by James Somers
Divine leads out, scanning the entirety of the first room, even the ceiling, leaving nothing to chance. His team fans out behind him, three men flanking him on either side. Their CBRN suits rustle slightly in their ears, but, for the most part, allow plenty of freedom to move.
“We’ll go left into the clean area,” Divine says.
He realizes this may be a moot point now. If all of the doors are open like this one, then it won’t matter. Nothing is clean, in that scenario.
At least they have their suits. Made from reinforced nylon, they do provide some protection from direct attack, but nothing from bullets or knives. Still, it is the viral contamination that they hope to avoid in a place like this.
Divine leads the team toward the left door. One of his men to the right checks the control booth, looking through the window. “No one inside, but the computers are still functioning,” he says.
“Good,” Divine replies. “We can bring up the surveillance cameras and see what’s moving in this place.”
The locker room beyond the door is empty. There are blood stains on the floor in a few places, but no bodies.
“Clear,” Divine says.
His team moves in after him, then through the open door to the corridor where they can access the control booth. The men line either side of the hall, proceeding forward. Divine comes after, backing into the corridor, keeping his weapon trained to the rear.
“I have a body,” one of his men says. “One of the zombies. It’s dead. Otherwise, clear.”
Divine turns, coming through the group to the front. He gives the body a cursory examination, finds the headshot, and then moves on. The control center is open, but no one is there to monitor.
Divine steps inside. His men take up flanking positions on either side of the door, keeping their eyes trained down the branching corridors leading away. So far, no one approaches from any direction.
A view of many different surveillance camera feeds appear on one monitor. The icons are small, but hold active real time images. They are labeled by area in the facility.
Divine takes hold of the mouse beside the keyboard and moves the cursor across the screen. He believes there are people moving along a corridor in this feed. Divine clicks the mouse to bring up the surveillance camera near Laboratory One.
Almost immediately, the hall lights go out. Red tinted emergency lights come on at corridor intersections a moment later. Divine and his team curse, wondering what has happened.
Their guns come up, ready for anything. The branching hallways are cast into darkness and half-light. Divine attempts to reconcile the power problem with the computer, but text comes onto the screen, one letter at a time. The terminal is unresponsive. Divine leans closer to read what spells itself out on the monitor.
DO SVIDANIYA
“Goodbye,” Divine whispers, “in Russian.”
“What did you say, boss?” one of Divine’s team asks.
“It’s Nesky,” he says.
“He did this?”
“He must have gotten by us with the boy,” Divine says. “Gentlemen, we are leaving.”
“I’ve got two of them coming at us!” one of his men says. “They’re running straight for me!”
“Take them out!” Divine commands.
Two of the men open fire with suppressed submachine guns. They fire several rapid bursts at the upper torso and head of each oncoming silhouette. Their marks lurch sideways, stumble and fall, skidding to a stop on the tiles.
Divine runs to his men. “What do you have?”
One of his team stands near the bodies with a flashlight on their faces. I don’t think these two were infected, boss,” he says. “They’re dressed in scrubs. They look clean, not like the others. I think they’re scientists, boss.”
Divine curses. “All right,” he says, “Enough of this. We’ve got to get back up top after Nesky and Patient Zero.”
The team turns to go back down the corridor that brought them from the vestibular elevator room to the control room. The way is now blocked. An entire horde of infected Tomb’s employees stands there in the dark.
Screams erupt from zombies and from Divine and his team. The infected rush forward like a tsunami wave of bloodlust. Seven men open fire with submachine guns.
Bodies are chewed to pieces by bullets at the front of the wave. These fall as others rush forward over them, crushing them beneath trampling feet. The infected continue to come at them.
Divine and his men back away steadily, but continue to unload their extended magazines. As clips run dry of ammunition, his men pop them out expertly, flip them over, and push them back in, having three taped together in tandem.
A wave of suppressed gunfire fights the onrush of zombies, killing them with the kind of precision that maintains a majority of head and chest wounds—fatal even to these creatures. Only the sheer number keeps them coming, those behind rushing over those who fall.
Then, one after the other, Divine’s men stop shooting. They can’t have run out of ammo yet. He turns around to find another mass of infected zombies tearing into his team. He stands alone, screaming as the ravenous horde rushes in.
By Light of Day
There’s a very fine line between bravery and stupidity—Jonathan Parks
As we near the top of our climb, the elevator activates and begins a descent toward the Tombs. We each hug close to the metal ladder bolted inside the long shaft. Regardless of Agent Smith’s assurance that it won’t hit us, we each stop and wait for it to safely pass. Smith ends up being correct. We have some wiggle room, but not much.
We continue our climb.
At the top, the ladder proceeds through a metal plate with a latch. Not knowing what else to do, I turn the latch and push up on the little door. It opens back, lying on the concrete floor above as I climb through and step away from the ladder. The others follow, one by one, until we all stand inside of what must be a small maintenance room beside the elevator.
Agent Smith closes the hatch in the floor and comes between us to the heavy steel door that I assume must lead back to the underground parking garage. “Holly, does your badge work here also?”
