The BIG Horror Pack 2

by Iain Rob Wright

  “We take you now to scenes outside Westminster,” the anchorman continued, “where an emergency government assembly is holding crisis meetings. Prime Minister Ferry, as previously reported, died in the early hours of this morning.”

  There was total silence in the staffroom as they all realised just how much trouble they were in.

  The news switched to a camera feed from a helicopter above the Thames. The lens was focused on the spiny architecture of the Houses of Parliament. Big Ben was dented and scorched as if some airborne vehicle – perhaps another helicopter – had collided with the Elizabeth tower.

  Gathered in the thousands, laying siege to the parliament buildings in force, were ranks and ranks of infected people, their affliction obvious from their animal-like movement and relentless screeching. The infected covered the streets of Westminster like the legions of Hell.

  The camera-feed cut back to the studio where the anchorman continued to report.

  “Acting Prime Minister Glade is currently under siege, but has assured us, through sporadic communication, that the Government is working hard on a solution. Armed forces have been deployed nationwide and all military personnel stationed abroad have been recalled with immediate effect. However, with allied nations also under attack, it remains to be seen whether or not our servicemen will make it home safely. It is currently unknown if the situation has spread to America, but current indications are that it is likely.”

  Shawcross collapsed onto the sofa. Anna went and rubbed the back of his neck and told him to take deep breaths.

  The news continued. “Again, these scenes are real and are happening live. This devastating attack on our shores seems to have emanated from the Southern coastline after travelling throughout mainland Europe overnight. We have seen our loved ones, our neighbours, our teachers, our doctors, and even our police officers succumb to this madness and death. However, if there are people out there still unaware of the crisis, particularly in the North where the virus is still partially contained, we urge you to remain indoors. Construct whatever barricades you can to keep your property secure and defend yourselves in whatever way you can. Armed forces are working urgently to regain control of the nation’s cities, but the death toll is already in the hundreds of thousands and the number of infected has become unaccountable. Great Britain, and perhaps the entire world, is under siege by the greatest threat it has ever faced. It is what some religious groups are calling ‘The End of Days’. We ask you to pray for one another and to remain strong in the way that the people of this great nation always have. Ration your food, defend yourselves, and wait for help to arrive. In the meantime…” the reporter stared into the camera with tears brimming. “God be with us all.”

  The program switched to more scenes of devastation. The Eiffel tower burned as thousands of writhing bodies moved down the Champs Elysees. German forces flattened the streets of Munich with their mighty tanks. Pictures from the Italian countryside showed roving bands of militia fighting outside the walls of Rome. All of the images made one thing clear: the battle was being lost. The infected’s relentless pursuit of survivors was unstoppable. Mankind was being exterminated.

  Charlotte began to freak out. “I need to find a phone,” she shouted. “I need to call my parents. They’ll be worrying about me. What if they’re in danger? I need to go home.”

  “Calm down, honey,” Clark told her, but Charlotte wasn’t listening. She ran towards the door they’d come through and yanked it open. “I need to get out of here. I need… I need—”

  The bald and bearded man was on Charlotte immediately. Before she even had a chance to cry out, he was tearing apart her face with his teeth.

  “It’s Tom,” Shawcross yelled. “The night watchman.”

  Tom threw Charlotte’s limp and bleeding body to the ground and snarled at the rest of them. Clark leapt behind the pool table, causing Tom to go after Shawcross, who was nearest.

  “Get back,” shouted Shawcross as he swung the thick branch he had kept since leaving the reptile house. He struck Tom on the head and kept him at bay.

  But Tom would not be deterred. Blood dripping down his chin and staining his greying beard, he snarled at Shawcross and kept on coming.

  Anna could see that Shawcross’s feeble attacks with the branch weren’t going to work, so she looked around for something better, quickly grabbing a pool cue. She held it upside down so that the thick end was pointing at Tom. Then she took her shot.

  The pool cue snapped as it struck Tom’s skull with an audible crack! The blow would have put a normal human in the hospital, but all it did to Tom was disorientate him. Anna had expected the pool cue to break and so she readjusted her grip and wielded it like a makeshift dagger, ramming the broken end right into Tom’s temple.

  Tom fell to the floor with the broken pool cue jutting out the side of his head. Anna wiped his blood from the back of her hand onto her shirt and grimaced. It was cold, not like human blood should be.

  “Charlotte!” Clark ran across the room and sprawled beside his already-dead girlfriend. “Oh, shit, Charlotte. Don’t worry, babe, we’ll get help.”

  “She’s dead,” Mike said. “I’m sorry.”

  Clark shook his head and wept.

  Anna took him by the hand and led him over to the sofa. “Just take a seat,” she told him, then nodded to Mike. “Fetch him a drink.”

  Shawcross was busying himself by dragging Tom’s body back out into the corridor.

  “Is there likely to be anybody else hiding in this building?” Anna shouted over to him.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I would suppose not. Tom was the night guard, but as far as I know he’s the only one that works during the AM. And Bradley, of course, when needed.”

  Anna sighed. Both were now dead.

  Mike handed a bottle of water to Clark, who took it with trembling hands and said, “This is so messed up. Charlotte can’t be dead. None of this can be real.”

