by Park, Grant
“My father and some of the other brainboxes are working on the meltdown problem, they seem pretty confident of reaching a solution in the next twenty-four hours; and as for the zombie problem, I am dealing with that.”
“Ha! Oh yeah? Haven’t you all been working on that the whole time you have been down here, how are you going to solve it in the next twenty-four hours?”
“By speaking to you” She said with a smile.
“Ha-ha!” he barked out a laugh, “You really are something else. You know that? You think I can kill every Zombie from here to the east coast?”
“You know I wouldn’t be asking you unless it was absolutely necessary, Ethan. But we simply can’t let M&M do this to the country,” She was getting flustered now, worrying he wouldn’t be willing to help them and all of their plans would be in vain.
“Say somehow we do manage to make it across the country, and say we do manage to stop the rector from meltdown, what’s to stop M&M from doing something else equally as stupid and killing us too?”
“Well that’s the other thing,” Cassie blushed at what she had to say next, “We have to compromise the base as we leave, we have to force everyone out of the complex and away from the command centre to ensure everyone’s safety, and the safety of everyone who is out there.”
“Everyone’s apart from those left in the complex that is?” Ethan said with a frown.
“Look, I know it’s a shitty thing to do, but can you think of an other way to get Michaels away from the command centre?” she said turning away from him. “Cant you understand, Ethan? It’s for the greater good.”
There was yet another long silence, and then Ethan finally said, “I have done a lot of terrible things in the name of the greater good.... I guess one more can’t hurt. I’m in! Besides, it can’t be any worse than being stuck down here with Michaels and Knox” Cassie spun round and leapt at him hugging him tightly.
“You won’t regret this, I promise you!” she yelped in his ear.
“Now, now, don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“There is one other thing,” Cassie said holding him at arms length with both hands. Ethan rolled his eyes and exhaled at length. “Do you think there are any other soldiers you can rely on to help us?”
“I can think of a couple,” she gave him another hug and let go, heading for the door.
“You’re the best, Ethan. Be ready for this time tomorrow. We will meet you here!” She shouted back at him as she was running out of the door.
“Tomorrow...?” He shouted back at her, but it was too late, she was already gone. He slumped back onto the workbench and whispered to himself “Tomorrow...?” he exhaled sharply and shook his head. Then he headed for the door himself.
As Cassie was heading back through the various cold concrete hallways to see how her father was getting on with his side of the plan, and to tell him the good news about Ethan, she noticed one of the other soldiers heading towards her. It didn’t take long for her to realise exactly which one it was either. It was a particularly loathsome individual named Harper. She could tell it was him by the pathetic boyish swagger he adopted every time she was in the vicinity, and his swagger was carrying him directly towards her. She tried to ignore him but she knew it was in vain.
As he neared he put his hand against the wall to Cassie’s left, blocking her path, he swung his right leg round his left nonchalantly and smirked at her.
“Awright darlin’?” he said in what Cassie suspected was a faux cockney accent.
“I am fine thank you.” she replied as politely as she could muster, and tried to walk round him.
Harper, however, had different plans and pushed off of the wall to land his other hand on to the wall adjacent. “I was hoping to bump in to you I was.”
“Oh, really...?” Cassie said; folding her arms and taking a step back, she forced herself to look into is weasely grey eyes.
“Yeah! I was wondering what you and me are gonna do about.… this” as he said ‘this’ he pointed the index finger of his right hand downwards and moved it in a circular motion. He then ran his fingers through his greasy short curly hair and looked her up and down.
“This?” Cassie felt her top lip curl at the very thought of there being any form of ‘this’ between them “I’m sure I don’t know what you are talking about, but I am very busy. So if you don’t mind?” She made to go round him again, but quick as the snake he was his hands were on her shoulders and he slammed her back against the wall.
“Oh I don’t think so.” He snarled “How you gonna be busy when Emminem has dealt with the Zombies outside? No Zombies, no disease, no work! The only thing you got to be busy doin’ is me. Let’s face it darlin’, you an’ me have got to get down to repopulatin’ the earth, and to tell you the truth, I am pretty sick of the whole hard to get thing you got goin’ on. So lets just get down to it eh?” He moved in to kiss her.
Almost choking on the bile rising from her stomach due to Harpers absurd rant, Cassie quickly rammed her knee in to his crotch. As his head dipped and he squealed in pain, she reached up to her right shoulder with her left hand and grabbed his left wrist, instantly she quickly pulled his arm downwards and to her left causing him to face away from her and get tangled in his own feet, she then pushed on his shoulder and was quite happy to feel his face smack against the cold concrete beneath them. Once she had him pinned to the floor she switched her right hand for her right knee and held him there, fishing into her lab coat pocket.
“Get off of me you crazy fucking bitch!” Harper wailed, twisting his head to look at her over his left shoulder.
“Oh I don’t think so,” She snarled, mocking him, “Not until you have learned some manners at least. You don’t seem to grasp exactly who I am and what I do in this place do you?” she put to him, not waiting for a reply she added, “You see I am the one who is in charge of all the samples of M.L.R-V, Oh… that would be the ‘Zombie viruses’ to a simpleton like you, and you see, the best thing about being in charge of the viruses, is that you could quite easily just carry some of it around with you.” She pulled the syringe from her coat pocket, flicked the plastic sheath off of the needle with her thumb and moved it slowly towards Harpers ever widening eyes.
