by Ryan Casey
Her left leg gave way and she fell face first into the mud.
Her head stung with the pain. Her face felt like it’d been slapped really hard, sort of like it felt when Elizabeth had pushed her in the swimming pool on holiday in Lanzarote a few years ago.
She rolled over onto her back, the muddy ground clogging up her hair.
And then she saw them above her.
Saw the blue jackets.
The logo: BLZ.
The gun pointing at her.
She started to scream but stopped the second the shot pierced her throat.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The worst part of Andy Wilmslow’s job was always the night shifts.
He looked down at the girl as the rain crashed down on her and sighed. Poor girl. Just a kid. Just a kid out in the open trying to survive. She must’ve been pretty tough to make it this far. Tough, or with some real tough people. People tough enough to help keep her alive.
And with the other girl, too—the dark haired one with the bright blue eyes—Andy definitely figured it was the second outcome.
He reached for her neck and pulled the sedative out. A bit of blood trickled out of her throat. But that’d pass. He was a good shot. He knew exactly where to fire the darts so that the sedative shocked the body into instant unconsciousness. Whack into her thyroid gland for a nice sedation concoction.
One inch to the left and he’d pierce her jugular.
An inch lower and he’d hit her carotid artery.
But he didn’t do duff shots. They weren’t in his repertoire.
He heard a whistle from behind him and he knew exactly what it meant. Get a fucking move on.
He whistled back and lifted the girl over his shoulder. She was light. Bony. Looked like she hadn’t eaten a good meal in weeks.
Well, she’d eat something soon. As soon as they got to the BLZ, she’d eat, alright.
Andy looked over the motorway embankment. Big silver truck, looked army. Or Living Zone. Inside, there was a woman. Blonde hair, leaned against the steering wheel like taking a nap in the middle of the motorway was a damned safe thing to do. Soon, he’d go down there and take them out. Take them back to the BLZ, back to base, back to Mr Fletch.
Until then, they had to do what they always did.
Watch them. Closely.
He turned around with the girl on his shoulder and moved back down the muddy embankment, took a left and headed to the ultra-silent Jeep.
Harvey looked across at Andy as he got into the car. He was wearing his blue BLZ outfit, just the same as Andy’s. Only he was white and Andy was black, and he had a weird comb-over with whatever black hair remained on his head, and Andy had a buzz cut.
“Girl much trouble?” Harvey asked.
Andy shook his head. “Running off. Looked scared.”
“Poor kid.”
“There’s no ‘poor kid’ about it. It’s a new world. They’re working towards something great. Something that’ll save us all.”
A smile pricked up at the corners of Harvey’s wrinkly mouth.
“What’s that look?”
Harvey shook his head. Reached under the dashboard for his silenced sedative gun with scope. The BLZ was stuffed with nifty futuristic warfare technology.
Well, it made sense. The Apocalypsis virus was futuristic warfare. Figured it was wise to fight fire with fire.
“Hey. I asked you a question. What’s that look about?”
Harvey smiled as he loaded up the sedative gun. “You shoot a kid in the neck with a dart gun and you’re still convinced you’re doing the right thing.”
“And you aren’t?”
Harvey handed Andy a scope. Smiled. “I’m just doing my job.”
They opened the doors and readied themselves to go take the truck on the road. They were sitting ducks out there. But they weren’t the typical sitting ducks. In a big armoured vehicle like that, well. They’d got lucky. Very lucky.
Andy was about to step outside when he felt a vibration from the wrist strap around his arm.
Harvey sighed, obviously getting the same notification. They pressed the little black button and lifted their wrist straps to their ears. “Wilmslow, copy.”
“Pittsburgh, copy.”
“HQ, copy,” a voice buzzed out of the speaker on the wrist strap. “The armoured vehicle on the M56. You are not to approach it. You are to watch it closely. Monitor its progress.”
