by James King
Hollis nodded. “Of course sir. I understand. But if we did use it... I mean, if we did... do you think it would be enough? I mean – even that? Would it be enough to eradicate The Threat?”
Ronson cast his gaze into the mid air, into the sky that loomed above. Would Protocol Zero be enough? It was a good question. The scientists seemed to be in agreement that the virus was almost indestructible by any convention means. The vaccine appeared to guard against it, but did not kill the virus itself. And all other means – from simple fire, to unimaginably hot laser beams had refused to offer a means of destruction. Freezing had no effect other than to merely preserve the virus – it had originally been found preserved in a shard of ancient Antarctic ice – and chemical means: acid, alkali, and a hundred other different combinations, had no effect. Which, once all possible alternatives had deducted, eliminated, and exhausted, left only Protocol Zero: ultimate, devastating, perhaps crude, but the final recourse. Beyond that lay only Armageddon.
“Sir...?” Hollis was asking, taken aback perhaps by Ronson’s sudden lapse into silent reflection, “...sir, do you think that Protocol Zero will be enough to - ?
“– To eradicate The Threat?” Ronson cut into the other soldier, “I heard you the first time, Major. And as to the answer... well.... I don’t think that anyone really knows. But I have an idea that everyone is about to find out...”
Sixteen
Miss Cynthia Andrews stepped into the classroom of Alchester Primary school with a large grin on her face, and not a certain amount of relief in her heart. Today was the last day of the school year, and this year had been the first year of Cynthia Andrews’ tenure as teacher at the school. To say that it had been easy would have been a lie. She had found it to be a big challenge, and one that wasn’t necessarily always a positive one. Sure, she liked the children; she loved helping them to learn, helping their understanding to grow, seeing them develop as people. The disciplinary aspect of the job, however, had been a less than cherished aspect of her role. The children could sometimes be boisterous, and sometimes downright naughty, and trying to rein in the worst excesses of their behaviour had often been a thankless task. Miss Andrews sometimes wondered, in her darker moments, whether children were actually naughtier, more disruptive, more disrespectful, than ever they had been before, certainly more so than when she had been a child. But was that true? Or was it merely false perception? Perhaps it was just something that the older generation always thought about the younger, a sense of being challenged, a feeling that there were younger hearts and minds that would one day become strong, and take over the world from their elders. Whatever the cause, Miss Andrews had always done her best to shake the feeling, and rationalise it away. They were, after all, only children, and it was her job to teach them, to nurture them, to care for them...
And in the last week or so, her job had been easy. Perhaps it was the better weather they’d been having lately, or perhaps it was simply the prospect of the summer holidays, looming large and sun-filled and free. But, whatever the cause, the children had been good-natured, reasonably compliant, and (she hardly dare admit to it), a joy to work with. They had completed all the work that she’d asked of them, had not been at all disruptive during lessons, and she had not had to run any detention sessions at all over the last few days – a minor miracle in itself. So the last fortnight or so of term had been good, a happy and upbeat time, and now, on the last day of term, she felt happiness and relief, that the school year had ended so well, and that now she would be able to take her leave of it until September came.
But when she stepped into the classroom that morning, she knew immediately that there was something wrong.
The children, usually so raucous, loud and unruly in the morning, now sat silent and pale-faced at their desks. The toys that they had brought with them to play with on the last day of school lay scattered on desk, table, and floor, forgotten, seemingly abandoned. An unprecedented and - Miss Andrews thought – unimaginable state of affairs. Usually, the children were playful enough when they didn’t have toys – often to a fault – but now... the toys were ignored, as though the children had, overnight, grown up into adults, and the toys were now to them nothing more than brightly coloured lumps of plastic. The children gazed at Miss Andrews as she stepped into the classroom, and their eyes were very dark.
“Good morning class!” Miss Andrews trilled, happily, brightly. Perhaps too happily and brightly, the sound of her voice seeming to flutter madly around the walls and windows of the classroom, panicky, like a caged wild bird. The children, for their part, just stared at her, silently, their eyes dark, and their mouths... all their mouths closed. All of their mouths strangely pursed.
