The Z Infection (37 page)

‘He wouldn’t have bothered if it was
the other way around,’ I said.

We hoisted his body onto the edge of
the parapet and I gave it a shove.  It sailed off the edge, silently.  We never
looked to see where it landed.  Wherever Leo’s soul had gone, I thought,
burying his body wouldn’t make any difference.

Anna Hasker

07:15 hours, Monday 18
^th
May, Loch Leven,
Kinross-shire

We were rowed across to the mainland
in two groups.  It was absolute silence on board.  Mike had led the first group
which consisted of his strike team and the two who would create the diversion. 
Their first job was to secure the area around a small harbour and wait for the
rest of us.  His team were armed with a variety of weapons.  The constant news
reports, which we listened to on an old radio, constantly repeated that the
infected, or the dead, could only be killed by piercing the brain.  Axes,
knives and sharpened gardening tools were ideal.  They were effective and
quiet.  The disadvantage was that you had to get close to the enemy to use
them.  Later, we would discover, people became either desensitised to it, or
could not go on with the killing.

When I arrived at the harbour, the
first thing I saw was that Mike and his team had already had a run in with the
dead.  There were several bodies lying around, all with catastrophic head
injuries.  Thankfully all his team were safe.  The next thing I noticed, was
that there were several boats tied up.

Most of them were small rowing boats,
used by fishermen, but there were also a couple of small motor cruisers which
had been used as small ferries to take sightseers across to the island.

This was a real bonus and I organised
some of the ones, who were going to remain on the island, to get as many of
these boats across as possible, while leaving the motor cruisers for us to use
when the time came for us to return.

We sat down at a picnic table and
spread out a map of the town before us.  I wanted everyone to be absolutely
certain of their tasks.

To the right of where we were was a
small estate of about thirty to forty houses.  This was our objective.  I
estimated that there might be enough food in these houses to feed a hundred
people for a fortnight.  I went through the details with the teams again.

The two young men, who were going to
create the diversion, were going to use a car.  They would drive up and down
the streets of the town, far enough away from our area of operation and try to
attract as many of the infected as they could.  It was dangerous, but one of
them was local and they were confident that they could pull it off.

They set off to find a suitable car,
leaving the rest of us to walk to the first house.

Mike’s team broke in and searched it
from top to bottom.  It was clear and he gave me the thumbs up.  The strike
team then moved to the adjacent property and broke in through a back door,
while we went into the first house and cleaned out the kitchen.

It didn’t take us long.  We already
knew exactly what we wanted and we were already at the door of the second house
as Mike’s team was leaving.

‘That one’s clear as well,’ he said
to me.  ‘It looks like they left in a hurry.  Clothes all over the place in the
bedrooms.  They just took what they absolutely needed.’

It was around that time that we heard
the sound of a car horn sounding.  It was continuous, but distant, and we
guessed it was our bait boys.  They were doing their bit and I felt slightly
more confident.  The dead would be drawn to them, instead of looking for us.

I was surprised by how much food was
left in the houses.  If it had been me I would have made sure I took enough to
live on for weeks.  But it seemed that most of the residents hadn’t considered
this. 

It wasn’t until one of the women in
my team explained to me that the local council had advised people they would be
well looked after, that I realised the reason.  They were told that there would
be food and shelter provided, so they only took what they could carry.

We cleaned out house after house in
the street.  It took much less time than I had expected.  Many of the houses
had been left unlocked.  Some of them even had their doors lying open.  Mike
told me later, that those were the ones they were most nervous about.  A dead
person could easily have walked in and lain in wait.

In later expeditions, after we had
lost some of the group, we used to just close those doors and lock them.  We
didn’t even bother checking them.  It was too dangerous.

But even some of the locked houses
had danger in them.  Occasionally a family would lock an infected relative
inside so you had to be careful no matter what.  It required a lot of
concentration and it could be exhausting.  That was why we only usually did one
or two streets at a time.

On that first street alone, Mike told
me they had found four houses with infected people inside.  That represented
around ten percent of the buildings.

When we had finished in the street it
was almost noon.  We could still hear the car horn intermittently, whenever it
came close enough.  The plan was that we would meet back at the harbour at four
o’ clock, so we still had a lot of time to kill.

I suggested, because at that point I
still wasn’t really in charge, that we take all the food to the boats and load
it on.  Most of us could then head back across to the island, while Mike’s team
set up a perimeter, in case any stragglers came our way.

Laura, it turned out, was a first class
organiser and she set about overseeing the loading of the boats.

‘When I get across to the other side
I’ll make an inventory of it all and make sure it gets stored safely,’ she
said.

‘I think we’ll use the cellar for
that,’ I said.  ‘It should be dry enough in there.’

We packed the boats with the loot and
sent them across to the island.  It was a relief to see them go.  My greatest
fear was that we would have been discovered before we could escape and have to
leave it all behind.

I stayed with Mike and his team.  I
felt responsible.  This had been my idea, after all, and I was determined that
I would see it through and make sure we were all safe.

‘How much did we get?’ he asked as I
sat down beside him.

He was drinking a can of cola from a
drinks machine he had broken into and he offered me a sip.

‘Enough to last a month if we are
careful and ration it out sensibly,’ I replied.  ‘What did you get in there?’

I was referring to the small harbour
side restaurant that he had ransacked.

He smiled and held up the can. 
‘Enough of this to last a few days and enough chocolate and crisps to keep the
kids happy.’

‘Not just the kids,’ I said.

He laughed.  ‘I never did anything
wrong in my life, you know.  I wasn’t a bad ass.  I didn’t get into fights or
destroy people’s property.  I didn’t even swear much or get drunk.’

