The Z Infection

by Russell Burgess

  As they opened their eyes and began to take in their surroundings their eyes came to see what was around them. We were their food now.

  The leader gave a silent signal and both were finished off with a ruthlessness that I found hard to comprehend. Those people had been our friends a moment before. Now they were monsters, to be killed without mercy.

  ‘More will come,’ I said. ‘They will come in numbers which you won’t be able to defeat.’

  ‘We are all ready to die,’ said the leader. ‘Every one of us. Someone has to stand against them.’

  ‘I understand that,’ I said. ‘I’m not saying you shouldn’t fight, just don’t throw away your lives for no reason. There will be other fights you can win.’

  Another shout went up from the crowd. More dead. We looked to the edge of the park again. This time there were more of them. Several dozen appeared, followed by a few dozen more, then more. And more. And still more.

  I caught my breath. ‘There are hundreds of them,’ I whispered.

  There were a few despairing words from some of the group. The leader silenced them with a glower.

  ‘Anyone who doesn’t want to take part is free to leave,’ he said. ‘I choose to remain.’

  He turned back to face the increasing swarm. There was no way he could win against those numbers. He must have known it. But still he charged them swinging the club and slashing with the knife until he entered the mass of bodies. His followers paused, but only for a moment, before they too charged into the mass.

  They cut and slashed through the dead, cutting them down in droves at first, until the numbers began to tell on them. I began to hear screams, as the living tired and succumbed to the dead. It was brutality beyond imagination as, one by one, the group were picked off and killed. The last man standing was the leader. I saw him dragged to the ground by a withered hand and disappear under a mountain of bodies as they each seized their share of the meal.

  I turned to the handful who had chosen not to fight.

  ‘If you want to live, then I suggest you run.’

  Every one of them did, abandoning their weapons and fleeing for their lives as line upon line of the dead marched towards us.

  I was the last to leave the field. I had seen enough. The dead couldn’t be stopped like this, not in a face off. There were too many of them. But I had been given an idea by what I had seen and I was determined to try it out.

  Anna Hasker

  20:25 hours, Sunday 17th May, Loch Leven, Kinross-shire

  Once I had Mike on board with the plan, I knew it would be a winner. He was competent when he put his mind to a task, he just didn’t have a huge amount of confidence in his own abilities.

  There had been twenty-five of us on the island. With the arrival of Tom and Laura we had another two. We also had another advantage now. We had an aircraft.

  I laid out my plans for the future. If we were to survive there, we needed several things. Shelter and warmth was imperative. I had already talked Mike into the construction of homes and had left him to the finer details. There was enough dead wood on the island to last for a considerable time and we could make other plans when that started to run out.

  The other things we would need were weapons, food and water. We were surrounded by water, that wasn’t a problem and as long as we boiled it before use it should be okay. Weapons and food were a bigger problem. Without weapons we were vulnerable, but without food we would weaken quickly. But without weapons we would find it difficult to fight for the food we needed.

  It was Dave who came up with the solution. He knew the area quite well. There were numerous farmhouses in the area and every one of them, he assured me, would have a gun cabinet with at least a couple of weapons. Most farmers would have a shotgun and a rifle to deal with vermin. It was just a case of finding them.

  I made the suggestion that we get as many as we could and left Dave to work out the finer points of the enterprise. Food was my priority.

  I gathered ten of the fittest people we had and laid out my idea. We would row across to the mainland in the boat and divide into three groups. One group, of just two people, would create a diversion. They would make as much noise as they could, to draw as many of the infected away from the area we were going to operate in.

  Once it was clear, the rest of us would go in. A team of four would clear a house and allow the others to take whatever food we could find from it, while they moved to the house next door. We would concentrate on recovering dried and tinned food and anything else which wouldn’t go off. We would carry on like this until we had cleared an area. All the food would then be transported back to the island. It would be dangerous and it would rely on us avoiding contact with the infected as much as possible. Any that were found would be put down on the spot. The idea was that we would get enough food to last us, to give us time to concentrate on building houses and defences.

  Once we had all agreed that the plan was viable I asked for volunteers for each particular task. Mike said he would lead the strike team, as he called it. I think he was happier, now that the decision had been made. He selected the two older men and a young woman called Kate to assist him. I decided to take part as the leader of the scavenging group. Laura, our new found pilot, and two other women volunteered to help with that, while the two youngest men in the group would be the bait.

  It was settled. We would leave just before dawn.

  Dave had worked out his own plan. He had a rough idea of the farms that surrounded the loch and he had made a mental note of each of them. He was convinced that he would be able to visit at least ten of them in the time we were going to be in the town. He was well prepared, with two good sized rucksacks to carry his plunder in. He had also recruited Tom, one of our other new arrivals and his dog.

  ‘Tom says the dog can smell the infected,’ Dave said.

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘If that’s the case he’ll be an amazing asset to us.’

  We spent the night under the stars again. Lying there, looking up at the cosmos, it was hard to believe that much had changed. It hadn’t really, not in the great scheme of things. We were just another species facing extinction. I couldn’t help but think, if there were other life forms out there, in the Galaxy, would they miss us once we were gone?