Thoroughly disconcerted, Miss Andrews dumped the books and papers that she had been carrying down onto the surface of her desk. She fumbled it, and some of the papers slithered out of her grasp and cascaded down onto the floor, spreading disconsolately onto the parquet. Miss Andrews groped downward for them, suddenly feeling like all fingers, thumbs, and elbows. She fully expected the children to laugh at her, to hear their sudden, high, keening mockery, just as she had heard it these last twelve months, ringing from the classroom walls. But no. They remained silent. And not merely were their voices silent, but their bodies were silent too. Not the stir of a limb, not the rustle of a dress, not the single smallest scrape of a shoe upon the parquet floor. What was this? Could it be that they were afraid of her? That after twelve long months of trying to teach them some discipline and humility they had now, suddenly on the final day of the school year, decided that she must be deferred to? For some reason that Miss Andrews could not now even begin to understand, she found that idea uniquely dismaying. Perhaps even terrifying.
With an ungainly scrabble of limbs, and an untidy rustle of papers, Miss Andrews at last had the papers clutched up in her arms. Straightening up, she dumped them – almost threw them – onto the surface of her desk. They were hopelessly disordered now, but, for now, that did not worry her. What did worry her was the silent class that spread before her, the pale, watchful children arraigned before her like... like... oh, like what? She had always been good at English, that was, indeed, her specialist subject, so she should have been able to come up with a ready simile. And then it came to her. Like gravestones...
And the truth of that simile worked its own cold, dead fingers down her back.
She drew a deep breath and blazed a smile toward the class. She supposed that the smile must look a little crazed. But still she smiled, turning it up to the max. And all the while, the children kept their silent, graveyard vigil.
“Well, class,” Miss Andrews began, “here we are at the very last day of term. And tomorrow is the start of the summer holidays!”
In her past experience, that last utterance would normally have engendered a lusty cheer from the children. They usually didn’t need any invitation to be voluble. But this morning they merely sat: pale faced, dark eyed, completely indifferent, it seemed, to anything that their teacher might have said. Utterly still. And their mouths closed... their mouths, so oddly pursed...
The air in the classroom was stuffy, stale, over-used. Worse than that, it had a bad smell to it. If Miss Andrews hadn’t known better, then she’d have said that it was the smell of decay: thick, green, strong, revolting, as though some dead thing were lying festering and flyblown in the corner of the room. God, it was bad. How come she hadn’t smelled it before? Even now, it seemed to be intensifying, growing stronger; becoming ever more rotting, as though whatever was causing it was experiencing some kind of speeded-up decay, such as they sometimes showed on nature programmes on the TV. And had any of the kids smelled it? Usually they would have, plastering their hands across their faces and saying “miss, what’s that horrible smell”. But not now. They just sat, pale faced, glassy eyed, unmoving. Miss Andrews hand flew up to her mouth, and she felt her chest begin to spasm, as though it was getting ready for an all-out puke. God, she needed some fresh air. Better o
pen one of those windows, and fast.
“My, it is a little stuffy in here, don’t you think children?” Miss Andrews said, her voice sounding huge and sickened within the cavern of the classroom’s walls, “I think that I’ll get one of these windows open and let in a bit of that lovely summer air. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
The children once again offered no indication as to whether they thought that opening the window and letting in the fresh summer air would be nice or not – but by this point in time, Miss Andrews really didn’t care. She strode across to one of the classroom windows and commenced fiddling to release the locking device. As she did this, she happened to glance out through the window. Beyond the window was the playground, and at the far end of the playground, just at the point where the tarmac gave way to the grass of the school playing field beyond, stood a figure. A few seconds of examination showed the figure to be Mr Woodrow, the school caretaker. Mr Woodrow was wondering along the far edge of the playground, and seemed to be staggering, or lurching, as though he were drunk. Miss Andrews pursed her lips in disapproval. There had been rumours in the staffroom that Woodrow was an alcoholic. If he’d started turning up to his job drunk, or even drinking while on school premises, then Miss Andrews had an idea that Mr Woodrow might be looking for a new position come September.
