Morgan watched Kathy’s face change at the sight of the group offering to help her and she seemed genuinely pleased they had arrived to help. Kathy was at first surprised by the show of support by the group, she was overjoyed that they had turned up unexpectedly and most importantly for the first time in a long time she remembered how it felt for others to offer their help rather than be commanded to. When Jackson approached Kathy on his own, she nervously played with her uniform as the young man apologised for spurning her advances. “Look, I’m sorry for earlier Kathy.”
“Jackson don’t worry its forgotten.”
“It wasn’t done intentionally, it just happened.”
“It’s good to have you on board.” Jackson added.
“Thanks that means a lot.” She held out her hand and shook Jacksons, this time it seemed more sincere than the handshake, they had shared when meeting the first time.
One person who stayed back and chose not to chat with her was Dave and she couldn’t blame him as she had singled out Dave from the outset. Maybe if given a chance in time he would change his mind, but she wasn’t going to force the issue. With the extra hands to help load the vehicle it didn’t take long before all of the supplies had been loaded. Kathy excused herself and walked off to join Scott and Daryl to help them with the training for the people staying behind. The rest of the group raided the food stores, and set about preparing a lavish going away dinner, it could be some time before they got to enjoy a peaceful meal again.
Dave couldn’t believe his luck when he came across the freezers that were marked for VIP use only, on looking inside he found a plentiful selection of steaks. He took one of the steaks out for each person. To him it was a no brainer as far as Dave was concerned. Noting that the same freezers also contained luxury ice creams Dave promised himself that he would be returning for desserts later. All of the vegetables that where available for selection were either tinned or frozen, Penny was given the task of selecting which vegetables would go best with their steaks. After some searching she found a freezer that contained chips, and after selecting three bags she also took a two full bags of frozen green beans and a bag of frozen corn. The girls and Jackson had already disappeared to seek out a stash of alcohol for the evening. The VIP living quarters would be the first area to search for the three, after that they would scour the entire bunker if they had to.
Shortly after seven that evening everyone sat down to their meals in lightened spirits. The steak went down with the group well, but Jackson instantly became the hero when he revealed his stash of spirits after they had finished the main course. Jackson served everyone with the drink of their choice from the trolley that he had borrowed from the service compound, Dave and Penny disappeared for a short while and brought back Ice creams for everyone. As the alcohol flowed, people who had been cagey since they arrived dropped their guards, and it seemed everyone for the first time was getting to know each other. The train survivors who were staying behind had slowly calmed down after much gentle persuasion from Scott and Daryl, by the time Kathy had got there to help out she was quite surprised that none of them showed any hostility towards her. She had been fearful that she would ultimately get the blame for deserting them.
What she didn’t know was that Scott had pointed out to them that by her leaving the bunker, it meant that they didn’t have to put up with her ordering them around anymore. The drink flowed over the next few hours surprisingly the group who were staying behind were the first to leave. The incident on the train had bonded them as a group, and they were happy with each other’s company. Since arriving in the bunker the previous day Kathy had taken them to separate quarters away from Dave, Penny and Jackson. There was no reason for the split in where they slept at the time, Kathy had hoped they would soon be joined by others that had been invited to join the facility. The decision to split the two groups had worked out in Kathy’s favour she thought, if she had of put everyone in the same dormitory she was certain that the other group choosing to stay behind would have reacted to her news in an entirely different manner and maybe of refused to accept it at all, of that she was thankful. She wasn’t quite sure if she would have been able to leave if the group had refused to co-operate.
Kathy apologised to the group as she stood from the table, she wanted to walk around the facility one more time before leaving it behind in the morning. She was happy when Morgan asked if she wanted some company, and she gratefully accepted his offer. She chose not to react to the two girls who sniggered as he rose to join her. The rest of the group said they would see her in the morning, and continued with their recanting of their lives up until the release of the virus. Kathy walked into each area with Morgan and checked everything over, it was after all her duty to make sure the bunker was functioning properly even if she was leaving it behind in the morning. She intended to do her job until she left. As they walked into the first of the VIP living quarters, she had allowed Morgan to walk in front, when she closed and locked the door behind them Morgan turned and look surprised.
“Time to start living.” She stated whilst mimicking Morgan’s trademark sarcastic raised eyebrow.
Morgan laughed as he stood by the bed, smiling as Kathy approached him. She pushed him to the bed, and quickly sat astride him, Morgan didn’t resist at all. They moved together and passionately kissed whilst they ripped at each other’s clothing, soon they would collapse in an exhausted state and not wake until the morning.
2nd July, Berwick upon Tweed, England, 9:00pm
For the soldiers stationed on the defensive wall the last few hours had been more harrowing than any other experience in their lifetimes. The high walls that ran around the town were so high and steep that they were impossible to climb. Many of the attacking crowd had attempted to run at the wall and haul themselves up, and each had desperately failed. Some out of sheer frustration hurled stones or bottles at the men, nothing had reached them, they were so high up they couldn’t even hear the obscenities that were mouthed at them.
