From Despair to Where

by Oliver Smith

  The sound of the teeth biting together would stay with Jack. The sound resonated above everything else. The screams of mum and child, Mick’s grunts, and exasperations as he struggled all faded into the background. Jack’s eyes were transfixed to the animal like bite, over and over, teeth against teeth. Bite. Bite. Bite.

  As the attacker lurched again, Mick tried to step backwards into the car, he caught his heel on the inside of the door and his foot slipped. He fell back so that he landed on the edge of his seat. The aggressor sensing his advantage scrambled against the door, closing it on Mick’s legs. This action seemed to rejuvenate Mick as he kicked the door open, knocking the assailant backwards. Mick sprung to his feet, effortlessly slipping past the open door and catching the staggering enemy with a fierce right hook on the jaw. Jack could hear the crack as something in either Mick’s hand or the accoster’s jaw broke. The man flew backwards and fell again. Jack thought that he wasn’t getting up from that anytime soon.

  From inside the car, the woman sternly said, “Mick, get in the damn car. We need you. Get in.”

  Mick turned once again to Jack, “The name’s Mick, but people call me Bulldog. You can come with us while you get your head around all of this. You in?”

  Jack stared at Bulldog with a sense of awe and confusion. This man had just floored someone who looked to be foaming at the mouth. This man had told him people were eating people. This man was looking after his wife and child. These thoughts were not helping. He meekly responded to Mick’s question, “Err, no, I’m going home.”

  Mick smiled a toothy smile, “Okay son. Look after yourself. This guy is getting back up. Whatever you do, don’t let him bite you.”

  With that, Mick jumped in his car and made a rapid exit.

  Jack, still in a state of shock watched as the car vanished around a bend. He slowly ambled a little closer to the guy who’d been knocked on his arse for the second time. He was murmuring again, a quiet and gentle noise which sounded to Jack as though he was groggy. Unsure what to do, Jack timidly asked, “Are you okay mate?”

  With Jack’s words, the man on the floor turned his head to look directly at Jack and let out a guttural moan. Jack looked into his eyes and realised that he was no longer a he, it was an it. Rising like a drunk once more, the thing stood up and immediately lurched towards Jack, moaning and biting teeth loudly together.

  Adrenaline filled his veins once again; this time Jack let his instincts take over. He turned on his heels and made a run for it. Past the shop, down the side and into the alley, gaining speed as he attempted to process the last ten minutes of his life. He skidded out of the alley and went at full tilt to his front door, frantically rattling his keys in the door to get it unlocked, finally he managed it, turned the key and raced inside, slamming the door shut and locking it for good measure.

  Jack put his back to the door and slid down to a sitting position. He put his head in his hands, exhaled a deep breath, and gathered his thoughts. People eating people? It can’t be.

  Chapter 4 – 24 Hour Rolling News

  Securely locked up in number 12, Jack began a desperate fact-finding mission. He could feel that something wasn’t right. The sincerity of Bulldog, his words, and of course, that thing. Jack rushed upstairs to his office. He checked his email, nothing but automated marketing emails, no emails from actual people in a few days. His phone was in the shop getting the screen replaced so he was without any contact with his family or friends. He did have a landline, but he didn’t have a home phone attached to it, the landline was just a necessity for the broadband connection.

  A quick check of his personal email showed no contact from anyone that he cared about. He opened another tab on his browser and logged into Twitter. It was the work account and was full of tweets from self-claimed entrepreneurs and assorted ‘gurus’ offering tips on how to be just like them. Jack couldn’t help himself wonder why self-proclaimed social media experts only had 148 followers. The thought quickly passed as he glanced over at the trending topics.

  #dead

  #londonriots

  #ManchesterRiots

  #eatingpeople

  #newyorkterror

  The list went on. Jack clicked on #ManchesterRiots and was horrified by what he saw. It was difficult to understand exactly what was happening. Many of the tweets showed blurry pictures of what looked like people fighting. Reading his timeline didn’t clarify matters either. Jack clicked on ‘Media’ to search for useful videos rather than relying on the ill-informed opinions of the masses.

