‘Take a pew,’ I said. ‘I’ll rustle up some breakfast.’
I went through a door and into the kitchen. My confidence in Pancho’s abilities were growing all the time and, since he was lying by Laura’s feet, obviously relaxed, I felt that way too.
I checked in the cupboard and fridges and found enough food to feed a small army. Before long I was hard at work and a delicious smell of coffee, bacon, sausage, eggs and fried tomatoes was drifting through the door towards Laura and Pancho.
When it was ready I dished up. Pancho got his very own breakfast of sausages and eggs, which he demolished with his usual speed, while Laura and I ate at a more leisurely pace.
When we had finished she started to clear the table.
‘I wouldn’t bother,’ I said. ‘Even if we stayed here for a month there are enough dishes to last us without having to do any washing up.’
She sat down again. ‘Habit, I suppose,’ she said.
‘What are your plans now?’ I asked.
‘Scotland seems like a good bet,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think a car is going to get through. How about we pool our resources?’
‘What resources?’ I asked.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘I can fly and I have a plane. You have Pancho, who can sniff out the infected, or so you say. You can also cook a pretty good breakfast. So why don’t we fly north. It’s quicker, safer. No infected up there.’ She pointed to the sky.
It was a good idea. But the aircraft looked very small.
‘Will we manage to fit everything into it?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I travelled light, so there’s plenty room. But I suggest we take only what we need.’
We shook hands and smiled at one another.
‘Right,’ she said, all business. ‘You unpack your car and put everything you need into the aircraft. I’ll have a look to see if there’s any fuel. We’ve got enough to get quite far, but the extra weight will eat into it and I’d rather have a full tank.’
‘Take Pancho with you,’ I said. ‘He’ll warn you if there’s a problem.’
She set of with the dog. He was happy to go with her and the two of them wandered around the buildings, checking each in turn. Meanwhile I emptied the car of all that was useful and loaded it into the plane. I was surprised by how much I could fit in, once I had worked out the best configuration, and there was still plenty room left when I was finished.
I went back to the restaurant and rummaged around in the kitchen. There were decent knives, all sorts of pots and pans, as well as the food in the fridges. I found a couple of cool boxes and stuffed as much into them as I could, then I went back and loaded that onto the plane, along with the other things.
When I was finished I sat down on the grass. Laura and Pancho were back with me a few minutes later.
‘I found a fuel tank on the edge of the field,’ she said. ‘The problem is that it’s locked and I can’t get into it.’
‘Where would the keys be kept?’ I asked.
‘No idea,’ she said. ‘They would probably be in an office, maybe in a safe.’
‘How far will we get with the fuel we have?’ I asked.
‘The tank was full when I took off, so it should last for about another six to seven hundred miles.’
‘That’ll do me,’ I said.
‘I did find these in a hangar,’ she said, producing several maps. ‘They show all the airfields in the UK. Once we get airborne we can have a proper look at them and make a decision about how far we will go.’
We were as ready as we could be. I took a look around the airfield for the last time. It was so quiet and peaceful I could have stayed there all day. But I knew we had to move. Laura climbed into the pilot’s seat and I lifted Pancho up and put him in the back.
As I climbed aboard, Pancho suddenly gave his low throaty growl. I looked out across the field but couldn’t see a thing.
Laura laughed. ‘Maybe he’s not as good as you first thought.’
I grunted and pulled over the seat belt as Laura started the engines. Moments later we were taxiing down the runway, before lifting off and climbing into the blue sky.
‘Take one turn around the airfield before you head north,’ I shouted to her, over the noise of the engine.
She shrugged and banked the aircraft, indulging my wish, and as we passed over the main airport building I tapped her shoulder and pointed below. On the fields, heading towards where we had been just moments before, was a swarm of infected. There must have been ten thousand of them, walking together like some hellish army. An army of the undead. It was a chilling sight.
‘Not as good as I thought?’ I said.
She didn’t reply. She just smiled and turned north and headed for Scotland.
Xioafan Li
11:02 hours, Sunday 17th May, Central London
That first night in the flat with Claire was the first time I had slept in a real bed, with proper sheets and a duvet, for many weeks. I was warm, clean and well fed, all at the same time for the first time in months. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me. It had taken a cataclysmic world event, where most people were suffering like they never had before, to see me in the best position I had been in for a long time.
The next morning I didn’t get up until late. I could hear gunfire from somewhere to the north of the city. It didn’t last long and there had only been a few shots. I hoped whoever it was had managed to kill a few of the infected. Every one that was wiped out was one less that would bother me.
I made myself a coffee and sat out on the roof garden, enjoying the warm morning sun. I was still there, half an hour later, when Claire finally surfaced and came to join me.
‘My head hurts,’ she said.
I was confused at first, then realised she was hung over. We had finished off three bottles of wine between us, while we had soaked in the hot tub. I didn’t get hangovers any more. My body had built up a fair tolerance to alcohol over in the last couple of years.
‘There are some pain killers in the kitchen drawer,’ I said. ‘Or you could go down the black coffee route. I made a pot earlier.’
