“We have just received information that disturbances are now occurring in Birmingham and Manchester.”
He repeated the government directive about going home and staying indoors, and then continued with other news – the normal subjects, Syria and Iraq.
By now it was nearly 11.30 am.
Mary turned to me and said, “From all that, it seems things are getting out of control. Reading between the lines, the authorities have no control at all.”
“Yes, you’d better cancel the trip to your mother, until things are sorted out.”
“I’ll phone John and get him to pick up Josephine in Chelmsford on his way back from Brentwood,” I continued. My son John and daughter-in-law Josephine were living with us at the time. John had his own IT business in Brentwood, which I understood was doing well. Josephine worked for the local council as a Chinese interpreter.
“OK, you do that and I will telephone the girls. I’ll tell them to collect their children from school and get their husbands to come home.” Mary picked up the phone and started to ring our elder daughter, Linda, who had four children – three girls and a boy. I picked up the mobile phone and called John’s office. Fortunately, he answered.
“Hello, Dad.” He knew it was me by the number displayed.
“Have you seen the news lately?” I asked.
“Not recently, but I did hear there were strange goings-on in London last night when I listened to a bit of the news going to work this morning. What has happened, then?”
“It appears to be some highly contagious disease,” I replied. “The government is telling everybody to go home and lock their doors to stop the disease spreading until they can get it under control. It might be a good time to speak to Josephine and pick her up on your way home.”
“How did you do yesterday?” he asked.
“That’s another story. I’ll tell you when you get home. You’d better hurry, the news said the disease had reached Ilford, and that was half an hour ago.”
“Right then, I’ll see you later, Dad,” he said and rang off. I was left looking at the phone. OK son, I thought.
Mary was still on the phone to Linda.
“Do it now – ’bye,” she said in a rather agitated voice. I could not hear the other side of the conversation, but our daughter could be very stubborn at times. Mary turned to me, looking very stern, and said “I’ll just ring Ruth” – our younger daughter, who had two young girls. Unfortunately – speaking as a bloke, that is – I had five granddaughters and only one grandson.
Mary started to speak to Ruth and told her what she had seen and heard on the news, then she was telling Ruth what to do. Well, let’s face it, most women like to do that – in my experience, anyway.
After about five minutes, Mary put the phone down and looked at me.
“I think I’ve sorted that out,” she said.
“Good. John is going to pick up Josephine from Chelmsford on his way home, and hopefully they will be here just after twelve.”
It was just approaching that hour when Mary said, “Let’s check on the latest news”.
“OK, I think I need another cup of tea – do you want a coffee?”
“No, I still have some.”
I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. I walked back into the living room with tea in hand just as the midday news was starting.
Things were spiralling out of control. The infection had now spread to Romford and Loughton. They were telling us they had a camera crew in Romford and should have pictures shortly. After they repeated the government information and replayed the interview with the contagious diseases person, the newsreader said: “We can now go live to Jeff Holmes in Romford”.
The picture started off a bit jerky but soon stabilised. Jeff Holmes appeared and started to speak. “We are about half a mile from the Gallows Corner roundabout on the Romford side near the A12.” The camera showed a street which looked like the main road, with a number of people running towards the TV crew. As one very large black man, six-foot-plus and built like a tank, approached the crew, he was flagged down by the reporter and stopped in front of the camera.
“Can you tell us what is going on down the road?” Jeff Holmes asked him.
The man started to speak, breathing heavily.
“Yes, the whole world’s gone mad … there are lots of people trying to bite other people … one of them bit me on my arm but I managed to get away”.
The man turned away from the camera and started to look at the ground.
“Can you tell us how many people seem to be involved?” Holmes asked.
The man started to twitch slightly.
Are you OK? Can we do anything to help?” asked Holmes, now concerned.
At this point, the man turned halfway towards the camera with his eyes closed and a contorted look on his face. His eyes then opened, and Mary and I jumped as we saw they were the same bright-red bloodshot eyes I had seen on the people in London the previous day. The television correspondent took a step back, but too late – the big black man jumped on him and bit him in the neck. There was a blood-curdling cry and all we could see on the TV was sky – there were a few screams and a shout just before the picture went blank. Within seconds the studio newsreader reappeared, visibly shaken. He stuttered for a few seconds before regaining his composure.
The wife and I were still recovering, too, when we heard the front door open and John and Josephine walked into the room.
“The roads were bad, and there had been an accident by the Boreham interchange. I went down the A130 through the Army and Navy roundabout to collect Josephine,” said John matter-of-factly.
“Your mother and I just watched the news – things are getting completely out of control,” I said, using the remote control to rewind the news so they could look. I pressed the play button just before the live broadcast with Jeff Holmes. Mary and I sat in silence while John and Josephine watched the TV, and when the black man turned round and opened his eyes Josephine let out gasp. Nothing seemed to phase John, however, who said simply, “That’s something you don’t see every day”.
