With no real plan for where she was going, she moved at random and eventually she found herself in the reception area of a part of the hospital distant to where she normally worked. It was deserted, or so she thought, and with sanity beginning to take hold of her again, she went to the nurse’s station to try and find a phone. Get control, she had to get control. Walking around the desk so she was behind the nurse’s station, she picked up the first one she saw and dialled 999, but the loud crash made her drop it, and she spun round to see what had made the noise. Out of sight, she heard what sounded like shuffling feet, and the panic began to build again. Looking around, she noticed an alcove under the main reception desk, and she threw herself there as quietly as she could. Hidden by the bulk of the nurse’s station, she at first couldn’t see, but she could hear.
Shifting her position slightly, Holden noticed light coming through a thin seam at the back of the alcove, and putting her eye to it allowed her to see the reception she had been standing in seconds before. To her horror, she saw the source of the crash. A dead reanimated obese woman turned the corner into the maternity ward reception. She was naked save for a pair of soiled knickers and an assortment of tortuous medical devices. Her chest displayed a gaping wound, held open by rib retractors where the doctors had been previously trying to repair her damaged heart. A bite mark was obvious on her right breast, and a long piece of intubation tubing dangled from her mouth. The woman had obviously been attacked whilst on the operating table, and she moved with drunken randomness. Of course, Holden didn’t know the woman was dead, and her medical mind struggled with what she was looking at. How could what she was looking at be possible?
The zombie’s head spun sharply to the left, the intubation tube whipping like some deformed elephant’s trunk, and the zombie’s body lurched in the same direction. Lacking coordination, it fell, sprawling across the now blood-stained floor and writhed about for several seconds as if trying to swim across the linoleum, its torso propped off the floor by the once sterile rib retractor. Holden watched in awe and disgust as the body started to crawl away from her, attracted by some unknown delight. It scrambled to its feet, the right hand catching on the tube, yanking it from the zombie’s windpipe, bringing forth a gush of foul air and bile. Now standing, the zombie meandered unsteadily off around another corner. And then Holden saw the sign on the wall with the arrow pointing to the way the zombie was heading, and her stomach lurched into her mouth and terror seized her very soul. Maternity Ward. Oh God no.
9.42AM, 16th September 2015, St Pancras train station, London
The road outside was awash with blue lights and the sounds of slaughter. PC Fred Aycoth joined the line of riot police that had formed outside the British Library. Nobody knew what the fuck was going on, and his head ached from where something had hit him in the temple.
He had seen his partner of the day have his throat ripped out, had seen a crowd of around thirty charge at the two armed officers he was with. They had issued warnings, but still the crowd ran, blood-stained, with hell in their eyes. Then the shot rang out. Then another, and still the crowd came. Two semi-automatic machine guns against a crowd of thirty was a close run thing, but the machine guns had won out. But preoccupied, they hadn’t seen the others coming out of the station, not until it was too late. Aycoth had seen them, and he had fled, abandoning his fellow officers because he knew it was the only thing he could do. And looking back, he had seen the bullet-felled bodies slowly rise up and continue with the carnage. Although they moved slower and less coordinated, move they did despite their bodies being riddled with bullet holes. Now he stood, part of the thin blue line, cleared by the paramedic who was needed for more serious injuries. Just as he left Aycoth to be scrutinised by an inspector, the paramedic mentioned he had never before seen so many bite injuries. He was having to deal with dozens of them. The inspector had arrived minutes before and was trying to ascertain what the hell was going on.
“Surely you’re mistaken, Constable,” the inspector said.
“I saw my partner have his throat ripped out by someone using his fucking teeth. And I saw them, sir. I saw them get up after our boys had emptied whole clips into them. They just kept coming, even after the warnings, even after the shots ripped into them.” A fellow PC was stood to the side listening, face blanched, holding a bandaged hand from where she had been bitten.
“You can’t be seriously telling me they were zombies, because that’s what you are describing. They must have had some sort of body armour. That’s the only logical explanation.” Aycoth grabbed him and almost dragged him to the police riot line, the inspector surprised by the ferocity and the fear in his subordinate’s face. Aycoth pointed at the massing throng of infected some thirty metres away.
