by Sean Deville
Brian sat up on his bunk and ran his hands through his hair. He smelt of his own stink, but shower facilities were few and far between here. And he wasn’t sure he cared anymore. Bad body odour was probably the least of his worries right now, the risk of getting a disapproving look or a disparaging comment meaningless with death at their very door. Standing up, he took a step over to Stan’s bunk and kicked it several times.
“What? Who?” Stan shouted with a start.
“Get the fuck up, lazy. We’ve got duty.” Stan’s head disappeared underneath the covers, and Brian kicked the bunk again.
“Just five more minutes.”
“That sergeant said breakfast was at 730 sharp. Do you want to turn up late for him?” The covers were flung back and Stan’s head appeared again.
“Fuck no. He scared the shit out of me.”
“Well, let’s get dressed and get moving.” Brian sat back down on his bunk and began to put his boots on. He had slept fully clothed. And for the first time in years, he didn’t bother to shave.
“Did you sleep mate?” Stan asked, concern evident in his voice.
“Of course I didn’t.”
When they had arrived here with a group of other “volunteers,” they were led aside with two others, both in police uniform like them, both armed. All the others had been civilians.
“At least we won’t be building the wall,” one of the other officers had said. They had followed an Army private who led them to a dugout built just behind a section of the wall, which in their part was made from wood and sheets of steel. An imposing man stood before them, the stripes on his arm indicating he was a sergeant. What was more telling was the look in his eyes. The man looked like he had fought a thousand battles, and won every one of them.
“I am Colour Sergeant Vorne,” the man had half-roared at them. “You have been assigned to defend this patch of earth, and you will defend it unless myself or an officer tells you otherwise.” The four police officers gave each other nervous glances, but nobody objected. Behind Vorne in the dugout, three soldiers completely ignored everything that was going on this side of the wall. “You will rotate in 12-hour shifts. You will not be late for your shifts or you will find me reaming out your arsehole, a pastime that gives me no end of pleasure. If you are on shift, meals will be brought to you here; other times you will be served at the canteen which is back behind the line. The private here will show you your tents and where the essentials are. The gallant men you see behind me will tell you what is expected of you.” Vorne stepped forward. “Which of you has already killed any infected?” Both Stan and Brian raised their hands; the other two officers just stood there blankly.
“Looks like we’ve got a couple of killers here, Sergeant,” the private mocked, instantly regretting his words. He was not known to Vorne, being from another regiment.
“Did I ask for your opinion, Private?” Vorne scowled.
“No, Sergeant, sorry, Sergeant.”
“You two, tell me how you got here.” Stan and Brian looked at each other, and shrugging, Stan told of their retreat from London. He left out the part about Simone.
“Outstanding,” Vorne said. For a second, he almost cracked a smile.
07.52 AM, 19th September 2015, The White Cliffs of Dover, Dover
The sky was clear enough that he could see across to Calais. Owen had never been to France; in fact, the only foreign country he had ever visited had been Ireland, and that had been when he was so young he barely remembered it. And yet now he was taking an army across the Channel to invade the world. There was a small problem though.
How? How was he going to get there? He couldn’t just see the French coast. He could see ships off on the horizon, undoubtedly enforcing the quarantine. He knew nothing about boats and he certainly wasn’t going to swim it.
“Can you feel them?” Fabrice asked. Fabrice was referring to the infected that were swimming south, as well as those who were already on French shores. It wasn’t just Normandy where the infected were landing, it was all along the French coast.
“Just. It’s very faint. But there’s something…”
“Yes?” Fabrice had been waiting for this, waiting for Owen to reveal that he felt the other mind too.
“There’s something else there. Like the minds of the infected, but different. It’s weak, but growing stronger.” Owen stepped back from the fixed binoculars he had been looking through. He looked at Fabrice. “What the hell am I feeling? Is it another one of us?”
