by Sean Deville
Vorne had been up in the watchtower and had witnessed the infected reach the wall in multiple places. All across his line of sight, uncountable numbers of murderous infected were charging towards his position. They kept space between each other, to limit the impact of explosive ordinance and to reduce the effectiveness of machine gun fire. Smart, he thought, too fucking damn smart. Vorne had also witnessed his captain’s will almost break. He’d seen it happen before in combat, and he did now what he’d done then. Grainger had looked at him, ashen-faced, and expressed the notion that he felt a bit like General Gordon just before the Mahdist forces broke the siege of Khartoum.
“Sir, General Gordon was a nonce. You aren’t,” had been Vorne’s curt reply. “Now with all due respect, sir, do your fucking job.” That had been enough to break the captain out of the funk he had been hurtling towards. At least for now.
Looking down at the defenders, he saw some of them retreat from the wall. He could see that they were still firing, but it wouldn’t take much for their nerve to break and for this whole section to crumble.
“Fuck this shit,” he said to nobody in particular. Shouldering his weapon, he launched himself down the ladder to the ground below.
It took three minutes to reach the defenders, grabbing as many men in reserve as he could, almost dragging them with him at times. Just as he stopped to start issuing orders, he had to dodge wildly as something came hurtling towards him. A human head landed at his feet, launched over the wall from the other side. My God, they were using their own dead as biological weapons. Something else he had to look out for. This was fucking insane. Ripping the radio mike from its Velcro strap on his shoulder, he relayed an urgent request for men to plug the leak developing in the wall. And make sure they bring riot shields, he told the person at the other end of the radio.
He would have ideally liked to use fire, but much of the barrier was made of wood so that was out of the question. Looking at where the infected were trying to break their way through, their demonic hands clawing at the battlements, he could see that they were making ingress, some trying to crawl through the gun ports, others trying to climb over. He saw one reaching the top, and he put three rounds through it, causing it to fall back onto its fellow infected below.
“Hold here,” he said to two soldiers he had dragged along with him. “None of these fuckers get through. The rest of you, with me.” The four other men followed him along the artificial path to the rear of a mini trench, staying behind the firing line. This was going to shit, a second line of infected already reaching the wall. Several metres off, he saw the two coppers he’d had words with earlier. They had seemed like good men, just needed guiding onto the path of being the killers he knew they were. He witnessed one fire his last round. He saw the other stagger backwards. He saw it all.
“Shit.” The four soldiers didn’t need to be told what to do, and Vorne surveyed the scene and realised this was all going to fall. It was all a matter of timing now.
Something smacked him hard on the left cheek and he felt the wetness there. Stan wiped his face. At first, with his black gloves, he couldn’t tell what it was, but then he saw the twitching hand at his feet and his world evaporated.
“No, no, no.” He panicked, and started clawing at his mouth and eyes. Throwing his gun to the ground, he ripped the canteen from his belt and poured the remaining water all over his face. Some of it got in his mouth, and he spat it out viciously. He felt sick to his stomach, felt the worst he had ever felt. That wasn’t the virus, that was just the realisation of what the virus was going to do to him. He looked at Brian, saw the pain in his friend’s eyes.
“Shit, am I infected? Have I got it?” Brian didn’t answer, even with the pleading eyes that his friend held him with. Finally, Brian nodded. Despite the water, there was still blood on his face. Looking past Brian, Stan saw Vorne watching, the sergeant’s gun now obviously a threat to him as well as the infected. Something happened in Stan’s mind and he picked up his machine gun.
“Chuck me some ammunition.” Brian blinked, not at first understanding what was being asked of him. But then it twigged and he turned and grabbed several magazines from the open boxes behind him, flinging them to his friend. Each one Stan caught and put in the various pockets and pouches about his person; the last one he put in the machine gun after ejecting an empty magazine.