“Then why are there people in police uniform getting ready to attack us?”
St. Pancras International Railway Station was the main station for trains to the Northeast of the country, and also the primary UK hub for the Eurostar train, bringing passengers through the Channel Tunnel from mainland Europe. Its layout was a lower level of shops and restaurants, with an upper-mezzanine style level that held more bars and restaurants. Deep within its bowels, the news of the battle outside had shot through the thousands of commuters. It was too late to seal off the station, not that it could be sealed off because there were already infected within it. Wounded and scared, they had fled to what they thought was relative safety, thinking this was only a riot. But it wasn’t a riot, and they brought the infection with them. Shutting the fire doors on the lower level slowed the advance, but more infected just got in through the upper entrance with its direct street access, and through the attached hotel. As people ran, the howls came from the upper level as infected hurled themselves down upon the compressed and panicked collection of humanity in the stations shopping concourse. Other infected vomited down upon the masses, infecting hundreds without the need for teeth.
It was a slaughter.
Ryan had experienced the closest thing to hell he thought he could possibly imagine. The urgency to use the bathroom hit him quickly just as he passed through the barriers to the St. Pancras underground station, and he half-ran, half-walked to where he knew the gent’s toilet was in the main train station. Concentrating on keeping his sphincter closed, he tried to ignore the stabbing pains in his abdomen that threatened to send him double. The pressure built up to intolerable levels just as he seated his scrawny arse down on the porcelain throne and let loose a torrent of vile smelling waste, obviously a result of something dodgy he had eaten the night before. God that was truly unpleasant, and he whimpered as another purge made its way to the watery depths below.
It had taken a good twenty minutes for him to compose himself and to be sure nothing else was following. Using multiple sheets of toilet paper, he cleaned himself up as best he could, wiping the sweat on his forehead with his sleeve. Food poisoning, great. Just what he needed. Absolutely terrific. Exiting the stall, a vile odour following him out, he washed his hands and made his way to the exit. Things had changed in the twenty minutes he had been otherwise engaged. Walking out of the gent’s toilets, he saw people running. He heard their obvious terror. Edging towards the main shopping concourse, three women ran past him the way he had just come. One of them looked at him almost pleadingly, but she was dragged onwards by one of the other women. Why was she bleeding? He moved his head to follow them and turned back just as the thing chasing them rounded the corner appeared. Thing was as good a description as any to use for what he saw, and its eyes bulged red, blood dripping from its chin, staining its white shirt with a deathly map. Part of its scalp flopped down uselessly above one eye. It didn’t seem to care. Ryan hesitated, stepping backwards, and the thing stopped and hissed at him. He saw the crimson on its teeth, and it spasmed as it seemed to look him up and down with almost erotic delight.
“Spreeead,” the thing said, taking a step towards him, then another. Behind it, a body dropped from the floor above, landing almost gracefu
lly on both feet, before it ran off out of sight. The thing in front of Ryan raised a hand in front of it and pointed at Ryan. Then with an ungodly howl, it charged at him, quickly bringing Ryan to the floor. Ryan was not a powerfully built man, and he felt himself easily pinned by his adversary. The thing brought its face close and belched into his face, making Ryan gag from the putrid stench that was almost visible. If Ryan hadn’t already evacuated his bowels, he would have done do then and there.
A soiled hand grabbed him by the neck, turning his head from side to side, and then the other hand grabbed him by the hair, restraining his head even as Ryan struggled beneath it. Then the thing lunged its head forward and bit off Ryan’s nose. It was not a clean removal, but took several seconds, and the jaws worked and mashed the teeth through flesh and cartilage. Ryan bucked, screaming in pain and terror, his hand hitting out against the cannibalistic attacker weakly, only for the thing to release him. It looked down at him for a moment, chewing its prize with obvious relish, and then swallowed. Almost smiling, the thing stood and turned to walk away, only to stop. It looked back at Ryan, still prostrate on the floor. It pointed at him again.
