Therefore, on our approach, we will exercise extreme caution. I’ve requested a drone overflight, but due to the situation at the base, this may not be possible.”
We agreed to leave at first light the following morning, to make the most of the lengthening days. Steve had asked to be included in the mission and we readily accepted his offer. It would be a good opportunity for us to work together, and for him to feel part of the group.
He was issued with a ballistic vest and webbing, and we spent the rest of the afternoon training him on basic manoeuvres and how to operate as a member of an armed team.
The training served as a reminder to us all of how far we had come together. Less than six months previously, we’d barely managed to fight off a gang when they’d tried to breach our rudimentary barricade of cars. We’d won the battle, but we’d fought naively as individuals, not as a team.
Since then, we’d been hardened by experience. Now we were a force to be reckoned with.
We had all seen combat, either in defending our homes against aggressors, or by taking action against those who had threatened to do us harm. As we ran Steve through some basic procedures to follow, based on several possible scenarios, I could see from his face that he was impressed. We all worked as a team and everyone knew their role.
He was an inexperienced shot so a lot of the training went into teaching him how to handle a gun safely. We needed to ensure that the rest of us were safe around him.
Including Steve, eight of us would be taking part in the expedition. We discussed the possibility of taking the Land Rover, but decided against it, choosing to walk instead.
By our reckoning, it would only take an hour to walk there and it would give us the opportunity to assess the area as we passed through it on the way to the warehouse. Having satisfied ourselves on the details, we retired for the night.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
We woke to a beautiful sunny morning. In spite of the sunshine, the early morning mist that lay across the fields like a blanket was a chilly reminder of the reason for our trip. Waving to our loved ones and friends, we disappeared into its moisture-laden embrace.
Walking in loose formation, constantly scanning the area around us for any threats, we kept the conversation to a minimum, as we walked along the route we had planned the night before.
After an hour, as we neared our destination, we tensed up slightly, all of us alert and ready to react if something happened.
Harry checked his map, and said to us in a low voice, “The main gate is on the right at the end of this run of buildings. Let me check if it’s clear first and then I’ll call you forward.”
We watched as he jogged to the end, crouched low and looked around the corner.
Within seconds he was running back to us.
“Something’s wrong”, he said urgently, “the gate’s wide open and I can see at least one body lying outside. Looks like gunshot wounds.”
He thought for a second.
“I can’t see who it is, so let’s assume that hostiles have taken control. Our job now is to find out what we’re dealing with.”
He looked at all of us in turn, then rapidly came to a decision, “Right, apart from Steve we’ve all received training and taken part in operations like this. I’ll take the lead, so watch for my signals. We’ll use cover and advance until we can survey the site better. Then I’ll assess the situation again and …”
He paused, shrugged and smiled, “Well let’s just see what happens, shall we?”
Turning to Steve, he said, “Look, no disrespect, but you’re not trained or ready for this. But what you can do is guard our backs. I’ll point you to some cover and then I’ll need you to be looking everywhere but at us. You’ll need to check for anything we might have missed, and for other people approaching. And remember, never point a gun at anyone unless you’re prepared to use it.”
Steve nodded, looking nervous but determined.
Harry slapped him on the shoulder, “Good man. Now everyone else, you know the drill. Check your weapons and follow my lead. No heroics and remember, there could be friendlies inside the building so if you have to shoot, check your target area first. And for Christ’s sake, let’s put our masks on. We don’t know what we’re going to find.”
It took us a few minutes to remove our rucksacks and make sure everyone’s kit was in good order. Finally, we stood in line ready to go, the adrenaline in our systems making our hearts beat faster and our hands sweaty.
Leading the way, Harry dashed to the first cover behind a car. Using binoculars, he surveyed the area from this new angle, then using hand signals, directed us to the next point.
From my position, everything looked quiet. Nothing could be seen apart from the dead man lying in front of the warehouse.
The gates were open on the compound, which was unusual. They had been constructed by the army engineers, after the original ones had been destroyed during the attack on Gumin. They had been the first and most important means of defence the group had and they had kept them locked and guarded at all times.
Motioning for us to cover him, Harry ran to the next position. As he made for another car, a single shot rang out. The sound was deafening after the prolonged silence. Harry dived for cover, landing in an undignified heap behind the vehicle. As we sought out the gunman using the scopes on our weapons, he dusted himself off, grinned sheepishly and gave us the thumbs up to show he was OK.
No one moved for the next ten minutes.
As the moments ticked by, I realised I needed to speak to Harry but he was too far away even to hear our shouts. I would have to get closer to him. I turned to the others, “I need to get to Harry. On the count of five, fire shots into the air. Do not aim at the building; we don’t know who’s in there yet.”
The others nodded, and at the first shot I was up and sprinting towards Harry. I felt something tug at my shirt just before diving for cover next to him.
