by Tony Thomas
The rapidity of the check-in had left Jeff a little rattled, but he gathered his bag and followed Pete into the main part of the hall.
The room was cavernous, partly because there were so few people in it as yet, but mostly because it was a huge, unfurnished hall. There were tables and chairs being set up towards the stage area at the front of the hall, and a small group queuing for coffee to the side. Jeff stood for a moment, feeling a little overwhelmed. This looked like a refugee centre, with people milling around in small groups, while others stretched out on bedrolls and camp stretchers.
Pete was just leaving the luggage area with a phone charger in one hand, backpack in the other, obviously looking for somewhere to plug in. Jeff made his way to the luggage area and left his suitcase. He took his laptop bag and went to get a coffee. It looked like it was going to be a long wait.
07:20 SST (09:20 AEST): Singapore
‘This room has fuck all you can use as a weapon,’ Mick opined, as he walked around the room looking at the furniture and fixtures.
‘Yeah, I know what you mean. But we just have to think a bit laterally,’ Chris said. ‘What about these curtain rods?’ He was standing close to the window and looking up at them. ‘They look pretty solid.’ Chris looked down and out to Boat Quay. ‘Bloody hell.’
‘What now?’ Mick asked.
‘There’s no one out there.’
Mick walked over to the window and looked down at the road towards Boat Quay. The fire had died down and the smoke from the burned restaurants was clearing. ‘Jesus,’ he muttered.
The roads they could see were almost empty. Where before there had been packs of people surging from attack to attack, now the streets had become almost clear. It was almost as if nothing had happened, except for the slowly burning restaurants and abandoned fire trucks, police cars, and army vehicles. The area they could see seemed to be relatively quiet.
‘Is that a guy just walking down the street?’ Chris asked, pointing to the far side of the river.
‘Where?’ Mick asked, scanning in the direction Chris had pointed.
‘Just on the other side of the bridge. He’s on his own I think. At least it doesn’t look like he’s in any pack.’
Mick soon spotted the man Chris had indicated. He was slowly wandering up the road, but seemed to stagger and twitch every few seconds. ‘He’s not moving real well is he?’ Mick observed.
‘I wish we had some binoculars so we could get a better look at him.’
Mick pondered for a moment, ‘Just a tick,’ he said, and then went to his bag and rummaged through it. He pulled out a small leather pouch. ‘Here you go, mate,’ he said as he tossed it to Chris.
Chris opened the pouch and sure enough, inside was a small pair of binoculars.
‘One of the guys from Germany gave them to me—we always trade marketing crap,’ Mick explained. ‘Good deal from my perspective, I only had those lame arse stainless steel coffee mugs.’
Chris had opened the binoculars and was trying to focus on the walking man in the distance. ‘Bloody hell, he looks really badly beaten,’ he said.
Mick took the binoculars and focussed on the man. ‘It’s a wonder he can walk at all. He looks like he’s been hit by a truck.’ Mick panned the binoculars along the road and then to either side. As he passed them back to Chris, he said, ‘I could see a few more people just staggering as well. All of ’em look like something out of a zombie movie.’
‘How do you mean?’ Chris asked, as he started scanning again.
‘You know, torn skin, blood everywhere, vacant expression, staggering, all that sort of crap,’ Mick waved his hands vaguely as he described them. ‘They sure aren’t moving with any purpose. Maybe that’s what happens to them after a while. They couldn’t keep running like madmen or they’d collapse.’
‘That makes sense I guess,’ Chris said. ‘I wonder what happened to the packs?’
‘My guess is that they’ve spread out and are hunting for more people. This is pretty much a business district. I reckon they’re fanning out into residential areas.’
‘D’you reckon it would be safe to leave the hotel then? Maybe see if we can get to Uli and Stefan?’
Mick looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘I dunno, mate. It wouldn’t be too easy to get out of here with those crazies in the hall. Besides, we don’t even know if Uli and Stefan are safe.’
‘What do you reckon we give Uli another call?’