‘And now?’

‘Now?’ he said.  ‘Now I’m breaking
into houses and businesses.  I’m stealing things.  I’m doing whatever I
please.  It’s liberating.’

I knew how he felt.  It seemed like
we could break all the rules we had been brought up to respect.

‘And you can kill people too,’ I
said, before I could stop myself.

His face changed.  ‘That’s the one
thing I would change,’ he said.  ‘I’m quite happy to do anything else to
survive.  But killing people?  Even if the government is telling us they are
dead already, it still feels wrong.’

‘I know exactly where you are coming
from,’ I said.  ‘I didn’t mean to be flippant about it.’

Suddenly we heard the sound of the
car horn again.  It was distant, but was getting closer by the second.

Mike stood up.  ‘I think they’re
coming this way.’

I stood up too and the rest of Mike’s
team gathered round.

‘Get to the boats,’ I said.  ‘Get
ready to leave at once.’

We ran to the harbour, just as the
horn stopped.  I could still hear the engine though.  Then the car stopped. 
Then I heard it reverse, then stop again.  What were they playing at?

Mike’s team were already on board the
two small motor launches and had started them up with the keys they had found
in the small office next to the restaurant.  We were going to be able to leave
as soon as the others arrived.  But they weren’t coming.

‘What are they doing?’ asked Mike.

‘I have no idea,’ I said.

Suddenly, out of the trees to the
left of the restaurant, a man stumbled towards us.  Mike was on him in a flash
and struck him with a ferocious blow that almost cut his head in half.  The man
dropped to the ground, but no sooner had he done so than another appeared.

‘Get to the boat,’ shouted Mike as he
tackled the new threat.

I ran to the harbour, just as the car
appeared around the corner and screeched to a halt.  Mike had just finished off
another one of the dead, with his axe, but there were more and more coming. 
Far too many to fight.

He backed off, taking out another one
with a knife which he was forced to leave embedded in the woman’s skull. 

‘Time to go,’ he shouted at the car.

The two young men jumped out and
sprinted for the jetty, just as the first boat was heaving off.  They jumped
and landed on the deck and the boat suddenly lurched forward as the speed
increased.

Mike was still backing off as a large
group appeared from around the corner of the road the car had just come from. 
That was enough for him.  There was no way he could have taken on that many. 
He turned and ran.

‘Floor it,’ I said to the older man
who was driving the boat I was on.

He gunned the engines and we began to
weave our way out of the harbour, just as Mike sprinted along the last few
metres of the jetty and jumped on board.  He had lost his axe in the melee, but
I was just grateful that he was safe.  We could always get him another weapon.

We sailed away from the tiny harbour,
as more and more of the dead appeared.  They stood on the shores and on the
jetty, making their terrible noises, knowing that they couldn’t get to us.  We
had done it.  We had found enough food in one street to last us a month and we
had managed it without losing a single one of our group.

I sat back on the wooden seat and
soaked up the warm sun as I enjoyed the rush of the wind in my hair.  Tonight
we would eat well and tomorrow we could start to plan the rest of our survival
strategy. 

Thomas Buckle

14:30 hours, Monday 18
^th
May, Loch Leven,
Kinross-shire

I put my hand on Pancho’s head to
quieten him and gave Dave a look that told him there was danger nearby.  We
crouched down, hiding amongst the shrubbery and bushes as we waited to see
exactly what the dog had heard.  It didn’t take long.

A woman appeared from nearby, almost
stepping on us as she walked towards the fire.  The smoke, I thought, of
course.  She had seen the smoke and had been attracted by it.  Now she was
investigating.  Was there some intelligence in those things after all?

It was Dave who moved first.  As the
woman passed he left his cover and plunged a sharpened screwdriver through the
top of her skull.  I heard the bone crack and give way as the instrument passed
through it and into her brain and she dropped to her knees and slumped over as
Dave withdrew it from her head in one easy movement.

Pancho was still unsettled.  He was
beginning to emit a low squeaking noise, uncommon for him.  I wondered what it
could be, but before I could react to it I saw another one of them.  It was a
child of about ten.  He walked right past me and before I could warn Dave the
kid was on his arm, biting it. 

Dave screamed.  He knew he was dead
from that very second, but he lashed out and hit the boy above the eye with the
screwdriver.  He fell to the ground.  There was a momentary twitch and then
nothing.

But Dave was screaming.  The bite
mark was small, but we knew that even a scratch would have been fatal.

‘Don’t let me die,’ he pleaded. 
‘Don’t let me turn like them.’

Pancho was growling again.  I didn’t
know what to do.  I looked beyond Dave and could see the boat again.  It wasn’t
too far away. 

‘You have to be quiet,’ I said.  ‘I
think there are others in the area.’

But he was terrified.  He couldn’t
stop himself.  I think I would have been the same in those circumstances.  It
would have been too much for me.  But I had to do something.  I could hear
noises in the bushes.  The dead were looking for us.  So I did the only thing I
could think of.  I knocked Dave out, hitting him on the back of the head with
the butt of one of the rifles.

He fell to the ground and I pulled
back the sleeve of his shirt.  The bite was actually tiny, now that he wasn’t
thrashing around and I could see it properly.  I pulled out my knife.  I didn’t
know if it would work or not, but I had to try.  Dave was an important member
of our group and we couldn’t afford to lose him.

I cut around the wound, taking at
least ten centimetres of flesh around it and digging deep into his arm to make
sure I got everything out.  I imagined the bite to be like a poison.  It would
act fast on Dave’s system, so I had to act faster.