The Undead Day Fifteen

by RR Haywood

  Being able to see the local town after the storm is eye opening. The level of destruction is very high. Camera four from the main square in the town centre still gives the best view. Five and Six were the other town centre feeds I watched when The Event happened, and of course, being night vision infra-red meant I’ve been able to track the situation day and night. Bloody good these cameras are too. I know I’ve gone about them before in my diary but it was one of those things that was an afterthought, done in a rush but worked a treat. They’re solar powered with large capacity batteries, remote access and long range transmission of an encrypted signal that is decoded at my end. The one on the police station still makes me laugh, how they never saw it is shameful, but I suppose the police are taught to look out rather than up.

  The High Street is now a river, or to be precise, an off shoot of the local river that must have burst its banks. Looks to be at least five feet deep and I cannot see where the water runs in or out. I can see the bodies though and there’s a surprising amount of them too. I haven’t seen any of the infected yet today and I can only hope the storm culled their numbers considerably. I know they won’t all be dead as the very nature of the virus will protect them far beyond what a normal body can deal with, but at least some will have perished and if nothing else, the water will help remove the festering diseases contributed to so many rotting corpses lying in the hot sun. Of course with all the rats becoming infected on day five of the infection it meant the natural waste disposal teams of our rodent population haven’t been here to dispose of the rancid meat.

  There must have been a purpose for the rat species to become infected. The virus would have had a reason for that and one that I intend to discover. I suspect The Rogue Bastards carried on tweaking the virus after I left the team.

  There is smoke coming from somewhere in the centre of the residential district and I predict that is from a lightning strike which resulted in a fire. Left to burn, and with the high heat back, it can burn until it runs out of fuel, which could be a long time. It worries me though as the smoke is billowing high and could attract attention right on my proposed route out. I could use the fall-back route out but I do rather want to see the local town one last time before I set off, and of course, I’ll be on Jess and she can outrun anything on two legs.

  She senses a change. Our routine has changed so she knows something is happening and by the looks of her, she’s more excited than worried as she keeps pawing the floor, or rather hooving the floor and snorting impatiently. Trust me to get such an intelligent animal but she’s strong, sturdy, fast and devoted to me so I wouldn’t change her for the world. She’s had some oats and good rub down, the saddle is all ready along with the bridle and other bits. Her leg protectors are ready to go on and I know she doesn't like them but they’ll stop her getting bitten, and anyway, the modern material is far better than the old chainmail they used to use on horses. She should be grateful. But she isn’t. She’s just impatient and snorting away while throwing her head about. I don’t think she likes the hens being in the barn as she keeps stamping her feet when they get too close. She doesn't pay them any attention outside but I suppose she thinks this is her house and they are trespassing. At the very least they should sit down and be quiet.

  I was told the Hanoverian breed was highly strung. Bred for dressage and show-jumping they have to be at the top of their game and hundreds of years of fine selection breeding has created a monster. She’s seventeen hands and has a broad, solid frame. She’s such a dark brown that in the shade she looks black and I was lucky to get her. I knew what breed I wanted but finding one suitable was the hardest part. My infiltration of the local racing stables as an affable, dim-witted but wealthy eccentric (not that far from the truth anyway) soon led me to her. She’s an ex-stunt horse who starred in many a Hollywood movie but was given early retirement for being too aggressive. The racing yard wanted to put her in foal to their finest stallion to produce top class hunters, but she broke two of the handler’s arms and caused the stallion to bolt when they tried to get near her. Eight years old and bad tempered, she’s used to things that go bang, pop and whizz and will charge ahead without any regard for anything in her path, which made her perfect for me.

  Why am I writing all this? To delay the inevitable of course by telling myself that I need to record everything on paper just so I can stay here in safety. But, alas my path is set and I must prepare, so prepare I will.

  Twenty-One

  ‘No point checking, cross it off and we’ll go for the next one,’ glancing at the big, detached house, we can all see there’s no point looking inside. Every window is smashed, the front door has been ripped off and there’s blood smeared all over the inside walls of the porch. It’s the same as the last one and the one before that too. The first house we checked looked promising, still intact with the windows unbroken but then it was off the beaten track and isolated from the main road.

  Clarence did his door opening technique and we found an empty house but with everything looking as it should be. It didn’t take long to work out the doctor and her family must have been away when it all started. Four houses checked with no progress made and the minutes roll by far faster than they should be.

  ‘You got the map?’ Paula asks me opening the folder so we can choose the next closest address. Roy took the lead when we set off, knowing the area better than the rest of us and while he drove to the first house, Paula marked the addresses on the map so we could choose an easy route. Little neat red circles dot the street atlas and I mark the fourth one off with a cross and hand the map over.

  ‘You lads take the front for a bit.’ Dave and I climb into the back and take a wheel arch each, sitting down in silence while Blowers starts the van up and waits for Roy to pull out. With the engine running and the wheels right beneath us we don’t bother trying to shout for conversation but sit in quiet contemplation. Well I do, I don’t know what Dave does when he isn’t talking.

