by Luke Duffy
“Yeah, Gerry, what the fuck is all this about?” Taff demanded as he tore at the plastic wrapper from a pack of cigarettes, threw one into his mouth and fumbled with the lighter, anxious to get his nicotine fix. “We’re being treated like mushrooms here.”
Gerry stared back at him blankly, unsure of Taff’s meaning.
“Kept in the dark and fed on shit,” the stocky Welshman informed him as he inhaled a lung full of smoke and exhaled it with a sigh of satisfaction, blowing a thick billowing blue/grey plume up towards the bright ceiling lights.
Marty snatched the pack from Taff and lit one for himself. He was not a full-time smoker, but at that moment, he felt the urge to have one.
Gerry placed his burden down onto the small white table in the centre of the room and looked back at each of the others who watched him, expectantly.
It was clear that Gerry did not know where to start, or how to explain the reasons for their incarceration. He looked nervous and unsure of himself.
Stan decided to help.
“Gerry,” he began in a calm voice, instantly putting the officer at ease and gaining the attention of everyone in the room. “We know that the people who attacked us in Sierra Leone were dead…”
“Bollocks,” Bull growled from a mouth filled with chocolate.
Stan turned and fixed the large naked man with a glare. Bull instantly fell silent and went back to devouring the Snickers bar that he had barely bothered to unwrap.
“They were dead, Gerry. Now, do you want to give us a truthful heads up on this and what is going on, or do we have to listen to a pile of shit first?”
Gerry sighed and the men saw his shoulders sag. They were not sure whether it was due to him feeling deflated because he was backed into a corner with no one to support him, or relieved that he did not need to lie to the men or skirt around the truth. They could see that he was exhausted and their feelings towards him softened a little as they realised that he most probably had indeed been doing all he could to get them out of the quarantine chamber.
He nodded.
“Yes, Stan, they were dead.”
The room became silent and everyone glanced at one another before turning their attention back to their official commanding officer who stood leaning with his back against the table and staring at the floor.
Stan nodded, satisfied that Gerry was not going to begin by lying to them or holding anything back.
“Okay, you can explain the ins and outs of this to us later, but in the meantime, get us out of here and… where’s Nick?”
Gerry’s face lost all expression as he raised his head to look Stan in the eyes.
11
His eyes saw nothing. They stared blankly ahead of him, unfocussed and paying no attention to himself or his surroundings. An opaque milky film coated the once sparkling blue iris’ that were now nothing more than dull and flat expanded black dots. A thick strand of congealed blood and saliva hung from his pale and crinkled lips, swaying from side to side as he stumbled about the small enclosure.
His body suddenly stopped and his gaunt face slowly raised as he detected movement close by. He became alert, peeling back his lips and baring his teeth as he caught site of another figure in the room.
With a long groan, he reached out for the man in front of him and launched himself forward. The figure also approached, racing towards him.
As they closed on one another, a resounding thump echoed around the chamber and he was rebuffed and sent sprawling to the floor.
Quickly, he regained his feet and resumed his assault against his reflection in the mirror. Again, his head smashed hard against the barrier, leaving a thick smear of blood and grease where his cranium clashed with the three centimetre thick armoured glass.
In frustration, he snarled, gnashing his teeth, and pounding his fists, clawing with his broken nails at the two-way mirror in a futile attempt to bore his way through. Finally, as though something had spoken to him from within his faltering mind, he calmed and no longer attempted to reach the man he saw staring back at him. Instead, he just stood and gaped, swaying and grunting and eventually, losing interest.
Bobby remained close to the glass, staring at the vision in the room beyond. It looked like Nick, but at the same time, he was unable to recognise the figure before him. His grey skin and sunken features resembled nothing of the perpetually grinning rounded face of the loud and charismatic man from Newcastle.
His body looked as though he had been ravaged by some terrible affliction that had eaten him down to the bone, leaving him as nothing but a wasted shambling carcass. However, it was the eyes that haunted Bobby. When he looked into them, he saw nothing of the man who had been his friend.
“How long has he been like this?”
“He died on the second day and has been like this ever since,” one of the scientists informed them from behind in a matter-of-fact tone.
Bobby felt a hard slab of emotion slide down his throat. It was a mixture of sadness and sympathy for his comrade, mindlessly stumbling about in the room beyond the glass, and anger towards the doctors for leaving him in that state.
He struggled with his fury, keeping his eyes locked on the abomination in front of him and avoiding the urge to turn and tear into the man who had spoken so casually about the condition of his friend.
The rest of the men watched in silence, unable to comprehend or accept that Nick was actually dead, yet still moving about. They had all known Nick well and considered him as a brother, as they did one another. As far as they were concerned, they were the closest that each of them had to a family.
Now, seeing one of their own in this way sickened them to the core.
“Can he talk?” Bobby asked, keeping his eyes on Nick.
“No,” a reply came from the doctors congregated behind him.
“Does he understand what has happened to him?”
