by Sean Deville
“Come on, Archie, get up off their floor,” a gentle voice said, and he felt weak hands cajoling him.
“Mildred, where’s Mildred?” he said pathetically.
“She’s not here, Archie,” the voice answered. “Stand up so we can get you off the carpet. It’s filthy down there.” He looked at the person trying to help him, a sweet old lady who had been here over five years, and reluctantly let her help him. He recognised her somewhat, and for a moment, she looked like an angel. She helped him over to the side of the room’s entrance where he sat down on a chair that smelt of stale urine, next to a man who was drooling on himself. The angel smiled at him one last time and then disappeared to help some of the others. The room was filled with confusion and sobs. And then it was filled with terror.
Archie looked to his left and saw a lone man standing in the doorway to the common room. He was naked from the waist up, his torso smeared with blood. What was most obvious about him, though, was the very real fact that his left arm was missing.
“Arnold?” Archie whispered, remembering the figure from his dream. In his demented mind, the present became combined with the past, and even though his old friend had been in uniform and looked nothing like the demon before him, the two figures merged as one in his mind.
“Medic,” Archie cried and stood shambolically, staggering over to the figure, who just watched him with an almost curious look. “It’s alright, mate, I’ve got you.” Archie put his hands on the naked flesh, which is when the figure struck him across the face with the back of its one good hand. Archie fell, something cracking in his shoulder as he landed. Pain and dismay washed over him, and he watched in disbelief as half a dozen blood-soaked figures joined the first. These six didn’t wait and look; they stormed into the room and infected everything they could. All Archie could do was lie there and weep at the carnage as his body rapidly succumbed to the infection.
18.01PM, 16th September 2015, Hounslow, London, UK
This was his city now, his country. There was no need for fear, no need for doubt or regret. He owned it, he owned it all. Every shop, every house, every car, and every street was his to do with as he wished. Hours ago, these streets had been filled with the dead and the dying. Now they were barren, cleared of all life by the infected who even now were off spreading the contagion they carried to fresh victims. The contagion that he was immune to, the contagion that had altered him, improved him. Even now, he could feel it within his body, changing him, enhancing him. Owen Patterson stopped in the middle of the street and looked again at the stumps where his severed fingers had once been. Whilst those fingers weren’t growing back, the flesh was already knitting together, healing the wounds. The phantom pain still lingered, but even that was diminishing, becoming nothing but a mere distraction. Owen smiled, relishing the gifts he had been given. He felt almost superhuman. The price of two fingers was more than enough for what he had been given. Being bitten, it seemed, had been a blessing. It would only occur to him later, much later, that perhaps it was in fact a curse.
Owen turned around, looking at the assorted creations of humanity, the Heckler and Koch machine gun he had liberated from the abandoned Armed Response vehicle held firm in his undamaged hand. Another gift, another grace that life had bestowed upon him. Oh, this was sweet, this was just perfect. But he couldn’t stand in the middle of the street feeling pleased with himself. He had shit to do, places to go, and people to see. There were plans that he needed to make, and the sooner the better. And first off, he had to see if his gang were still alive. There was one thing better than being king of the city…having minions to lord over and do your bidding. If they were still alive, if they weren’t running bloodied and infected with the other crazies, Owen knew where they would be. And so that’s where he was heading now, with a bag full of guns and alcohol he had acquired from an off-licence moments earlier. He hadn’t stolen it, for how could he steal what was already his? This whole city was his property now, and he was going to damned well make sure anyone left over from the virus understood that. They would fucking do his bidding or he would inflict such agony on them, such damage that they would wish they had surrendered themselves to the infected.
Owen turned the corner into the next street and saw a small crowd bent over something in the middle of the road. They were obviously infected, and he walked purposefully towards them, no longer afraid by their strength and the threat they posed to mere mortal men. He knew they were not a danger to him, not anymore. One of the infected sensed him and its head darted to look as he approached. It began to stand, hissing at him, but as he got closer, it seemed to cower back down, and then turned away from him to continue with its meal. The five infected had hunted down a Labrador, and were presently consuming the contents of its rib cage, hands clawing at the flesh that they then ripped out and consumed. Owen stopped next to the group, and watched them feed on the animal. He saw that its eyes were already gone, saw that its tongue no longer lolled out of its mouth, a mouth whose lower jaw had been ripped clean off. One of the infected bled from an arm riddled with teeth marks, but the injury didn’t seem to bother it.
He watched them a moment longer, fascinated by their lack of interest in him. His curiosity grew and he lifted a foot and gently kicked one of the infected in the back. It shifted in position, but ignored him. So the next kick had more force, and the infected went sprawling over the dog’s carcass, sending the others scattering. He watched as they turned towards him, hissing out words that could just be recognised as human speech.
“Must feeeeeed.”
“Leave usss, let us feeeeed.”
Owen was surprised that most of what he heard wasn’t from their lips. It was in his head. There had been a faint murmuring in his mind ever since he woke up, like the sound of distant traffic. Only now, up close, did he understand what it was. He could hear them, could hear their thoughts.
