Now with a well-furnished and stocked bunker completely at his disposal, Gerard had not panicked after realising what was happening around them. He and Shanice had calmly walked down the eight concrete steps and then opened the steel reinforced door with the keypad code. Once they were inside they manually locked the door with three steel lockable arms. The only sign’s to the outside world that the bunker existed were the two air vents that protruded from the ground, and the entrance itself.
The pair did not have to worry about the water as Gerard had paid for a well to be dug in the large garden. Power was not a problem either as he had installed sonar panels on the roof of his house which re-directed power straight to the bunker. The bunkers had been split into two areas, the first being the living area, the second bunker held stores, and there was plenty of food and provisions to last them a long time should they need it.
Gerard had been slightly amused when one of the neighbours who had sought the council’s help in having the bunkers removed, and campaigned for years for the site to be levelled banged at the bunkers door. She was scared and didn’t know what to do, she wanted to know if he would let her stay with them, and she was sorry for objecting to the bunkers all these years. Of course Gerard done the neighbourly thing and allowed her in, but warned her no more could be allowed in as there wasn’t room, she didn’t object and she was just glad to be out of the madness, away from all those things outside that were biting people.
All of that changed when she was foolish enough to tell Gerard that she had been bitten, within seconds Gerard had forced her outside and locked the bunker back up. The silly woman had banged and pleaded for a good while, until she had drawn the attention of an infected neighbour, who had caught her by surprise and killed her just half an hour ago. The woman was still stood outside in the back garden she just ambled about, her head would turn to the noises around her, but for now she stood waiting for something, of what she wasn’t quite sure.
As far as Gerard was concerned he and Shanice were now safe, and no matter what he had learnt his lesson from earlier playing the Good Samaritan. His neighbour had brought the infection into the bunker, and if she hadn’t have told him she was bitten she would have later died and probably infected the pair of them. He had kept this in mind when a group of neighbours climbed into the back garden seeking refuse, they had disposed of the two zombies in the garden then proceeded to bang on the door and beg Gerard to let them in. There were five of them all together, they didn’t take kindly to the bible basher refusing them entry and they decided to draw the older man out, they would deal with him quickly, evict his little girl, and then they would take over the bunker for themselves. It had not taken them long to hatch their plan, they stuffed the two air filters protruding from the ground with some of their clothes. They waited for an hour, and like most groups of young men, they easily bored. One of the men then decided to speed things up by lighting the clothes that were stuffed into the filters.
At first the clothes struggled to ignite, but eventually the flames took hold and the smoke was sucked down through the filters. After only ten minutes Gerard emerged armed with a cricket bat, he quickly dropped the bat when three of the five men brandished mean looking knifes.
“Okay it’s yours, give me five minutes and we will leave?” Gerard asked.
“You’ve got two bruv.”
“I need to get some supplies first.”
“No, you need to get you and your daughter’s backside out of our new crib.” The leader roared.
Gerard called Shanice to come out. The little girl was too scared to look up in the gang’s direction. Her father had surprised her by giving up so easily, he had spent a large chunk of his life building this place for them. Gerard placed his arm around his daughter’s shoulders, and ushered her along.
“Come on Princess, don’t worry daddy has somewhere else we can go.” Gerard whispered to her.
“Where will we go dad?”
Gerard had a small allotment over near West Ham Train station, and underneath that he had dug a second bunker. It wasn’t as grand as the one they were leaving, but it would still be safe. All they had to do was now get there safely. He turned back one last time and watched as the last of the gang members entered the bunker door, he could clearly hear the bolts being locked from the inside. As they reached the bottom of the garden, and entered the shed Gerard retrieved their bikes, if they went across the fields they should miss most of the people that now travelled on foot.
He withdrew a remote fob from his pocket, and after typing in a four digit pin number into it he tripped the kill switch for his bunker. The electronic lock disabled the door and trapped the five squatters inside. The witch also turned off the air conditioning, the power and the running water all at the same time. If he and Shanice couldn’t live in his bunker he was dam sure no one else would.
1st July, London Bridge, 4:21pm
To Morgan it had seemed like an eternity since he had climbed into the back of the car and hidden under the jacket. When Declan beckoned the zombies to follow him, Morgan assumed they would begin their chase, and the area would be clear in no time at all, how wrong he had been. The large horde had taken over thirty minutes to pass the car, and despite the windows being rolled up the nauseating smell of decay that followed the undead penetrated the back of the car. The hoard had moaned with anticipation as they shuffled along after the injured soldier, and that same moan reached into Morgan’s head and tortured his very soul, as he tried not to cough from the lingering smell of death that accompanied them.
Even after the shuffling large group had passed, Morgan could still hear the more injured ones struggling to pass the car, some had lost their legs, and pulled themselves along by their hands, whilst some had broken bones, that wouldn’t support their frame, yet they still moved off behind the horde. Not wanting to draw any attention, and step out into the open with the injured zombies struggling past, Morgan decided to wait a bit longer, and from sheer exhaustion had fallen asleep.
