'No, it is not!' Then the PM took a deep breath and let it out slowly before sitting down. He waved his hand towards the door. 'But there's nothing you can do about it.'
'You're not in danger, then, Sir?'
'No. Thank you. You may go.'
The security men relaxed in the positions they had assumed in each corner of the room, then filed out of the door and shut it behind them.
The PM's heart sank at the thought of being the man in charge when the country got knocked back a third time, just when the chance of a recovery was in sight. And if it got out that zombies were on the loose again, no-one would believe a word of any future assurances. An hour later, the PM had met with his special team: Commander Douglas Hodgeson, the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary. Professor Albert Mason joined them on an encrypted video conference link.
'You all know we have a problem.' The PM looked in turn at each person present. Each returned his gaze with a solemn nod.
'OK, Mason, spell it out for us.'
'We have a small number of members of the public with latent zombieism.'
'Which is?'
'Regular zombieism that must have been carried somehow.'
'But everyone in the country was vaccinated weeks ago!' Commander Hodgeson said.
'Like I said, Douglas, latent.'
The PM cleared his throat. 'What about symptoms?'
'Luckily, each individual was brought in before the physical sypmptoms were exhibited publicly.'
'With the country full of outsiders, it's essential we keep this quiet.'
'Owing to the vigilance of our security forces.' The Home Secretary said. 'The whole world outside this room currently believes zombieism has been completely eliminated. But I kept the police on alert, under the pretext that stability needs to be maintained during the recovery.'
'So we don't need a suspicious-looking change in status, they're already poised to deal with this.'
'Exactly.'
'Good man. '
'It's one of the few good points in all this so far, Sir,' Mason said.
'Agreed, but I want to be clear on this,' The PM said. 'Have the ones you've got now gone past the behaviour stage to showing physical symptoms?'
Mason looked grave. 'Oh, yes, the usual. But after the initial onset, developing more slowly.'
'Anything new in the last few hours?'
The professor shook his head.
Sleep was hard to come by through the whole time the PM waited for the next development. He expected when news came it would be Mason with a breakthrough, a call from the secret services that one of his former minister's agents had been intercepted, or what really gave him nightmares: reports of zombies across the globe caused by the British vaccine.
Of all those at the meeting, the situation weighed most heavily on Albert Mason. His teams worked in rotating shifts to gain any sort of insight which would help.
The news media were gagged and merely reported an almost insignificant increase in violent crime. They were told to report the official press release about the incidents being caused by changes in society, as a result of people moving around to new areas and the influx of Americans and Europeans. The public were simply instructed to report any incidents to the police.
The PM's press office monitored all press broadcasts and scrutinised social media sites. The story released to the press had apparently been accepted: that a few people had been involved in unrest caused by a population slowly struggling to find its way back to 'normality'. The truth wouldn't be revealed for another twenty years.
The numbers of 'outsiders', as the PM had called them, inside the UK had reached thousands. Some travellers had come out of morbid curiosity, others were simply keen to take advantage of a cheap holiday and to see the famous landmarks. Entrepreneurs and 'investors' followed, looking for quick profits in buying up property and renting to tourists; bringing in foreign money, either to lend at a high rate, or to set up businesses which would provide high yields. Much of it was cynical exploitation of the UK's predicament. None of the money brought in would stay and all of the profits would be exported.
Alex didn't mind the holiday-makers too much. In a good year, her picturesque little village had owed more than half its income to visitors, but she really hoped that all the people looking to make a quick buck out of the tragedy her nation had suffered would come unstuck. Over the following weeks the tension in official circles over latent zombieism resulted in an unreported and mysterious reduction in the number and duration of business visas for UK entry. Although she never knew of it, to that extent Alex's wish came true.
Chapter: 5 Tea and Biscuits
'I am so sorry about all this,' Hodgeson said, looking Alex straight in the eye to impress her with his sincerity. 'It's come straight down from the PM. All been hushed up.'
'Not…?' She remembered the half-heard scream.
'I've only just got the OK to fill you in.' A worried look came over the commander's face. 'There have been a few new cases turn up.'
'Zombies?' Alex jumped out of her chair and backed away.
The commander gestured her to sit down. 'Not zombies, zombieism. They're calling it latent zombieism.'
'Kind of lies dormant?'
'That's it. 'til some sort of stress brings it on. Professor Mason's trying to get to the bottom of it.'
'And you need me and Steve because…?'
'For your own safety…'
'I've heard that one already!'
'One of the possibilities is there may be a rogue agent out there, so we want to make sure you're safe.'
'Why us, though?'
'Professor Mason says you and Steve and your friends got the first batch of vaccine, from which all the others were made.'
'You said this rogue agent was only one of the possibilities. You mean it's one of that Minister's men trying to re-infect everyone?'
'Potentially, yes. Excuse me a moment.' Commander Hodgeson stood up and opened the door. Alex couldn't hear all that he said but she did catch the word 'tea'. The guard came in, took away Alex's breakfast tray and shut the door again.
'There's more?'
'The intelligence services were never sure how many operatives the Minister had, so they've simply put it forward as a risk.'
'So, what else?'
