Z: UK (A Zombie Novel)

by David Whaley

  “Sorry about the amount of food,” muttered Natalie, disheartened herself. “We need to try and save as much as possible. Our other supplies are in the church. We have enough to eat like this for a few days but can see our meals getting smaller sooner than we think.”

  Natalie disappeared briefly into the kitchen again but returned with three glasses of water that she held by forming them into the shape of a triangle. Devlin rose to take one of them from her in order to make her life that little bit easier.

  They scoffed their food, resisting the urge to finish it all in one bite as a result of the hunger they felt, and not a word was muttered in between. As such, they enjoyed and tasted each and every morsel that they shovelled into the hole of their faces.

  The plates were clear and Devlin offered to do the washing up as he collected them, striding off into the kitchen.

  “I have to say I’m impressed with him, Natalie. His whole attitude seems to have changed,” said Leon.

  “The circumstances must have finally sunk in. He knows that the only way he’s going to survive is with our help. He does regret what he did. I can see that in his eyes whenever he looks at me.”

  With the washing up done, they collected their invented weaponry from the BMW still parked in the rear yard and placed them strategically around the police station should they have to resort to using manual weapons.

  Their hiding places consisting of the cupboard by the back gate that Natalie had used to override them, in plain sight within the custody cage, cable tied loosely around a pillar in the foyer, then in the station office beneath the desk, between each floor on the stairs attached to the banister and by the doorway of each of the bigger offices on each floor.

  Of course they didn’t have enough weapons for all these hiding places and so they made use of the dead officers utility belts in the locker rooms and the ones removed from the piled up burnt corpses prior to burning. From the utility belts they removed the police issue asps, an extendable baton, and placed them instead.

  As they descended back to the ground floor, having worked bottom up to place the weapons, they heard an almighty scream coming from the station office. It came from the other side of the Perspex glass where members of the public would normally queue up to report a crime.

  They saw a female with black hair and in her 30s wearing black trousers and a blue V-neck top over which she wore a white doctor’s jacket that came below her knees. There was some stitching on the jacket but they couldn’t read it from where they were standing.

  Her opponent was a cook of some kind, possibly from one of the takeaway restaurants nearby that local officers would go to for food; they must’ve made a killing in profiting from hungry police officers.

  He wore an apron covered in grease and dirt but also of blood, some spatters brighter than others. His legs were covered in once blue jeans that had become a brownish colour and torn in places, his face not familiar as a human but familiar enough to know that he once was. It was yet another one of the undead.

  This one ran and it was only down to the fact that the woman in the white coat was still alive that her agility was far superior then his and she was able to evade his clawing and the gnashing of his teeth, for what he had left. Much longer and she wouldn’t be so lucky, thought Natalie.

  Natalie pressed the buttons to manually open the warrant swipe doors that led into the building, knowing that the zombie would follow. Had there of been more, she wouldn’t have been so eager to try and protect the woman.

  The woman must have heard the click because as soon as the doors unlocked with the sound, she yanked at it and ran through also opening the internal door that Natalie had kindly unlocked for her.

  By the time she ran around towards the station office doors the trio already had their guns up and focused through her waiting for the zombie to appear, yet, she didn’t know that and stood still with Leon’s MP5 inches away from her face.

  “Wait… I’m not… I… please…,” she pleaded anticipating an imminent death.

  “Move out of the way,” said Leon.

  “Please…,” said the woman crying in terror.

  “I’m not going to tell you again. Move!”

  Natalie grabbed the woman’s arm and pulled her behind them before raising her weapon again.

  The zombie then came into sight and was walking until it saw them all braking into a sprint.

  It seemed as though it was looking directly into Leon’s eyes but it was definitely aiming for him. Leon, however, was looking into his eyes when he then pulled the trigger.

  “That’s another body count for me then,” said Leon.

  “Thank you,” the woman said, pleading her gratitude. “I needed to get here and I could only come on foot. I ran the length of the High Road to get here but that thing was fast.” Her breathing started to return to normal without the threat of death facing her.

  “Why were you coming here?” asked Natalie.

  “Take a seat,” said Leon.

  “Take your time,” said Devlin.

  It became clear to the men of the group; this woman was beautiful, initially hidden by the tears and upset covering her face.

  The woman removed the blood stained white coat that was stitched with her name along with the companies: Heather Hemingtyne, Forensic Science Authority.

  “I think I have found a cure for this virus.”

  Chapter 18

  “You have found a cure for the virus?” asked Leon sceptically.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So how does it work?” asked Natalie.

  “Well, please bear in mind that this is only a theory and needs to be tested. On paper everything looks positive to the point where I can even say that I’m excited.” She took a seat along with the others. “But let me introduce myself first. I am Heather Hemingtyne, one of the analysts, a fancy name for researcher, at the Forensic Science Authority. I stopped going to work two days ago. I was the only one still going so I thought, what’s the point? Not to mention I had some run-ins and close encounters with the animation.”

