by RR Haywood
Two men run out from the side, powering into Tom. Having to stop and shoot the bite victims has made the distance between us greater. The two men take Tom to the ground, landing in a heap of writhing bodies.
Tom lashes out, gouging, biting and fighting desperately. He bites into both of them as they squirm on the ground. I fire into the mass, the rounds striking all three bodies. The pistol clicks empty as I get to them. I go for Tom first, slamming the pistol butt down into his face over and again. He fights like a demon, ignoring the blows and scrabbling to get up from under the bodies of the men. I jump up and use my feet to stamp down on his head, kicking him as hard as I can.
‘GIVE ME THAT KNIFE,’ I scream at a man stood there holding a long bladed butchers knife. He jolts forward, giving Tom enough time to surge up and away from the bodies.
Snatching the knife I take after him, his injuries slowing him down enough for me to drive my shoulders into the back of his legs, bringing him down to the ground. He twists as he falls, landing on his back. I get one hand under his chin and push his head away from me, his lips are pulled back baring his gnashing teeth. Blood and spittle flies from his mouth, I twist my own head away avoiding the bodily fluids. I stab down again and again, the blade slamming into his chest. He ignores the blows, his arms lashing and beating at my sides. I drive the point of the knife through his throat, hacking and sawing away, ripping his jugular out. He goes limp and I’m up, running back to the two men groaning on the ground.
‘GET BACK….MOVE BACK NOW,’ I scream as people rush into help them. Some of them respond, one woman doesn't and gets punched hard to the face, sending her reeling away. I kick out others, forcing them away from the downed bodies. Confusion erupts as people try to pull me off, I lash out punching and hitting them away from me, desperate to get to the two men before they turn.
‘MR HOWIE,’ Dave roars as he sprints through the tents followed by the others.
‘TOM TURNED, HE BIT PEOPLE….FIND THEM…’ I scream back. Blowers and Cookey run to me, both of them holding their pistols at the ready.
‘Those two….on the ground…they’ve been bitten,’ I yell while fighting the people off who are trying to restrain me.
The lads run in, firing their pistols into the heads of the bodies. Blowers runs to the body of Tom, firing point blank into his skull.
‘GET BACK NOW…MOVE BACK,’ Cookey shouts, waving his pistol at the people crowding round me. The gunshots do the trick as they wilt back from him. I change my magazine quickly as Blowers comes back and checks the bodies again.
‘Was anyone else bitten?’ I ask the people near me, they look at each other, some screaming in grief at the men, others slack jawed and not responding. I shine my torch from body to body, checking for blood and bite wounds. One woman is stood staring at her bloodied hands, her face frozen in shock. I check her hands, yelling at other people to get water and clean the blood off quickly.
A few spring to action, grabbing the woman and pouring water bottles over her hands. She starts screaming and fighting against them. They pin her down to complete the task.
More single shots ring out as the others work the route of devastation we just went through.
A guard arrives holding a shotgun, his breathing laboured from sprinting across the fort.
‘These three bodies are infected…don’t let anyone touch them,’ I shout at him, making sure he understands before moving off with Blowers and Cookey, working back along the trail Tom took.
An adult woman screams hysterically clutching a young girl with a bite wound to her cheek. She sits rocking back and forth, holding the child in her arms. I run towards them, seeing the girl is unconscious or dead, either way she could turn any second. The woman sees me coming and holds the child tighter, screaming at me as I try to pull the child away from her.
Others try to help, prising the woman’s grip from the child, begging her to let go. She fights back, staggering to her feet and spinning round. The child comes back, twitching, convulsing. She opens her red bloodshot eyes and sinks her small teeth into the woman’s shoulder. She screams, dropping down as I shoot the child first and the woman second.
Glancing round I see Blowers punching someone in the face, beating them back while Cookey shoots a body on the ground.
