FOLKESTONE IN CHAOS
Wesley hit the ground hard, diving behind the van as debris from the explosion in the hotel flew in all directions. Needle-sharp slivers of glass and bits of mortar and brick scattered across the road with a loud hiss. He stayed still for a moment, bundled up with his legs tucked in as tight as he could pull them, feeling the clatter of debris hitting his back. After a few moments, the downpour ceased and the noise of clattering across the tarmac road petered out, so he peered out from around the side of the van. He was shocked. A sea of glass, brick, plasterboard, and not just a few small lumps of something red and wet had almost completely covered the road.
Wesley looked in the direction of the explosion. Every window in the outside of the large building was gone, and even at two hundred feet the debris was carpet-thick on the ground.
Something moved amidst the smoke and dust that now billowed from every hole in the building. As Wesley watched, dumbfounded, a figure jumped from the upper floor, landed hard on the ground and began running in the direction of the road, a noticeable limp in his gait. More movement, then, but in pursuit. Several shadowed figures staggered from the gaping holes that had been the ground floor doors only a few seconds ago, and ran after the lone survivor.
As the man drew closer to the road, Wesley could see that he was dressed in army fatigues and carrying an assault rifle – the standard British Army SA80. The soldier spun on his heels, fired half a dozen rounds into his pursuers, and then carried on running across the rough ground toward the road. The soldier took a minute to clock Wesley, but instantly dropped to his knees and took aim when they unexpectedly made eye contact.
“Don’t fire!” shouted Wesley, holding the handgun out to his side. The soldier nodded, spun round again and planted four more shots into two of the figures still chasing him across the grass verge. He stopped firing then, and began frantically changing his magazine. Wesley ran toward him, stopping at the curb, raised the handgun and aimed at the nearest dark figure lumbering through the fog. He wasn’t as accurate a shot as the soldier obviously was, and steadied himself, taking a deep breath and releasing half before squeezing the trigger.
Just as he fired, the mist around the nearest figure cleared, and Wesley’s stomach churned as he saw what was chasing the soldier. The creature may once have been one of the soldier’s own teammates. Its attire, what was left of it, was almost identical. One arm dangled from a few shreds of torn flesh, but the other was missing completely. A stump only a few inches long jutted out from the dead thing’s shoulder while pale bone smeared with blood jutted out of the wound. The creature’s face was barely recognizable as human. Its eyes were gone, as was its lower jaw. Black gunge now oozed out of the hole that would once have been a nose.
Wesley’s first shot hit it in the chest, knocking it backwards. It stumbled and rose up again, staggering forward, but no longer in the direction of the soldier. It had a new target now, and so did the three other zombies, their torn and twisted forms lumbering across the barren ground. They all turned, almost as one, and began to move frighteningly quickly toward Wesley.
“Oh, fuck.”
He fired again at the same zombie, this time hitting it in the shoulder.
Why the hell didn’t I do more firearms practice?
His third shot ended the creature’s afterlife, striking it through the raw open wound that had been its mouth, tearing a hole the size of a fist in the back of its neck. It fell over and hit the grass silently, even as the spray of its blood splattered the zombie behind it.
Wesley kneeled down and tried to steady his hand, panning round to take aim on the second undead pursuer, now only twenty feet away. The shot jarred his arm, then caught the creature in the neck. But it was a glancing shot, and not centered enough to drop the thing. It continued to advance, even as its head flopped to one side.
Automatic gunfire assaulted Wesley’s ears as the soldier finished his reload and opened up again. Relieved, Wesley stopped firing, but kept his sights on the zombies as each of them fell in turn. The sheer firepower of the assault rifle ripped their broken forms apart.
Finally – silence, though not for very long. A scream erupted from the hotel, and gunshots echoed from the street beyond.
“Come on,” shouted Wesley. “We need to get to Three Acres.”
The soldier shook his head, breathing heavily.
“I won’t make it that far. Knackered ankle. I think I ripped some tendons.”