At last she had the window unlatched, and she was able to push it open. Not very far – there was a safety bar that prevented the window from opening too far. But it was far enough to allow the outside air to waft into the classroom that was now becoming positively noisome. Miss Andrews took a step back from the window, wiping her hands, satisfied at a job well done. But still – she was forced to pause. Because, as she stepped back, observing the freshly opened window, she thought she saw some smoke, or perhaps vapour, waft through the open window. Only a light, brief wisp, so light and brief that she could almost convince herself that she had imagined it. But still, it alarmed her a little. Perhaps this bad smell was coming from outside? Perhaps it was something that one of the local farmers was spreading on his land, (possible, although she’d smelled the poultry manure that farmer Ferniough sometimes spread on his land, which was pretty foul, if you’ll pardon the pun, but never as bad as this...) Maybe, indeed, she was just making a bad situation worse? Ah well, she couldn’t see the smoke, or vapour, or whatever it had been now, and the air wafting inside did smell a lot cleaner. Hopefully things would get back to normal soon, and the children would start their normal raucousness, and start playing with their toys, and Mr Woodrow would sober up, and the sun would keep shining and the world would keep turning, and everything would be alright - sane – again.
And when Miss Andrews turned from the window, she saw that the children were all standing in a semi-circle around her.
They had risen from their desks while she had been fiddling with the window: silently, noiselessly, without the scrape of a chair, the rustle of a shirt, without the single tap of a shoe upon the polished parquet. And that was impossible wasn’t it? Unless, she’d been so absorbed in the window opening and observing Mr Woodrow’s strange antics that she’d simply failed to hear them. But that was impossible too, surely, given how alert, attuned, and – well – simply frightened, (and yes, she might as well admit that to herself now, frightened...) she was, surely she would have heard. Surely she would have known. But she had heard and known nothing, and now here they stood in a complete semi circle around her, all of her class, cutting off her escape route to the classroom door, (ah but escape – escape from what?) Faces pale, eyes dark, almost black, and mouths closed, trembling, as though they were holding back a scream.
And, insanely, like a final desperate plea for sanity, Miss Andrews blazed her huge smile upon them, and said, “well now, children, what’s all this? Go back to your desks please, and then we’ll begin our first activity of the day.”
And then, at last, all of their mouths fell open, and black and stinking slime poured from their drooping jaws, splattering crisp new summer shirts, pattering down onto shiny last-day-of-term shoes, soaking into trousers and skirts. From their eyes too, weeping black inky tears, dribbling down pale, smooth, alabaster cheeks. And then that smell – that smell of decay, that smell of death – was so strong in the air that it was like a living thing, and in that moment Miss Andrews knew that it was not the odour of poultry manure upon some distant field, but that it was coming from them, these children, this black and stinking rain - that these dear lambs, that these new buds had been filled with some ripe and terrible infection, and had rendered them walking death.
Miss Andrews drew air deep into her lungs and screamed. The sound was raw and terrible, ripping out of a place of dread and dawning horror that had been growing within her from the moment that she had stepped into this classroom. It beat against the walls and the windows, the books and the desks, but found no exit, no escape. And gradually, step by step, lurching a little, their movements like those of Mr Woodrow out there on the playground, the children began to shuffle forward. They moved like a single organism with single purpose, slowly, deliberately, relentlessly, a small army of killer dolls.
“Oh no,” Miss Andrews sobbed, her screams at last finding words, “oh please no, no, oh my God no my poor dears, my poor darlings, what has happened to you, what has happened to you, what has HAPPENED TO YOU?”
Slowly, she backed up. She didn’t really have far to go, and soon her bottom pressed against the window frame. The cool morning air whispered in at her, but it was a false promise. There would be no escape – the security bar forbade it, Health and Safety forbade it, and now she must meet her fate at the hands of these strange and terrible children, these alien children, rather than – heaven forbid – fall through the window and sprain her ankle.
