by Sean Deville
“Hangar 7,” Croft said. “There might still be a chance.” There was movement by the airport terminal building about three hundred metres away, a group of infected emerging. The infected quickly spotted the survivors and they screeched. Others appeared. Croft and his companions had been lucky so far, but it seemed the airport wasn’t as deserted as they had first thought or hoped. The buildings were obviously teeming with them. “What have we got to lose?”
“Hangars are that way.” Snow pointed. Savage looked at him doubtfully. “Fuck, it’s worth a try,” Snow insisted. He turned to Savage. “You ever driven one of these things before, Lucy?” Snow said, indicating the APC.
“Just you fucking watch me.”
It was a relatively short distance to the hangars, but it felt as if they were trying to get to the moon. By the time they had got the two APCs rolling again, the infected were swarming upon their position. Dozens had literally thrown themselves out of the buildings, hundreds more appearing by the airport perimeter wall, which was more a series of large holes than an effective barrier now. From all directions, the infected ran towards them. They were coming, and with them, they brought the certainty of death.
Croft and Snow, both manning the machine guns on top of their armoured vehicles, concentrated their fire on the closest targets, most of those being behind them. As the hangars loomed up ahead of them, Croft saw something that he had expected to see. Why not, everything else had gone wrong. There were infected amongst the hangars as well, charging towards them, trying to block off their retreat, gradually surrounding them. Croft and Snow swung their guns round, laying into the infected masses, chopping them up, heads and arms and bodies shredded by the bullets that were now more precious than any currency on the planet. It was only when Croft’s gun ran dry that he realised he was screaming.
“GUN,” he roared to Sterling in the cabin below, and he ripped the SA80 out of her hand as it was hastily passed to him, firing it at the coalescing masses that threatened them. Hangar 7. They had to find hangar 7.
Jack saw the bodies falling before them through the periscope, saw the hangars getting closer. He drove as best he could, following the APC driven by the female captain. The first of the hangars on the left got closer and he felt the APC tilt ever so slightly as it went over a mass of bodies that Snow and Croft had created. Jack tried not to think about that. And still the infected came.
“Stop here,” someone shouted, and he pulled up beside the other APC, following Snow’s instructions. The charred wreckage of three planes blocked the taxiway. No way could the APCs get past that, the surrounding geography meaning they could only proceed now on foot. This was it now, do or die.
“Move it,” he heard Snow command, and Jack ripped himself out of his seat, grabbing the closest machine gun on the way out, pushing open the back door, seeing the maddening crowd descending upon them from the rear. He heard their call and his blood ran cold. Thousands of them, too many to even try and count, their voice a cacophony in his ears. It was like looking into Hell itself. They were far enough away, they had time, they still had time. Jack kept telling himself that. He didn’t even bother trying to shoot any of them because it wouldn’t have mattered. A hundred could have died at his hands and it wouldn’t have made the slightest dent in their numbers.
Jack ran to the front of the APC, the rest of the survivors there. They moved together through the wreckage, their lives now hanging by the finest of threads, the infected gaining on them with every second that passed. He saw Croft shoot one that seemed to appear out of nowhere, then another. Sterling downed a third. And still the main bulk of their enemy closed from behind. A hundred metres, ninety, eighty. The hangars flew past them, each one numbered, number seven ridiculously elusive. Two of the structures had been destroyed, their roofs caved in, the walls crumbled and blackened
“There,” he heard Croft say, saw him point at an intact building at the end of the row, its main hangar door closed. They ran, because running was all they could do now. Jack looked behind him, saw the infected snapping at his heels.
Parked outside was a large helicopter set some ways back from the hangar entrance. He saw Sterling make for it. Being at the back of the group, nobody noticed her deviation from the plan until she was almost there.
“Sterling!” Croft shouted in alarm
“I can fly it,” the American shouted, reaching it, the others hesitating as to whether to follow, the infected ever closer. Jack saw her rip open the door at the side of the aircraft.
Sterling ran for the helicopter, a Super Puma that looked like it had seen better days. But it looked intact and it had NATO markings on it. Was this what had been sent to evacuate them? If so, where was the pilot? And would it have enough fuel?
She could do this. She could fucking do this. With the pistol in her right hand, the SA80 flung over her shoulder, she ran round, inspecting the exterior, didn’t see the blood on the interior of one of the windows. Sterling had no doubt that she could fly this thing, helicopters being the first craft she had ever flown. Let’s do this, she said to herself.
With her left hand, she pulled the door to the pilot’s cabin open. Her adrenaline was so high in her system, she almost didn’t notice the moisture on the handle. As the door flew open, she witnessed the carnage inside the cabin. It looked like a human body had exploded in there, blood coating the seats, body parts down in the footwell. It was almost unrecognisable as a human being, except for the face looking at her. That was the thing that drew her attention the most, the head that rested on the seat she had been hoping to sit in. With its face half-eaten, the jaws opened and closed uselessly, the undead brain intent on reaching her, even though there was no body attached to it. Even now, even in this state, it desired to feed. The only sound it made was a strange gristly noise as the jaw joints worked. She backed away, felt the others getting close. She looked at her hand, saw the blood coating it, knew what that meant.
