by Colley, Ryan
“Your job!” I replied impatiently. “What profession did you have before all this happened?
“Did have?” he replied sceptically, before replying properly, “Police officer. I’m a police officer. Still am, in fact.”
“Prove it,” I replied. I had no idea why I asked him to do that. I don’t even know why I asked what his profession was to begin with. Maybe to justify what I wanted to do next. He reached for his pocket but stopped when he saw my hand tighten on the gun.
“I’m just getting my badge,” he replied calmly. I nodded for him to carry on. He reached into his pocket and slowly pulled out a black wallet. He tossed it to me, and I caught it. I flipped it open and saw his ID and badge. He wasn’t lying. His name was James Morrison; not that James Morrison. Even though the world had been flipped on its head, I felt as though I could still trust an officer of the law. Some childhood thought perhaps? I threw his badge back to him and lowered my gun slightly.
“Where are you heading?” I asked, a little softer than I had been previously.
“Scotland,” he replied confidently. “No infection up there. You?”
“Essex,” I replied without explanation.
“Why Essex?” the man replied with an edge of concern. He lowered his arms now. “I thought it fell days ago?”
“What?!” I asked in alarm. “They were still transporting people there. The news said … ”
“You can’t believe the news, guy. They’re lying,” he replied, then added with confusion, “It was you military types who told the Con-stab that.”
“Military types?” I replied equally, if not more, confused. I looked down at myself. Military-grade boots, guns, and driving a military vehicle. I could see how he made the mistake. “Not military, James.”
“You act like one,” he laughed. He suddenly lunged forward with hand outstretched. I aimed my gun at his chest, fear driving me. His eyes widened again and he started saying loudly, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just gonna shake your hand. We’re still a civilised species after all.”
He leaned forward again, slowly this time, hand outstretched. My finger hovered over the trigger as I reached out with my other hand. We shook our hands, gentlemen at the end of the world.
“I’m James Morrison. Official introduction over with,” he laughed, gripping my hand tightly, “And you are?”
“Sam. Sam Lincoln-Ward,” I replied, releasing his hand.
“Posh name,” he remarked with a smile.
“Not so posh person,” I said, smiling back. The smile lingered on my face, even though I needed to say something which wasn’t so nice. “Look, I can take you as far as Essex. It may be out your way a little bit, but you will be far enough from London that it might be safer.”
“That would be brilliant,” James replied, interrupting me as a huge smile spread across his face.
“But!” I said loudly to reinforce my point. “There will be some rules. Firstly, I still don’t trust you entirely.”
“The way of the world now.” He nodded in agreement.
“Secondly, I need you to tell me everything you know about Essex and a few other things,” I said slowly. I wanted to make the point clear. I needed to know every little detail.
“Will do what I can,” he smiled. He seemed genuine and more than happy to help. He reached for his tyre iron.
“Thirdly, I want you to leave all weapons in the back of the Jeep,” I quickly said before he could retrieve it. He began to protest, but I added, “I will do the same. We can think of it as a show of trust.”
He didn’t look happy about it but agreed anyway. He put his weapons in the back of the Jeep, as did I. My assault rifle and handgun anyway, he didn’t need to know about my spear-knife. I wasn’t stupid enough to trust him. I returned to the wheel, struggling to put the new one on. James stood there and stared at me while I struggled. I dropped the heavy tyre and kicked it angrily.
“Piece of junk,” I spat in frustration. James stepped forward; clearly uneasy about being around me. That was fine, I felt the same.
“Never changed a tyre before?” he asked cautiously.
I shook my head. “Only in theory.”
“Let me show you,” he said, looking at the tyre iron in my hand and smiling. He had been using one as a weapon. I had used it as a tool. He held his hand out for it, and I passed it uneasily. My hand shifted slightly, ready to grab my spear-knife if I needed to. He took the tool and bent down to work on the tyre. He talked me through it, and I watched, taking every little detail in. I had just read descriptions online; actually watching it done made a lot more sense. Within minutes, the new tyre was on and the bolts were in place. We were ready to roll. He handed me back the tyre iron; a gesture of trust and reassurance. I took it and smiled. Things could turn out alright.
