by Perrin Briar
“And how is that different to our current situation?”
Chris shrugged.
“They might change their minds,” he said.
“Hey!” Captain Leo said, jogging up to them. “Wait!”
Chris gave George a sideways smile and turned.
“Can I help you?” he said.
“Tell me where this zombie invasion is coming from and I might be able to get you in to see the commander.”
“No deal.”
Chris turned away.
“You’d let an army of zombies descend on us without fair warning?” Leo said to Chris’s retreating back.
“If I don’t warn you, you haven’t lost anything.”
“What do you want me to do?” Leo said. “March you right into the commander’s office without notice?”
“Pretty much. Yes.”
“Oh.”
He thought for a moment.
“All right then,” he said. “But if you don’t manage to see him you have to tell me everything you know. Deal?”
Chris stopped and turned, and considered Captain Leo’s proffered hand.
“You’ll get me to the commander’s office?” he said.
“Yes. But if he won’t see you today, you’ll just have to tell me.”
Chris shook Leo’s hand.
“Done,” he said.
“I’ll stay with Maisie out here,” George said. “You go.”
Chris bent down and kissed Maisie on the forehead. Her skin felt cold on his parched lips.
“I’ll be back for you soon, okay?” he said.
He stood up and addressed George.
“Keep her awake, George. It won’t be long now.”
Z-MINUS: 1 HOUR 32 MINUTES
The office was abuzz with activity, people rushing in a dozen different directions, arms laden with papers, machine gun rounds, buckets of soup. No one bumped or crashed or so much as grazed one another. Chris spied bullet holes in a charred heavy wooden door at the back of the room.
A middle-aged woman with glasses that made her eyes as big as an owl’s sat at a large desk covered with piles of paper. Despite her diminutive size, Captain Leo approached her with caution, like a vulture inspecting the carcass of an unmoving lion.
“Mrs Reevesham,” he said.
She didn’t look up from the papers she was reading. The young captain cleared his throat.
“Excuse me, Mrs Reevesham?”
She held up her index finger and turned the page. A woman carrying a thick wedge of paper almost bumped into Chris as she ran down the aisle, glaring at him as if he were the one at fault.
“Mrs Reevesham, this is rather urgent,” Captain Leo said.
“I know it’s urgent,” Mrs Reevesham said in her nasally high voice. “Everything is urgent.”
“I have news of a potential zombie invasion.”
“Another one?”
“This one comes from an eyewitness.”
Mrs Reevesham looked up at Chris, over the top of her glasses like a vindictive headmistress.
“This is him?” she said.
“It is.”
Mrs Reevesham put down the papers she was reading.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll bite. What did you see?”
“I’d like to discuss that with the commander,” Chris said.
“What the commander knows, I know.”
“Not this. If the commander wishes to share it with you, that’s his decision.”
Mrs Reevesham peered up at Chris with tired eyes.
“You’re new here, Mr…?”
“Smith.”
“Smith. So, you don’t know how things work. No one gets to see the commander unless I deem it worthy. Now, tell me what it is you saw.”
Chris turned to Captain Leo.
“I’m wasting my time here,” he said. “I should be getting as far as I can away from here, not burying myself in deep like a tick.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t in your best interest,” Mrs Reevesham said. “So, feel free to leave, if you must.”
She picked up her papers and began reading again. Chris nodded.
“Fair enough,” he said. “And there’s absolutely no other way I can see the commander?”
“No,” Mrs Reevesham said.
“I’ll just have to leave, then.”
Chris turned to leave, and just as quickly, spun back around, and kicked the office door open. A middle-aged man with piercing blue eyes sat hunched over his desk glaring at a pile of papers. He was a short tree trunk of a man, his big ears poking out from behind a bald domed head.
“Can I help you?” he said.
Mrs Reevesham was on her feet and blocking the door in a flash. She wrung her hands.
“Sir, I’m sorry,” she said. “I told him to leave but-”
“But I have something important to inform you of,” Chris said, stepping forward. He towered over Mrs Reevesham.
“You have nothing to say to the commander,” Mrs Reevesham said.
“Apparently he does,” the commander said. “What is it?”
Chris squeezed past Mrs Reevesham and stepped into the room, the captain hesitantly hot on his heels.
“Shut the door please, Mrs Reevesham,” the commander said.
Mrs Reevesham glared at Chris as she pulled the door to.
“You’ll have to excuse Mrs Reevesham,” the commander said. “She has an eccentric personality. But then, so do all the best people.”
He turned to Captain Leo.
“You’re the one who brought him?” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you’d best hope he does indeed have something useful to say.”
The commander turned back to Chris.
“So, how can I help you?”
“Actually, I think we can help each other.”
“What do you want?”
Chris blinked at the bluntness of the question.
“We’re used to getting to the point here,” the commander said.
