The Z Infection (15 page)

       Thankfully I had been awake.  When I had been
informed that the first helicopter would be arriving within the hour I had
decided, as the de facto leader of the garrison, to wait up and greet it.  I
could grab some sleep later.

       I saluted the General as he approached me.  He
had another two senior officers with him and a small contingent of heavily
armed Royal Marines.

       ‘Sergeant MacPherson,’ he greeted me, returning
my salute.  ‘I’m here to have a look at the situation from the ground.’

       We walked across the lawns and past the guard
post.  The infected had gathered in even greater numbers there by now and he
calmly surveyed them as we passed by.

       At the main gates it was an even greater
spectacle.  There were tens of thousands of them and when they saw us they
screamed and wailed like all the demons of hell had been let loose.  Perhaps
they had.

       I noticed the slightest look on the General’s
face when he saw the assemblage before the gates.  It wasn’t fear.  That would
be too strong a word to use.  It was more like an uneasiness.  None of us had
faced a foe like this before.

       ‘Are these the first ones you’ve seen?’ I
asked.

       ‘Yes,’ he said, not elaborating.

       ‘They are very difficult to stop,’ I said. 
‘Head shots seem to work.  They don’t tend to get back up after them.’

       ‘How many civilians did you save?’ he asked.

       ‘One hundred and four,’ I said.  I had counted
them the night before, when I had selected those who might be able to assist
with the defence.  ‘Of those I can use sixty one of them, the others are either
too old, too young or are too traumatised by what’s happening.’

       ‘Are they capable of fighting?’

       I shook my head.  ‘I don’t honestly know, sir,
but they’re going to have to at some point.’

       He looked at me with a questioning expression.

       ‘This war, if that’s what it is, isn’t going to
be fought on a front line with conventional forces,’ I said.  ‘This is going to
be fought in cities and towns, in streets, buildings and homes.  We are
fighting against our own people.  Our own families in some cases.  How do we
fight a war like that?  Every single person will have to become a soldier, or
die.’

       He looked back at the throng at the gates.

       ‘Let me see what defence measures you have
instigated.’

       We walked around the building and he inspected
every man and every weapon.  He was thorough and inspiring in equal measure. 
He had a word for every soldier he met and at the end, as we walked back to the
guard post, he congratulated me on what I had done, with the limited resources
available.

       ‘You will get more,’ he promised.  ‘I have
personally supervised the ordering of weapons, equipment and supplies.  Having
seen what you have, I will make further recommendations when I return.  In the
meantime I will leave the Marines here with you.’

       ‘Thank you sir,’ I said.

       ‘What about your commanding officer?’ he asked.

       I didn’t quite know how to put it.

       ‘He didn’t seem to be able to handle the
situation,’ I said.  ‘I decided it would be best if he took some time away from
his duties in his room.’

       The General looked at me again, with those
searching eyes of his.

       ‘You took command over an officer?’

       ‘I had to,’ I replied.  ‘I couldn’t risk the
men becoming discouraged.’

       He nodded.

       ‘That was quick thinking on your part.’

       We walked back to the helicopter and stopped
before we reached it.

       ‘You’ve been given a field commission,’ he
said.  ‘High Command have been impressed by your actions in the face of
incredible odds.  And so have I.’

       I was astounded, to say the least.  I was to
take command of the garrison until a more senior officer could be found to take
my place.  I was assured that it wouldn’t take long.  The counter attack was
scheduled for later in the morning.  We would be relieved as soon as possible. 
What none of us could have predicted, was the tenacity that this new enemy
would fight with.  They simply refused to give in.

Mike Bradbury

09:40 hours, Saturday 16
^th
May, Flight to Edinburgh,
Scotland

The flight to Edinburgh should have
taken an hour and fifteen minutes.  In the end it took almost double that,
because we were diverted by the RAF twice.  They didn’t want us flying over
sensitive areas, as they called it.  Most of those were areas where the army
was massing or where there were RAF bases.  Their logic was simple.  They
didn’t want an airliner coming down on top of them if there was the slightest
chance there might be anyone infected on board.

It didn’t bother me.  I enjoyed
flying, mostly.  I spent most of the flight watching Anna.  She had turned into
a consummate professional almost as soon as we began to taxi along the runway,
checking passengers and making sure that all those with seats had their belts
fastened.  I was given one of the crew’s seats and settled in to try to get
some sleep. 

       It felt good to be airborne, away from the
danger on the ground, and I suddenly felt very calm.

       We climbed to our cruising height and Anna came
back to check on me.  She had a miniature bottle of whisky, which she held out
to me and I gladly accepted the offer.  I needed something strong after what I
had seen in the terminal building.

       We chatted for a few minutes, relieved that we
had managed to escape from the carnage.  It was the first time we had talked in
a relaxed way, everything up until then had been solely for the purpose of
survival.

       She wasn’t just a looker, with huge brown eyes
and her long blonde hair hanging around her shoulders in waves, she was clever
too.  I could tell instantly that there was much more to her than you were
given by a first, cursory glance.

       ‘There’s some hot food,’ she said.  ‘We’ll
serve it in a few minutes or so.’

       I suddenly realised that I hadn’t eaten
anything for some time and I was hungry.  Despite what I had seen, I was sure I
should be able to keep something down.

       ‘What happens when we get to Edinburgh?’ I
asked.

       ‘I don’t know,’ she replied.  ‘This has taken
us all by complete surprise.  Apparently there are outbreaks in every large
population centre in the country.  Edinburgh is the same, although it seems to
be more localised there.  From what we can gather the airport is still
functioning.  The pilots have been in contact with air traffic control there
and we are cleared to land at the moment.’