As I regained my breath, Harry looked at me, “That was bloody close!” he said, pointing at my jacket.
I looked at my sleeve and was stunned to see a big hole in the fabric by my elbow. A bullet had missed me by millimetres and I hadn’t even realised.
All I could think to say was, “For God’s sake, don’t tell Becky; she’ll kill me.”
Harry grinned, “Oh, the logic of love, she’ll kill you for not getting shot. What would happen if you had got shot?”
“She would have killed you!” I said with a smile.
Laughing, he said, “Right, then, let’s get back to solving this little problem we have.”
We still couldn’t see any movement, but someone was out there with a gun, and judging by my near miss, he or she was a pretty good shot.
“Oh, well,” muttered Harry, “here goes nothing. We can’t sit here on our arses waiting.”
He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Who are you? We mean you no harm. We were just checking on our friends who live here.”
A faint reply came back, “Go away, or I swear I’ll kill you. Just like I killed the other ones!”
I looked at Harry. “Did that voice sound awfully young to you?”
He nodded, “It certainly did. I think we may be close to ending this.”
He shouted again, “Hello, this is Harry. I’ve been here before. I’m here with Tom from the people in Birmingham who helped you before. If you were here at that time, then you must remember me. We played a game of football and I was in goal.”
There was silence for a minute.
Hearing some noise from the warehouse, we peered cautiously out from our hiding place.
After another minute of banging and crashing, a door at the front of the warehouse slowly opened.
We raised our weapons ready.
A small figure emerged and walked slowly into view. As far as I could make out it was a boy of about eight and he was holding a rifle. It looked ridiculously large in his small hands.
We all stood up and moved into the op
en as he got closer. He stopped and looked at all of us, then the tension in his face seemed to melt away and he dropped the weapon and ran towards Harry.
On impulse, Harry knelt down and the boy ran straight into his open arms, sobbing into Harry’s chest.
The rest of us gathered round, at a loss for words, and as the boy’s sobs finally began to subside, I signalled for the others to stay sharp and keep looking outwards. We still didn’t know if the danger was past.
“I remember you,” Harry said softly, “you’re that kid who was a great striker. I remember you scoring past me a few times.”
Now I could place him. He and his sister had been orphaned when Gumin’s thugs had killed their parents. After some discussion about where they should go, one of the families at the warehouse had offered to look after them, as it seemed best for them to stay among people they knew.
“Who else is with you?”
Struggling not to cry again, he said, “It’s just me and my sister. Everyone else got sick. We tried to look after them, but they all died.”
Harry nodded, “Where is she now?”
He jerked away as he realised he’d forgotten about her.
“She’s hiding. Let me show you. When the bad men came and found us, we hid somewhere better, you’ll never find her.”
We still had questions, but we needed to get his sister. As we followed him, I noticed that Harry had removed his gas mask. He must have done it earlier.
A thought struck me, how had the boy recognised him?’
“Harry,” I whispered, “how long have you had the mask off? You could be infected. What the hell were you thinking?”
He spoke quietly so that the boy wouldn’t hear him.
“Tom, I know, but how else was he going to recognise me? I took what in my mind was a small calculated risk. But I accept the fact that I’ll have to quarantine myself for a while when we get back.”
I still wasn’t happy with the explanation and my face must have made that plain, because he added, “Look, the boy was terrified and we needed to get that gun out of his hands before an accident happened.”
He paused, then went on “And to be fair, I knew none of us would be able to shoot him, so I had to show him it was me before something unfortunate happened.”
He smiled ruefully, “Kim is not going to be happy with me.”
We followed the boy to the warehouse and scrambled over the remains of the barricade he’d dismantled when he came out to us. Just inside the door lay another body with dried blood pooled around it.
The stench was overpowering.
The all too familiar smell of death and corruption was like a wall we had to physically push through to continue. The boy was waiting for us to catch up.
“How can you stay in here with this smell?” I asked him, fighting down a wave of nausea. The boy seemed unmoved by it.
“We don’t. There’s a den on the roof. We use a ladder from the top shelf of the racking to climb up. It’s safe up there. We’ve got enough food and I was only going to go back into the building if we ran out.”
He led us into the middle of the warehouse and pointed to a rack that stretched up to the high ceiling.
“It’s up there. Wait here if you want, I’ll bring her here.”
Diane asked, “How old is your sister?”
“Six.”
She shook her head, passed her weapon to the person next to her, and started to shrug out of her tactical vest, which was weighed down with extra magazines and equipment.
“I’ll come with you. She must be terrified, poor thing.”
Harry did the same.
While Harry and Diane were getting ready, I asked him his name.
“Isaac,” he replied solemnly. His sister, he informed me, was called Lottie, and he’d turned ten on his last birthday.
We watched as the three of them climbed the racking, using the cross supports at the racking ends like a ladder.
The boy was much more agile and kept having to wait for Diane and Harry to catch up.
