Birstall
In three days she was sure she hadn’t slept ten hours. The facility was operating at panic status. They had seen no news from the outside world. The lack of news made it clear what was going on. If the outbreak had been contained they would have worked through things in a controlled manor. If it was isolated to their facility, the status of wider world would still have made its way through to them. The silence and the internal panic made the national, or worldwide scale of events obvious, even though no one in power admitted it. The vaccine that they were all focusing on was not to save the few that had been exposed in their midst. It was needed to resurrect the country, or the planet.
None of them would have been there if they weren’t passionate about their jobs. None would have been there if they weren’t amongst the best in their fields. The only comparable collection of minds on British soil was achieved at Bletchley Park in the Second World War. Everyone there was focused on the same goal: understanding what they had released, and how to reverse it. The mixture of projects that they had always focused on was gone. They had suddenly become one team, with one focus. There were different streams of research, but the universal communication and co-operation was new to all of them. They all knew enough about each other’s areas of focus to share anything which may be of use.
Despite that progress was sparse. Too much valuable equipment and data had been destroyed in the explosion. Many of the people who had been involved in the key areas of study were dead, or worse. They had their accidental test subjects, and from them they had been able to isolate the organism. From the leadership they had leant its primary means of spreading, further evidence that they knew what was going on beyond the boundaries of Birstall, and that it was not good. In terms of curing it, or vaccinating against it, every lead they studied led to a dead end. Anything that seemed capable of killing it would be fatal to the host long before it delivered any benefits.
Hannah hadn’t seen Phil in two days, and when she was given a few hours leave she couldn’t keep away from his room. She had seen his calm in a crisis before, and needed it again. She was scared that they had been the cause of a pandemic that they couldn’t stop, that they were all in grave danger, that he had forgotten about her.
When she got to his door there was no light escaping underneath, nothing to suggest he was there and awake. Given the shifts they were all working, he was most likely to be in one of the labs, but she knocked anyway. She waited holding her breath, but there was no response. She tried again, knocking louder. Still no response, so she slumped to the floor, turning so her back leant against the door. She didn’t want him to find her like this, but she didn’t want to leave. A couple of minutes, no more, then she would go. It was too late that she noticed the light creeping under the door onto her fingers. It was all she could do not to fall backwards into the room as the door was opened behind her.
She scrambled to her feet awkwardly, and turned 270 degrees to face Phil and then make every effort to look away from him. He was in a beige dressing gown that had seen better days. There were bags under his eyes, and he did not look like he had shaved since she had last seen him. In truth he looked even more tired than she felt. A wave of guilt hit her for disturbing him. Nevertheless she was excited to see that he looked glad to see her. Even if the look was not genuine the fact that he was making that effort when that tired meant something.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have woke you,” was her opening.
“It’s OK. I’ve been wanting to see you, but you’ve always been working when I’ve been off… Do you want to come in?” He stepped aside to let her in to the small room that he occupied on the facility. It was much the same as the one she occupied, much like a hotel room, but with a bit more scope for personalisation. It looked like his space had been made his own by an accumulation of mess that must have preceded the current crisis. He looked around at his surroundings and apologized for them, “Sorry about the mess. I’ve not had much time other than working and sleeping the last few days.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Are you sure you don’t mind me being here. Do you need to get some sleep.”
“To be honest sleep isn’t helping much at the moment. I guess you’ve made the same assumptions that I have about what is going on in the rest of the country? All I have is nightmares about it. I’m so helpless in my dreams. At least awake I can try and think of a solution to this.”
“I’m having the same nightmares, but when I’m awake I feel just as helpless. All of our research is getting us nowhere. It’s going to take years to find a way to beat this thing, and as far as I can tell the whole country could be pretty much wiped out already.”
“There is still hope. We wouldn’t be getting pushed so hard if there wasn’t still a country to save, or at least the wider world. You’ve got to believe that every moment of research that you put into this will help save lives.”
“Is this all our fault? Are people dying because we’ve tried to control things that are beyond our power?”
“I don’t know. We’ve tried to cure some major blights on humanity. We used dangerous tools to do it. Maybe we should never have tried, but the goal always seemed so worthwhile. We did everything to prevent the tools getting loose, but some people with bombs, who probably didn’t know what they were dealing with got the better of our security. I’m not sure what we should have done differently. Trying still feels like it was right. Using the most potent tools still feels right with the controls we had in place. Should we have let everyone know what we were working on? Been more rigorous with security? Gave it all up and hoped that Homoeopathy had the answers?”
“I don’t know. I’m just scared of what’s happened.”
“We all are. We’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing, and find a cure for this. Philosophising about who is to blame and the ultimate cause is irrelevant. We’re scientists. There is a problem in front of us. We need to find a solution. It’s what we do best.”
