by Sean Deville
“Christ,” he heard someone mutter, and the third helper re-emerged from behind the desk. She was covered in vomit, and the memory that had eluded Silver came back with full force.
Sudden onset headache
Bleeding from orifices
Projectile vomiting
Explosive diarrhoea
…all symptoms of the infection.
“Oh my God,” he heard someone shout.
14.08PM GMT, 20th September 2015, Berlin, Germany
The bus was packed with the maniacal sounds of primary school children. Ellard pulled up the red light and wished he was still lying in bed with his woman. Every day, he felt blessed that she had deemed him worthy of her affections, and every day, he found himself trying to figure out what the hell she saw in him. To him, she was a goddess, and he adored her, and doted on her with a level of worship some Gods would be jealous of. She had awoken him in her usual manner, and his groin still tingles with the delight of it. If only she could cure headaches. And if only those fucking kids would shut the hell up.
This wasn’t even his normal route. The kids were coming back from an excursion, and the man who was supposed to have driven the bus had phoned in sick. So he’d been moved off his bus onto this one, and it was his misfortune to be doing a chartered school run. Kids, what was the fascination with kids? Yes, they could be cute and charming, but they could also be fucked up and annoying as hell. He remembered only the other week when he was at his sister’s for dinner. She was having a bad time since her husband had left her for another woman, leaving her with a three year old that would give Satan a headache. There she’d been, spilling her soul to him, the gin and tonic on the table before her probably the only thing linking her to any form of sanity, and before his eyes that little pre-pubescent shit had walked over and just cast the drink off the table. That was the other thing Ellard loved about his wife: she had absolutely no desire to spawn any offspring. How on earth had he been so blessed?
He sneezed and violently. He’d felt this coming down for several days, and now here it was arriving like a freight train. There was a bastard forming behind his eyes and his nose had started streaming. He sneezed again, and several of the children at the front of the bus giggled. They were small and sweet, but they just needed to shut the fuck up. The three teachers with them just sat talking to themselves, almost ignoring the rampaging feral youth that had taken over his bus. Why not enforce some bloody discipline, he seethed to himself. The red light changed and the bus slowly moved forward. That was when one of the children screamed.
His view of what was happening was limited. He couldn’t concentrate on traffic and deal with distressed children, but he saw that one of the teachers had stood up to address the complaint. The noise level of the bus rose sharply, and he looked behind him in agitation. The smell hit him then, a smell familiar to most humans. Vomit and excrement.
“Oh for God’s sake,” he said under his breath, and opened the window to the side of him. There were more screams now, and he merged the bus into the central lane, knowing there was no chance he could pull over, not here. The two other teachers had stood up now, and he witnessed them from the corner of his eye head towards the back of the bus. There was another scream, but this was an adult, and he risked a glance behind him. He briefly saw something that he didn’t believe. One of the children, she must have been only seven, was riding on the back of one of the teacher’s shoulders, who was beating at the child with her fists. Bloody women, he thought, can I not trust them to do anything? How difficult could it be to discipline a seven year old? Ellard knew he had no choice, he had to pull the bus over, and with the torment of the damned in his ear, he moved the bus over to the side of the road, hazard lights indicating the urgency doping nothing to stop the blaring of fellow motorists. With the bus at a standstill, he ripped off his seat belt and was almost knocked back into his seat by one of the teachers who had fled towards him.
“Open the doors. For God’s sake, open the doors,” she begged.
14.09PM GMT, 20th September 2015, Washington DC, USA
“They tell you that it was for the greater good,” she shouted through the microphone. Before her, thousands of people had gathered in the park, ready to protest against the latest atrocity committed by the Rodney administration. She was surprised at the numbers, surprised that they had been able to get the word out so effectively. There were restrictions on the use of social media now, postings showing any kind of opposition to the government just disappeared with no warning. And repeated postings caused accounts to become suspended even deleted. She herself had out of the blue received a warning on one social media site that she could not post for two weeks. No reason, no explanation, just arbitrary censorship. There was also talk of people going missing, of raids in the middle of the night. By being here, she knew she could end up being relocated. That’s what the government called it when. Relocation.
But they couldn’t take us all, she thought. And this was her country, it was her rights she was fighting for. Because without those rights, what was the point? The more people who stood up to the growing oppression instead of cowering on their knees, the more united they were, the stronger the resistance would become. People had rights, God damn it, and she wasn’t about to sit around and let those rights be trampled on. This was America, not Nazi Germany. And those rights carried obligations, the obligation to fight the tyranny when it reared its ugly head.
What most people weren’t aware of was the hard-core underground community that thrived in America’s largest cities. When social media became banned, activists just retreated to the Deep Web, the internet most people couldn’t even see, never mind access. The websites were covert, hidden from plain view. And failing that, there were a series of dead drops across the city, USB data sticks cemented into walls and posts, away from the elements in discrete public places, where people could leave and retrieve encrypted information. The next revolution would be an information war like no other before it, or so people thought. But they were wrong. The next revolution had already started, and it was a revolution against a species, not a government.