“Spreaaad.” Then it ran off, disappearing from his sight. Ryan tried to get to his feet, but only managed to stumble to his knees. Turning, he half crawled, half stumbled back to the gent’s toilets, and made it several metres before he felt himself grabbed from behind. Another creature grabbed him, twisting his now helpless body around, and it sniffed him. The new infected – a black man with half his left hand missing – licked Ryan’s face, and seemed to nod his approval.
“Goooood,” the creature said, and it dropped him from its grasp, obviously satisfied with whatever it was he was looking for, and made its way off into the ladies’ toilets. More screams ensued. Ryan touched his face gingerly and wept at the obvious damage. He got back to his knees and then to his feet and staggered back to the gents.
There were grown men crying in here, banging on the toilet stalls, demanding entry in the hope of some sort of protection from what was occurring in the station. Ryan didn’t know it, but the stall next to him had accommodated an infected, who had attacked those present just as Ryan had encountered the three women. Ryan ignored his fellow collateral and meandered over to the mirror, shock and pain bringing him to the edge of consciousness. Grabbing the edge of one of the sinks, he felt his legs buckle, and he came down smashing his chin onto the porcelain, blackness taking him to the floor. Nobody tried to help him. There were no heroes here. No good Samaritans. The only thing here was survival, and that was in very short supply today.
It was several minutes before Ryan came round. Another “thing” stalked past him leaving the toilets, paying him no attention. The thing only had one arm, and it left a trail of red ooze behind it. Its gait was somewhat uncoordinated, and it bounced off the wall several times. Ryan looked around to see a half-dozen men either dead or collapsed on the ground. One was moaning on the tiled floor, which was a lake of bodily fluids. All around him the walls were an artist’s gallery, as if Jackson Pollock himself had come in to paint his masterpiece with the spray from his own severed arteries.
His mind buzzed with confusion as he pulled himself up off the floor. Looking at himself in the mirror, he almost laughed as he saw his shattered face. His jaw was fractured and dislocated, and pain pounded through him. But the worst pain was not from his head, but from his stomach, and it grew like a furnace. He had no choice but to collapse back to the floor, and he curled up foetal style as bile began to churn towards his mouth. As the vomit expelled itself, it seemed to take his consciousness with it, and the mind that was Ryan quickly died, only to be replaced by a burning desire to seek out and feed. Before being shot in the head thirty minutes later by a grenadier guard, Ryan would go on to directly infect thirteen people.
9.43AM, 16th September 2015, Piccadilly Train Station, Manchester
Brian Pickering stepped out of the black cab and rushed to the railway station entrance so as to get out of the pouring rain. The sooner he got on that plane and away from this damp-ridden shit hole, the better he would feel. This would be his last time in the UK for quite a while, and he wasn’t going to miss the place, not for one second. Especially in this damp, rain-sodden city. Every second he spent here was a second too long as far as he was concerned.
He didn’t hear the scream that came from the road behind him, didn’t see the pack of seven children that ran feral towards the rank of taxis and bus stops. Out of the rain, he walked towards the packed escalator, dragging his wheeled black travel bag behind him, indigestion gurgling into his chest. He hadn’t even had time to have breakfast. He’d changed the time of the alarm on his smartphone to make sure he got up early enough to catch his flight, but had forgotten to press the save button. So he’d woken late and pissed off at his own stupidity.
As he stepped on to the escalator, there was another scream; this one he heard, and he turned his head as he began to ascend. There was a woman in the doorway behind him with two small children clinging to her arms. She was evidently trying to fight them off, but they clung on clawing at her, their jaws clamped into her.
“What the hell?” he heard someone say. Two more children ran into the station, wrapping themselves around the legs of an elderly railway employee, and he fell. One of the children sank its teeth into him, and the other got up and attacked a good Samaritan that had come to help. Chaos just blossomed at that very moment. Then the escalator stopped with a jolt. Someone had clearly pressed the emergency stop.
