Necrovirus: A Zombie Apocalypse

by James King

  “TEN! – TAKE AIM AND PREPARE TO - ,”

  “NO!”

  This last utterance came from another voice. Not electro-voice, and not Bryan either. For a moment, Matt couldn’t figure out where the hell it had come from: just a random voice perhaps, echoing down from the sky, the firmament proclaiming its celestial judgement. A crazy notion, but if there was ever a day for craziness then this was it. Then, Matt noticed sudden movement within the line of troops. One of the soldiers stepped out of line – ran out of line, to be more accurate – whirled, and then pointed his gun toward his comrades.

  “What the fuck..?” Matt heard himself say.

  “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, SOLDIER?” electro-voice boomed, although now it sounded outraged, bewildered, infinitely more human, and Matt felt an odd but very powerful burst of relief in his chest at that.

  “No, I say!” the soldier replied. Matt realised that the soldier’s voice was amplified, and guessed there must be some kind of microphone device in the mask that he was wearing, “I won’t do this,” the soldier’s voice crackled through his mask, “I’m Sergeant Lewis, of the King’s Fusiliers, I joined to fight for what is right, to protect my Queen and my country, not fire upon civilians, and I will not do this!”

  “CHRIST SAKE...” said electro-voice, and now it sounded to Matt like some huge child turned sulky because its game had been all spoiled “ALRIGHT, HOLD FIRE, MEN. SERGEANT LEWIS, THIS IS A COURT MARSHAL OFFENCE. YOU WILL BE DEALT WITH IN DUE COURSE. FOR NOW, THE ORDERS ARE THAT NO ONE SHALL GO INTO OR OUT OF THE DESIGNATED PERIMETER. YOU HAVE CONTRAVENED THE PERIMETER, AND NOW MUST REMAIN UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!”

  For a moment the soldier, Lewis, wavered, seemingly undecided as to what he ought to do. He glanced along the row of soldiers – all of whose guns now appeared to be pointing at him – and then he glanced at Bryan. Then he glanced off down the road toward Matt and Becky. He was still wearing his mask, and sunlight flashed off the visor, making it look, for a moment, as though his eyes were burning.

  “YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO RETREAT FROM THE CORDON, AND THEN THE ORDER TO OPEN FIRE WILL BE GIVEN!” electro-voice informed them.

  “Not without me taking a few of you bastards with me,” Lewis spat back, swinging his gun around and pointing it to the ranks of soldiers. Matt experienced an odd feeling on seeing this that seemed to combine relief, camaraderie, and not a little triumph. They had a machine gun on their side, and a guy who was trained to use it. A little better in the firepower stakes than Bryan Devlin with his creaky old rifle and religious proclamations.

  The soldier suddenly grabbed Bryan by the arm, and then proceeded to pull him. Bryan came willingly enough, and both men stumbled down the roadway back toward Matt and Becky.

  WE WILL COUNT DOWN TO TEN AGAIN,” electro-voice boomed, “THEN WE WILL OPEN FIRE IF YOU ARE IN THE VICINITY. AND WE WILL OPEN FIRE! ONE...”

  At last the soldier, accompanied by Bryan, arrived next to Matt and Becky. They came to a halt, the soldier reached up, tore his gas mask off, and threw it to the ground. Below the mask, there was a face, Matt was very relieved to discover. A young man, his dark hair cut rigorously short in the usual military style, his face thin and hard and full of terror. His eyes were grey, and, for a moment, they seemed to hold such savagery and anger that Matt wondered for a moment whether having this guy on their side was going to be such a great thing.

  “Ah fuck...” the soldier said, “fuck, fuck fuck. This has been coming for a long time though. A long fucking time...”

  “TWO... THREE...”

  The soldier glanced back toward the cordon where his colleagues – his former colleagues – stood. Matt had a brief view of the back of his head: the hair cut so short that it was almost shaved down to the scalp, the beads of sweat glistening between the hairs, a vein pulsing as though beating time to the man’s terror. He looked back at them, focussing his attention specifically upon Matt.

  “Come on,” he said, “we’ve got to get out of here before the boys back there get tired of their little numbers game and start shooting.”