We work quickly, screams and utter panic ripping through the fort. ‘MOVE BACK….GO TO THE BACK…’ Chris bellows, others take the order up. Dave, Clarence and the guards all shouting for everyone to move away. I don’t like the idea as it means anyone with a bite will be amongst the masses being moved away, but within seconds they’re running away from the area, flooding to the rear and spreading the panic throughout the whole fort.
What’s done is brutal and violent. I shoot several still living people in the head as they scream and beg, others fighting their families to stay back. Corpses are shot, anyone with a bite wound is shot. It’s utterly brutal and the most horrific awful thing I have ever known, but it is done from necessity.
‘Clear,’ Dave shouts to me, ‘they’re all shot.’ We start to gather together at the entrance to the lane Tom ran down. Shotgun blasts sound from the rear, more screams erupt accompanied by loud shouts.
‘HOWIE….THE DOG…’ Doctor Roberts shouts from somewhere near the front. I turn to see Meredith bounding through the tents, the white of her bandages reflecting the low lights. For a second my heart stops with the thought that she’s turned. She appears panting, her hackles up and teeth showing but otherwise normal. She fixes her gaze at towards the rear, growling low which rises to a deep bass sound, she starts barking, sprinting alongside us as we run towards the rear.
A whole mass of people, hundreds, maybe thousands all running into one area. Tents get ripped up, people trip over ropes and lines, cooking fires get knocked over, bedlam everywhere. Shots ring out but we’ve no idea of who is shooting who.
‘Dave, shout for a ceasefire…’ I call out to him.
‘CEASEFIRE…CEASEFIRE….’ His enormous voice carries clearly across the fort.
‘Blowers and Cookey, get the Saxon in here…Clarence you stay with that dog, Dave I want you to call for everyone to get down onto the ground…do it now.’
‘DOWN ON THE GROUND…GET DOWN….GET DOWN NOW….’ He continues bellowing into the crowd. The effect is slow at first as the nearest start dropping down. The ones behind them realise what’s going on and start going down too. Dave keeps going, roaring the order out. Clarence joins him, their two voices driving the order into the crowd.
They sink down slowly, people dropping down to lie with their arms covering their heads. Adults drag screaming children to the floor, holding them close. Families group together, strangers cling to each other through sheer terror.
Slowly, bit by bit they drop down. Dave and Clarence continue to scream the order out. Within a few seconds we can see a small group over to the side, writhing in a melee. We head that way with Dave and Clarence still repeating the order. Pistols aimed and ready, Meredith bounds forward with incredible speed. She launches into the bodies, taking out an undead by the throat and dragging the body away from the crowd to rip its throat out. We get in, trying to pick our shots. In the end the whole of them are cut down by pistol shots. We have no choice but to fire into them all. The dog launches again, taking another one down.
Within a few seconds there are just the guards, Chris, the police and us still standing. Everyone else is down on the ground.
‘Everyone stay down…you’re going to be okay….if you see anyone with a bite mark then shout out clearly but please stay down….’ I move amongst them shouting out, Chris and the others join me, we walk steadily with pistols drawn and shining our torches down into the terrified faces.
The Saxon’s deep engine rumbles closer as it drives along the side of the crowd, coming to a stop near the rear.
‘Nick…on the GPMG… Blowers and Cookey hand out the rifles,’ I shout, glancing at Nick running towards the vehicle. Our assault rifles get handed round, Chris
taking one and walking over towards me.
‘What now?’ I shout at him.
‘Howie…Chris…’ Doctor Roberts strides towards us, still wearing his white lab coat, ‘we need to check everyone…we’ll set up an examination point by the vehicle…’
I head over to the Saxon and grab the hand held microphone to use the loudspeaker system, cursing loudly as I flick the switch and Missy Elliot booms out. It takes a couple of seconds for Nick to drop down and do something with the wires before handing me the microphone with an apology.
