by David Whaley
“I’ll go in first. Devlin, you provide me cover. Leon, continue as you are, cover the rear.”
“My favourite place.”
Natalie opened the cage and stepped the two steps before being confronted by a solid blue door that was never locked. It wasn’t locked on this occasion either and she pushed it carefully and slowly with the barrel of her firearm.
Nothing greeted them despite the feeling of intensity rising in their bodies.
They grouped together in the knowledge they were safe from anything ahead, for now, and looked through the vertical bars that made up a one sided door. There were no zombies on the main custody floor, nor behind the custody desk where she recalled her old sergeant, PS Shire, quite enjoyed sitting.
The custody suite was not the initial intended location to clear as it was secured with a key code entry system in and out but they were aware of it being a possibility due to the swipe system failing.
The lights were slightly dimmer than Natalie remembered them to be that she assumed would be down to the generator working overtime to compensate for the loss in power, which would in fact make sense as to why the swipe system wasn’t working.
Natalie opened the full size metal gate with a squeak causing them to stand still hoping that it hadn’t alerted their presence to any stray enemies lurking in the cell corridors. No sound or movement was seen or heard.
There were two cells immediately behind them as they approached the custody desk that Leon was able to clear quickly. These were the detention rooms generally reserved for juveniles close enough to the sergeants desk to ensure they were well looked after.
They all made for the cell corridor through the only available door, other then the exit that led to the foyer, and went through it in the same order they entered the cage.
They started with the female cells. There was nothing in this corridor but some stray tissue, blue roll and meal containers. This was the same for the cells and the same went for the shower rooms.
Next up was the centre corridor, of three, that contained the FMEs room, fingerprint and DNA room and the store room that was kept locked containing spare microwavable meals, detainee clothing, gloves and blankets.
A key was lying on the ground before the locked store room and Natalie pushed the door to ensure it was locked, which it was.
They unlocked the door to find it full of supplies but empty of zombies. This was also true with the other rooms.
“One corridor left,” Natalie whispered. “They closed custody because of the death of my prisoner. He is very much undead in a cell down there and the door should be closed and locked. The other cells should be vacant.”
Should be closed and locked was the operative word. They edged around the corner slowly and she saw that the cell that once held her prisoner securely was now wide open, the exhibit label ripped off.
The new found disgust towards Marcus sent a tremor through her body as she recalled the surname her prisoner shared with him. This was in response to seeing Harry ahead of four other zombies all looking in their direction.
All except her prisoner, Harry Coombes, ran at them and they were quickly able to drop them utilising the narrow space and the fact that they were almost running single file.
The only one left was Harry who looked as though had been starved, although he had been locked up for quite some time.
“Someone let him out,” said Natalie staring forward.
“Who?” asked Devlin.
“Gotta’ be Marcus. That conniving little prick,” said Leon.
“But he isn’t armed. How would he get in here and survive? He would have gone down as soon as he walked through that gate,” advised Natalie. “Either way, someone alive had to of let him out.”
Leon didn’t listen but was instead walking calm-as-you-like towards Harry with his MP5 simply hanging from its strap around his body and second Glock of the day, that he retrieved from a lock box in the back of the X5, remained securely fastened in its holster.
“Leon, I don’t think you-,” started Devlin only to be interrupted by Leon suddenly breaking into a sprint.
Harry went to grab Leon but narrowly missed as he ran past him, stopping abruptly, turned and put Harry into a standing headlock. With one hand, Leon past his own body for his palm to be placed flat on the back of the zombies head, slightly off centre, whilst the elbow of his other arm was tucked under Harry’s dead chin that would crush a living persons wind pipe.
Harry responded not typical of someone trying to survive by using a survival instinct, although it was already assumed that they had lost that sense. Instead, he was trying to turn around to face Leon and was succeeding as soft decayed tissue fell and disintegrated under Leon’s arm.
Leon noticed what was happening quickly and responded by snapping his head hard, breaking his neck and causing him to fall in a slump to the floor. To ensure he had done the job, Leon stamped on his head flattening it as the skull caved in.
“Something’s going on here. Somebody is still pulling the strings and we need to find out who,” said Leon.
They then checked the remaining cells to find them clear. So far so good, thought Natalie.
Natalie entered the code on the numerical pad to unlock the door and they left custody entering the foyer. There were more zombies but one wasn’t decayed in the slightest.
They all raised their firearms, still aware of the non-decayed zombie, at least that’s what they thought she must have been as the decayed ones simply walked around her leaving her be. They prepared to shoot.
“Put your guns down,” said the woman, raising a hand in front of her as if to halt any bullets from hitting her. “They will not harm you while I’m here. Unless I let them, that is.”
Natalie and Devlin lowered their weapons but Leon held his securely fixed at the unknown female that they had come to know was not part of the undead, yet this was unsettling.