  The first video he played was in the Arndale Centre: a shopping centre in Manchester, it was a normal scene for a short while until all hell suddenly broke loose. Screams were quickly followed by mass hysteria as people started to run and push past the person documenting the commotion. It cut off as the person filming decided to follow the crowd and make a run for it, commenting in a monotone shout that there was a terrorist attack taking place.

  A terrorist attack. Jack thought about it. Terror had been the nightmare of the time. Attacks were growing more frequent and more ruthless. Even innocent children were targeted. It was feasible that a group of fundamentalists were causing mayhem in a coordinated attack, a coordinated attack across the globe? It wasn’t feasible. Jack still had an uneasy feeling. It was that noise again. The biting.

  He continued his video perusal. The next two videos he watched bobbed up and down and were the nightmares of people who suffer motion sickness, leaving Jack feeling queasy. The next video, however, was to change Jack’s world.

  Pressing play, Jack could immediately see that the video was good quality, he was greeted by a face, a woman, perhaps early 40s, red hair, green eyes; the classic English rose complexion. Jack leaned forward towards the screen, transfixed.

  She spoke, “My name is Lucy and I’m in an apartment overlooking Portland Street. That’s Manchester, England. Before I show you what’s going on out there, I want to try and explain some of my observations over the past couple of days.”

  Jack moved closer to the screen. Her voice captured him. A soft, but confident tone. Lucy’s expression was serious, but there was a sense of composure; she was in total control of her emotions.

  “I first noticed something was wrong last night. There were screams. Don’t get me wrong, I live in a major city centre and there are screams all of the time, but this was different. They weren’t the screams of drunk people revelling in the night, they were blood curdling screams. Those that belong in horror films.

  “I heard a scream outside and rushed to the window to look down on the street. Below my apartment, a young woman was struggling with a man, the man had grasped the girl’s arm and looked to be biting her. I actually saw blood spray from her arm, so I knew it was serious. I opened the window and shouted down to the man to leave her alone. She managed to get her arm free, I could see a dark smear of blood flowing down her arm and staining the poor girl’s light dress.”

  Lucy gulped down her emotions and continued, “I was still shouting at the man, telling him I was calling the police, he looked up towards my voice and I saw the look in his eyes. His dead eyes. It’s the only way I can describe it.

  “Anyway, a black cab came speeding from around a corner and struck the man at full speed. The man didn’t react though, he had turned at the noise of the car and made no attempt to avoid the collision. He was thrown into the air and landed with a crunch. A noise I never want to hear again. The man had to be dead. I ran to get my phone from the bedroom and called the police. To my astonishment, I was put through to some sort of queuing system. I waited for about five minutes before walking back to the window; still on hold. I looked out of the window but couldn’t for the life of me see the man who’d been struck by the taxi. On closer inspection, I saw blood stains, a lot of blood. It was as if the body had crawled away, or had been pulled away. I just didn’t know. I hung up the phone.

  “For the remainder of the night I repeatedly called the police, desperately trying to raise
the alarm. If you look through my Twitter timeline, you’ll see my attempts to contact them via social media, but with no success. Finally, about 3:30 in the morning I managed to speak to a police operator. The lady who answered asked if I was in immediate danger to which I said no. She then said that I’d have to call back tomorrow as they were busy dealing with serious crimes. She also warned me to stay inside and lock the doors. Repeating not to go outside several times.

  “I realise I’m taking my time here, but the point is this: this all happened last night. Yesterday morning, everything seemed normal. Now come with me and I’ll show you Portland Street.”

