by Perrin Briar
The Porsche sounded like a one-man band in dire need of lessons by the time they pulled up to the farmhouse. It rattled, grinded, and whistled. The car rolled to a stop. Steam hissed out from under the bonnet, and oil dribbled down the driveway. The whole chassis seemed to relax two feet closer to the ground. Maisie got out of the car and looked up at the mansion.
“I can’t fault your taste,” Maisie said. “At least we’ll have lots of rooms to sleep in.”
“We’re not staying in the house.”
“Where are we going to stay, then?”
Chris pointed to the barn.
“Why don’t we stay in the house?” Maisie said.
“Because those things are out there. They can climb stairs. If we stay in the barn, we can stay up high and they won’t be able to get to us. We can sleep easy.”
Maisie looked up at the exquisite farmhouse.
“A bad night’s sleep isn’t such a steep price to pay for staying somewhere so nice,” she said.
“No, but having your face bitten off might be.”
Chris opened the car boot and began filling his backpack with the food from Little Bytham village. He shut the boot and they crossed to the barn.
The doors opened without a squeak. The inside smelled of bleach and animals, though there were no animals present. Farming tools hung from specially-made struts on the walls.
“Lovely,” Maisie said. “Tell me again why this is safer than the mansion house.”
Chris pointed up at the ceiling.
“That’s why,” he said.
High above them, at the back of the barn, on par with the ceiling beams, was a flat shelf. Chris picked up the ladder that hung from hooks on the wall and leaned it against the shelf. He climbed to the top and dumped his bags on the floor. Maisie followed him, the pain in her calf giving her grief. Chris helped pull her up.
The shelf was a surprisingly large space. There was a small round window in the wall that looked out over the flat open farmland on one side, and woodland on the other.
“Not bad, huh?” Chris said.
“Once we wash the smell out, it’ll serve. I suppose.”
“Let’s do it later,” Chris said, laying down on the floor and getting comfortable. “I’m going to sleep for the next few days.”
“Fine,” Maisie said, “but not before you help me get a thick mattress from the farmhouse.”
Chris looked at her.
“You’re serious?” he said.
“Deadly.”
Chris sighed and sat up.
“No rest for the wicked,” he said.
Maisie smiled.
“You’re not so wicked,” she said. “At least, not anymore.”
“You say that now,” Chris said. “You haven’t seen my cooking yet.”
NOVEMBER 2014
Statistics from the World Health Organisation
EBOLA (?) CASES: UNKNOWN
EBOLA (?) DEATHS: 2 BILLION+
Dr Victoria Kahn, Chief Medical Officer, Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital, extract from her speech notes on The Origin of the Virus, dated two weeks after the outbreak
Early estimates put global population loss at between forty to sixty percent, matching the First World War and Spanish Flu combined for mortality rates. It is the single greatest catastrophe in human history.
It was sheer luck that we here, the world’s leading medical minds, were in London when the virus took hold. If you recall, we were discussing the Ebola outbreak and how best to combat it, to prevent its spread to the rest of the world. Little did we know that at that very moment, the nightmare situation we were discussing was actually taking place.
Scientists have long assumed this ‘zombie’ virus is an offshoot of the Ebola virus. After all, it displays all the hallmarks of the original disease: a high rate of mortality, symptoms including fever, sore throat, muscle pain, headaches, vomiting etc. But what if it was another virus? Similar enough to Ebola for no one to notice, but with a one hundred percent mortality rate? In other words, what if this new virus was always there, in the background, but mistaken for Ebola?
Only three diseases are known to have a mortality rate of one hundred percent. Rabies encephalitis, HIV and the Bubonic plague. Only one of these diseases has a history of killing a vast proportion of the world’s population in a single stroke. Bubonic plague. But then, how is it that a disease that was eradicated from the face of the earth suddenly came back into being?