Holly steps up, swiping her badge across the reader bar. A red LED light becomes green, and the lock disengages. Agent Smith opens the door, allowing the rest of us into the garage beyond.
“Jonathan will ride in my car,” Smith says. “Holly, if you can take Garth and Cassie with you?”
Holly nods, but I interrupt.
“Can’t we all ride together?”
“I’m in a Porsche—only two seats,” Smith says. “Besides, we might need the extra vehicle.”
“Why?” I ask.
“I’ll ride in the Porsche,” Garth offers eagerly.
Smith ignores his comment.
Holly places her hand on my shoulder. “I can take that gun now, Jonathan.”
I withhold the weapon. “I would like to ride with you and the others,” I say quietly.
Holly smiles. “Jonathan, you need to trust Agent Smith,” she says.
“I’m not giving up the gun,” I say, though I know that someone is going to make me give it up eventually. Fifteen-year-old boys are not allowed to wander around with firearms. Even the Bobbies don’t carry them.
“Let him keep it,” Smith says. “We’ve got to hurry.”
Holly sends him a strange look, but Agent Smith ignores it.
I follow Agent Smith to his Porsche and find the door unlocked. We get inside, Smith tossing a submachine gun behind his seat. I watch as Garth and Cassie follow Holly to a Honda Accord several spaces away. They enter the vehicle and start the car.
Agent Smith jams something into the ignition that bears little resemblance to an actual key. He turns this, and the car starts. He pops the shifter into reverse, and then slams the gas, releasing the clutch.
The Porsche lurches backward out of the parking space.
“Seat belts on,” Smith says with a grin and then pushes the shifter into f
irst.
We peel away toward the back wall. It is not open at the moment. Smith taps a few times on his handheld device and the wall door begins to pull away, allowing us to exit. The Porsche strides forward into the parking garage beyond. Holly’s Accord is just making its way toward the door in the wall when Agent Smith and I are already two floors up.
I tap the safety switch on my Glock and place the gun into the pants pocket of my orange jumper. The bright orange, seen in daylight, makes me look even more like I should be working with a roadside prison gang. G-forces threaten to tear me out of my molded leather seat as we round corners at a furious pace.
“Shouldn’t we wait on them?” I ask.
“They’ll be along,” he assures me.
We shoot into the sunlight, instantly rounding around through the parking lot. I’m surprised to see many of the cars I expected to fill the lot are missing. The place seems practically abandoned.
The Porsche zips around the huge gray and green ziggurat style SIS Building. The street entrance comes into view. A crew of military vehicles is parked just beyond the SIS parking lot. I turn my head toward the Thames. Vauxhall Bridge stands to our right with barricades strewn before all lanes coming and going.
The Porsche comes to a screeching halt. I look from the military vehicles to the bridge. A multitude of people are running across. There must be several hundred, and they’re getting closer. I can’t understand the scene I’m seeing.
Then the runners on the bridge come into sharper focus. I see them clearly now—see their faces and their ruddy complexion, see the splashes of blood across their mouths down onto their clothing. My mind stammers for an answer to this. How could all of these people be infected?
Then Vauxhall Bridge explodes.
Concrete and steel erupt from several places, sending nearby bodies flying through the air. The bridge sections collapse less than a second later, dumping thousands of tons of bridgework and hundreds of ravening zombies into the gray, rushing waters of the Thames below. Upon impact, huge plumes of water billow up into the air like massive geysers. Flailing bodies are caught up like so much flotsam and jetsam in the conflagration and then crash back into the mighty river again.
“What’s happening?” I scream, as gunfire erupts ahead of us at the end of the bridge.
The soldiers carrying out the demolition shoot down zombies that manage to survive. Somehow these ran ahead of the others and passed over the charges that destroyed the bridge. Fearlessly, they rush on straight into the bullets, not stopping until their bodies are cut to pieces on the end of Vauxhall Bridge.
Agent Smith punches the gas, sending the Porsche scurrying out of the parking lot. The soldiers turn on us, firing their weapons. Bullets puncture the car and shatter the glass. Something hits my leg, stinging sharply.
“Are you hit?” Smith asks loudly, as the Porsche skids sideways onto Wandsworth, dodging several abandoned cars.
I groan, grabbing my right thigh. “I think so,” I answer.
The car lurches forward again even harder as he shifts, the tires squealing a little even though we’re already moving fast. Smith cuts right onto Nine Elms trailing along the river.
“Why did they shoot at us?” I ask through the pain.
“Unclear,” he says.
“Those were infected people on the bridge, weren’t they?” I ask, still unable to put the inconsistencies together.
“Of course, they were,” Smith says. “London has been fighting the spread of this virus for almost two weeks.”
“What?”
“Since the attacks at the hospital where you and the other boy were taken,” Smith replies, dodging more abandoned vehicles.
We pass businesses aplenty, but I see almost no one about in the streets. The roadways are devoid of traffic that should fill the streets this time of day. All the normal people are missing. It’s like this part of London is abandoned.
“But all the people Tom Kennedy attacked were brought to the Tombs,” I answer, still unsure what to make of all this.
“Then they must have missed one,” he says.