  With the end of the long narrative, that had captured Jack to complete stillness, the camera shakily made its way to the window. Lucy began to speak again, but her words faded into the background as Jack focused on the images in front of him. From what he could see there was absolute pandemonium on the streets. People were running, bumping into one another, moving down side streets. Two cars had collided and were both trying to manoeuvre away from each other, slowing down their exit as they both blocked one another. Then Jack saw the real focus of the video. At the end of the street there was a group of people all walking with the same unnatural coordination that he’d seen when he’d made his life changing trip to buy milk.

  As the camera panned the street, it became clear that there were numerous groups of people all acting in the same peculiar fashion. The camera stopped and began to zoom in to a fire exit where an old man had become trapped. He looked in his 70s and he was surrounded by a cluster of people slowly closing in on him. He was valiantly trying to fend them off with his walking stick, but there were too many. Over the noise of the street, Jack could make out the sounds of a desperate man, weakened shouts that were barely audible. Within a few seconds the first person reached him and overpowered him. The person had leaned in face first. In the struggle, the old man lost his footing and tumbled to the floor. The remaining people, Jack had no doubt that these were no longer people, fell on top of the old man. The camera zoomed closer still. Through the mass of bodies on top of the poor soul, Jack saw glimpses of teeth, flesh, blood, and gore. He paused the video and stepped away from his laptop.

  He felt sick. They were eating him; they were tearing him apart. He walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. He’d always had a habit of talking to himself in the mirror, particularly when intoxicated, but this time it was a counsel he needed for his own sanity.

  “They’re zombies. I know it.” Jack said. He laughed a bitter laugh. He caught himself staring blankly at his reflection and decided to go back to the laptop and continue listening to Lucy. He’d seen enough of the images so went back to the end of Lucy’s narrative, pressed play and lowered his screen so he couldn’t see the horror.

  “I saw one person last night. It’s just past 10 in the morning here and look outside. Of course, I’ve been on the Internet all morning, so I know that this isn’t just Manchester. I know this is the world. Look outside, there are hundreds of them. Where have they come from? I don’t know, but all I know is that this is a pandemic, and this could be the end of humanity.”

  Lucy began to speak again, but quickly trailed off. Jack realised that this must have been when she’d zoomed in on the doomed old man. He lifted his laptop screen and quickly paused the video once again. He scanned the tweet and noticed that the date of the tweet was yesterday. Jack clicked on Lucy’s profile to look at her timeline, part of him wanting to make sure she was okay, the other part wanting to find out more information.

  Sure enough, a post from three hours ago, another video. The video thumbnail was Lucy’s face, instinctively Jack pressed play and Lucy began to speak, “Things have taken a dramatic turn outside.”

  Jack could hear loud bangs and what sounded like machine gunfire in the background of the video. He also noticed that Lucy was less composed and had fear etched into her features. He continued to listen.

  “The situation had deteriorated considerably in the past few hours. There were hordes of them. I’ve seen so many people die and I feared I would be one of them. The numbers outside my apartment and the strange moans from the corridor had made my thoughts turn increasingly morbid. However, the army has arrived, and they mean business. They got here about two hours ago and created a roadblock on the crossroads of Portland Street and Oxford Street, forming a circle facing all four directions.

  “Armoured buses have been gathering those trying to escape the masses of, oh God, I guess I’ll call them zombies. It’s what they look like. Anyway, I’ve been watching the attack from my window, but I’ve since sheltered in the bathroom as I could see the buildings opposite being struck with bullets.

  “The important part of this message is that I’ve learned something. Something that could save you if you’re watching this. This following footage isn’t live, it’s from the past hour and I’ve stitched together some clips to show you what I’ve figured out.”

  The video then flicked to a difference scene, it showed the army as Lucy had described, they’d blocked the road where Portland Street and Oxford Street met and were shuttling people through a cordon onto armoured buses. The hairs on the back of Jack’s neck stood up as he saw the vast hordes of zombie like people closing in on those who were trying to escape the clutches of outstretched hands and chomping teeth.

