London Burns: Tales from the world of Adrian’s Undead Diary, Volume 1
Copyright © 2016 Christopher Philbrook
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author. Your support of author’s rights is appreciated.
Published in the United States of America
First Publishing Date 2016
All characters in this compilation are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover design and interior layout by Alan MacRaffen
www.macraffen.com
Also by Chris Philbrook:
Elmoryn - The Kinless Trilogy
Book One: Wrath of the Orphans
Book Two: The Motive for Massacre
Book Three: The Echoes of Sin
Reemergence
Tesser: A Dragon Among Us
Ambryn: The Cheaters of Death
Adrian’s Undead Diary
Book One: Dark Recollections
Book Two: Alone No More
Book Three: Midnight
Book Four: The Failed Coward
Book Five: Wrath
Book Six: In the Arms of Family
Book Seven: The Trinity
Book Eight: Cassie
A.U.D. Anthology
Unhappy Endings: Tales from the World of Adrian’s Undead Diary
London Burns: Tales from the World of Adrian’s Undead Diary
Short Fiction:
Colony Lost: The Children of Ghara
Coming Soon:
Colony Lost: Book One
Don’t miss Chris Philbrook’s free e-Book:
At Least He’s Not On Fire:
A Tour of the Things That Escape My Head
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
London Burns
Part One - The Warden Moves
Part Two - For Queen and Country, but Mostly the Guy Next to Me
Part Three - The Last Few Steps
Roots Grown Deep
An Elmoryn Short Story
About the Author
Additional Online Content
AUD Merchandise
Free Short Fiction by Chris Philbrook
- Part One -
The Warden Moves
June 23rd, 2010
“What’s the gig, Sergeant?” Harold Parker asked his squad leader over the roar of noise. The men could only hear each other over the thudding rotors hammering the air of the Lynx helicopter they rode in due to the thick headsets they wore. Communication cables connected them to the ceiling of the chopper and allowed for those traveling to and from war to speak to one another. These men weren’t headed to war, at least not in the traditional sense they could’ve expected.
Sergeant Beck looked out the window of the helicopter as they flew in a low, wide arc around the crowded airspace of Heathrow airport. Planes on the ground below were backed up three and four deep on every runway and the planes above circled impatiently, waiting to land as their fuel supplies dwindled lower and lower. The airport looked just as bad as the roads leading to and from it with the traffic and accidents.
The Royal Marines had watched on televisions back at their base as panic set in with the word of the dead rising on foreign lands. Martial Law had been declared in a dozen countries to try and halt the spread of whatever illness was causing people to attack one another, and as the rumors on the flickering telly had it, come back from the dead. The Marines were peeled away from their ready room in Taunton by the call to go to work. The spectacle on television was replaced by the one slipping by below as they flew to Heathrow airport. It seemed as if every citizen in the United Kingdom had been struck with lunacy at the thought of the undead being real and the general public exhibited their madness through driving like bloody assholes. They’d seen a hundred accidents on the road, and nearly as many columns of smoke rising into the sky.
“An American dignitary and his bodyguards need an airlift to RAF Mildenhall. We are to hold their hand and bring the bastards there,” Beck said, unimpressed with their mission and distracted by the severe worries of the day. He’d listened to the radio before they left, and the reports of widespread death and destruction in Africa and Asia cluttered his thoughts and caused great worry.
“Sarge,” a lance corporal Patil said, “Do you think this shit is legit? Do you think there really are dead people coming back to life?” Patil looked at Beck with big brown eyes filled with the hope that what was happening, wasn’t.
“I’m no brainiac,” Beck replied. “But it seems like the dead coming back to life is a far-fetched idea, Patil. They’re dead. There’s no coming back from dead, you know? Now are all these crazy people acting like the end is nigh? Yeah, they are. That’s a real problem. Your family have any timely legends from India about this?”
“Nothing that won’t get me harassed and made fun of.”
The young British Marines laughed, but they did it to hide anxiety. Evidence mounted as the morning wore on and the flight continued that made the sergeant’s assertions less reasonable, and that made the men feel mad. Visible crowds fighting, building fires, drivers flying about evading other drivers. From the air, the fenced-in portion of land that was Heathrow seemed calm by comparison.
The helicopters circled, and began to land near a distant private jet hangar.
The black skinned Marine Harold sat apart from the rest of his unit, his lips pursed, his eyes fixed below on the rising earth. He held his L85 rifle pointed at the floor of the Lynx in strong hands. A small private jet had just finished taxiing below and the British chopper pilots were putting their two-chopper escort down nearby. Heavily armed men wearing khaki cargo pants, heavy button-down shirts and in most cases body armor poured out of the plane and dropped to their knees, pulling security. Hal watched a man fall to the ground in the center, blood pouring from his upper leg in a torrent, staining the slate tarmac a ruddy, wet purple.
“Problem on the ground sir,” Hal said. “Looks to be one leg injury straight off the plane and a bunch of men with M-16s pulling security. They’ve had an incident on the plane.”
Beck crawled over to the side of the plane Hal sat on and looked down at the unfolding mess. The choppers descended, and flared their noses to land.
