by Luke Duffy
The spacious store room was stacked from floor to ceiling with steel shelves, lockers, and large black boxes where the men of the team kept their personal operations equipment. Each man had a number of boxes, and depending on what the task was, depended on which container he opened.
Marty grabbed the heavy tin of machinegun ammunition and placed it on the bench in front of him. It thudded and rattled lightly as its weight dropped against the wooden planks and the bullets shifted inside. He pulled the long belt out from the container and eyed the links and rounds, checking that they were fitted correctly and unlikely to cause a stoppage. Satisfied that they were in good order, he slid them into one of the large pouches of his vest. The two-hundred spare rounds of 5.56mm linked ammunition would be his to carry, until they found themselves in a position where the gunners needed resupplying. Every man in the team would be carrying spare, along with their own assault rifles and ammunition, while the two gunners would be loaded with fifteen-hundred rounds each, giving the team a heavy amount of fire support, should they need it.
Marty looked to his left and saw the unopened boxes and the unoccupied space at the bench beside him. He looked to his right and then around at the rest of the men in the room, making a mental note of who was there.
“Where’s Bull?” he asked in bewilderment when he suddenly realised that the one person that could not be missed, was actually missing.
Subconsciously, he had known that there was something absent from the atmosphere of the crammed room, but it had not registered in his mind because he had been too concerned with his own equipment.
As the group pulled on their clothing, secured their armour and vests, and began their checks, readying themselves for the briefing and the subsequent operation, Marty had noticed the silence, but then again, he had not.
The loud booming voice of Bull, as he tore into someone, ridiculing them for one reason or another, or complaining about his equipment or the lack of time off, was deficient from the air around them. In its place, a hush of preoccupation had settled over the six men as they busied themselves with their own thoughts and preparations.
Stan shrugged as he secured the straps and clips of his tactical assault vest and began rotating his shoulders, checking for ease of movement in the bulky kit before reaching down to pick up his M4 rifle and the stack of loaded magazines beside it.
“I’ve tried calling him, but it keeps going to his answering machine,” he said as he loaded his ammunition into the pouches of his vest. “He should’ve received the same call-back that we did, but he’s the only one that hasn’t arrived. I was going to go and check with Sam, once I was ready, to see if she had comms with him.”
“It’s been two days since I last saw him,” Brian added.
“Yeah,” Taff said as he lit a cigarette, “me too.”
“Screw the nut, Taff, and put that fag out,” Danny demanded from the corner. “I’m not into breathing your toxic shit.”
“What does it matter?” Taff retorted as he puffed away. “Haven’t you heard? We’re all likely to get eaten by dead people in the near future anyway.”
As the rest of the men continued to don their equipment, check their weapons and ammunition, and of course, argue, Marty and Stan exchanged a knowing glance. Neither of them knew where Bull was, but they were sure they knew who he would be with.
They left the store room, leaving the others to continue, and headed through the rabbit’s warren, towards the Operation’s Room.
“Put it out, Taff,” demanded a voice from down the corridor behind them.
“Bollocks,” came the reply and then a sudden crash as the sound of boxes and bodies hitting the floor rumbled along the passageway.
“That twat, Bull; he had better not be off having a picnic somewhere,” Stan grumbled as they walked through the gloomy corridors.
Marty shook his head.
“I highly doubt it, Stan. Something must be up.”
They entered into the dark void of the command centre and immediately caught sight of Samantha, standing by a computer console and reading through a thick wad of paper attached to a clipboard.
She saw the two men enter and noticed the look of concern in Marty’s face. They remained by the door, out of sight and earshot of anyone else in the room, staring at her and waiting for her to approach.
She placed the clipboard on the desk and made her way towards them. She was already feeling annoyed because she knew that there would be a problem needing her attention.
She came to a halt and rolled her eyes, holding her hand out in front of her as she butted in before Stan could speak.
“What have you clowns done now that you need me to fix? Honestly, it’s like looking after school kids with you lot and I don’t know why we bother with you. You’re more hassle than you’re worth.”
Marty glanced to his left and grinned at Stan.
“I told you she would be in a bad mood and would bite our heads off.” He turned to Samantha, still smiling broadly. “You don’t get much these days, do you, Sam?”
“That’s none of your business, Martin, and never will be,” she snarled back at him. “Now, what is it?”
“Bull has failed to show up,” Stan answered without hesitation. “Have you had comms with him, or know where he is?”
“That big stupid lump? He’s probably drunk somewhere, or locked up,” she replied in a derogative tone as she folded her arms across her chest.
“Yeah,” Stan agreed, “but he has never failed to show up before. None of us have, for that matter. Something must be wrong and we need you to turn his bio-tracker on.”
She was about to retort with more insults about their friend but she stopped when she saw the seriousness in Stan’s eyes. It was true that the men of the team were a wild bunch to deal with when they were off duty, but she had never known them to be anything but professional and one-hundred percent reliable when it came to their job.
