Winter Smith (Book 1): London's Burning (2 page)

              “Harold, are you alright?” Stacey asked, sitting Harold down in the games room. People were gathering near the hallway now, trying to get a view of what had happened on land.

              “No,” Harold breathed. “I feel sick.”

              “Get him a bucket!” Daniel bellowed. “Get this man a bucket!”

              The gathered people scattered as Martha ran through, trying to find a bucket before Harold threw up.

              Stephen watched Harold. His colour had completely drained. He was shaking. His eyes flickered.

              “Something hurts,” Harold gasped. “Something is hurting me!”

              Harold screamed. He clutched at his stomach, hunched over the bed.

              “This man needs help, here!” Daniel boomed. “Where’s the fucking doctor?”

              “Oh my god,” Stephen breathed, moving away from the door. “He was fine. It was just a bite! He shouldn’t be getting like that.”

              Harold shook. He retched, the blood on his hand spurting.

              Bangs and thuds echoed from all directions, multiplied by the metal container they were locked in. Some people were coming to view the commotion while others knew they needed to get help.

              Harold made a sound that was terrifying; screeching, so loudly that it didn’t sound human. His body convulsed, his skin decayed before their very eyes. Stacey, who was stuck in the confined room with Harold, stepped back until she was leant against the wall.

              “Stacey!” Stephen tried to call, but his fear seemed to render him mute. She didn’t turn to look at him. She only had eyes for the man in front of her.

              Harold jumped up onto the bed so quickly people screamed. His skin had shrunken back into his face, revealing purple blood vessels and bones. His eyes were bloodshot, his teeth bared.

              He tackled Stacey, ripping a chunk from her neck. Blood poured, screams began to echo.

              People tried to move, but they were vacuumed packed in tight quarters, like cattle ready for slaughter.

Harold leapt at Samuel, pinning him to the ground, biting him and drawing blood. He leapt at another man seconds later, who tried to escape but hit his head against the wall. Stephen barged past the people next to him, but not before he got a glimpse of Stacey. Her skin had decayed, her eyes had become bloodshot, and she was now running at the nearest human. In seconds, she had changed.

              “Stephen!” Someone called. “What the- Stephen!”

              Daniel and Martha were battling through the crowds, some of them human, others quickly turning into what Harold, Samuel and Stacey had become.

              “Tell them to get back to land!” Stephen shouted at anyone that would listen. “Tell them to get back on the fucking land!”

              The container was now full of hisses and screams. People’s bodies echoed off the walls as they were pushed to the ground, attacked, killed.

              Every bite seemed to change something in people. Every bite was lethal. Stephen had to avoid being bitten.

              Stephen could see Martha, struggling to fight through two government guards who were caught on something. He wouldn’t let more of his friends die.

              Stephen grabbed Martha’s hand, and propelled her through the crowd towards him. Stephen could see she had a stern grip on Daniel.

              “Martha, wait!” Daniel screamed. “Martha, no!”

              Stephen turned around. A decaying monster rose through the crowd, bony hands seized Daniel’s neck, blood gushed from the bite.

              “Daniel!” Martha screamed.

              Stephen knew it was too late. If they waited any longer, they would be dead themselves. He tugged Martha, hard enough so she lost grip of Daniel who screamed for her to turn back for him.

              Martha fell into Stephen’s arms, sobbing, covered in blood but no apparent wound.

              As Stephen barged through the crowds, his feet slipped on blood. His heart flipped every time he thought he’d fall. He wished he could block out the screams of carnage.

              Stephen was pushed to one side. His head struck a metal valve and for a moment he swayed on the spot, suddenly dazed.

              He could vaguely hear Martha screaming. He could vaguely feel her punching his chest. Yet he gripped tightly to her, refusing to let her go.

              He began to move once more. This time he found it harder. Bodies were on the floor; whether dead or alive he couldn’t tell. He felt like his head was about to explode. He felt like there was something wrong with the submarine itself.

              Teeth sunk into his chest. He screamed out in anger, refusing to believe what had just happened. Looking down, he saw Martha. Her skin had become flaky and purple; her eyes bloodshot and hungry, set on one thing – the exposed skin on his arm.

              He pushed her away; seeing the wound on her neck he had missed before.

              The effect was instant. His head swayed, but he tried to pass it off as the wound he had gotten earlier. His body seemed to weigh down, and his temperature increased. He was sweating. He needed to find somewhere cool. His mouth was becoming dry; his skin seemed to be rippling, tightening around his bones. Something seemed to twist inside his stomach, seemed to claw at his chest.

              He hunched over the metal steps he had climbed earlier. He could smell something – blood. He could smell fear. His heart began to beat too fast; it seemed to stop all together. It seemed to swell then burst. Any thoughts he once had were gone. They were to be replaced with a hunger that could never be satisfied.

              He screamed, so loud he was only just aware of it. Then he remembered nothing…not even the taste of human blood.

* * *

              In a small coffee shop in Watford, London, sat Winter Smith, a seventeen-year-old girl with tangled white hair. She was blissfully unaware of what was happening somewhere else in the world. She had no idea that somewhere, people were killing others in ways that were unimaginable. 