Right away, Andy felt iffy about this. He never got orders like this. Never in the two months he’d been collecting people. “Are … are you sure—”
“You watch the vehicle. You make sure it stays on route to the BLZ. You let them come to us.”
Andy looked at Harvey, who appeared similarly bewildered. “Repeat,” Harvey said. “You don’t want us to collect the people in the armoured vehicle?”
The speaker buzzed again. “You are not to approach it under any circumstances. You are to watch it closely. You are to make sure it stays on route to the BLZ.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
A pause on the other end of the line.
“You make sure it does.”
Andy wanted to ask something else when the speaker went dead.
He turned to Harvey, who looked back at him with raised eyebrows.
“Looks like we’ve got a special one,” Harvey said.
Andy nodded and thought back to that armoured vehicle on the motorway. “Looks that way.”
Harvey started the jeep and they drove slowly to the side of the motorway and watched the armoured vehicle closely.
***
By the time the woman finished pulling Ivan’s teeth out, he still hadn’t moved a muscle.
He could feel the blood from his torn-away teeth streaming down his trachea. He wanted so much to cough it up, like when he had nosebleeds as a kid and it’d run down the back of his throat. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t move a muscle.
So he just lay there and let it clot.
“All done,” the woman said, smiling at Ivan. She kept on drifting in and out of his eye line, so it was hard for him to see her properly, but he’d deciphered that she was short and had brown hair tied back in a bun. “Well done. It’s almost over now. I promise you. And when you see what we’ve done … well. You’ll not see it of course. But you’ll be part of a great cause. Just don’t go running off all wayward like Harry. That never helps anyone.”
Ivan didn’t have a clue what the woman was rambling on about. He was beyond hope. She’d pulled his teeth out. She had him in a state of paralysis. And now she was talking to him about the “great cause.”
And there was the memory, too.
He’d had a lot of time to think while paralysed on this cold metal table. And the more he thought back to the moment he’d fallen unconscious, the clearer the memory became.
The people standing around the Range Rover in front of that mass of fallen zombies.
The blue uniforms they were wearing, with the black masks over their mouths.
The long, black guns they were holding.
But it was the logo that worried him most. The logo on their blue uniforms that rang a chord with something Riley had said about going to Birmingham, or something.
BLZ.
Ivan heard a noise again. The door swinging open on his right. He saw the woman look over to the door, then lower her head.
“How’s he doing?” the man asked. Same man he’d heard speak before. He still hadn’t seen him.
“He’s alive. Still.”
“Good. And we’re absolutely sure he’s of sound mind this time?”
“Harry was an accident,” the woman said. “I screwed up. I’m sorry.”
Ivan could just about make out the top of the man’s head in the corner of his eye now. The man shook his head. “We’ve made too many mistakes. Already used all but one of the sonar waves, to mixed results. We’re at a last resort here.”
The woman nodded. “I understand the severity of what I’m doing here, S
ir.”
The man drifted further into Ivan’s view, ever so slightly. “Hmm,” he said.
And then he stepped into view.
He was bald. Tall. Wore glasses without rims. He was wearing a black suit—a black suit with those “BLZ” letters embroidered on them. He had a cut on his cheek—the nick of a close shave.
“I forget they can still see us,” he said, peering down into Ivan’s eyes.
“They’re still essentially human,” the woman said.
“And that’s important,” the man said. “It’s important they don’t lose their humanity. At least, not all of it. Not with what they’re going to do.”
He lowered his spindly index finger. Hovered it right over Ivan’s mouth.
Ivan wanted to snap it off.
“Ready to equip him?”
The woman nodded. “I’ll turn him onto his side. It’s better that way.”
She reached underneath Ivan and grabbed him. The man helped her. For a moment, as he turned around, Ivan felt like he’d be able to stick out his leg and start sprinting away. But he also felt like he was out of control. Like one wrong move would tip him over the edge of the table and he’d fall to the floor in a broken heap.
He turned onto his left side.
His face touched the metal.