  “Animation?” asked Leon.

  Heather removed her thick rimmed and green glasses from her bloodstained lab coat balancing them on her nose. From then on she looked geeky.

  “Yes, an-im-a-tion,” Heather repeated emphasising each syllable. “That’s what we called them at the start of this crisis and is what I have continued to call them now I’m by myself.”

  “So what can you tell us about this virus?”

  “Well the virus is a mutagenic pathogen. It immediately starts transforming its host into one of the animation. The effects are evident in a matter of minutes and hours unlike every other virus known to man which doesn’t start materialising usually until days after the host becomes infected.”

  “That’s the obvious stuff out of the way then,” said Devlin.

  “Just when I was starting to like you,” said Leon as he shot Devlin a look that shut him up in an instant. Devlin quickly went sheepish about the comment he made.

  “Please continue,” said Natalie.

  “Well, the pathogen replicates the cells in the brains’ frontal lobe and destroys them in the process. The virus is an aggressive one and the brain is its first target. With the brain infected, the other bodily functions cease such as the heart and lungs, and all individuality for that matter. Now that’s of course saying it so you understand.”

  “How do you know so much about it?” they all asked.

  “Since the outbreak, our manager, Derek, became obsessed with trying to find a cure as he could see how fast the virus was progressing. He called an emergency meeting with all the analysts at the lab, including myself, and demanded from security to catch one of an animation alive.”

  “And they just got up and did as he said? Went and caught themselves a Z?” asked Devlin quickly cowering back into his chair as his peripherals caught Leon’s face staring at him for a second time speaking more than words combined.

  “De
rek?” said Natalie.

  “Yes, Derek Claridge. Why’d you ask?”

  “No reason,” she replied, failing to mention their previous encounter with his motionless corpse. It was unknown how she would react, it sounded as though she spoke highly of him.

  “Okay. Well, Derek offered a bonus to the security if they caught one. They failed, but instead brought back the pathogen inside of one of them. The security guard became infected. Before we had a chance to conduct research on a way to treat him and prevent his transformation, it was too late. He turned and we had our animation to run tests on, which is how we became so knowledgeable about the virus. Derek tried his best to find a form of treatment for the virus. He would have been a hero, and it is his dedication that keeps me going now.”

  “And the cure?” asked Leon as Natalie frowned whilst pleased with her decision not to say anything.

  A smile crept across Heathers face as the excitement grew.

  “Like I said, it’s a theory, but I think it’s a feasible one. First of all it will not work on someone who has already transformed; it will only work on someone that’s in the process of reanimation, the process of becoming an animation. There are two options. One, infect a person affected with the HIV virus. The HIV virus attaches itself to cells in the body and kills both harmful and helpful cells as it is unable to distinguish the differences between the two thus killing the ‘Z’ virus. The ‘Z’ virus is what we called it as we didn’t have time to try and come up with a unique strain identity for it. The second option is to inject a person with a high concentration of antibiotics, used only to slow the virus down as this won’t get rid of it altogether, coupled with a high concentration of monosodium glutamate that becomes a neurotoxin when it is injected thus killing the virus in the first place it heads to by targeting the central nervous system, blocking the signals being sent from the brain to the rest of the body which, in theory, should starve the virus and render it redundant.”

  “Surely the chemicals in that second option would kill you anyway?” said Devlin with no looks of warning coming from any direction as they all thought the same thing.

  “No, though, granted the patient would require close observation after being administered but as the body is already under immense pressure and the fact that the virus is keeping the body alive before it kills it, the two would fight it out and dilute each other before all that’s left is a trace of the chemicals we have introduced and nothing of the ‘Z’ virus.”

  “Clever. What would it do to someone that has already become animated?” asked Leon.

  “That has already become an animation,” corrected Heather. “They would die but it’s far easier to hit them over the head. Their brain still contains a small amount of activity which is enough to cause them to hunt, and apparently run. When the brain is destroyed, they die.”

  “Okay. You can hole up here for as long as you want. Where’s your gear,” said Leon referring to her chemicals, containers and whatever else scientists use.

  “It’s out there in your reception. I dropped it when I dodged that cook.”

  Leon went and retrieved the black holdall from the public side of the front office before returning with it. It was heavy.

  “You ran the length of the High Road whilst carrying this?” he enquired.

  “Yes, I used to run before all of this happened daily. I racked up the miles and had fun doing it. If I was to do it now, I would be running for my life.”

  Natalie showed Heather to the canteen, accompanied by Leon and Devlin, allowing her to eat the remaining half of the jacket potato they had eaten cooked by Leon whilst she went in search of a computer terminal.

  Natalie was aware that there was no internet, but there were information systems that stored information locally that she considered may provide some additional help.

