by James Somers
Bingham pauses as Sayers speaks again.
“No ma’am, a bite wound,” he regretfully informs her. “Yes, he’s alive, seems to be stable.
Another pause.
Bingham’s eyes harden at the words only he can hear from her. “Yes, ma’am, I believe he’ll be all right for the trip back.”
Bishop already knows what she must be saying to the major. Something along the lines of, “We’ll do our best to save him. Just see that he returns alive.” She’ll promise him a cure when they find the boy, when Bishop provides a miracle vaccination from the boy’s blood—a vaccine he’s already been working on—a cure that eludes him.
Bingham nods finally. “Affirmative, ETA approximately thirty minutes. We’ll watch him carefully.”
The major hands the headset back to the co-pilot, taking his seat beside Rollins. The soldier sits in the cabin, staring down at his wounded hand. Tears come to his eyes as he curses himself for allowing it to happen.
Bishop suddenly wonders if the man might have a family at home—a young wife and small children who wait for their father to come back to them safely. Yet, he never will. He’ll become a monster instead. Bishop’s eyes water involuntarily for the man. He wants to say something comforting, but how can anything any of them says provide comfort in the face of such a terrible thing?
Rollins’ eyes remain fixed upon the hand, gripping the wrist beneath white knuckles, as though he could stop the poisonous virus from spreading throughout his body, by sheer force of will. He sniffs, hardening his face. He’s come to a decision.
“You have to do me, Major,” he says to Bingham. “I can’t become one of those things.”
“Belay that!” Bingham hollers over the din. “We’re going to find the boy and a cure.” He looks to Bishop. “Ain’t that right, Doc?”
Bishop understands the hope he wants to instill in Rollins, the will to live on, to keep fighting despite the desperate reality of the situation. Bishop nods reluctantly, forcing the best confident smile he can muster. He’s lying to the man, plain and simple. They both are.
Everyone knows what’s going to happen to Rollins. They just don’t want Rollins to believe the truth. His mind will go, and it won’t matter what they told him, anyway. The secret fear, though, is Rollins changing into a savage creature right there in their midst, riding in the helicopter where none of them can escape.
Bishop notices Bingham’s hand on his own knife. The major is watching his man carefully. Bishop has no doubt Bingham will do what’s necessary, should Rollins transform before their eyes. Maybe, he even hopes it will go down that way, so Rollins can exit life with honor, rather than becoming a bloodthirsty monster. Bingham would certainly want this for one of his men, but he has his orders from Sayers, and he won’t disobey her.
Bishop leans forward to Bingham. The major glances at Rollins to be sure he’s stable and then leans forward also.
“Has Director Sayers mentioned how we’re supposed to find the boy?” Bishop asks, trying to be heard over the helicopter noise, but not so loud as to alarm Rollins. “I mean it seems a bit like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.”
Bingham nods. “Director Sayers has an edge.”
Bishop sits back again. He can only imagine what it means.
A Raven by any Other Name
Three essentials are food, water and shelter. But I would add a fourth, a true friend who’s got your back—Jonathan Parks
The flash of bright light leaves Holly and Garth temporarily blinded. The disruption, caused by the unleashing of such power contained within Cassie, leaves them numb yet tingling all over their bodies. Still, they live, just as Garth hoped would be the case.
The three of them sit inside a twisted, smoldering shell of the former Honda Accord. The roof is gone, the pillars blown outward, looking now like gnarled fingers. The car resembles the bottom half of a discarded eggshell, broken and left behind.
Slowly and deliberately, Garth releases his grip upon Holly and Cassie, standing to survey the damage. Steam rolls across the pavement. The fronts of businesses around them are shattered as though a bomb went off in the street. Garth realizes the effect is very much the same.
