Stealing a glance over my shoulder I saw that many had seen us in spite of our efforts and were now in dedicated pursuit. Luckily their speed could not match ours and we managed to stay clear of them. While we used our bikes, Pius fell into a steady jog alongside us. I remember thinking that it almost felt too easy, which it was of course. Other zombies joined the chase from the buildings and narrow side streets we passed, our footsteps and movement seeming to attract them. In no time at all it felt as if the whole of London was on our tail. As for those chasing us, in spite of their condition, they seemed truly determined and did not want to give up the chase, their constant speed of pursuit almost superhuman. Exhaustion, as with death, seemed to be no barrier to them.
Not so with me; exhaustion and a queasy stomach began to overwhelm me and I slowed my pace and although I freewheeled I started to lag behind the other two. Becky noticed and stopped to let me catch up. Pius stopped in his tracks, his gaze fixed behind us.
“We are okay for a minute,” he surmised, looking concernedly at me. “Are you alright?”
“I don’t feel so well. I think I might have swallowed some of the river water after all.” On top of my guts playing up my ankle was throbbing like crazy at this point, the benefits of adrenaline all but gone.
He looked behind us again and a steely determination came over him.
“We must keep moving,” Pius urged. “They are still coming; sit on your bike properly.”
I had been freewheeling, standing on a single pedal in order to stay with Pius. I hauled my leg over and sat down gratefully. Putting his hand in the middle of my back Pius began to jog once more, pushing me ahead of him. Becky rode on the far side of me, a look of concern on her face, all the while looking over her shoulder at the crowd in pursuit. I was grateful for Pius’ strength and realised that he was probably in the process of saving me a second time. The man seemed to have no limit to his energy. As for me, if I hadn’t been able to sit down I think I might have passed out.
Ahead of us out of a side street burst a man, running for his life. He was elderly, in his seventies in my estimation and wore casual clothing and trainers - lucky for him. He was slim and fortunately appeared to be reasonably fit, which was just as well because he was being pursued by at least a dozen or so zombies.
We increased our speed, realising that his actions and the zombies in pursuit of him would actually get in front of us, effectively cutting us off and trapping us. Catching up with him, he continued to run alongside me. I glanced sideways and noticed he had what appeared to be a bite mark on his left arm - I wasn’t sure at the time, running for your life is a little distracting and subtle details can be a bit of a challenge to take in. He was trying to talk.
“Help,” he paused, “me,” he panted. His face was pale in spite of the effort he was putting into staying alive.
“Just keep running, man!” I wheezed back.
“I can’t…” he replied, slowing visibly. He grabbed at my bike and fell over, knocking me off and landing in a heap, me scraping my legs painfully on the tarmac. Pius leapt sideways out of the way and stopped with us. He bent down and rested his hands on his knees, breathing hard.
In spite of the way I felt I jumped to my feet and tried to haul the old guy back onto his feet. I estimated that we had only a few seconds before those chasing him caught us up. Although I was angry - my rear wheel, I could see, was bent beyond use - I looked into his face, about to plead with him to keep moving. His eyes changed in that moment - almost instantly they went from a pale green to dirty white. His whole demeanour also altered from resignation to steely determination. He rose to his full height and emitted a low groan, drool escaping from his mouth and running down his shirt. I recoiled at the sight. Raising his hands to grab at me I ducked from his reach, picked up my bike and threw it at him, catching him in the throat and knocking him back to the ground. I turned to Pius.
“Come on, the bastard’s one of them!” I cried.
Pius had been focusing on breathing and the surprise in his face suggested that maybe I had repaid one of the times he’d saved me. We ran to catch up with Becky who’d remained on her bike hovering about twenty yards away.