“Ten minutes, huh?” Brian just nodded, tears now in his eyes. Vorne had stepped closer and Stan pointed a finger at him defiantly. “You fucking end me when I start turning, you hear me.” Vorne, who had been about to shoot the police officer, nodded his understanding. The Army sergeant’s gun lowered, and Stan with a roar, charged to the wall. Close up, he unleashed his gun point-blank at the faces and the arms that were trying to get through, now completely oblivious to the blood splatter that was a direct result of his actions. Clip after clip he emptied, one bullet sending arterial spray exploding all over him. He was dead already, he had nothing to lose.
Brian found the ability to fire his gun even though he was now numb to everything. He hardly even noticed the ominous figure of the sergeant next to him, and he fired round after round into the infected. Then his friend got a little too close to the wall, and one of the infected grabbed Stan with a clawing arm that pulled him into the barrier, his head hitting the wood hard. Brian knew what he had to do and he turned his gun, aiming it at the back of his best friend’s head. But his finger paused on the trigger, for only a second, but before he actually acted definitively, Stan’s head exploded, the body falling down lifeless. A hand landed on Brian’s shoulder and Vorne stepped up next to him. The sergeant had saved him the torment of an unthinkable task.
“Your friend died a hero. Don’t let it be for nothing.”
In his watchtower along the wall, Captain Grainger wasn’t witness to all of this. What he was witness to was the appearance of fresh infected at the edge of the kill zone. There were too many of them. He had no artillery, and no air support. Already, the ammunition for his men was close to being depleted. Just how many infected were there anyway?
The fact that it wasn’t just here but all across the defensive cordon told the story that he would rather not hear. He also knew there were infected in the town, having swum around to the rear of the defences. That meant the rear guard was occupied, the reserves fighting a battle that should have been fought here. In the heat of battle, the truth about Newquay had not been relayed. And it also meant that, because the walls weren’t built yet, the defences would be breached. What he didn’t know was that this had already happened. Positions 3 and 9 had seen ingress of the infected, and already the infection was spreading throughout them. They had all just run out of time.
14.55PM, 20th September 2015, The English Channel
In a few hours, they would be south of Plymouth. Croft had tried to contact Brussels, but for some reason, he couldn’t get through. Snow stood next to him, a look of concern on his face.
“I thought you could control satellites with that thing,” Snow said, referring to the high-tech satellite phone Croft was trying to use. Although it looked like any ordinary smart phone, it was anything but. When MI5 had still been operational, he’d been able to use it to get information from Mother. Mother had been the super computer at the heart of the UK intelligence infrastructure, but Mother didn’t exist anymore. Whilst it had escaped the bomb blast that had ripped out the front of the MI5 building, it hadn’t survived the nuclear blast that had decimated London. Besides. To use it, he needed people to do the legwork for him. Even MI5 weren’t stupid enough to allow access to Mother from a portable external device.
But the phone still allowed him secure channels throughout NATO, or at least certain parts of it. Except, as of now, it wasn’t connecting to anyone, and he didn’t know why. He’d even tried contacting the British defenders in Newquay, again to no avail. With very few options left, he did the only thing he could do. He just kept trying in the hope that the situation would change. Savage had just told him moments befor
e that she could still pull data from the secure servers of NATO, where the research on the virus was stored. But she had also found that attempts to communicate went with a total lack of response.
Putting the phone aside, Croft used the ship’s radio to try and tune into anything being broadcast. There was nothing on the usual English channels, not even the BBC emergency broadcast. Eventually, he found something that wasn’t just static, a French radio channel. Croft didn’t speak French, but Snow did.
“That’s Radio France. They are talking about the evacuation of the northern part of the country. Sounds all very orderly and dignified,” Snow said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
“Keep trying to find something,” Croft said, standing up. “I’m going up top to see if I can have any better luck with this,” he said picking up the phone again. “If I don’t get someone soon, it might just end up in the sea.”