As we both climbed into the car, I said to him, almost as a last ditch effort, “Just don’t make me regret trusting you.”
“You and me both,” Officer James Morrison laughed, slamming his door. I pushed my foot down on the accelerator and we were off.
CHAPTER 17
We travelled in silence for the first part of the journey. Neither of us spoke. We had nothing to talk about. We were together out of convenience more than anything else. Sure he had information for me, but we had a long journey ahead. Why would I want to waste that one chance of conversation so early on? James leaned forward and switch the radio on, looking for something to break the silence. He found only static. He adjusted the frequency and left it on.
“The military use this frequency for emergency broadcasts,” he explained before he put his head back and closed his eyes. He was really trusting. Something which would get him killed. For a fleeting moment, I considered stabbing him in the neck to teach him a lesson about the new world. Then the thought was gone. What the hell was wrong with me? Where the hell had that came from? I looked at the reflection of myself in the car mirror. Looking back at me was the familiar, albeit tired, face. It probably was the exhaustion. Hopefully.
After a few more minutes of silence, with James asleep and myself deep in thought, it was broken. There was a voice, but the source wasn’t either of us. It was the radio crackling to life. James opened his eyes with instant awareness of where he was. Even in my own bed, I would often wake with confusion; James was the opposite. Both our eyes darted to each other and then the radio. There was shouting in the background of wherever the broadcast was coming from. We both shared an excited look. After a few moments of static and background noise, a voice came through the speakers.
“This is Major Byron calling for a full retreat of London. It is lost,” the voice said urgently, full of sorrow. There was gunfire in the background, followed by screams. “All military forces have approximately ten minutes to exit London. Get the hell out of there.”
More background conversation.
“I am disregarding my orders by warning you,” he stated, and then added more quietly, for the people with him, “I am going down with the city.”
There was outcry in the background and a few protests of those closest to the major. He silenced them with a shout.
“If you don’t leave London, you will die,” the major continued. “I have received a message from the Brass that Operation: Guy Fawkes has been initiated.”
That was clearly a message for the armed forces only. What the hell was “Operation: Guy Fawkes”?
“The Prime Minister is dead. Finally, consider this confirmation of the disbanding of the British Army and any loyal organised military force. I have no one left to report to. This is it. Whoever is left out there, good luck,” the major said, signing off for the last time. There were a few moments of silence as gunfire continued in the background. The radio had been left on and the major added, perhaps to the men around him and those listening in, “It has been an honour serving with each and every one of you.”
There were more screams, and snarls of the undead, closer to the transmitter that time. There was heavy gunfire, a loud
and sudden gunshot, followed by a heavy thud. No more human voices came over that radio again. There were only the snarls of the undead, and the crunch of bones for another minute before I finally switched it off. We didn’t need to hear it. We looked at each other uneasily. It wasn’t pleasant hearing the final moments of a man’s life, even more so when they were ended in such a brutal manner. What hit home harder, however, was the fact that London had officially fallen. It had finally happened. There had been fighting for months to stem the tide of undead. I knew the news gave us propaganda, but I still believed we had a chance of winning. The city had actually fallen. The city which defied the odds. Now it belonged to the undead. It was impossible to get my head around. Actual confirmation that it was a lost cause was just so … terrifying. London: previous population, eight point three million … current living population: unknown. A secondary blow came when I realised there would be no more military fighting for “Queen and Country.” The military were potential enemies.
That was the day order fell apart. That’s how it started; the beginning of the end. The rest of the world would follow London.
That was it, the apocalypse.
CHAPTER 18
Minutes passed and neither of us spoke. We drove along slowly. We were both adjusting to the information we had just heard. So many unanswered questions. How did it finally come to it? Who gave the final orders? Why had the military disbanded? One question that would be answered in mere minutes was, “What was Operation: Guy Fawkes”? We continued driving for approximately ten minutes when we heard an intense rumbling. It reverberated through the vehicle and in my bones. It felt as though the ground was splitting apart to swallow me whole. At least that would relieve me of the horror I was living in. I brought the Jeep to a standstill, staring around me and then up at the sky. Several black objects in the distance sped towards me and passed overhead. They were military jets. They almost went by unseen. I opened the door and climbed out. I had always thought there was something fascinating about fighter jets. They seemed so sleek but mysterious. They carried on in the direction we had come from, faster than the speed of sound, their rumbles trying in vain to catch up with them. In the distance was London, exactly where the jets were going. In a few moments, the jets had reached London, and that was when the bombs fell.