She sighed heavily.
“Alright, Stan, but you know I’m not supposed to do this unless you’re on ops, or it’s an emergency.”
She turned and began to walk to the far side of the room, towards another bank of computer screens.
“This is an emergency, Sam,” Marty added as they walked.
She glanced back over her shoulder and nodded.
“Yeah, that may well be, but if it’s not, then Bull’s location will be up on all the screens of Whitehall, for all to see. If it turns out that he is pissed out of his face and propping up a bar somewhere, there will be a lot of flak headed this way and I’m not taking it for you.”
Marty patted her on the shoulder as she reached the workstation and pulled up her chair, then began hitting a number of login passwords on the keyboard.
“You never take the flak for us,” he spoke reassuringly, “Gerry does.”
A moment later, on the screen of the monitor in front of her, a small red dot pulsed, overlaid onto a satellite image of the country. Samantha began to zoom in onto the area of the beacon, roughly forty kilometres to the west of the bunker.
“What the fuck is he doing there?” Stan asked in confusion as he watched the details of streets, roads, and buildings come into focus.
“Is he moving at all, Sam?” Marty leaned forward, staring at the screen and reading out the coordinates of Bull’s location. “Is he alive?”
Samantha hit a key and a separate screen appeared, sliding in from the right hand side of the monitor with a number of readouts on Bull’s status.
“This is from over forty-eight hours ago. If he is inside the hospital, the signal may not have been updated, but he was alive at the time of the last ping.”
A few seconds later, and after punching in another set of commands, a new image flashed up on the screen to the left of them, showing real-time aerial footage of the city from orbit. With great accuracy, Samantha zoomed in to the area of the hospital, where Bull’s red beacon hovered, unchanged for more than two days. Although the picture was grainy, t
hey could clearly make out the slow moving figures that swarmed through the hospital grounds, like thousands of ants crawling over a detailed model.
Marty stepped back and looked at Stan. Neither of them said anything, but they both had the same thoughts. Bull could very possibly be dead and Marty shuddered at the vision of his friend walking about as one of the reanimated undead.
“Is the whole hospital overrun?” Stan asked as he squinted at the screen.
“Can’t be sure,” Samantha replied as she began scrolling the images and scrutinizing them. “This thing is spreading like wild fire. Whole cities and towns are falling to the infected at a rapid rate and we can’t keep up. That’s why we called you all back.”
“Called us all back?” Stan asked.
She turned in her seat and looked up at him.
“We’re evacuating,” she replied, staring back at Stan. “The government is about to write off the mainland and we’re going to be transferred across to the Isle of Wight. Other units from the army, navy and air force, are being sent to the Hebrides, Isle of Man, and the Channel Isles. They have managed to keep it quiet, up until now, but a lot of units have been decimated by this thing.”
“Evacuating…,” Marty considered, still staring at the screen.
Stan leaned forward, bracing his arms against the desk and lowering his head so that he was just a few centimetres away from Samantha.
“How bad is this thing, Sam? We’ve seen the news and had plenty of intelligence updates from you lot. We’ve even seen it ourselves, here, on the streets of London over the last couple of weeks, steadily getting worse. The army and police are out in force and it looks as though chaos is winning the battle. So, don’t bullshit us, Sam.”
He paused, looking deep into her without blinking.
“How bad?”
She had no intention of lying to him, or trying to play down the situation.
“It’s bad enough for the MoD to begin considering nuclear strikes on the most heavily affected areas.”
She paused, watching their reactions.
“Airstrikes have been planned for Edinburgh and Glasgow, once the army have cleared out the civilian population, and fortresses are being thrown up all around the country to act as Forward Operating Bases. When the government and military forces have regrouped, they will begin an offensive that will, supposedly, reclaim the mainland.”
“There’ll be nothing left to reclaim. What about the average ‘Joe-Public’? Where are they going?”
Samantha looked down at her feet, feeling a strong sense of shame and despair.
“Only essential personnel will be evacuated,” she mumbled before turning her face back up towards Stan’s piercing eyes. “They’re being left to their own devices, Stan. This thing has spread too fast and too far, and no one was prepared for it.”
Stan stood up straight and took a step back.
“Fucking hell,” he whispered. “Will the government announce anything about the evac?”
She shook her head.
“How can they? What would they say; ‘sorry folks, but we’re off now and leaving you to get on with it’?”
“So what’s our part in this?” Marty asked.
She turned to him.
“You’ve a special mission to do before you join the evacuation.”
“What’s the mission?”
“I’m not sure of the full details. General Thompson will be briefing you up personally.”
Stan turned and looked at Marty, then brought his attention back to Samantha.
“It can wait,” he stated in a decisive tone. “We’re off to get Bull first.”
Samantha was about to say something, but Stan cut her short. He reached over and hit the print tab on the computer screen. Somewhere to their left, within the gloom of the command centre, a machine sprang to life and began churning out sheets of paper with the printed satellite imagery of the hospital in fine detail.