“They tell you it is for your own protection. That the barricades and the checkpoints and the detentions are a temporary measure. But I am here to tell you they lie.” There was a cheer from the crowd. On the peripheries, she could see soldiers and police. There was no permission for this protests, its spontaneity a surprise to those who enforced the president’s curfews and oppression. So even now, trucks were unloading uniformed officers and soldiers. Word was that the transport system was being suspended for a radius of several blocks. People would have to get here on foot or by bike, if they could get here at all now. The only defence this group had from what everyone suspected was coming was numbers. The more of them there were, the less chance of detentions and arrests.
“There is a time when you have to stand up for what you believe in. When you have to accept that the state is broken, that it is corrupt, that it is the very evil our fathers and grandfathers fought and died to protect us against. There comes a time when the crushing boot of tyranny can no longer be accepted. That time is now. Let them hear you. Let them hear what you think of them.” The roar grew louder. Shit, there must be fifteen thousand people out there.
She hadn’t organised this. But she was a part of it, part of the growing truth movement that could see the truth behind the veneer that was painted across the media and society. Whilst Great Britain was being nuked, the news channels told stories of such benign unimportance you’d think the infection had never started. And whilst internet truth sites disappeared from the net, the Deep Web was aflame with the passion of outrage and protest. So they had gathered, brought together by hidden message boards and word of mouth, brought together by a desire to have their voices heard, to stand for what was right. And in doing so, they would threaten to destroy the very city most of them lived in. Because amongst them the infection spawned.
She never saw it, the crowd to
o big, but in the centre a man collapsed, those around him trying in vain to retreat from the vomit that hurled from his mouth, their voices of distress drowned out by the cacophony of the crowd. She saw the ripple though, saw the surge of the crowd as their shock turned to panic. Because when he rose from the ground, his eyes white, his mouth foaming and teeth bared, he attacked all those around him with a ferocity that could not be resisted. Before anyone could even think of subduing him, he had bitten fifteen people, and infected forty others. Some in the crowd understood what had happened. Others stood cheering in complete oblivion as his victims, men, women, and children, wormed their ways through the crowd’s ranks, infecting more as the tightly knit assembly acted as the perfect environment for the virus to spread. Five minutes after the man’s conversion, a thousand people were infected, some of them already converting.
She wasn’t the speaker now, someone else was. Already, she could see the police trying to move in. But those on the fringes of the crowd didn’t understand. They didn’t see the danger within their ranks, didn’t know of the drones overhead relaying the devastation to law enforcement who watched in horror at what was happening. Stoke up with rage, engorged by fury, the police were repelled with violence and insults.
“We will march now,” the voice of the microphone said, seemingly oblivious to the disintegration of the gathering. “And let them try to stop us with their guns and their tear gas and their tanks. We are the people and we demand that our voice is heard.” The crowd would march, that was a certainty, but it wouldn’t be humans marching.
14.10PM GMT, 20th September 2015, Berlaymont EU Commission building, Brussels, Belgium
By the time the vomiting stopped, he was no longer human. He cared not about the stench and the ruined carpet his forehead rested on. All he cared about was the yearning and the molten core that rested in his stomach. He sensed he was the only one of his kind in the building, and knew he had to act with stealth. For there were men with guns here, and he was a lone warrior destined to bring the fight to the heart of the corrupt humans.
Carl pushed himself off the floor with an agility and a strength that defied his appearance. He caught sight of himself in the mirror that adorned the liquor cabinet he used when dignitaries arrived in his modern office. Carl stepped closer, suddenly curious about the entity he saw in the reflection, the once dashing hair now dishevelled and the eyes a fearsome red. Was this him? Was this what he had now become?
And then the mirror was forgotten and he was opening the door to his office. His secretary had her back to him, her headphones from the dictation she was performing explaining how she had not been the discoverer of his evident transformation. Wiping a hand across his shirt, he scooped up a smear of vomit, and carefully standing behind her, he smeared his hand across the back of her naked neck. Something shot into his thoughts, about how he had once so often desired to do that, but for another reason. She screamed in shock and pushed herself away as far as the wheeled chair would let her, his hand breaking contact. He smiled and walked past her, safe in the knowledge that there were more victims for him to infect.
Stepping out into the corridor, he saw several figures walking away from him. In his former life, he would have known them, but now he knew them in the new way, and launched himself at the one in the idle. After a frantic run of several paces, he speared the man and brought him down to the ground, the two other figures displaying their shock. Their squeals and misfortune delighted him and he went with speed instead of hunger, already resentful at the commands that were being forced into his diseased mind. And yet he could do nothing to resist those commands, because it was nature itself, and he licked the down man’s naked hands before leaping up and turning on the woman that had been walking to his left. She backed up into the wall, and this one he bit, the blood coursing into his mouth, over his gums, and he felt ecstasy course through him. But still, he was pulled from his delight, and went after the third person who was now already running. He caught her at the fire door and took her nose.
