Day Zed - Box Set: Volumes I and II

by Charles Smith

  Without looking back he felt for the handle to the adjoining carriage and turned it. As it opened he pulled the door open behind him and when he felt the door was open enough he made a quick side step and stepped backwards into the void between the two carriages. He pulled the door back closed just as the girl reached it. She snapped, with her rotten jaws at the glass, and banged upon the doors, Jackson held onto the door knob just in case she did have the wits to turn it. Being up this close to the girl, he looked into her dark black eyes, her skin was very pale white colour and it looked like it had been bleached. It seemed like every vein under her skin stood out as each was now was a dark shaded purple. All he had to do was keep the door closed for a few seconds more, he could then run into the next carriage and away from this monster. Jackson could now see that the girl wore a uniform. It was for an airline company that ran flights out of Gatwick, and more disturbingly she had answered to the name of Chelsea not so long ago, according to her name badge. That is before she had died, and then reanimated. Now the girl would never answer to her name again, all she was capable of was trying to fulfil her need to feed upon living flesh, and at that precise moment all she longed for was to feed upon Jackson.

  The train finally arrived and once the driver pressed the button to power up the door controls, the awaiting passengers immediately began to board the train. The monster that had been called Chelsea turned and stumbled towards her new prey. Jackson saw this as his chance to escape, turning quickly he ran into the other carriage and straight out of the door. Looking to his right, passengers who had boarded the first carriage now began to exit it, several women were screaming. As everyone was rushing to get off at the same time, a collision of bodies trying to barge through the gap left by the open doors caused the inevitable to happen. The heap of bodies went down together, just outside of the carriage door. As the fallen passengers attempted to get up, the zombie appeared, and misjudging the step fell on top of them and began to bite indiscriminately.

  Jackson decided to run from the bundle of bodies, when he got to the end of the train, he jumped down onto the track, and then climbed up onto the adjacent platform. The screams of bitten passengers carried throughout the whole station, and when Jackson reached the concourse he was surprised that around fifty people had congregated at the end of the platform he had just fled from. Why they still stood there rather than run? Jackson just didn’t understand. He could have run straight out of the station, but now he was a short distance away he ran to a station employee and between breaths informed him of what had transpired.

  The station announcer called for all available platform attendants to approach the platforms edge, and after a short five turned up. They were joined by the station manager, and asked to help him defuse the situation. Three people staggered past the employee’s crying, they all had bleeding wounds, and one poor man had lost most of the tip off his nose. The employees took their time in reaching the area where the passengers had only just recently spilled to the floor. What lay before them was terrifying as two figures still lay prone on the floor, and one of those had a large wound to the side of their neck, and had lost a lot of blood. Next to the prone bodies, two more people were hunched over them, they made strange slurping and chewing sounds, with their backs to the employees, who had no idea what they were walking towards. The six men stopped ten feet from the hunched figures, and the manager shouted. “Hey, is everything okay there?”

  The hunched figures turned and looked at the group of men. What they had been chewing and slurping on now became quite clear. One had another person’s ear in their hand, whilst another appeared to be chewing on a length of intestine that had come from a disembowelled body on the floor. The zombies, on unsteady legs raised themselves up, and began to lumber towards the station staff. The sight of two bloodthirsty zombies moving towards them was enough to send four of the men fleeing. Only the manager and one other stood their ground. The manager had not quite seemed to realise what was before him, and began trying to reason with the zombies as they approached.

  “Please, we don’t want any trouble? Just move along, and let us help the injured passengers.”

  The only reaction that came from them was the gnashing of their teeth. Their arms were outstretched as if they were sleepwalking, and a spine tingling moan escaped from them, as they closed the gap to the station manager. He made one more foolish attempt of appeasing them.

  “Don’t hurt anyone else, we can sort this out.” He pleaded.

  Both zombies lunged at the same time, and the manager screamed out. It was all too late as he began to struggle, one of the cadavers bit into his windpipe, whilst the other bit into his left cheek. It snapped its head back and tore a huge chunk of flesh from the manager’s face. Just five feet in front of the carnage the station worker had fell to the floor, and screwed his body up into a ball as he cried. The noise was enough to attract the attention of the two zombies that had reanimated, they closed the gap between themselves and the doomed station worker and then ungraciously dropped down on top of him and began to feed. Such was the depth of the shock he was in that he didn’t scream out as they began to eat him alive.

  Jackson had seen all of this transpire from the edge of the concourse. In the course of just ten minutes, one young girl had managed to create another three like her. The station manager and his colleague would turn as well, and at least three people had ran out of the station grounds with bite wounds. Jackson wondered if each zombie was capable of creating eight more in just ten minutes, how long until all of Britain would be wiped out? He turned his back on the carnage, walked out of London Bridge train station, and turned right to walk over London Bridge, and into the city centre of London. To stay would have been foolish and although he wanted to help Jackson had no idea what he could do, other than run and save his own life.

