After about five minutes of almost continuous firing, we were almost out of ammunition.
‘Fix bayonets,’ I ordered. It was our last option.
We all fixed our bayonets to our rifles and, as the infected continued to come at us, we charged them. It was a brutal struggle. I knew it was one we would never win, but I was desperate to gain more time for the rest of the people trapped in the grounds. If they could get inside the building they might stand a chance of holding out for a bit longer.
I thrust my bayonet straight through one man’s eye and he dropped to the ground without making a sound. That was another thing that alarmed me about them. At least when you kill a living man he makes a noise of some sort, usually. It makes it feel like you are achieving something, even if it’s just instilling his comrades with fear. You didn’t get that with the infected. They were dead anyway. It didn’t matter to them.
I watched, as another of my men stabbed one in the forehead with the same result. We were taking a lot of them down but we were still hopelessly outnumbered and we were taking casualties now too.
By the time I had lost about twenty five percent of my men I decided that we were serving no more useful purpose where we were. I would need a core of soldiers to keep up the morale of the civilians.
I ordered a retreat and we formed up, backing away from the horde as it spread out into the grounds. We fired several volleys at them, dropping dozens more, before we were forced to turn and run for the guard room.
I found the radio operator there, sending a frantic message to headquarters, telling them that we were being overrun and that we were moving inside the building. Incredibly, the officer on the other end ordered us that we were not allowed to enter the palace. I grabbed the transmitter and told him we were going in whether he liked it or not. Pompous fool.
From the guard post we fought a retreat to the lawn and from there to one of the entrances, where another group of soldiers were giving us covering fire. I was the last one through the doors and I slammed them shut behind me and locked them.
The infected piled up against the building, thousands and thousands of them. They filled the lawn and rampaged their way through the guard post. If there had been anyone left inside they would have been killed without a doubt.
I ordered one of the men to do a head and ammunition count. I needed to know what I had left at my disposal. Others were posted to various points in the building. I knew it would be almost impossible to defend the whole thing so I decided that we would secure it as best we could, then retreat to the upper floor, leaving just a small contingent on the ground to warn of any breaches.
But as I finished making my checks something made me stop. I looked out of one of the windows and my heart missed a beat in my chest. On the wall, at the eastern end of the garden, were two people.
Chapter Nine
Kim Taylor
12:52 hours, Saturday 16th May, Buckingham Palace, London
When I reached a part of the wall, where I could get a view of the front gates of the palace, I swear I felt my legs weaken. The gates were off their hinges and thousands of the infected were clambering through. The machine guns were killing hundreds, but it was obvious that they would never be able to stop them all. There were far too many.
When the machine guns stopped firing and the soldiers began to fight with the infected, hand to hand, I decided we would have to move. I ran back along the wall, to where Barrie was still waiting, and told him we would have to move.
‘They’re coming through the gates,’ I said. ‘Thousands of them.’
His face was white with fear.
‘Where will we go?’ he asked.
I looked around. There was nowhere that would offer us any real protection for any length of time, apart from the main palace building. I was about to suggest that, when I heard screams coming from the palace lawns. The infected had pushed through the defences and were descending on the civilians who were camped there.
It was chaos once more, as people scrambled for the safety of the palace. One of the doors had been opened by some palace staff and they were all heading for it, leaving everything behind as they tried to save themselves. The soldiers fought bravely, trying their best to protect them, but inevitably some didn’t make it.
I had to turn away from the sight as a few of the slower people were pulled down and ruthlessly pulled apart. Those things didn’t offer any mercy to anyone.
‘We need to get inside with the others,’ I said. ‘Now, before they close the door and lock us out.’
I was about to leap down from the wall and sprint to the doors. I was sure I could make it in time. But as I made to jump, Barrie suddenly held me by the arm. There were two or three of them, the infected, walking directly below us. I had missed them. In my desperation to get inside I had nearly made a deadly mistake.
‘Oh my God, what now?’
I watched as the last of the civilians made it into the building, followed by the remaining soldiers who had survived the battle at the front gates. The last person through the door, before it slammed shut, was Callum MacPherson. We were outside. Alone. Trapped.
Claire Samson
12:54 hours, Saturday 16th May, Central London
I had, by the afternoon of the second day, firmly made up my mind to stay where I was. I had put all thoughts of escape to one side when I had seen a large group of infected walking in the street. There must have been about forty of them, shambling around down there. I felt safe where I was, but I knew that it wouldn’t last forever. Water, electricity, gas. All those things would eventually run out, or stop altogether, and from my last conversation with Rupert I was left with the impression that it was going to be a long time before anything like normality would return. I needed to be prepared.
I found a mop in one of the kitchen cupboards. It was a good old fashioned one, attached to a sturdy wooden pole. I pulled the end off of it and raked around in the kitchen drawers until I found a decent knife. It was a small one, with about a five inch blade, but it was strong and incredibly sharp. In another drawer I found some strong tape. I used it to bind the handle of the knife to the pole, covering it several times until I was sure that it was held securely in place.