Harper started to thrash wildly in a panic, beating his free hand against the floor and kicking his feet.
“Now, do you think we have learned some manners today?” She asked.
“Fuck you, you fucking bitch!” was the only reply delivered to her.
“No, I thought not.” She let a drip fall from the end of the syringe and watched as it fell very close to Harper’s face.
“Ok, Ok!” he yelped.
“Sorry?”
“Sorry, sorry, I’m fucking sorry!” he cried.
“Now let’s hope we don’t have to have any more lessons, ok?” She put her left foot upon his hand and let go of his wrist putting all of her weight on it as she lifted herself up and walked away from him, still holding the syringe in her right hand and humming quietly to herself.
As Cassie rounded the corner she felt as if her heart was going to beat out of her chest. She sped up her pace till she got to her laboratory, burst through the door and locked it behind her. Leaning against the wall she looked at the syringe in her hand then threw it into the sharps bin next to her. It had only been saline in the syringe, salt water, Cassie wasn’t stupid enough to carry M.L.R-V about on her person but Harper was just stupid enough to believe her. She walked over and sat down on her stool; she leaned on the worktop and put her head in her hands. It had all started so promising this morning. Now she was afraid she may have kicked the hornets nest a little too hard. Hopefully Harper’s pride would stop him from mentioning her actions to anyone else, and hopefully he wouldn’t want any form of vengeance in the next 24 hours.
Later that day Cassie managed to build up enough courage to finally leave her lab and go in search of her father, she needed to see how he and the others were progressing with the pla
n. Before leaving the lab, however, she filled another syringe with saline, put a safety cap on it and placed it in the left pocket of her lab coat, in the right pocket she placed a small folding knife that Ethan had given to her some days ago; she hadn’t thought it necessary at the time, but he had insisted, and she was glad for its presence now.
Slowly she cracked the lab door open and peaked out. There was an eerie silence about the complex now, but Cassie put that down to her own paranoia, she had spent her hours trapped in the underground complex; quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, worrying about all the problems facing humans in the future as a group, but never before had she been so worried for her personal safety.
She closed the door silently and crept down the hallway, heading towards her fathers office. It was only a matter of metres to get there, but to Cassie the journey felt like an eternity, until, finally she had her hand on the handle of the office door. She turned the handle and gently pushed, but he door wouldn’t budge. Her eyes widened and she tried again, still the door wouldn’t budge. A million thoughts shot through her head, but primarily the thought that they had somehow been caught out in their schemes prevailed. A staggered breath escaped her lips and she felt as if the very fibre of her body had a great weight upon it, she closed her eyes and let her head bump against the door.
“Hello?” She heard her father voice from within.
“Hello! It’s me! It’s Cassie!” She burst out excitedly. She heard the key work the lock and her father’s concerned face appeared in the small crack of the door, when he saw she was alone he gave her a smile making his moustache bristle outwards.
Cassie joyously rushed into the room, hugging her father, which startled some of the other people in the room. There was Sarah Carson, a red haired virologist of around forty five years of age, she had let out a slight yelp as Cassie had burst into the room and was straightening her white blouse and pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose with her index finger; Greg Woodward, a young computer systems analyst whom had been working on the computers at the complex when the world had fallen apart, he had begrudgingly been forced, by Major Michaels, to help him access the main frame of the defence network and create the issues that were present, Cassie wasn’t surprised at all to see him here at all; James Macmillan was also present, he was the caretaker and had access to every part of the complex, he was a short balding man of ages with her father, they had been good friends for many years and it was Cassie’s father who had actually got him the job in the complex in the first place; lastly there was Brian Phillips, the geneticist from B wing, he was a young man, slightly younger than Cassie herself and a genius in his field, seeing Cassie was distressed he raised his slender form from his seat and offered it to her, asking if she was ok, she gratefully sat as her father locked the door again, walked calmly over and crouched beside her.
“Cassandra?” Her father asked, “Are you ok? What’s happened?”
She slowed her breathing and tried to calm her heart, “I don’t know, I just, I just had a run in with Harper earlier, and, and the door was locked, and I was worried that something had happened to you!” She steadied herself again with a deep breath.
“Harper! Not that asshole again? Why I have a good mind to….” boasted Phillips. Though Cassie knew he didn’t really have it in him to do anything about it.
“It’s ok,” Said Cassie, getting control of her emotions and placing her hand on Phillips’ arm, “I put Harper in his place, I just got a little upset by it is all.”
“When you say you ‘put him in his place’ what exactly do you mean Cassie?” Cassie’s father knew of her abilities of ‘putting people in their place’, it, after all, had been him that had insisted on her training in aikido when she had been getting bullied whilst at school.
“Let’s just say I dented his ego a little, that’s all.” She said innocently.
“Hmph.” her father responded, unimpressed, “How did you get on with Sergeant Rigby?”