The hundreds of zombies surrounding the car have been reduced to ash. Not left in neat piles on the road, but blown like sand, covering everything in a gray film. This would have been his and Holly’s fates also, had he not known to take hold of Cassie prior to the release of her welling power. Dr. McGraff perished this same way. Dr. Albert was only saved by his connection to her at the time. His hands upon her shoulders, trying to bring her out of her altered state, kept him safe.
Cassie sits in the unscathed leather seat unconscious. Garth knows she will be out of it for a little while. The girl’s power is as much a mystery to her as anyone else, and the uncontrolled discharge under duress drains her considerably.
Garth reaches for her, picking her up without difficulty, hefting her like a sack over his shoulder for easier movement. They cannot remain. No zombies are present in the immediate vicinity, but he can already hear them closing from a block away, coming to investigate the explosion.
“Are you all right, Holly?” Garth says, carrying Cassie around to the driver’s side of the car.
He leaves his katana in his scabbard and offers her his hand. Holly sits stunned in her seat. She doesn’t know what happened. She may have heard something about Cassie’s ability from Dr. Albert, but it’s nothing like experiencing an episode for yourself.
She ignores his hand, looking around, only now realizing she isn’t surrounded by zombies trying to kill her. “What happened to them?” she asks, looking up at Garth.
He grins. “Little Sister saved us,” he says. “We had better get moving, though. More are coming.”
Holly shakes herself out of the numbness she’s experiencing, like white noise in her brain.
“It’s disorienting, but your head will clear soon enough,” Garth says reaching out and taking her hand to pull her up to her feet.
Holly accepts his help, rising and extricating herself from the twisted wreckage of her car. Her eyes are wide with amazement, seeing the girl’s power on display like this. She had no idea Cassie’s ability is so destructive.
“Is she all right?” Holly asks, watching Garth step away with the girl still draped over his shoulder.
Garth nods, smiling. “She’ll be fine,” he says to reassure her. “Let’s get her off the street where she can rest a bit.”
He starts through the drifting haze of steam and ash, walking toward one of the businesses. The building’s façade is broken up, bricks fractured and crumbling in places, glass reduced to pebble pieces. Garth steps through a window, and Holly notices it’s a clothing store with racks of garments. Many are knocked over near the front, probably due to Cassie’s outburst.
Beyond these, however, Garth ducks low, weaving among them to become lost in the darkness. Holly stays right on his heels, as they leave the wreckage in the street behind them. Garth leads the way, using his keen eyesight to prove their passage in the pitch black of mid-morning. The power is still out in this part of Central London.
They pass through into a storage room and lock the heavy door behind them, just in case any of the infected happens to come through. Garth finds a break area nearby with a couch and a table and chairs. He lays Cassie down on the couch, then brings Holly a chair from the table and helps her get seated.
Going to the refrigerator against the wall, he scrounges up some bottled waters. The food smells bad to him, having sat inside since the area was abandoned. However, he rifles through a cabinet and soon finds crackers to go with the two jars of peanut butter on the table.
“This should hold us for a bit,” he says, offering Holly a jar and bottled water and some saltine packets.
“Thank you,” she says, keeping her voice low, just in case. “How long will she be unconscious?”
Garth shrugs, though she can’t see him in the darkness. “Pro
bably no more than a couple of hours.”
“Good,” Holly says. “We have to get moving as soon as we can. We’re not far away.”
“Far away from where?” Garth asks.
“I was able to contact Agent Smith on his cell phone,” she says, taking a drink of her water. “We’re going to meet him and Jonathan nearby at 8AM this morning.”
“It will be daylight by then,” Garth says. “Perhaps, it will be safer. From what I’ve seen, over the past few days watching the streets, they are more active at night. Some are active, but not nearly as many.”
“I would imagine they have to move outward as parts of the city continue to evacuate toward the suburbs,” Holly says. “Otherwise, they would not find victims to infect, or feed upon.”
“Do they only eat people?” Garth asks.
“No,” Holly replies. “Those imprisoned at the lab were willing to eat a number of things, but mostly protein. We fed them chicken, pork, and lamb.”