Josephine turned to him and said, “What are we going to do?” although I think the question was aimed at everyone in the room.
“Personally, I don’t like the way this is going,” I said. “What has happened so far is going to take weeks to sort out, but it looks like getting a lot worse before it gets any better, so we need a plan and fast. I don’t think it will be long before they reach us – any suggestions, anybody?”
Mary was the first to speak.
“We need to stock up with food, drink and toiletries,” she said.
“If things do go bad, we may need torches, batteries and candles,” added John.
“Good idea, son,” I said.
“It might be a good idea to block the windows up,” I continued, “and remember our back door is all glass. We have some wooden pallets in the garden plus some other bits of timber, and there are plenty of screws and nails in the shed. But we will look at that later.”
I turned to my son before continuing.
“You know that for the last year I have been working on getting my firearms certificate? Well, it actually turned up yesterday! So, the plan is this, if we are all in agreement. John and I will have a trip round the local gun shops, while Mary can take Josephine and go to Sainsbury’s to get our supplies. Just make sure you get everything we’re going to need to last a month, if possible.”
Mary’s eyes lit up, as she loved spending money.
“And we’d better fill up the cars with fuel,” I added.
“Has everyone got their credit cards?” asked John. The women nodded. As if they would forget, I thought.
“Have you got yours, John? I think we’re going to need it,” I interrupted.
“Yes, with me all the time. I’d better phone Mar
tin to see how he’s coping,” said John.
Martin was John’s business partner, who lived in Brentwood, not far from where the live news broadcast had come from.
John rang him on his mobile and started to speak.
“Hello Martin, have you seen the news? You have, excellent.”
John paused while Martin explained what was happening.
“Make sure you lock your doors and block the windows, especially those large patio doors you have. What’s that noise I can hear?”
John stopped speaking and just looked at the phone.
“Christ! I could hear screams and shouting in the background. Martin just said ‘I’ve got to go’ and rang off. I hope he’s OK.” Martin had a wife and two young children.
“It’s twelve-thirty now. We’ll try to get back here by, let’s say, two-fifteen.”
Everybody nodded.
“Let’s do it, then,” said John.
Outside, John and I watched the two women pull away in the white Nissan Micra.
“Let’s make sure we have everything. I have the shotgun and firearms certificates, and you have your credit cards,” I said.
“Yes, let’s go, then … err … where are we going first?” John asked.
“I think the shop in Great Baddow would be best,” I replied. “Hold on a minute, though – we need a gun case.”
I went back into the house and collected a spare double gun case. There was a choice of three local gun shops to visit. We walked about 40 yards to the start of our small close and climbed into John’s Nissan Navara, a double-cab pickup truck.
“I’m going to go the back way to avoid the main roads,” he said.
“Good idea,” I replied.
We reached the main road and headed to the single-lane bridge across the river following the country lane towards the A414. Within five minutes we were running alongside the A12, on which there appeared to be some sort of holdup as the carriageway towards Colchester was bumper-to-bumper, with cars and lorries moving very slowly. As we approached our destination in Great Baddow, the road was blocked by bollards on our side to slow the traffic down, so just before this we turned right into a small retail park and drove past the entrance to the gun shop. John parked the truck in a spot in front of Brinkley Furniture – the only one available, but this was no time to muck about. I grabbed the gun case and we both headed for the gun shop entrance, which was emblazoned with advertising for Browning guns and Eley Hawk cartridges. John pushed open one of the double doors and we walked in.
“There don’t seem to be many guns here,” said John.
“This is just the clothing section – the guns are in the back half of the shop,” I replied.
As we walked through, a well-built man of average height seemed to be propping up a rack of camouflage clothing.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“We just want have a look round first,” I said, not wanting to rush.
The place was relatively empty apart from a much older gentleman looking at telescopic sights, further into the shop. We passed into the next section, and directly in front of us were racks of air rifles and a whole cabinet full of pellets to our right, and, to the right of that, various targets. We then entered the third section, which was what we were looking for. It was filled wall-to-wall with shotguns and rifles.
“Wow – so, which guns are you going to buy? I hope you have a good idea,” said John, taking in the enormous choice on offer.
“Well, the idea is to buy two .22LRs and two semi-auto twelve-bore shotguns,” I replied. “I can afford the .22LRs if you can buy the shotguns.”
John started to look at the prices of the shotguns.
“What? These are close to a thousand pounds each and more,” he said. He was looking at the Winchester and Browning models.
“Not them, John – the Hatsan models are the ones to look at, they’re less than five hundred each,” I said.
I had always wanted to have a go with a shotgun that could handle the 12-bore 3.5-inch magnum.
So I said, “We’ll take this Hatsan Supreme Max.” I did like something with a bit of woodwork. “And this Hatsan MPA.”
Normally I would never have purchased this more tactical type of shotgun, but given the current situation I thought it would be a wise choice.
