“I...back, ok,” I heard him say.
“Ok see you in a bit.” I ended the call and looked ahead to the roar of a passing truck with a very recognisable symbol on it. Some weird black loops and curves on a yellow background.
I looked out my window to see a couple of Asian women covering their mouths with the cloth of their hijab, and a teenager with a surgical mask on. I knew that virus was already here, the one from the news that's spreading throughout Europe. Gareth and Susie joked about it often in class, how the masks are flying off the shelves and where we’re all going to hide when it comes. Susie said that the church would be good because it’s got a fresh water stream in its garden and its big and holy, while Gareth said his neighbours barn was pretty sick to pimp up and ride out the storm in.
My teacher, Mr. Selbien, says that so far, there's been only fifteen cases in the UK, but I couldn't care less to look up the news and find out if its increased now. I pulled out my phone and took a picture for the online group chat.
“You had to tell him?” asked Dad, who had been quiet since.
“Why not?”
“You didn't have to tell him.”
“It was on my mind. You were just arguing with me. I’m texting mom. Why the hell not?”
He took his hands off the steering wheel in exacerbation. The crimson light of the many cars in front casting his face in evil.
“Another evening of paradise tonight,” he chuffed under his breath. “Look at this look at the traffic!”
“Why can't you just say. Sorry hun, there's really bad traffic sorry I'm late,” I said.
“Well, why can't you walk to the car when I'm here?” He asked.
“It was three seconds Dad.”
Police sirens flashed and lit up his face in blue now. As they flash by, a chill ran up my spine. It was cold in here, I thought to myself, shuffling in my seat. Further along the road we reached a moment of clarity and clear roads ahead of us all the way into the inner city. I pulled out my music player and listened to Apocalypse Rising, the famous rock band, as the long journey continued.
“Can we stop off at the corner shop before we pick mom up,” I asked, as night had truly descended. We crossed a great bridge overlooking the railway of New Street.
“No,” came Dads immediate reply. I huffed at the window in frustration, fog smearing the window, blurring the sight of a family of four in their SUV, the children staring at me in childlike wonder.
Out of the blur, a sudden crash threw me forwards, smacking my head off the window and blurring my vision. I looked up and immediately found blood on the window and my Dad asking me if I’m ok. As the window and my sight unblurred, a bus crashed hard into the car beside us, smashing it to smithereens. Blowing the family SUV away.
“Oh my life!” Shouted Dad, as he immediately opened his car door. The relentless sound of the car alarms caught me off guard as I weakly opened my own car door. They were so loud, assaulting my ears. I looked ahead and stumbled, felt blood dripping from my head where I’d impacted the window. It took me a moment to compose myself, but I soon looked up and found Dad holding his arms up, trying to hail the driver, who fell as he left the bus doors.
I heard the driver, making unnatural sounds, gurgling in gross grunts. Then he stood up and jumped for my Dad. Luckily, he punched him to the ground, a firm hit, throwing him to the buses ripped advertisement as the passengers watched in awe.
“Get down on the ground!” Screamed a loud voice. I turned and found the police in number, rifles in arms. They’d been guarding the busy train station. They told me to lay low and then without warning shot the driver with what must have been at least twenty rounds. The bullets rang in my ears for at least a minute, and when I finally saw my dad again, scared and fearing for his life, I hugged him like I never had before.
The Army - Day 4 - Blake
I woke in the night, rising from my bed out of dreams of my family and friends dying, so much so I could hear my heart throb in my chest at times. Yet I was the one who had not seen my boss tear a man apart, I was not the one who saw an entire family perish before me. Here I was, panicking, stressing over leaving them alone, leaving my family alone. At least I’d have my friends I thought then, a sad consolation I realised as I heard them bicker beside me, the midday October sun on my face.
“Cat teeth, cat teeth,” Mason teased on Hussain’s teeth that lay strewn and crooked across his dimming smile. He’d smiled from seeing me as I arrived and dismounted the truck that had picked me up just an hour earlier.