“Live animals?”
Holly nods, knowing Garth can see her quite well. “Occasionally,” she replies. “They did respond better to prey than a simple meal offered to them.”
“That would be my guess,” he says, swallowing a couple of saltines dipped in his jar of peanut butter. “Anyway, we should try to get some sleep. This place seems secure enough. I don’t think we’ll be bothered. There’s a restroom just past the refrigerator, if you need one. It’s pretty dark, so I can help you get to it. Just let me know. You can have the couch with Cassie. I can rest my head on the table. I’m a very light sleeper, so don’t worry about the time. I’ll be up at dawn.”
“Thank you, Garth,” Holly says. “You saved our lives out there. I’m still not sure how, but I’m glad.”
She reaches out in the dark, gauging his location by his voice. Holly brushes his cheek. “Thank you.”
Garth trembles slightly at her touch, but says nothing. Holly smiles at him through the darkness, then she stands, feeling her way to the couch where Cassie is laid out on one side, her head reclining near the arm. Holly scoots in on the other side, doing her best to get comfortable.
“You’re sure about the time, waking up?”
“Absolutely,” Garth says confidently.
Holly nods, closing her eyes as she rests her head on the arm of the couch, opposite Cassie. Garth smiles at her. She can’t see him, but he gives an abbreviated fist pump for himself, before resting his head down upon the table and going to sleep.
I wake well in advance of our 8AM meeting time. I figure this Raven character, being a spy, will be around early to check the place out before formally arriving. I borrowed an alarm clock from the electronics department last night and set it in addition to Nesky’s cell phone. By 6AM I can no longer sleep.
The power went down sometime during the night. Huddled away in the upstairs manager’s office, I didn’t notice. However, the alarm clock is still off. Nesky’s cell still works, so at least I have some access. I just don’t know how long it will last before the battery runs down. Hours, at most, is my guess.
Maybe the power will come back on. I suppose it’s possible the plants are experiencing problems. People not showing up for work. Hopefully, it’s not something like zombies invading the plants. Certainly, they’re not going to keep the power on. I don’t know how many power plants it takes to keep London going or how many there even are in England. If they can’t run themselves, and this continues, I’m going to be spending a lot of time in the dark.
I’ve dreaded this coming over the past few days, trying to enjoy what I could here at the Sainsbury while the lights were still on. Food stuffs requiring refrigeration will spoil. No more cold drinks, or milk, or anything of the kind. It will all go bad by the end of the day.
The store isn’t dark, so much as dim. A lot of sunlight comes through the front windows making up the larger portion of the entrance. Still, it’s little more than twilight once you go beyond the registers. Lots of places for zombies to hide. Not exactly the kind of environment I want to wander around in. Still, nothing has come through the windows, or moved my shopping cart gate from the place where I broke in.
I thought enough to activate the security gate the third day I was here. Left just enough room to get out my front window, if need be. If I want, I can pull it down the rest of the way and it will lock into place at the floor covering all of the windows across the front of the store. I wasn’t taking any chances sleeping in a place like this without at least having extra security in place.
I can’t worry about it now. I’ve got a meeting to prepare for with Raven, whoever he is. People are still looking for me. Unfortunately, they appear to be the wrong kind of people. I’ve had enough of spies and government organizations, but I don’t want to be caught unaware and off guard either. Time to get to work.
Gathering my necessary equipment, I head off to the access ladder I spent an hour locating last night. It’s a simple metal rung ladder running up the wall from the huge warehouse stockroom in the back of the store. I climb up, disengaging the door leading onto the roof.
The plane of the roof is set at a slight angle, allowing water to run off toward the rear where a heavy duty gutter system handles what must be mass quantities of water during any halfway descent storm. I climb out on the roof and make my way toward the rear first, following the slope. Half a dozen huge heat and air units squat upon the tar and gravel mix like houses in a small village. A retinue of pipes and vents rise up around them, making the roof an occupied, if not crowded, place.