“I don’t know,” said Fabrice, because he didn’t. He suspected, but he had no definitive evidence.
“Whatever it is, I don’t like it.” Owen rubbed the ache in his left temple. It had started a few hours ago and had persisted. Occasionally, there was a sharpness to it, but mainly it was a dull throbbing that reminded him of so many hangovers in the past. “You know, I’m not sure I want to go over there.” Fabrice was stunned by this.
“I thought you wanted greatness?” Fabrice stepped back from the younger man. There were no infected close by now; they were all running rampant through the streets of Dover on Owen’s command. He was letting them kill and feed, a murderous frenzy he had never before permitted on such a scale.
“I already have that,” said Owen defensively.
“Do you? Is this greatness?” Fabrice said casting his arm out around him. “If it is, I’m not impressed.” He knew he was taking a risk. Owen’s temper had been getting worse over the last several hours, and only an idiot would be ignorant to the fact that the guy was in pain. Something was happening to Number 4.
“Watch yourself, mate,” Owen warned. But Fabrice felt emboldened, because he had felt something else. She was coming. She was near.
08.14AM GMT, 19th September 2015, Moscow, Russia
There was no rest for her. Whilst she had been excited by her trip to the Middle East, she was glad to be home. Her working holiday had been glorious. Sun and sand with rich clients who often took her shopping, and to fine restaurants so dazzling was her beauty to them. Some of them didn’t even fuck her. But her trip had been ruined by the water that had poured upon her whilst servicing her wealthy client, but it hadn’t been her hotel, and the car had been warm when her driver had picked her up. That was why she always insisted on being paid first. Olga had wanted to stop the act that instant, water pouring from the bloody ceiling, but the grunting sweating man hadn’t even seemed to notice so enthralled was he with the feeling of his unimpressive dick in her pussy.
Men! They were so pathetic.
She had arrived back in Mother Russia yesterday, and already she was expected to work. The agency had clients for her, and whilst she was given a certain amount of freedom due to her popularity, the agency was the Mob, and you did what the Mob asked without question. That was how you stayed healthy and that was how you paid the bills. That was how you avoided ending up in the Volga with your throat slit, or relegated to a crack whore, shackled to a bed on a dirty mattress in a hovel somewhere with a dozen other women. Men liked her because she was stunning and she knew how to make every one of them feel like a king. And because of that she charged big and made the Mob a lot of money. As long as she behaved, she was assured they would look after their investment. And so far, they had.
Olga looked at herself in the mirror and sighed. This was not what she had dreamed her life would be of course. She was pretty, and she had hoped for a modelling career, or even to go to university, so that someday she could move to the west, to California where the sun shone and rich movie stars were there for her to somehow seduce. But life hadn’t worked that way, and it had insisted, in the shape of several large and mean tattooed Ukrainians, that she could better serve those who paid for her luxuries if she spent her free time lying on her back. Or her front, or whatever damned position the clients demanded of her. Still, she was high class, which meant she could insist on things like condoms and no hitting. Olga brought in good money, so she had a degree of protection. She was a valuable asset, which m
eant even the thugs who worked for her owner left her alone. Some girls were not so lucky.
Of course, that would only exist so long as her looks and her figure survived. That was why she stayed off the drugs, despite the utter hopelessness of her life on a day-to-day level. She didn’t drink either. She wanted THEM to have as little control over her as possible. She would fuck the men who booked her, take their money, and give her pimps their cut. She would play no games, and she would save up whatever was left and one day, one day she would be free.
Olga had already infected forty-seven people, two of them clients. She had spread the virus to most of her friends, her friends being other girls who worked for the “agency.” And now she was about to spread it to the forty-eighth person, an unassuming South Korean chap who, upon opening the hotel room door to her, had looked like he was about ready to have a stroke. The man was so nervous he either wouldn’t be able to get it up or he would blow his load within the first minute. Either suited her just fine, and wearing only her finest lingerie, she sauntered from the bathroom with an air of seduction that could melt an iceberg. Olga was how the virus first reached Moscow.
