Cobra Z

by Deville, Sean

  The kitchen was a wreck. Not through anything zombie related; it just didn’t look like it had been cleaned in a decade. The sink overflowed with unwashed plates and pots, and there were multiple black bags full to brimming with garbage. Flies buzzed throughout the room, and Owen couldn’t believe there were maggots crawling out of several of the bags.

  “Doesn’t clean up much, your uncle, does he?” Owen said sarcastically.

  “No, he has a bit of a problem. He feels he can’t throw stuff away in case it might be useful. You should see upstairs.”

  “No, I shouldn’t. I’ve seen this on TV. We’re not going to find him dead under a pile of newspapers, are we?” Owen said half-jokingly.

  “That’s not nice, Owen. Not with that.” Gary pointed at the kitchen table. A dusty, blood-spattered first aid box was open on it, and there was blood smeared all over the table’s surface. Owen suspected there was blood all over the floor too, only he couldn’t see it because of the dirt.

  “How the hell did your uncle get a shotgun licence with all this?” Owen asked. He knew the police came round to check the integrity of both the owner and the property. Gary half smiled.

  “Don’t be silly, Owen. You don’t think he got it legally, do you?” Even better, thought Owen, no gun cabinet to deal with then. He looked around the kitchen.

  “Well, I’m sure he’ll be alright. He probably just cut himself making a sandwich or something.” He stepped up to Gary, putting just the right amount of menace into his voice. “But Gary, I need that shotgun. I need it now.”

  “Of course. Sorry, Owen. I’m just worried is all. It’s this way.” Gary led him back to the basement entrance, Owen giving the kitchen one last disdainful look. Gary went first down the steps, and Owen followed behind. The basement was surprisingly well lit considering the circumstance, and when they reached the bottom, Owen was surprised to see it was relatively barren. The hoarding, it seemed, didn’t extend to down here. At the far wall, there was an old wooden desk. The shotgun rested on it. Owen pushed past his friend and picked up the gun.

  “He just leaves it lying around, does he?”

  “I guess so,” Gary said. Holding the gun in one hand, Owen started to hint through the drawers of the desk. He found two boxes of shotgun shells, one of them half empty. That was less than a hundred shells. Would that be enough? There was a thump from upstairs. Gary spun round and made for the stairs.

  “Uncle, is that you?” Owen worked the action, figuring out quickly how this particular shotgun opened. He had shot one before. He knew what to do, where to put the shells. He heard Gary going further up the stairs and dug into the half-empty box for two shells.

  “Uncle?” Owen put the first shell in and then he actually heard Gary squeal. Grown men didn’t make noises like that, or at least they shouldn’t. Obscured from his sight, Owen couldn’t see what Gary saw, but the secret soon became evident. Just as Owen slotted the second shell into place, there was the sound of a commotion, and two figures came tumbling into view at the bottom of the basement steps. Gary was now screaming, trying to fight off the attacker he was now entangled with.

  “Uncle, stop, it’s me, Gary,” Owen heard him plead, but it did no good. Owen watched in morbid fascination as Gary’s uncle bit down onto his ear and ripped it clean off. Owen snapped the rifle shut, the noise causing the infected’s head to spin towards him. He leapt off Gary and stood metres away from Owen. Owen didn’t hesitate; he fired at point-blank range, the shotgun blast taking Gary’s uncle clean in the face.

  “Fuck,” Owen shouted, the noise of the shotgun painful in the confined space. The body was propelled backwards with the blast, hitting the wall opposite Owen, the body then falling into the shrieking form of his nephew. The uncle twitched, most of his face and jaw gone. Owen took a step forward and fired again, unconcerned that Gary might be caught in the blast as a large part of the infected shoulder was blown away. Gary howled in pain as some of the shot hit him. Quickly breaching the gun, Owen replaced the shotgun shells with two fresh ones, and he lined up for a third shot.

  “Don’t shoot me, please, Owen,” the voice came from beneath the now deceased former owner of the shotgun.

  “You’ve been bitten, Gary. You know what that means. I’m doing you a mercy,” and he fired again, aiming at Gary’s head that was sticking out from beneath the cadaver. The impact did much the same damage that had been inflicted by the first round. He fired a fourth time for good measure. Damn, this is more like it, thought Owen, and he shook his head to clear the disorientation caused by the noise. Looking at the scene before him for a moment, Owen turned and began to stuff his pockets with shotgun shells. The rest he stuck in his backpack. He did one last search and found another box and a kit to clean the shotgun with, and he deposited these in his backpack also. He put two fresh cartridges in the gun and snapped it closed. He liked the feel of the gun, and liked even more the damage he could inflict. This had real stopping power

  “Now then, let’s go fishing.”

  12.35PM 16th September 2015, Hayton Vale, Devon

  Gavin watched the hacked CNN broadcast over the satellite link and felt a cold chill encase his body. He had been right. He had been fucking right. His family had mocked him, some had even stopped talking to him. But here he was, safe and isolated in a natural fortress with enough food and provisions to last him over a year. Gavin removed the phone from his pocket, saw the dozens of missed calls, knew there would be answer machine messages and texts from those who had ridiculed him. He paused momentarily, and called his mother. They weren’t close, but the least he could do was say goodbye. The phone rang, but wasn’t answered. You should have listened to me, Mum – you all should have listened to me.