The news had come through to them earlier that the first border had fallen, and shortly after that they had watched as the mortars tore at the landscape, when the landmines started to explode they readied themselves. With strict orders not to engage the hostile crowd in order to conserve ammunition all they could do was watch, and should anyone somehow make the climb they were to take the shot. From their vantage point they had seen the crowd spread across the land, and converge on the small town like locusts attacking a field of wheat.
The zombie horde had finally caught up with the crowd, who had tried to flee to safety. The screams could be heard for miles in every direction. The people that were attacked had nowhere to run so they tried to fight back with their fists, such was the power of a horde this size that each person they attacked was dead in a matter of seconds, and as there was an endless supply of noisy prey in front of them they didn’t stop to feed for long. This meant that the people they attacked and bit reanimated at an alarming rate, in the first hour alone the horde had trebled in size. Judging by the distance they weren’t that far from the wall and at the rate they were attacking people the soldiers would still have to endure a couple more hours of the torture. The screams and shouting grew in intensity as the horde grew nearer.
Colin Harrington sat alone in his room, he was beaten, he had been right to not want the post he now held, and ultimately hundreds of thousands of people were dead because of the choices he and his predecessor had made. He knew that whatever they had done, that the outcome would have always been the same, but at least they would have put up some sort of fight for the people. He had dismissed his advisors the moment the crowd had reached the wall, because to him it was now all over. Some of the higher ranking Army officials had suggested evacuating the area in a helicopter, but Harrington had refused, he accepted that the virus had won.
He had asked the officials why they would want to go and hideout in Scotland, they couldn’t give him a satisfactory answer. Colin had one more decision to m
ake and that was whether to authorise the release of a nuclear war head onto the horde that was nearing their position, reports coming back from New York suggested that the zombies that were not vaporised by the napalm bomb had gone on to attack more of the country. Even if the nuclear bomb worked the area would be a death zone for many years to come with the radiation levels taking over thirty years to reduce to a level where humans would be able to survive. Colin loved his country so much that he knew he couldn’t authorise a strike.
The screams from below had got worse and the horde was nearly upon them, the deep monotone moan escaped their lungs and hung in the air to torment the soldiers. The screams and the whimpering of the crowd below was painstaking to listen to. Given the choice they would prefer to open fire and put them out of their misery before they were attacked. Fortunately they were too high up the wall to see the devastation that was occurring on the floor below them, as it was the sounds were enough to drive them insane.
All that were left in the crowd now were thousands, and it wouldn’t be long before the zombies would be upon the group at the front of the gate. In order to escape they needed a miracle and one man now threw himself to the floor, hoping that he wasn’t being watched from inside the gates he hoped that all eyes would now be on the approaching horde. He had been carrying something wrapped in a bundle of rags and now he chose to unwrap it. Inside the rags was a mortar launch tube that he had removed from a soldier after clubbing him to death with a rock, he had thought that at some point the launcher would come in handy and he had even brought two mortars that he had found with him. He aimed the mortar at the hinge on the big metal gates and cleared the crowd from the mortars path; he dropped the mortar into its launcher and watched as at point blank range the gate disappeared as well as some of the wall. He was not at all slowed by the fact that he had killed fifty odd people from the point blank explosion; he was more worried about the tank as its turret searched for him. He reloaded the tube aiming directly at the tank as the turret found him, the man dropped his mortar shell into the launcher just before the tank fired, and in the two seconds after their action both were destroyed.
The crowd surged forwards through the hole that the mortar had made, and were greeted by a barrage of semi-automatic fire. The soldiers up on the wall had been ordered to rappel down and help defend the town. Still after thousands of rounds had been spent the crowd rushed forward, some fool had found a hand grenade on a fallen soldier and removed the pin, before he could throw the grenade his body was ripped apart from the assault rifle fire. The grenade dropped to the floor and rolled backwards to the wall, it then detonated and ripped a further hole for people to pour through. The last of the crowd poured through, and these were followed by the first of the zombies, the so called impregnable wall had now been breached. The soldiers in the square fired the guns into the crowd but the zombies didn’t go down as easy as the humans had. Within ten minutes all of the ammunition had been spent, the zombies moved forward. The soldiers that came from the top of the wall were attacked immediately. Some were still attached to their rappel lines that they had come down on, whilst others were just dragged to the ground whilst firing their weapons. All that was left for the remaining soldiers without ammunition was to run or hide, many chose to run. Of the few that hid some got lucky in that the zombies passed them by, most were stumbled upon and quickly died.
Now at the end of the town sat Colin Harrington, he had just been informed that the front had fallen and the town would soon be overrun with zombies, his advisors attempted to get him to leave with no success. Colin had given up running, he had sent his advisors and the cowardly generals away. For all he cared they could escape in their helicopter it was of no concern to him. The screams from the town’s population grew as the zombies shuffled their way through the town, they destroyed every human life in front of them. They chose not stop to feed upon their prey, as bullets fired at them still held their attention, they would not stop until all the noise had subsided. Finally the zombies reached the end of the town and just one man stood before them, just twenty yards from the front of the horde. The zombies surged towards him as one, and just before they reached him he stuck the hand gun up under his chin and fired. The noise had stopped and finally the zombies could stop to feed, in no time at all the town was stripped of all human flesh.