Commander Hodgeson's forehead developed a whole new set of furrows. 'There's the least desirable scenario that the vaccine isn't a hundred per cent effective and that everyone who's been given it is a latent zombie.'
'That's now everyone in the entire UK!'
'And wherever it's been shipped to be used world-wide.'
Alex's eyes widened at the scale of the problem. 'You said that stress can bring it on?'
'We've only had seven cases so far but they've all been linked to some major life change.'
'Being snatched from a dance and then spending hours locked up here is pretty stressful!'
There was a knock at the door and a tray of tea things was brought in.
Commander Hodgeson didn't seem in a rush to continue, so Alex took the opportunity to relax while the tea brewed. She concentrated on that special sound of tea being poured out of a pot into a china teacup. There was a rich, dark cupful each, to which Alex added her own milk. She shook her head at the sugar and was disappointed by the five rich tea biscuits sitting on a plate. Dark chocolate digestives would have been her choice. She considered rich tea to be an excuse for a biscuit, the sort which, if you dunked them, fell straight in half and dropped in your tea.
'You see, Alex, why the whole thing's top secret?'
'Oh, yes, getting back to latent zombieism, then. Anything else?'
'Mason's team has been working round the clock since the first case came in.'
'If you need some blood, just take it,' Alex said, getting to the point and adding with impatience, 'And please let Steve know what's going on.'
'I've already put that in motion. He should be here by this time tomorrow.'
A
lex smiled at the thought of seeing him again, even though she was going to have to wait a little longer.
'There's a doctor waiting outside to take the blood, if that's OK.'
'I said so.' Alex nodded, rolling up her sleeve. 'Can I see Steve as soon as he arrives?'
'I'll see to that for you. I'm afraid you'll both have to stay here until we sort this out.' The commander waved in the doctor, then turned to the guard. He already had a distracted look.
'Proper quarters and a change of clothes?' Alex said.
'Oh, yes,' Hodgeson nodded, then spoke to the guard. 'Whatever she wants, short of leaving.'
When Alex looked up after her blood samples had been collected, Hodgeson had gone and been replaced by the guard who hovered uncertainly.
Alex was surprised to find that she wasn't at the Breathedeep Biological Research Facility but at an army base with extensive living quarters an hour's drive from the university. She demanded a single room with all the facilities. Instead of a Breathedeep concrete bunker, it was an easy matter for her to be given a room with adjoining bathroom and unlimited access to the canteen. The second guard left as soon as he was replaced by a female one, who took Alex to look at her quarters. She could do as she liked, as long as she was accompanied by a guard, and on condition she made no attempt to leave the compound. She spent the night there, having been provided with a nightshirt and a plain khaki skirt and blouse to change into for the daytime. The only good thing about them, Alex decided, was that they were clean, and pressed to perfection. At two the following afternoon, she was taken back to the interrogation room to wait for Steve to be brought in.
Chapter 6: Coffee
'What are you two doing here?' Fred said pointlessly, as he took in Rachel and Maisie's collection of carrier bags.
Rachel laughed and held up two handfuls of bags which brashly advertised the names of the shops on their sides. 'Shopping, see?'
Having saved her wages over the last few months, she'd done particularly well, at the same time as showing Maisie how buying clothes was done properly.
'It's, like, the last week before the new term,' Maisie said.
'We all start together, next Monday, right?' Fred said. 'I'm doing Business Studies.'
'I know, like Rachel told me, so I guess you know about her doing Journalism. I'm…' Maisie paused to see if Rachel had mentioned her.
'You're doing…' Fred struggled to remember if Rachel had mentioned Maisie when he'd seen her the week before.
'Media Studies,' Maisie pronounced proudly.
To cover his confusion, Fred suggested a coffee and Maisie let him and Rachel take the lead, so she could soak up every word that passed between then. Later she would see if any of it might be turned into gossip. As they took the slow-moving elevator two floors up to where the restaurants and coffee shops were, it appeared there may not be much to report. This was because Rachel stared stoney-faced out through the glass sides during Fred's stream of talk about ancient weapons. Maisie, however, had already given Fred ten out of ten for offering to buy the coffees. Seeing him bore the pants off Rachel was a bonus.
Fred had spent the summer on a course run by Steve Reynolds's father. Mr Reynolds had been promoted to Old English Monuments Regional Coordinator because of his work on publicising the organisation. One of his projects had been to set up groups interested in getting 'hands on' experience of weaponry from different ages. As soon as Fred had read about it, he signed up.
On the upper floor, they threaded their way through a surprising number of shoppers. It was a combination of a sunny Saturday, visitors down from the north, and tourists. Many were spending as much time looking around and taking pictures as staring into shop windows. Like morbid onlookers, they sought out locals, especially those with a story to tell. Each way she looked, Maisie saw small groups surrounding someone describing their personal experience in lurid tones. From the odd word she picked up, it was plain to see there was a good deal of embellishment going on.
The tourists you could tell from the rest because they stopped to listen and gawk at every opportunity, wandering aimlessly, not really knowing where they were going. At least the out of town visitors from other parts of England knew that there were signs to read to help them get where they wanted to go.