At first there was nothing. Then, huge balls of light, heat and fire exploded throughout the city. A depraved firework display. Swirling fiery infernos danced as they engulfed the infrastructure they had hit. Dazzling displays of colours as various pieces of human creation burned. The New Year’s firework display had nothing on it. It was mesmerising and horrifying all in one. The light reached me first, followed by the crashing roar of the explosion. More and more of those explosions occurred in the distance as they claimed buildings for inferno. The flames engulfed buildings, and the blasts often only left the skeletal remains of the once-strong structures. More jets flew overhead to join the ones above the city. A secondary round of bombs fell, and more destruction unfolded. Huge sections of the city would be nothing but death; the flames that spread would ensure that nothing survived. I watched as more buildings collapsed; their downfall caused other buildings to crumble. I could just see the top of the London Eye in the distance. There was a sudden explosion, and then I couldn’t see the London Eye anymore. What was left of the government was destroying London. I didn’t understand why they would do it. Maybe they thought that, by destroying the epicentre of the infection, they could solve the problem? That couldn’t be it though. The infection had already spread beyond London. It couldn’t be contained. It had to be an act of spite.
I imagined some government officials, or possibly military generals, sitting around thinking, “You kill us, and we destroy you. If we can’t have London, no one can.”
I understood that. I understood that logic. Revenge is good, but only when the ones being punished understand it. There is no retribution if the ones it is being directed at can’t even acknowledge it. The bombing of London was an empty attack. It would only make people feel superficially better. In that moment, maybe it was the most we could ask for. The future was grim.
I stared at the burning capitol for a while longer before I suddenly became aware of the undead slowly moving towards us.
“James,” I said calmly, snapping him out of his thoughts. His eyes pulled away from London and looked at me. His face was slack, and tears brimmed his eyes. I silently nodded behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and nodded back to me. He climbed into the Jeep, as did I. I stared into the rear-view mirror for one last look at London. The city was an inferno. London truly was hell that day. We drove away.
Night approached. There wasn’t anywhere safe to go; we were on the motorway. There were a few other cars around, and no undead as far as we could see. There were street lights along the motorway, but they didn’t turn on. Darkness was falling and they hadn’t even began to glow. It was going to be a dark night. James and I had agreed that we needed to pull over for the night before it got too dark. If we carried on driving, we would need to turn on the headlights, which would attract unwanted attention for miles. The question was: Where? We discussed the side of the road but decided against it when we saw the edge of the road sloped off into an embankment. The undead could be on us in seconds and we wouldn’t even see them before it was too late. We looked at a map we had found in the vehicle for any buildings in the surrounding area. Nothing. The only choice left was the middle of the road. Although it seemed counter-intuitive, it was the safest option. Sure, undead would see us, but we could also see them. There were also other vehicles on the road, so why would they feel the need to stop at ours? The undead didn’t appear to have any supernatural sixth sense to detect the living, so they wouldn’t find us. Finally, we also agreed to take shifts when it came to sleeping. James volunteered me to sleep first, since I’d been driving all day. I told him I didn’t mind staying up longer but he insisted. I felt uneasy about the idea. Would that be when he would make his move? Kill him first, my inner voice said, piping up when I least needed it. I ignored it; it didn’t push the subject.
I drove for another hour before the dark was on us entirely. I slowed the car to a stop about midway across lanes in an attempt to look as inconspicuous as possible. I felt more like a beacon with a neon sign which said “eat here.”
“You sure you don’t want to sleep first?” I asked one last time as I shut off the engine.
“I’m certain, guy,” James reiterated with a smile. “You look exhausted.”
I inadvertently yawned after he said that. He was right, I was exhausted. My eyes burned and felt heavy. My muscles ached, and my bones felt like they were made of glass. I felt that if I closed my eyes to blink, I wouldn’t reopen them until a few hours later. Sleep was waiting to snatch me into its quiet embrace.