I have a theory, and I am not alone in thinking this. In 2014, scientists began reanimating dead viruses. The belief was we might be able to harness their unique properties. One such virus, entitled ZX183, has the ability to fully restore a damaged cell. In effect, the patient becomes a kind of superman, although the duration was limited. By trying to unlock these abilities we were opening up a whole new field of medical development and research.
Then one day on 26th March 2014, a construction crew working under London’s Charterhouse Square discovered a fourteenth century graveyard full of Bubonic plague victims. Scientists were sent to excavate the bodies and search for long-dead viruses. We were not disappointed. Evidence of the plague virus remained, after all these centuries. We were able to reanimate it and bring it back to life. That was one of the greatest achievements of modern science. I fear it may also have been our greatest mistake.
The virus had been scientifically altered to be more aggressive and reprogrammed to harness ZX183’s life-giving properties. Cells die and are then rebooted. You have all seen the effect of this virus. We are now in a race against time to do something equally incredible: to discover the cure. And though we are certain it can be discovered, we can only pray we will have enough time to do so.
Humanity’s days are numbered, I fear, and it may be an inconceivably low number at that.
Z-MINUS II
FEBRUARY 2015
Dr Victoria Kahn’s journal, February 3rd
If we fail, the human race fails with us.
This is the thought carved deep into the brow of all we scientists as we bend over our test tubes and stained workbenches for countless hours, the thought that forces us to sleep just one or two hours a night, the thought that gives us drive when our food shortages do not.
If we fail, the human race fails with us.
Dr Victoria Kahn’s journal, February 5th
It’s been seven weeks since the outbreak.
By now the virus has spread to all four corners of the globe. We can suppose only those living in the most isolated locations are free from this tragedy. We are faced with extinction. And there are no higher beings nor benevolent carers to help us. We are alone. We must take care of ourselves. If we do not discover a solution soon, we are doomed to join the ranks of the dodo, the carrier pigeon, the dinosaurs.
It is strange to ally one’s species with that outcast group. Only a few years ago we were unlocking the secrets to the cosmos, to nature, to the universe. Now, we struggle even to survive. But before the knowledge and high reasoning of the human mind is snuffed from existence there is a faint glimmer of hope: only our intelligence can save us.
If we fail, the human race fails with us.
Dr Victoria Kahn’s journal, February 7th
The armed forces are fighting tooth and nail to keep the undead at bay, brave soldiers laying down their lives to give us time to work on a cure, a cure that is not bearing fruit.
We are making a special effort to keep those on life support machines alive. The others complain it is a waste of resources we might put to better use elsewhere, but I believe it is this trait, our ability to care for others in their darkest hour that sets us apart from the monsters we might become.
My thoughts are sporadic, leaping from one subject to another. I’m finding it difficult to focus. And all the time the same questions revolve through my mind: Are others attempting to do what we’re doing? Have they found success where we have met only failure? Have they already created a cure? Or are we alone in our attempts?
/> Dr Victoria Kahn’s journal, February 8th
Know thy enemy. The zombie virus is peculiar, one I haven’t encountered before. It enters the bloodstream to the brain and attacks the hippocampus region, the part of the brain responsible for memories, motor function and learning. The virus appears to block access to the area, but has not damaged it. It is akin to a garden path, overgrown with vegetation and disuse. We would know the way if we could only clear away the affected area, rejuvenate it, allow access to it. This is our method.
Once humanity remembers what it was, what it has lost, we are certain the infected will return to their old selves. The virus, so far as we can tell, disables a part of the brain and reverts humanity back to a state of early man, without consciousness, and an enhanced sense of aggression.
Is this the way we truly were in the past? If so, how did we ever manage to evolve beyond the swamps and forests of the world? Will the virus ever allow us to regain our consciousness? If left on our current course, I doubt it. The intention is to rebuild the part of our brain that was disjointed by the virus, and in so doing give us back what we lost.
But outside the compound’s walls I see a growing presence of the undead. Will we be able to create the cure in time? I do not know.
