E Virus: The Diary of a Modern Day Girl (The Beginning of the End) (16 page)

Andy was the last to get out the car. He was visibly shaken by the day’s events. He looked like he had just been in a street fight. There was bruising around his eyes and face a
s he shakily pulled himself out of the car.

After they had all freshened up, Team 1 joined us in the plane, to fill us in on what had happened that day.

The following is the account the Sergeant and the rest of the team gave us. The Sergeant explained the events
to us in full.

*
              *              *

As you all know I received a distress signal from the communications box I have been working with. The call came from a young female. She said she had children with her, and was in need of
urgent rescue.

I managed to communicate with her
only once. I told her my name and that we were nearby. She told me her coordinates and the line went dead. That was the last I heard from her. When I lost contact, I immediately tried to re-establish the connection. When my attempts failed, I assembled the team.

She had made the call from
Bramhall Hall, a stone’s throw away from where we are now. Andy was familiar with the area, and after I approached him, he was keen to join the team. He told me it was in the middle of a woodland area not far from here.

We made our way to the Hall. We took the long way round, wanting to avoid the centre of the village. It is a highly populated area and we needed to stay clear of the
infected. We took the long way round, not wanting to draw any attention to ourselves.

I was apprehensive of spending longer on the road than we needed to. But staying out of sight was by far the best option.

We made our way through Woodford, up towards Poynton. We turned off down a country lane which led out to a main road, which I’m told leads to Hazel Grove. Andy kindly directed us to the park, which didn’t take us long to find.

Before long we were at the entrance
to the park. There were no sign of the infected so we drove in. We were fully armed by the time we got to the house, although our drive towards the manor was uneventful; the infected were nowhere to be seen.

As we pulled up, we all got out the ca
r. I wanted to do a quick sweep of the area, just to make sure, so I sent Leon ahead to secure the area.

When Leon finally returned,
there was an ambush waiting to greet us also. Kids of all ages surrounded us. We were outnumbered 10 to 1.

I offered them a place with us, but they declined. They were all wielding knifes and
homemade bats, they knew we were coming and had planned an attack.

The team readied their
weapons to attack, but I ordered them not to shoot. I wasn’t about to have their blood on our hands. After all, they were still children. Who knows what horrors they had already faced, that drove them to this.

The leader emerged from the group. He was a young boy, no older than 16. He had a
shaved head, he was tall but quite scrawny. He obviously didn’t have the best upbringing before the virus took over, he was brutish and thuglike. The type that would definitely be in the runnings for a gang member as he got older.

The boy stepped forward, and eyed us all. He turned to his crew members and with a grin he said “Fuck
em up”

The first lashed out and stuck Leon in the kneecap. As he fell to the ground the others started to advance. I fired out some warning shots into the trees, they took a step back, but carried on when they realised
we weren’t shooting at them.

We defended ourselves as much as we could, I didn’t want to harm the children
. We used our rifles as batons and managed to push them back, and hold them off. But we were still outnumbered. We pushed our way out of the crowd but had no choice but to retreat into the woods.

The remaining kids, hiding in the bushes took
off with our vehicle in the attack. Luckily we were still armed.

We walked around for hours trying to find a
way out. The kids had set up a perimeter; they had lookouts stationed at each post. They were very well organised. They had used the great hall as a safe house; they had claimed it as their own.

After a few hours we saw our vehicle return. Clearly none of the kids knew how to drive, the car was
covered in dents and scratches, but it was still drivable. We needed to get the car back. As much as I wanted to help these lost boys, there was nothing we could do for them. They were already too far gone.

We hid in the nearby foliage and watched as they pulled a young woman from the
car. She was tied up and gagged. They pulled her out the car and pushed her to the floor. As she scrambled to get up, the leader punched her back to the floor. She must have been a school teacher, I overheard a few of them call her Miss Robinson.

Leon
pulled his rifle up to aim, when I pushed the gun down. I wasn’t prepared to shoot anyone living, especially a child, no matter how messed up they were.

Whilst we were
busy watching the scene unravel before us, a group of infected came at us from behind the trees. We struggled with them, but in the end we had no choice but to shoot, giving away our position.

We quickly dispatched of the infected as t
he group of boys soon surrounded us. Our cover was blown. We were outnumbered, and couldn’t escape without causing serious injury to the boys, so we let them take us. We refused to give up our guns, but as they knew we wouldn’t use them, they took them anyway. They took us to the house and tied us up, they locked us a room with Miss Robinson.

The room they chose for us was an old bedroom, there was a grand four poster bed in the centre of the room, hand crafted from Royal Oak. The furniture in the room matched the
bed perfectly; even the walls surrounding us were wooden panelled.

It didn’t take us long to untie ourselves. They had neglected to take my pocket knife. It wasn’t long before manoeuvred myself free. I untied the others, including Miss Robinson.

She was terrified. She begged us to take her with us, which we were more than happy to do. She was a timid woman, she had a very pale skin tone and mousey brown hair. She wore glasses which were all bent out of shape. She didn’t look like she was capable of hurting a fly, let alone being able to defend herself. But she needed our help and we weren’t going to let her down.

We calmed her down and promised to take her with us. We told her about our base, and that she would be in safe hands with us.

A thick heavy oak door blocked our escape. Even if we tried to knock the door down, we would alert the rest of the gang, and they would know we had broken free. For their sake and ours we waited.