“I can hear you,” Owen said. “I can hear you, in here,” he said, tapping his temple with his damaged hand. And then he said the next thing not with his mouth, but with his mind. “Can you hear me?”
“Yesss,” the distorted voices said. “Yes, we heeaar.”
“Fucking awesome!” Owen shouted in delight. “This is so cool.”
18.03PM, 16th September 2015, St Pancras Railway Station, London, UK
He had been in here over eight hours now, and the battery on his phone had long since died. Watching live video of the death of London tended to do that. He had sat and watched in shocked horror as the events of the morning unfolded, unable to leave his makeshift prison. Prison was probably a better word to use than refuge, despite the door in front of him being the only reason he was still alive. Several times, he had tried to open that door, but every time, a noise from outside had caused panic to slam the door shut again, and then the pounding had followed. And the voices, the disjointed, incomprehensible voices. Occasionally, an arm would sweep into the gap under the door, the fingers reaching, flexing, trying to get purchase on him. And once, hands had appeared at the top of the door, and a devastated face had appeared, the eyes staring at him insanely. But although there was space to do so, it had not climbed over the door, and had instead retreated. So here he was, in a space not big enough to spread his arms out wide, his only companion the toilet upon whose lid he now sat.
It had happened so quickly. So intent on getting to the lavatory, he had missed many of the signs that the world was going to oblivion. Reaching the toilet stall, he had lowered his pants, sat down, and almost sighed with pleasure as the pressure was released. Mid movement, something had banged hard on the door to his toilet cubicle.
“Hey, it’s occupied,” he had shouted. Seriously, the people in this city were a nightmare. The sooner he moved back up north the better. Reaching for the paper, there was another bang on the door, and he rolled his eyes in disdain. Disdain quickly turned to bewilderment, which turned to fear. And all because of the blood that began to seep under the door. It wasn’t a lot, but it was unmist
akeable against the stark white clinical surroundings.
“What the fuck…?” he said softly. There was a scream, and then the sound of gunshots. And then his whole world literally went to shit.
Now, he listened at the door and could hear nothing. His previous attempts to pull himself up and look over the top of the stall had been in vain…he just didn’t have the upper body strength to raise himself up enough to see what needed to be seen, so the truth of the world out of his vision was unknown to him. But he had to get out of here. It wouldn’t be long before thirst drove him to drink from the toilet bowl, and he didn’t think he could do that. Not now, but what about in a day, two days? The first time he had opened the door, nervously, tentatively, he had pulled it inwards to see the source of the blood, a body lying faceless below the hand basins. Faceless because the face was just a mass of red and gore. Another body lay near it, again obviously dead, its throat ripped out. Then a howl swept in from the entrance to the gent’s toilets followed by a crazy-eyed, blood-soaked lunatic that rushed right at him. If he’d hesitated for just one second, he wouldn’t have been able to get the door closed in time. Thank God they opened inwards, and he was relieved to discover it made an effective barrier against a world now infested by devils. The hinges and the lock held against a barrage of fists and feet that must have lasted a good minute.
The noises from the slaughter in the train station carried on for a good thirty minutes after that. But it took him a whole hour before he even touched the cubicle door again. Gently rapping his knuckle on it twice, the pounding began again. Christ, had that thing been waiting out there for him all that time?
But now he was hungry and thirsty, and he needed to do something. He couldn’t end his days sat on a fucking public toilet. And then there was the smell; it was already unbearable, and he was finding it difficult to breath. So he stood, determination and desperation spurring him on.
“Come on, you can do this,” he said, not really believing a word he had just said. He wasn’t a brave man. He knocked on the door three times and stepped back. The door didn’t erupt, and he heard nothing from outside. He hit the door harder this time, and again there was no response. Taking a deep breath, he opened the portal enough for him to cautiously look out. The two bodies he had originally seen were no longer there. The only thing that marked their existence was the sea of red that coated the floor.
“Hello?” he said at a half-shout, ready to slam the door shut. But nothing came. No demons swarmed him, no ghouls sounded off in the distance. Carefully, he took a step out into the main toilet area, avoiding the blood where he could. To the left, he could see a foot and half a leg poking out from behind the corner, and he made his way over to it, knowing it was the only way out. The closer he got, the more of the leg he could see, until it stopped just below the knee. The rest of the leg’s owner was nowhere to be seen, and he felt bile rise up his throat.
“Jesus.” He’d known it was bad, had watched the BBC footage of the police being overwhelmed outside this very station. Before his battery had run out of juice, he’d watched a CNN report about the assassination of the Prime Minister and the evacuation of London. He was trapped in a city home to millions of infected maniacs who all possessed the strength of the damned.
The corridor outside the toilets was clear, the main pedestrian area of the train station littered with debris and several motionless bodies. The only sounds he heard came from himself, and he moved out of the toilets and up the wall, hugging it, ready to turn and flee should the need arise. At some point, that option would be off the table, and was it really an option, even now? Coming to the end of the corridor, he looked down the length of what had been the station’s shopping area, and the mezzanine floor that led to the northbound trains seemed deserted. In the distance, he thought he heard a siren, but the sound was fleeting, maybe even imagined. There was nobody here, and he moved further out into the space, his eyes spotting the discarded machine gun that lay like a treasure in a pool of blood.