15.01PM GMT, 20th September 2015, Beaumont, Texas
Nobody witnessed the transformation. The Jihadist, feeling unwell, had walked past those who looked at him with suspicious eyes and had entered the bathroom that was joined to the detention facility. As much as he hated his detention, it was clear that this was no Supermax prison or black site. It was here merely to keep him out of the population, and at his earliest chance, the Jihadist knew he could escape from such a place. He was mistaken in that belief.
The fever hit him whilst he was sat on the toilet, and the Jihadist converted quickly, turning from human to monster in less than a minute. There was no more religion in him now, no God to follow. There would be no prayers, and no dreams of the Land of Milk and Honey. Now the hunger was all there was, and as he staggered from the cubicle, blood dripping from every orifice, including his eyes, a small part of who he had been noticed that his eyes were pure white except for the tiny black dots at their centre. Unlike the UK virus, this bleached the iris. It gave him a ghoulish look.
The alleged former Jihadist exploded from the bathroom, and before anyone could react, he had already leapt on his first victim who was lying on a bunk closest. The woman was woken with a start to find this inhuman thing on top of her, blood dripping from its mouth all over her face. She screamed, but the newly converted infected was already off her and had grabbed someone who, lying on the next bunk, had tried to flee. The blood-covered hand had made that idea obsolete.
Andrew James watched with growing horror as the scene unfolded, and he ran to the dormitory doors where an intercom existed. He pressed it insistently, mindful that the remaining survivors were now crowding around him.
“Yes,” the bored voice on the intercom said.
“You need to let us out, we have an infected here.”
“Don’t talk bullshit.”
“I’m serious…”
“Fuck off or I’ll make you wish…shit.” It was obvious that the guard he had been talking to had decided to look at his surveillance monitor. The guy had probably been half asleep. James looked behind him and saw that the Jihadist was almost upon them.
“Let me the fuck out of here,” he screamed into the intercom, but his voice was almost drowned out by the wailing of those around him. The door didn’t open, the guard rightly choosing containment over rescue as the prudent choice. The warm wetness that suddenly hit the back of his neck ending the discussion. Instead of attacking them individually, the Jihadist had simply vomited all over the group of ten people. Its job done, the infected stopped and simply sat down on the floor. Despite knowing that they were already doomed, the ten fled to the other end of the room. The Jihadist, the thing the majority of them had feared most of their lives, completely ignored them, and each gave it a wide berth. Except James. Wiping the vomit off the back of his neck, he walked over to the nearest bed and grabbed a towel that somebody had handily left there. He calmly dried himself and sighed deeply.
He could hear the sobs of those who he shared this last resting place with. It was at that moment he admitted to himself he had made a mistake. He should have sold out. Years ago, he’d been offered a deal to work for the globalists. They would pay him millions every year, and he would tone down his message, whilst also making it more obscure.
“We want you to talk less about Operation Northwoods and more about the Shape Shifting Space Lizards.” He had angrily declined their generous offer, which he could see had genuinely surprised those who had approached him. They still thought everyone could be bought, still thought his exposure of their corruption could be silenced by the almighty dollar. But where had that gotten him? Nearly divorced and heavily in debt. He could have had the life, could have lived the illusion, given his kids something better. Instead, he had vowed to fight on, and now he was here, infected in an escape-proof room. So escape-proof that, in the days that followed, when he and the others died of starvation and resurrected, their walking corpses would clamour and claw at the only exit for decades to come.
15.03PM, 20th September 2015, Defensive Position 5, Cornwall
There is no survival without hope. Stripped of everyone he once knew, Brian staggered through the small copse of trees, all purpose but one now gone. He didn’t even remember how he got here. Behind him, the sounds of battle echoed through the sky, and just under that sound, he thought he could hear the laughter of the gods.
Upon seeing the death of his last true friend, Brian’s mind had simply shut down. There had been no tears, he had merely stared blank faced at the corpse as the machine gun he had been holding slipped through his fingers. Despite the bustle around him, he hadn’t moved for several minutes, his body close to losing consciousness as the weight of all that happened crashed down upon him. All the people he had lost, all the people he would never see again. Stan had been his friend, but there had been others. With his parents dead and no one he could call a lover, he had been fortunate compared to some. But even so, it was too much for his mind to bear.