“You do realise that these guns only have a three-shot capacity,” said John. “This MPA can hold eight.”
“You need a special firearms certificate for those, John,” I replied.
“Oh.”
The shop assistant we had seen earlier joined us in the shotgun section.
“Can I be of any help now?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied. We were joined by an older, smaller man who appeared from the storeroom at the very back of the shop. He gave the appearance of being the owner.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“I wish to purchase these two shotguns – this one and this 3.5-inch magnum,” I replied.
“May I see your shotgun certificate?” he asked.
I pulled out both certificates from my inside pocket.
“You have a firearms certificate as well, I see,” he said.
“Yes, that will be for our second purchase, but let’s sort out the shotguns first,” I replied.
“Can the magazines of the shotguns be extended?” John interrupted.
“Yes, they can. We have the extended tubes in stock but you would need a special firearms certificate for that,” the shop-owner replied, basically repeating what I had said before.
We did the deal and John spent about £1,000 on his credit card.
“We also need to buy some cartridges. Do you have any 3.5-inch magnum shells, and the Eley Hawk Alphamax-Plus loaded with SG?” I asked.
“We have some 3.5-inch game bore loaded with BB, but no cartridges loaded with SG at all.”
We bought two boxes of the BB loads, which was all he had.
“I’m also looking for a semi-auto .22LR, preferably some variant of the Ruger 10/22. One would be a target model and the other designed for speed,” I said.
“We have ten models in stock, but what you would be looking for is this light tactical model with a 16.5-inch barrel and this stainless-steel target model with a 20-inch heavy barrel which is screw-cut for a suppressor. You also need to fit a telescopic sight to this. You’ll find it useful to fit a red dot sight to the tactical rifle,” he explained.
My son and I had a quick look at both rifles and the sights the shop had in stock.
“Do you have a suppressor?” I asked.
“Yes,” the shop-owner replied, “but you have no variation on your licence to use that.”
“I did buy one for my air rifle from here some time ago,” I replied.
“It’s OK for an air rifle, but not for a firearm,” he said.
After a bit of chatter and negotiations, we left with the two Ruger 10/22s in their original boxes, the two shotguns, which came with a multitude of chokes and spacers, a telescopic sight, a red dot sight, four BX25 25-shot magazines and 1,200 rounds of .22LR ammo, split between high velocity and standard.
We put our purchases on the rear seats of John’s truck.
“Let’s try the other shop in Great Baddow to see if he has any useful ammo for the shotguns,” I said to John as we approached Baddow Road.
“OK,” he replied as he turned right to go further into Great Baddow. We stopped right outside the door of the shop. John was out of the truck first and beat me to the front door; as he pushed it open, a bell rang and we walked in.
This was a very old shop – I had been going there for more than 20 years and it still had the same owner. It sold mainly air weapons, longbows and fishing tackle, and he used to sell shotguns in the past, but by now he only sold the cartridges. The owner was sitting in the middl
e of the shop, slightly to our right and surrounded by a counter, creating a small island. Hanging from the beam supporting the roof were a number of compound bows – we had purchased two of these with the appropriate arrows from this shop a couple of years before. Directly in front of us was a rack of air rifles and below them various types of pellets and targets. To right of the island it was all fishing gear.
We were running late now, so I quickly asked the owner, “Do you have any SG cartridges or 3.5-inch twelve-bore shells?”
“No SG, but we do have four boxes of Fiocchi 3.5-inch shells loaded with BBs,” he replied.
“Right, we’ll take the lot,” I said, waving my shotgun certificate in front of him. He quickly disappeared into the back of the shop and returned carrying the cartridges.
We paid the man and left.
“Where to now?” asked John on our way out of the shop.
“The Boreham gun shop, and then home,” I replied.
The trip back to Boreham through the back roads was uneventful, going along the same country lane that we had used to get to Great Baddow. As we neared the end of the route we turned into a small cul-de-sac, where John parked the truck. We left the vehicle and walked back to the main road, and 20 yards on the left we arrived at the gun shop door. This was permanently locked so I rang the bell, and the door was opened for us. The front of the shop was like a storage area, with boxes of cartridges stacked about four feet high. There was a doorway in front of us which we walked through, and as we entered the room there was a counter about ten feet long to our right, with the owner standing behind it. He had owned the shop ever since the wife and I had moved to Boreham, over 30 years before. He had to be over 60 by now, and his hair seemed to have disappeared in that time as well.
“What can I do for you?” he enquired.
“Do you have any twelve-bore SG cartridges?” I asked.
“Yes, I do – how many would you like?” he asked, looking very happy, which I thought was strange.
“How many have you got?” I asked.
“I have five hundred Alphamax-Plus in SG. If you take a full pack of ten boxes, that’s two hundred and fifty shells and I can offer a 10% discount. You are the first to ask for them in three months.”
Infected- The Beginning Page 3