“Those are M4s, Hal. You know that. Safeties off boys. Zombies or not, shit’s going down. Act like you’re one of the boys that took Umm Qasr.”
“Could we do it quicker than ‘em?” Hal quipped. “I’ve got leave starting tomorrow to help my dad with my mum’s surgery. Those Iraq boys took days to unfuck themselves on that battle and I’ve shit to do.”
Beck looked at Hal somberly and snapped his L85’s safety off. “I wouldn’t count on that leave, Hal.”
The Marine sighed, and the chopper touched down with a bounce on the landing gear.
A second later the doors flew open and the Marines poured out onto the ground like volcanic runoff, moving in every direction and taking knees with their rifles aimed at threats that were nowhere to be found. Hal took a knee in the direction of the hangars and watched as tiny people in the airport’s distance ran about, afraid for their lives. The curious or stupid stopped to watch the Marine activity, so far from the rest of the airport.
“Corporal Adamson, attend the injured man,” Beck ordered. One of the Marine medics got up from his position and ran to the fallen man. His fading moans of pain were drowned out by the aural chaos of the plane’s engines and chopper’s beating blades.
Once the Marines were established and knew the area to be safe enough, the sergeant stood and walked toward a frightened suit-weari
ng man with white hair. Near him was a taller man wearing a white baseball cap with the letters WPG embroidered in black letters on the front. Tiny spatters of dried blood stood out against the white.
“Gentlemen, who is in charge here?” Beck shouted over the rotors at the suit and the hat.
“Kevin Whitten, WPG team leader. This is Senator Henke. We were under the instructions that you were to exfil us via helicopter to RAF Mildenhall for further evacuation?”
“Aye mate. How many men do you have? This everyone?” Beck shook the civilian contractor’s hand firmly and watched in the corner of his eye as the suited politician scowled at the two of them. The suit looked left out and offended. This wasn’t a time for politics or diplomacy. This wasn’t a time for that man. The time for that man could be a very long way off, indeed.
Kevin assessed the situation. “Yeah, we lost two earlier today in Jerusalem, and we lost two more on the plane just a minute ago. This shit is horrible, brother.”
Beck started to talk but he froze when he heard corporal Adamson yelp out and stumbled backwards nearby. The sergeant turned and watched as the contractor with the terrible leg injury sat up and snapped at the Marine. His fingers opened and shut reflexively—like an infant’s—as his teeth gnashed. The contractor’s listless eyes had gone milky white and the color of his flesh had faded to a jaundiced shade of blue-gray. The man obviously had died, yet continued to move. More evidence mounted that lunacy of the day was rooted in fact.
Over the deafening plane and the beat of the chopper’s rotors Beck heard two snaps from a handgun and immediately watched as the dead man’s head rocked backwards then impacted the hard tarmac below. He turned and saw Kevin holster a Glock. The American had killed his own man and he’d done it quickly. Beck examined Kevin’s face and saw resolution and pain. He saw the face of a cowboy putting down his beloved horse. The man from the outskirts of Sheffield knew then and there Kevin had seen terrible things in the world that day, and had set foot on the path to the horrible changes needed to live in that world. This world. Beck felt a chill, and ignored it.
The Sergeant turned to a frightened Corporal Adamson and watched as he stood, covered in the yank’s blood. They caught eyes and the younger warrior nodded. He was okay.
Beck organized the battlefield. “Americans please load up, yeah? You here, Senator and lady with you and Kevin in that bird. Hal you go with them, thank you. We are in the air in sixty seconds. Barrels down, as you know.”
The local Marines guided the foreigners and they all loaded up into the cramped helicopters. True to Beck’s word they lifted up within a minute’s time, leaving the airplane alone on the tarmac, empty and waiting for its new passengers. A few nervous glances out of windows later they were skimming over the jammed up roads leading into London.
*****
Hal took up his position in the aft of the Lynx with his L85’s barrel pressed against the hard deck of the helo and the fire selector returned to the safe position. His weapon would not discharge accidentally. Not while he had charge of it and certainly not in front of a cluster of foreigners. He’d die first.
The older man wearing the dark blue suit with the tiny American flag pin on the lapel sat beside him. Hal judged him to be either nervous or right well furious based on how the man wrung his hands together and stared at the contractor with the white baseball cap. Stared at the back of his head, more accurately. The cap wearer sat next to the blood-soaked medic Adamson. Hal thought the man said his name was Kevin. At the moment, Kevin was communicating with the pilot via headset.
Hal turned from looking out the window at the unfolding mess of metro London below to the old man. The old man noticed Hal’s attention and smiled like a politician who’d spotted a camera. In truth, he looked as if he already wore the makeup for a photo-op.
“Cheers,” Hal said in a yell. “Welcome to the United Kingdom is this your first visit?”
“Thank you,” the suit said back equally loud. “My fifth visit actually. I wish my return was under different pretenses.”
“Aye. Might I ask your name?”
“Senator Henke,” he replied, extending one of his wringing hands. Hal took it in his dark hand. The politician’s skin felt cool, and the shake firm. It felt practiced but not overdone.