The final puzzle piece slams into place in my mind. Tom started a fight with me and became infected by something carried in my blood. He contracted the disease and began to spread it to others. When he and his victims were taken to the Tombs, someone must have slipped through the cracks—another victim they didn’t know about. That person contracted the disease and spread it to others. A terrible cycle began and this is the result.
“I was sent to get you out of the Tombs,” Smith explains. “It’s no longer safe in London. If your blood holds the key to a cure, then I must get you safely out of the city.”
I contemplate this momentarily before I remember the others in the Honda. “Holly and the others,” I say urgently. “We’ll lose them. They have to get out with us.”
“They’ll be fine,” Smith says. “You’re my priority now.”
I look out the back window. Holly and her Honda are nowhere in sight now.
“We have to wait for them,” I insist.
“Negative,” Smith replies.
I grow anxious now. If we keep this frantic pace, Holly will never find us. Already, I’ve lost sight of them. It may be too late already. They’ll be trapped in this chaotic ghost town without help.
Suddenly, I realize the unthinkable. “Those soldiers may have stopped them. What if they shot at them also?”
Smith refuses to answer my question.
Desperate now, I remove the Glock pistol from my orange jumpsuit and point it at him. “We have to go back, now,” I demand.
An annoyed smirk comes across his face. “You really shouldn’t point that at me,” he warns.
“I mean it,” I insist. “Take us back now. They could be in trouble.”
“Holly is an agent, Jonathan, she can handle herself,” he blurts out.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “Holly is a scientist, Dr. Albert’s assistant at the Tombs.”
“Which is run by MI6, Jonathan,” he says angrily. “She’s not just a scientist.”
I lower the gun. I can’t argue with what he’s telling me. It makes sense. That’s why she’s so good with a gun. She killed those infected people with one shot. She took out the first in the dark.
I turn back in my seat, wincing at the wound in my leg. I’ve never been shot before, and it hurts like crazy. Thankfully, it’s not bleeding badly.
Smith looks at me. “Really, don’t worry. They’re going to be fine.”
In my peripheral vision, I notice something coming at us—from above. A flailing body smashes onto the windshield. Glass explodes out the side windows. The windshield is mangled and webbed through with cracks. The body pushes against it, bleeding out across the glass.
Smith sees the abandoned car in our path too late. He jerks the wheel sideways, but we smash into the truck anyway. The body flies away, and the world spins. I’m still in my seatbelt, but wrenched against the door, putting pressure on my aching wound.
Smith curses as we hit another object—maybe another vehicle—and flip over. The roof caves in, as we roll over and over multiple times. At some point, during the cacophony of grinding metal and spray of shattered glass, I lose consciousness.
I wake upside down. I have no way to know how long I’ve been out. Blood drips across my face. I’m not immediately sure if it is my own. I smell petrol, but don’t see any flames. This, at least, is a small comfort.
Beside me, hanging partially out of his seat harness, is Agent Smith. His head is bleeding pretty badly. He’s hangs in a very awkward position and may be hurt much more than me. I try to rouse him with a slight push.
“Agent Smith!” I yell to him, but he doesn’t even blink.
My harness digs hard into my chest and shoulder. I fumble for the buckle, but it’s hard to reach it. The pain in my leg is noticeable, but not as bad as it before.
My fingers find the release button on the seatbelt buckle. I can’t see it from
here, but I feel it well enough. I strain and press it.
Immediately, the harness gives way, and gravity yanks me down against the inside of the Porsche’s crumpled roof. I land awkwardly on my shoulder, my weight pinning me down. Painfully, I twist my legs down and around, contorting my body like a pretzel in order to drop my legs to the shattered passenger window.
I cry out at the last, pulling my legs to my chest until they pass the door frame and fall through the opening. The relief is instant, taking my breath. I’m lying half in and half out of the window just trying to breathe through the pain. Agent Smith still hasn’t roused.
I grab the door frame and pull against it to slide out completely onto the pavement. Debris from the car is scattered everywhere. I slide over bits of glass and sharp pieces of fiberglass and metal on my way to freedom.
When I clear the car, I sit up, looking around. The body of the woman that hit our car lies on the road not far away. Her skin is ruddy, a sign of the infection. We passed beneath an underpass. The woman jumped from there, slamming into our car. I can’t imagine the killing instinct that must be at work to cause a person to hurl themselves from an overpass at a moving vehicle.
The woman didn’t survive. We barely have. I’m still not sure about Agent Smith’s condition, but I know we have no time. Another of the infected drops to the pavement behind me. I hear the body hit the ground and turn to find a large ruddy skinned man hobbling toward the car.
I’m not sure if he sees me yet. Probably not, but I can’t be sure. My gun is no longer in my hand. It flew away during our crash. Scanning the ground, I find nothing that looks sturdy enough to use as a weapon.
Then I remember what Smith stashed behind his seat. The two-seater car leaves little space behind the driver. Just a firewall. It’s possible that the submachine gun didn’t leave the car.
Staying low, I reach back into the upturned car. My movements create scraping noises as debris grinds against pavement. I have to be quick. I see the strap hanging out from behind the seat. My arm stretches, my fingers groping to reach it.