I then practiced in the living room, lunging forwards with the makeshift weapon, imagining being attacked by some of the infected and holding them off. I don’t know what I was thinking. Certainly, after everything that went on afterwards, I would never have advocated anyone else going to face those things with such a poorly made weapon. Later, in the months that followed, I was lucky enough to join a group which included a man who made us extremely durable weapons, in a proper forge. But for the time being I had to settle for whatever I could get my hands on.
That afternoon, after I had looked out into the street and saw that it was deserted once more, I looked through the spyhole in the door. There was nobody around in the communal hallway. I opened it as quietly as I could and stepped out, onto the landing.
I waited for a long time, straining my ears to try to hear if anyone was moving around, either in the flats or on the stairs. It was deadly quiet.
I decided to check the neighbouring flats first. There were three on the landing. The first door I checked was locked. I decided to leave it and moved to the next one. It was locked too and I moved to the third one. This door was open and I shoved it gently, allowing it to swing ajar without actually going inside. I couldn’t hear anything moving.
Cautiously, I stepped inside. The flat was light and well decorated. Whoever had lived there had a good eye for interior decorating. The hallway was wide and had several doors leading from it. I checked each room in turn, not wanting to leave anything I hadn’t checked behind me.
Every room was empty. In some there were signs that the occupants had left in a hurry. Drawers had been opened and the contents strewn across beds and floors. I imagined them packing hurriedly, desperate to be away from the area.
The kitchen was the last room I
came to. It was an open plan idea, just off the living room and it had several cupboards. I checked them all and found enough food to last me a month. There was tins of just about everything. Beans, soup, tomatoes and vegetables. There was also a huge ten kilo bag of rice and several half opened bags of pasta. I gathered everything together on the table, along with all the vegetables I could find in the fridge drawer.
It took several journeys between the two flats, before I had managed to stockpile everything. After that I checked the next landing down, before going to the ground floor last of all. I checked both entrance doors that led to the front and rear. Both were locked and both needed a key fob to gain access, something I didn’t have.
I checked all the doors of the flats. Only one other was unlocked. I emptied the cupboards in that one too, removing every scrap of food I could lay my hands on. Then, satisfied that I was secure in my little fortress, I went back to my own place and flopped down on the sofa.
A combination of the day’s work, lack of sleep and the release of stress, now that I was safe again, had taken it out of me. I was asleep within seconds and didn’t wake until I heard a commotion in the street, much later.
Anthony Ballanger
12:57 hours, Saturday 16th May, Windsor Castle HQ, Windsor
After the disaster at Hampton Court the Prime Minister returned to his private rooms, which had been allocated to him and his family. There he remained for at least an hour, contemplating what he was going to do next. The only person he spoke to was the American President, who phoned him directly about the crisis.
When he was ready, he called for me and we had a long conversation about what to do next.
‘The Americans have relocated their government to a small town about fifty miles west of Washington DC,’ he told me. ‘Washington, New York, Boston and Chicago have all been sealed off. Nobody is allowed in or out of those cities. Anyone attempting to leave is to be shot.’
I was astounded. The Americans seemed to be taking a very grim view of the situation.
‘Does that include those who are not infected?’ I asked.
‘Everyone,’ he said. ‘He is advising us to do the same. He says they don’t have a cure at the moment and one could be months, or even years, away.’
‘He can’t be serious,’ I said. ‘These are still our citizens. They’re sick. We can’t just abandon them without trying to help.’
‘We are already killing them,’ he said. ‘And if there is no cure how do we keep them, and us, safe until we find one?’
I thought about it for a moment. He was right, of course, but it was still going against the grain. Wiping out hundreds of thousands of our own people, while leaving thousands of survivors without hope. It was too much to contemplate. There had to be another solution.
‘How about corralling all the infected into one place?’ I asked. ‘If we could construct large concentration camps, we could perhaps keep them there until we find a cure.’
It was a ridiculous suggestion and I knew it even before the words came tumbling from my mouth. It would be impossible to get them all and we had seen how quickly one could infect two or three, who could infect dozens, who infected hundreds, who could infect millions.
‘I think, realistically, we have to consider complete annihilation of the infected,’ said the PM. ‘We can’t risk this spreading any further.’
Who was he kidding? There were now outbreaks in every city in the country and most countries in the world had experienced the same thing. It was already out of control.
‘But how do we go about that?’ I asked.
‘We still have our nuclear arsenal,’ he said bluntly.
‘Prime Minister,’ I said. ‘With all due respect, do you think we need to be thinking about that now? At this stage of the problem?’
‘It’s an option Anthony, that’s all,’ he replied. ‘The Americans are making their own contingency plans for it right now.’