“But you just…”
“Yes, I know. Had to. Can’t do much more, though.”
“I’ve got a car.” Wesley indicated behind him.
“Okay, but we have to help. They’re everywhere. We can’t just leave these people.”
“I was told to go to Three Acres.”
“There are civilians in the town. Repopulation and Scavs. Two hundred moved into the center of town last week. They’ve got families with kids down there.”
Wesley hesitated, then moved to help the soldier, pulling his arm over his shoulder to take some of the weight. Together they stumbled across to where Wesley had abandoned his clapped-out rust-bucket of a car.
“Okay. Look, we can drive through the streets. Maybe we can get down there and warn folks before the zombies get there.”
“Sounds good,” replied the soldier, pulling himself into the passenger seat. “I’ll ride shotgun and keep the window down. Maybe I can take a few out as we go.”
“A few?” asked Wesley as he ran around the car and jumped into the driver’s seat.
“The hotel had dozens in it. The fucking thing must have got in somehow.”
Wesley turned the ignition and cursed as the vehicle shuddered.
“They normally keep the place locked up,” the soldier continued. “I was asleep. And suddenly there’s the fucking cleaning boy bursting through the door and biting my mate’s face off. Shit, we even flipped coins for nearest bed to the window. Guess I won more than the best bed tonight.”
The car finally coughed and hummed. Wesley put his foot down and they tore off toward the roundabout. The road led around the hotel, and he hoped that they might just catch any zombies making their way to the town. They took the roundabout at fifty miles per hour, skidding around the corner and only just avoiding the curb.
“There must be fifty of the things by now,” coughed the soldier, as though he sensed Wesley’s thoughts. “I reckon I took out maybe half of them in the hotel with that blast – but a lot had already busted out and headed toward the town. I need to radio the base at Risborough and find out what the hell is keeping them.”
“They already know. I spoke to CentCom.”
“CentCom? Shit! Now we’re fucked. Should have left it to Grews. He’ll be pissed if he finds out it went out of his hands before he could deal with it.”
“CentCom alerted the barracks. Grews already knows,” said Wesley.
“Hell. Grews knew minutes ago. I radioed before I started chucking grenades.”
The car sped toward the town. Ahead, in the fog, Wesley could see figures moving. Some ran, some staggered, but all moved with intent.
“CentCom will be calling out the dogs now. We’ll be blockaded in this town in an hour. Guaranteed. How the hell did one of those things get up here? It can’t have washed in on the tide.”
“It got through the tunnel.”
The soldier frowned, looking at Wesley as he would a squashed bug. “Don’t be ridiculous. That thing’s been flooded and blocked up for over a year.”
“Yes, I know. I work security detail down there. It got out and chewed up some of the other security guys. There are more coming through as well. I saw them.”
“What? You mean they are coming out of the Tunnel still?”
The soldier reached to his waist and pulled out a radio that Wesley hadn’t noticed.
“Kilo Four to Risborough. Come in Risborough, over.”
Only silence came from the radio as the car barreled down the hill toward the zombies, s
huddering through the fog.
“Risborough here, Kilo Four. Go ahead, over.”
“Update on the Premier Lodge outbreak. We have estimated fifty Zulus on the streets of Folkestone and we have a fix on the origin. The Channel Tunnel is breached. Repeat. The Channel Tunnel entrance is breached.”
“Roger that, Kilo Four, all received. Will re-route a team to the tunnel entrance. Confirm your location, over.”
“We’re following the Zulus. Will attempt to intercept, over.”
“Copy that, Kilo Four. Proceed to intercept. Be aware that the Harbour barracks division is mobile and currently sweeping toward the town from their base. Expect friendly crossfire and watch for blue-on-blues. Proceed with caution. Your main objective is to secure the repopulation area and await their arrival.”
“Roger that, Risborough. One last thing.”
“Go ahead, Kilo Four.”
“CentCom has been alerted.”