‘Hell yeah. We should let them know what’s happening here—especially that porter.’
Mick unlocked his phone and redialled Uli on speaker. It only took a moment to answer. ‘Mick! You are okay?’ Uli’s gruff voice asked.
‘Yes, all good here. I’m with Chris. Linc and Lara are having a snooze. Are you and Stefan okay?’
‘I am okay, Stefan has just gone back to his room to get his things and bring them here,’ Uli explained. ‘We thought we should do as you are and be in one room.’
‘Why didn’t you go with him?’ Chris asked.
‘He told me not to worry. He said I should call my family and check on them and that he would be back quickly.’
‘Did you call your family?’ Mick asked, suddenly remembering that none of them had even attempted to call home yet. ‘How are things in Munich?’
‘I could not get through to Eva or the boys. The telephone did not answer. I have tried mobile and message and landline. I have sent email. There is no reply.’ Uli sounded forlorn. ‘The news from Germany does not look good. I fear for the lives of my family.’
‘Shit, mate, I’m really sorry,’ Mick said, not really knowing how to respond. ‘Maybe it’s not as bad as the news is reporting.’
‘Is okay, Mick. I will keep trying,’ Uli croaked. ‘What of your families? Have you been in contact yet?’
‘I hate to say it Uli, but we got kind of caught up in the excitement here and I guess none of us have even tried to call home yet,’ said Chris.
‘What excitement? Has something further happened?’ Uli asked, seeming to welcome the distraction.
‘Well, we had a couple of “incidents”’, Mick said. Chris and Mick tag-teamed as they told Uli the story of the bloody porter. Chris ran through the first encounter when Mick had been chased back into the room. Mick told the story of the second run in, when the porter had managed to get an arm in the door.
‘Mick, you are a foolish man to go outside like that when you knew a crazy person was in the hall’, said Uli. ‘You have been lucky twice, but now you are trapped. How will you leave your hotel?’
‘I think we’re stuck here for quite a while yet,’ Mick said.
At that moment, Mick and Chris heard a banging over the phone.
Uli said, ‘Ah, that will be Stefan.’
Before either Mick or Chris could say another word, they heard the phone placed on the table and Uli walking to the door. They could still hear the banging sound.
‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ Mick said to Chris. ‘Why would he keep banging?’
‘Stefan! Was ist das?’ they heard Uli say, then a thump as if someone had been knocked into the wall. ‘Stefan? Stefan!’
There was a roar and the sound of screaming. They heard Uli’s voice shout ‘Mein Gott!’ in terror, then a clattering noise which may have been the phone falling from the table. Amidst shouts and screams, they heard Uli gasp ‘Eva.’ There were several more thumping noises but they gradually died away.
They listened for a few moments longer. There was the sound of footsteps fading away, and then silence.
Mick killed the call. ‘Fuck. Can you fucking believe that shit? Fuck.’
09:30 AEST: BA275
Captain James Martin looked at the closed circuit cabin monitor and shook his head again, before turning to David Turner, his co-pilot. ‘I think the whole plane is infected now.’
‘How could it spread so fast?’
‘It didn’t help that poor Theresa turned. Once she went downstairs it was always going to get out
of control.’
‘I don’t mean inside the plane,’ David said. ‘We’re not getting any response from ATC. GPS and Nav beacons are all okay, but no one in the UK or Europe is responding. The satellite phone isn’t answering either, so I’m guessing BA are not around anymore, which means London is pretty much done for. How can we be sure that we’ll be able to land at Heathrow?’
‘I don’t know, but if we get there we can move on. There’re a lot of runways we can land on in the UK. We should be able to put down easily enough. What we do once we get down is the question.’
‘That’s not the only question. How do we get out safely with all those crazies between the cockpit door and the emergency exits? Once we’re out where do we go? What do we do?’ David was starting to sound a bit flustered.
James was forcing himself to stay calm. ‘Think about it David. We can get out using the cockpit emergency hatch. We don’t have to go anywhere near the passengers. If we land and then find out, it’s not safe we’ll still have enough fuel to take off and land again.’