Fred pinched a spare chair and the three friends, each with a frothy hot drink in front of them, squeezed around a table for two in the corner of a busy coffee shop. While she stirred her cappuccino, Rachel diverted Fred into talking about his course. Unfortunately Business Studies proved to be only slightly more interesting than vintage weaponry.
He was interrupted in the midst of domestic economic policy by a tourist leaning over from a nearby table.
The man wore a lumberjack style shirt and chinos with a bush hat. He smiled directly at Rachel and spoke in an American accent. 'You all from around here?' he said.
Rachel gave him a frosty look and said, 'No, we're just passing through and we wouldn't know a zombie if we saw one.'
'Pity,' the man replied, 'We ain't met no-one's ever seen one.'
'That would be because not many do and live to tell the tale,' Rachel said.
'If we do see one, we'll be sure to let you know,' Maisie said, grinning widely.
The man looked confused and turned away, whereupon Maisie began to convulse and contained herself only long enough to run to the ladies. Even as the door banged shut, Fred and Rachel could hear her shriek with laughter. Fred saw Rachel was thinking of the sister she had lost in the first zombie attack. He reached across and squeezed her hand. Rachel looked up with a faint but grateful smile.
When Maisie returned Fred took his hand away quickly but not before Maisie had noticed as she approached the table. The tourist and his wife had left and Maisie sat down looking all bright eyed and breathless.
'I see the zombie hunters have gone.' She fanned her face and looked as if she was about to burst into another fit of giggles. Holding her cup with both hands, she blew a little dent in the froth and sipped her coffee.
'They wouldn't be so keen if they did meet one,' Rachel said, staring at nothing in particular.
'They bring in much-needed currency, though,' Fred said. 'I bet more than half the people here are out-of-towners come to spend some money. Did you know that…'
'We're out-of-towners,' Rachel said, thinking of the hour-long bus ride back to Kilkorne.
Maisie was in the mood for a bit of fun and, with a glint in her eye she concealed from Rachel, she got Fred going again on the subject of vintage weapons. Maisie knew Rachel would be trying to catch her attention but she focussed on Fred as if he were the most fascinating thing on earth. That would pay Rachel back for being snarky about her choice of party clothes.
At first, listening only to the sound of Fred's voice, Maisie allowed his words to wash over her. Gradually, though, she was swept up by his enthusiasm. She didn't have a clue what the difference between a rifled or an unrifled barrel was, how a flintlock differed from a matchlock, or what sort of armour could stop an arrow, but she found his excitement infectious. It was also a welcome distraction from the gawping masses circling around.
'Next week I'm going to sign up to join a military re-enactment group,' Fred said, puffing out his chest and holding up his coffee spoon as if it were a sword. 'And then I'm going to get myself on the official lists of extras for period film-making.'
Rachel had been drifting while Fred detailed his exploits with pikes, swords and muskets but her mind snatched at his final words immediately.
'What, you get to be in movies?'
'Yeah! Battle scenes extras.'
Rachel's face screwed up as she tried to image how getting to be an extra herself might benefit her career.
Maisie watched her friends with growing amusement. 'You could, like, be in movies together. Like Mr and Mrs Peasant or Roundhead, or whatever.'
'I was thinking more Elizabeth the First.'
'Except they give the big roles to the proper actors,' Fred
said.
Rachel fell silent again until, Maisie took pity on her by suggesting they try a few more shops before going home. She'd seen one which had a sale on accessories. Fred took his cue to leave and the girls set off in search a last round of bargains.
Chapter 7: Reunion
Alex had no idea how long she'd have to wait for Steve in the barren little interrogation room. It had the effect of making her wish she was back at uni and that none of this was happening. They'd chosen one far enough away from home that they didn't have the trouble and expense of daily travel, and in any case the nearest university had been closed ever since the population depletion in the first zombie massacre. Four universities in the area had been amalgamated into one, the other three being mothballed. It had been the only way to make up a viable number of students, lecturers and support staff in a single location. Even then the campus was barely half full and Steve and Alex were lucky to have been granted their first choices of History and Microbiology. They were two of the subjects which had sufficient staff to teach the course.
When Steve was brought in to Alex's debriefing room, he looked rather the worse for wear. He was pulling two trolley-cases; one Alex recognised as her own.
'Told me to throw some stuff in our cases before they took me away. Said it was that Commander Hodgeson's orders.' Steve turned to speak to his guard but he'd departed, leaving only Alex's one.
Despite the presence of Alex's guard, they held each other tight for a few moments.
'Any chance of a coffee?' Steve said, sounding out of breath.
'I'll send for some.' Alex's guard went into the corridor, barely avoiding the doctor as he entered. She barked an order for two coffees in the direction of the guard who'd brought Steve.
After Steve had caught his breath, had his bloods done and drunk his coffee, he explained what had happened from his side. After Alex vanished halfway through a slow dance, Steve hadn't been so naïve as to think that sort of thing didn't happen sometimes when an impressionable, small town fresher was confronted with a confident, experienced third-year. Sometime before dawn, he'd systematically tried to find her and when he couldn't, he did begin to worry.
British Zombie Breakout (Book 4) Page 2