  “Why?” asked Matt, his shoulders offering a brief bewildered shrug. The question surprised him, he hadn’t been planning on asking it, but it was as though his confusion and fear had to find some exit in this single question.

  “Why?” the soldier echoed him, “why did I break ranks? Why did I desert? Why did I point my weapon at my own comrades...?”

  “FOUR... FIVE...”

  “Good question, mate. Good fucking question. But seriously, we’ve got to go now, otherwise if we leave it any longer none of us might be alive to either ask or answer. Come on; let’s get the fuck out of here...”

  They turned and, once again, they fled. Not from zombies this time, but from soldiers with guns, soldiers who Matt had always thought were there to protect but now seemed only intent on destroying. As he ran, he glanced about, wondering if there were any zombies near, but there was none to be seen. Not at the moment anyway. Just the hot and dusty tarmac of the road, just the green of the hedges and the yellow of the cornfields: just the soldiers behind them with enough firepower to stop a small army, and the sound of the voice. The electronic voice, counting down its numbers, tolling its doom, proclaiming what, for all that Matt knew, might be the very last seconds of the world. Echoing at last into the distance behind them...

  “SIX... SEVEN... EIGHT... NINE...”

  Twenty

  Dave Trevours hauled himself into the seat of the fuel tanker, and thumped the door closed. Trevours was a big man – twenty stones of mostly blubber, the residue of many a hamburger and can of beer – and the cab of even such a big vehicle sagged downward beneath him. He didn’t notice this in particular though. He didn’t notice firstly because he had been driving this vehicle for the last five years and all its little creaks, shudders, dips and trembles were as familiar and went as unnoticed as taken breaths. He didn’t notice second because on this morning, Dave Trevours was late. It had been a heavy one with the boys down at the Hope and Anchor last night, and he hadn’t got in until gone midnight. Then, to top it all, he’d forgotten to set his alarm clock, which meant that he hadn’t woken up until half passed eight, a full hour and a half later than it should have been. No breakfast then, just a hurried, cursing rush to get out of the house and over to the depot in triple quick time

  Dave lived on the northern edge of Alchester, and the depot where the tanker was stored was, as luck would have it, only about half a mile away, again in the north of Alchester, in the industrial quarter. Dave was not a particularly observant man, and he was in a rush this morning, so it didn’t for a second occur to him to wonder how come the street where he lived was so quiet at going on nine o’clock on a Monday morning. No moving traffic, no pedestrians, no kids making their way to the final day of the school year, no nosy Mrs Allstrop leaning over the garden fence and trying to figure out what her neighbours might be up to and with who. All was completely empty and deserted on Cowslip Road. Silence too – no distant and continuous rumble of traffic that usually speaks of a town awakening from its slumber and making a start on the working day. Just complete silence. But Dave didn’t notice this because he was unobservant, and because he was late.

  Dave had thrown himself into his old beat up Datsun that waited at the curb for him. He’d revved the engine up, then tore out of his parking space, not bothering to indicate or to check his blind spot. On any other morning that might well have resulted in a collision – Cowslip Road was one of the main roads that led to Alchester’s town centre so it got a fair amount of traffic – but not this morning though. This morning, he ripped his old Datsun out of its parking space just as free and easy as if he were riding a buggy on the moon. A more observant, and indeed thoughtful person might have questioned their good fortune at not colliding with another vehicle. Not Dave Trevours though.

  Dave had ripped his Datsun through the fair streets of Alchester, breaking every speed limit known as he went. As he left Cowslip Road for
the northern part of town, Dave noticed figures wandering along the side of the road. Naturally he’d not paid them much heed – just folk off to work, or off to the shops, or just off to do whatever morning business they had to do. He hadn’t noticed their blank eyes and shambling gait and the odd black substance that drooled from their mouths as though these people were very sick. At one point, someone had stumbled out in front of the Datsun, and Dave had had to take extreme evasive action, tyres shrieking and horn blaring. He hadn’t hit the idiot, thank god, but it had been a near miss. Hell on wheels, wouldn’t you know it? You’re late for work, and then some arsehole, probably still reeling from the previous night’s alcohol, staggers into the road like a wanker and almost spreads themselves all across your windscreen. Christ alive – when things go wrong, they really go wrong, don’t they?