“Oh! That’s the good news,” She replied happily, “It took a little convincing but he is on board. I told him to be ready for tomorrow around nine am. He said he should be able to find a couple of others to help us too. How are things coming along here?”
Greg Woodward was rattling away on the computer keyboard as Cassie was speaking “We are just about done here too actually,” he said, still tapping the keys. He then stopped, leaned back and hit the return key dramatically, “I’m just running a little simulation right now to check everything is going to work just right, and we are done”
“Really? That’s wonderful. Everything seems to be coming along nicely.” Cassie said cheerfully.
“Yes,” said Sarah, “Greg here is quite a wizard on the old computer: he has really been doing most of the work on the Sellafield side of things, which has left the rest of us to put our collective minds on to how to get everyone else out of the complex safely as possible.
“Is that possible?” asked Cassie.
“We believe so,” Answered Phillips, sliding a map of the complex closer to Cassie allowing her to see more clearly “You see; when we leave from the loading bay up here in the north of the complex, we will jam the doors open allowing the zombies access to the facility,”
“How do we know there will be enough zombies outside to infiltrate the bunker properly,” interjected Cassie, “and how do we know they will actually go deeper into the complex? Do they know how to use doors?”
“Oh that’s the genius part. But I will let your father tell you, it was his idea”
“It’s quite simple my dear,” Her father said, “Greg has managed to set the external alert to sound at around one in the morning, he assures me that it will be quite inaudible to all of us in the complex, but to every member of the undead within a mile or so it will act like a beacon drawing them to this very spot, well, I say this spot, though the actual alert horn is contained within a small building around one hundred yards from the front of the barn which leads to the loading bay, this should leave quite enough space between the undead and ourselves to escape comfortably, but also alert them to the entrance of the complex.
“Upon our leaving we will activate the fire alarm, though it sounds exactly the same as the alarm Major Michaels uses, which it is in fact, but the alarm used by Michaels is a fire drill, a test alarm, when the fire alarm is truly activated all doors in the complex are opened and locked in the open position. When the soldiers hear this unexpected alarm they will instinctively all head towards the conference room thinking that Michaels has some form of important declaration to make, as he likes to do, and I am sure Michaels and his lap dog will be there too. This will bring all of the unwanted inhabitants of this facility quite safely to the south wing, keeping them a comfortable distance from all of us, who will be in the north of the complex, and the control centre in the east wing.
As we make our escape, Michaels and the others should still be waiting on our arrival in the conference room, when greeted by a horde of the undead they will make their way out the back of the conference hall to the exit through the farm house above. I am quite confident they have enough fire power and army know how to survive outside, in fact, some of them may quite enjoy it.”
Throughout everything her father had been saying Cassie had felt the smile bloom across her face, she was more than proud of her father and what seemed to her to be an immeasurable intelligence contained within him. As she was about to express her feelings in a burst of squeals and praise that would no doubt leave her feeling vastly lower in intelligence later in the night, she was cut short.
“Tada!” shouted Greg from the computer “All done here.” he said raising a small something up in his hand for all to see.
“Is that it?” asked James the caretaker, “That little doofer is what you’ve been working on all this time?”
“Is that it? Is that it, he asks! This little ‘doofer’ is a dongle my good man, a memory stick, and it is nothing short of a work of genius on my part might I add
. All you have to do is plug this dongle into the mainframe at Sellafield and hit return. Bob’s your uncle, Fanny’s your auntie, you save the world!”
“That’s amazing, Greg,” Cassie said as she delicately took it from his open palm, “This little dongle can really do everything we need it to?”
“Yup, and you don’t need to be so dainty with it neither, its good and hardy, I don’t go buying none of that cheap rubbish you get in Curry’s you know, but don’t go playing football with it or nothing either mind.”
Cassie handed the dongle to her father and stood from her chair, she paced the room for a moment or two while the others ‘oooh’d’ and ‘aaah’d’ over the dongle and the massive significance surrounding it. She worked through every detail of the plan, it was remarkably simple, the leaving of the complex, slowly she was building more confident that they would truly manage to pull it off.
She had no idea what to expect when she left though, none of them did, each one of them had been stuck down there since the pandemic had started, they had no idea of the atrocities being performed above their heads, but tomorrow they would find out.
Chapter
6
This Quiet Earth
‘This is where it all begins.’ Frank was stood upon the battlements with his eyes closed, arms outstretched, feeling the cold night air wisp around his ears. The angels had been whispering gently to him all day, slowly building up to this point.
‘This is where it begins.’ Frank slowly allowed his eyes to open to the bright moonlight night, slowly he dropped his vision to look at the thousands of dead, pawing and mewing at the walls of the castle entrance, they had been there for days now, scraping their rotting fingers down to mangled bloody stumps with tendrils of fetid flesh hanging from them. They were nothing to Frank, just souls waiting to be reaped for his Angels. ‘You are buying your way into heaven’ they told him, buying his way into their grace. This was Frank’s world now, it was his world, and he was king, free to do whatever he and the angels wished. Slowly Frank closed his eyes and waited for the angels to speak the word he longed to hear. Tonight would be his reckoning.