‘But that means the end of us all,’ I protested. ‘We shouldn’t blindly do what the Americans do, just because they say it’s right.’
‘They are already talking about nuking all the major east coast cities,’ he said.
I was horrified. After all I had seen in the past couple of days I didn’t think I could be shocked any more, but this was just crazy.
‘There must be hundreds of thousands of people still alive in those cities,’ I said. ‘They can’t be serious. You need to talk to him again. Make him see sense.’
‘They are working on the theory of collateral damage. They think the losses can be justified, to ensure the survival of those in other parts of the country,’ he said.
I suddenly realised that he was resigned to it and possibly seriously thinking of doing the same over British soil. After being caught off guard yesterday, attacked by an enemy we didn’t even know existed until that morning and after just one military setback it seemed like he was already out of ideas. I knew that I was going to have to act quickly if I was going to save us from disaster.
Thomas Buckle
13:00 hours, Saturday 16th May, East London
It took me about three hours to reach the M25, the giant motorway which circles the city and forms a sort of unofficial boundary to Greater London. I could have done it much quicker, with the streets so quiet, but I took my time, stopping at every opportunity if I saw something which I thought might be useful.
At junction 29 I stopped before passing underneath the road. I had initially decided to go past the motorway and towards Basildon, but the road was completely empty. There was nothing moving, north or south. It was a real temptation to take it and save some fuel, instead of going miles out of my way.
I grabbed my map and found the page. The turnoff for the M11 was at junction 27, just a few miles north. If I could get to it, I told myself, I could perhaps cut my journey time and mileage by a considerable amount.
I sat for a minute or two, weighing up my options, then turned the car around and headed down the slip road and onto the motorway. It was almost the last mistake I made.
Clive Westlake
13:30 hours, Saturday 16th May, New Scotland Yard, London
I lay on that small roof all morning, drifting in and out of sleep. I was too afraid to move. By the time the afternoon came I was feeling slightly better, although my head pounded. I eventually opened my eyes to a cacophony of noise and the smell of burning. I squinted my eyes and gazed upwards. The building was on fire in several places, flames and smoke pouring from windows on the upper floors. What had happened? I didn’t know it at the time, but later learned that the last two defenders of the building had set fire to the stairwells in a final bid to hold off the inevitable. It had all been captured on film by a TV crew in a helicopter. Of course the flames had taken hold of the rest of the floor and they had now perished.
The noise I could hear was the hundreds of infected still in the compound, moaning and wailing. Did they still know I was above them? I had no idea.
I suddenly realised that my arm was aching. I had wrapped it around the strut on the roof when I had landed and something in my survival instinct had kept it there, preventing me from falling. I unwrapped it and allowed the blood to recirculate around the limb while I took stock of my position.
The battle for Scotland Yard was over. That was apparent. The infected had retreated from the building in the face of the fire, from what I could see. Perhaps they too had some survival instincts still intact. The compound was still crawling with them, however, and that meant I was stuck for the time being. There was no way off the roof while they occupied the ground below.
I realised that I was thirsty. I hadn’t had anything to drink for hours and my throat was dry from the smoke. I crawled to one end of the roof and peered over the edge. It was too far to drop. I crawled back to the other side and had a look there too. Below and to the right was the rooftop of another building. It looked far sturdier than the one I was currently stuck on and it would give me much more room, but I
wasn’t sure I would be able to make the jump.
What finally made my mind up, was when a straggler from inside the building spotted me. He was, or had been, a police officer and he was screeching at me from a window above. When he started to climb through that was enough for me.
I stood up and readied myself for the leap. It must have been twenty feet down and a couple of metres to one side, but I had now made my mind up. I took one last look at him as he toppled from the window and onto my roof, then I jumped, praying that this new sanctuary would not give way under me.
As I landed I bent my knees, rolling to the side to cushion the impact as much as possible. The roof held and I silently thanked God for my deliverance. But a moment later it looked like I had thanked him too soon. The man who had jumped from the main building now threw himself over the overhang and down towards me.
I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out as the body hurtled downwards. Luckily, those things had a complete lack of coordination and he crashed straight through a skylight next to me. I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I struggled to my knees and crawled over to look down into the space.
It was an office. I could see my would-be assailant. He was lying still, in a huge pool of blood, his head smashed beyond recognition and body contorted into a bizarre position. He was dead.
I lay back on my new roof. It was about ten metres square and gave me a feeling of security for the time being. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay there forever, though, and I began to plot my next move.
Sophie Westerly
13:45 hours, Saturday 16th May, North London
After our close shave with the men, we decided to keep to ourselves. The city was too dangerous and people were becoming jumpy and unpredictable. We realised that we could trust one another, but we agreed it would be safer, at least for the time being, if we were to avoid contact with those we didn’t know.
The Z Infection Page 16