Day Zed (Volume 1): The Outbreak

by Charles Smith

  “No need to ask me I’m taking my chance with Penny, someone’s has to look out for her” Dave added.

  Penny looked at Dave and his big broad smile; she then smiled back and gave his leg an affectionate squeeze under the table. Dave continued to smile, he had only known Penny since the early hours of this morning, but knew deep down that something would happen between them, and the playful squeeze of his leg had just confirmed it to him. He was not in a rush, the woman had only just lost a loved one, he would wait a long time if he had to, and survival wasn’t an issue for him.

  Kathy asked that the people that had chosen to stay and live in Chatsworth stay behind, so that they could now agree work details. The structure that would be in place for all of them as they worked together would also be explained. Of the six that had decided to leave, they had been given permission to go down into the lower levels and load up two of the armoured Humvee’s with as many weapons and supplies as they could in the morning.

  The two Hummers would hold a lot of supplies, and they could load enough to last them for at least a few weeks. As yet no one had discussed where they would go or even in what direction. The only thing that had been decided by them on the way to the back of the command centre was that Morgan would drive one whilst Jackson would drive the other. The main reason behind this logic was that they were the only two with gun handling experience, and although they would train the others how to use guns, it would be sometime before they were competent with them. There was no need to discuss how the rest of the group would split, there was no way Penny would have been split from Dave, and the two girls would both want to be in the same Hummer as Jackson. The group would decide in the morning where they would be travelling to, they would meet here in the morning to discuss that plan, load up the vehicles, and then begin intensive firearm training. After two days training the group would leave the facility behind for good.

  The meeting in the conference room finished just in time for the attendee’s to get back into the command room for the next automatic broadcast from the Battersea bunker. Each was apprehensive about what they would see, after the last broadcast had shown that the bunker was in serious trouble, and it was just a matter of time before it completely fell.

  The large screen flickered on, and the national anthem played, and as the anthem finished live footage was relayed from the command centre of Battersea. The same desk that the Prime Minister had sat at earlier was in the picture, but nothing else could be seen. For a few minutes, whilst they sat with bated breaths the footage didn’t change until in the background of the camera, figures shuffled. The soul destroying moan that zombies emit echoed through the monitor. Now one figure shuffled past right in front of the camera, with its back turned to the lens, it was impossible to figure out who this zombie had been. Gradually the zombie shuffled to the side, and then with awkward turning approached the camera from the front, for seconds it stood there, its arms hanging limply by its side. It seemed to sway in front of the camera for some time, until it began to crouch towards the lens.

  The group at Chatsworth gasped as they received a close up of the pale grey skin of a zombie, its teeth chattering, as if it could feel them watching. The eyes of the cadaver held no emotion, and when it snarled it clearly didn’t contain a shred of humanity. Only half of the group had already worked out who they were watching, it wasn’t until the bandaged hand lashed out at the camera that the whole group realised that they were indeed watching Haydn Broxby. As the former Prime Minister swiped at the camera it fell to the floor, and although on its side it was now possible to see a large section of the command room floor, the room was a sea of shuffling legs, the bunker had fallen, and judging by the pictures not one person had survived. Over three hundred had died in the so called safe facility. The broadcast was switched off by Kathy; the group didn’t need to see any more from the fallen Battersea bunker, and after entering a few commands on the command room communications module she was able to permanently cut the feed from coming back on.

  “How did that happen?” Dave asked Kathy

  “The VIP’s were not screened, for bites” Kathy replied back.

  Dave stormed out of the room and off towards the vehicle compound, his head swam from the thoughts tumbling in his mind, the same question kept repeating itself, and that was what chance of survival would the leaving group have? If the Prime Minister of the country had turned, in a concrete nuclear bomb proof bunker, not a lot Dave thought, not a lot. His tortured mind was snapped from its torment by the sound of Penny’s voice.

  “Hey you what’s up?” she asked.

  “Oh nothing, I just needed some air”.

  “That was a bit tough to watch”.

  “Who the hell is going to get us out this shit now?” Dave asked her.

  With a shrug of her shoulders she took both her hands in his.

  “I guess we are” she answered him.

  Without knowing why it happened she leant forward and kissed Dave, without hesitation he responded. As they kissed passionately, Dave picked Penny up by her waist, and she wrapped her legs around him. As they still kissed Dave edged to the rear of the hummer and placed her on the back seat, as she rushed to remove his top he reached the hummer door and closed it shut.

  1st July, Berwick upon Tweed, England 11:35pm

  It had been a reluctant acceptance of the leadership of the country for Colin Harrington, when Haydn Broxby had relinquished control of the country by live broadcast hours earlier. The late Prime Minister had contacted his deputy immediately after, to inform him that he had been bitten and infected and therefore didn’t know how much longer he could govern the country’s forces for.