She disappeared into the apartment and came back a minute later with a mug in her hand.
‘I miss Starbucks already,’ she said.
I smiled. Coffee was a luxury I didn’t often get. Sometimes I would be able to beg a few pennies to buy a cheap one from a café. Occasionally one of the café owners would take pity on me and give me one if they saw me on the street. One of my favourite places was near the Houses of Parliament. It was a basic little place which did the most fantastic breakfasts you could imagine. A lot of politicians went in there. The woman who owned it was so nice. Quite often she would take pity on me and give me something to eat, especially if it was a really cold day.
‘What shall we do today?’ asked Claire. ‘We could go to Harrods or Harvey Nicks, then grab lunch at a nice bistro if you fancy.’
Her humour was completely lost on me.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Not the best joke, but I am feeling pretty rough.’
‘Actually,’ I said. ‘Maybe we should go shopping.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘There must be things we don’t have,’ I said. ‘The garden is well stocked, but we could maybe get some more seeds and compost. And I’m sure there must be things we don’t have in the kitchen.’
‘That wasn’t really the sort of shopping I was thinking about,’ said Claire. ‘But, I suppose you’re right. Just give me a bit of time to recover. And I need to call Rupert.’
‘Who’s Rupert,’ I asked.
‘My boss.’
I had to laugh. The whole world was on its knees and she was talking about work. There probably wasn’t a single business in the city that was still functioning.
‘What do you do?’ I asked.
‘I report for the Evening Standard,’ I said.
That made sense. Only a reporter would try to keep going, when everyone else was thinking about number one.<
br />
She got up and went back indoors. A short time later I could hear a conversation. It only lasted about ten minutes.
‘He’s still at the offices,’ she said. ‘Over at Kensington. He was trapped there when this all kicked off. He’s the only one in the building. Says he’s running low on food and water and might have to go out to find some.’
‘Good luck to him,’ I said. ‘I don’t fancy his chances.’
‘We are about to do the same,’ said Claire.
‘Yeah, but there’s two of us,’ I said. ‘And we have a gun.’
We got dressed and prepared ourselves mentally for what we were about to do. I was fine. I was used to the streets and dodging danger. Claire wasn’t as streetwise and I worried about her. Still, I thought, two pairs of eyes and ears are far better than one and she was going to have to learn sometime.
I checked on Claire’s laptop, looking for nearby stores where we could get all the things we needed, noting down their locations on a notepad.
When we were as ready as we could be, we set off down the stairs. At the bottom we suddenly realised we had a real problem. Claire didn’t have a fob for getting back through the doors. We discussed the snag and realised we had a choice. Either one of us went alone or we both went and left one of the doors ajar, so we could get back in when we returned.
Claire suggested the latter, but to leave by the rear entrance. We went to it and I opened the door. Outside was a communal garden area, overgrown with weeds and leading onto a car park. There was nobody about. I told Claire to stay inside while I did a double check. It didn’t take long and I returned with a thin piece of wood. Placing it on the floor, between the door and the frame, we were able to close it without it locking us out.
With that accomplished we set off through the back yard and car park and towards the street, taking our time as we picked our way past the occasional body.
In the distance we could hear gunfire once again. This time it was more sustained and it seemed to be getting closer.
Chapter Thirteen
Callum MacPherson
11:15 hours, Sunday 17th May, Buckingham Palace, London
When I got back to the room where I had left my men, I realised that their attempts to hold back the infected would ultimately fail. Despite having killed scores of them, they just kept coming. It was ceaseless. Every time one was killed, more took its place. They pulled at the bodies, moving them out of the way so they could get to us.
‘It’s hopeless,’ said one the men. ‘We can’t stop them.’
‘Back out and lock the doors,’ I said.
We retreated from the room as more and more of them began to appear, pushing and pulling their way through the piles of dead. We fired one final volley of shots before we got out and secured it. We could hear the noise inside, building as the room filled with the infected and they began to hammer at the door.
‘Upstairs,’ I said. ‘The civilians and the rest of the men are up on the second floor. Get them to the roof and call in to headquarters. Tell them we are finished here and we need evacuation as soon as possible.’
I stayed behind with one of the others, a young man of about eighteen. We held that door in place, unable to lock it from our side, until we were sure we couldn’t manage any longer. When it was obvious we were going to have to let go, I looked at him and saw the fear in his face.
‘On my count,’ I said. ‘One, two, three.’
We let go and ran back several metres. The door gave way under the weight from the pounding on the other side and I dropped to one knee and fired as the lad retreated further. Then he covered me as I fell back and so on, until we were back at the stairs, a trail of bodies left in our wake.
We ran up the stairs, stopping to fire every now and again, killing a few every time but never really making any impact on their overall superiority in numbers.
At the second floor we were joined by another half dozen soldiers and several civilians. We fired volleys of automatic gunfire into the massing horde as it seemed to grow in size by the second.
‘We can’t allow them onto this level,’ I said. ‘We must stop them here.’