What he saw at the other side of the room made him want to scream and cry, but he couldn’t.
“Do we really need to utilise the children?” the woman asked, as she pulled out her injection again and stuck it into the side of Ivan’s neck.
“Everything’s an experiment at this stage,” the man said.
Ivan tried all he could to cry as he stared at the body on the metal bed beside him.
He felt a warm tear dripping down his cheek as the woman pulled the syringe away.
But she didn’t see it.
“Make it pronto. Do him, and then the others. I want to get them out into the wild by tomorrow evening,” the man said.
He walked off, his footsteps echoing against the solid floor.
The woman muttered something to Ivan. Something reassuring. Something like small talk.
But Ivan didn’t hear her as she fumbled around in his mouth, stuck something sharp inside.
He was too focused on Abigail’s body, as she lay unconscious on the metal slab beside him.
Her little finger twitched.
EPISODE TWENTY-FOUR
WELCOME.
(SIXTH EPISODE OF SEASON FOUR)
Prologue
Fifteen months ago …
Mr Fletch always preferred the city landscape to the countryside.
He looked out at the buildings of Birmingham from the fourteenth floor of his apartment complex. In the distance, he could see the silver sheen of the Bullring shopping centre. Beside that, Birmingham New Street station, people flocking for their trains like ants with a real purpose. Further in the distance still, the German Christmas market was starting up. The smells of fried frankfurters and fresh donuts blew up to Mr Fletch’s balcony in the winter wind. Reminded him of everything he was going to miss when all this went away.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?”
Mr Fletch looked to his right. Saw Jim Hall leaned over the balcony. He was wearing a thick black winter coat with a wooly neck. His fingers were blue with the cold. Mr Fletch knew exactly where he was looking without having to divert his gaze. “What is?”
Jim Hall smiled and shook his head. “The thought that this. All this. The market. The station. People rushing to make their trains. Snow delays. Christmas shopping. All of this will just be … gone.”
Mr Fletch followed Jim Hall’s gaze down to the flats and apartments in between here and the central hub of Birmingham. The apartments that were so sought after, and yet so impossible to live in.
They’d be unoccupied, until Influenza B/H3N4 broke out, at least.
The road surrounding the apartment blocks had been closed for maintenance a few years ago. Waterworks, or something like that. Mr Fletch couldn’t remember. All he knew was that deep beneath the surface of the earth, a remotely accessible wall had been constructed. A wall hundreds of metres in height. A wall that would rise with the click of a button as soon as B/H3N4 broke out.
Which it would.
It was just a matter of “when.”
“I don’t like to think of it as ‘gone,’” Mr Fletch said, scratching at his well-trimmed stubble. “More … on holiday. Temporarily.”
Jim Hall chuckled and shook his head. “Fletch’s analogies. Always tickle me.”
Mr Fletch pulled his glasses off the bridge of his nose and gave them a rub. He didn’t like it when people didn’t address him as “Mr Fletch” or “Sir.” It was just good practice. Soon, when the world fell, he’d be running the Birmingham Living Zone. Keeping people safe. Restarting civilisation, just like the government ordered.
Not the government that the public knew about. They were just figureheads. Faces to create the illusion of democracy and choice.
No. There were levels of the government that went far, far beyond Labour, Tories …
“You’d better get used to an analogy or two yourself,” Mr Fletch said, popping his glasses back on his nose.
“I suppose,” Jim Hall said. “Running a Living Zone probably does require a bit of humility.”
“You’re running Manchester. I think you drew the long straw.”
“Or the short one,” Jim said. “Depending on your perspective.”
Mr Fletch smiled and looked back down at the people wandering through the city. Jim Hall was talking about his duty of running the Manchester Living Zone when the world went to pot. It was a similar place to Birmingham—the same sturdy walls and abandoned, model home apartments just waiting to be occupied. Except it didn’t have the medical research capabilities of Birmingham. Because Birmingham was the place they’d find the cure.