Bobby turned and caught sight of Gerry who remained near the back of the assembled men and women, watching the team and their reactions. Bobby’s glistening and emotion filled eyes locked with him.
“Is there anything we can do to help him? We can’t leave him like this.”
A tall man of middle age, wearing a grey fleece jacket, pushed his way through to the front and approached Bobby. His face, though weathered and extremely lean, making his features protrude, seemed to be the face of a warm man. It was his eyes, filled with sympathy and understanding for Bobby’s feelings.
“I’m sorry, but when he was bitten,” the doctor began. “The virus spread through his system at an extremely rapid rate. There is no cure and once the host dies, everything that made them what they were, dies with them. What comes back is nothing more than pure motorised instinct. They understand very little and don’t seem to remember or recognise anything from their former lives.”
Bobby looked back at the body of his friend, standing motionless in the room beyond the viewing pane.
The doctor placed a hand on his shoulder and initially, Bobby felt the urge to shrug it away, even twist his body around and grab the man’s forearm and pull his shoulder from the socket, but the feeling passed immediately.
“I truly am sorry,” the tall doctor continued. “Nick is dead, and that…what you see in there, is not your friend. He will attack you in the same way that you saw him attack his reflection just a moment ago, and if he can, he will kill you.”
The doctor stepped back and looked along the line of men standing in front of the window as Stan and his team stared back at Nick’s body.
“Make no mistake, gentlemen, a bite from one of the infected is one-hundred percent fatal, regardless of how deep the bite or where on the body it is received. There is no cure, yet, and even a graze will be enough to pass on the virus.”
He stepped towards the glass, eyeing the reanimated corpse with interest for a moment and then turned to address them again.
“Nick was strong, fit, and healthy, but the infection burned through him, despite our efforts to stop it. He
lasted two days from the initial bite until his body lost the battle. Four-hours later, his basal ganglia…,” he paused and looked about, realising that he was about to begin bombarding them with information that they would not understand. He coughed slightly, then continued, “…and certain other parts of his brainstem began to show signs of activity. Over a period of five minutes, he became more animated and eventually, became this.”
“So, they die, and then the virus brings them back?” Stan asked.
“Correct,” the doctor nodded.
“And the only way to kill them is a shot to the head,” Brian grunted.
It was a statement, not a question as he remembered seeing their commander put a final bullet through the brain of the creature that attacked Nick.
“Yes, that is right.”
“Is he contagious?” Brian asked.
“No,” the doctor replied, staring through the glass at his subject. “This strain of the virus passes only through the bites and the exchange of bodily fluids.”
Before anyone knew what was happening, or could react, Brian had drawn his pistol and pointed it at the doctor’s head.
The room resonated with gasps and whimpers as the doctors and technicians watched and expected Brian to pull the trigger.
The rest of the team, Stan and the others, did not bat an eyelid as the angry Irishman stood, staring along the sight of his weapon and looking directly into the eyes of the tall gaunt faced doctor.
“Good,” Brian said with an air of satisfaction that his assumption was correct.
He glared at the doctor, his eyes narrowing as a number of metallic clicks broke the shocked silence as he pulled back the hammer on the gun in his hand.
“Now open the fucking door.”
The doctor saw in the eyes of the man in front of him that he was more than willing to kill him. They were not the eyes of a crazy man, but the eyes of a loyal friend, of a brother to the thing that now occupied the room next to them.
No matter what he said or did, one way or another, the doctor knew that the door to the isolation chamber would be opened, whether he was dead or alive.
“You’ll gain nothing from this, you know,” he said calmly as he took a step back towards the panel at the side of the airlock.
“I’ll get plenty and most importantly, I’ll know that my friend isn’t walking about like one of those fucking things we saw in Sierra Leone,” Brian snapped back at him.
Gerry took a tentative step forward, his eyes darting from the doctor, to the gun in Brian’s hand and then to Stan.
“Stan,” he hissed, “the General will…”
“Shut up, Gerry,” Stan growled back at him without even looking in his direction.
Gerry fell silent and realised that Taff and Bobby had stepped in behind him, blocking the entrance and preventing anyone from exiting the room.
Everyone remained silent, holding their breath with anticipation as the assembled group of scientists, their faces pale with fear and their bulging eyes glowing in the semi-darkness, watched Brian and waited to see what he and the doctor would do next.
“Open the door, Doc,” Brian encouraged the tall man as he continued to keep his pistol trained on him.
The doctor made a half turn and faced the electronic key panel beside the airlock door. He glanced back at Brian nervously and then began to type in his access code.
“Please,” he spoke as he kept his attention fixed on the electronic panel, “I know what you intend to do, and to be honest, I understand why you’re doing it. I would want to do the same if it was my friend in there. But please, we need to be rational about this.”
“Rational?” Brian repeated mockingly. “I’ll rationally drill a hole through your fucking head, and then stick my dick through it if you don’t open that door within the next five seconds.”