“Don’t bother, just get the heli ready. We go and get Bull, then crack on from there. Get the orders for the flight crew changed, or falsify them if you have to, but have them standing by. We’ll be ‘wheels up’ in twenty minutes.”
Stan grabbed the mapping and satellite images, and headed for the doors with Marty close on his heels.
Samantha watched after them, feeling a warmth swell inside her stomach. Though she could not show it, she was glad that Stan had made the decision that he had. Of course, outwardly, she would need to show a degree of protest against such actions, but she knew the men well and had worked with them for a long time. Secretly, she had the greatest admiration and respect for them, though they were never allowed to see it from her.
She smiled and shook her head slightly.
“Bull, it’s always him.”
16
“Another one of those bio-hazard trucks has just pulled up,” Emily said as she turned from the window to face him.
Matthew remained seated on the couch and did not bother to look up from the television as he flicked through the news reports.
“Who’s it for this time?” He asked in a detached voice.
His wife, still wearing her nightgown, looked back out through the window and craned her neck, attempting to see further along the street and identify the house where the van had pulled up in front of.
“Oh no,” she muttered, placing a hand over her mouth. “I think they’ve gone to Mr Hardy’s house. His wife is a teacher at the kids’ school.”
That bit of information was enough to grab Matthew’s attention and force him to get up, move towards the window, and stand beside his wife.
“Are you sure?” He asked rhetorically, leaning forward into the windowsill, trying to see further along the road for himself.
It was early evening and beginning to get dark, but he could clearly make out the brake lights on the back of the truck.
“Yeah, she teaches English, I think.”
Matthew shook his head with annoyance.
“No, you silly bitch. I meant, are you sure that it’s their house that the bio-hazard truck has gone to?”
“Oh,” Emily replied, looking down at herself and feeling embarrassed and more than a little worthless at the way he had spoken to her.
For as long as she could remember, he had gone through phases of speaking to her in a disrespectful manner. Now, was obviously one of those phases.
No matter what she did, or how hard she tried, he always seemed to be cold and distant towards her, rarely showing her any affection. On occasion, he would suddenly appear warm and loving, but she could never tell when that was likely to be.
Even when he seemed to be happy, there would still be a distance between them and to Emily, they seemed to be just drifting through the motions of marriage. The spark was gone and their relationship had become stagnant.
But no matter how hard she tried not to, she loved him still.
She continued to look down at the floor and herself.
Below the nightgown, she knew that she was no longer the woman that she had once been, at least in a physical sense. Giving birth to two children, and leading the life of a bored housewife had taken their toll on her.
She had become disinterested in looking after her appearance and rarely felt sexy. Emily was well aware of how important that side of the relationship was to her husband, but was unable to reignite the fire that had once glowed within her.
Over the years, she had tried to change things, but never had the stamina to completely turn the situation around. She knew that she was in a rut, but could never seem to climb out from it, no matter how badly she wanted to. Especially when her husband had given up ever trying to make her feel special a long time ago.
She blamed herself for the decline of their marriage, despite knowing deep down that there were two sides to every coin. Over the years, through endless arguments, she had become convinced that any downfall would be her own doing.
She remained silent, standing there and feeling insignificant and
inferior to her husband.
Matthew, noticing that his wife had taken a step away from the window and realising how quiet she was, turned to look at her. She refused to meet his gaze, and although he could not see her eyes and expression, he could feel the tension and upset, and knew he had been wrong to speak to her in the way he had.
He always knew.
Sometimes, he would hear the words flowing from his mouth, screaming inside his own head to stop, but he could not stem their flow and before he could bring himself under control, the damage was done and his frustrations had been vented upon his wife with venom spat from the bitter half of his mind.
“Sorry,” he said, moving towards Emily and putting his arms around her.
He pulled her close and kissed her cheek.
“Sorry, darling. I didn’t mean to speak to you like that. I’m just worried about all this, and I’m worried for you and the kids, too.”
She nodded her head against his chest, accepting his apology, as she always did, and sniffed back the tears that threatened to flood out from beyond their seals.
They were all scared and stressed. The latest news had shook them to their cores and was hard to accept. However, Matthew also had a large chunk of guilt planted firmly in his mind, and it was growing tentacles through his conscience.
After clubbing Michelle, and probably killing her, he had fled from the office.
Sprinting from the scene of his horrific and cowardly crime, he tore his way down the stairs. Descending through the floors of the building, panicking and crying as he ran, he finally made it to his car. He was barely able to control his shaking hands as he attempted to push the key into the ignition and his tear filled eyes refused to focus. Eventually, he opened the driver’s door, leaned out into the street, and began to vomit uncontrollably until there was nothing left in his stomach to bring up.
The streets were much busier than they had been earlier in the morning. Everything had changed since the Prime Minister had announced that the dead were getting up and eating the living.