  He had been busy the last few hours. In one of the storage sheds were dozens of large water containers, which he had dragged to the outside tap and filled, putting one or two drops of water disinfectant in each. Not to clean the water, but to keep it clean. He knew that as the madness spread the water supply would eventually shut off. This and his stored mineral water would see him through several months. And when it ran out, well, he had the river. He had everything he needed to hold out indefinitely, everything except the one thing that had made the whole idea worthwhile, his lover.

  The fact that his partner was probably dead hadn’t really hit home yet. He had been too engaged in preparing for the end for it to really sink in. He watched as the normal broadcast came back, watched the harassed and upset faces of those presenting the news channel. Watched his namesake try and explain to his viewers what had just happened. Flicking through the channels, they all talked about the same thing. Fucking religion. Was humanity still at the stage where the belief in an invisible friend caused them to kill men, women, and children? It was madness, and it should have been treated as such. Gavin turned off the set with the remote and left the living room in disgust. Out in the farm’s hallway, he put on his heavy coat and stepped out into the afternoon air. It was time to close off the road, to make it invisible to all but those who lived in the area. Because, like it or not, the infected would be here soon, and although this was not the apocalypse he had planned for, he hoped his precautions would be enough to keep them at bay.

  12.38PM, 16th September 2015, Windsor

  Jack had found a bike lying in the road and had taken it. Now on the Windsor Road, he knew there was only one place he could go. At some point he would need to sleep, to rest – he was presently running on the last of his adrenaline. But if he did that, then the infected would reach him. He was ahead of them now, he knew that, and now he was just part of a mass exodus. The roads were jammed, so everyone was either on foot, or like him on a bike. The occasional motorbike wormed its way through the crowds, but it seemed the days of mechanised transport through much of the country were probably at an end. The roads just weren’t designed for everyone to take to them at once. It just took one to break down, one accident for the whole thing to grind to a halt. It wasn’t like the RAC were go
ing to come out to the rescue.

  Strangely, there was a semblance of order here. He had not only left the infected behind, but the looting and the violence too. This was the scared face of the civilised, the educated, those with children and those with a sense of duty and an understanding of right and wrong. And as he peddled, Jack bit back tears, realising that his family should be here with him. He had failed them, just as Clive had failed them all. No, that wasn’t fair; he had seen what had happened, knew that it wasn’t Clive’s fault, knew that it was an accident. But that didn’t change the fact that the man had killed his sister, the man his father had considered almost a brother. It was perhaps best that Clive had died of a heart attack, for how the hell could he live with that on his soul?

  The number of people in the road ahead thinned out, and he put on a burst of speed. That was another thing he noticed about the people around him, the people he passed. They were carrying so much shit with them. Suitcases and backpacks filled with stuff. Didn’t they realise there was no need for this material shit anymore? Your Rolex, your bank account, your share certificates were all meaningless in the world of the undead. Your Porsche and your Aston Martin all worthless, left to rot on roads that would slowly decay and crack through lack of maintenance. What mattered now was speed and the will to survive. What mattered now was being able to leave it all behind and do what needed to be done. Jack didn’t know if he had that in him, but he was certainly not going to give up. He was going to fight, because he had nothing else to do.

  12.40PM GMT, 16th September 2015, The White House, Washington DC

  “We are still getting live feeds from GCHQ, Mr. President, and we have re-tasked several satellites to give us more coverage.” General Roberts, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was briefing a man he didn’t like, but a man he respected. The man the secret service called POTUS had proven to be a competent leader, a man who had been able to make the hard choices. But he wasn’t a man the general would want to sit down and have a drink with, wouldn’t want to spend an evening sharing stories or going fishing with. But that wasn’t really relevant right now.

  “Can someone fill me in about this Hirta Island?” the president asked.

  “We don’t have much on it, Mr. President,” said the CIA director. “We’ve asked the British for information, but I don’t know if it will be forthcoming.”

  “Do we have any intelligence that suggests the British created this, or is this just to blow smoke up my ass?”

  “We have nothing, sir,” Johnson said. “And we definitely had no involvement. I can give you that as a cast iron guarantee.” The president looked at him, his eyes searching for deception, seeking the lie that he suspected was there. He didn’t see anything, so either the man was telling the truth, didn’t know the truth, or was a damned good liar. One out of three was terrible odds. Rodney turned to General Roberts.

  “How long until the British will be able to give us intel?” the president asked. He was looking at computer simulations showing the entire United Kingdom. The dozen or so people in the room all looked at the same thing. Every minute, the red blobs encompassing several cities grew larger, displaying the reported extent and the computer predictions of how far the infection had spread. That had been a rare job for someone in the Pentagon’s IT department. “Hi there, we just need an algorithm to plot the spread of a zombie contagion.”