If we fail, the human race fails with us.
Dr Victoria Kahn’s journal, February 10th
Winter has gripped the earth so tight it has turned white. The ground is hard and impenetrable. It is a symbol of the dark and difficult times we face. But spring is coming, bringing with it a new hope and salvation.
We are on the verge of a breakthrough, but it will not be long before we ourselves are broken. We have run out of food and our water is in short supply. There was a fight between two scientists yesterday over an issue of inequality of ration size and one is a world-famous particle physicist, the other an equally famous biologist. Can we create the cure before time runs out? Before we kill each other? Or will we die, days or even hours away from creating it?
We pursue our goal with a tenacity matched by our conviction. Finally it came to testing our prototype cure on an infected patient. Our hopes soared as the patient in question blinked for a moment, peered around at us as if recognising us, and then reverted back to his animalistic state. We must once again return back to the drawing board.
Dr Victoria Kahn’s journal, February 14th
Valentine’s Day. No one remembered. Too exhausted to write. Depressed. Brainstorming sessions reverted to violence. Three members have been isolated and locked in separated rooms.
Dr Victoria Kahn’s journal, February 15th
The idea came to a young researcher named Alex Chisholm. Unassociated with science, he was an assistant event organiser here at Saint Barts’ Hospital who hit upon the theory that stands as our only hope in finding a cure.
His idea had been to create a backdoor in the virus; to enter and hijack the infected brain. In effect, using the virus against itself. Preliminary discussions were good, meeting no real obstacle. We got to work. The good news was we already had the zombie virus in Petri dishes, ready to experiment on. We simply had to encode the virus with a new set of instructions. Tests begin in one hour. There is an undeniable excited tension in the air, the way I imagine Fleming must have felt upon seeing a contaminated Petri dish in his lab. All sense this is to be a historic moment.
If we fail, the human race fails with us.
6:12am
Chris rolled his neck around, first to the left, and then to the right, letting it crack. Then he turned his muscular torso one way, letting his spine pop, and then turned it the other way.
He hopped on the balls of his feet, hunched his shoulders, and punched at the air, jabbing in one-two combinations and ending with uppercuts. He simulated holding someone about the neck and kneeing them in the gut. He had tape wrapped around his hands, leaving his knuckles exposed, which were scarred and bent out of shape. He wore a pair of plain baggy white shorts with a bold red band around the waist, reaching just past his knees. His body glistened with a thin film of sweat.
He could hear the men talking in raised voices outside the door, a door consisting of a pallet turned on its side. He looked through the gap and saw a pool of light cast by a single naked lightbulb over the middle of the room. Darkness hid the edges, making the scene look like a memory. Sweaty money exchanged hands, and fuzzy notations were made in little notebooks with pencil stubs.
A hand decked out in gold sovereigns snapped the elastic holding a notebook closed and knocked on the pallet door. It rattled on its hinges. Chris took a deep breath and let it out in three short puffs. He pushed the pallet aside as he stepped into the barn.
A dozen men turned to look at him, evaluating every part of him, checking for weaknesses. He walked on the balls of his feet, seeming to float past the men dressed in torn flannel shirts and muddied boots.
To one side caged dogs, bloodied and still vicious from their bout, growled and barked at the men as they passed. Beside them, cooped up in their own individual cages, cocks strutted, feathers askew, nails chipped and torn, beaks cracked.
The men patted Chris on the back as he walked toward the centre of the barn, where a clear space about the same size as a boxing ring had been set up with haystacks. Chris stepped into it, and a pair of men covered the hole with bales of hay.
There were cheers from Chris’s side, catcalls and boos from the opposite side. Chris listened to none of it. He jogged on the spot, lifted and dropped his arms and spat. There was blood on the floor and torn chunks of dog flesh like a discarded meal. An old man bent down and picked up the remains of the losing dog, its throat torn out. Its legs were limp and lifeless. The old man smiled at Chris with rotten teeth as he turned to exit through a hole in the opposite side of the ring, where a young man entered wearing dirty shorts with a blue waistband.