‘Not if we get out of the escape hatch and change our minds—that’s a one way trip out.’
‘You’re right, it is a one way trip, but we should be able to see if we can get out safely before we open the hatch, or at least before we use the escape lines. If we can’t land at Heathrow, we may be able to find a helicopter we can take. Then we can head back home.’
‘You really think we could just take a helicopter and head home?’ David asked, not hiding how absurd he thought the idea. ‘You think one will be prepped and ready for us? I don’t know how to fly one—do you?’
‘As long as we have a bit of time, I’m sure we can figure out how to refuel a helicopter if we need to.’ James said, reasonably. ‘I’ve been having lessons on choppers for the last twelve months. They’re great fun to fly. If flights are all grounded there are bound to be some close by, the bases are always near bigger airports. We have to aim for something, and I’d feel safer in the air than in a car on the ground.’
David thought for a moment. ‘Captain, it’s your aircraft. Just bear in mind you can’t land a fully laden 747 anywhere. You need at least 2,000 metres to land and 3,500 to take off. Given that it’s almost winter you might need more than that. While I’m sure we can get down, I don’t think we’ll be able to take off again.’
James was relieved David was also working on staying calm. ‘Okay, you’re probably right, but if we don’t have ATC then we’re going to need to plan ahead. I’m betting quite a few planes are going to be trying to land, and I don’t fancy our chances of putting this bus on the M25.’
‘You’re not kidding. If we put it down on a highway and it breaks up, we’ll be surrounded by three hundred screaming crazies.’
‘Damn, I didn’t think of that. Most of them are still strapped into their seats though, but still. . .’
‘Maybe we should consider somewhere further afield. Getting away from civilisation sounds like a good option to me.’
James paused for a moment. ‘David, I have to go home. There’s a chance it’s not as bad in London as it seems. Also—where would you go? This thing has spread everywhere based on the last chat we had with BA.’
‘I don’t know, but landing near a city of nine million infected people doesn’t sound like a great idea to me. Surely, we’d be better landing away from a major centre and then working out where to go next. What about Jersey, Geurnsey, or the Isle of Man?’
‘I take your point—although I’m not sure if any of those runways are long enough. I do like the idea of an out of the way place though. We’ve got over an hour—let’s give it some thought.
09:30 AEST: Sydney
Gen had opened the door as soon as Dan closed the gate. She was waiting for him on the porch with a look that could kill, ‘What the hell are you doing with that?’ she demanded, pointing at the gun.
‘It was just lying on the road,’ Dan said. He had a sudden thought, ‘I couldn’t leave it there unattended, what if a kid found it?’
‘Dan, you had already told me you wanted to get one of the guns,’ Gen shook her head. ‘What happened to Joanne?’
‘I saw her run into her yard. Problem solved as far as I’m concerned.’
‘What about the soldiers? Are they all dead?’
Dan shivered. ‘I didn’t see any dead soldiers, or any live ones either. They were just gone.’
‘What do you mean gone?’
‘I didn’t see any sign of them except for the truck and this gun,’ Dan said. He stopped, thinking for a moment. ‘You know, this is the only gun I actually saw. There were a few bodies in Joanne’s yard, I’m not sure if any of them were soldiers. To be honest, I was pretty spooked and just picked up this gun and hurried back.’
‘Were there any bodies in front of our house?’ Gen asked, looking uncomfortable.
‘That was really fucking weird,’ Dan said. ‘I saw some pools of blood but no bodies. It was as if someone had been shot, fallen, and got back up again.’
Gen looked hard at Dan, ‘You’re not seriously talking zombies are you?’
Dan looked over his shoulder, back towards the gate. ‘Can we go inside? I don’t really feel safe standing out here talking.’
Gen turned and opened the door. ‘You can leave that thing in the hallway—I don’t want it in my house.’