  Anna rubbed his back. “We’re all in this together. It’s not your fault.”

  “We should be safe now,” Shawcross said. “Forgetting about Tom was a lapse in my judgement, but there should be no one else. We’re safe, I’m sure of it.”

  Anna nodded and then looked around at what was left of their group. “Okay, well in that case, I think it’s about time I finally got to know everybody.”

  “This is Michelle from HR,” Mike said, pointing to a pretty little blonde. Then he indicated to a skinny man in a tailored short-sleeved shirt, “and this is Greg from Sales.”

  Anna nodded to the two of them as a middle-aged man with a greying moustache introduced himself. “My name is Alan, from Logistics, but might I just bring something to the group’s attention before we get too relaxed?”

  Anna shrugged. “What?”

  “Well, it’s more of a question, really. What I want to ask,” he pointed to Charlotte’s dead body, “is what we’re going to do about her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mike’s eyes suddenly went wide. “He means she’s going to come back.”

  Anna realised it was true. Based on what they’d seen, Charlotte was going to come back as a slow, stumbling, yet very very lethal, zombie.

  And then she’d try to eat them.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “How should we do it?” Mike asked as he stared down at Charlotte’s body. Her neck had stopped bleeding and her flesh was turning pale.

  “Why do we have to do anything to her?” Clark muttered, staring at the floor.

  “We have to deal with her Clark,” Mike said softly. “She’ll get back up as one of them. We’ve all seen it.”

  “I haven’t. I was with Charlotte,” he wiped a tear from his face, “and now she’s dead.”

  “Let’s just break another pool cue and stab her in the skull,” Shawcross said. “Seemed to do the trick with Tom.”

  “It’s not about doing the trick,” Anna spat. “It’s about being humane.”

  “The
re’s nothing humane about any of this,” Mike admitted. “Maybe Shawcross is right. The pool cue was effective on Tom.”

  Anna sighed, too tired to argue. “Fine. Should I do it?”

  Mike shrugged. “Do you want me to?”

  Clark leapt up from the sofa. “Listen to you all. You sound like you’re haggling over the last beer in the fridge. You’re about to crack somebody’s skull open. That somebody was my friend.”

  “None of this is your fault, Clark,” Anna reiterated. “Lots of people are dead and none of us are to blame. We didn’t do this.”

  Clark picked up the remaining pool cue and rolled the length of wood in his hands, examining it intently.

  Mike frowned. “What are you doing?”

  Clark smashed the cue over the edge of the table and made everyone flinch. The thick end went hurtling across the room and left a dent in the wall.

  “Let me do it,” Clark said. “She was my friend.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Anna said. “You shouldn’t have to do it.”

  “No offence,” Clark said, “but fuck you. You didn’t even know her.”

  Anna believed Clark performing the act would only make his emotional condition worse, but she stepped aside and let him do what he wanted. There was a chance, she supposed, that it might bring him closure. You never could tell. People’s minds fractured and fixed in different ways.

  Clark knelt beside Charlotte and placed the jagged cue against her forehead.

  “Turn her head to the side,” Anna instructed. “The temple is softer. It’ll be…cleaner.”

  Clark turned Charlotte’s head sideways, causing the wound on her neck to open up wider. A fine spray of blood released and stained Clark’s shirt. He didn’t seem to notice and raised the broken cue above his head.

  Everyone in the room but Anna turned away. She made herself watch, not wanting to ignore the things that were happening. She needed to retain her humanity and the best way to do that was to face things head on with her eyes open.

  The cue in Clark’s hands trembled for a moment, but he kept his courage and went through with it. He brought the cue down forcefully and pierced Charlotte’s skull. Anna was glad he didn’t have to give it a second go.

  Clark’s body trembled as sobs took over him. His girlfriend’s blood covered him.

  After a while, they all decided to leave Clark alone with his grief. The remainder of the group gathered over by the television.

  “So what’s our next move?” Alan asked grimly, twiddling his moustache nervously.

  Anna shook her head. “I have no clue. Does anybody have a suggestion?”

  Faces were blank, shoulders shrugged.

  “Then I suggest we just hide out here for a while. Once we’ve rested up, maybe things will become a little clearer. We can find a phone and keep the TV on. I’m sure we’ll know more soon.”

  To her surprise, even Shawcross was nodding in agreement. It was clear that everyone was exhausted, and that none of them had slept for ages. Right now, all anybody really cared about was getting off their feet and maybe catching some shuteye.

  Alan cleared his throat. “I would like to make sure that this place is really safe, before we all settle in for the long haul. We should check out the rest of the building.”

  “I agree,” Mike said. “We also need to move Tom and Charlotte somewhere else. We can’t have them so close by.”

  Anna nodded. “You’re right, it’s a health hazard.”

  “I’ll organise everybody.” Shawcross ran a hand through his slick ginger hair. “We’ll split into groups for efficiency.”

  Anna said, “Fair enough. I’ll help Clark with Charlotte’s body. We should be able to move Tom as well. We’ll place them both in the office we came in through. It’s the least safe room for us to be in so it makes sense to use it as storage.”