Brian looked up and saw four more children at the top of the escalator. They couldn’t have been more than seven years old, but with their bleeding eyes and devil’s blood stained faces, Brian felt fear float into his consciousness. The veneer of reality slipped. An elderly man at the top was the first to be bit, and as the reality of the situation began to dawn and the children began to descend, those at the top began to push their way back down. Only there were children at the bottom. An elbow caught Brian in the face, sending his glasses flying, and he felt himself lose balance. One of the children leapt from the top of the escalator and landed on the back of someone who was obviously a body builder, what were once small, fragile fingers clawing into the man’s hair. Catching the hand rail, Brian steadied himself, his nose bleeding. Someone began to push up against him, and stuck in the middle as he was, he began to get squashed. Then he heard the chorus of what were once children’s voices as in unison they all shouted the same thing.
“We will spread!”
9.44AM, 16th September 2015, Paddington Train Station, London
The voice told them what to do. The voice always told them what to do. The voice was them, and they were the voice. The whisper, the seductive words that flowed through their once-human minds like a lover’s seductive promise. The voice was them, and they were the voice, and every moment the numbers speaking grew. The voice grew louder, more insistent, more demanding as more infected minds joined the viral collective.
“We will feed, we will spread.” But the voice came from the remnants of human consciousness, and in those thoughts there remained a concept only basically understood by those who now yearned to feed their growing hunger. Strategy.
Yes, they would feed. Yes, they would spread, but they were not the mindless animals of horror lore. Something deep within told them to kill only the dangerous, to infect the rest. Of course, those they killed magically came back to life. Whilst some spread through the streets randomly, scattering the seed of the deadly infection throughout the city, others grouped together, concentrating on specific targets, areas of high human density. The contaminated milk at the Paddington Coffee House had infected about sixty people. Within minutes of their symptoms becoming fully expressed, each one of them had infected another dozen people via exposure to bodily fluids and through direct bites. Fifteen minutes after, each of these new infected had spread their gift to dozens more. And so the infection progressed, almost doubling every couple of minutes as the tic
king time bomb of the infection rolled through the bodies of the exposed, steamrolling to those who were blissfully unaware.
And then the infected began to get smart, descending on the underground stations en masse. Over fifty forced their way down the steps of the Paddington tube station, into the main concourse, biting and clawing as they went. Those travellers at the bottom of the escalators faced a wall of panic as people tried to descend against the upward flow, trying to escape the terror that washed over them like a wave. In fact, that was exactly what the infected acted like, a wave, hurling themselves down upon the people below them, some sliding down the partitions between escalators. The civilians they infected, the underground employees they killed, tearing their throats out, leaving them to resurrect as the slower but no less deadly undead. “We will feed, but for now, we spread.” Stood at the top of the escalator some of the infected attacked directly, others vomited, raining contagion down upon the masses.
The Circle Line train was just pulling in when the panic hit the platform. With little room to move, the chaos pushed people against the side of the now stationary train, and the doors opened on those cramped inside. Some people died in the crush, others fainted. The driver, witnessing the chaos, had no idea what was going on. He couldn’t go anywhere; it would be too dangerous to those trapped against the side of his train. He tried to close the doors, but the safety mechanism prevented it, which meant he couldn’t go anywhere even if he wanted to.
It was the infected seven-year-old child that made it onto the train first. Once known as Chloe, loved by her parents who both now fought to bite and devour the flesh of the living, the tiny infected creature used her small size to her ultimate advantage. Crawling through the legs of those on the platform, biting and gouging all those she came across, she slithered onto the tube train, her face and clothes painted in blood. Several people had kicked out at her attacks, but she felt no pain, the broken nose and the gashed scalp of no consequence to her. The fact she was missing an ear didn’t even seem to register. Once on the train, she attacked in earnest. She thrashed and cut and clawed her way down the carriage, jumping along the back of seats and traversing monkey-like by the hand rails suspended from the ceiling. She took fingers and ears and flesh with her as she went, pausing on occasion to vomit her pestilence over the trapped masses. She directly infected over two hundred people on the train, the rest trapped on there whilst those around them quickly turned.
Cobra Z Page 12