  At last he made it to the depot. Darlton’s depot was a fairly large compound, encircled by a barbed wire fence and consisting of four large storage sheds. The sheds were mostly in a state of disrepair – old, tumbledown, sunlight peeking through the roofs and glass busted out of the windows. The shed that Dave’s tanker was in was in better repair than the rest, though even it tended to groan when the wind blew.

  Dave had steered his Datsun through the gates, drove over the weedy forecourt, and then halted by the shed. He’d got out, locked the car, unlocked the shed, drew the door back, and there she was. A huge, dark green, eight wheeled juggernaut, the long cylindrical tank at the back filled to capacity with the finest petroleum diesel. Driven all the way down from Scotland the previous day by his colleague Nick Scriven, refuelled here, and all primed and ready for him to drive it south today. So he had unlocked the cab climbed up into its welcome odours of upholstery and engine oil, and hadn’t noticed when the cab uttered a welcoming sigh beneath his weight.

  And now here he was, easing the tanker through the gateway of Darlton’s truck depot, the engine roaring, the power break hissing, the big cab turning its articulated neck as it ventured outward onto the roadway, like some huge prehistoric beast going in search of its prey.

  Dave glanced down at the dashboard clock. Twenty passed nine. Shit, he was seriously late. The tanker was supposed to be in Plymouth by twelve o’clock today, fulfilling a contract that they had with a big petrol station chain down that way. Now, thanks to his tardiness, it seemed unlikely that he was going to fulfil it. That meant dry fuel pumps, lines of unhappy motorists with fuel gauges dropping down into the red, and an awkward conversation between the boss of the garage chain, and Dave’s boss back at the refinery. Maybe even a termination of the contract. And if that happened there would be an internal investigation, questions would be asked about how come the delivery was late, who was the driver that day, what time did he start his journey, and...

  ...shit, shit, and double shit. Dave almost had half the mortgage on his house paid off. If he could have worked this gig for maybe another ten years or so, then he’d have had the whole fucking thing signed sealed and delivered before he even had to think about retiring. But now all of a sudden, because of one single hold up, the whole thing seemed to be in jeopardy: the boss of Radington Fuels was not the forgiving type...

  Dave licked his lips and considered his options. Somehow, he needed to knock at least half an hour off his journey time. A full hour would have been good but, unless he could find a special button on the dash that turned the tanker into an airborne rocket, he didn’t think that would be possible. He glanced at the Sat Nav map display on the dash, and tried to think where he was right now. He was approaching the small town of Alchester, which meant that he was getting to the point of the journey where he’d normally join the bypass and explore the long, loop of tarmac that would take him around Alchester, and the more populated area of the county. But if he didn’t pull onto the bypass, if he kept going straight on through the town...?

  Dave’s mind raced as he tried to remember if there were any weight restrictions on the roads between here, Alchester, and onward. He couldn’t think of any – there were no bridges or anything like that. The only problem was that Alchester was a fairly small market town that wasn’t really designed for cars, never mind ten ton monoliths such as he was driving. So if he went onward through the town, he might have a few tricky situations to contend with but – ah, what the hell, fuck it. He’d just have to hope that he’d get lucky. And if he did, and if he managed to shave half an hour off the journey – maybe longer than half an hour if he got really lucky – then the day might just be saved. He’d certainly have a better chance of that than he would dicking around on the bypass that was for sure.

  Decision made, and a certain amount of relief in his chest, Dave snapped the radio on, and started to hum along to the tune on there. He didn’t know what it was, some pansy arse boy band by the sound of it, but it suited his suddenly lightened mood. He glanced in the lorries rear side window, and noticed, a few vehicles back, a convoy of military looking vehicles, racing forward. Interesting. Dave wondered what they were all about. Off to invade a foreign country, perhaps? Probably just some training exercise that they’d be off doing in these fields and woods. Ah well, fair play, boys. British army, best in the world.

