hundreds on Sphacteria.  Not Zombies.  No
negotiations, no surrender.  Fight to the death.  If they had a motto, that
would have been it.

       But it had to be done.  We simply had to take
one alive.  Or dead.  Or whatever they were.  And it was Si, the youngest
member of the team, who came up with what we all agreed was the best chance of
success.

Kim Taylor

21:45 hours, Friday 15
^th
May, Buckingham
Palace, London

       After the massacre at the front gates of
Buckingham Palace I didn’t want to be anywhere near that side of the building. 
Someone had asked the soldiers if they had any food and shelter.  They managed
to come up with a few tents and some bits and pieces of food from their
kitchens, but it was pretty obvious to me that there was never going to be
enough to feed us for very long. 

       Ellie and I were given a tent and told to pitch
it on the lawn.  So there we were, camping in the Queen’s back garden.  I’m not
sure what she would have thought about it, but maybe she saw us on the news. 
There were certainly plenty helicopters circling above our heads, filming the
scene.

       We were cut off.  Totally and absolutely.  The
swarm of those wishing to get inside the gates, to kill us and do God knows
what else, was growing by the hour.  They had finished off those who had been
unfortunate enough to be caught in the middle and were turning their attention
to the gates, rattling them and moaning in that awful way they did.  That moan. 
It was like they were in constant.  Maybe they were.  Who knew?

       Occasionally there would be a shot from one of
the soldiers.  We wondered if those outside had learned how to climb.  It
didn’t seem likely.  They were like very basic humans, unable to do very much
except walk and eat.  They certainly didn’t make any attempt to communicate
with us.

       We settled down that first evening, with a tin
of beans and a few slices of bread between us for dinner.  I had no idea what
was happening in the outside world.  I didn’t know if my parents were still
alive, or my younger brother.  I must have dropped my mobile phone while we
were running.  Ellie still had her one but the battery had died long since. 
Bloody batteries.  I told her some of the soldiers must have had a charger but
she didn’t want to bother them.  They had enough on their hands right now.

       We went to sleep to the sounds of the restless
dead pounding on the gates of the palace, wailing in monotony.  You wouldn’t
think we would have been able to sleep, but we did.  I drifted off, telling
myself that everything would be better in the morning.  What a fool I was.

Callum MacPherson

22:00 hours, Friday 15
^th
May, Buckingham
Palace, London

       I knew things were really serious.  All the
communications we had received were the same.  There was an outbreak of some
disorder in the city, caused, it was thought, by an outbreak of disease.  It
wasn’t clear.  We were ordered to hold our ground and not to allow anyone
inside the grounds of the palace.  Too late for that, I thought.  We must have
had about a hundred civilians now camped on the palace lawns.  So much for that
order.

       That we had only managed to save a hundred,
from the thousands who had been outside the gates, was something that weighed
heavily on me.  If we had acted sooner we might have been able to shelter many
more.  But how could we feed and care for them all?  The palace guard was at
its smallest, because the Queen wasn’t in residence.  She was at Windsor. 
Damned good job too.  She was much safer there.

       The Lieutenant was in his office, still
struggling to come to terms with what was happening.  I guessed he might be
heading for a nervous breakdown.  He certainly wasn’t going to be much use over
the coming hours and I knew that it was going to be down to me to lead the men
in the meantime.

       At ten in the evening I had a telephone call
from General Breck, who was still coordinating a response from the temporary
headquarters at Earl’s Court.  It was probably the first time I had ever had a
proper conversation with a General.  He asked me for a situation report and I
told him bluntly that we were completely surrounded.

       He then asked for a rundown of what I had at my
disposal.  A total of one hundred and fifty men.  Each one had their own rifle
and ammunition.  I had already checked the armoury and found that we had two
heavy calibre machine guns, with about ten thousand rounds for each.  On top of
that there were miscellaneous weapons, some revolvers, enough grenades to give
two to each man and six anti-tank weapons.  We had no heavy calibre weapons and
only eight lightly armoured vehicles and two trucks at our disposal. 

If we included civilian vehicles we
might have been able to break out of the palace and make a run for it.  But
that would only have meant saving the military personnel.  We had all those
civilians to care for as well.

Opposing us, I guessed, there might
have been anything up to about a hundred thousand of the infected.  They were now
crowded around the entire perimeter of the palace, baying for blood.

General Breck was a pragmatic sort of
officer.  That’s why so many came to like him so much.  He really cared about
the men and women he commanded.  It was one of his hallmarks.  He asked me
about the civilians and why they had been allowed to enter the grounds.  I told
him the truth.  It had been my decision.  He was appreciative of my honesty and
I thought I detected a chuckle when I told him they were all camping on the
lawn.

He gave me a lot of good advice too. 
He told me that retreat was impossible and that he did not want to give up the
palace without a fight.  He suggested arming those civilians who were competent
enough to use a weapon.  He also suggested raiding the royal pantry for any
food.  He promised to organise a food and weapons drop as soon as possible and
also send in reinforcements by helicopter and remove some of the civilians who
were unable to fight. 

‘You are our Trojan Horse in reverse,’
he said to me.  ‘You are tying down a hundred thousand of the enemy with a
hundred and fifty men.  We need you to keep doing that.’

He rang off, repeating his promise to
send as much help to us as he could. 

I wasn’t sure how I felt afterwards. 
On one hand I felt very proud that we were contributing in such a huge way, but
on the other hand I was beginning to think that we were expendable.

Xiaofan Li

02:30 hours, Saturday 15
^th
May, London