08.22 AM, 19th September, 2015, The White Cliffs of Dover, Dover
The screams of the infected in his mind could not be ignored. By now, most of their chatter was incomprehensible to him, their use of language now almost fully deteriorated. Something had distressed them, and really he had only ever seen this kind of reaction in them before. The undead were clearly here. Their agitation was putting an enormous strain on his ability to control them.
Owen had been sitting on a bench so he could look out over the English Channel, the seagulls high above him gliding on the wind. To his immediate right below the cliff edge, he could just see the still burning port of Dover, its infrastructure destroyed long before he had arrived.
He was alone for the first time in a long time. He needed this solitude, wanted to think, and had bluntly advised Fabrice to “Do one and leave me alone.” Fabrice had actually bowed like one of those ponces from the ITV period dramas his mum had liked to watch all those years ago. Arrogant cunt. Now he felt the man approaching again. What did he want now?
Looking to his right, he saw Fabrice walking up the path towards him, the smirk on his face evident even at this distance.
“I thought I told you to fuck off,” Owen shouted. He readied himself to hit Fabrice where is psychically hurt, but the lack of fear in the man held him off. What was this? Fabrice sat down next to him, looking out at the sea. For a moment, he didn’t say anything, the smile growing broader. Then he turned his head.
“She is here,” he said cryptically.
“Who is?”
“The third Horseman. Famine. Three is here.” Owen looked around, but couldn’t see anyone.
“Where do you get this Horseman shit from anyway?”
“From the Bible of course. The book of Revelations. It is God’s warning to the righteous.”
“Never read it,” Owen said dismissively. Owen only read books about war, World War II in particular. A casual observer would not have been surprised to learn that his favourite topic was the Holocaust, that unfortunate event in history that Owen would actually go to the library to read about. Not that he would have admitted it to his peers of course. The slaughter of millions had always fascinated him because he was a morbid, sick, and twisted son of a bitch.
Fabrice turned his body towards Owen. Owen suddenly felt uncomfortable by the guy’s blatant nakedness. He was far too close; it wasn’t right to have another man’s cock that close to you, not out in the open like this. Owen actually moved further away along the bench to make as much distance as he could.
“She is Number 3, she is Famine.”
“Why?”
“What?” Fabrice hadn’t expected that question.
“Why is she Famine? Who the hell decides this?”
“Well because God deems it thus, of course.”
“This is bullshit.” Owen didn’t like this. He didn’t want others pissing in his territory. He’s already had to abandon London and now this. This would not fly.
“Shh,” Fabrice suddenly said grabbing Owen’s arm, which made Owen almost physically recoil. Fabrice’s hand felt oily and clammy. “She’s here.” Before turning his head to see where his companion was now looking, Owen couldn’t help noticing the huge shit-eating grin Fabrice wore seemed even broader, as if it was splitting his face in half.
Rachel came meandering down the path that Fabrice had used moments before her, form pitiful to behold. She was alone, her movement purposeful but erratic. Occasionally, she stumbled on the small loose rocks that were mixed with the gravel, but Rachel never fell, always managing to right herself and carry on. She saw the two like her but not like her ahead and made her way shambolically towards them. The naked one stood. The other just sat there with a look of horror on his face. Neither of them fled which was good, and she stopped several metres from them, swaying as if caught in a strong wind.
“I am here,” she said through slurred speech.
“Welcome,” the one called Fabrice said. She knew his name, remembered now how he had called to her and how she had all but defied that call. Listening to him had not been the right thing to do. Something in her told her that he understood this. There was nothing in her mind that was concerned by his nakedness.
“What the fuck is this?” the younger man said, although she struggled to understand him. Fabrice said something to him that she didn’t hear.
“We go now,” she said. It had been an order not a request, but Rachel had no idea if it came across as such and she didn’t care. Fabrice nodded.