“Mate you've got cat teeth,” the young thug teased in the parking lot of Mercian HQ. The regiment I had joined months prior. The heart of England's infantry.
“Show us your teeth?” asked Jacob.
“Give us a smile!” Shouted Jake cruelly. As I looked at them, all I could see were damn children.
I called Thomas at midnight to inform him of where I was, why I hadn't arrived at the draft hotel, what had happened to my parents and Jess. I soon found out he had news for me too. News that everyone, every single unit and rank had been drafted. Even the Armoured Infantry Battalion of the Mercian from Afghan were being recalled and were flying halfway across the world. They’d been fighting on the front lines with the Taliban a week prior. They’d been scrambled, and that only meant one thing, an immediate threat at home.
I said bye to Mom, Dad, Jess and Lily this morning. Jess wore a bandage on her head from the crash. She had only minor injuries. Dad didn't want to risk taking her to the hospital, it was a virus hotspot he told us. At this point the correlation between the draft and the virus was all too clear to me.
The boys woke me up from my restless six-hour sleep with a phone call from their hotel room in the early morning. They were pissing about in Mason's room, much to the joy of Hussain who hid all the bullies' whiskey in freakish delight. They said an LSV truck was picking up special personnel in the area and Thomas had made a few calls for me. And now, here I was. Outside HQ Wolverhampton.
The last thing I said to Dad, as Mom clawed at my wrists to stay, was that I loved him. Such a silly thing really, but it wasn't, she was my Mom, he was my Dad, and they loved me more than life itself.
After I greeted the boys at HQ, they immediately resumed their childish ways.
“Hey Blake, check this photo from last year,” Jake showed us all a picture of us in town last October.
“Why does Hussain look like he's been touched?” Asked Mason ignorantly, ever the offensive bully thinking he’s funny when he wasn’t.
“In that picture?” Jacob quipped. I almost gagged at their suggestion.
“I’ve got another with all his school friends,” said Jake as he pulled out his phone. It was Hussain with a dozen other British Pakistani friends.
“How are you doing Hussain, you alright?” I asked the poor lad.
“Yeah good,” he said with a sombre nod. They always picked on him like this. Because Hussain was good, Hussain was decent, he was kind and happy and they were simply jealous of that simple fact. He was short in stature and not the leanest and smartest by far. But he had heart and determination, a likable side to him that only I and I think Thomas saw.
“The aftermath,” joked Mason holding up another picture, this time of Hussain and his father in swimming shorts. It was really dark and not very funny humour.
“That was the aftermath? Of what?” I asked.
“Yeah! The crooked smile mate,” said Jacob with a sinister laugh as he pointed out Hussains charming smile in the photo. It was then I realised they were making offensive jokes about him.
“Your mum got gangbanged,” Hussain murmured under his breath. As I said, they were children.
“Thereabouts,” said Thomas with a smile on his handsome face.
“20 brothers, 20 sisters, it checks,” he spoke of Mason’s large family.
“That's ironic, you say Hussain has a large family, but I’m willing to bet yours is the largest,” Thomas said.
“It prob
ably is,” Mason conceded.
“Right. Let's get inside and report to Lieutenant Morrison,” James straightened us out.
“Right on, move,” said Thomas prodding us forward to the entrance like cattle. As we walked in, many men passed us in army apparel. One looked temptingly at Jake, compelling Jacob into action.
“How us it that every guy that walks by wants to fuck you?” He said rather too loudly than we’d have liked.
“I don't know,” squirmed Jake as he silently blushed. Hussain chuckled a little from beside him, prompting Mason to speak.
“Yeah, we're not talking about you mate,” he joked. “They probably think we’re all fucking gay now,” he added harshly.
“Fuck off,” Hussain hit back.
“Yeah, you fuck off,” Mason replied to him childishly. “Your gonna fuck us up in training mate, yet again.”
“Mmm, ok mate!” Hussain spoke, absentmindedly. In a Hussain sort of way.
“Shut the fuck up,” Jacob said.