  One race. Profound it was. Deeply profound and self-reflection tells me it has struck a chord. Not because of the desire to win, but because I can so easily see us losing, and very soon. At the moment we’ve got ample supplies and the ability to get them from foraging, but one look at what was Portsmouth harbour tells me we are no longer in control of our environment. We are subject to the whim of many other factors. We’re foolish if we try to hold onto the thought we are the dominant species because we’re not, they are.

  Fifteen days ago they were monsters by night and slow moving easy targets by day. Brainless, thoughtless, predictable and easy enough to defeat. But look at what they’ve done and just in two weeks; the ability to speak, to retain cognitive thought, thinking things through and ever evolving to try new tactics and strategies. At the moment they still cling to the fact they have almost an unlimited supply of resources but it won’t take long for them to start using machines and weapons. What is the thing controlling them? How can a virus, a tiny particle thing like that have such power? I can grasp the concept of cell mutation and how viruses and infections work, but a growing entity that has a shared conscious, like a hive mind, and something that can learn, adapt and develop an awareness of self is beyond me. One race. That’s what it said. It wasn’t the former human being who uttered the words, for he was just an avatar for the infection within. It was that infection, that virus, which passed that message on.

  The ability to communicate at a level beyond the basic needs of humanity is one of the many primary reasons our race became so dominant. We can talk, pass messages, make each other understand concepts and ideas. We can theorise and work in a hypothetical environment with a blend of imagination and fact coupled with our emotional states.

  One race. But why tell me? What the fuck do I need to be told that for? We’re just a tiny, insignificant group trying to cling onto life. We’ve proved we can fight back and inflict massive losses on them but still, they control the world now. We’ve got a shitty little ancient fort with no working toilet. And what
was the point of the clowns in the circus? Trying to terrify Cookey and use psychology to weaken us. That is a good point though, the use of psychology shows their evolving ability to adapt. If we had all been terrified of clowns we could have been wiped out easily, frozen to the spot in fear or running away in absolute panic. It knew Cookey’s name too, plus it said those things about Mohammed, about when he was younger.

  Information is power but power corrupts. If the infection is developing a conscious and an awareness of self, then an ego will surely follow. The vanity of man comes from our belief that we are above everything else. The infection desires to be the supreme race so it has a belief that it is above everything else. But that would imply a belief system.

  No, I’m on the right track. Information is power. The infection is learning to use information against us. Knowing Cookey was terrified of clowns so playing to his fear. Knowing there is something nasty in Mohammed’s past and again trying to get inside his head with it. It can only use information if it has collected the information first. Well, that’s obvious. It is accessing the memories and knowledge within the brains of the bodies it inhabits.

  Power corrupts. The infection is gathering information to gain power and supremacy, but why? There must be a reason for this? There has to be a purpose and something that is greater than a motivating factor.

  ‘Mr Howie, we’re here….’

  ‘Go on without me,’ I reply, ‘Dave, go with them.’

  It’s evolving, learning, becoming something other than what it was. Something tells me to start there, a flag waving in my head, a claxon sounding. Something other than what it was in the beginning.

  ‘Boss, Blowers said you’re staying here?’ The back doors open to reveal Clarence.

  ‘Yes!’

  The beginning. I watched it on the television. All the news channels saying it started in Europe and spread across.

  ‘Howie, why aren’t you coming in?’ Lani at the back doors.

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ I burst into rage, ‘Nick!’

  ‘Yes, boss,’ he runs towards me as I jump down from the back of the van.

  ‘Give me a smoke.’

  With the look of a startled rabbit he fumbles the pack out while I stare at the house. Large. Detached. Brick built. Executive. Plush. Space for several vehicles but there’s only a small one parked up and judging by the leaves and shit all over it I would say it hasn’t moved in fifteen days. Doors and windows all closed. Curtains drawn. No signs of entry but then there’s a build-up of leaves outside the front door too that indicates it hasn’t opened.

  ‘Cheers,’ I take the cigarette, light up, inhale then stomp towards the front door with the sawn-off held up and ready. Two shots blasted into the central lock area, one big boot and it swings in then falls off the hinges with an almighty clatter. I’m in before the door has finished settling.

  ‘ANYONE HERE?’

  Dust all over the floor, smooth and undisturbed. Musty smells from no air flow. It feels empty. It is empty.

  ‘Next one,’ I snap while marching back to the van amidst an array of hard stares.

  The facts. What do I know for fact? It started in Europe. It is a virus that is transmitted by bodily fluids.

  ‘Mr Howie,’ Blowers climbs into the driver’s seat and turns with a question.

  ‘SILENCE!’ Dave’s parade ground voice booms out loud and clear and hopefully telling everyone to leave me alone. He nods at me as though urging me to continue.

  It drives the host body to seek more hosts. They bite and ensure the virus is transmitted then move on to take the next one, but not every time. Sometimes they eat too much flesh and render the body unusable. What does that mean? A lack of control and discipline?

  It targeted us very quickly, within five days of the event starting. Dave said it could be because we were killing so many of them but there must have been other groups out there killing more than us, and Dave has killed more than all of us combined so why go for me and not him?

  Which leads me onto the immunity. One race. In the beginning it was simply seeking every possible host, doing everything it could to turn every single person, hunting them, hounding them, stalking and chasing. Driven and ruthless and like nothing ever known to humanity before.