“Corporal Harold Parker. Sorry about the sudden nature of your visit and all the mess you’ve dealt with. Where was your last stop?”
“Jerusalem. I was giving a speech,” Henke said. Hal noted how the man’s eyes glassed over from the thoughts of the day. The senator looked to the blonde woman who shook at his side in visible discomfort in the helicopter. She looked as afraid as an expensive cat thrown in a junkyard dog pen.
“Terrorists?”
“That’s how it started,” Henke said, staring out the window in the helicopter’s door. Hal couldn’t tell if the man was experiencing negative memories or if he’d turned the corporal out. A glance out the window told Hal the man probably stared at a column of oily, black smoke that rose from a house fire in western London. Judging by the thickness of the smoke it had to be a big fire.
“But that’s not how it finished? Things got worse then, yeah?” Hal pressed. Information he gained now could be useful later. Even if it wasn’t, talking passed the time.
“The men they shot… Wouldn’t die. Never seen anything like it. Horror,” Henke said. “You couldn’t imagine the horror of it all. SO much blood. And the screaming…”
“Wouldn’t die, or died and came back? Substantial difference, sir,” Hal said with a sly smile.
Henke didn’t respond to the joke. “Some of them died I think. Many, actually. Most, probably. But they got up and attacked people anyway. Biting and clawing, beating on people. Trying to kill again. Some died for good. By that I mean stayed dead. I don’t know. Harold, it doesn’t make sense. They acted like animals.”
“Fighting rarely makes sense in my experience. But it must be done sparingly at times for the good of the people. The bloody ignorant,” Hal said. “Sit tight and rest assured. You’re in a perfectly good piece of aviation equipment flying over a fine nation and you are protected by multiple well-trained men with many firearms. We’ll have you to your destination soon. Precious little to fret over.”
“That’s very reassuring Mr. Parker. Thank you for trying to make me feel more comfortable. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to close my eyes and try to rest.”
“Absolutely, sir.”
Henke closed his eyes and rested his head back. The vibration from the chopper’s rotors not far above lulled the man into what looked like a deep sleep and Hal turned his attention to Adamson, who sat a few feet away, still soaked in blood. His chin rested on his chest and his head swung side to side as the helicopter rocked in flight. He seemed far too still.
“Adamson,” Hal said, reaching out towards the medic. Hal couldn’t see his face and the way the medic’s head moved bothered him. Harold’s eyes caught a pair of rips in the man’s sleeve right above the wrist. The fabric had the unmistakable series of round tears that were mouth-sized. He’d been bitten.
Adamson’s head rolled to the side as the helicopter gained altitude. His face finally moved to where Hal could see it. He wasn’t asleep or dead. Adamson had changed. He’d become something different. The former brown corneas of Adamson’s eyes had thinned in their opacity and color until they looked like tea with too much milk, sprayed with foul yellow and red flecks. His mouth hung open and his tongue explored his lips and teeth with an absence of sense and decorum. He looked like a rabid dog thirsting for water—or blood—in the desert.
The chopper suddenly bounced upward as it gained altitude again, and Adamson came out of his seat and tumbled head over heels into the opening of the cockpit. He landed head up at the shoulder of the pilot and found warm, yielding flesh presented to his mouth. He bit hard and savage below the edge of the pilot’s helmet. The dog found his water.
Bright red arterial blood sprayed the ceiling panels,
the controls, the windscreen and the copilot. So much came free so fast the interior of the cockpit was either bathed in blood itself, or turned red from the light shining through the blood on the glass. The quantity and force of the red blood astounded Hal but he lost his amazement as the helicopter began to spin out of control. The American contractor leapt over the consoles and gear separating the cockpit from the rest of the helicopter in the fracas and grabbed Adamson, yanking and pulling to get him off the doomed pilot. The man’s heroic effort was wasted. The pilot had died, the chopper was going down, and nothing mattered.
The copilot called out mayday over and over as they plummeted downward into metropolitan London.
Hal grabbed the Senator and pinned him into the seat with all the strength he could muster, and prayed for his mother and father. With God’s mercy and grace, he didn’t feel the impact as the chopper smashed into the street below.
*****
The world had gone upside down. More accurately the helicopter had gone upside down. The world proper was still right-side-up, though who knew how long that would last. Everything else seemed to be well on the way to getting tossed on its head.
Hal opened his eyes and looked around inside the topsy-turvy rear compartment of the Lynx. The white capped man was moving about the upside down cabin with purpose as another member of his team snapped a broken finger back into place with a grunt and a sharp exhalation. Beyond the man named Kevin and his friend with the broken finger lay two dead men in the cockpit. The pilot had died before they’d crashed and the copilot in the other seat had been eviscerated by the front structure of the chopper during the impact. His body twitched strangely almost to the beat of the other chopper’s rotors outside and above, unnerving Hal.
The old man Harold had pinned against the back of the cabin with his body had survived the crash. He had clearly been knocked upside the head with the bird getting tossed over. A clump of his gray hair was fused together by dried, sticky blood from a head wound. His eyes refused to focus as he tried to help his blonde aide.
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