“Jacob you’re going to not be here next year so you can fuck off,|” Hussain warned, and it was true. Jacob was leaving to go to Latvia to be with his girlfriend Elizabete next summer. He’d met her on a dating site and fell in love. The boys joked that she was a mail bride order from overseas, well, I say the boys, you can probably guess who jokes about it the most.
We signed in to base and proceeded on inside to find masked personnel checking temperatures of new arrivals.
“Why are we so mean to Hussain?” Asked James as we passed them unhindered and reached the debrief hall, where more masked officers were checking personnel’s temperature. They said it was mandatory.
“Why aren't we meaner?” Said Mason. I was the last to be smeared and found myself astounded at how few servicemen there were actually inside the base. Some hundred in total it was, counting outside and inside the main hall.
“1st Platoon, B company!” Shouted a skinny nose in a cap and grey overhauls.
“Charlie and Delta of the second section,” informed James. The small man looked at his clipboard, then squinted his eyes to us.
“Your new lieutenant, Lieutenant Bridge is in the second operations room.”
“What happened to the old Lieutenant Morrison?” Asked Thomas.
“I don't know,” said the officer. “They don't tell me,” he spoke hurriedly, before moving on to some other new arrivals.
“Come on, I wanna see my room and cook some chicken, that hotel food was garbage,” said Jacob.
“Bet you do, fat fuck,” said Hussain.
“Watch it dickhead, pot kettle black,” he warned him back. We entered the operations room.
As I walked in, my ears were bombarded with the searing calls of order from a young brass voice, and another healthier one, about our age, bellowing over his peers.
“We're looking at a worldwide epidemic. People are becoming hysterical, attacking other people, killing other people.” My ears piqued, just before the speaker stopped and peered over at the six of us.
“Delta squad you are late, you want to explain?”
“No sir, apologies sir,” we all said in unison.
He then gazed back over the rest of B company. “We've had reports from the Philippines, Australia, Russia, the Americas, India and China. It's spread almost everywhere there's people. Urban areas are primarily at risk in the south east of England.”
“At risk?” Asked someone from the first section.
“How bad is this sir?” Asked Thomas.
“I don’t friggin like this,” whispered Jake into my ear.
“What the fuck, no way,” I heard Hussain mutter.
“Shut the fuck up dickhead,” Mason spat.
“Is there a problem over there?!” Asked the new lieutenant.
“No sir,” replied Mason.
“Then button it,” Lieutenant Bridge ordered.
“This is all confidential, keep it on the low down. I won't lie to you, it's pretty bad, an emergency for all purposes,” he then added, turning away from us.
“What are orders?” Asked a random soldier.
“We are to follow containment protocols!” The lieutenant shouted across the room. “We have several RWMIK rovers on base and Huskey’s, enough to go around with what's left of this unit. Operation Collimore will be in effect from 0600 tomorrow. An additional 10,000 troops will be added to the 10,000 routinely held at higher readiness in case of a civil emergency. Territorial are to be stationed at all supermarkets, shopping centres, high streets, to keep the king's peace. Containment of the outbreak and initial panic will be key to our success in this goal. As part of the 4th battalion, we will be offering support to the Mercian 1 and 2 as they battle this thing on the frontlines. Unfortunately, we expect around forty percent of the population to be infected by the virus this time next week, that's worst-case scenario.”
“What is this virus?” Asked a man from the side of the crowd listening.
“I will get to that in good time,” said the lieutenant.
There were a few groans at that announcement.
“There are plans to have the city of London evacuated. Until it's safe to return the public to their homes. Hopefully those mercians returning from active duty won't be able to scurry away like what's happened with this TA battalion.”
“Evacuated to where? That's a lot of people,” asked Thomas.
“Countryside corporal,” he said looking on his rank.
“Plans are being drawn for various camps and makeshift headquarters and field hospitals. From now on containment protocols are to be followed. Mercian 1 and 2 are being recalled from active tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. They should arrive in the evening to their bases in Lichfield and Warwick.”