“Get going!” I cried, as we caught her up. I was on foot now but it’s strange how adrenaline has the ability to let you focus on staying alive. Together we hurtled away from the crowd of zombies now led by the old man. My mind was in turmoil, what I had just witnessed had to be impossible, surely, nothing natural changed that fast. Perhaps it explained what had happened to those people with injuries. As for the rest who seemed to have become zombies apropos of nothing, I had no idea where this malady could have come from, if that’s what it was. I suddenly remembered advice from the telly that had warned us to keep away if when out and about several people came down with something simultaneously - in our modern world where terrorism was everywhere it had been clear and salient advice aimed at protecting the population in case of gas or biological attack. I’m pretty sure the powers that be hadn’t really reckoned on zombies.
*
5 - Puppet Master
Arriving at Lambeth Bridge, we discovered our route along the embankment was blocked by the military, soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder on the far side of the roundabout, guns ready with bayonets fixed. In spite of the fact that they had tank back up, even from this distance I could see apprehension in each man’s eyes - I don’t imagine for a second the poor sods ever thought they’d be ranged against their own people. As for tanks, the troops were backed up by half a dozen of them, some of their cannon pointing directly at us and the rest down the road to our right towards some other threat until now unseen by me. I looked in the direction of their barrels and finally saw the problem - to the south and away from the river a mob similar to those pursuing us was making its way towards the intersection.
“Jesus,” Becky exclaimed skidding to a halt next to me.
Instinctively the three of us drew together as if trying to present a smaller target.
Someone standing on one of the tanks was waving at us and shouting something. Seeing we couldn’t hear he picked up a megaphone and repeated himself.
“Get a move on! You three! If you want to live, get yourselves over the bridge!” he ordered, pointing towards the far shore; my heart sank. It seemed our destination was about to become increasingly harder to get to, but at this point we had little option but to keep moving away from this invasion as best we could. The Puppet Master had spoken.
We began to move again, the decision as to our next actions already taken out of our hands. I don’t know about you, but I hate it when guns held by nervous people, soldiers or not, are pointed at me. I couldn’t imagine ever becoming used to it. Looking back I remember that as we ran towards the bridge still hotly followed by our zombie horde I felt my skin prick with the sensation of being in the crosshairs of all those soldiers.
“I really don’t like this,” I mumbled to myself over and over again. As if to confirm my thoughts and trepidation the army opened up before we were clear of their line of fire. Bullets whipped past us and slapped into those zombies closest to us. I distinctly remember one slug fly past my ear - I felt the pressure wave as it passed by, feeling as if someone had hit my ear open-handed. I cried out in shock as much as anything and Becky looked around in surprise.
“I’m okay, babe,” I shouted. “Keep moving!” I put my hand on her back pushing her on as we rushed around the corner. The fusillade increased in volume as the tank machine gunners joined in the massacre. We fell to the ground, huddling close against the solid marble walls for our protection.
Peering around the corner onto the Embankment I saw that the army had decimated every one of those poor bastards who had been chasing us. I watched as heads popped and bodies shuddered as the corpses were thrown around as the heavy bullets struck home, tearing limbs from them and creating holes in torsos I could see through. From my early terrified observations it seemed that the zombies were capable of taking ro
und after round to their limbs and bodies but a single headshot did the business without fail. After all, apart from a few notable people in my life, no-one could live without a brain.
Suddenly a buzzing sound erupted from the skies as a drone I’d not noticed previously opened fire using what I assumed to be a chain gun - its death ray ripping through the remaining crowd of undead. Right now I cannot think of a single simile for what I saw to give you a hint of the true horror of it all. Bizarrely I smirked to myself as it pretty much confirmed my long held belief that drones had been flying over the capital for a long time.
The one remaining clear memory I have of that day was the odour of burnt flesh and excrement as torsos were ripped open and faeces flew around mixed in with the human offal. I can honestly say that I’ve never seen or smelled anything quite so awful before or since; nor do I want to.
The three of us sat there in stunned silence at what had just taken place, unable to move and certainly not to rationalise the fact that this terrible action had almost certainly saved us for another day. My hands shook involuntarily so I clasped them together so Becky wouldn’t see how unnerved I was by the madness. I doubt she would have noticed, the look on her face said the same things I was thinking. I reckon it was another few minutes before we rallied and began to cross the Lambeth Bridge as previously instructed. It suddenly dawned on me that if I had lingered another five seconds with that old man we could have been part of that disembodied crowd. Even now I shudder at the memory.