  “GCHQ is outside the initial infected zones, but they are already evacuating. The listening station at Menwith Hill is already silent; it was deemed too close to one of the infected zones.” The general put his hand on the map which joined Bristol to Southampton. “Everyone west of this line is going to be fleeing into the southwest of the country. We need to decide whether we want to help get them out.” The general paused. He looked at the CIA director who was sat next to the president, and then looked back at his commander-in-chief. “Or do we quarantine the whole island and stop anyone leaving?”

  “Does NATO have a view?” the president asked.

  “Yes. They want to quarantine. Our continental allies are scared of the infection getting onto the mainland. The French are already taking measures to fortify their coast. They say they will shoot down any planes leaving the UK. And the Irish are not happy about our commandeering their Shannon Airport to route all our assets through. They are even less happy about the British evacuating their best and brightest there.”

  “Operation Noah, we briefed you on that earlier,” Director Johnson said to the president, who nodded his thanks.

  “What would you do, General?” And there it was, the question that only a certain breed of men could make. Did they try and save what they could and risk the infection getting off the island, or did they leave millions to perish?

  “We know the infected can only travel by foot,” Director Johnson said, “and we can project how fast they will spread based on that. And the short incubation period works in our favour in that those infected manifest the symptoms quickly.”

  “And how certain are we that all the infected cases transform within ten minutes?” the president asked. There was silence in the room as he looked around at them all. The silence was the answer he needed. Nobody really knew anything about the virus. What if it lay dormant in some hosts? What if some who came in contact with it acted like a biblical Typhoid Mary? “So I ask again, General, what would you do?”

  “I would salvage what military and government assets we can. Salvage the Royal Navy and the Royal Airforce, and evacuate what’s left of their ground forces, most of which have already abandoned their defence of the infected zones. But I would use Ireland as a containment and buffer zone.”

  “And the rest?” the president pressed.

  “We don’t have the resources to save but a handful, and that would represent an unacceptable risk of the infection getting off the continent.” The general knew this was the only response that made sense. It was the response of a military mind whose sole job was to defend the integrity of the United States of America. The president sat back in his chair and flung the briefing paper he was holding onto the table.

  “Ben,” he said to his White House Chief of Staff, “get NATO on conference call. We are going to implement a blockade of the United Kingdom. Military and government personnel presently en route to Ireland will be able to land. I want the bulk of their military assets salvaged, but it all goes to Ireland. If the Irish kick up a fuss, remind them who has the aircraft carriers. I want the CDC on site at Shannon, and I want a quarantine order implemented by NATO.” He looked at General Roberts. “I want you to contact MI6 and General Marston and let them know if they want to salvage anything, they have three hours to do it. I want that,” the president pointed at the map on the screen, “locked down before I have my lunch with the first lady today.” The president looked at the CIA director. “And Keith, you bring me the fucking heads of the people who just removed my country’s most important ally from the political map. And you do it quickly. I don’t care what laws you have to break and what letters of immunity I have to sign. Bring me these fuckers and do it yesterday.” That was what General Roberts didn’t like about his commander-in-chief. The man was the most ruthless son of a bitch he had ever met. He was even more surprised by what his president said next.

  “And if we can somehow use this for our political and strategic benefit, well then we might even be able to use this crisis to our advantage.”

  12.46PM, 16th September 2015, MI6, Albert Embankment, London

  The wind buffeted her coat, but her hair tied back as it was stayed in place. Standing on top of the MI6 building, she looked off across the cityscape, seeing the smoke rising up in the distance from multiple locations. This would be the last time she would see this great city, but honestly, she didn’t think she would really miss it. It was just a city after all. There were others that she would one day get to see again. But her immediate future was Ireland, and that’s where she would be heading now. First out of the infected zone, and then o
n a flight out of the quarantine zone. Many in the building below wouldn’t get that privilege, duty forcing them to stay behind to try and keep some semblance of humanity going in this death pit.

  She turned and walked to the helicopter, climbing aboard. She took the last seat, and ignored the smile of the man who sat across from her, instead putting her attention out of the window that appeared when the side door closed. Men did that a lot. Some smiled, some glared, transfixed by her presence. Others cast her with subtle side glances that they hoped she wouldn’t see, as if they needed just a glimpse of her to somehow survive. But that was men, and she didn’t mind. They amused her, weak as they were. There were very few she encountered who even interested her, and when she did find one of those rare breeds, she made it her mission to break and destroy the mind of that man. How she loved to do that, to take their ego and their strength and twist it.

  Of course, she didn’t use her torture skills on these men. No, that she reserved purely for paying jobs. Instead, she used more subtle techniques, making them crave her, making them regret the day they ever encountered her. She knew how to manipulate, make them feel like only they had been able to tame her, and then she slowly ripped them apart from the inside, and in doing so, watched with great amusement as they destroyed their own lives. She was a sociopath, after all. As the rotors began to start up, her thoughts went briefly to the man strapped down to the surgical table in the bowels of the MI6 building. She had returned to him, as promised, his interrogation over. The MI6 men had left her alone in the room, and she had looked at her captive with a wicked smile.

  “You did well,” she had said to the naked man, sitting next to him. She ran a fingernail across his chest, and looked at his face. Despite his restraints, he did what he could to avert his eyes from her.