He almost didn’t hear it, the movement was so stealthy. In fact, in his last moments, he realised his mistake from a kind of sixth sense. Turning around, he saw the creature that had dropped from the floor above. It must have vaulted over the glass barrier and had landed with almost cat-like grace. It stood, staring at him with deep, red eyes and a jaw hanging halfway off. Another sound, behind him now, and he turned his head to see another of the beasts standing from finishing its drop.
“No,” he said weakly. They had been waiting for him, waiting for his own body’s needs to force him out into the open. He looked down at the gun, so far away, so useless, and then both infected rushed him. They didn’t kill him. The collective only killed as a last resort now. They needed numbers; they needed soldiers. It was still not the time to feed for most of them. It was the time to spread, to grow stronger. His scream filled the station, and the hope of the half dozen non-infected humans still trapped within the building died with those terrified sounds.
18.04PM, 16th September 2015, London Southend Airport, Southend on Sea, UK
“It’s time to go, sir.” Captain Grainger looked up at his colour sergeant and nodded. He stood, his back aching from sitting on the cold tarmac for too long.
“Are all the men away?” Grainger asked.
“Yes, sir. We will be on the last flight out.”
“And the civilians?” Colour Sergeant Vorne looked at his commanding officer with a disapproving frown.
“They aren’t your responsibility, sir, not anymore.” Vorne impatiently looked at his watch. “It’s time to leave,” he said again. Grainger nodded. Tasked with defending Whitehall and Parliament, he had failed in his mission. But then it had been a mission against impossible odds. This virus, this contagion was like a bulldozer, rolling over everything in its path. Unstoppable, unfathomable. He had saved his men, or more rightly, they had saved themselves. But he hadn’t been able to save the seat of British Government, which even now was probably still burning from the air strikes that had been dropped on it. Thousands of years of history and empire wiped out in a matter of hours. His land, his country was being overrun. Picking up his gear, he followed his sergeant to the plane fifty metres away.
“You did well today, Sergeant,” Grainger said. Vorne didn’t turn around, but he thought he saw the man stiffen slightly. “These men owe you a lot.”
“Thank you, sir.” Vorne didn’t say anymore, just accepted his commanding officer’s praise. Grainger suspected it made him feel uncomfortable. The sergeant did what he did because it was his job, because it was his duty. Vorne didn’t need medals and glory. The only thing that mattered to him was keeping his men alive.
After escaping by boat and travelling east down the Thames, they had been dropped off at the coastal resort of Southend on Sea. The decision had been made to forsake the cities, to leave millions of people to fend for themselves, to abandon the majority to the indestructible plague that would descend upon all of them. Being just a captain, Grainger didn’t have any say in such decisions, but the feeling of hopelessness bit into him. He had seen first-hand that fighting against this infestation was an impossible task, and yet part of him still wanted to try. But only a part of him—the more sensible part saw the futility in it all. There just weren’t enough guns, enough men, enough bullets. This was an enemy that couldn’t be fought at close range, that swarmed in incredible numbers, that came back even when they were dead. He couldn’t risk his men on such a suicide mission. Even worse than the thought of them dying was the thought of them becoming one of the enemy, turning on their brothers.
He didn’t want to be there when one of them became infected, knowing his standing orders would mean him having to put a bullet into that soldier’s brain. He didn’t think he could do it. These men looked up to him, trusted him. How the hell could he be expected to shoot them in cold blood, knowing that he would be judged in the eyes of every other private and corporal under his command? Vorne wouldn’t judge, of course. Hell, if i
t came to that, Vorne would probably be the one carefully prying the revolver out of his hand and doing the deed for him.
They reached the plane. Despite earlier being at the heart of the battle, Grainger had volunteered his men to hold the airport until the main bulk of the evacuated forces were in the air. He knew his men wouldn’t like it, but it was their job, and thankfully, they were now leaving before the infection had reached them. Several of the men had deserted in the subsequent hours, but most of them remained. Grainger found himself surprised by how few men had abandoned his ranks. He had expected a lot more, and he felt that he owed a lot to those that had chosen to remain. He was their leader now, not because of the bars on his uniform, but because they knew that leadership was their best chance of staying alive.
“How long is the flight to Newquay?” Grainger asked. He sounded tired, beaten.
“Just over an hour. Come on, sir,” Vorne said, falling behind his captain slightly, pushing him forward with a gentle hand. “There’s still plenty for us to do.”
18.07PM, 16th September, 2015, Over the English Channel
Keith looked out of the cockpit of his light aircraft, the blood in his veins already ice. He had taken off forty minutes before, his flight from the UK mainland delayed because, by some bizarre twist of fate, he had somehow missed the news that billions of other people had seen. It wasn’t until the mid-afternoon that he learnt of the infection, of the plague sweeping the country. He had watched with growing disbelief as the TV played out horrific scenes from what could have been a cliché horror movie, and he knew he only had one option open to him…to flee.