  They swooshed passed a sign at the side of the road that read “Welcome to Alchester”. Dave Trevours didn’t know it, but his was one of the last vehicles to pass what would, in the next five minutes, become the military cordon.

  At last he was in the town. Slowing the huge, grumbling tanker down to a good, legal thirty, Dave made his way through the suburban streets on the outskirts of the town. He was surprised to see that many cars were parked at the side of the roadway. Shouldn’t people have got into them and driven off to work by now? It reminded him of the numerous times that he’d worked on Christmas day. You’d drive down the roads through towns or cities, and the drives, curbs, and parking spaces would be bristling with the cars of people who were home for the holidays. The roads would be as quiet as the moon, but the driveways packed to capacity because all that metal has to go somewhere, didn’t it? This was like that. Only this wasn’t Christmas day. This was the middle of July, and most of those cars should surely have taken their owners off to their places of work by now? Ah well, it was no concern of his. Indeed, it was to his advantage, the roads were quiet, no traffic, and so far the tanker had sailed along unimpeded. If the rest of his journey through Alchester was like this, then he’d have no problem at all.

  He was soon through the suburban outskirts, and then began to approach the town centre. The streets were narrower here, the houses mostly didn’t have driveways, and the cars – still millions of cars – were parked along the curb. Dave was forced to shift the tanker into the middle of the roadway. If he met something coming the other way – a school bus for example or hey, maybe another petrol tanker – then life would become interesting. But so far so good. Along this road, Dave noticed, people were visible along the pavements. No great surprise about that - except there seemed to be something rather odd about these people. They seemed to be lurching along in a kind of ungainly manner, their heads held at strange angles, their feet dragging along the pavement. It almost looked as though they were drunk, or were suffering the after effects of a major drinking session the night before. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps the entire town of Alchester had thrown one massive party to which everyone was invited. A crazy idea of course although, given all the cars, and given these strange, lurching people, an oddly plausible one.

  At last Dave came to the junction which would usher him onto the High Street. Indicator ticking, he looked on way, and then the other, but still no traffic, (odd, odd, odd!), and then eased the tanker through the junction, the engine roaring, the power break hissing, the big cab turning its articulated neck as it turned outward toward Alchester High Street, like some huge prehistoric beast going in search of its prey.

  Turning fully accomplished, Dave squeezed the accelerator, and proceeded to roar down the high street, his speedometer kissing that legal thirty, then
through the high street, then through the brief network of streets beyond, then onward into the lanes and through the pleasant English countryside, and then onward, God willing, to his final destination, to a happy garage owner, a happy boss back at the depot, and then sweetness and light – for now at least. And he revved that accelerator for all it was worth, the engines of the huge tanker responding with an almost primeval roar.

  - and then, Dave Trevours stamped on the break.

  “Holy shit!” he screamed.

  The lorry responded likewise, the wheels locking, the power break seething, the cab weaving, and the big tank on the back soughing likewise, threatening to surrender itself to the laws of physics rather than to the man at the wheel. Fortunately, Dave hadn’t been travelling fast enough to completely lose control; the tanker slowed to an appreciable degree, but still not slow enough to plough into the crowd of people who stood right there in the middle of Alchester High Street.

  There were hundreds of them, possibly even thousands. They completely filled the roadway from one side to the next, and there was no way in this life that Dave could have avoided them. The tanker plunged roaring into the crowd, bodies flew, blood squirted up onto the windscreen, and the sickening sound of crunching was to be heard as the big wheels chomped down on blood and bone. At last the tanker shuddered to a halt, encased in a crowd of groaning people, and for perhaps as long as a minute Dave just sat there: his white knuckled hands gripping the steering wheel, his entire body trembling, shock seething through him with such force that he might have just had his arm chopped off with an axe. He gazed with bugging eyes at the windscreen, at the blood pouring down the windscreen like crimson rain. For one utterly insane moment, he even thought about using the wipers to get rid of it, but then that thought was buried beneath an avalanche of white noise as his shrieking mind and senses refused to process what had just happened. The tanker’s engine still turned over and over, seeming to harmonise with, and become the very sound of his horror.