The Z Infection (17 page)

       ‘What about a brother?  Or a sister?’

       She shook her head.

       ‘It was just me.’

       We sat for several long minutes.  I suddenly
realised that the loss of her boyfriend was hitting her hard.  He was, perhaps,
the closest thing to a family that she had.

       ‘Do you have an extended family?’ I asked.

       ‘Some aunts and uncles and a few cousins, but
they all live in Oxfordshire,’ she said.  ‘We were never a close family and my
mum cut us off from my father’s side when he left, so that reduced it by quite
a bit.  Most of the relatives were on his side.’

       It was an alien concept to me.  My family was
large.  I had three brothers and two sisters, several aunts and uncles and
dozens of cousins.  I could name them all, tell you where they lived, what
school they went to and what they did for a living.  The ones who still lived
in Jordan I would keep contact with by Social Media and free video calls.  I
couldn’t imagine being all alone.  And yet here I was, with no idea what was
happening to my family, just like Sophie.

       ‘You can come with me, then,’ I said, making
the decision for her.  ‘We will go to my house and you can meet my wife and
children.  She makes fantastic falafel.  Do you like falafel?’

       She smiled and nodded. 

       ‘Falafel sounds marvellous right now.’

       I took a long look around the park, before
deciding that it was clear and safe to leave.  I wanted to be absolutely
certain that the group of males was long gone before we made our move.  The
city seemed to have become even more dangerous than it had ever been.

       ‘Let’s go,’ I said.  ‘It’s still quite a walk
from here.’

       We walked around the edge of the park and cut
down a side street.  It was completely empty.  There weren’t even any bodies there,
which we had become so used to.

       At the end of the lane we found ourselves at a
junction.  I checked both ways.  Nothing. 

       Suddenly I heard a noise above us.  It was a
helicopter.  A military one.  A second one followed it as it headed west, high
above the buildings.  At least there was some sort of order, I thought.  The
helicopters might be looking for the swarms of infected.  It was a strange
comfort.

       I stepped into the street, beckoning for Sophie
to follow me, but she remained where she was, frozen to the spot. 

       ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

       She didn’t answer.  I suddenly had a bad
feeling and was about to turn when I felt a blow on the back of my head.  I
fell to the ground, almost knocked conscious, and as I looked up I saw a figure
standing over me.  Then another joined it and another.

       ‘Fucking foreigner,’ said a voice.

       There was another blow.  A kick this time. 
Right in the ribs.  I was winded and gasped for air.

       ‘I think he’s a terrorist,’ said another
voice.  ‘He’s the right shade.’

       There was laughter.  Then Sophie appeared, held
onto by another male.  That made at least four of them.

       ‘Don’t hurt him,’ Sophie said.  ‘We’re just
trying to get away, like everyone else.’

       ‘Not everyone’s running’ said a voice. They
were all men.  I was subconsciously storing up as much information about them
as I could.

       ‘Please,’ I began.

       There was another kick to my side.  I felt sure
my ribs would break.

       ‘Shut it, terrorist,’ said a voice.  ‘You’ll
get what’s coming to you.’

       ‘He’s not a terrorist you fucking morons.’

       That was Sophie.  I wished she would be quiet. 
These men were dangerous.  Like hunted animals, they now found themselves
caught in a trap and they were lashing out at whatever they could find.  An
Asian man, travelling with a white British girl, was always going to attract
their attention.

       ‘Don’t you people understand what’s going on?’
Sophie asked.  ‘Are you too thick to work it out?’

       There was the sound of a slap now as one of the
group struck her across the face and she cried out.  The others laughed and
were momentarily distracted.  This was my chance.  I knew that we were in
trouble and I had to act quickly.

       Without another thought for the consequences I
rolled onto my feet and kicked the knee joint of the nearest one with all the
force I could muster.  There was a nauseating crack as the leg broke and then a
scream as the man clutched at the bone that was now protruding through the
skin.

       In a flash I grabbed the baseball bat he had
dropped and swung it at the next man.  I caught him full force in the ribs and
sent him spinning across the ground.  The two others were now alert to the
danger I posed and backed away, still holding on to Sophie.

       ‘Just let her go,’ I said.  ‘This can all be
resolved peacefully.’

       They looked unsure now.  A moment before, they
had been confident that they were in complete control.  In less than ten
seconds that illusion had been shattered.

       ‘She’s coming with us,’ said the one who was
holding Sophie.