“Fine,” I said grudgingly as I clambered out of the driver’s seat and into the back compartment of the Jeep. It wouldn’t be a comfy sleep on the cramped, cold, metal floor, but sleep would be sleep.
“I’ll wake you up in three hours,” James explained.
“Yeah,” I nodded. I put my head down on my bag and pulled my sleeping bag over myself for warmth. I went to ask one more question but slipped off the edge of the conscious world.
Dreams were always weird to think about; I never understood the purpose of them. What use was lying down and hallucinating for four to nine hours? Did they keep your mind entertained while you slept? It made sense for survival purposes, hiding away in the nights where we weren’t the most feared predator on the planet. Sleeping at night would keep us safe while the night predators prowled; they kept us asleep. Or were dreams simulations-type activities for different scenarios your own brain cooked up? That would also help for survival purposes if you are already prepared for something. Regardless of the cause, I don’t know how the dream I had in the Jeep helped as a survival scenario. In the dream, a clown chased me. I hated clowns. Not as a phobia, but they creeped me out. Drea
m-clown wasn’t a normal clown, however. It stood over nine foot tall, with disproportionate limbs. Its arms reached down to the ground and its legs were too short; similar to a gorilla. It chased after me, somehow keeping up even with its stubby legs. He tried to suffocate me but I wriggled away every time. Occasionally, the clown would shout, “Don’t you dare run with those scissors!” before trying to decapitate me with an absurdly large pair of scissors. I didn’t know where I was running to but I was sure if I found Alice, then everything would be okay. She could deal with the clown. Then the scene changed and I was in Essex. I was on Alice’s sofa, where I had slept the one time I visited her family; family values and all that. I heard shuffling and thuds. I stood up and began walking towards the window, the source of the noise. I was in my boxers. I continued my slow and uneasy walk towards the window. The curtains were closed, which my hand reached out to open. I knew what I would find when I opened them, yet I couldn’t stop myself. My hand gripped the edge of the curtain. I pulled it aside. Undead pressed against the window. Faces snarling, fleshy sores smeared gore across the glass. A few pounded the glass. Cracks slowly spread across the surface. It would break soon. All I could do was stand there as the glass collapsed and the undead poured over me. I recognised some of the undead. I didn’t know where from. The faces blended together after a while. As the undead tumbled in, they pulled me to the ground. Teeth tore my flesh. Cutting. Ripping. I tried to scream but couldn’t; my mouth was blocked. Something about the scene felt wrong. As I came apart, I realised what it was with a strange clarity. There was no smell. No stench of the dead. No smell of rotting flesh. It was a dream. I closed my eyes ready to die and, in the same motion, opened my eyes in reality. James’ hand was clamped over my mouth, his body pressed down on mine. I couldn’t move.
“Shh,” James whispered calmly. He pressed his hand tighter against my mouth. I tried to scream, but it was no good. I tried to thrash out but I couldn’t. He held me down firmly, using his larger body mass to his advantage. This is the end for me. I tried to help someone and he tried to kill me! Suddenly, I’d had enough. I accepted my fate and just relaxed. James eased the pressure on me as I did so, and loosened his grip. Had he thought he’d won and given up prematurely? I felt revitalised in that instant. I pushed forward with my attack, spurred on by his momentary lapse. He pushed me back down: superior strength won again. Once more, he then shushed me and pulled his hands away slowly. He raised his hands to show they were empty and not a threat. I breathed heavily and my heart pounded. I stared at him, confusion on my face. He raised one finger to his lip and made the universal sign for “be quiet.” I sat up slowly, still on edge. He pointed out the window. I leaned forward and squinted through the glass and into the dark. Shadowy figures moved around outside. As my eyes adjusted to the limited moonlight, I could tell by their shambling gait that they were undead. They wandered the motorway aimlessly, dragging their feet across the concrete. Their shoulders sagged from the sheer weight of themselves. Suddenly, one walked by the window and scuffed against the vehicle when it got too close. I didn’t move, and held my breath. The undead woman didn’t give us more than a hungry glance. She couldn’t see us as we hid in the darkness of the vehicle. I waited for her to move on before I spoke.