“Thanks.” She said. “Everything always seems less helpless when I talk to you. Ever since that first time I met you, when amid all the carnage you could talk calmly, as you operated on yourself and talk me through how to keep everyone else alive. When everything falls apart you seem indestructible.”
“That’s not true. I’m only as good as the people with me. If you hadn’t kept it together I’d have fallen apart. I panic if I can’t do anything to control situations. If you hadn’t patched people up while I couldn’t move I’d have fallen apart. Without any training you did everything I would have done.”
Without realizing the movement they found themselves lying face to face on his bed, pressed together. Hannah felt the warmth of his body radiating into her and wondered how the best moment of her life could be so inextricably tied to the very worst. Her eyes were fixed on his Adam’s apple. The way they were lying her head was turned down, his chin pointed up. Slowly they both moved so that their eyes could meet. She knew that she was in love. If the destruction of the world was the price to pay for this moment she was not sure that it was a bad deal. It felt far too good to be wrong.
They woke up three hours later still in each other’s arms, him still in his dressing gown, her still in a pair of jeans and an unflattering blouse. It was his alarm going off. They were nose to nose as they woke, eyes too close to focus on each other. Their lips pressed together regardless. Hannah felt the pressure of his arm pressing his body against hers. She desperately wanted to give herself to him, but with a final kiss he rolled himself out of bed.
“I wish things were different and I could stay. Once we’ve cured this we won’t have to worry. Come and find me when you’re off. I’ll look for you when I’m off. We won’t always find each other. But I’ll always be happy to wake up for you.”
He walked away from her. There was another two hours before she was due to be working again. She missed him as soon as he walked away, but was quickly overcome by tiredness. She wanted to stay there in his
bed, but decided that it would be better to go back to her own room where she could be found if she was needed, and where she could set an alarm so she was awake when she was expected to be. As she fell back asleep in her own bed, in a soft pair of pyjamas, she thought she heard gunfire in the distance, but dismissed it as the start of a dream and was soon oblivious to all that was going on around her.
Phil had just started work when the shooting started. The cultures he was working on had to be infected and sealed quickly, so he forced himself to ignore it and carried on with his work. Everyone who could immediately dropped what they were doing and strained their ears to try and work out what was going on. There were several individual shots, then a brief rattle of machine gun fire, then it all went quiet again. They all listened in silence waiting for whatever was going to happen next. Eventually their Head broke the silence, “Everyone get back to work. I’m going to go and find out what is going on.” He left the lab, with his instructions obeyed, with the addition of some wild speculation about what was going on outside.
They were busy enough that the twenty minutes that it took for the Head to return with information passed unnoticed. Even the speculation had grown sparse as they were all focused on their work. They knew the horror that had been created in their lab and unleashed upon the world, and stopping it was an obsession for all of them. Nevertheless, when the news came they all sprang to attention.
“I’ve been speaking to security. As I understand it, they saw four men approaching the facility, and fired a couple of warning shots over their heads. The men returned fire, again firing into the air. They moved into cover, but didn’t retreat. A few more shots were exchanged on both sides, narrowing in on their targets, but no one was hurt. The men approaching were just shooting as a distraction, while two others crept around and came up behind the security posts. They announced their arrival with a burst of machine gun fire, then our security squad surrendered. It seems that all security personnel have already followed suit.”
“Who are these men? What do they want?”
“They’re from the army. Hopefully they want to take over from our current security team… From what they said before the authorities stepped in and sent me back here, it sounds really bad out in the real world. It seems that their unit was overrun from within as a few infected soldiers returned to duty after being bitten. The disease spread rapidly through their ranks. The survivors were sent undermanned and disorganized into battle against a hoard of people infected with our disease. They got surrounded. The six here escaped, but they don’t know how many others got away. The fight was only about twenty miles from here. If the infected head this way we could be overrun at any time.”
Silence followed this update.
Newcastle
Two days passed with the five of them living in virtual silence, carefully rationing food and keeping a constant vigil on the street outside. Occasionally someone would pass by outside, always looking like they were infected, some more obvious than others. Nothing else happened. They were alternatively bored and afraid. It was hard to remain disciplined, and they were all getting on each other’s nerves. The whispered conversations that they had were generally argumentative. They all wanted to get out of the house, but knew it wasn’t an option.
Early in the evening, while there was still enough light to see, they gathered in Natalie’s room so they could talk while maintaining their sentry. Ruth opened the conversation,
“It’s not looking like a rescue is going to happen any time soon. I think we need to assume that we’re on our own. There are probably lots of other people hidden like we are, but they are as much help to us as we’ve been to them. Everyone we’ve seen on the street is dangerous.”
“What do we do then?” asked Natalie, “How long can we hide here?”
“The food situation isn’t good. It’s not lasting as long as we thought, even being careful. The water isn’t so bad.” Simon responded.
“The bathroom is pretty horrible without flushing water. How long will it be before it’s a health risk. Or the infected outside smell it and know we’re here?” Lucy asked.