The doctor stared back at him and blinked. He knew that the man meant every word and turned back to the panel to press the final key.
He nodded.
“Okay, I’m opening it, but please, remember what I said and don’t let it near you.”
The lock thudded as the hydraulics released the heavy dead bolts and the doctor stepped back, his face glistening with sweat.
He turned and looked at Brian.
“It’s open.”
Danny stepped forward and gently guided the doctor away from the door as Bull stepped up and positioned himself, ready to push it open and allow Brian inside.
With a heave, Bull forced the thick steel barrier away from the frame. A hiss of air sounded and the smell of decaying flesh instantly assaulted the senses of everyone in the room. Without hesitation, Brian stepped through and over the threshold, the pistol still raised and immediately aimed at the body of his comrade.
Nick saw him immediately and turned in his direction, his pale eyes locking on to the living being that entered into the room. For a fraction of a second, there was a pause as their eyes met.
In that instant, as Brian aimed his pistol, he hoped that Nick would recognise him.
The soulless body of Nick showed no sign of familiarity and sprang forward, reaching out for the man he had once knew in his former life.
“Sorry, Nick.”
The shot boomed in the airtight room and the recoil forced Brian’s hand to rock back as the nine-millimetre Parabellum round burst from the barrel.
The bullet struck squarely between the eyes and Nick’s body fell to the floor, spilling thick dark blood across the immaculate white tiles.
Nick was finally dead.
12
As the seasons changed from winter to early spring, so did the global situation.
The virus was spreading at a phenomenal rate, enveloping the southern hemisphere and quickly spreading into the north.
While the World Health Organisation and government scientists struggled to find a solution to the outbreak, thousands of people were succumbing to the deadly plague. Those who contracted the airborne virus, soon found themselves fighting for their lives and with a high mortality rate, many of the victims were losing the battle.
It took two weeks from when the infection first hit Europe and America for the governments to acknowledge the problem and go public, informing the populations of the effects. Even then, many people refused to believe what they were being told by the various and conflicting experts and their statements.
“The effects of the flu strain are varied from one person to the next, but it has been noted that some of the sick develop heightened aggression, attacking the people around them, while others suffering from the infection, remain immobilised and eventually, die from the disease.
“As yet, we have found no cause for why people are reacting in different ways, but it has been proven that the bites from the aggressive strain carry the infection and is one-hundred percent lethal. Anyone coming into contact with the infected through bodily fluids, will contract the virus. As yet, we have found no viable vaccine or cure and it is recommended that the victims of this outbreak be avoided at all costs.”
Riots were widespread throughout the cities of Europe and America. Looting had become a problem very early on, as people panicked and began to fend for themselves. Supermarkets were ransacked and in a short space of time, their shelves sat empty as more and more people failed to turn up for work and deliveries ceased to arrive.
Areas were cordoned off and placed under quarantine. The infected within the closed off areas then attacked the people guarding them at the blockades and it was soon realised that any attempt at quarantine would fail.
The police, having lost many from their ranks, were close to breaking point, having to cope with a massive strain on their limited resources, and before long, entire regions were left to their own devices, becoming lawless and off limits to anyone wearing a uniform.
It was not long before soldiers and volunteers, wearing bright bio hazard suits, began turning up to collect the dead. The streets were becoming littered with corpses and people dying from the plag
ue. As the body collection parties moved from house to house, the landfill sites of every urban area were quickly filled with the bodies of the deceased.
The stench of burning flesh became a part of the atmosphere as the dead were hastily cremated and then buried beneath thin layers of soil, ready for the next layer of victims, and it was not long before reports were being circulated through the media of people still being alive when they were carted off for disposal. Naturally, this information caused more panic and many families barricaded themselves into their homes, fearing that the army would kill them, regardless of whether or not they were suffering from symptoms.
The countries of the so called civilised world were rapidly spiralling out of control.
Soon, within just two days of the acknowledgement of the spread into the northern hemisphere, further televised announcements were made, but this time, they came directly from the British Prime Minister and US President.
“Ladies and gentlemen, in the last hour, I have received a number of reports on the situation as it stands at this very moment. Though shocking and hard to believe, we have had confirmation from a number of government sources that those who have died recently are returning to life.
“At the moment we have no solid evidence on the cause of this, but it is widely speculated that the flu virus, which has now swept the entire globe, has again mutated. I am informed that whether death is from the flu, natural causes, or even a bite from an infected person, anyone who passes away will reanimate and then attack the living.
“I have been in contact with the presidents of America, Russia, China, and France, as well as the German Chancellor and many other country leaders. They have all confirmed the same facts. Every country in the world is being stretched to its breaking point and resources have become minimal.
“I am in negotiations with the Chinese and North Korean governments to come to an agreement to end the hostilities and to focus on the more urgent matters on our home soils, and to work together to come up with a solution.
“At this moment, I have no further information to give you and I’ll now pass you over to Dr. Joseph Cox of the Department of Health.”