On waking, at first Morgan had forgot where he was and as his eyes opened he immediately pushed out with his arms to clear the jacket from his body. On surveying the area by peeking above the door trim, he was relieved that he could only see three of the monsters, and they now fed between the train carriages. From his vantage point Morgan could see up to the platform edge of London Bridge, with all the platforms full with cancelled trains, the staff had to stop any further trains at the signals where the four abandoned ones now sat. Looking over his shoulder the horde was nowhere to be seen, the only thing along the tracks in the distance was some sort of a fire that hadn’t been there when they had previously passed, Morgan hung his head at the realisation that Declan must have detonated his hand grenade, and taken as many of the horde with him. The only thing that could possibly be burning on the track behind him was bodies.
Before leaving the car Morgan weighed up his choice of heading straight for the station, or checking out the carriages to see what had attracted such a large horde. The station ahead was closed and the large group of zombies must have come from the trains in front of him, as the stations platforms would not have been accessible to anyone outside of the building. The desire to check the carriages ahead won, but first he would have to deal with the three zombies he had spotted and any others that may be in the area. Morgan slowly exited the car, trying to be silent, so he didn’t attempt to close the door back up. Turning his rifle back to front in order to use the stock as a ram, and his knife withdrawn he slowly crept up on the three zombies.
Before the zombies had spotted the soldier creeping towards them he was on top of them. He drove the rifle forward into the first one’s head, and the satisfying crunch that came with the rifle stocks connection told him that it was dead. As the second began to stumble up Morgan kicked it square under the chin with all his might, and snapped its head back, as the zombie recovered on the floor he drove the knife into its eye socket right up to the hilt. The third ambled towards hi
m with its arms outstretched, the blow to the face from the rifles stock, broke its nose yet still it came forward. A second blow to the side of the head stunned it, and Morgan quickly finished it off by thrusting the knife up under the jaw, and into its brain, the zombie buckled immediately and fell to the ground.
Taking his time Morgan searched the trains around him, the first three sat on the tracks with all their doors wide open. He surmised that the drivers had opened the doors to let the passengers off and this is where the horde must have originated from, maybe some of the passengers had already been infected. The last of the four trains still had all of their doors closed, it was impossible to see into the carriages as his head only just reached the step on the train doors. After cautiously walking up to the end of the train he could see that the drivers cab was abandoned, and fortunately for Morgan the driver had left the door open. Climbing into the cab was easy enough, although the lip of the door was six feet off the ground Morgan used the two metal steps on the underside of the carriage to climb his way up. In order to move in the cramped cab Morgan had to remove his pack, placing it on the dashboard he surveyed the cabin and couldn’t understand why the driver had left the carriage, they would have been safer in the small cab. The adjoining door to the carriage was locked from the inside of the cab, and after unlocking it Morgan slowly stepped through.
The first carriage of the four carriage train was completely empty, as he reached the doors to the second carriage he smiled as he saw survivors. Morgan pressed the button for the doors to automatically open, but nothing happened, and surveying the button he realised that the driver must have switched the door functions off from the cab. Rather than go back and activate the controls he forced the sliding doors open, he had to insert the knife in between the rubber seals in order to get a grip and enough leverage to pull the doors apart, and even then it took some strength on his part to pry the doors open. On entering the carriage he was greeted by three people, two of these had been huddled together petrified. The two girls were very young, Morgan thought maybe in their early twenties. The third a man, who had been hiding further down the carriage, had clearly been crying.
“Are any of you bitten?” Morgan asked them.
All three slowly shook their heads.
“I’m going to check the other carriage’s stay here until I get back.” The soldier told them.
Once again having to pry the doors open Morgan entered the next carriage, and couldn’t believe there were a further eight uninjured passengers there. He told them to move along to wait with the other three whilst he checked the last. Something told Morgan not just to pry open the doors on the last one, to check he tapped the hilt of the knife onto the glass of the door, and for a few seconds he didn’t see any movement, then suddenly two zombies stumbled around the corner from the toilet cubicle, their jaws clicking. As they reached the door they snapped at the glass, they could clearly see the soldier, and the two kept getting tangled together as they repeatedly tried to walk through the doors. Morgan abandoned the idea of checking the last carriage, and edged back slowly, he wondered if the glass would hold them in, he hoped it would. Once out of sight of the zombies he ran back to the eleven survivors, he didn’t stop as he approached them, instead he carried on walking and called back over his shoulder.
“We’re moving now.”
No one questioned him, and they all followed Morgan down the length of the carriages and then followed him out onto the gravel tracks through the drivers cab. After waiting for the last of them to jump down from the drivers cab Morgan turned and spoke to the group.
“If we can get out through the other side of the station, we can get to a safe house.”
“Those things are out there.” A voice stated from the crowd.
“Yes they are, they move slower than us. Just don’t let them bite you.”
“Why can’t we stay here?” Asked the same hidden voice.
“You’ll die that’s why.” Morgan barked.
“Right move out.” He added before walking towards the platforms of London Bridge.