“So, we need to be able to get out of this house without being seen. We need to be able to get more food, eventually we’ll need more water, and we need somewhere else to shit.” Ruth summarized. “Any suggestions?”
“We’re in a row of terraces. Can we go through the walls instead of going outside?” Paul offered.
“We don’t know for sure what is on the other side of those walls. It would make a lot of noise breaking through, and there could be a load of infected people on the other side.”
“We haven’t heard anything. It doesn’t sound like the houses either side of us are occupied.”
“We don’t know what the infected do if they are in a sealed building. They might sit quietly and wait for an opportunity to escape and kill.”
“It’s better than going outside, but I’d rather not try it. And do any of you know how to knock a wall down quietly. Or which walls are supporting the rest of the building?”
“What about if we go into the loft? There will be no plaster on the walls there, just the original brick. We scrape away the mortar and remove the bricks one by one. It will be slow, but we’ve plenty of time to kill.”
“That could work. Even if there are infected people in the houses the lofts should be empty. We could probably drill some holes and have a look around before we go down into the houses.”
“Does everyone think we should give this a try?” The nods were unanimous.
“Should we set up a tunnelling rota to go alongside the sentry rota?”
“I can do that,” Lucy offered. “Anyone want to volunteer to take the first shift?”
“It was my suggestion, so I’m happy to take the first turn at it,” Paul answered. “Do we have any way to light the loft without burning out our phone batteries?”
“I’ve got a torch. The batteries should last until we can steal more off the neighbours.”
“That should keep us going in the short term if it works. There must be nearly forty houses in this run, but what do we do longer term. Should we plan for a permanent situation?”
“I don’t want to think about that.”
“But maybe we should. Is there a safe haven we should try to get to? If we gather all the food that we can then maybe it would be better to leave this place.”
“Where are you thinking we go to?”
“I don’t know. Maybe an army barracks.”
“The army doesn’t seem to be doing much outside. I’m not convinced they’re still functioning. They will have been sent into all of the worst areas. They might not have done so well.”
“My parent’s farm should be safe. It’s isolated, they have guns, and there is no way they’ll run out of food. Last time I spoke to them my Dad was securing the perimeter, so they won’t have been taken by surprise.”
“That’s hundreds of miles away. Are there any farms near here that will be in the same position?”
“Not a clue. Don’t know if they’ll be inviting in strangers either.”
“For now we should forget about it. We need to fix the short term food issue first. Over the next few days the long term situation may become clearer, and we can make a proper decision then.”
The conversation carried on and on without any further resolutions being made. At some point Paul left them and started scratching his way through the walls above them. It sounded like they had rodents, but was not loud enough to carry far. Eventually they got tired of talking in circles and went to bed. Natalie, for once, had her room to herself as she was the sentry. She was tempted to sleep without the knowledge that someone was awake next to her, but did as she was supposed to. It was dark outside. She could see next to nothing. There was nothing to be heard either, except for a constant scraping in the roof.
London
Becky had barely got both feet on the ground in the kitchen she had just broken into. She had a deep
gash in her shin from the broken glass, but ignored that in favour of keeping a grip on her weapon. A man in his fifties burst through the door and charged at her, arms outstretched, mouth wide open ready to bite. She took a desperate swing with her bat, and the end of it connected perfectly with the side of his head. He fell sideways, the other side of his head crashing into the corner of the fridge. He stayed still, blood slowly pooling beneath his head.
The rest of the gang, oblivious to the danger, continued to pile through the window, only seeing the dead man once inside. Jed, as usual, took control by sending someone else into danger, “Jose, take that crow bar and check if the rest of the house is safe. Don’t use your gun unless you have to. And be quick. Those fuckers outside will catch up soon and we need to be out of sight.”
Jose took the indicated crow bar, stolen from the loft where they had spent the night, and made his way through the door into a badly decorated hallway. He barely had time to whisper that the coast was clear before the rest of the gang piled through the door behind him. Jed was last, and gently closing the door he whispered to everyone to keep fucking silent. He pointed to Tim, then indicated towards the stairs. He had found a shovel in their travels and held it out in front of him as he inched towards the stairs. The gun was tucked in his pocket where he could easily reach it in an emergency, but the way he was shaking it was probably better if he didn’t.
Fourteen pairs of eyes watched as he crept up the stairs, keeping close to the wall to avoid creaking floorboards. Not only could they hear noise from outside as their pursuers caught up, but there were people moving inside the building. The lack of caution suggested that the people inside would be no more friendly than those outside. With the shovel leading the way, Tim reached the top of the stairs and peeped around the corner. There were three closed doors, and one that was wide open. He could hear movement behind at least two of the closed doors, but no one appeared to be using them to get out. Silently he inched his way forwards and through the open door.
The Farm Page 12