       He was the larger of the two remaining and had a
mop of thick dark hair.  The other one was younger and less sure.

       ‘Why don’t we call it quits,’ he suggested. 
‘Give her up and we can be on our way.’

       ‘No way,’ said the larger man.  ‘See what he
did to Ollie and Charlie.’

       The man with the broken leg was now
unconscious.  He had probably fainted with shock.  The other one was on his
knees, holding his side.

       ‘I think he broke my ribs,’ he was saying.

       It was a stand-off and I wasn’t sure how to
resolve it.  I needn’t have worried.  It was Sophie who called the shots now. 
She bit into the hand of the man who was holding onto her, biting deep and
drawing blood.  He yelled in pain and released his grip.  I took my chance and
advanced on the other one but he took one look at the determination in my face
and dropped his bat.

       He turned and ran to the corner and disappeared
around it.  That just left the big guy as Sophie ran to my side and took cover.

       The big guy advanced on me now.  We were both
armed with a baseball bat each, but he had the advantages of height, weight and
reach.  It was a mismatched fight and I didn’t fancy my chances.

       Suddenly, though, we were distracted by a
scream.  We both turned to see the man who had ran off.  He was limping around
the corner, a deep gouge in his leg, pursued by four people.  They were all
infected.

       ‘Help me,’ he called.

       The big guy took a step towards him.

       ‘There’s nothing you can do for him,’ I said.

       He looked at me and his lip curled with
disgust.

       ‘I’m not leaving him,’ he said and ran at the
group, swinging the bat.

       He knocked all four of them down.  Three got
back up again.  He knocked them all down again.  Then more appeared, attracted
by the sounds of the disturbance.

       ‘It’s hopeless,’ I shouted.  ‘Leave him.’

       But the red mist had descended and the guy just
kept lashing out with the bat, aiming for the heads every time.  I ran to the
one with the broken ribs and begged him to come with us.  I knew we would never
be able to save the others.

       But it was already too late.  The one with the
bite in his leg was convulsing.

       ‘He’s turning,’ said Sophie.

       I could see it.  I had seen it before and it
fascinated me.  It still does.  Even to this day, when I see someone rise, it
freaks me out but I am transfixed by it.

       ‘Time to go,’ said Sophie, jolting me back to
the present.

       We turned and ran.  As we went I looked back
one last time.  All I saw was the one who had turned latching onto his friend,
dragging him to the ground as the others closed in around them. 

Kim Taylor

12:15 hours, Saturday 16
^th
May, Buckingham
Palace, London

     
It was early afternoon on that second day, when the trouble at the front
gates really kicked off.  There was a man, I didn’t know his name, who had been
struggling with things since the city had gone belly up and he became the
catalyst for the Battle of Buckingham, as it came to be known.

       Sergeant MacPherson, Callum, had gathered the
civilians together, who he thought were going to be able to fight.  Ellie and I
were included in that group and we had already had a crash course in how to
handle an automatic rifle.  I wasn’t sure at first, but I found that I could
shoot pretty straight after a bit of practice.

       We had gone to a quiet part of the gardens and
had set up some bottles and cans to aim at.  Ellie managed to hit a few of them
and she was really getting good at it, while I was still missing more than I
was hitting.  Callum was very patient, however, and with a little bit of
encouragement I steadily improved as the day went on.

       His plan, he explained, was to deploy civilians
to watch over the walls at the rear of the palace.  With this in mind he had
ordered the construction of small platforms at intervals around the walls,
where we could have a good view of the area we were assigned to. 

We were completely surrounded, but
there were places where the infected were much thinner on the ground.  The
front gates remained as the greatest concentration of them, with thousands
still there, and he wanted his trained soldiers to be on hand at them, in case
there were any problems.

       We had just finished our final lesson and had
been issued with a rifle and sixty rounds of ammunition each.  We looked
ridiculous, I thought.  Ellie and I weren’t exactly dressed like soldiers, with
our jeans and sweat tops.  There was a man in a street cleaner’s overalls and
few men and women in smart business attire.  There was one guy who was quite
young.  He looked like he had been sleeping rough, but he explained that he was
ex-army and had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.  He could shoot
like a pro. 

One of the oldest in the group was a
woman in her sixties.  She had insisted on remaining and learning how to use
the rifle, telling us she had seen her husband being mutilated at the top end
of The Mall as they had fled from the swarm.  She wanted some payback.  It was
an unlikely looking militia, but we all had some resolve to help out as much as
we could.