Two triages of mask wearing personnel holding large biohazard boxes full of masks walked out from behind them.
“It's advised to wear masks, but as we don't know how this spreads yet, it could be meaningless, it's your choice.”
I took mine and looked into the dark abyss of its visor, not knowing what awaited me.
Mason took his and put it on, then pretended to be a ghost to annoy Jacob and Hussain while the lieutenant spoke.
“The 5th Royal Fusiliers will be helping us to comb the east outer city of Birmingham and its outlying towns of infected, and to help guide the public to their nearest and or appropriate safe zone.”
“You’ll be scanning for fevers too,” he said, holding an infrared thermometer.
“Sir, I think we'd all like to know what the nature of this infection is,” I asked.
“Yeah what's the gen. How long have we known about this virus?" Asked Mason. “Where were the healthcare professionals? Are we at risk?”
“They've been monitoring this since the start of September. It originated in South Africa and China.”
“How’s that happening? Simultaneously?” Asked James.
“How’d you spell that?” Jacob murmured with an amusing, inquisitive glance to Hussain.
“Why weren't international flights cancelled? Airport’s shutdown!?” Shouted Corporal Fafel from Alpha squad.
“The economy is worth more than human lives now,” joked Mason, but in a serious tone. Maybe it wasn't a joke.
The junior lieutenants face flushed red as he realised he had lost control of the briefing.
“You're not supposed to ask questions! Questions I don't have the answers for anyhow! I've told you what I know. It starts as a fever, followed by rashes on the skin. It blocks the airways, pneumonia could set in. We don't know how it spreads. The eyes go purple, people go insane. Urban areas are most at risk. But be on guard from now on, wash your hands, just like the government warnings. This is not something we haven't planned for, this is nothing. Its patrol, its containment. This time next year I can guarantee you that you'll all be sipping gin on an Australian beach, have no doubts.”
He stepped back with a sure look, before slamming through the doors to his office with his aids following.
; “Alright. I can follow that,” said Jake in a content tone. Mason hummed a sweet little lie.
“You think they’re lying?” I asked him.
“I think if they knew what this was, why didn't I know sooner?” Questioned the level headed Corporal Thomas.
“Alright lets bunk up, got to be up early tomorrow,” said James. “I’m going to go check out The Princess.”
I smiled at the mention of The Princess, the name of the rover we used when training and drilling in the summer. Mounted with a Light Machine Gun, it carries three, a driver, a gunner and an operator for the radio. Mason loved being the operator so he could annoy the signallers at HQ. With some of the things he’s said, it's a wonder he's not been kicked out the forces yet.
“If you want to use the gym, it requires a washing of your hands, sanitiser,” said Thomas as we came to the entrance of the small base gym.
“You gotta be kidding me?” Said Mason, an avid gym user. “Ok, let's do it.”
I noticed Hussain lingering away near the entrance. “Hussain you coming?” I asked while the rest of the boys used the sanitiser.
“Nah, I'm tired,” he said. “Well, don't go off base,” I reminded him with a surefire look.
“I’m not, I’m going with James to see the Huskey’s,” he shouted back. I nodded and turned to the gym, noticing the TV showing the Prime Minister Goveridge on one of his now daily announcements.
“Lockdown procedure may be implemented in cities,” the news quote underlining the picture read in bold. This was all too much for me to handle, I held my brow and closed my eyes. Migraines, I suffered badly from them, that and a runny nose at the worst of times.
“Blake!” Shouted a pleasantly surprising feminine voice. It was the lovely Maddison, our assigned medic. Her eyes shone hazel in the blinding sun and her smile lit a fire in my heart like no one else.
“What’s up man,” she said with a smile. “Mad! Nothing much, just getting on, with getting on,” I chuckled.
“The erm, guys are over there,” I said as the lads took the piss with kissing gestures in the background. “Yeah, I know, I’m ignoring them,” she nodded with a giggle. “How’s things going on with you then?”
World Down: A Zombie Novel Page 6