“Keep back,” she screamed, thrusting the blood slick hand for them to see. She looked to her left, saw the infected coming for them. Savage stepped towards her, Croft holding the woman he loved more than his own life back. Their affection for each other oozed from every pore now; somebody had to help give them a chance.
“Go, for fuck’s sake.”
Snow watched as Sterling walked towards the infected, firing her gun into their ranks. Dropping the pistol, grabbing the other gun. He grabbed hold of Jack who seemed to be entranced by the whole scene and pulled on him. Jack’s legs moved. With Croft and Savage in tow, they ran for the hangar, their window of opportunity getting ever smaller. His gun dropped an infected that ran from behind the very building they were heading for. All around them were the screams of the damned. The thought that they might actually make it to the hangar popped into his head just at the very instance Jack, the black kid who he had hardly spoken a word to, tripped and fell.
There is a thing in the branch of human kinetics called the speed-accuracy trade-off. The faster you run for example, the less control you have over your feet as they land on the ground. So as cliché as it was, Jack still fell, tripping over something he didn’t even see. One second he was running faster than he had ever run before in his entire life, the next he was falling forwards, his hands coming up, the gun he was carrying flying off to the side. Jack barely managed to escape smashing his face on the cold tarmac, the skin on his arms getting grazed. Pushing himself up, he felt a hand grab him under his armpit, felt himself being pulled. He saw Croft and Savage pulling away, vital seconds in front. Getting to his feet, Snow by his side, he frantically looked around to see the infected almost upon them. The two men ran, shots almost deafening him, Snow laying down covering fire, his accuracy all off because they were running.
12.25PM, 21st September 2015, North of Paris, France
The virus within him did its best, but the radiation burned through his tissues, the cells dying faster than they could be repaired. The infected who had once gone by the name of David,
staggered through the streets, its body scarred and ravaged by the burns that covered almost ninety percent of its body. It wouldn’t be the radiation that would eventually kill it; it would be the trauma and the heat from the atomic blast.
Because inside it was also broken. The shockwave had sent its body flying, breaking ribs and cracking the pelvis. It was more than the virus could ever hope to deal with. As hardy as the infected were, they were far from indestructible. If it had been a mile further into the city, it would now be nothing more than a charred obliterated ruin. And still with all that, with the pain that ripped through it every time it breathed, every time it moved, the hunger persisted, demanded its attention. There was no denying what was at the centre of its world. Pain was nothing, the hunger was everything.
So even now, it was on the hunt for human flesh, in a landscape strewn with destruction and debris. Any humans still alive here would be hiding away, from both him and the fallout that had been raining down from the heavens. Once upon a time, it would have been able to smell them, but its nasal passages were totally seared. It couldn’t smell a damn thing. It was alone in a world that no longer wanted it here.
It stepped down off a lump of concrete it had climbed over, and there was an almighty crack from its right hip and its leg collapsed from under it. The fracture in its pelvis had finally given way, and it writhed on the floor, not understanding why it could no longer walk so devastating had the break become. It tried to crawl, but it suddenly found it couldn’t breathe either. The virus had failed it, had failed to prevent the deep vein thrombosis detaching, travelling up the blood stream to the lungs. If there was a doctor around, he would have diagnosed a pulmonary embolus. And in this ravaged city, there would be nothing the doctor could have done, even if he had wanted to.
It grasped at its neck, trying to get oxygen, the damaged skin coming away as its fingers clawed. The thing that had once been known as David died on that spot, finally succumbing to the injuries that it should have died from hours before. It did not take long for those eyes to open again, however, eyes now black as coal. The pain was gone, because all thought was gone. All that was left was the primal spark deep in the reptilian brain that would drive it on until its body was nothing but a dehydrated husk. The undead didn’t need to breath, and they didn’t need to walk. Because it could crawl, and that’s exactly what it now did. A dull moan rose up from it, and as best it could, it went off in the search of human flesh.
Rachel had accepted the Overmind’s offer which had been relayed to her by Fabrice. The Overmind would take the American continent and any islands it had infected. Rachel could have the bulk of the land mass. It was a compromise for the Overmind’s survival, because it still met its ultimate goal: the destruction of the human race. It would relentlessly hunt out every human it could find, converting them to its own kind. At the same time, it would continue to spread across Africa, Europe, and Asia, but when the army of Rachel’s damned encountered The Lesser, the Overmind would relinquish its troops freely.
Normally, such a compromise wouldn’t have been enough for the Overmind, and it had been belligerent enough to set itself to fight Rachel every step of the way. But things had changed now because as its intelligence grew, so did its understanding of the world it wanted to destroy. And then had come the discovery that had opened its eyes to the reality of the world, changing its insight of the whole universe.