  It was unlikely.

  Claire Samson

  06:45 hours, Monday 18th May, Central London

  I had a headache when I finally woke up. I had fallen asleep on the sofa, while the two men got steadily drunk on the bottle of whisky. When they had finished it one of them switched on the television. The Prime Minister had been on, only he wasn’t the Prime Minister, or hadn’t been. He had talked about the current situation and said that the infected were actually dead and there was no cure for them. It seemed crazy and the two of them argued drunkenly about it. They were still arguing when I fell asleep.

  When I opened my eyes I had to think for a moment. What had happened? I remembered I had gone downstairs to collect the last bag of compost for the roof garden. I had heard a noise outside and had pushed the door open, just a fraction, to investigate.

  The next thing I remembered was I had been punched in the face. It was all a blur after that. I remembered being dragged upstairs and through the door of the flat. It was all hazy, but it was coming back to me in bits and pieces.

  Now the two men were both asleep. I tried to move but my arms and legs were bound together. They must have trussed me up when I was asleep. I looked around the room. There was no sign of Xiaofan anywhere.

  I tried to roll onto one side, but it was hopeless. I must have stayed like that for another hour, before the leader woke up. He stretched and yawned and rubbed his head. He must have had a stinking hangover. I pretended I was asleep.

  He rose from the chair he had been sleeping in and kicked the other guy, Leo.

  ‘Get up you lazy fucker,’ he said.

  Leo rolled over and opened his eyes. He looked like shit. Assholes, I thought. The first opportunity they g
ot to have a decent sleep for days and they ruined it by getting hammered and sleeping in a chair. What a waste.

  The leader, I had to laugh at his title since there were now only two of them, walked through to the kitchen. I could hear him rummaging around for something, then the kettle went on and he made a coffee for himself.

  He came back through and switched on the TV. There was another news item about something that had happened in York, but I couldn’t hear it properly and he switched the channel, just as it got to the interesting bit.

  The other guy got up now. He wandered through to the bathroom and I heard him break wind as he relieved himself. Perfect house guests, I thought.

  I decided that I was going to have to communicate with them eventually and it would be easier on a one to one basis.

  ‘Where’s Xiaofan?’ I asked.

  The leader almost jumped out of his chair. Obviously he had been living on his nerves for days and the sudden sound of a voice had almost given him heart failure. He soon recovered though and was immediately back to his arrogant self.

  ‘She slept in one of the other rooms,’ he said with a sneer. ‘I got sick of the sight of her.’

  I strained to see the TV. ‘What’s happening outside?’

  ‘The dead have risen,’ he said theatrically, while waving his fingers in the air.

  ‘The dead?’

  ‘Apparently,’ he said, taking a slurp of the coffee.

  There was silence for a moment.

  ‘What do you plan to do with us?’ I asked.

  I was used to asking direct questions. It was my job.

  He shrugged. ‘Haven’t thought about that yet.’

  ‘You can’t leave us tied up like this all the time,’ I said.

  ‘Why not? Why can’t I?’

  ‘Because we’ll need to go to the bathroom eventually, for a start,’ I replied. ‘In fact I could do with going now.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll just untie you and put you out onto the street,’ he said.

  I realised he could be serious. He didn’t have any reason to keep us here after all. The two of them could sit out this problem for months if they were careful. Xiaofan and I had already worked out a plan that could have seen us through for years if need be. Somehow, I didn’t think these two were that bright.

  I was about to ask another question when I heard a noise. It was like something had knocked against the front door.

  ‘What was that?’ I asked.

  ‘How should I know?’ he said, then shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Leo, you better not be having your way with that pretty little China girl.’

  ‘Shut up,’ I said.

  I knew the sound hadn’t come from inside the flat. Someone, or something was at the door. I was too late though.

  ‘Don’t you tell me to shut…’

  He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. Suddenly there was an almighty ruckus. Unseen hands were clawing at the front door. We could hear low moans and the tell-tale groaning of the infected.

  ‘Shit,’ I said.

  He was off the chair in a flash, sending the coffee mug flying.

  ‘Leo,’ he called. ‘Infected.’

  The two of them were running around the flat, not knowing what to do. Panic had set in. Then I heard Xiaofan’s soothing voice.

  ‘Calm down,’ she was saying. ‘You’ll make them worse. Untie me and I’ll show you the secret way out.’

  I could hear a muffled conversation between the men now, then a frantic exchange. They were losing it. Right at the time when a cool head was all that was needed, those guys were cracking up.

  Thomas Buckle

  06:49 hours, Monday 18th May, Loch Leven, Kinross-shire

  I liked Dave. He was a nice kid. I say kid, he was probably in his early twenties. He just acted a lot younger. When he told me what the plan was, the first thing I thought was that it was dangerous. I had done exactly what he was proposing, searching through buildings, looking for something to eat or a place to sleep and it was a scary thing to do.

  I also knew, almost immediately, that I was going to have to help him. Laura had already decided that she was going to go with the main group to scavenge for food. I couldn’t sit around on my backside while she went to do that.