“Understood, Kilo Four. We are aware. We have thirty minutes to contain.”
“Then what?”
“Hammer down, Kilo Four. The plane is already on its way.”
“Understood. Kilo Four out.”
“Be careful out there, Martin. Out.”
“Always,” muttered the soldier to himself, as Wesley rammed the first of the zombies, breaking its spine instantly and sending it tumbling under the wheels. Nearly every bone in its body shattered as the vehicle ploughed over it. The soldier clipped the radio back onto his belt and flipped the safety up on his weapon.
“One down!” he shouted, opening up on two other zombies trying to break down a door across the street.
MEMORY, THAT TRICKSTER
“Everyone’s getting wound too tight.”
The Colonel spoke quietly now, across the open air above his spare desk. Handon and Ainsley sat stiff-backed on chairs opposite. The Colonel only shouted when he needed to. Or when he was pissed off. Otherwise, his authority came across well enough at low volume.
“I don’t suppose it needs saying that we can’t afford to be tearing ourselves apart. There are few enough left of the living. And eating us alive is the job of the dead.”
“Yes, sir,” Ainsley said. Handon just nodded.
The Colonel paused a beat, then his tone softened. “What happened out there?” He was referring not to the fight, but to the mission just ended. Where the team lost both their POs in the course of half an hour.
Ainsley and Handon looked at each other. Ainsley screwed himself up and said, “No excuses, sir.”
“Just bad luck?” the Colonel asked.
Ainsley nodded. “You could call it that.”
Handon leaned forward in his chair. “But bad luck is also cumulative, Colonel,” he said. “These missions deeper and deeper into Europe. They’re getting close to the bone. Keep it up and we’re going to lose a team. Maybe two, when a second goes over to bail them out.”
“That’s why you sons of bitches get paid the big bucks,” the Colonel said. “And, anyway, always has it been thus. If hardcases like you don’t take the impossible missions, then who will? You don’t like it, go be a farmer, or a coal miner. God knows we need more of them. And, anyway, your missions are deep because that’s where the remaining labs are.”
It was true that the diciest and most critical jobs had always been reserved for the Tier-1 special operators – Delta Force, SAS Increment, Seal Team Six, and the USAF 24th Special Tactics Squadron. Now, unsurprisingly, the job of saving humanity had mostly fallen to them. The coalition government in the UK knew that every big pharmaceutical company and biotech lab in the world had been frantically working on a vaccine, or a cure, or both, at the time of the fall. But then the lights had gone out.
The Internet had started to blink out within minutes of the world’s power grids going down. Phone networks shortly after that. Now, whatever the state of research amongst the world’s top virologists and biomedical researchers, their findings were walled up with them, entombed. The researchers were assumed dead (or undead). But their data, still buried in there with them, remained of critical interest to the living.
Now the job of the surviving Tier-1 operators was to go there in person and try to get it. At the very tip of the spear for this work was Alpha team at Hereford. There were also a half dozen other teams of highly skilled SOF guys doing similar kinds of high-value jobs. But Alpha was unique – made up of representatives of all the very top commando and SOF units in the world. They were mixed in together because they’d been teamed up for a nearly impossible job just before the fall. And they were still together now because they knew and trusted one another; and because most of their home units no longer existed; and because they wanted it that way.
Across the UK, most of the specialized military units did less dramatic but still critical things like scavenging Europe for electronics, food, medicine, seeds, and other supplies. And the regular military, well, they were now basically a home guard – fighting outbreaks in the cities, hunting the scattered soulless in the countryside, and holding the borders.
But at the very top of the whole military heap, well, Alpha was called Alpha for a reason.
They had been hitting European labs so far because that’s what they could get to. It was as far as their capabilities for force projection stretched.
“And it’s either that,” the Colonel added, referring to the missions to scour the labs, “or hang out on this island waiting for the walls to come down. And the last lights to go out.”
Neither Handon nor Ainsley spoke back. They already knew the score.