“Indeed,” Fabrice said. “It is not me that needs convincing, however.” Owen found the two of them staring at him. What the fuck was this?
“We go now,” Rachel said to Owen.
“Go? Go where?” Rachel didn’t speak, merely pointed. She raised her right hand and indicated across the channel. She stood like that gazing vacantly at Owen with her black eyes for what seemed like forever.
“Fuck that shit,” Owen said, and sat back on the bench crossing his arms. “I’m not going anywhere.” Rachel lowered her arm and took a step forward.
“We go now,” she commanded, her voice now raised. For the first time, Owen noticed that she only had one arm.
“Oh and how do you propose we do that?” he said. Rachel didn’t answer, just looked up at the raised ground behind him.
Where Owen sat was in a small alcove at the top of the cliff. Behind him, the cliff rose up further by about ten metres. As he turned to look where Rachel was now gazing, he saw them. They were shoulder to shoulder up there, hundreds of them, their movement almost in unison. They displayed the same erratic swaying Rachel did, and Owen just knew that there weren’t hundreds of them, but hundreds of thousands. He didn’t know how he knew that, but the knowledge was there, and for the first time since he discovered his power, he started to have real doubts.
“She can control them,” Fabrice said. “She can control the undead, all of them. She has no limits. Not like you.” Fabrice stood up and took a step back, knowing what was coming, relishing the fruition of God’s will. His will be done.
Owen didn’t realise the danger he was in until he found Rachel standing right next to him. He almost fell off the bench with surprise, and let out a yelp when her diseased and decayed hand grabbed him hard by the throat. With strength that defied the basic laws of physics, she lifted him up off the bench and brought his face close to hers, his struggles meaningless against her. The stench and the pressure on his throat made him gag.
“We go now,” she said. Close up, Owen saw the effects of the rot on her face. There were maggots in her mouth, and the skin was grey and beginning to sag. “You go now,” she said and began to squeeze on his neck. His arms flailed uselessly, and he called out in his mind to the infected to come to his aid, to protect him. But they ignored the call. On a deeper level, they knew what was happ
ening, and as basic as they were, they revelled in the fate of their tormentor. Owen felt as if his face was going to burst, the vice around his throat restricting all blood flow. He tried to breathe, but nothing passed.
“Please,” Owen tried to say, only for the word to be incoherent. He tried to claw at her hand, grabbing the skin of her forearm, only for that skin to slough off. Frantic, he started punching her, but his blows were weak, meaningless. How could you damage what was already dead? In his terror, he never once thought to strike at her psychically, not that it would have done any good.
It didn’t take long for his mind to go black, for all that he had ever been to disappear as the brain cells died from hypoxia. Even when his heart stopped beating and the impulses of his brain ceased, Rachel still held him, his feet dangling uselessly on the ground, her grip the only thing now keeping him from falling to the ground. Now she didn’t squeeze, merely held him almost lovingly. And she waited.
“His will be done,” Fabrice said under his breath.
After about a minute, Owen’s left leg twitched, then his right, and Rachel still held him. She held him for as long as it took as Owen, slowly succumbed to the next stage of the viral evolution. He opened his eyes, and they were black as coal.
“Mine now,” Rachel said, releasing her grasp. “All mine.” Owen, now undead, fell back onto the bench. With Rachel now in his mind, she could control the infected also…all of them. Now they had a mistress who was worthy of them. Now the war could begin.
09.29AM, 19th September 2015, Defensive Position 5, Cornwall, UK
Captain Grainger was the first one to spot them. Tired and resigned to what he saw as an inevitable fate, he still persisted in doing what the uniform demanded of him. Military history was filled with examples of seemingly defeated armies snatching victory from the jaws of annihilation. Perhaps history would write that about this encounter. Having faced them in the field though, he couldn’t see how they could stop the infected if they came in the numbers he was expecting.