       ‘Have you heard any more news from London?’ I
asked.

       She shook her head.   

       ‘Things were pretty desperate in the city
centre and you saw what happened at Heathrow, but we’ve not heard anything else
since we took off.’

       ‘Do you have family?’ I asked.

       ‘My mum lives in Dorset.  My dad’s in the
United States,’ she said.  ‘He married an American a few years ago.  I have a
sister who lives in Brighton and my boyfriend was going to Amsterdam for the
weekend, but I don’t know where he is.  I’ve not heard from him since this
morning.  What about you?’

       ‘I live on my own.  My parents are away on
holiday in the Caribbean,’ I said.  ‘I have no way of reaching them.’

       ‘What about brothers and sisters?’ she asked.

       ‘No,’ I said.  ‘It was just me.’

       We sat in silence for a time, before she
snapped back into her professional role once more.  There were a lot of scared
people on that flight and she had her work cut out trying to make sure they
were all looked after.

       I sat back in my chair and closed my eyes. 
Something told me I was going to need some sleep, even just an hour or two. 
And I was right.

Anthony Ballanger

09:45 hours, Saturday 16
^th
May, Windsor
Castle HQ, Windsor

     
I managed a whole hour of sleep, before I was awake again.  During that
time there had been reports of several new outbreaks.  The south coast towns of
Portsmouth and Southampton were experiencing problems and the Midlands seemed
to be particularly badly affected.  Many smaller communities had simply stopped
communicating with the outside world.  We had a report from a small village
near Oxford, where a woman was hiding in an attic.  She told us, using the last
precious battery life on her mobile phone, that she was the sole survivor out
of a community of around a thousand people.  Everyone else was dead or
infected.  How many more places were like that?  We had no idea.

       The Prime Minister held a briefing first thing,
with what remained of the Cabinet and some military advisors.  The Prince of
Wales was also present, on behalf of the Queen, as well as some influential
civilian figures.  

       It was a bleak meeting.  On the plus side, the
mobilisation of the Royal Navy meant that it had been, more or less, saved. 
The exceptions were one frigate which somehow became infected and was promptly
sunk off the south coast and several vessels which were unable to put to sea
quickly enough.  Contact with one nuclear submarine was lost, shortly after it
had sailed from its base in Scotland.  The theory was that it had been
infected, but we never found out the truth of the matter.

       As far as the Royal Air Force was concerned,
they were still on standby, ready to engage the enemy or to lend air support to
the army.  For their part we had five thousand troops at Kingston-on-Thames,
waiting for the order to advance.

       The PM gave that order at the conclusion of the
morning meeting.  Our intelligence suggested that a large swarm of infected had
wandered into the bend of the river Thames, near Hampton Court Palace.  The
army was to advance in two columns.  The first would cross Horse Fair Bridge at
Kingston and advance towards the rear of the swarm, while the second column would
cross Hampton Court Bridge and tackle it head on, hopefully before it reached
the palace.  The PM gave the army the authority to destroy the bridges if their
position became untenable and it was necessary, but only as a last resort.  The
whole thing was to be beamed directly to us at Windsor, by several media
helicopters which were given special permission to film the event.   

       We gathered in a room with a large television screen
and banks of computers and communication operators.  It was tense.  The air
hung heavily in there and it was charged with apprehension.  Nobody knew what
to expect.  The PM and the Prince of Wales took the centre seats, flanked by
the top military advisors, including General Breck who had just returned from
his visit to Buckingham Palace, while the rest of us filled the seats around
them.

       The first thing we saw was from a BBC
helicopter, which made a low pass over the swarm.  There were gasps from some
in the room as it swooped just a few metres above the heads of the infected. 
The swarm was enormous.  More than double the size we had been expecting.  It
stretched from the north of Bushy Park, right to the Hampton Court Road which
connected the two bridges where our forces were deployed.  It was impossible to
count them, but several estimates were bandied around the room.  Anything from
a hundred thousand to about half a million.  It didn’t seem possible.

       I saw that the PM was involved in a hushed
discussion with General Breck.  I still don’t know, to this day, what was said between
them, but I think both of them might have been having second thoughts. 
Whatever it was, was too late.

       The first wave of troops crossed the Hampton
Court Bridge, backed up by tanks and other armoured vehicles.  They advanced to
the road, just beyond the palace and spread out in several lines.  The positioning
reminded me of a Napoleonic set-piece battle, both side facing each other.  The
infected on one side, fearless and blood hungry, our troops lined up on the
other.

       Then the aircraft came.  RAF Tornado GR4’s. 
There were at least two dozen in the first wave.  They fired into the swarm
with a combination of their Maverick and Brimstone missiles, one after another. 
Huge swathes were cut right through the mass.  Explosions threw the infected
into the air, decapitated them, blew off limbs and incinerated them.  It would
have been an impressive sight if it were not for the fact that the people we
were killing were our own and had been trusted members of society just a day
before.

       Once the missiles had been used up the aircraft
took it in turn to rake along the ranks of the enemy with their 27mm guns.  The
dead fell in heaps.  Some stayed down, but I saw many rise again, with horrific
injuries which should have meant it was impossible.

       Then the tanks began to fire.  They pounded the
infected with deadly accurate fire, cutting through them as they advanced on
the front line of infantry.  They seemed unstoppable.  For every one that fell,
there were others to fill the gap.  The advance on our soldiers was
inexorable.