Some of the civilians were armed with other weapons. Ceremonial pikes and other mediaeval weapons, which had been removed from the walls, were used to great effect as they stabbed and sliced at the infected.
But we were hopelessly outnumbered. We were only about a hundred and fifty. They were a thousand times that number, perhaps more. Soon we began to take casualties too. An infected woman grabbed one of the civilians by the arm and pulled him into the crowd. We tried in vain to rescue him as they tore at him, but it was pointless. Once someone was in their clutches it was all over.
We continued the fight, keeping the mass at bay. We were running low on ammunition and we were tiring, whereas our enemy didn’t have ammunition to run out of and didn’t feel exhaustion.
We suffered more and more casualties as the fight went on, until I realised we had to rest and ordered a retreat to the top floor.
We ran up the last flight of stairs and I found Kim there, sheltering with Ellie and some of the others.
‘There’s a way up to the roof,’ she said, pointing to a door.
I opened it and found a small, narrow flight of steps.
‘Get up there,’ I said. ‘We’ll cover you.’
She ushered the rest of the civilians, mostly the younger and older ones and those who were unable to fight, up the stairs, while I reorganised what I had left of my command.
‘This is it,’ I said as the first of the infected appeared on our level. ‘This is where we hold them or die. Not one more step back.’
There were some shouts and roars of support and then all hell broke loose as the infected made contact with us. The front rank, mainly soldiers, fired the last of their ammunition, while the civilians launched a desperate attack with their assortment of weapons, thrusting them into the crowd, cutting, slashing, decapitating in some cases.
It was a bloodbath. The infected lost many, which they replaced immediately. We lost dozens, which we could not replace. It was over and I knew it.
As the last of my men fell around me, fighting to the death against the dead, I ordered a retreat to the roof. We backed away from the horde and up the narrow stairs. Here, I thought, might be our final chance of holding them off.
As the dead advanced we cut them down with accurate fire. The bodies quickly piled up in the stairwell, making it harder for the ones behind to break through. We kept that up until they seemed to give up and we were able to relax a little.
I ordered an ammo count. It didn’t take long. We didn’t have much left at all. I only had a handful of my original command left. The civilian numbers had also been depleted, by about at least a half and many of those still alive were not able to fight.
I organised what I had left into four groups of ten. Each group would take a turn defending the stairwell, while the others rested.
It worked a treat. The infected couldn’t get up the stairs in large enough numbers to overpower us and we were able to pick them off. Our advantage was that they couldn’t work out another strategy. They just attacked and kept attacking. There was no other way for them.
We defended that roof all night and most of the morning. Every so often the infected would give up, only to work themselves into a frenzy and try again. It was endless, but at least we could rest and rotate our people.
Then, just after eleven o’ clock Kim grabbed my arm. I was at the mouth of the stairwell, conducting the defence at the time.
‘There are helicopters coming,’ she said.
I could barely hear her over the racket of the battle.
‘Helicopters,’ she shouted. ‘They’re here to rescue us.’
Dr Richard Bryson
12:30 hours, Sunday 17th May, Windsor Racecourse, Windsor
I was resting on the deck of the boat, while Taff was cleaning his rifle and Tony had a nap. Shaky had taken over the watch from Si,
who was now sitting at the front of the boat, his legs dangling over the side.
We had been promised a helicopter would come and pick us up in under an hour. That had been over a day ago and there was still no sign.
‘Are you sure they know where we are?’ I asked.
‘I told them we were at the racecourse,’ said Taff. ‘It’s not difficult to spot from the air and we’re not far away. They must have had something more important to do.’
My mind was full of uncertainty. What if they had decided not to send it? Maybe they had come to the conclusion they didn’t need us, or the information we had. They could have got the same facts from a hundred other sources. Fuel must be scarce too. They would want to keep it in case it was needed for something more pressing.
But what was more pressing than this? We now knew that the infected weren’t alive any more. They were still infected with whatever disease they had. The virus controlled them and pushed them on, using their bodies as vehicles, but in reality they were already dead.
My mind drifted to how we were going to combat this plague. I couldn’t be sure of the numbers affected by the virus, but it looked like it was a large part of the population. Did that mean that some people were immune to it? Every person I had seen, who had been bitten by an infected person, had either died or become infected. There didn’t seem to be any exceptions. The virus killed. End of discussion.
But so many had been infected, so quickly, over the entire country, that it was hard to accept that it had been spread by bites alone. It had moved too fast for that.
My thoughts were interrupted by a noise, as Shaky came running back towards us at a crouch.
‘Car,’ he said.
‘Si,’ called Taff. ‘Go with Shaky and monitor it.’
The two men ran off together and Taff gave Tony a kick on the sole of his foot to wake him.
‘Car,’ he said. ‘Get the boat prepped for a quick exit, just in case.’
He finished reassembling his weapon and I clambered up to the wheelhouse and gazed out across the racecourse. There was a car. It was in the distance, moving at speed. Suddenly my eyes saw something else.
The Z Infection Page 24