From one end to another, it’s as big as an American football field. When I reach the rear of the building, I find dumpsters and a large loading dock. Three zombies roam behind the building, one of them chewing upon a freshly caught dog.
One of them whips her head around, when I peek over the edge of the building. She stares at the ground, running over. I realize my shadow is cast ahead of me by the sun behind me. Quickly, I tear myself away from the edge, before the woman turns her head up to find me watching.
I breathe hard, nervous I might have just given myself away. However, zombies aren’t problem solvers, and the woman didn’t actually see me. I should be fine. Instead of bothering with the rear of the building, I decide to go to the front and just wait for Raven to arrive.
I pass back through the air conditioner village on my way up the slight slope toward the storefront and the vast parking lot beyond. I have my supplies in the shoulder bag with my extra ammunition. My hatchet and machete, taken from the sporting goods department, are slung over my shoulder opposite the submachine gun taken from Nesky when I left him at the UPS Store days ago.
I can’t depend on the store below me any longer. I must be mobile and ready to move on, if necessary. After all, the power is off now. Moreover, zombies could come for me at any time. I’m loaded down, but not straining to carry it. I’ll manage as best I can and deal with whatever I have to face.
My earlier terror has been replaced with a grim determination. This is reality for me, and not just for me. All of Britain and the world beyond own this situation. It’s a matter of survival now.
I’ve had to do things I never expected. I’ve been forced to kill in order to live and save others from becoming murderous creatures. I never saw any of this coming. There was no way to. Yet, it’s here now, and there’s nothing to do but deal with it the best I can.
When I reach the front side, its façade rises like a perimeter wall before me, stretching the entire length of the building. It proves handy in a situation like this. I can peek out over the parking lot, using the binoculars without anyone below noticing me. This will be perfect for finding out Raven’s identity. At least, if I know what this Russian spy looks like, I can avoid him in the future. I’m certainly not going to forget Nesky and his Agent Smith disguise.
I pull out Nesky’s cell phone to check the time. It’s already 8:05AM according to his home screen display. I survey the roads around the store leading in. I don’t see anyone.
I can see movement on the ground, zombies roaming about, but not very close, not close enough to see me way up here.
It’s going to be a bright day, if not necessarily a warm one. The sun is already high enough to cast long shadows behind me. I notice a lack of helicopters flying over the area. I can pick out distant snatches of their propeller beats, but not anywhere near.
Using the binoculars, I search the skyline for them. Eventually, I find a few—not nearly as many as there were four days ago. If they are still shooting zombies, then they are too distant for me to hear the crack of gunfire.
This must mean they’ve given up killing them here because there isn’t a lack of them in the streets. Numerous corpses can be found in the roads, many of them victims of the zombies themselves—individuals who were fortunate to be killed instead of becoming infected. Honestly, I think I would rather be dead than to become one of these things. Still, I’d rather be as I am than either of those options.
The newscasts I saw last night confirm my theory. The area of infection is increasing rapidly throughout London. Efforts to contain it in Central London failed days ago. It’s getting worse, and there aren’t enough military and police to fight back the spread of this plague.
This thing seems to be cropping up in numerous different locations, and the police can’t be everywhere at once. Moreover, fighting in any one location without sufficient numbers just gets them overrun. Then the soldiers are killed, or infected to eventually fight against us. Hope of stopping it seems lost. One station still broadcasting even mentioned possible related cases of infected people in France and Ireland. Something about the ferries and rail tunnels branching out from England to these nations, allowing the infected to find their way.
“Everything is so interconnected in the world these days,” I mutter, complaining to myself.
I check the cell phone again. The display reads 8:12AM. Still Raven does not come to the parking lot to meet with Nesky. Seems strange the man wouldn’t show up to meet with his partner. I wonder then if something might have happened to Raven. He could have been bitten, or killed already. From what I’ve seen, it only takes one mistake or no mistake at all, for them to get you.