  1st July, London Bridge, London, 6:45am

  London Bridge had been reasonably quiet in terms of footfall. With it being a Saturday morning it was still too early for the majority of the tourists that would take to the streets, to be out. The bridge was a pleasure to walk across of a weekend, with beautiful views of the Thames either side which bisected the metropolis of buildings that London had become. Attempting to walk across the bridge during the week was a different matter. With London Bridge station and Fenchurch Street station either side it was sometimes like walking into a sea of zombies that had taken a shower, and put on their best clothes.

  Jackson did not hang around, as he wanted to get some distance between himself, and what was happening at the station behind him. He stopped at the end of the bridge, near the exit to Monument underground station, just to get his breath back. Looking into the store window in front of him, he noticed he had stopped outside of an outdoor hobbyist shop. Judging by the shops display it would have everything he needed to survive out in the middle of the City, from sleeping bags to outdoor portable stoves. The only problem was the store didn’t open until ten on a Saturday morning.

  As his breathing returned to normal, Jackson decided that with what was happening around him that laws were going to be broken all over the capitol. He walked around the corner and found a loose bit of concrete that would achieve the desired result in opening the shop a little earlier. Now standing back in front of the unit, he once again weighed up his options. He could wait until ten for the shop to open, that is if the staff even turned up, or launch the concrete at the tempered glass, and break the law for the first time in a very long time. The time for thinking was over, and Jackson propelled the concrete towards the tempered pane of glass. It took several attempts to smash the glass, and people walking past had either stopped to stare or carried on walking whilst pointing back at the scene. Jackson climbed through the shattered shop front, and quickly headed for the camping rucksack section. He grabbed the largest he could find and began to pick up whatever he felt would be useful over the next few weeks. Jackson had bagged what he construed as essential, including a portable camping stove, refill bo
ttles for the stove, a sleeping bag, and water sterilising tablets. Secondary items such as torches, batteries, a multi tool, a first aid kit and matches were also placed into the bag.

  He left the shop, and checked to his left to ensure the bridge was still free of trouble, and then turned right. After a short two hundred walk Jackson came across a convenience store. He decided to stock up on bare essentials later on after he had found somewhere that he thought would be safe from the immediate threat, as for now his bag was full and he physically couldn’t carry anymore. Continuing on Jackson finally came across a building that he felt would offer him some sanctuary.

  After coming across the old bank just a few hundred yards up the road, from the store Jackson had decided it made sense to stay local to the area. With a weighty rucksack to carry around, he couldn’t yet carry food or water, and by the time he had set up camp, he felt that he wouldn’t have much time to track back too far. The store would carry more than enough essentials to get him through the first few days. The building he now stood in front of was a single story bank that now sat empty due to the branch being relocated. The single story building looked out of place sandwiched between larger buildings, to its immediate right a new office was under construction, the main frame and supports seemed to be in place and the whole of the first floor was boarded up, and covered by glossy images of what the finished construction would look like when it was completed.

  As Jackson perused the front to look for an access point, he felt sorry in some ways for the little building. Unlike other small buildings in the past that had been purchased, and then demolished for something taller, and more modern to take their place, this little building would probably never get that chance if his hunch that the incident at the station was far graver than it appeared was correct. As with most buildings situated in London, the bank had no rear access, getting in to the disused bank would not be easy. There was no point breaking the windows to gain entry, as he wanted the place to remain secure. Looking up and along the expanse of buildings, a glimmer of hope appeared before him. To the other side of the new office building sat and old fashioned shoe cobblers, and above the cobblers were two floors of offices, it was the old fashioned lead guttering that had caught Jackson’s eye, as it ran the height of the three floors .

  He had not attempted the climb with his rucksack on, and had left the weighty bag back on the street, whilst he clambered up. It had not taken long to climb to the top, and as they building had a flat roof, he didn’t have to contend with a steep roof to climb as well. To his relief the office building had more than just a frame, and its supports in place. Each floor had been constructed, and the frames already had the block work in place, even the concrete stairs had been erected. Although it would be exposed of an evening, this building offered more protection than the single story bank, there was no way anyone could gain access to the building other than the route Jackson had just taken. A quick scope of the building’s interior produced a length of wire that would be strong enough to pull the rucksack up once attached to the bags handle. The climb down, had taken a bit longer than the climb up, and after attaching the wire to the rucksack Jackson made the climb again, and then set about pulling the filled rucksack up to the building.

  Even though it was still early in the morning the temperature was already strength sapping. The climbing up and down didn’t help, and Jackson ached all over. He was reluctant to make the climb again, but had no choice as he needed to get to the small store to stock up on essentials. There was no way he would survive for long up in the empty shell of the office building without food and water. Jackson rested for half an hour before making his final trip, he felt the quicker he could get his supplies, the quicker he could set up, and bunk down until he knew what was happening in the City, and if the authorities could contain whatever that poor girl had been infected with.