“Right. Good. I need to go to the Saint Barts’ research centre.”
“Sir,” Captain Leo said, “if I’d known he would have asked about this-”
“You brought him here,” the commander said. “You’re responsible for his actions.”
“But sir-”
“Please leave us, Captain.”
Captain Leo blinked like he’d just been slapped.
“Sir?” he said.
“I said leave us.”
Captain Leo shot an accusing look at Chris and left the room.
“If you were hoping to stay here for a long time, annoying the soldiers and Mrs Reevesham perhaps isn’t the best way to do it,” the commander said. “Drink?”
“No, thank you.”
“Your disinterest in socialising with your new friends suggests you have no intention of staying here any longer than you have to. And, judging by your appearance, you haven’t stopped for quite some time, so you’re on some kind of deadline. Am I right?”
“You are.”
“What can I help you with?”
“It’s my daughter. She’s been bitten.”
“My condolences.”
“She’s not dead yet.”
“Of course.”
There was something off-hand about the commander’s response that Chris didn’t care for, as if being bitten was a death sentence simply waiting to be carried out.
“She still has time,” Chris said. “We need to get to the Saint Barts’ research facility.”
“That’s a no go.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re coming up with the cure as we speak. No one is allowed near them. Neither can they leave the hospital. It’s safer this way. They’re all wrapped up safe and warm in their little cocoon of sterilised paradise.”
“What about food, water?”
“We give them food, water, anything they require. It’s rather like Eyam during the plague. We take i
t there, leave it, and they come and take it inside.”
“Why?”
“We cannot risk contamination. If they get infected we’re all dead. That’s why we have to have safety protocols like this. That’s what we’re here for: to keep those scientists alive for as long as possible. The longer they have, the better chance they have of finding a cure.”
“Is there a cure yet?”
“Not that I’ve heard, but they’re getting close. They’re testing it as we speak. Initial trials were not successful. They’re conducting new trials now.”
“Is it safe here?”
“Is anywhere? The bulk of the zombies in London are across the River Thames on the south side. They’ll have to cross it if they wish to infiltrate us.”
“And there’s no way they can do that?”
“We destroyed the bridges and set fire to all the boats on the other bank, should they come loose from their moorings.”
“But they could still get across?”
“They can always get across. There’s really no way of stopping them, only slowing them down. The first few days here were a massacre. We slaughtered tens of thousands of them, maybe hundreds of thousands. But we did it to protect the research centre.
“We fired our weapons until our arms were heavy and we couldn’t lift our guns, and eventually there was nothing but a few bloody corpses dragging themselves across the ground. More than a dozen times it’s happened where the men are about to break but the zombies finally stop coming. One of these times they will breach and we will never be able to recover.”
“Are you the only soldiers left fighting?” Chris said.
“No. There are other camps out there, spread around the city, protecting the heart of the capital, but not nearly enough. We lost contact with Station Five a couple of days ago. God knows what ramifications that’ll have on morale.
“We keep one eye on our backs, because if another one of those lines breaks we are all of us doomed. And as hard as we fight we know we cannot defeat them. But we can give the scientists and brainboxes time, and that's all they really need – time to develop and create a cure. That's our ace in the hole. Our only winning card. They must find a cure. The world is depending on it, and they in turn are depending on us.”
“I need to get to that research facility,” Chris said, “and no one or nothing is going to stop me. If I can just get there we might be able to save my daughter. They must need test subjects, right? So test the cure on her.”
“Soldiers get bitten every day. If anyone’s going to get a shot at the cure, it’s going to be one of us. I’m sorry. Every minute we hold on here gives the eggheads time to develop a cure. And if not, and they’re already overrun, well then, we’re going to take down as many of these undead scum as we can and make a better world.”
“She’s only eight,” Chris said, eyes beseeching.
The commander sighed, shaking his head. He put a hand on Chris’s shoulder.
“If I were in your shoes, believe me, I would be doing the same thing you are,” he said. “But then whoever was the commander would be telling me what I’ve been saying. You can’t enter the research facility. I’m sorry you’ve come all this way just to be shown the door this late in the game, but sometimes there’s nothing we can do. But if you tell me whatever it is you know, I’ll swear I’ll do everything within my power to help you and your daughter.”
Chris looked the commander over, the calculating bright eyes, the short stubby frame. He had an air of trustworthiness.
“There’s a huge roving army of zombies out there, floating around you,” Chris said.
The commander nodded.
“You know?” Chris said.
“Of course we know. We've known for the past three weeks. They move in closer every day. Eventually they will overrun us. But so long as we don't give them a reason to chase us they won’t approach us. Unless, of course, you know if they’re on their way here now?”
“They are. We flew here in a light aircraft. As we flew overhead I saw them all, they went on for miles. But as we were coming down and they heard our engine, they started to break away, following the direction we were heading. Toward you, here.”