Then he had been moving, staggering away from the wall, past secondary defensive positions, past the tents and the supply crates, past people who he didn’t see. Virtually nobody paid him any mind, too wrapped up in their own survival. And now he was here, surrounded by nature, an oasis of calm in a desert of death. Where was he going?
Brian stopped and, sitting down on an old fallen tree, held his head in his hands. The tears came then, huge sobs that wracked his body and stripped the very breath from his lungs. This world held nothing but pain for him now; there was no other path open to him but the one he knew he now needed to take. With shaking hands, he removed the pistol from its holster and held it before him, suddenly amazed at how dirty his hands were. Chest heaving, he examined the weapon, saw its intricacies and its potential. Here was the end of agony, the end of struggle. It would be so easy to just hold it in his mouth and pull the trigger. Just one squeeze and a brief destruction that would last a fraction of a second. Then he would be gone, free from a world that no longer wanted to have humans on it. Free from memory, free from responsibility, free from ruin and the world’s end. He sat like that for several minutes, making what could be the final decision of his life.
His breathing came back under his control and the visible anguish subsided. But it went inside, and his innards burned with the fire of failure and desolation. He could still hear the war, but it seemed distant, as if he was no longer a part of it. It wasn’t, and within his line of sight, he saw half a dozen soldiers run past the small wooded area. He watched them move with his peripheral vision because his eyes never left the gun. All that mattered now was the gun. It was his world because it was his means to end it. Freedom.
The copse had been a lot bigger once, but many of the trees had been felled for the wall leaving this small area of seclusion. It was almost as if it had been left purposefully for him. The tears ran again, blurring his vision once more, but he didn’t wipe them away. Snot dripped from his nose and he resisted the temptation to do anything about it. Brian moved the gun in his hand, rotating it over. He didn’t know why he was hesitating; he had already d
ecided what he was going to do. In one sweeping action, he moved the gun so that the end of the barrel was in his mouth, pointing up to the palate. His right thumb wormed its way into the trigger guard, and without hesitation, he squeezed down hard on the trigger. There was a click, but his existence didn’t end. He’d left the safety on. He’d sat there looking at the damned thing for God only knew how long, and he’d left the fucking safety on. That was easily corrected, life toying with him one last time.
Nobody even heard the shot that was just one of thousands. Brian’s body fell off the log and onto the ground where it lay there lifeless. Hours later, a trio of infected would find it and, revelling in their good fortune, they would begin to dine on his already-rotting carcass. At least he found the oblivion he had craved in the last moments of his life. He was granted that much.
15.23PM GMT, 20th September 2015, New York City, New York
Although there was no way of recording it, the Saudi prince had been the first infected in New York City to undergo the change. However, within ten minutes, forty-seven others had suffered the same fate, their positions spread all across the city. Fifteen did so in places where their attempts to spread the disease were halted by law enforcement officers. Another had fallen down a concrete flight of steps just as the convulsions had hit, breaking his neck and making him a useless host. That still left thirty-one infected situated all across the city. From Manhattan, to Queens, to the Bronx, their rampage began and their rampage still continued. Because this virus was now different to the dormant strain that had spread across the world. Upon converting someone to infected status, the virus changed, becoming infectious to all. No longer would it be passed from person to person as passively as the common cold. Now it took everyone.
Now unleashed, it became so virulent that three minutes was generally all it took for the infection to take hold in a human host. Within hours, over fifteen thousand people were lost to it. One infected contaminating fifty-seven people in a single attack on a subway station. A second slipped onto a bus, infecting everybody on board as she leapt and pawed at the hapless commuters. The flailing fists meant to ward her off only drew blood which increased her rate of transmission, making it easier for her to infect.