‘Everyone listen up…we’re going to get everyone checked… we need you to stay down until we come and get you, women and children will be first…stay calm but please stay down on the floor…’ I relay the instruction a few times. Doctor Roberts gets his staff up to the rear, setting lights and tables up next to the vehicle. Sergeant Hopewell finally arrives with Terri and Jane, demanding to know what happened. Chris takes her aside, explaining what took place. She stares at me throughout his talking, Terri and Jane both bursting into tears at the news of Tom.
There isn’t time to dwell, Doctor Roberts works quickly organising his staff. The grumpy character replaced by a very calm manner full of authority. Kelly and the pharmacist are amongst them, getting instruction from the Doctor as he tells them what to check for.
A couple of minutes later and we’re starting to send the closest ones over. The checks are done quickly, lights shined into eyes and mouths, looking for wounds and any tears in clothes.
Hearing whimpers I turn to see the dog moving amongst the people, her nose down and sniffing as though she’s searching for the undead. Dave goes over to her and grips her collar, he says something quietly and she sits, staring out and staying by his side.
The adrenalin starts to wear off, leaving a gaping hole in my conscious. I can’t seem to process the order of events, one minute I was stood there looking at the stars and thinking ahead to a swim and then being alone with Lani, the next thing and I’m shooting people in the face, living people with such small wounds that would’ve seen them waiting for hours in any hospital emergency department.
Shaking my head I switch on and focus on the task in hand. The survivors get taken down, families going together under the close watch of the guards and my lads. Lani stays near the medics, Cookey and Blowers walk through the crowds re-assuring everyone that they’ll be okay. Clarence walks between them and the guards, accompanied by Sarah now holding a pistol. I didn’t even know she could use one. Everyone seems to be armed now with pistols or shotguns.
The checks are done surprisingly fast. As more of the crowd are cleared, so more of the people are recognised to be decent trusted workers who in turn start helping out with the checks.
Kelly organises the removal of the bodies to be taken outside and stacked away from the fort. Eventually I can see my lot are swaying on their feet, Nick fighting heavy eyes on the GPMG.
I speak to Chris and organise my lot standing down and heading back to our rooms where Tom’s absence becomes even more noticeable.
‘Weapons and kit,’ Dave says as we file in.
‘Tomorrow,’ I reply dully, ‘get some sleep.’
‘But we…’
‘Tomorrow,’ I cut him off. He nods back. Everyone heads off to their rooms, poor Nick having to suffer the loss of not having Tom in his room.
In my room I kick my boots and filthy trousers off, shoving another pair on before heading back outside to hose and scrub my trousers down. The others have all crashed out which is what I should be doing but my mind won’t switch off. I scrub at the trousers with all my might, removing the traces of blood and gore.
A gentle hand touches my shoulder, I look up to see Lani stood there with a soft look in her eyes. She takes the trousers from me and wrings them out before draping them on the back of a chair. Once done she takes my hand and leads me into our room. I follow her like a sheep, the shock of it all hitting me hard. She eases me down onto the mattress and pulls my clothes off, no words are spoken. I lie back staring at her, nothing needs to be said.
She strips down to her underwear and eases herself down onto my mattress. The image of that woman holding her child sticks in my head, the people I shot before they’d turned. I killed living people as they begged for their lives.
A sudden choke sputters from my throat, Lani pulls me close, turning me onto my side as the tears come. She wraps her arms round me, drawing me in. My body wracks with sobs, silent crying with hot tears spilling down my cheeks onto her chest. She rubs my back gently, the heat from our bodies making us sweat. I feel her own tears falling onto my cheek. Her body heaves with sobs as we cling to each other.
We stay like that for eternity. Two people lost in a world of devastation having done things that no person should ever have to do. We cry together until we sleep.
Three
‘Let me get this right,’ Sergeant Hopewell says with forced patience as I finish speaking, ‘Tom, who was one of my officers was turned at some point during the fight, you then brought him back and allowed him into the fort…’
‘We didn’t know he was turned…’
‘You then chase after him, discharging your weapon into a densely populated area and shooting innocent people…’
‘But…’
‘Then you kill Tom with a knife while your…team…’ she says the word with venom, ‘…run in shooting everyone that had blood on them. You caused panic and a virtual stampede of frightened survivors…you then held them on the ground until the medical people could check everyone….is that right?’