Her sobs were already forgotten as he flung himself down the fire stairs to the floor below, emerging in an open-plan area filled with fresh carcasses that were his for the taking. It took seven minutes before armed police were on the scene and ended his brief existence, but by then, the first of those he attacked were already turning. He directly infected twenty-seven people, and within thirty minutes, there were hundreds more either turning or turned, taking a large swathe of the EU bureaucratic structure with it.
14.11PM GMT, 20th September 2015, The White House, Washington, DC, USA
He heard the helicopters, their sound familiar to him now. Standing up from his desk, he looked out of the iconic blast-proof windows. For a brief moment, he saw Marine 1 as it flew overhead, its presence a surprise to him as there was nothing on his schedule saying he was due to leave the White House. Then another sound hit his ears. A shot? My God, was that a shot? His answer came to him when the door to the Oval Office burst open and several Secret Service agents bundled in. They caught him standing there, gawping at them.
“Mr. President, you need to come with us.” Rodney didn’t have time to ask questions. Two agents were already coming round the infamous table to guide him to where they wanted him. His secretary stood in the doorway looking at them. Her face was ashen.
“What’s going on, Bob?” Rodney asked.
“We have a Code 99 in the building, a suspected infected. We are being moved to a secure location.” Any more talk became impossible, and within seconds, the president was bundled from the room, a human shield forming around him. His journey from the building was one of controlled panic, and for the first time, he saw just what it meant to be protected by the Secret Service. He had no say in this, forced outside to where the helicopters and their pilots anxiously waited. Even if he had objected, it was unlikely anyone would have listened. Not today. Speed was the critical factor here, and this was something the defenders of POTUS had practiced tirelessly. There were two other helicopters on the south lawn, and from Rodney standing up to stepping his right foot on the helicopter step, less than two minutes had passed.
He seated himself down and put on the headset given to him. Two Secret Service agents got in the helicopter with him, the last one closing the door. Looking out towards the building, he saw his family being led out, followed by his chief of staff. US Marines were everywhere, and they had their guns drawn, pointing them at the White House. The helicopter began to rise. Why were they pointing their guns at the White House?
“Mr. President,” the voice came over the headset, “this is Tucker.”
“Jason, what the hell’s going on?” he said to the head of the FBI.
“DC police spotted violence in the protest demonstration downtown. It went unnoticed by officers on the ground, but overhead surveillance recorded everything. Paramedics who were on scene found they were faced with numerous bite victims.” Rodney’s stomach lurched as Marine 1 did its random climb into the skies above America’s capital. “The National Guard is trying to corner off the area, but we know for a fact that several of those bitten fled the scene. It’s started, sir.” The head of his protection detail cut in.
“Mr. Tucker, this is Sanders Secret Service. We’ve had an incident, possible infected at the White House. We are evacuating to Andrews.”
“Mr. President,” the FBI head said. “We are getting reports all across the country. New York, Washington, Dallas. The infection is hitting us, and it’s hitting us hard.”
“But how can this be? I was assured we were safe.” Rodney said the words to himself more than to anyone else. How could he have been so wrong?
14.12PM GMT, 20th September 2015, NATO Headquarters, Brussels
“I’m not sure we can authorise that, Sir Nicholas.”
“All I ask is you continue the aerial support of the UK stronghold.” General Marston had always known there was a disparity in the so-called “Special Relationship” between the UK and USA, and now he was seein
g it first-hand. This wasn’t a partnership; it never had been. It was a marriage of convenience, and now it seemed they were heading to divorce. The UK had been useful in the global partnership, but the UK now no longer existed.
“The president feels that, with the threat posed to the European Mainland, he wants US troops back on US soil. It’s out of my hands. And I have to admit I can understand his assessment.” To give him credit, General Bradstone did look and sound genuinely embarrassed by the situation. “The feeling is that the limits of what can be achieved by conventional means has been reached.”
“Hence your president ordering five of my country’s cities to be nuked.” Marston, sat across the antique oak desk from the Commander of NATO, put up a conciliatory hand. “I actually agree that was the right thing to do. It was just done too late as we have seen.”
“Nonetheless, I have, however, been given authority to accede to your other request. All serving UK military personnel outside the quarantine zone will be given sanctuary in the United States of America. There will even be an opportunity to join our armed forces should they want it Also most of those rescued under your operation NOAH have already been shipped to America.” Well of course they have, thought Marston. Britain’s best and brightest. Why let any other country grab the cream of the crop?
“So long as we agree to hand over the territories you’ve demanded.”
“Of course. It’s going to happen, Nicholas, so you might as well agree to it willingly.”
Down the corridor from this conversation, a member of the Afghan translation desk was undergoing a transformation. He was a big man, muscular being an understatement. Feeling unwell, he had nipped into the gentlemen’s toilets, and sitting on the stall, felt his world erupt from his backside. The force of the defecation had been so explosive, so traumatic that the translator had actually passed out, toppling forward and smashing his face onto the tiled floor as he fell off the lavatory. Because of this, his last moments as a human being were spent in peaceful oblivion rather than pain and confusion. When the eyes finally re-opened, they were blood red. The now monster picked himself up from the floor and ripped open the stall door.