The eleven passengers all followed behind, and cautiously nine of them stayed a bit further back. The two girls that Morgan had first come across were glued to his shoulder.
“What’s your name?” the pretty oriental girl asked him.
“Morgan miss.” He answered whilst keeping his focus on the approaching station.
“I’m Jin Lee and this is my flatmate Heather.” The girl pointed at her equally attractive friend.
“Pleased to meet both of you, we need to stay quiet until we’re out of here though.”
“Oh sorry, okay no problem.” Jin Lee replied as the two friends giggled at one another.
On entering the station it was strangely eerie, usually the station was a hive of activity. The station was now quiet due to the area being closed off earlier. The main entrance showed signs of earlier panic with luggage abandoned around the concourse. There were pools of blood on the floor, and discarded, once hot beverages were strewn across the station. The survivors left the building, and made the short trip across London Bridge in less than ten minutes.
Without any contact from uninfected or zombies the group soon made it to the entrance of the bunker. The only sign of life of any kind was someone hastily boarding up the front entrance of a convenience store. Some of the group watched the man as he continued to fasten various boards to the front of the store. Strangely the man didn’t look like the owner of the property. Morgan pulled the army issue key card from his pack, and ushered the group of survivors into the first room of the bunkers entrance, he glanced outside for what might be the last time as the heavy metallic doors closed and locked behind them.
1st July, Battersea, London, 5:32pm
Government protocol deemed that the bunkers were not allowed to communicate with each other, in order to ensure that each bunker could survive on its own, and not be tempted into helping another one out. This rule did not apply to the bunker in Battersea, because this was deemed the lead bunker. They had announced that within the next five minutes that they would be broadcasting to the rest of the bunkers, and that, this announcement would greatly affect the way the country was now run.
Chatsworth’s population had risen by twelve since Morgan’s earlier arrival. All of the new arrivals had passed the screening process, and Scott had given them a quick guided tour. They now sat at tables around the command centre taking in refreshments, whilst eagerly awaiting the Prime Ministers announcement. After being trapped on the train for so long, many had feared for their existence until Morgan had saved them, now they looked forward to hearing from a Government that they hadn’t thought existed just a few hours ago.
The group had already splintered off into its own little sections. The three caretakers all sat together at the command module, whilst just along from them sat Penny, Dave, Jackson, Jin Lee and Heather. Morgan and the remainder of the London Bridge survivors sat together on a larger table behind the command module. What the awaiting group and other bunkers were not aware of was the incident that had occurred in the Battersea bunker shortly after the education minister had reanimated.
The reanimated corpse of the education minister had caused chaos throughout the facility of Battersea. After waking back up, he had fell out of the back of the troop carrier he had hidden in, and made his way over to the lone mechanic who was under a car repairing an oil leak. The zombie dropped to its knees and sunk its rotten teeth into the soft flesh around the top of the mechanics shoe. The mechanic tried to escape the horror of what was happening, by struggling further underneath the car, only for the zombie to pull back trying to hold onto its prey, and after a soft tearing sound as a mouthful of flesh was torn away he went into shock and passed out.
When he finally came around most of his right leg had been eaten up to his kneecap, all that now remained was the bone and several chunks of flesh that were attached in different places. After sustaining such an injury and the level of deadly virus
that had entered the body, he wasn’t able to pull away, the loss of blood meant that he didn’t have much longer left to live. As the mechanic turned, the other zombie immediately lost interest and followed the sounds coming from the busier supply compound.
By the time it had worked out how to climb the stairs the former mechanic had managed to crawl out from under the car and join it. The two zombies moved into the supply area and between them, they instantly claimed a further four lives, and infected a further six victims who had fought valiantly to try and rescue their fallen comrades. As the remaining supply staff retreated to the dormitories the zombies followed.
No one had managed to retrieve guns from the munitions centre, and as such none had a weapon to defend themselves. Although the alarm was raised, the dead now totalling twenty four rampaged through the dormitories infecting many more on their way through. With no way of locking the zombies down below in the lower levels, the remaining survivors had attempted in vain to build barricades leading to the first floor.
The zombies eventually managed to force their way up onto the final floor, the only area that was protected was the command room which was now locked and the steel window shutters had been deployed to protect the glass walls around it. The bunker had fallen in less than two hours and only a handful of survivors had made it to the safety of the command room. The problem for these survivors was time, every corridor, and every floor now belonged to the dead. All the food, water and even weapons were below them. There was no means of escape, as the exit was on the lowest level.
The live feed began with the national anthem playing in the background, and shortly after it had finished the Prime Minister Haydn Broxby came into view. With a sigh he began his statement by welcoming survivors from other bunkers, and thanking the staff that had kept the bunkers running up until the outbreak. Up to date reports on both the police and army operations followed the messages of gratitude. He seemed happy to relay the news that the two safe zones that had been set up were operational and that staff were now working around the clock to make sure the two zones were impregnable.
Day Zed - Box Set: Volumes I and II Page 10