The children advanced. Close now. So close. Close enough to touch. Their smell like a nightmare, the strange aura of their infection thick in the air, their faces twisted into feral snarls, evil pixies from some nightmarish fairy tale. They were not silent either, but uttered strange small howls and moans, as though in torment, as though in ecstasy, as though awaiting some terrible feast that was hellish beyond imagining.
And Miss Andrews screamed: “oh God, OH GOD PLEASE MAKE THEM BETTER – ITS NOT THEIR FAULT, ITS NOT THEIR FAULT, ITS NOT THEIR FAULT...!!”
Then huge arms burst in through the window behind her, shattering glass, the shards slicing blood, and the arms embraced her. Screaming, Miss Andrews gazed down at the arms, and saw that they were clad in a dull, beige overall, such as a workman or a caretaker might wear, and then she knew... the nightmare was complete.
Roaring, mad eyed; his huge jaws drooling black smile, Mr Woodrow leaned eagerly into the classroom. He howled his triumph for a moment, the long and hideous note echoing around the classroom walls as spookily as it might have done some black moon-silvered pine forest at midnight. Then, extending his jaws to their greatest limit, and peeling his lips back from his unnaturally long and crooked teeth, he bit deeply into Miss Cynthia Andrews writhing, screaming throat.
Blood burst outward from the ruptured artery in a giant red fan, cascading down the bucking, jerking body, spraying across the nearby white washed walls like the work of some hellish graffiti artist. The children clustered forward eagerly, their heads thrown back, their small mouths gulping, ravenously accepting the heavenly rain of blood as it pattered down upon their upturned faces. And then, their own small and wickedly sharpened teeth unsheathed, they fell upon their teacher and, with tiny precise bites, devoured her living body.
Seventeen
Matt and Becky ran pell-mell down the tarmac pavement toward the fields beyond. Matt was, by unspoken agreement, in the lead. They were headed for his car, and as Matt knew where the car was, then it made sense for Matt to lead the way. They had forsaken Sycamore Avenue about ten minutes ago, the sound of the zombie’s lurching footsteps loud in their ears. In the movies, the zombies always seemed to be either the traditional slow, shambling types, or the newer, fast, running type
s. In reality, zombies – if indeed these things really were zombies – were, Matt was very relieved to learn, the slow type. It certainly made sense. After all, if you’d died and then be brought back to life, then you’d hardly be doing a Usain Bolt impersonation. Or so thought Matt Dixon at any rate.
And so, as they ran full tilt down Sycamore Avenue, the plodding, lurching footsteps had gradually receded, until their pursuers were far behind them. Some zombies appeared from side roads, or staggered out of doorways, but they fled past these, evading clutching hands and gnashing teeth, until at last they left Sycamore behind, and, after a moment of orientating himself, Matt realised that they were on the road that led out of Alchester. And this was the same road, Matt realised, upon which he’d abandoned his car.
And, after a further ten minutes or so of running – or rather laboured jogging – he saw it, parked there at the side of the road, its driver side door still open, its engine still running, its indicator still winking its bland orange light. And all around it were zombies...
Matt stumbled to a gasping halt. He hunched over, clutching his knees, gasping for breath. Becky, who had been following him, crashed into the back of him, and for a moment they lurched together, almost tumbling to the ground, and perhaps resembling a couple of zombies themselves in their sudden ungainly dance. Then, at last, they righted themselves, and, still panting, Matt glanced around at Becky.
“Shit...” he said between gusty lungfuls of breath, “...ah... shit...”
“What...?” asked Becky, her own chest heaving for oxygen, “what.... huh.... what?”
Either due to lack of breath or sheer disappointment, Matt found that he was, for now, quite unable to speak. Instead, he merely gestured disconsolately in the direction of his car. Becky glanced around in the proffered direction, saw the car, and her face fell like a stone.