She was the average height of five foot six inches for their gender and had short dark blonde hair cut just below the ears. She wore a black and grey all in one suit that hugged her figure loosely, trouser legs instead of a skirt. In the centre of the suit on her chest was an obscure symbol with a round border similar to ‘ying yang’ but horizontal and almost transparent. The symbol had the letters ‘TT’ at the top of the logo that, like the suit, was a pale grey and black that assisted with the transparency. Her eyes were blue, staring daggers as they gazed upon them.
“State your purpose here,” instructed Leon.
“Wouldn’t you like to know, Leon?”
“How do you know my name? What’s yours?”
“I am known only as Bravo two. We have no need for mortal names. To answer your first question, our leader is all knowing and, regardless of what you think, is still in control. This is part of our plan. You think this all started with ‘The British Equivalent?’ That bunch of idiots were too enthusiastic for their own good, more than happy to release the virus on our say so that it will cause only a minor illness. They were a mere pawn in our plan; for the greater good.”
“You’d better start making sense lady,” said Devlin.
“And here comes Devlin, a brave man with an attitude that would irritate many. You have made many mistakes in the past, haven’t you?”
“What’re you getting at?”
“Never you mind about that. Haven’t you all got more important questions to ask?”
“You have doomed the entire population of the United Kingdom. Why?” asked Natalie assertively.
The woman let out a laugh. “The UK was simply a test location. Small enough not to cause mass destruction but big enough to make the world take notice. We will be powerful before we leave this island. You think you can help this island and help the people still living. You need to help yourselves.”
“Not to cause mass destruction? You have killed millions of people-,” said Natalie but stopped as it was too late. She failed to notice the intentional emphasis on the word help each time she
said it.
The zombies patrolling around her suddenly diverted their attention to the three of them and, again, some walked whilst others ran.
Shots rang out through the foyer as zombies fell to the floor; one broke through to Natalie and bit at the forearm she had raised in defence. It penetrated the overalls but not the guard beneath. Devlin used the butt of his Glock to hit it in the head, the sound of breaking bones as it connected before he took a step back and fired a single bullet through its dead brain.
When the dust settled and all of the undead dead, Bravo two was nowhere to be seen having made good her escape during the chaos of terror and zombie bloodshed.
“Who the hell was she and where did she go?” asked Natalie.
“We’ll discuss that after. We have the rest of the building to get through yet,” replied Leon calmly.
They checked the offices on the ground floor easily able to kill the few lonely zombies that were scattered around. That was the safer neighbourhoods’ office, PCs writing room, front office, forensic examiners room and the property store secured.
Similarly to the lab they had recently come from, the police station too had three floors.
They proceeded up to the first floor shooting the two zombies that blocked their path on the stairs and soon stood on the landing.
Nothing greeted them in the corridor and they checked the adjoining offices covering CID, CPU, the response team supervisors’ office, the two chief inspector offices and the burglary squad office.
There were zombies in all of these rooms, most wearing police uniform.
One of the chief inspectors was shot dead in the office belonging to another chief inspector and PCs roamed the supervisors’ office as if they were playing some sort of undead role playing game.
The CID, CPU and burglary squad offices contained some ‘suits,’ the investigative officers, but there were still plenty of uniform walking about. It was in the CID office where Natalie saw Vicki, her eyes missing as well as her nose.
“Vick… Vicki?” said Natalie her vision becoming blurred.
Leon followed her line of sight. “That is no longer your friend.”
Leon aimed his MP5 towards Vicki, looking down its sight, to see a flaky and grimacing police officer staring back, minus the eyeballs. He shot Vicki through her gaping mouth that caused a croaky groan from Natalie as she witnessed her best friend die, even if she wasn’t alive in the first place.
Nothing was different on the remaining floors, although the third floor was by far the easiest. All it contained were the boilers and other necessities to keep the building running, namely the back-up generators.
With the police station secure, they set about the clear up operation where they dragged each and every dead zombie body into a pile at the furthest point of the back yard. This task seemed to take forever.
They stuffed the centre of the zombie pile with tissue and newspaper with only a single tied bunch poking out between the bodies where Leon then used his lighter to set it on fire. A few moments later the entire pile was up in flames that caused the aroma of rotting flesh to worsen as there was then the added smell of burning skin.
The trio trundled off up the stairs once more not willing to chance taking the lift and getting stuck, although Leon did check it as he realised they had forgot before, and headed for the canteen to see what food was left in the Met Kitchen. The canteen was also a good place to discuss the events of the day.
It had started to get dark, just a bright orange line in the distance as the sun set, and Leon could see from the balcony of the canteen as he lit up a cigarette admiring the view from this vantage point.
He took a final drag from his cigarette and flicked it over the balcony into the yard using his thumb and forefinger as he then heard the familiar roar of more than one F-15E fighter jet from somewhere above. Then, they came into sight.
They flew in a formation of three; one leader and two out to the flanks hanging slightly back. They were flying away from Leon’s location towards central London, where they had been earlier, travelling at breakneck speeds.
At a distance, that Leon guessed would put them directly over the square mile, he saw a large flash followed by, due to delay and the distance it takes sound to travel, a loud boom and tremors tremble under foot.