Tommy Jones was a little taller than Chris, with a longer reach, but his body was thinner and leaner. It belied the hidden strength he had in his thin frame. Chris had seen him fight before, and his opponents always fell because they underestimated how fast and strong he was. It was a mistake Chris did not intend to make.
Tom stared at Chris the same way a cat stared at a mouse. Chris narrowed his eyes and stared the same way back. Chris’s Uncle Barry extended the mouth guard and inserted it over his teeth.
“You show them Joneses what we Smiths are made of, all right?” Barry said.
Tom accepted his mouth guard from his father, George, who was a big, broad-shouldered man with a giant head. A third man entered the ring wearing a mismatched ensemble: black shorts and blue British Gas polo shirt. He had a whistle between his lips. He pointed at the two men and then gestured to the middle of the boxing ring.
Barry slapped Chris on the back, who hunched his shoulders and made his way to the centre of the ring. Neither Tom nor Chris could conceal the hatred they felt for one another, and it was this that made the air thick with tension, that made the bystanders lean forward in anticipation of each blow.
The man in the British Gas polo shirt raised a metal spoon and struck a dented bell. The world faded out, the barn, bystanders and the ring disappearing. Chris saw only Tom. They danced together in their tiny world, time slowing. Chris could see Tom’s chest inflating and deflating with each breath, could see the beads of sweat on his forehead, could see past the thousand-yard stare and behind his eyes.
Chris moved forward and threw the first punch.
6:32am
Chris started awake, rising up into a sitting position. He let out a lungful of air like he’d been holding it for ten minutes. He leaned his head back and looked up at the warped wood of the barn ceiling. The wind howled and the walls creaked, grunting with the effort of staying upright. Chris shut his eyes and rubbed them with his fingertips, attempting to push aside the memories.
He rolled over and saw Maisie was fast asleep. Her face was calm and peaceful, her skin pale and white, as yet unblemished by the wear and tear of a difficult l
ife. He lay watching her for a few minutes, his heart rate slowing from having been working hard in his sleep, and then got up out of bed.
He stretched and cracked the bones in his back and neck. His body was trim and firm, hard like a block of unfinished wood. He had a knot in his nose, caused by half a dozen breaks. There was something somehow dangerous about the way Chris moved, like a tiger in a cage.
He felt a chill from a gap in the barn wall. He pressed the cotton of his T-shirt against his chest and found it moist with sweat. He got to his feet and looked out through the cracks in the walls. They glowed with a cold soft blue light, signalling the birth of a new day. Chris pulled on a ratty pair of old jeans. He got to his feet and stepped over the prostrate form of Maisie, who mumbled something in her sleep.
He knelt down and felt for the edge of the ledge they slept on, more than ten feet off the floor. He wrapped his fingers around it and lowered himself down. The concrete was still another four feet away. He pulled himself up, the cords and muscles straining in his arms. He let himself down again and then pulled himself up. He performed another eighteen slow pull ups before dangling and falling with practiced ease to the floor below.
His eyes strobed the light through the cracks in the barn walls for any human-shaped shadows that might obstruct it. Satisfied there were none, he pulled the wooden struts away supporting the barn door and placed them to one side. He didn’t open the door yet. He waited a moment, listening for anything that might make a grab for him.
He lifted a stick off the wall. It had a mirror attached to the end. He poked it out through the small door opening and turned it, checking left and then right. The back of the farmhouse looked clear, as did the big field on the opposite side. Then Chris angled the mirror so he was looking down at the ground. There was nothing there. He replaced the tool and pushed the barn doors open. He put his head out, sweeping the field with his eyes. A chill wind blew across the open expanse. He was alone. He stepped outside, careful to close the door behind himself.