Suddenly I heard the girl scream. From around a tree another six or seven appeared. She raised the rifle and pulled the trigger but nothing happened.
‘Safety catch,’ I yelled.
But my moment of distraction was to prove fatal. The man was seized by two of the ones I hadn’t managed to kill yet. They tore at his legs as he kicked and screamed, desperate to get free. They gouged at him, tearing off skin as they clawed their way closer and closer to him. I fired and hit one, but the round passed through his neck and he continued.
I turned my attention back to the girl. She was firing now. Not accurately I have to say, but she did hit a couple of them and slowed them down.
‘Run,’ I said.
‘What about Barrie?’ she called.
I assumed that was the man. I looked back to see that he was desperately trying to fend off four of them now. He had a bite mark on his arm and one on his jaw. There was no hope for him now. I considered shooting him. Putting him out of his misery would be the right thing to do, for him. But was it the right thing for me? While the infected were attacking him it meant they were leaving us alone.
It was one of those lessons you sometimes learn. Sometimes the right thing to do isn’t always the right thing to do. So I left him, thrashing about as he was slowly overcome and bites were taken out of him as several others joined in the feeding frenzy.
I’ve often been asked how I felt about that decision. Well, I feel alive. I’m not proud I left that guy to be eaten by dead people, but I’m proud that I’m still here to tell my story. I’m glad I survived. To have shot him dead would have meant the end for me and Kim. I knew that. I made the decision. I live with it. That’s the way it is. That’s the way it was back then.
I turned back to the girl. I fired another six times and killed the ones who were closing in on her.
‘Time to go,’ I said. ‘Barrie didn’t make it.’
We ran at full pelt through the trees, back towards the side door. Large numbers of the infected were now appearing from the lawn side of the palace, attracted by the noise of the shooting. The small covering group laid down fire on them as we ran, taking a decent toll with some accurate shooting.
We leapt over the small wall and kept going until we got to the door. Inside I could see the footman. But the door was locked.
‘Open the door,’ I shouted.
He shook his head. He was frozen with fright.
‘Open the fucking door,’ I yelled.
Behind me there were shouts from my men as the infected closed in on them and they continued to fire.
I raised my rifle and pointed it at him through the glass.
‘Please open the door,’ pleaded Kim.
She was imploring him, but still he refused to budge. He knew I couldn’t fire. It would destroy the defensive integrity of the building. It would allow the infected easy access and he knew I couldn’t allow that. I lowered my weapon.
‘Let’s go,’ I shouted.
I had no idea what I was going to do now, but I was determined that I would make a last stand somewhere. If this was going to be the end then I was going to take as many of the infected with me as I could.
Chapter Ten
Thomas Buckle
14:02 hours, Saturday 16th May, M25 East London
I had only driven about halfway to the next junction when I suddenly realised I had made a mistake. Pancho had been sleeping on the front passenger seat, but he suddenly sat upright and gave that low growl I had heard before. Talk about an early warning system. He was mine.
I slowed the car to a crawl, searching for whatever it was he could sense. That was my mistake. In those early days I didn’t fully appreciate his particular skills. He was so sharp. Later, once I was used to him and fully trusted his judgement, I never put a foot wrong. If Pancho told me something wasn’t right, then it wasn’t, and we just turned around and found another way. But that day I kept going and it almost cost us our lives.
Around a bend I suddenly realised what the problem was. A huge column of cars, buses, lorries and every other kind of vehicle you could imagine, was backed up on the motorway. I cursed my luck and my judgement. If I had done what I had decided in the first place, I would have missed this. Now I couldn’t move. Not forward anyway.
I drew the car to a stop and jumped out. I grabbed my weapon from the back seat and, together with Pancho, we approached the traffic jam. It was solid, but something wasn’t right about it. There were no people with the vehicles. I checked in several of them as I passed through, but there was not a soul to be seen anywhere.
I decided that height would be an advantage and found a small delivery van. I climbed onto the bonnet and from there managed to get onto the roof. When I stood up to get a better view, I almost passed out with fright. There, not more than a hundred metres from me, I saw an infected. Then another and another. In fact, as my eyes scanned back through the vehicles, I could see thousands of them. Thousands and thousands. I crouched down, motioning with my hand for Pancho to stay still.
They were systematically going through the vehicles, searching for the living. When they found one, who perhaps been hiding, they went into a frenzy, dragging them out of the vehicles and killing them on the spot. The screams were blood curdling.
There was nothing I could do. There were too many of them for an army to tackle, let alone one man with a dog and a gardening tool for a weapon. I decided to make my way back to the car and turn around, but as I went to get off the car I slipped and came down hard on the bonnet. I let out a yell, then stifled it as I realised my error. It was too late. Pancho let out that tell-tale growl from the pit of his throat. It was time to go.
We ran back, through the tangled maze of vehicles and debris, until we were on the open road again. Behind us came a swarm of the infected, wailing as they staggered onwards.