Once they’d disappeared from view about thirty metres above the ground, we took a look around.
As we walked to the end of the rack, the smell of death intensified. I entered the loading bay area of the warehouse where the families and groups had constructed their main living area, with separate areas created for each family, to afford some privacy.
Every separate area was occupied by bodies covered in a variety of blankets, rugs or coats.
The entire community lay dead.
The fact that everyone had lived in such close proximity to each other had helped the disease to spread like wildfire before they’d had any idea what they were dealing with.
The children had to have been born with some natural immunity to the bacterium. It was the only possible explanation for why they had been spared.
But what they must have gone through, watching helplessly as everyone who had been close to them died a painful death, just didn’t bear thinking about. And, I thought grimly, we still didn’t know the story about the “the bad men” who had come yet.
On closer examination, the warehouse still contained a vast quantity of food, with pallets lining most of the racks. The shields that had been added to the racking supports had prevented the rats from climbing them and protected the food, but there had been no defence against the disease-ridden fleas they had carried.
Gumin and his men had been so efficient in scouring and emptying the surrounding area that most of the original supplies in the warehouse remained untouched.
Food was by far the most valuable currency we had now, so the contents of the warehouse would have to be moved.
Ten minutes later a sound from above drew our attention, and we watched as the two adults and two children climbed down the racking towards us.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As soon as they were back on the ground, we all moved outside to escape the smell.
The two children still looked terrified. This was understandable. Aside from Harry, the rest of us were still wearing masks. We must have looked like beings from another planet.
Up close, we could see that the children were in poor condition. They were filthy from head to toe. Their tear- streaked faces were covered in grime and their hair was badly matted. They looked so small and vulnerable, standing before us and holding hands, it would have taken a very hard heart not to have softened at the sight of them.
Isaac stuck as close as possible to Harry. As we sat down, someone started to boil a kettle on a camping stove so that we could all have a hot drink. Then, as gently as possible, we managed to draw out most of their story.
The disease had spread rapidly through the tight-knit community.
Just two days after the first case, everyone had been either ill, dying or dead. Lottie and Isaac were the only ones without symptoms.
As young as they were, they had tried their best to help but they had lost everyone who mattered to them. Too young to understand or to know what to do, they had stayed on there.
They had moved to the other end of the warehouse, away from the corpses, and made a little area to live and sleep in. Isaac had done his best to look after Lottie.
Two days before our arrival, they were woken by the sound of voices. Thinking that someone was coming to help, they hurried to meet them.
The people they encountered were not rescuers. They were four men in masks, and they were searching the bodies for anything of value. Realising that something was wrong, Isaac stopped short, but before he could grab her, Lottie squeezed past him and ran right up to them.
Isaac stayed hidden and watched in horror as she was slapped, grabbed and tied up. Too young to comprehend what the men were saying they were going to do to her, but fully understanding that her life was in danger, he sprinted back to their den.
He was a smart boy and had already gathered up all the weapons the community had and put them in a safe place away from his sister. He had been scared she might hurt herself if
she found one and accidentally fired it.
He had spent many hours watching the adults handle the weapons, and he knew what to do. Grabbing the one he was most familiar with, he picked up two loaded magazines. He put one in his pocket and inserted the other one into the gun and pulled the charging handle.
The sight of Isaac walking towards them, pointing a gun and shouting in his squeaky voice that they were to let his sister go momentarily shocked the three men.
Then they burst out laughing, not believing he would have the guts to pull the trigger or that he would even know how to load a gun.
But everything he had witnessed since the world had gone dark had hardened him up. He’d seen his parents murdered and witnessed the horrors Gumin had inflicted on others. The only thing he had left in his life was his sister, and he wasn’t about to let anyone hurt her.
He gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger, killing the first man instantly. The recoil almost knocked him off his feet and by the time he had recovered the other three men were running full pelt for the exit.
Young as he was, he gave chase, knowing he needed to stop them, but a ten-year-old boy carrying a heavy gun could not outrun three cowardly adults, intent on saving their own skins.
Just as they reached the door, he rested the gun on a pallet of food, aimed it just as he had seen others do and pulled the trigger again.
The gun must have been on full auto because it spewed forth enough bullets to kill another of the men outright and shatter the hip of a third. The fourth man, untouched, kept running.
Once Lottie was untied, they cautiously approached the men. Two were clearly dead, but the third had managed to drag himself out of the door, leaving a trail of blood behind him as he pulled himself across the yard towards the gate.
They couldn’t take him prisoner and they had neither the means nor the experience to treat his wound, but Isaac had enough humanity in him not to want to pull the trigger. As they approached the injured man, he panicked, twisting towards them and begging them to help him. The twisting must have ruptured an artery because the flow of blood increased and his cries and movements rapidly became weaker. As they watched silently, he died in front of them.
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