by Sean Deville
“You sent for me, sir?”
“Yes, Captain. You contained the outbreak then?” The general, who was also seated, opened a drawer and pulled out two cigars. When the one he offered the captain was declined, he put it back in the drawer.
“Close one that. As you know, one of the refugees brought it in.”
“Yes, I’ve read your report. And it troubles me.” Hudson didn’t say anything, he just waited for the general to speak again. “If dogs can be infected, then what other animals can carry the virus?”
“The doctors are working on that now. There are plenty of farm animals and household pets in the vicinity. They should make better progress once Captain Savage has returned. She’s the expert in all this.”
“So I hear.” Mansfield lit the cigar and inhaled deeply.
“If I may say so, you don’t seem convinced, General.” Hudson had heard the rumours about the general too. The man was a complete misogynist. Which meant he was a dinosaur, a relic of a time no longer relevant. And he was in charge…at least for now.
“I don’t know the woman. When she finally gets back from her little soiree, I’m sure I can count on you to see she is put to good use.” Mansfield had taken an instant dislike to Savage. He still believed there was a very limited place for women in the military, and the woman was clearly acting above her station.
“I will see she gets everything she needs. It’s a shame a helicopter couldn’t be spared to pick her and Major Croft up.”
“Resources are scarce,” Mansfield said, seeming to ignore the subtle criticism. “As I’m sure you understand.” The conversation dried up and the two men looked at each other.
“General…why did you ask me here? All of this could have been done over the radio.”
“Yes, yes it could. And I have a question for you.” Mansfield took another deep inhale. “You have faced the infected, you have killed them and seen what they are capable of.” It was a statement rather than a question.
“Yes, sir, I have.”
“And as one of our finest fighting men, I therefore need your honest appraisal. I don’t want any bullshit and I don’t want you to tell me what you think I want to hear. Tell me the truth now.”
“If I can, sir.”
“Tell me, Captain, do we have a chance of pulling this off?” Hudson looked at him, saw that the general did indeed want the truth.
“Not a chance in hell, sir.”
10.48AM, 18th September 2015, Brixton, London
Fabrice had finally persuaded Owen to move. Staying in the city was not a viable option he had told him, because sooner or later the forces quarantining the country would take it upon themselves to nuke the city they now stood in.
“My leader, Brother Abraham confided in me he had made plans to prevent NATO using its nuclear weapons to stop the spread of the infection, but we all knew that eventually the missiles would fly.” He had already disclosed to Owen his role in the outbreak, that he was part of the team that had spread the virus across the city. Owen hadn’t even blinked, and had actually thanked him for what he had done.
“They can’t nuke London,” Owen had objected.
“Why not?”
“Because…because it’s a huge city full of monuments and art. It’s important.”
“No, Owen, it is a relic, a reminder of a failed empire. Do you honestly think the President of the United States cares about a city nobody will ever be able to visit again?”
“But, but it’s mine.”
“Seriously, Owen, it belongs to nobody now. And you are right it is filled with art, with gold even, which is a threat to the world. Because sooner or later, somebody is going to get it into their thick skull to come here and take that art and that gold, breaching a quarantine that might not be so effective several weeks or months from now. No, they will nuke this city, and the other main cities in this country. They will do anything to stop the spread of your army because they will be desperate, and humanity does stupid things when desperation takes hold.” Fabrice had never heard a young man curse so viciously.
So now they moved south. Owen had been sullen at first, dejected. He’d had great dreams for his life with his new power, but as they moved away from central London, and as his army continued to grow, he finally started to see the potential of it. The United Kingdom was an island, with limited resources. With no means of production, eventually, the food and water would run out. Tins of beans only kept so long, and any day now, the electricity was going to fail. With nobody manning the power stations, Fabrice was amazed it hadn’t happened already. Owen had already witnessed brown outs the night before, the street lights in whole areas dark. Without the utilities that mankind depended on, cities soon became death traps.
As he walked, his harem and his praetorians close at hand, a new image formed in Owen’s mind. A grand plan to cross the channel, to sweep across Europe like Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes. He had learnt about that at school, in one of the lessons he had actually gone to. The stories of how the Mongols had killed millions with spears and arrows had fascinated him, but not as much as the tales of the rape and the pillage. That was some serious history shit right there.
But his visions and his imagination did not change the very real fact that was dawning on him. He was bored, and whereas in the past he had alcohol and a selection of narcotics to take him to alternative planes of reality, his new body that was so blessed seemed immune to the effects of the drugs he had once so craved. They had been his escape route, and now they did nothing for him and his mind was not able to cope. Which meant he had only one means to escape his own mind, which whispered and plotted against him. Violence and the degradation of others.
“We need to stop,” Owen said. Fabrice who had been walking in front of him turned.
“Do you need rest?”
“No, I need fucking entertainment. All this walking is boring my bloody tits off. Plus my feet hurt.” Walking past Fabrice, he beckoned one of his soldiers over. “Take ten and find me humans. Bring them here but do not touch them or harm them. If you do, well, you will get to feed.”
“Feeed?” the infected almost begged.