Natalie and Devlin joined him on the balcony in response to the sound.
“What the fuck was that?” said Devlin.
“It was those fighter planes,” replied Leon as another two booms rang throughout the air visually seen before heard. “I think they’re bombing the bridges over the Thames.”
Chapter 17
“What the hell?” asked Devlin astounded by the thought of the bridges being blown up as they re-entered the canteen, a few more booms sounding from the centre of the capital.
“Why don’t they focus on helping the living rather than blowing things up?” asked Natalie.
“Relax. They are the American Air Force and this is probably just stage one of whatever their plan might be,” reassured Leon. “The only thing I can see that they can accomplish by bombing the bridges is to help contain this virus.”
“But the entire UK is affected not just London,” said Devlin.
“Yes, but by doing this they contain each area. No more zombies will be able to make it into London, without taking the long way around, and none can get out. It makes it more manageable. Kill every zombie in London and London becomes secure. Where there is access without the use of the bridges the American army, and any British that are coming back from overseas, can build a checkpoint, clearing any persons, dead or alive, going in or out.”
“I thought the British army weren’t allowed to come back from abroad?”
“They weren’t. However, they may now be part of the plan. I’m just guessing here but I reckon that’s as good a guess as any.”
“Quite possible,” said Natalie. “No point dwelling on it now. It’s done. Let’s sit down.”
They sat at one of the many aisles of tables, undressing their overalls, in order to get more comfortable and let their skin finally breathe.
“Delta 2? Who is she?” said Natalie.
“No idea but she knew us,” said Leon.
“Marcus must be working with them,” stated Devlin.
“Marcus, I think, was part of The British Equivalent. I don’t think he was part of them, whatever they go by,” said Natalie.
Leon untied his arm guards and said, “I have another question. Why weren’t they attacking her?”
They sat in silence for a while whilst they tried to figure it out before Devlin broke the silence.
“She wasn’t infected that’s for certain.”
“Unless she’s in the really early stages having recently been infected, but she sure didn’t act like it. She seemed to have control over them.”
“What about that suit she was wearing. Could that of had anything to do with it?” added Natalie. “It wasn’t anything from any line of fashion I’ve seen but almost like a uniform. Also, did anyone see the logo on her chest, ‘TT.’ What do you suppose that stands for, assuming it stands for something?”
“No idea,” said the other two in unison.
“So, we’ve got nowhere then,” she said. “Still at square one.”
“Not necessarily, Natalie. We now know Marcus was involved. We know that it goes further up than that terrorist organisation you mentioned from the DVD. We also know there are still people involved initiating their ‘plan’ and now we know we must stop them,” said Leon. “The UK is dead and the rest of the world isn’t yet but will be if we don’t do something. Also, I don’t think there’s an antidote. It was probably just a phrase used to give the PM hope.”
“So where are they acting out from? Where is their base?” asked Devlin.
“It’s likely to be London and probably not too far. Why travel far from your headquarters when there’s no need to risk your safety, even if the undead do bypass her as their food?”
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“I agree,” said Natalie. “They must be fairly local. First we eat, I found some potatoes in the kitchen and some baked beans. I’m afraid the cheese has gone a little mouldy. Okay, a lot.”
Natalie set about cooking using the electric oven, not stupid enough to chance the gas one in case the gas pipe had been severed despite her not being able to smell it; she was taking a risk as it was by using the electric oven if there was gas in the air.
Devlin and Leon got up, after Leon offered him a cigarette, and returned to the balcony again to look onto the destruction caused to London.
In the yard of the police station, the undead dead were still a cinder, a faint crackle could be heard from time to time along with the sound of a lighter exploding under the heat as Leon recognised that their pockets would still contain items from when they became undead in the first place.
Beyond the boundaries of the police building, looking on towards the Thames, there were fires dotted around that got smaller the further they were away starting to look like stars fallen from the sky coming to rest on the pavement.
The victims of the fighter planes onslaught were the bridges burning by far the brightest that Leon recalled took a long time to build, but mere seconds to rip apart.
“Leon? The zombies are able to swim or walk, or whatever it is they do underwater, so why blow up the bridges?”
“Either they aren’t aware of that or they are and know it will take time for them to re-emerge on the other side, either way they have been slowed down.”
They both stood in silence, smoking their cigarettes whilst leaning on the railing that stopped them plummeting three floors to, most likely, their death.
Leon stared for a moment at his cancer stick held close in his hand, thinking about how he wished he could worry about the effects of his smoking once more. He also thought that it was quite ironic. With the ‘stop smoking’ campaigns being advertised before the plague set in, it had become the least of his and anyone else’s worries.
Natalie ushered them to take a seat inside, as they had remained outside even after they finished smoking, where they were greeted by a plate of food. However, the plate of food consisted of only half a jacket potato each and some baked beans that came from a can they all shared. They were disheartened by the lack of food but at the same time grateful. They hadn’t eaten for a while.