I reached the car and fumbled for the keys. I dropped them twice, my hands were shaking so much, before I took a deep breath and told myself to get it together. That did it. As the crowd approached us I opened the door and leaned across to let Pancho in. Then, even as they were grabbing for the bonnet of the car, I was reversing back along the motorway. When I finally stopped and looked up, I could see thousands more, following that first few hundred as they came for me. I like to tell myself that my actions that day probably saved some poor soul who was hiding in his car, but all I was thinking about at that very moment was self-preservation.
But, as I congratulated myself about how I had extricated myself from such a perilous situation, a new danger suddenly appeared. Another swarm, several hundred strong, were falling down the embankment on my side of the motorway, spilling onto the road.
I put my foot onto the floor and accelerated as fast as I could. Still more appeared further down the road. I was never going to make it. There were, literally, thousands of them. And more were appearing every second.
That was when I decided to take a massive risk. I weighed up the chances of making it through the swarm as it increased and began to cover the road in front of me. If I hit even one of them it might write off the car, hitting dozens of them would ultimately lead to me crashing. It wasn’t an option. Then, by pure luck, I saw my chance.
As I sped along the road I noticed that part of the central reservation barrier was damaged. It might have been from a previous accident. Who cared? It was probably a lot weaker than it would have otherwise been. I screeched to a halt as the road in front of me filled with the infected, then reversed back a few metres. Pancho seemed to sense what was happening and jumped into the foot well. Clever boy, I thought. I had no idea if my plan would work.
I turned the car around and headed back towards the main swarm. There were even more of them now. There were so many that you couldn’t see the tarmac any longer. I pulled the car out in an arc and aimed it for the damaged part of the barrier.
I must have been doing about sixty miles an hour when I hit it. I just remember praying that it would give way without too mu
ch persuasion. My prayers were granted. I smashed through it, metal protesting as it met the barrier, wheels screeching as I landed on the opposing carriageway and me shouting at the top of my voice like a deranged lunatic. I was free.
I had the whole motorway to myself again and I roared past the wailing corpses on the other side, as they tried to negotiate the barriers and fell in heaps. I was on the wrong side of the road, but it didn’t matter. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be meeting any more traffic for quite some time.
Xiaofan Li
14:18 hours, Saturday 16th May, Soho, Central London
I was in almost complete panic. I was in this tiny room with only one exit, with several infected coming up the stairs towards me. I searched for an answer to the problem. I could barricade the door and hope they left, but I had seen others attempts to hold the infected off like that and they almost always ended in failure. I could try to shoot my way out, but I had no idea how many others were out there and how many the noise would attract.
Eventually I stood with my foot against the bottom of the door, preventing them from getting in. I was at a loss about what else to do.
By the time I had been there like that for two hours I realised that they weren’t going to leave. I think they could sense something wasn’t right. I’m not saying that they knew I was in there. If they had worked that out they would have gone into one of those frenzies and nothing would have stopped them from getting at me. I think they were just confused.
Escape through the skylight seemed to be the only way out. I had examined it as best I could from where I was standing, but I still wasn’t sure that it wouldn’t be too small, even for my petite frame.
Eventually I realised that I would have to do something. They weren’t about to leave and I couldn’t stand there forever. I had to be constructive and I decided to buy myself as much time as I could.
Having made the decision, I checked that the handgun was ready. I then opened the door. I swear to this day there was a look of surprise on the face of the first one. I aimed the gun at him and fired three shots. I think all of them hit him. He fell back at least and the weight of him caused a domino effect on the others as they tumbled backwards and down the stairs, landing in a heap.
I fired another couple of rounds at the mass of bodies, before I realised I was wasting ammunition and closed the door. I shoved one of the desks against it and piled as much other stuff on top, hoping it would hold out for long enough for me to clamber out of the tiny window. Then I dragged the other desk to the centre of the room and climbed onto it. I still couldn’t reach the skylight.
I jumped down and grabbed one of the chairs. I could hear footsteps on the stairs again, loud and fearsome. They were back on their feet and coming for me. Quickly, I put the chair on top of the desk and got onto it. I stood there for a moment, getting my balance, then reached up and undid the latch on the skylight.
I pushed it open and drank in some of the fresh air. I had no idea where it would lead but anywhere was better that that place at that moment. Shoving my rucksack through the opening, I grasped hold of the lip of the window and hauled myself upwards, praying that I would fit through the gap, just as the first hands began appearing through between the door and the frame.
The infected were in a fury, desperately trying to get to me and as I pulled myself through the narrow space, the door finally gave way and they poured through it in a tide of rage.
There must have been about ten of them. I didn’t know if there were more on the stairs, but they filled that tiny room. Hands reached up towards me and the last face I remembered seeing, was the guy I had shot. He had three neat bullet holes in the centre of his chest. And there he was, still moving and snarling, as thick blood oozed from the wounds. I closed the window on them, leaving them to the room. It was theirs now.
Once I gathered my bearings the first thing I wanted to do was to get off the roof and away from that club. I wanted to find somewhere safe so that I could rest.