“Your latest haul has been shot up to Edinburgh.” The high-tech ecosystem around Edinburgh University had been the UK’s center of biomedical research before the fall. And so it remained now. Everything the operators and their POs dug up was immediately sent up there for exploitation – usually by ghosting the drives and sending them over the wire, which was fastest. Time was not on their side.
“With luck, you’ll get a new target package out of that last intel.” One of the first things the geeks in Scotland looked at was actually email. All the world’s labs, scientists, and university researchers had been collaborating and sharing findings. These email trails often revealed which labs had made the biggest strides – and thus which ones the survivors should hit next. “You men rearm, refit and stay on one-hour alert.”
“Sir,” said Ainsley. He started to rise.
Handon stayed seated. “What’s this about some new type of Romeo?”
The Colonel shuffled a paper. “You tell me. Heard you saw one.” He paused, looking up again and holding Handon’s eye. Finally, he looked down again and spoke, more quietly. “There’s been an outbreak down in Folkestone. Bad. Happened fast. Police and regular military say they have it contained.” All three men let that hang for a second. “Contained” had often been a euphemism for “catastrophe.” But if this outbreak and the new Romeos were connected, the Colonel wasn’t going to elaborate.
“You’re dismissed,” he said.
* * *
Handon went straight from the briefing to the base gym, where he dressed out and hit the free weights. It was also the personal responsibility of every Tier-1 operator to maintain a razor edge of physical fitness. The job had long been like being a professional athlete, but with no off-season – and death or dismemberment if you lost a game. Now, as an added bonus, if the game clock ran down to zero, everybody in the stadium died with you.
With his earbuds in, sinking into the music of a world that used to be, warming up by bench-pressing 180 pounds without a spotter, he let his mind wander back.
He remembered the madness after the quarantine, but before the final fall. Chaos engulfing Europe, government control failing in state after state, waves of refugees streaming west and north from the Mediterranean and the Levant… Britain simply keeping the borders closed after the 11/11 attacks… and then the waves of the desperate, crossing the Channel on everything from cabin cruisers to container ships
to inflatable two-man rafts.
For a while, they were simply turned away en masse, from Dover, from Folkestone, from Hastings. But, finally, the RAF resorted to strafing the Channel with Tornado and Typhoon fighter-bombers, setting alight the oil slicks of crippled and listing seacraft. Along with tens of thousands of floating dead, Britain got something like a moat. It had become necessary for national survival. The UK simply had no way to accommodate 500 million refugees – never mind to test them all for infection. To let them in would have been to doom their island home. The dead would have swarmed from Land’s End to John O’Groats in days.
So the kinder, gentler modern Britain of EU membership and international human rights accords had reverted to its Churchillian spine of steel quickly enough when it’d had to. The RAF fought a second Battle of Britain. That it was largely against civilians made it no less a struggle for survival.
Handon remembered getting back to Hereford after the aborted North Korea mission, and getting on the horn with Bragg for a sitrep – and for a new tasking, given all the chaos.
“Yeah, you guys hang tight where you are for now…” There had been shouting and gunfire in the background. “The 101st Airborne is being mobilized to try and secure the borders north and south here. National Guard units are being called out to secure the cities…”
As usual, the Big Green Army had moved too slowly. It was too enormous a bureaucracy to turn on a dime, let alone to try and keep up with a virus spreading and mutating like wildfire through a population that was about as ready for it as the Native Americans had been for smallpox. Also as usual, the elite Joint Special Operations Command, and its constituent SOF units such as Delta, had considered themselves above this kind of ponderousness and panic. And certainly no one could say they ever lost their cool.
But when the American south started to go down, as the unsecured southern border with Mexico became a raging and unmanageable vector for the virus… and as the military bases became beleaguered outposts in a rising sea of the dead… and then when well-meaning combat medics poked a hole in the Bragg dike by bringing infected men inside…
Arisen, Book One - Fortress Britain Page 6