Just after one o’ clock, it
happened.  I was assigned to the wall at the northern end of the gardens, along
with a man in a suit who said his name was Barrie.  There were a few hundred
infected at our section – not too many, but still far too many to deal with if
they had found a way over - and we were discussing what we would do in such an
event.

Suddenly, there was the sound of a
commotion coming from the front gates of the palace.  There was a lot of
shouting and then we heard a gunshot.  That seemed to stir up the infected and
they began to wail.  That sound.  A hundred thousand Zombies, all wailing in
unison.  It was terrifying.

Barrie looked pretty nervous.  He was
a youngish man, a city worker who had probably never been in a fight in his
life.  Neither had I, of course, but he seemed to be more scared than many of
the others and, at the age of just eighteen, it looked like I was going to have
to take charge.

‘We stay here,’ I said.  ‘Follow
Sergeant MacPherson’s orders.’

‘What if they get in?’ he asked.

‘They won’t,’ I said.  I wasn’t sure
at all.  Certainly our part of the wall was secure for the time being, but
there was no telling what was going on at the front gates.

‘Wait here,’ I said.  ‘I’ll go and
have a look.’

I didn’t get more than a few paces,
when suddenly there was a loud explosion, followed by more gunfire.  Then I
heard a louder noise.  It was the sound, I later discovered, of the heavy
machine guns firing.  Something was dreadfully wrong.

Anna Hasker

12:15 hours, Saturday 16
^th
May, Edinburgh

       When the plane was about ten minutes out from
Edinburgh, Adam switched on the seatbelt sign and made an announcement that we
would be touching down shortly.  I had mixed feelings about it.  I had felt
safer in the aircraft than I had at any time since this whole mess had begun
and part of me didn’t want to leave the security of it.  But I knew we couldn’t
stay airborne forever.  We would have to land at some point and there was
nowhere else available to us.

       I knocked on the cabin door and went in.  The
two men were relaxed and calm in the cockpit, even though Adam must have still
been thinking about his wife.  They were both drinking coffee as they made
their final checks for the approach.

       ‘Tower, this is British Airways flight 1446,
requesting permission to land.’

       There was a sound of static on the other end,
before a voice came over the radio.  It sounded fearful.

       ‘BA 1446,’ said the voice.  ‘Do not land.  I
repeat, do not land.’

       The pilots looked at one another.

       ‘Confirm do not land,’ said the co-pilot. 
‘What do you suppose is going on down there?’ he asked.

       ‘I don’t know,’ said Adam.  ‘But we are going
to have to land whether they like it or not.  We don’t have enough fuel to keep
going for much longer.’

       He took the microphone and keyed the switch.

       ‘Tower, this is Captain Adam Smith,’ he said,
his voice exuding a calm authority.  ‘We have no option but to land.  We are
low on fuel and have no other airports available to us.’

       ‘Not an option,’ said the controller.  ‘The
airport is overrun.  There are outbreaks all over the city.  If you land here
you will be trapped on board your aircraft.  The runway is covered with them.’

       ‘Shit,’ said Adam.  ‘How far out are we?’

       ‘Three minutes to landing,’ said the co-pilot. 
‘What do you want to do?’

       Adam was deep in thought.

       ‘Take us in on a low pass,’ he said.  ‘Let’s
see for ourselves what’s going on down there.’

       We continued our descent as if we were going to
land, coming in past the Port of Leith and approaching from the north.  When we
were still about a mile out I could already see why the air traffic controller
was warning us off.  There were thousands of people on the runway and milling
about near the terminal building.  Some were climbing on aircraft which were
parked.  I could imagine the trapped people inside, with no way of escaping. 
Waiting.

       ‘Okay,’ said Adam.  ‘I’ve seen enough.  Let’s
get back up to some height again.’

       The engines kicked in again as they pilots
applied the power and the plane lifted into the sky, leaving the dying airport
to the infected.

       I could hear a lot of murmuring in the back,
where the passengers were.  I went back through and made an announcement on the
tannoy.  There was no possibility of landing at Edinburgh now.  We would have
to look for an alternative.  Where that was going to be was anyone’s guess.

       When I went back to the cockpit I found the two
pilots poring over a map of the surrounding countryside.

       ‘How much fuel do we have left?’ I asked.

       Adam looked up from the map.

       ‘Not enough to make it to any major airport,’
he said.

       ‘What about Leuchars?’ I asked.  I knew the RAF
base was nearby and it should have a long enough runway to accommodate us.