3rd July, Chatsworth Plaza, London, 7:45am
The three vehicles sat in a straight line, waiting for the retracting doors to power up so that they could open them. The group of nine were nervous about venturing out into the unknown, and now stood around the lead vehicle talking to one another and trying to calm each other’s nerves. Since the group had now grown from six to nine the future had begun to seem a little more positive, and with the military experience that the additional three people offered the group as a whole would now stand more of a chance whenever trouble arose.
For the three of the facility staff to have abandoned their supposed posts they risked the threat of a court martial should the Army find them. That one factor had determined the vote when the group had decided on their planned route. The overall feeling of the group was that wherever they went, that it should be away from London, and to stay away from any other City or Army facility. In smaller towns or villages they would struggle against the numbers of zombies, to go into a city and fight the numbers there would be nothing but suicide.
With a large map sprawled out in front of them across a table, Jackson had immediately pointed out to an area on the map in Essex. His reserve unit had travelled a lot to this area on training exercises, the nearby towns were small, and each was either split by countryside or the estuary. The remainder of the group listened, and in turn each had given suggestions of areas they knew. After all of the nine had spoken, a vote was called for, Jackson’s choice won by a majority in the secret ballot. The only other votes had been for Kathy’s choice of the Lake District, and despite finishing second she was pleased that others had voted for her and listened to her opinion.
The chosen route was a simple one, on exiting the bunker tunnel, they would exit a masquerade train service depot, and it was situated just before West Ham train station. The depot exit would deliver them onto the elevated train lines, which should be clear of any zombies and hopefully abandoned trains. From there they would travel the length of the tracks to Hadleigh.
The countdown to the gates powering up reached zero, and the heavy locking mechanism retracted, all they had to do now was activate the remote door button that would instantly begin to retract the folding doors. Kathy out of habit went to salute Morgan, he immediately eased her arm down, gave her a wink and grinned, he finally bent forward and gave her a tender kiss on her cheek. Kathy at first was shocked by Morgan’s open show of affection, and then as the shock subsided she smiled.
For the first time in a long time she was beginning to feel alive, for so long she had been a prisoner of her own making, and shackled by the responsibility she had for far too long let govern everything she had done. She had surprised herself when Morgan had managed to break through her hard exterior, she had been programmed to obey orders all of her life, and to be disobeying one for the first time ever left her feeling exhilarated. When her two colleagues had backed her decision to leave the compound she felt that she was able to justify her decision to walk away and leave the bunker forever.
Over the past three days new bonds, friendships and even relationships had formed, Kathy didn’t really want to be in a separate vehicle away from Morgan, but with everyone else involved with one another, it made travelling arrangements awkward. She could have chosen to leave Daryl and Scott on their own and get in the same vehicle as Morgan, she wasn’t however ready to test her relationship with Dave yet, and wasn’t sure whether he would welcome her with open arms.
The metal door had fully retracted and it was time for the three Humvee’s to leave. Kathy’s vehicle was lead, and slowly idled up the tunnel. They would now travel up a tunnel for a distance of two mile
s, until they came across another set of retracting doors leading to the outside world. In order to remain as safe as possible they would have to turn off their engines for a full hour once they reached the doors. This would ensure that any zombies attracted by the noise of the approaching engines, would become disillusioned, and wander off before they attempted to leave the Chatsworth bunker for good.
Whilst driving through the lit tunnel Dave started to recognise sections of the patterned and coloured metal walls. Over half of the tunnel appeared to be constructed of replica fittings of those used at recent underground renovations. He had thought at first that he was imagining things, and when he thought more about where the money came from to build these bunkers the answer was obvious. Every Government for the last twenty years, and maybe more had seen every major development programme overspend by millions. Examples of this were the Channel Tunnel, Wembley Stadium, the Millennium Dome, and the Olympic Stadium, the list in fact was endless. All of the overspends must have been on legitimate materials, that were just massive over orders, and many of those over ordered materials must have been used to construct the twenty six bunkers.
In no time at all even at the speed they crawled at the vehicles reached their destination and they now sat outside of the exit doors. Kathy pulled the Humvee to a halt and got out, she moved straight to the second vehicle which Morgan was driving. By the time Morgan had stepped out of his cab Kathy had been joined by Daryl and Scott. Daryl gave Kathy a playful slap across the shoulder and immediately said to her.
“Make me a happy man and travel in the second car.”
She smiled back at Daryl before refusing the request.
“I can’t leave you two on your own.”
Scott laughed at her answer and added.
“We’ve seen enough of you to last a lifetime since our postings.”
Day Zed - Box Set: Volumes I and II Page 15