  Colin had been the Deputy Prime Minister for the last four years, and despite spending most of his working life in politics, no matter how much experience he had, no one could be prepared for taking control over the county under such traumatic circumstances. Only a few minutes ago Harrington had watched the distressing broadcast from Battersea. It had hurt him deeply to see what had become of his great long time friend Broxby. Now that he had been sworn in as the new Prime Minister, he had decided to go against the previous plan of closing the borders leading to the safe zone of Berwick Upon Tweed. The closure order had been rescinded and the forces there should soon be letting people through.

  The Police had formed gated border controls on all roads intersecting with the main road that entered the walled town. An eight mile no man’s land had been set up between these gates and the town, to ensure the Army had both the time and the space to install defences to the town’s front. Shortly after these gated border controls had been set up by the police, they were reinforced with armed soldiers in order to maintain crowd control.

  The Army had then begun phase two of the operation by requisitioning every excavator, digger, and loader within a fifty mile radius of the border and these had removed as much stone as possible from local quarries in the short time since the government became aware of the outbreak. Everything that came out of the quarry was then taken to the town and the walls were instantly made much taller. Every land mine that the Army had, was taken out to various points and planted for a stretch of three miles, they had also deployed every mortar cannon at their disposal two miles from the gated border checkpoints.

  The last line of defence was the five thousand troops that were now stationed around the whole outer perimeter of the town, each of these were placed on top of the walls with plenty of ammunition for each of them. They had installed two heavily fortified gates across the walls at the front and these had tanks parked up against them to combat the issue of force if numbers grew too strong. Anyone or more importantly anything attempting to enter the town without permission would be fired upon as soon as the order was given, army chief’s were conscious of the need to hold onto the supplies of ammunition, and soldiers would be informed of when they could fire their valuable bullets.

  There was a large Army presence throughout the town, the Army had even gone as
far as calling in every reserve that they could get in contact with. Harrington had decided to begin posting half of these troops in between the mortar cannons and the land mines. They were to set up quarantine zones where screened survivors would be allowed through the gated border controls to stay in safety. Every available piece of fencing was now being shipped to this area to help engineers erect a fenced in quarantine area as quickly as possible.

  In the meantime screening would be commenced in the morning by the guards of the outer border, if the survivor was free of any wound or bite they would be allowed to travel by foot to the quarantine zone, if however they showed any trace of a wound they would be turned away. With the alarming rate that the virus travelled through the capitol tacticians had warned Harrington that the amount of people that would actually make it to safety would be paltry, compared to the losses of the army and police personnel who would have to man the barricades for as long as they possibly could.

  Harrington had sent the same orders to the Irish safe zone, they had reported back that the virus had already spread across the “Emerald State”, and they were now involved in a full on battle just to hold their defences, which hadn’t yet been completed. If they managed to hold the area at all it would be a minor miracle.

  2nd July, Chatsworth Bunker, London, 8:00am

  Chatsworth Bunker was vast, and the two hummers now sat loaded and ready to exit the following morning. The group of six had parked the loaded Humvee’s right next to the exit situated next to the vehicle compound. Morgan had insisted that every one of the group should become accustomed to the controls, in case either of the drivers got injured. Dave, and then Penny had managed to control the armoured beasts after a little practice, the two young girls however couldn’t get the hang of the Humvee’s and eventually Morgan had given up on them.

  The gun practice had been similar, Morgan had insisted that they only ever try to use head shots to take down a zombie, and as this was effective against humans should they need to fire upon them they may as well just practice on the one target area for starters. Penny was reasonable with a pistol, but was a better shot with a rifle. Dave was better with the pistol, he had joked at first pretending to be a rogue cop ready to blow the scum away on the streets until Morgan had requested he grow up. Jin Lee and Heather had gone to the far end of the range with Jackson to practice, strangely there wasn’t a lot of gunfire coming from that end and Dave and Penny assumed that the trio had carried over their previous nights extra curriculum activities.

  Jackson had told the pair over breakfast this morning that the girls had appeared at his bunk last night and after informing him that as it could be the end of the world and that there wouldn’t be many cute guys left to choose from, that they had decided to share him, rather than one lose out over another. Before Jackson had been given a chance to answer them, the girls had stripped off, and then climbed into bed with him. After telling Penny and Dave this, admitting that his male testosterone had got the better of him and that he had slept with both of them, the pair laughed. Neither told Jackson of their own encounter in the back of the Hummer the previous evening. Since waking that morning the two hadn’t spoke about why it had happened and accepted the fact that it was something that they had both needed. For now they both needed to concentrate on the next day before leaving the bunker, as when they drove through the retracting doors they wouldn’t be able to come back in.

  Kathy had come down to join them and check how they were progressing

  “All loaded?” she asked

  “Raring and ready to go” Morgan replied

  “Where’s the other three?” Kathy asked, even though she just meant Jackson.

  “Oh they are at the other end of the range training” Penny offered trying to keep a straight face

  “I’ll go see how they’re fairing” the soldier informed them as she walked off towards the end of the firing range.

  Kathy arrived at the end of the range and immediately turned back; she stormed back past Morgan, Penny and Dave without saying a word.