*
6 - Frying Pan or Fire - You Choose
By the time we crossed the river and landed on the north bank we could hear steady gunfire starting up again, presumably aimed at the crowd coming up from the south. The sci-fi buzzing of the drone’s guns could also be heard as they dealt death and destruction from above. I wondered if the ‘Battle of Lambeth’ would be remembered like 9/11 or 7/7; of course at that point no survivor had a single clue as to the ubiquity of what was going on. To be quite honest I thought it was ‘just’ another terrorist attack, some biological or chemical incident - probably like most other survivors out there at the time. We had absolutely no idea the world as we knew it was coming to an end. Were those that died at the outset the lucky ones? To concentrate on our survival I tried desperately to close my mind to what was going on across the river.
In spite of the tonnage of lead flying that morning the moaning continued to intensify, frequently punctuated by distant screams, and as we stood there transfixed the sound of gunfire finally abated down to the odd sporadic shot or two. Moments later a drone crashed into the Thames, its death-dealing finished. I wondered what had happened; had it simply run out of fuel or was there a problem with the remote pilot? Where was he and why he had stopped the extermination of those creatures?
After the craziness of it all I felt like I was losing my mind; I just couldn’t take in what was happening. I was still trying to work out what had caused ordinary people to become zombies - and why hadn’t I turned? Maybe it was localised - perhaps it had started as part of a protest, but against what? That didn’t seem reasonable at all so I ruled that one out; no-one would deliberately infect themselves in order to end up like that. There were no police to speak of; it was the army I’d seen and not a single policeman had shown him or herself since Victoria Station. Why and when had the army been called out? After a few minutes I gave up because the information was unlikely to present itself; to carry on that way invited madness.
“We can go along Millbank and then cross back to Waterloo at Westminster Bridge or maybe go further to Cannon Street,” Pius suggested, somewhat pleadingly. It took me a moment to realise he was talking. His face showed that he, too, was frightened and dumbfounded by the turn of events, his cheeks glistening with tears which he wiped away furiously. It was clear that the imperative to get to his family, at least for now, overrode any desire to escape it all by mentally shutting down. Unfortunately, by this time his emotionally unrealistic optimism at being able to go to the station and catch a train was no longer working for us, probably not even for him in reality.
Events and fright drove any real hope from us as we considered the impossibility of the situation. Becky looked frightened to death, her lovely pale face shades whiter; she had started shaking involuntarily, clearly in shock at the idea of what we had almost been a part of. I think we were all stunned and overwhelmed to see the army at large on the streets; in the UK any kind of armed response was as rare as rocking horse shit and so I knew full well that the fact they were out there meant the police and civilian authority had lost control. And that just wouldn’t do at all on such a pleasant morning. Was it still morning? I looked up and saw the blue clarity of the early day still stark against the rising smoke from around the capital. Who knew there would be such beautiful weather to die for at the start of the Apocalypse?
“Okay, whatever,” I agreed absent-mindedly, nothing better having crossed my mind.
In a shaken daze we crossed the road, but no sooner had we stepped onto the opposite pavement than we heard the laboured sound of jet engines very close by. Looking up we saw a British Airways jumbo that, from the direction of its flight, appeared to have taken off from Heathrow in the last few minutes - its landing gear was still down and its engine power settings sounded as if it was trying to climb. It was weaving from side to side, and when it was supposed to be gaining altitude it wasn’t. For a brief moment the plane seemed to steady itself and continue on its way. I heaved a sigh of relief. All of a sudden it peeled away from its flightpath by doing a roll out dive to port. I swore as I realised it was heading straight for the Houses of Parliament, only half a mile away. At the last moment it veered more towards us and we instinctively threw ourselves down behind the low stone bridge wall, not that such a barrier would have protected us from a direct hit.