       Adam shook his head.

       ‘The RAF have orders to shoot down anything
that infringes their airspace,’ he said.

       I was stunned.  ‘Even civilian airliners?’

       ‘In case there are any infected on board,’
explained the co-pilot.

       ‘What about here?’ said Adam, pointing at a
point on the map.  ‘That’s an old airfield I think.’

       The co-pilot shook his head.

       ‘That’s Balado airfield,’ he said.  ‘It’s not
suitable.  There are buildings on parts of the old runway now.’

       They searched around for something else.

       ‘There must be something,’ said Adam.  ‘An old
wartime runway.  Something.’

       ‘What about here?’ said the co-pilot. 

       He pointed to a part of the map which looked
like it was just fields.  There was a long stretch of grass with a few buildings. 
At one end of the field was a large body of water and at the other it was
bounded by a road.

       ‘That’s a gliding club,’ he said.  ‘I’ve flown
gliders there in the past, when I was younger.  It’s just a grassy field, but
it’s fairly flat and it should be long enough.’

       ‘It might be worth a try,’ said Adam.  ‘We
would have to come in over the top of that small loch and then try to bring her
to a halt before that road, but it looks feasible.’

       ‘Are you serious?’ I asked.  ‘You’ll have to
land by sight.’

       I didn’t know an awful lot about flying, but I
knew that most pilots relied on their instruments to land them when they were
coming in to an airport.  Adam and his co-pilot would have nothing to work with
if they were to attempt this.

       ‘Do you have any better ideas?’ he asked.

       I didn’t.  We were low on fuel, with no safe
place to take the aircraft to and in danger of being shot down by our own air
force if we went very much further.  If we didn’t land it soon we might be
forced to crash land somewhere which was completely unsuitable.

       ‘I’ll tell the passengers to buckle up,’ I
said.

       As I passed Mike he was looking out of the
window.  We were passing over the Forth Bridges at the time and he was looking
down at thousands of people streaming across them, heading north.

       ‘Look at that,’ he said.  ‘They’re fleeing for
their lives.’

       Behind them, about two miles back, we could see
a gigantic swarm of infected, stretching back for miles as they relentlessly
pursued their prey.

Xioafan Li

12:18 hours, Saturday 16
^th
May, Soho, Central
London

     
I ran as fast as my legs would allow me, until I was out of breath and
knew I had to stop.  To carry would be madness.  I would have to conserve my
strength in case I really needed it.

       When I did finally stop I checked behind me.  I
had left my father, or what had once been my father, a long way behind.  He
would probably have given up by now, since these things seemed to rely on sound
and sight to track their prey.

       I shuddered at the thought of what was
happening and what could have befallen me, in my father’s own restaurant.  He
might have bitten me right there.  I might have turned while I was with him.  I
tried to imagine the thought.  I would have been tied to him forever then,
doomed to walk the Earth with him for all time.

       I wondered how he had managed to become
infected.  I hadn’t waited around to see if he had any wounds, I was just so
desperate to get out of there.  Then it occurred to me that it might have been
from my brother, Frank.  There had been no sign of him, but I knew deep down
that he would never have left my father there alone.  Frank could be an asshole
sometimes, that was for sure, but he would have stayed with him to protect the
restaurant from looters, like they had done during the riots.

       I smiled to myself as I remembered him.  He had
always been a bit of a rebel.  He had worked in the restaurant most of his
life, but many said it was just a front and that his real interest was running
brothels and cannabis factories.  I never found out the truth.

       I rested for a few hours on the rooftop of a
small shop I had found.  Once I had regained my composure I crossed Shaftesbury
Avenue and continued up Wardour Street and into the Soho district.  I moved
quietly, not wanting to attract any attention from the living or the dead.  It
was fairly peaceful in that part of town.  I saw one or two who were obviously
infected but I managed to avoid them easily.

       The thing I would find, in the weeks to come,
was that one or two of those things were really easy to avoid.  You could also
take on one or two in a fight and win, if you knew what you were doing.  But
the larger swarms were different.  They were relentless and if they cornered
you there was no way out.  That was the end.

       I saw many people die like that.  Occasionally
you might happen upon a place where a group of people had made a desperate last
stand against a large group of infected.  It was always the same result.  The
infected, large numbers of them, would be piled up on the fringes of the
redoubt, there would be a break in the defences somewhere and inside would be a
bloodbath, with the defenders lying dead and half eaten.