‘It wasn’t just Howie, some of those decisions were mine,’ Chris cuts in quickly.
‘Nevertheless,’ she doesn't take her gaze off me, ‘it was Howie’s team that brought Tom back into the fort, it was Howie himself that fired his weapon into the living area and it was Howie and his team that then shot innocent people.’
‘We didn’t have time…’ I start to explain. Voices murmur around me, the way she says it, her tone and clear voice, the choice of words…it makes it sound so bad.
‘I don’t like the tone of this,’ Clarence rumbles.
‘Debbie, you can’t speak to them like this,’ Sarah cuts in, ‘they did what they had to do…’
‘I will speak how I feel is appropriate in the circumstances. Are you saying that no one can ask Howie to account for the events of last night?’
‘No I didn’t mean that but the way you’re doing it…’ Sarah says.
‘Forgive me for feeling tired, grieving for the loss of another one of my officers and having to deal with this bloody mess…Tom was a fine officer, so was Steven. They volunteered to go with Howie’s team and look what’s happened to them. Both of them killed within days of each other…’
‘What?’ I ask with incredulity.
‘That’s out of order,’ Sarah shouts.
‘None of his team have been killed have they? Both Steven and Tom were killed by Howie himself, Steven shot and Tom stabbed to death.’
‘They were fucking zombies,’ Clarence shouts.
‘Were they? How do we know this? Steven had been allegedly bitten…Tom was running through the tents…’
‘He was fucking biting people,’ I join in with the shouting.
‘You saw him fighting with a medic, there was one dead medic already inside the tent but you assumed that Tom was the guilty party causing those injuries…he could have been simply running away.’
‘What? He had blood on his mouth, the medic had been bitten and Tom had fucking blood on his mouth, I shouted at him to stop….the other medic told me it was Tom.’
‘Did he?’ Sergeant Hopewell asks pointedly.
‘Ask him, you must have got his account by now.’
‘We would but he was shot by a member of your team,’ she replies.
‘What?’
‘I shot him, he was bitten,’ Dave says.
‘Oh…’
‘Exactly, so we’ve only got your word that he said T
om had turned.’
‘I saw him…I saw the blood on his mouth, I saw the way he ran…’
‘Running away from you.’
‘Yes! Running away from me.’
‘Running away from a man firing a gun at him.’
‘What? No…I shouted at him to stop, I kept on shouting…Debbie he was attacking people and biting them.’
‘Was he? It was dark and very confusing with many people running around, your team had been out all day in this extreme heat, they were tired and confused, probably suffering from heat exhaustion…you saw Tom running and decided to run after him firing a gun into a densely packed…
‘Too bloody right I did,’ I shout back, ‘Tom had turned, he was one of them. He was running for the tents and biting people, they take two minutes at the most to turn and the infection is mutating all the time so it could be less now…’
‘How do you know Tom was biting people?’
‘Because I bloody saw him.’
‘You saw a running man actually biting people? After long days spent running around fighting with insufficient food and rest? You actually saw Tom opening his mouth and biting into people.’
‘Yes! I saw Tom biting people, he was lunging at them, his head was sinking down and then he let go and ran on…doing it again and again.’
‘How far back were you?’
‘Maybe twenty, thirty metres…I’m not sure.’
‘That’s quite a distance in the dark, people running everywhere, confusion all around. I grant you that somebody was biting, we’ve seen the bodies and the bite marks but what concerns me is that you automatically assumed it was Tom, not only that but you took it upon yourself to shoot everyone that had anything that resembled a bite mark or had blood on them….do you know how many people you killed last night? I’ll tell you…over forty people were shot last night, forty people! You killed forty people within the safety of the fort.’