              She sat on a faux leather sofa by the coffee shop window, admiring the view outside. She was a regular here.

              She watched a young woman, maybe a year older than her, stroll through the streets in tight leggings and a leather jacket. Something stirred inside her. Attraction.

              Sipping her coffee, she watched the dazzling woman disappear inside a fashion outlet, watched a young man stroll past the coffee shop window. She admired his derrière, how neatly it was inside tight denim jeans.

              “Is everything alright, Winter?” A boy asked. He wore a green apron, his hair swept back off his face. She didn’t need to ask how he knew her name. It had been printed in magazines thousands of times.

              “Brilliant,” Winter said. “You know how much I love these coffees!”

              The boy grinned before moving away to serve a young couple on a nearby table. Winter watched them. They were staring at nothing but each other, clearly in love. The girl, bland looking with straight blonde hair, scrunched her nose up and grinned at her boyfriend, who was beginning to grow facial hair and was staring at her with admiration. Winter could almost read his thoughts.

              In the middle of the café, in line with the counter, sat little armchairs either side of small, wooden tables. Someone occupied all of these; a mother and daughter, two school kids absorbed in their phones, a lone young man.

              Just behind Winter, cast in orange lights, were leather chairs and a black table. Business parties stopping for a coffee before travelling to where they needed to go almost always occupied this area. Winter listened to them talking about strategy numbers and she soon zoned out. What a boring job to choose.

              Hung up on the walls was paintings of farm lands, coffee beans, oranges, fruit bowls cast in bright light from an open planned window. It was all very organic. Some would even go as far to say cliché.

              Winter, admiring the lean body of the waiter, turned back to absorb Whippendell Road. It was the middle of June, and the air was beginning to warm up. People were walking around without jackets, some daring to wear shorts. It was cold in the shade but in the sun it was warm enough to feel comfortable.

              She ran a hand through her tangled white hair, making it as messy as possible. She saw the outline of her reflection in the window before her and used this as her guide.

              A song she disliked came on her iPod just as the couple across from her giggled together. She switched it over and her eyes wandered to the table full of papers and magazines next to her.

              She could see her name printed in one of the magazines, and fought the temptation to read what bullshit story had been written about her this time. Instead, she picked up a newspaper next to it.

              It was The Daily Mail. The front page was obscured by a grainy image of people lying in a blood-splattered street. The headline, in block white letters, read ‘MASSACARE’.

              Winter flipped to the report, and was sickened to see images of the blood splattered street, much more graphic than the front page. She wondered if maybe the printers should have warned people.

              She read the report. A street in China. Everybody disturbed in the dead of night. People ripped out of their beds and their homes, only to be ripped to pieces on the streets. Not one person remained alive to tell the tale of what truly happened. Even police forces were left dead at the scene.

              Winter shook her head and put the paper out of her sight. Weird things really were happening lately. Looking around, nobody seemed to be worried, except for the business people who had to make their dull work more fun by adding drama to it.

              Was she worried? Well, she thought she should be. But truth was, she wasn’t. Nothing of substance had really happened in the area to make her worry.

              Only for the odd report, which she put down to be media hype.

             
Man eats other man’s face in vicious zombie like attack in Miami,
a TV headline read earlier this week.
Eight bullets used to kill man eating other man,
the sub-heading read.

             
Man stabs himself multiple times before throwing his own body parts at police officers.

              Woman kills newborn baby and eats its brain. When asked why she did it she simply replied: ‘The devil made me do this.’

              University student kills roommate on campus and eats his brain.

              Man on public bus starts clawing the skin off his arms and eating the flesh before attacking the person next to him.

             
These were the headlines that had been popular these past couple of weeks. The entire zombie like attacks had happened in America, yet there were a few more headlines popping up all over the world.

             
Cannibal girl murders family in Russia.

              Zombie like attacks hit London.

             
It was beginning to scare people. Had zombies finally risen from the dead and attacked? Had they been here all along? Preposterous.              

              People were even beginning to write articles on how to survive a zombie invasion. Yet hadn’t they been around forever?

              You see, each story had something in common. It wasn’t just the fact they had ate their victims. No, each zombie like person had been hard to kill. The man who had been found chewing the face off the other man had had to be shot eight times before he was killed. When asked to stop he had growled at the police officers, like a hungry cat that didn’t want to be disturbed. The man who had stabbed himself had ignored the police officers when they told him to stop, and then he had proceeded to throw his body parts at the officers, as if it was all a joke. The woman who killed her baby seemed to still have some form of sense, crying after she had done it and talking to the police officers, allowing them to carry her away. The cannibal girl in Russia had escaped, finally being shot down with five bullets.

              Winter sipped her coffee, skipping the song on her iPod halfway through.

              Two boys lingered at the door. One boy was fussing with his shoelace, while the other was trying not to look at Winter.

              “Is it her?” The boy with the lace asked.

              “I can’t really…yes. Yes, it is her!”

              “Go up and see her,” the boy with the laces urged. “Let’s get a photo.”

              Winter sipped her coffee, looking in the other direction. She didn’t want this now.

              She could hear them approaching. She prepared her happy personality, her kind regard of other people.

              “Excuse me?”

              “Yes?” Winter asked, playing stupid.