“Yes, feed, you will fill your belly.” The infected didn’t need telling a second time, and it ran off down the street taking ten others with it.
“We don’t have time for this,” Fabrice implored.
“We’ll make time. Go if you want, we can catch you up.”
“No, I’ll stay.”
Elizabeth timidly looked out of the window at the street below. She took care so as not to be witnessed by the hundreds of naked infected that stalked between the abandoned cars. Why were all but one of them naked? From where she crouched, she could see that two of them seemed to be talking to each other. Did the infected talk? She thought they just killed.
The BBC had ceased broadcasting last night, so she had tuned into the foreign channels in search of information, the satellite dish attached to the property accessing much of the world. Those broadcasts had abruptly ended when she had switched off the TV on hearing the arrival of the hoard moments ago. They had not come quietly, and she had scuttled over to the window to witness what the noise was about. What she saw made her blood run cold.
This was not her apartment, it was her boyfriend’s. She had come here when the outbreak had started, to be close to the man she loved, who had promised to protect her. But yesterday the water supply to the flat had failed. The electricity was still on, and the gas, but without water, their time here would be limited. No showers, no toilet, and of course nothing to drink except a few beers in the fridge. So kissing her on the forehead, her boyfriend had left yesterday to scavenge in the shops down the road. Only he’d never come back. And now she was alone in her pyjamas, which was hardly the attire to survive the end of the world.
In desperation, she’d tried knocking on the doors of the two other apartments that shared this third floor, but nobody answered. There had been noise from one of the flats, but it co
uld have been a dog or a cat for all she knew. They should have filled the bath or something when the disaster struck, but she was a fucking English Literature student not a survivalist. She’d never received any kind of training in what to do when society broke down. How the hell was she supposed to know how to survive the bloody zombie apocalypse?
The now quiet TV had told her that the country was quarantined, and that most of the country’s major cities were now lost to the infection. It told her that there was resistance in Cornwall, that the last of the British armed forces were held up there, forming some kind of safe zone. That information was useless to her of course, as useless as the degree she was half way through completing. At least now she wouldn’t have to repay her student loans.
Down on the street about a dozen of the infected broke off from the main group and ran towards her building. One looked up at her window, and she sank down onto the floor, her heart literally exploding from her throat. She couldn’t breathe, the asthma coming thick and fast, and she crawled across the floor to where her purse lay on the sofa. Dragging it down to the floor, its contents spilled across the carpet, and she grabbed the inhaler and brought it to her lips. Two steady puffs helped bring the asthma under control. But they had seen her, she was sure of it. What was she going to do?
She dared to peek again, and saw no interest in her window from the rest of the group. But the ten or so naked infected could no longer be seen, and she dared to hope that they had merely gone off into the side streets. It was just as her hope grew that she heard the shouting from the apartment below. The guy downstairs was a belligerent old bastard who made a point whenever he could of showing his distaste for her relationship with Keith. The old fuck didn’t like that she was a white woman going out with a black man. He’d even accused her of diluting the race, to which she’d told him to fuck off. Keith just laughed it off and said the old fool was harmless, that he was probably lonely, in pain, and full of piss and vinegar from an unfulfilled life. Keith was like that; he was always willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt.
“Go away,” she thought she heard from below. Sound carried easily through the walls and ceilings, which was perhaps another reason why the old man was so objectionable. There was a momentary silence and then came the sound of something being forced open. Glass broke, and she heard the old man scream. Was that running she heard? Elizabeth was just about to retreat to the centre of the room when something solid banged hard on the apartment door. She didn’t scream, but bit down into her hand to keep the fear from escaping. The door was hit again, and again. She could see it from where she crouched, and she retreated away from the door into the corner of the room. The whole apartment seemed to shake, and then the wood of the door splintered and a fist came through it like it was made of paper. She screamed then, she screamed like blue murder.
The arms that came through the door tried to find the latch to unlock it, but it was a mortis lock, and the key wasn’t in it. So the arm withdrew, only to reappear to make the hole bigger. The door frame split at the top corner, and after three more crashes, the door just exploded inwards. A naked man, his arm bloodied and ruined entered, followed by a naked woman. Both looked at Elizabeth where she sat, her knees pulled up to her chest.
“Get away from me, get away,” she roared, tears making her eyes sting. She had never known such terror. The two figures, eyes blood red, moved quickly into the room and came towards her, both stopping about a metre away. They stayed together, and hissed at her. She clutched her inhaler so hard it dug painfully into her hand. Dragging herself up off the floor, she looked around for something to defend herself with, but there was nothing. The sofa was between her and the infected now, and they came around it together to her right. But that meant…
They had given her a way to escape, and she took it. She propelled herself off the wall and surged around the other side of the leather sofa that still had five hundred pounds left on it to pay off. She made the door before the infected could get her and almost fell into the corridor. She looked right and saw another naked figure stalking towards her. Elizabeth, now in a blind panic, had no choice, and she made for the main stairs that led down to ground level. She could hear shouts and looked behind her to see the infected hot on her heels.