I found that I had an easy jump, down to a lower part of the roof. Once on it I worked my way around the edges until I found a drainpipe. It looked to be in good order. One of the things I had learned on the street, was that you always checked things like that before getting on them.
I used to sleep in doorways and alleys, but they were dangerous places. You always ran the risk of being robbed by some drug addict. Some of them would have stabbed you for the shoes on your feet. So, quite early in my homeless career, I had taken to sleeping on rooftops. I got the idea from a friend. He swore by it and told me all the rules of the game. So long as you were out of sight of people in the flats, you were pretty safe. You were always gone before it was properly light in the morning, you never went back to the same place two nights running and you always made sure of safety first.
It was a shame my friend hadn’t taken his own advice. A rotting drainpipe saw his demise at the age of just twenty-nine as he fell thirty feet to his death. That shook me up pretty bad, but it had also made me very careful.
So I gave it a good shake first, to make sure it was secure. Once I was happy with it I threw my rucksack into the alley below. Extra weight could make all the difference. Then, with all the skill of a cat, I clambered down the pipe, landing in the narrow lane moments later.
I grabbed my rucksack and headed to the end. Once I was sure that the way was clear, I stepped out and kept to the lee of the buildings. Very soon I was far enough away to allow myself to sit down and relax for a few minutes. I took out another slice of pizza and chomped on it until I had figured out what to do next.
My plan was to head north, away from the city centre, but by the time I had walked another two streets I knew that was going to be impossible. They were full of infected. There were far too many roaming around. It was going to be impossible. I cut back towards the east but ended up with the same problem. They were everywhere.
I found a safe place near one of the theatres just off Shaftesbury Avenue and suddenly realised I was almost back where I had started. And where this had all started. I began to wonder if I was safer here than anywhere else. Perhaps the infected had spread out from there and had vacated the area. It was as good a possibility as any.
I decided to head right back into the thick of it. I had heard a news broadcast about the bus crash near Covent Garden. Most of the people on the news were making assumptions that this was where it had all started. I walked down the deserted streets and found myself at the end of Long Acre. The name of the street jogged my memory and I walked down it until I saw what I was looking for.
Everywhere I looked there were bodies. Hundreds of them. Men, women and children. There had been something awful that had happened there. Some smoke was still rising from the shops where the bus had crashed and there were hundreds of vehicles abandoned in the street.
It was an alarming scene. I had witnessed quite a bit in the last couple of days, but this was the epicentre of the whole disaster. This was our ground zero.
I didn’t want to go too close to the bus. Who knew what was lurking there? It wasn’t certain what had caused the outbreak in the first place. There might be some contagion still active in the wreck.
I kept back and watched the area for a bit. It was deadly quiet. Not a soul on the street. I was about to move and look for a decent safe place to settle down for the night, when I heard a noise. It wasn’t the sort of sound I associated with the infected. It sounded like it was being made by someone who was still living. There was a subtle difference. I crouched down in a doorway, keeping out of sight as much as I could.
There it was again. The sound. It was coming from the opposite side of the street, as far as I could tell. Muffled voices? I peered around the doorway of the shop but still couldn’t see anything. Then, from behind a vehicle, I saw the first one. It was a black man, aged about twenty. He was carrying something in his hand – a weapon of some description. His mouth was covered with a handkerchief which was tied behind his head and he was talkin
g.
Another male appeared now. A white man, in his early twenties. He also had his mouth covered. He was carrying some sort of improvised weapon. It looked like it was a home-made spear. They stopped every now and then, checking vehicles and bodies. They were scavengers, I guessed.
I decided to remain where I was. To run would have been to give away my position and I didn’t know what their intentions were. I was quite happy being on my own. I was used to it after all. I was content to allow them to pass by and get on with whatever it was they were doing. Nevertheless, my hand reached inside my belt and rested on the handgun. It would be my last resort.
The two continued down the street, never once looking in my direction, and disappeared around the next corner. I decided that was my cue to move. I sneaked out from the doorway and crept down the street, hugging the shop fronts as I went, thinking I had been careful. I hadn’t. Behind the first two came another four. Damn it, I thought, the first two were scouts. They were leading the way for a larger group.
I ducked down again, behind a car, as the group approached. I felt more fear now, even more than I did when facing the infected. At least I knew the intentions of the dead. All they wanted to do was to kill me and eat me. This group was an unknown entity.
I checked inside the car. It was empty. I tried the door and found it was unlocked. Silently I opened it and crawled inside the back, lying on the seats. I could hear them now. They were close. I stole a glance through the window.
There were three men and a woman, all armed with a variety of weapons. The woman was about nineteen or twenty and was dressed in a pair of denim shorts and a fleece. She was carrying a small axe and a knife. The men were a mix of ages and all carried an array of frightening looking weapons, ranging from a double handed axe to improvised cudgels and sharp implements. These people were ready for anything and I imagined that they had already seen quite a bit of action against the infected.
The Z Infection Page 18