  Immunity. I am immune. The virus cannot harm me. Cookey too. Meredith. Lani did turn but she came back. What was that? Is she mutated differently to us? How did her body fight back?

  The infection sees us as the threat now. It sees me as the threat. A threat to its dominance and control of this environment. It seeks to dominate and control this environment so it has purpose and reason along with intelligence and shared collective.

  Purpose. The infection has purpose. It is intended for something which means…fuck it. What does it mean? I can feel I’m onto something, it’s right there, like a rope hanging just out of reach from my grasp.

  Marcy. Darren. Darren was the first we knew of that possessed the ability to think and retain even a semblance of the individual he was. That was the infection learning to evolve. Marcy was different, she is different. Marcy said the infection was the cure for all diseases, the end to suffering, the end of pain and war, violence, greed.

  The flood of emotion I felt when I first saw her still resonates within me. A moment in time captured that will stay with me forever. The ground heaved, the sky was spinning and I saw our future mapped out in years ahead. We both did. We both felt it. The pheromones tried to take us but that was the infection, not the woman. The woman, the person, the human left inside her wanted a different course of action, she wanted a different outcome to that which is pre-destined for her kind. She wanted a doctor and was willing to offer herself as a test subject.

  That emotion I felt with her was a reaction of chemicals being released. A reaction. A reaction. A reaction to her. A reaction from what I am to what she was…what she is.

  One race.

  A chemical reaction. Something in me recognised something in her and reacted by screaming at me to do something, but what? Do what?

  This fucking van is rocking too much, the engine is too noisy, the sides are too close, I feel trapped and I need space to think.

  ‘Stop the van,’ Dave barks the command. Did I think it or say it? I don’t care. The van pulls over, signalling Roy in front and Clarence behind.

  I’m out the back before we’re fully stopped, pacing away with my hands on my head while I think.

  My head feels like it will explode. Too many thoughts, too many strands of thought processes but I’m close, close to something.

  ‘NOT NOW!’ I roar at Lani, urging her to leave me alone.

  Dave moves close, ever protective and I catch a glimpse of him turning to face back at the others with his hands held ready on his knife hilts. He looks terrifyingly intent. His face is a mask of utter coldness that will kill and kill until time stops.

  ‘Dave, help me,’ I bleat the words out, pleading for the great man to save me once again.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Dave! Help me…I’m so close but…but I can’t…I can’t think…’

  ‘You can and you are,’ his gaze is flat and level, ‘nobody will disturb you now.’

  ‘I’m going fucking crazy.’

  ‘You’re not.’

  ‘He bloody is,’ Lani spits.

  ‘Do not speak…do not utter a word,’ Dave’s tone is deathly, commanding and so chilling it rips every ounce of anger and hurt from her face. 'You are not crazy,’ he turns to me, ‘think…think clearly.’

  ‘I’M TRYING,’ I scream, ‘but my head hurts…’ pain in the back of my skull blossoms to spread across my cranium.

  ‘Marcy was infected, right?’ I pace towards him, expecting him to answer but he doesn't, he just watches me closely, ‘she said…she said the infection cured diseases…it was the cure not the…the…’ I cast about trying to remember her words.

  ‘The cure not the disease…’ Lani mutters.

  ‘Yes! She said it was
the cure not the disease…but it is a fucking disease, a virus, an infection that transmits but it has purpose and intent, intelligence and cunning, it is evolving and it said one race, you heard it…Dave, you heard it say that right?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘So it has purpose and it has intent and…and it has perception of self. It has an end game, or…’ I stop pacing to think. ‘It had an end game…the end game was to turn everyone but that was always going to end badly as the second the last one turns renders it effectively extinct. So the end game has changed. The purpose has changed! It’s changed because the infection has evolved to have a perception of self. It….the infection, it seeks survival and dominance…holy fuck…’

  We’re the reason for the change. We’re immune. I am immune. Lani and Cookey. We are the anti-dote. We’re the thing that can stop it.

  One race.

  Marcy said the infection is the cure, it cures all diseases. Like a…what’s that thing in Greek mythology? The thing that is meant to give immortality and…panacea! The infection is a panacea, a cure all. But it isn’t curing, it’s killing. It’s destroying everything. The host bodies it has are all slowly decomposing.

  ‘It doesn't make sense,’ I tell Dave, ‘it can’t be a panacea if it’s killing everything…there won’t be anything left alive.’

  ‘It can’t kill everything,’ Dave replies, ‘it can’t kill you.’

  ‘No it can kill me, it can shoot me or stab me, or drown me or fucking hell…pretty much whatever it takes but what it can’t do is infect me and it can’t infect Cookey or Lani.’

  A reaction of chemicals. Marcy caused a reaction. Marcy was infected but different, she maintained an individual thought process and right there at the very end, it was her holding them back from attacking me. She held them back and defied the infection by doing so.

  Mine and Dave’s eyes lock. His are cold and grey but so deep they stretch away to infinity. He nods. Slowly, firmly yet it gets more pronounced. Every thought in my head stops. The pain that was building eases.