  “Looks like she found them” offered Morgan, as the other two began to laugh.

  It was good to share laughter when everything around them seemed so overpoweringly desperate. Soon they would be outside, and probably wouldn’t be able to laugh again for some time. As things calmed down they began to discuss their exit. Morgan informed them that after passing through the exit doors that they would drive up a gradient two mile tunnel, at the end of this they would have to pass through another retractable door before leaving the compound for good. The exit from the tunnel led out of a shed which had been disguised as a train depot just before West Ham station, and from here they would have to decide where to travel. As they spoke Penny flicked at her long dark hair, at the same time Morgan glanced at Dave, and caught him watching her as she did this. Morgan quickly worked out that something had happened between them, he had thought as much as they loaded the Hummer with him earlier.

  “We can chat over dinner later, as to where we going to head to” Morgan told them.

  Both Penny and Dave were puzzled by his comment, was he telling them to finish up for the day?

  “That means things from tomorrow are going to be strained. Go and enjoy the rest of the day” Morgan added.

  Penny realised first that the soldier had worked out that there was something between the two and she quickly went red, the embarrassment threatening to boil out of her ears. It took the change in Penny’s skin tone before Dave had realised what Morgan had meant he too started to turn a lovely shade of crimson.

  “Go on skoot” laughed Morgan

  He walked away from the pair and left them to decide what to do. He headed to the command room he felt the time was right to chat to Kathy whilst he was on his own. Since arriving from London Bridge Morgan had stayed quiet, he had sat and observed the way the bunker run. Kathy sometimes came across as very cold, but she was doing what she had been trained to do, she was being a soldier. After passing Daryl and Scott who were working in the supply room, and then the London Bridge survivors in the living quarters who were all still sound asleep. Morgan knew Kathy was up on the top floor away from everyone, he stopped at his bunk, bent down, and retrieved a bottle of Jack Daniels from his pack, before continuing towards the command room.

  Kathy sat blinking at a computer screen, she wasn’t really looking at the information displayed in front of her, instead her mind kept playing the scene of what she had seen on the gun range floor, she had made no secret of the fact that she had liked the reserve, and he had rewarded her by getting involved with not just one of the girls but both.

  “Rough Morning” Morgan’s question made Kathy jump.

  “You could say that” Kathy replied.

  Morgan held aloft the bottle of spirit, whilst waving it in the air.

  “Care to send me off properly?” Morgan asked with a comical raised eyebrow.

  “Don’t mind if I do”.

  Kathy pulled open the top drawer and removed two drinking glasses, she placed them both in front of Morgan, and he dutifully topped them up. He pulled a chair over, so that he sat opposite Kathy whilst she nursed her half full glass.

  “Mind me asking” he enquired.

  “Depends on what you’re asking” she snorted.

  “How about we start with what’s going on with Jackson”.

  “Straight to the point”!

  “I’m leaving here tomorrow, no point beating around the bush”.

  Kathy looked up from her glass; she thought what harm would possibly come out of talking to Morgan, he would be gone forever in twenty four hours. They hadn’t really spoken since he had arrived, it’s not like they were close.

  “Ok I’m game but it will be tit for tat, soldier to soldier”

  “Fair enough” Morgan said holding his glass out to toast.

  Kathy raised her glass, and met Morgan’s.

  “I’ve been down here sometime, I’m as normal as anyone else” Kathy started.r />
  “I have needs”

  “We all do Kathy, so why put your eggs in one basket?”

  “Who else is there?”

  “Look I knew there was something between Dave and Penny, but there’s four other men that have come off that train, and you work with two”.

  “I’m very particular with my men Morgan”

  Morgan laughed at her comment.

  “We had all gathered that”

  “The men off the train, no thank you” “Daryl is with Scott so that’s out the question”

  “God I didn’t see that one” Morgan said dumbfounded.

  Now it was Kathy’s turn to laugh at Morgan’s expense.

  “No one would, they are very discreet”.

  “Narrows your choice a little then?”

  “You do the maths, it leaves you or Jackson, and you were hardly approachable”.

  “Can’t see me being chatty making a difference, you had made your choice”.

  “Well now I know I chose poorly”.

  “Kathy this isn’t a lesson in life, onwards and upwards as they say”.

  Kathy eyed Morgan for a few seconds. It was as if something in the usually quiet man had changed, had deciding to leave the bunker eased his conscience over his partners sacrifice. Kathy raised her empty glass to signal she was due a top up. Morgan filled both their glasses and eased back in his chair. He waited for Kathy to start her round of questions.

  “Why go outside?”

  “Because to stay would be like giving up, without challenge, what is the point?”

  “That’s very deep Morgan”.

  “No, how can you cherish and love without feeling loss?”

  “True, but I have orders to stay”.

  “Orders from whom exactly? They are all dead Kathy”.

  “What about the train survivors?

  “Everyone has a choice, if they want to stay then let them stay. You certainly don’t have to baby sit them”.

  “But I have nothing to leave for”.