  The walk back to the store didn’t take long and was uneventful, what surprised him when he walked in was that there didn’t appear to be any staff present on the shop floor. It was still early enough in the morning that the store wasn’t busy, but people that had ventured into the store were now taking full advantage of the fact that there were not any members of staff on duty. One man was now behind the cigarette counter, he pulled every packet out from the display racks, and emptied all of them into baskets, he had even took all of the hand rolling tobacco. After he had emptied the entire cigarette cupboard, he then set about removing all the lottery scratch cards from their plastic dispensers. Jackson watched in disbelief at the man, it was bad enough that he now had a stack of shopping baskets full of cigarettes to move, but just who in the world would buy a scratch card, that they might never ever be able to be redeem, should it be a winning one. The man’s madness continued as he began trying to force open the tills. Others were more tactically selective, and were bagging food, and water.

  Jackson wondered why the staff had just upped and left, this did not look good. Jackson picked up canned goods, bottles of water, a can opener, crisps, chocolate, powdered milk and tea bags. He carried his goods out through the door and smirked as the man at the kiosk continued to struggle with the locked tills.

  After pulling up his rucksack earlier, Jackson had decided that if he ran several lengths of the wire down to the ground he could pull up all of his supplies after just one climb. With the supermarket free of any staff he had walked out with four full baskets full of goods, they would be easier to pull up than a carrier bag, and although they were awkward to carry back to the office building, the struggle would be worth it when hauling the baskets up. He had attached the lengths of wire to the baskets, and after his climb, pulled his supplies up onto the roof. He was tired and, he really needed to rest, but the thought that there were more supplies across the road that could come in handy forced Jackson down the drainpipe again. Common sense had forced him to go back and get more supplies.

  On his second visit to the store, Jackson quickly noticed that something within the store had changed. This time there was apparently no one else in the store, and this could be explained by the pools of blood that now spread around the store. The scratch card man had never made it away from the counter, and he now lay prone, sprawled across the top of the counter. A wound mark to his neck had ended his life suddenly, he had lost a struggle against someone that had attacked him, and his booty of cigarettes, and scratch cards had fallen all over the floor. Moving past the dead man, Jackson slowly worked his way to the edge of each aisle, he did not have anything to defend himself, and should he run into any trouble, it would be wise to run from any confrontation. After negotiating the first five aisles, he had stumbled upon two other bodies which now bled out on the floor There was only one more aisle to check now, and as he peered around the shelving he was shocked to see a man pulling a hunting knife from the back of a fourth body crumpled beneath him. The man casually looked in Jackson’s direction, and even though he was crouching Jackson could tell he was a brute of a man, Jackson would be foolish to get into a tussle him, and there would only be one winner. For seconds they stared into each other eyes before the man spoke. “Get the fuck out of my store Bruv”.

  As the man began to stand, Jackson turned and ran from the store.

  1st July, Battersea, London, 7:34am

  The majority of the Conservative Government had reconvened and now sat in motion, for an emergency meeting that had been requested by the current Prime Minister Hadyn Broxby. Each member had been collected by car and then taken straight to the secret bunker, situated near Battersea power station. Every elected minister of parliament had been invited to the bunker, as well as the immediate royal family, the majority of the highest ranking military personnel, many of the country’s leading scientists, and the chief inspector of the Metropolitan police. Of those invited, the majority arrived on time, some people had not been able to be contacted, and were therefore struck off the list of invitee’s, and listed down as missing. This secret installation was something that Government had kep
t maintained, should there ever be a catastrophic attack of any kind on the UK, and now this bunker would become home to the three hundred occupants it now held.

  With an impenetrable entrance and exit leading from the bunker, it could not be attacked by any army or force. As it sat a full four stories below the surface there was no way a bomb could penetrate it from above. The bunker had been constructed in the early seventies, and had taken a full four years to build, its whole concrete structure was lined by both solid steel and lead to protect it, the combined square footage of the site was over two acres. The bunker was updated with the latest technology every year, to ensure should its use ever be required, that it would be ready to carry out its role as a fully functioning command post. Water was drawn from its own pumped wells that were deep below the surface, and the bunker was equipped with its own generators should the power to the outside world ever run out. There was enough food on the complex to feed the three hundred guests for at least two years. On the basement level, the bunker even had its own vehicle compound, and weapons hull that would cover the bunker for any eventuality.

  Communication to the outside was easy enough, the bunker was equipped with its own satellite and radio service. It had master controls to all of Britain’s media sources, as well as master controls to the Internet, ensuring that the Government still had control of the country. Even though the bunker had now been placed in lockdown alert, and was at its highest security level the Government still intended that the country should be governed, rather than left to its own devices. All of the privileged occupants were aware of the fact that now they had entered the bunker, that they were there for good, or at least until a safe zone above ground could be identified.