She nearly fell on the stairs twice, losing her slippers in the process, but she kept her footing and made it to the deserted ground floor. The main door was open and undamaged. Why hadn’t anybody locked it? Then she heard the footsteps coming down the stair behind her and she ran out into the morning air, the pavement cold and unforgiving to her naked feet. What she witnessed made her stop running, because there was nowhere left to run. The infected were all around her, hundreds of them. She turned only to see those that had invaded her apartment stood in the doorway. Their heads flicked from side to side, twitching almost nervously. But none of them approached her.
“Oh, I like her.” Elizabeth turned to the voice, and saw a clothed man step through the crowd of infected that now encircled her and two other people from the apartment building. The old bastard was there, on his knees, snivelling. “You, bitch, what’s your name?” said the clothed man.
“What?” She was confused and disorientated. How could this guy be alive amongst all these infected?
“I said what’s your fucking name?” Owen stepped closer, ignoring the other two people.
“Elizabeth,” she managed to say.
“Elizabeth. I like that. Why don’t you get naked and show me what you’ve got.”
“You can’t…what?” What was happening here? Owen didn’t say anything, but just gestured at the old man on the floor. Two infected pounced on him within seconds. Elizabeth watched in horror as they tore into him with their teeth, his cries pitiful, his arms flailing uselessly to try and ward off the unstoppable attack. She hated the man, hated his stupid racist soul, but she wouldn’t wish this on him. This was not the fate anyone should be faced with.
“Stop. Why are you doing this? How are you doing this?”
“Want to know a secret?” Owen said as the man continued to howl and feebly try and fight off the attack. By now he’d lost an ear and two fingers. “I control all these. They are mine. Isn’t that right, Fabrice?” Owen turned to an infected behind him, who looked like he was cut from marble by Michelangelo himself.
“Don’t bring me into this, Owen. I do not approve of these actions.”
“He doesn’t approve,” Owen said dismissively. “Do you see what I have to deal with here?” The old man was now whimpering feebly, the fight gone from him, the two infected now too preoccupied with chewing to attack him afresh. Owen gestured again and five more pounced on the stricken man. Their eyes were filled with delight at the treats they were being allowed.
“No,” Elizabeth implored. The third resident of the apartments, a middle-aged woman, stood in abject fear, and Owen pointed at her. “Elizabeth, here’s the deal. I like to fuck with people, I always have. I like to mess with their minds, you know really worm my way in there and fuck everything up. And right now, you have two choices. You can get naked for me, now, right this instant, or I will have,” he turned his attention to the other woman. “Oy, what’s your name, you, old slapper?”
“Joyce,” the woman said through sobs.
“Well, that’s a fucking stupid name. Anyway,” Owen said turning his attention back to Elizabeth, “if you don’t get naked, I will have Joyce pinned down whilst a hundred of my infected rape her.” Owen stepped forward. “Is that what you want? Do you want that on your conscience?” Joyce started to wail, thrashing her head from side to side.
“No, Jesus,” and Elizabeth took another hit of her inhaler.
“Asthmatic, huh. That sucks. Anyway, I’ll give you till the count of three. One, two…”
“Fuck you,” Elizabeth roared.
“Yes, you may well do,” said Owen. He sighed disappointingly. “Okay, boys and girls, bitch doesn’t want to play, you might as well all eat your fill.” The inf
ected roared in delight and surged forward.
“WAIT,” came a voice of resigned terror. Fabrice watched in disgust as the woman Owen was tormenting began to strip off her clothes. The infected stopped in their attack, and he could feel the disappointment and the resentment in their collected mind. Owen was playing a dangerous game here. He felt a semblance of resistance form amongst them, but then it was quashed by a psychic blast from Owen. Fabrice actually saw some of the infected flinch, felt it himself to some degree. How long could he control them like this?
“Come on then, hurry up,” Own uttered, displaying his impatience. The pyjamas she stripped off easily, and she stood trying to hide her modesty as best she could.
“Oh yes, just as I thought.” The old man at her feet lurched and started to make gagging sounds. A huge fart erupted from him, and he groaned in pain. “You might want to step back a bit there, love,” Owen said, clearly amused. “I think he’s going to pop.” She took his advice, and watched in resigned horror as the racist neighbour began projectile vomiting into the street. His weakened immune system from a years’ worth of cancer treatment had let the virus get the upper hand far quicker than was normal. Joyce, for her part, just stood in disbelief.
“I like what I see Liz. I can call you Liz, right?” She didn’t respond, so Owen just shrugged. “Whatever. Here’s the deal, Liz. You will be joining my little gang here. Joyce here, well she’s just meat so I really don’t need her or the old fuck.” Owen flicked his fingers in the air, and a dozen infected moved forward quickly. They grabbed Joyce and dragged the still vomiting man off the ground, pulling them into the main body of the infected mass. There the crowd began to consume, even though the bigot was almost one of their own, howls of delight rising from their numbers. Fabrice felt their utter delight as they took it in turns to bite into the two hapless victims. Joyce’s harrowing wails echoed through the street as she was swamped and devoured by the pack. Owen started to speak, but the woman’s cries interrupted him.