The commander paced across the office, and then back again, eyes distant with thought.
“How far away was this?” he said.
“I’m not sure. Five miles.”
“They’ll be on us soon,” the commander said. “We must prepare.”
The commander ushered Chris toward the door.
“What about my daughter?” Chris said.
“This is bigger than you or your daughter.”
“You said you would help me!”
“I said I would do my best. Right now, that’s defending us.”
“I can’t leave without knowing I can enter the research facility.”
“That is not something I can guarantee.”
“We met once,” Chris said. “Do you remember? It was at a garage near St Neots. You were recruiting men and you asked if I wished to join.”
A glazed look came over the commander’s face, and then he smiled, his eyes brightening.
“The guy with the Porsche,” he said. “Yeah, I remember you. Had his heart set on finding somewhere safe for his little girl before fighting for his country. Well, better late than never, I suppose.”
“I’m still looking for that place. Right now it’s in the research facility.”
“I can’t help you.”
“But we’ve come so far…”
“Then you’ll have to turn around and head back again. Give your girl the best last few hours of her life and then set her free. She’ll thank you for it.”
AWOOOOOoooooooooo! AWOOOOOoooooooooo!
“What’s that?” Chris said.
“It’s them,” the commander said. “They’re here.”
Z-MINUS: 1 HOUR 14 MINUTES
Chris stepped out into the road and was almost flattened by a large flatbed truck. It honked its horn and bolted down the road, not stopping for anyone. Chris checked both directions before running across the street to join Chris and Maisie.
“What in God’s name is going on?” George said.
“The zombies found their little fortress of solitude here.”
“Great. As usual, perfect timing on our part.”
Chris took Maisie’s hand and led her down the road. George jogged to catch up.
“Where are you going?” he said.
“While everyone is busy running off to go fight the zombies they’ll leave their other defences weak.”
“So?”
“So it’s the perfect time for someone to sneak past.”
“You’re incorrigible, do you know that?”
They fought against the great flood of people heading in the opposite direction as they made their way farther into the city. Chris held Maisie’s arm so tight his fingers made red marks on her skin.
“What did the commander say?” George said. “Did you get to speak with him?”
“He said we should go over the barricade.”
“Just mosey on over, huh? If that’s the case, why are we sneaking over it?”
“It won’t be hard.”
They stepped into the shadow of the barricade, arching their necks up and up and up. A thousand cars had been stacked one atop the other, so high they eclipsed the surrounding buildings’ roofs.
“After you,” George said, gesturing in a sweeping movement of his arms.
“Huh,” Chris said. “So that’s where all the cars went. There’ll be a gap or door through somewhere.”
They wandered along the barricade, bending and peeking through the gaps they came across, a square of light filtering through the wall and casting odd shapes on the building walls. None of the holes were anywhere near close for them to fit through.
Then, in the distance, in the direction of the army camp, the sound of gun and cannon fire.
“Now what do we do?” George said.
> “I don’t know, but we have to get through somehow. We can’t fail now. We just need to get past this bloody barricade.”
“We can’t stay long. If the zombies break the soldiers and come flooding down this road while we’re still here…”
“We’ll have to head back out of the city. Find another way through.”
But one look at Maisie confirmed Chris’s fears. There was no way Maisie was going to last long enough for them to reverse out of the city. The muscles in her tiny hands were strained, but the pressure they exerted was weak. The roots of her thinning hair was damp with sweat and her eyes were already milky white.
“Wait,” George said, looking up at a pub’s sign. It was of a hobgoblin, bent over with a sinister expression on its face. “I recognise this place. I know where we are.”
“Good for you.”
George grinned.
“There might just be another way through,” he said.
Z-MINUS: 1 HOUR 10 MINUTES
George led them down the catacomb-like streets without hesitation, their footsteps bouncing off the bare concrete walls. George moved with a pronounced limp, though Chris had a hard time identifying when he might have incurred it.
“When I was a young lad I used to brew and distribute my own brand of alcohol,” George said. “We called it Traveller’s Rest. It sold well to the local pubs in and around London. The problem we had was that it was difficult to hide such obvious large bulks of alcohol. How exactly do you ferry lorry loads of bootlegged goods to pubs without the authorities knowing? The answer turned out to be very simple.
“At the time my friend’s boy was studying at high school. History it was. The Second World War. Back then they used to go underground to hide from the bombs the Nazis sent over to destroy the city. There was a throw-away sentence at the end of the paragraph. I can still remember it word for word to this day, forty years on. It said, ‘The catacombs beneath London are ancient and old, believed to have even been around during the Roman era. They are still there to this day.’ And that got my mind thinking. If they’re around today, how do we go about finding and using them? It’d be hard for the police to catch us if we were forty feet under them. I found an old map of the tunnels in a book from the library and found a way in.”