With an all-enveloping roar, the likes of which I had never experienced, it seemed to splash down among the buildings on the north bank. I say splash because it spread itself across a massive area spilling its full load of fuel across several blocks in the direction of Westminster Abbey. The scene was more reminiscent of a napalm run during the Vietnam war than something that could take place in good old London. That was all I saw of it as by then I was hugging the pavement like I was desperately in love with each and every slab.
In spite of the overwhelming noise created by the death of the 747 I saw more than heard Becky squeal in fright, the look of terror on her face stabbing me to the core; we held hands and just stared at each other not daring to look elsewhere - I hated seeing her so completely frightened, it tore at my heart in spite of everything going on around us. Beyond Becky I glimpsed Pius who seemed to be saying something but all sounds were drowned out by the blast that engulfed us. Maybe he was praying and I didn’t blame him one bit; if I’d had someone who might have listened I would be chattering thirteen to the dozen. It was as if hell had opened its doors and was dragging us in. The violence of the impact rolled across us bringing an intense heat that seared my flesh and burnt the hair on my legs, arms and head. Wearing shorts, especially Lycra ones, and a t-shirt into the apocalypse is not something I can recommend.
After a minute or so - I really can’t be sure - we raised our heads over the wall to see what had happened. A great pall of smoke and flames rose into the sky, hundreds of feet high and at least half a mile across; the whole area to the east seemed to be on fire, the heat as intense as any furnace. Even the trees along the embankment were burning brightly, driving away any thought of heading in that direction. Strangely the Houses of Parliament seemed to have escaped unscathed, defiant to the last. Their very existence seemed to be charmed.
The streets were littered with rubble, aircraft debris and charred, torn bodies; pulling myself up to peer over the wall I got probably the biggest shock so far. Barely twenty feet from our position, mostly buried in the ground was what looked like the remains of a giant turbofan engine. The force of its landing had peppered the other side of our pro
tective wall with shrapnel. It looked like ducking had been a good idea after all.
The air stank of burning avgas making it difficult to breathe.
“I’m guessing we can’t head east just yet, Pius,” I said. “Something seems determined to stop us.”
Pius just stared at the scene, a fierce look of frustration at being thwarted yet again creasing his face. I put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.
“Come on, mate, let’s head up Horseferry and see if we can circumvent all this,” I suggested. I had no desire to head west and east was out of the question for now. It didn’t matter in what direction we wanted to travel, heading north was our only survivable option at the time. My main concern was getting myself and Becky out of this mess alive.
“Are you okay, Becky?” I asked, noticing that some of her hair had frizzed somewhat in the intense heat. “Having a bad hair day?” I smirked and got ready to duck again in case she clocked me one but she barely reacted to my clumsy wit. I wondered briefly what I looked like.
Instead of reacting hysterically or even too calmly, Becky seemed to have fallen into a catatonic state and was unresponsive to my words or touch. I checked her over but she looked unhurt but I was no medic so what did I know? Perhaps there was something wrong I couldn’t see.
Knowing we had to keep moving to survive I took her hand in mine and led her away and up the road. Pius followed along behind, his steps lackadaisical. In all the horror I realised my previous stomach cramps had subsided. Weird but true.
*
7 - Prêt Survivre, Anyone?
Trudging up the road we began to see people rushing out onto the street. Some were flailing at themselves desperately trying to put out the fire that had engulfed them having been caught up in the conflagration. Others seemed oblivious to the consuming flames and when I ran over to one to offer assistance he turned on me, arms outstretched. I sidestepped him easily enough but I did get a close look at his face. I remember it only added to my confusion and fear. He seemed to have no eyes, almost as if the eyeballs had turned around revealing the white sclera and no iris. In spite of this he tried again to get to me, moving unerringly in my direction no matter what avoiding tactics I employed. Pius finished the game by hammering his meaty fist into the side of the man’s head. The skull cracked open spilling brains and blood, leaving Pius’ fist blood soaked. I hoped that relieved him of some of his pent up frustration.
Zombies! Page 3