As Dan stood in the entry hall, he had a close look at the rifle. He had studiously avoided putting his hand anywhere near the trigger. Now that he was looking at it more closely, he noticed a red dot on the button near the hand grip. He guessed it must be the safety and pressed it, revealing a white dot. That seemed safer somehow. He carefully placed the gun with the barrel pointing to the roof and away from him, before walking to the lounge room.
‘Gen, there’s something else I need to tell you.’
‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ Gen said warily.
‘When I spoke with Piotr earlier, he told me that one of the guys in the US had seen people get shot and then get up and attack other people.’
‘That’s not funny, Dan,’ Gen said. ‘I’m not ready to believe in people coming back from the dead.’
‘That’s not what I said Gen. Piotr said they were shot, not that they were dead. I don’t understand it either but the missing soldiers point to something totally strange going on.’
‘Surely if people were, I don’t know, “reanimating”? Surely if they were reanimating there would have been something on the news by now. It’s the kind of sensational bad news the press go crazy for.’
‘Maybe it’s just too crazy an idea,’ Dan said. ‘I’m going to go check in with Piotr and Ian. I need to tell them both about this.’
‘Okay,’ said Gen. ‘I’m going to see if I can find anything on the news. I’ll contact Rita as well.’
9:40 AEST: Picton Road
Bozo had become used to the sound of his wife and daughter groaning in the back of the car. Since turning onto the Picton Road they had grown very quiet. He listened, and he wasn’t sure they were still breathing. Bozo decided to pull over and check them out, he hadn’t seen another car since he left Brick, so he figured it was safe enough.
Bozo pulled to the breakdown lane. He turned the engine off and leaned towards Cindy and Jill. Bozo was sure he could only hear one of them breathing. Not good. He looked in the wing mirror to make sure it was clear and climbed out of his seat.
Bozo walked around to the left hand rear passenger door, where his daughter Jill was sitting, ‘No use getting run over while checking on them,’ he thought. As he leaned in he heard Cindy make a low moan. At least she was still breathing okay, he still couldn’t hear anything from Jill so he leaned further over her, putting his ear near her mouth. She definitely wasn’t breathing.
Bozo started to panic. The thought of his daughter dying because he’d tied her up wasn’t something he could cope with. Bozo reached around her head and untied the gag. He listened again, still no breathing. ‘Fuck me,’ he
whispered. He reached for her wrist but realised he couldn’t try for a pulse with her hands tied together. Bozo held Jill’s head with his left hand while he reached for the pulse in her carotid artery with his right. He pressed two fingers up under her jaw, but could feel nothing.
Bozo pressed his fingers in harder thinking he’d missed the artery when he felt Jill’s hands grasp his left arm. He looked in shock as Jill turned her head and bit down on his left hand between thumb and index finger. Bozo jerked back in shock, his movement broke her grip on his arm, but his hand was still in her mouth and she was biting down hard.
Bozo wrenched his hand and lost a large chunk of flesh from the base of his index finger as his hand came free. Shocked, he watched blood pulse from his hand. Bozo gripped the wound with his right hand and shouldered the door closed. As he looked in he saw Jill was chewing on the flesh she had bitten from him.
‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’ Bozo howled, as the pain from the bite started to make itself known. Bozo staggered to the back of the car, he put his left hand under his right armpit and with a little struggle opened the tailgate. After rummaging for a moment, he found the first aid kit. Bozo held the lid of the antiseptic cream lid in his mouth to twist the tube open, then squeezed the cream onto his hand. He screamed again at the pain.
Cindy roused to the sound of the scream, howling and thrashing. Jill continued chewing, but started to twist in the seat, searching for the noise. Bozo fumbled a bandage from the first aid kit. He still had blood pumping from his hand. Bozo knew that was bad. Arterial bleeds were hard to stop. He started on his palm, wrapping the bandage as tightly as he could around his hand. The pain was intense, and the blood soon soaked the bandage, although it seemed to have slowed. The bite was in an awkward spot and he wrapped the bandage around both thumb and hand alternately.