  Besides, I knew that Pancho would be able to sniff out any problems. Dave and I discussed it. He was as disbelieving as anyone else, about Pancho’s abilities, but I assured him he was quite able and he eventually, grudgingly took me at my word. We made a deal, that if Pancho decided it wasn’t safe, then we didn’t go in. We would bypass any farm and move on to the next one.

  When it was time to go, we were rowed across the loch to the mainland, to a point just beyond a golf course. The first farm was on the other side of the course, Dave assured me. We waved to our friends as they wished us luck and rowed back to the island. Our arrangement was that they would collect us on the southern side of the loch, later in the afternoon. It was going to be a long day.

  The first farm proved to be a good start. There was a big, main house, with several smaller houses for farm workers, scattered in the grounds. There were also several outbuildings which would have made it a dangerous place for two, if we hadn’t had Pancho’s nose. He sniffed around outside a couple of little cottages which sat on the side of the road.

  ‘These are clear,’ I said.

  Dave looked unsure, but I confidently pushed open the front door and walked in. Inside they were small. We searched through every room but couldn’t find anything in the first one. In the second one we found a note. It was scribbled on a piece of paper and was from a wife to her husband, telling him she couldn’t wait any longer and that she had been advised to head north, to Perth.

  ‘That was a mistake,’ said Dave. ‘Perth got it as bad as anywhere.’

  We searched the house thoroughly and eventually found the gun cabinet in a false attic wall.

  ‘A lot of them are well hidden,’ said Dave. ‘It used to be that you could keep a gun lying around, or in a glass display case, but you can’t do that nowadays. I knew a farmer once, who kept one in an old fridge.’

  The cabinet was locked. We tried for half an hour to open it, but it wouldn’t move. Eventually Dave found some tools in a shed and removed the entire thing from the supporting beam it was attached to.

  ‘I suggest we remove this to the edge of the loch and find a safe place for it,’ he said. ‘We can come back for it later and open it across on the island at our leisure.’

  We dumped it in the field across the road for the time being, while we searched the other houses. Some of the smaller ones had cabinets and again we had to remove them completely. It all took time. By mid-morning we had removed another three cabinets and dumped them in the field, but it was taking much longer than we had anticipated and we knew that Dave’s estimate, of getting round all the farms on his list, was way off the mark.

  Inside the main house it took us a while to locate the cabinet. It was in a tack room at the rear of the premises but when we saw it we knew we had struck gold.

  ‘Some of these landowners have a dozen guns or more,’ said Dave. ‘Sometimes they keep their employees weapons in there as well.’

  There was no way we would be able to carry this one, even if we could have removed it from the wall. It was huge and it would have weighed far too much. We were going to have to get inside it here.

  ‘We need the keys for this one,’ said Dave.

  We searched through various rooms. The keys could have been anywhere, I thought. Most people had a hiding place for them. Only they would know where the keys were kept. Not even a wife or trusted friend was supposed to know. It was all part of the security measures.

  I was on the point of giving up, when I found a door on the ground floor. I pushed the door open. It was a study, with walls of books and a desk in the middle. And there, in a chair, seated at his desk, was a man.

  He was dead. He had shot himself through the head with a rifle that he had placed on
the floor with the barrel under his chin. His brains and pieces of skull were spread across the wall behind him. I had seen worse.

  I checked the rifle. I had no idea what I was doing, never having used one before, so I called for Dave who came running.

  ‘Oh God,’ he said as he came into the room. ‘What a mess.’

  It had barely registered with me. I had seen so much, but then I realised that maybe Dave hadn’t been subjected to the horror on the same scale as I had.

  ‘He took a rifle out to kill himself,’ I said. ‘But he locked the cabinet afterwards.’

  Dave looked at me. ‘He still has the key on him, doesn’t he?’

  It seemed like a good possibility. Where else would he have put it? I approached the body and put my hand into his trouser pocket. Nothing.

  ‘Check the other side,’ I said to Dave.

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t.’

  I went round to the other side. That pocket was empty too. I moved the body to the side, to check his back pocket and part of the man’s jaw fell away from his head.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ said Dave. ‘I can’t do this.’

  He walked out of the room and I heard him being sick in the bathroom down the hallway. I didn’t have time to be sick. I knew that the guns in that cabinet could mean the difference between life and death for twenty-seven people. It had to be done.

  Finally I checked the man’s jacket pocket. It was a nice tweed one. Expensive, probably. And suddenly I had them. I felt the familiar feel and heard the jangle of a couple of small metal keys on a fob. I pulled them out. This had to be them.

  I ran downstairs, yelling at Dave that I had them. He followed me, no doubt glad to be far away from the scene in the study.

  In the tack room I tried the key in the lock. The sound, as the lock sprung open, was the most fulfilling I had heard in a long time. The door swung open and the two of us stood gawping at the array of weapons within.

  There were at least three shotguns. I counted six large calibre rifles, which would be used to shoot deer or vermin and another eight medium to small calibre weapons. All of them would be capable of killing. It was a veritable arsenal.