  “You mean as a morgue,” Alan said.

  “Call it what you will, but it’s something that has to be done.”

  “Just be careful,” Mike said. “I don’t want to have to put your body in there.”

  Anna smiled. His concern was unexpected.

  A buzzing sound from the television caused them all to look up. The anchorman was back on and looked in a worse state than before.

  He began, “While it has long been suspected, reports from the World Health Organization have now confirmed that the dead are indeed coming back to life. While the initial infection causes high fever and uncontrollable rage, it is not until the infected are rendered deceased that the true horror makes itself known. When an infected person dies, against all the rules of nature, they come back. The reason some of the infected are slower and less ambulatory than others is because they are no longer living. The only way to prevent an infected person from coming back, it appears, is to inflict massive head trauma. Damaging the brain is the only confirmed way to dispatch an infected person permanently.”

  The reporter stopped for a few seconds, taking a sip of water. Weariness hung densely over him.

  “As I report to you, it may all seem like some kind of sick joke, but the reports are real. This is happening. If you have loved ones with you, enjoy them while you can. If you have a safe place to go, go. This very well might be the end of life as we know it. Do whatever you have to do to survive.” The reporter placed a finger to his ear, as if getting a message from an earpiece. “I’m about to be cut off, folks, for saying things that I shouldn’t have. It doesn’t really matter, because we’re about to go off air with immediate effect anyway. An emergency message will be left to play, but there will be nobody here broadcasting. Reports have come in that small enclaves of military, police and civilian resistance are gaining footholds in certain areas north of Sheffield and that rescue might still be a possibility for some of you, but for the most part rescue will not be forthcoming. I hope that some of us make it through this terrible tribulation. My name is Ben Hutchinson and this is—”

  The feed went dead, replaced with a beeping tone. The words on the screen simply read: STATE OF EMERGENCY. FURTHER NEWS TO FOLLOW. STAY TUNED.

  Anna stared at the television and held her breath for almost a minute. Then she said something she couldn’t believe she was actually saying. “I think this might be the end of the world.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It took more than twenty minutes for Anna to help Clark carry Charlotte’s body into the office. What made it more difficult was that blood spilled from her body whenever they tilted her even slightly. Anna wondered whether the blood was infected.

  Now they were in the middle of disposing of Tom’s body, and the plump security guard was more much heavier than Charlotte.

  “Did you know him?” Clark asked.

  Anna shook her head. “Never met him. I wonder what happened to him. How did he get infected all on his own?”

  “Maybe he came to work already infected.”

  Anna reaffirmed her grip on Tom’s legs as she felt him slipping. They were almost back at the office now. “I don’t know how it’s even possible for a virus to infect the entire world overnight.”

  “Maybe whoever is to blame coordinated several outbreaks of the virus at once. Maybe a bunch of terrorists synchronised their watches before tipping the biological motherlode into the local water supplies.”

  She and Clark set Tom’s body down beside a large, freestanding photocopier. “You know, that sounds pretty plausible,” she said. “If this was terrorists then it would make sense to release it in multiple locations. I just can’t believe that anyone would be so insane. Surely no one is that much of a monster.”

  Clark huffed. “The only difference between Adolf Hitler and the lowlifes on the street is power. When people get the power to destroy their enemies and further their own agendas, that’s exactly what they do. If any terrorists had the ability to wipe out the western world, I bet all of them would do it in a heartbeat.”

  “Wow, you’re pretty jaded for such a young man. Anyway, we don’
t know that this is exclusive to the western world.”

  “No, we don’t, but time will tell. Somebody is behind this, and they’ll probably be eager to come forward and claim their victory.”

  Anna told him, “You’re quite the theorist.”

  “I’m doing a part-time History Degree, not that I expect to go to classes again now. People aren’t that different today than they’ve ever been. Same nature, same behaviour; it’s just the technology that changes.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Anna said. “I’ve always been more of an animal person than a people person.”

  “Then you’re in luck, because it looks like the human race has been turned into a bunch of animals.”

  Anna watched Clark carefully. He seemed to have snapped out of his shocked daze but now seemed angry. “How are you doing, Clark?” she asked him.

  “How do you think?”

  “I know, I know. We’re all doing shit, but do you need anything? Are you going to be okay?”

  He turned away and leant over one of the desks. “I really loved her. She didn’t know that, but I did. She was way too beautiful for me. I felt lucky when we were together.”

  “You’re going to get through this, Clark. We’re all going to stick together and come through the other side, okay?”

  “I’ll be alright. I think I just need to be on my own for a while. Would you mind? I want to say goodbye to her in private.”

  Anna looked down at Charlotte’s body. “Okay. I’ll leave you to it. Just stay back from the window in case there’re any infected people outside.”

  “Will do. And thanks again, Anna. Charlotte and I would still be cooped up in that hotel room if you hadn’t rescued us.”

  Anna smiled at the boy and then stepped out of the office to give him peace, closing the door behind her.

  She found Mike in the corridor.

  “Hey,” he said. “I was just coming to find you. Everything okay?”

  “As well as can be expected. I’ve left Clark to himself for a while. He’s not doing well, but I think he’ll be okay.”