They just had to wait to get their hands on the virus again before they could start studying.
And the only way to do that was through an outbreak.
“When do you think it’s going to happen?” Jim asked, staring speculatively into the distance.
“It isn’t a matter of ‘when.’ More a matter of—”
“Don’t give me any of that ‘speculation is futile’ bull crap. Just humour me. I need it.”
Mr Fletch wiped his glasses again. He wasn’t used to speculating about things beyond his control. He preferred to act on facts and knowledge. His wife, Michelle, used to tell him it drove her mad.
But when his wife had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and given three weeks to live, he’d allowed himself to speculate. Allowed himself to hope and pray.
That speculation had made him a weaker man.
“You heard the outcome of the latest COBRA meeting,” Mr Fletch said. COBRA was the Cabinet Office Briefing Room, where a crisis response committee discussed instances of national or regional crises. B/H3N4 was absolutely one of them. “MI5 silently raised the current terror threat level from Severe to Critical. We’re preparing people. But we just have to wait.”
Jim Hall chuckled again. “Hardly a speculative answer, Fletchy.”
“You know I don’t do speculation. You know I only act on fact.”
Jim Hall turned and looked into Mr Fletch’s eyes. He smiled, revealing a mouth full of bright white teeth. “Okay, okay. You aren’t game to play. So here’s what I think’s gonna happen. I think the terrorists—whoever the hell they are—will use a bomb to spread the virus—”
“It isn’t airborne,” Mr Fletch reminded him.
Jim Hall shook his head. “Right. Sure. Speculation fail.”
“It has to be direct. Direct entry into the bloodstream. So with a needle, or even the water supply. Now, assuming the terrorists have access to the medical network—which is a possibility we can’t rule out until we know their strengths and limits—my guess would be that they’d distribute it en masse. So through an injection of some kind.”
“MMR? That sort of thing?”
“It’s possible. But my main personal suspicion is that the terrorists won’t have the kind of medical clout to compromise the vaccination system. So they will use the water supplies to get B/H3N4 into the system. Just attacking one or two supplies will be enough to start the spread. To begin the fall.”
“And how long do you think it’ll take before everything’s gone to shit?”
Mr Fletch cringed at Jim Hall’s tendency to swear. He looked back over at all the people. Smiling. Laughing. Joking. Beautifully oblivious. “It’ll happen fast. Very fast. The main priority when B/H3N4 spreads will be securing all of the Living Zones. And then we go out there and help people.”
“What about the armies? The police? Won’t they be able to help restore some order?”
“For a while,” Mr Fletch said, noticing a police van parked at the side of the street. By the train station. “But most will be oblivious. Most will rush home to their families. And the ones who remain, well. They’ll let power get to their heads. Apocalypsis will take down everyone who isn’t inside the walls of the Living Zones eventually. Until we have a cure. Or something.”
Jim Hall smiled. He took a sip of a glass of water he’d been holding for the best part of an hour. “Apocalyp—what?”
Mr Fletch felt his cheeks going warm. He looked down at his black shoes. “Apocalypsis. Just something I’m calling it. A silly name. More of a ring to it than Influenza B/H3N4.”
Jim Hall laughed again. Shook his head.
“You can speculate after all, Mr Fletch. You can speculate after all.”
He sipped his water and Mr Fletch looked back out over the streets of Birmingham.
He didn’t like to speculate. He didn’t like to imagine the way the world would be.
But when you were one of the few people who knew the world was going to end in the next year or so, you couldn’t help but let your mind wander from time to time.
CHAPTER ONE
Riley sat in the passenger seat of the armoured vehicle. He looked at the sun as it rose across the horizon of abandoned cars and motorway bridges. Felt its heat against his face inside this clammy truck. Beside him, James was still on the wheel, smelling of sweat. He’d insisted he’d got some sleep as they decided to pull over for the night. But looking at how bloodshot his eyes were and how much he kept on yawning, Riley wasn’t sure how honest he was being.