After a few hours passed, the leader who Miss Robinson had earlier confirmed as a boy named Ben
, entered our room. He was extremely cocky. He had embraced and taken advantage of his leadership role. The lost boys didn’t respect him or necessarily agree with him, they just did as they were told. They were most likely scared of him.

We heard him coming up the stairs. Before he entered I quickly alerted everyone and we sat back down with our hands behind our backs. We were going to use the element of surprise.

He had a thick Manchester accent. He walked with an invincible strut. He had the attitude of I can do what I want. He had no respect for his elders and only cared for himself. He had a loud mouth, everyone knew when he entered a room.

“Not so
ard now are ya?” He looked at us all grinning. “We propa fucked use up out there, big bad army men rollin up in ya bad man car” he spat. He grinned as he held the keys up to us “Mine now, init” he told us. The two boys behind him sniggered.

He pulled
a handgun from his tracksuit, where it was tucked in behind his back. “This is mine too” he said holding it up for us all to see.

He walked over to Andy, bending down to his level. I could see Andy’s fists tightening behind his back, the skin was
starting to pale against his knuckles as he tried to control his anger.

“Was this yours mate?” The boy taunted him. Andy didn’t say a word.
The boy flipped the gun around holding it by the barrel and struck Andy across the face “Are you deaf or summit?” He shouted. Andy still didn’t move.

“That’s enough” I shouted to the boy.

He turned and looked me up and down. “I’ll tell you when it’s enough, old man” he sniggered, dismissing the rest of us.

All of a sudden we started to hear the commotion outside. Screams and shouts could be heard in every direction.
It seemed, the lost boys cover was blown.

The infected must have been alerted to
our gunshots, and our car they were recklessly driving around. We heard the car whilst we were locked away. The boys were revving the engine; to the infected they may as well have been ringing a dinner bell. They were quickly approaching the manor house, coming in from all directions.

I could hear
gun shots as the lost boys attempted to fend off the infected.

“Close that door quick” Ben quickly motioned to the other two boys. They did as they were told. They fumbled with the door, but quickly locked it into place. As they turned around I
noticed they had our other two handguns tucked into their trousers, exactly like their leader.

We listened as the battle continued. We heard gunshot
s fire, as the other boys attempted to ward off the horde of the infected gaining rapidly on them.

I heard the boys shouting
for help. “Ben, we’re being attacked, help us” they screamed from below. Their leader made no attempt to acknowledge them, let alone help them.

“Fuck, there’s shit loads of them out there” Ben told the two others.

“Are you not going to help your friends?” I asked him.

“Nah, fuck
em, we’re alright in ere. Not going out there, fuck that” he responded coldly. Beneath his cool exterior I could tell he was as scared as the rest.

We heard the doors slam. They had retreated inside. We heard glass smash from beneath us as the infected
forced their way inside.

Seeming slightly shaken
to the new threat outside the leader continued to threaten us. “If any of use make a noise, I’ll shoot you in the head, swear down I will”

“Oh I don’t doubt that for a second” I responded, staying calm. “You left your friends to die out there, if you can do that, you are more than capable of pulling that trigger.”

“Shut up, int my fault whats going on outside, you don’t know me” He hit back aiming the gun for my head.

Miss Robinson started to cry. We all kept our hands behind our backs, the boys still unaware
s.

“Stop crying, stupid bitch” the boy shouted “shut the fuck up” He was now pointing the gun in the middle of her head.

I’d had enough, I sprang into action pulling the gun from the boy nearest to me. Aiming my newly acquired weapon at the boy I shouted for him to put the gun down.

The second boy tried to scramble for his gun, Leon was quick to respond, knocking it out of his hands before he had a chance to do any damage.

“Ben, Give me the gun” I told him.

He looked at me, he was down, but he certainly wasn’t out. “Fuck off,
No. Give him the gun or I’ll shoot” he said pointing to one of the other boys. His gun was still firmly attached to his former teachers head.

“You don’t want to do this, give us the gun and we’ll all get out of here” I asked him calmly.

“No, don’t even try telling me what to do” He said, he was full of anger.

“Ben, mate, just do as he says, it’s not even worth it” One of the boys piped up, obviously starting to see sense.

“Listen to your friend” Leon told him. “It’s over”

“NO” he screamed as he pulled the trigger.

Miss Robinson slumped back. Blood covered the young boy. He turned to aim the gun at us, his face of pure evil. I quickly shot him in the kneecap. He fell down dropping the gun. He screamed in pain as the searing bullet pierced through his skin, shattering his kneecap as he fell.

I had no choice.
He would have shot us all if I hadn’t have acted.

With their leader down the 2 remaining boys made a
hasty retreat. They didn’t get very far. The infected were already inside the building. They ran straight into the open arms of the infected. They were ripped apart within seconds.

The boy was bleeding out fast.
We tried helping him up, but he was having none of it.

“Get the fuck off me, you wankers” He yelled, pushing us away from him.

There was nothing we could do for him. We did what he said; we left him in the room, just as the infected made their way up the stairs.

We had
three handguns between the four of us. We had lost the rest of our rifles and ammunition when we were held captive.

The whole manor was a blood bath. Groups of the infected feasted on the children. Screams could still be heard in the distance. Some of the boys must have fled into the woods to escape. Judging by screams and the cries for help, they hadn’t got very far either.

The battle was over. The boys had lost; the infected had taken over leaving nothing but death and destruction in their path.