  She chose the supervisors office and entered her password as the computer then logged on.

  Having double clicked and opened up the information system she tried various search terms. She searched TT which only brought up records with Audi on them, she searched Marcus Coombes that returned no results and she searched Derek Claridge that returned many reports of which one was security coded as ‘Restricted.’ This report was entered by PS Shire, probably the last report of her life, and mentioned the DVD they had been shown previously after their search.

  It appeared as though she had done her own research around the virus and the man that had been mistakenly known as the one responsible for the outbreak.

  The record detailed the first reports of concern that covered a great number of force areas throughout the UK, probably obtained through an emergency information sharing request. These reports spoke of unsettlement within the relevant force areas in both the police officers themselves and the communities they served as the first stages of panic began to set in, all disbelieving the PMs cover of the flu.

  There was a list of addresses that had all been confirmed as having been searched, including the one she had assisted with It continued that only one item was seized between them being Natalie’s exhibit.

  As Natalie scrolled down the more information she saw but also the less reliable that information became as it was labelled: Information received from unreliable sources.

  In this section there were mere snippets of information, again from around the UK, causing one to ask more questions rather than to solve the one question the reader had prior. This section spoke of the undeads ability such as having super human strength and agility, something that her entourage have yet to see other than them running.

  Other information, more unlikely, suggested the undead could fly. The report was simply a compilation of information put into one place to prevent a prolonged search of the police systems.

  Natalie closed the application she was running down and opened up her emails. Of course, with no internet available, the likelihood of an email having pinged through was near impossible proved by the error message that appeared on screen prompting her to log out of the terminal.

  She returned to the others where they were still talking with Heather.

  “Well, this is only a rough time line as more tests are required to confirm it but in the first hour of infection, the subject suffers pain and discolouration around the infected area whilst the wound immediately clots if the infection was introduced via the wound itself. By hour five, the subject suffers from a fever, chills, shows symptoms of acute dementia, vomiting and their joints start hurting. Hour eight to ten and the subject has numbing of their extremities and the infected area. The fever increases in severity, as does the dementia, and they loose muscular coordination. Hour 11 and their lower body becomes completely paralysed and the remainder of the body is completely numb. The subject’s heart rate then begins to slow. Somewhere between hours fifteen and eighteen and the subject goes into a comatose state. By hour twenty the heart stops and there is zero brain activity rendering the patient dead. The twenty third hour is when reanimation occurs seemingly bringing the subject back from the dead, or rather into what you see lurking around the streets now. Each subject is different, however, and depending on their fitness, health and lifestyle the time line may be extended but in most situations it can be severely shortened. In more recent cases, probably to do with the rate of mutation, the victim seems to fully transform almost immediately.”

  “That’s terrible,” said Leon. “But if you have a cure we will do our best to help. How can we?”

  “I need a pen and paper. I am not going back out there.”

  Devlin handed over a nearby pen and headed over to the printer where he selected a few sheets of plain paper. They sat in silence, the only sound was the pen scribing what began to depict a shopping list. The silence was soon interrupted by another pass overhead from the fighter jets as Leon recalled the American Air Force motto: Aim high… Fly-Fight-Win.

  “This should just about cover it,” Heather finally said.

  “Is this all?” asked Devlin sarcastically te
aring the sheet of paper from her hands.

  “That’s it, yes.”

  “And you want all this?”

  “Yes.”

  “We need to find ourselves a hospital,” said Leon.

  The group said their farewells to Heather having advised her where the toilets were and provided her with a radio should she need to cry for help or if they had reason to contact her and headed to the rear yard. Leon and Devlin lit up another cigarette whilst leaning against the side of the X5.

  “The nearest hospital is King Georges, not too far on the neighbouring borough,” said Natalie as she waved a hand across her face in a failed attempt to prevent her accidental inhalation of second hand smoke.

  “I know it,” said Leon exhaling another dosage of nicotine and tar. “Shouldn’t take us long.”

  Natalie climbed into the rear seat, behind the driver, allowing Devlin to travel shotgun with Leon, as always, driving. Having stubbed out the filter of their cigarettes they all left ensuring that none of the zombies beyond found there way through the vulnerability of the opening gates. This was accomplished by mowing down two and then remaining stationary whilst waiting for the gates to close.

  With their HQ safe they continued at high speed towards the hospital with Devlin reading aloud Heathers required materials from the list.

  “Electrocardiography unit? The hell’s that?” he asked.

  Natalie laughed before satisfying Devlin’s request for understanding.

  “It’s an ECG machine.”

  “Well why didn’t she just write that then? A saline solution with five percent glucose… Ah, a drip. A peripheral canular, a pulse oximeter and a syringe with sealed seven gauge hypodermic needles. She wants more than one of these as well so we are going to need a handful of each.”