  Lucy began to narrate the video, “Try not to focus on the poor souls who are helpless down there. Focus on the soldiers who are shooting the zombies. The stories and films portray an accurate reflection of them. See this one here.” A red circle flashed over a section of the screen and disappeared.

  “Watch as this person gets shot in the chest. This would kill a normal person, or at least debilitate them. Watch as the recipient of the bullet is thrown backwards. Wait for it.” She paused, “Now, see the creature, I can’t keep calling them people, watch as it gets to its feet. You can see the blood mark, which would have hit the heart, surely. He…sorry, it, is still going though.

  “Now watch this one.” Again, a red circle showed Jack where to look. “Keep watching a few seconds…the soldier is a good shot and shoots this one in the head. You can see the awful spurt from the back of its head as the bullet passes through. Keep watching, I know it’s disturbing. Watch the lifeless body. This one doesn’t get back up. It’s the head, attack the head to make them stay down.

  “I’ll leave the video running and just watch the army’s attack. You’ll see the same thing over and over again. It’s the head. Go for the head.”

  The video continued to play, and Jack watched a little more to see for himself that Lucy’s discovery was true. He stopped the video and spoke to himself, “Thank you Lucy. I hope you get rescued. Stay safe.”

  -

  Jack spent the next few hours reading the constant rolling news on the BBC and Guardian websites as well as other articles posted by various people on Twitter.

  The situation seemed grave and looked to be affecting most, if not all, major population centres in the UK and many other parts of the world. Jack started trying to figure out what was happening by attempting to look for the origins of the pandemic that was spreading its web of infection. The news was conflicting, confused and lacking any expert credibility. This wasn’t necessarily unusual; 2017 was awash with sensationalist and baseless opinion.

  It seemed logical to focus on the consensus and look for eyewitness reports to see what people were saying in common. This proved a useful tactic as some key points surfaced from the plethora of opinion.

  The first of which was how this thing was spreading. Many eyewitness statements corroborated each other’s stories. They involved people tending to friends and relatives who had been bitten by other people. All accounts mentioned that the victims became ill and developed a fever that furiously burned. They were delirious and those who sought medical help found no medicine that could slow the infection down. Every story resulted in the same conclusion. Death. A temporary death.

  The dead
would rise again. A short while after passing, a deceased person would reanimate and wake with a thirst for blood. There was no recognition of loved ones, no humanity, no emotion, just a drive and determination to sink their teeth into living flesh. Dead people became the dead.

  It occurred to Jack that these people had escaped the clutches of their nearest and dearest to tell their tales. He was sure that countless others suffered a very different fate; caught unaware and full of love and hope seeing their loved ones miraculously come back from the dead. Jack couldn’t help himself thinking of the Joy Division song, Love Will Tear Us Apart. He didn’t think it was funny as he breathed a long drawn out sigh as the gravity of the situation and the suffering of so many threatened to turn him into panic.

  Another bit of information lurched out from people’s stories. Bites didn’t need to be serious for them to be deadly. As much as that sounded like an oxymoron, the bite would just need to break the surface of the skin for the healthy to become infected. A Doctor from Pakistan, named Dr. Hussain, had prepared a useful video that Jack watched. He detailed minor bites to hands, fingers and even one case of an improbably bite to an earlobe. Naturally, the wounds didn’t worry the Doctor and he didn’t relate the injuries to the fever that attacked his patients. It wasn’t until a nurse pointed out the strange wounds on several of his patients that Dr. Hussain went back to examine his patients more thoroughly. All were bitten, none with life threatening injuries. The Doctor was wrong. They all died. No one survived.

  Jack knew about market research and the importance of a decent sized sample, the Doctor’s sample was only small, but the fact that everyone who’d been bitten had suffered the same fate sent a chill down his spine. One hundred percent fatality. It occurred to him that this was a disease and it was spread through the bloodstream. He didn’t know if this included ingesting the blood or fluids of the infected; but there was still so much he didn’t know.