Rachel wandered with her flock towards Brussels, the radiation there not a danger to her. This land was now hers, more and more infected dying from their injuries, joining the armies of the undead. Her forces were already unstoppable, the Overmind realising the futility of its struggle. And her tactics had changed, splitting her undead warriors into roving gangs that moved away from each other, free to act of their own accord. Because there was still the chance of more missiles, still the chance of the Overmind double-crossing her. As long as she had the being once known as Rasheed by her side, she knew she was safe.
But now she could concentrate on fighting the foe she was designed for. She did not believe Fabrice’s childish illusion that this was God’s work, because her mind could not construct the concept of such an all mighty being. Her neural capacity was still growing, presently only having the same capacity as a child, but still she was guided by a force she couldn’t understand. And she didn’t care. She would scour the land, consuming everything like locusts, fighting resistance where she found it, and swallowing up humanity whenever she could. Billions of souls waiting to be made whole, purging the earth of the blight that was the human race.
The question of what to do once the last human was converted never occurred to her. Maybe one day it would, but right now, her mind didn’t even go there. After all, she had an army to build, and she stood at the edge of a park, the pleasant greenery wasted on her necrotic mind. Rasheed and Owen both knelt either side of her, awaiting instruction. Their only purpose was to serve her, to be her lieutenants.
“I’m scared, Mummy.” The voice came to her out of nothing.
“I’m scared too, Sweet Pea, but we have to go.” Who had said that? Phantoms from the past, memories long decayed. Stephanie? Who was Stephanie? The answer came, and she stood there impassively as her mind broiled in its own reconstruction. Your daughter, it was your daughter. And you had killed her.
And?
Rachel didn’t care, because the oxytocin pathways in her brain were dead and would never reform. The virus didn’t care about that, it just cared that she was capable of controlling those who would rule the world. And miles away, deep within one of her battalions, the decaying body of a little dead girl once called Stephanie wandered with the hope that it could end the hunger that gouged at its insides.
Mother no longer cared about daughter. And daughter no longer cared about mother. Love was an emotion no longer relevant on planet Earth.
12.26PM, 21st September 2015, Newquay Airport, Newquay
Croft was going so fast he couldn’t stop in time, and he collided with the door. If it had opened inwards, he probably would have plunged right through. Instead, he grabbed it, swinging it open just in time for Savage to fly past him. He looked behind him, saw Jack tackled to the ground by an infected that went flying at him, saw Snow grabbed from behind, literally yanked off his feet as one of the infected grabbed the MI6 agent by the hair.
“Bastards,” Croft screamed, pulling the door closed behind him as he forced away his own insane desire to somehow try and save the man he now considered a friend. He yanked the door closed, and flipped the lock. Thank God there was a lock.
Snow felt someone clutch his hair, felt his head being yanked back with incredible force. His forward momentum was stopped completely and he was thrown to the floor on his back, his scalp almost being ripped clean off. Briefly, he glimpsed Jack’s panicked face as several infected pounced on him, heard the boy scream. Because that was what he was, a boy being asked to do what a man shouldn’t have ever had to face. And then Snow’s vision was filled with legs and torsos and faces. Bloodied faces with red eyes, with teeth bared. He tried to bring the gun up, but it was ripped from his hand, a sharp pain stabbing through his fingers as two of them broke.
He felt hands on him, felt his body being lifted up, the roar of the abominable crowd all around him. Snow felt hands ripping at him, felt his clothes being torn, felt someone bite onto his arm, into his leg. Vice-like grips held his limbs and he felt his body being stretched, more faces appearing, teeth locking onto every part of his visible flesh. He felt strong talon-like hands grip his head, howled in pain as both ears were simply ripped off as if they were made of paper.
Something bit into his neck, the ferocity mind numbing. Snow’s vision began to drift, the pain and the pulling all he now was. Then suddenly, there were eyes right in front of his, the demon seemingly staring deep into his soul. And then the eyes were replaced with incisors which bit down hard into the cartilage of his nose. He felt himself being stripped of his clothing, his shoes already gone, m
ore flesh uncovered for the mouths to chew on. Just before he blacked out, he felt a hand grip his now naked genitals. He blacked out before he experienced that particular unpleasantness.
Within seconds, Croft felt them pounding on the other side of the door. The door hadn’t looked particularly sturdy when they had rushed through it, but it seemed to be keeping them at bay. That was the second thing he noticed upon entering. The first was that it was pitch black, and he could barely see Savage in front of him. They had been promised a rescue and that now appeared to have been a fairy tale.
“What the fuck is this,” Savage roared in despair. Her voice echoed slightly displaying how cavernous the hangar actually was. As if in response, a loud female voice spoke to them across the ether.
“Activating internal illumination,” the voice said. Lights began to come on in the ceiling way above them, starting at the far wall and moving towards them in a wave. They displayed the hangar interior quite adequately; in fact, if anything, the lights became too bright, the halogens destroying any hint of shadow. With the lights fully on the sound of the infected outside ceased completely, and Croft moved away from the door. That was not the same door he had come through, he was certain. The hangar was completely empty and about the size of a football field. It looked too big because it was too big.