Cobra Z (50 page)

Others took to the streets, fear and confusion sending them on a whirlwind of destruction and chaos. Law and order evaporated as the police went to protect their families, no longer willing to defend those who could not control themselves, and any residue of the armed forces found themselves ordered to evacuation zones. Only some went. As the carnage grew, the non-infected towns and cities burned and the streets ran red with the intoxication of anarchic release. As the hours passed, and as the contagion spread in ever-increasing circles, the initial illegal desire for TVs, designer clothes, and other consumer goods changed as reality dawned on the lawless. What use was a 40-inch plasma when very shortly there wouldn’t be any electricity? What use was a Rolex watch when millions of ravenous, blood-thirsty horrors were descending on you, intent on biting and ripping and gouging your flesh? So the gangs and the mobs turned on the supermarkets, on the corner shops, and then on each other. And all the while the law abiding hid behind their doors and prayed to whatever gods were left to listen.

Outside the UK, the world shook on its axis. In Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged down a thousand points on opening as some of the world’s largest companies became worthless. Banking stocks collapsed as the loss of the UK’s financial hub, the City of London, rocked them to their core. And at the realisation that there was now no chance Britain’s massive debt would ever be repaid, the system went into meltdown. The world’s stock markets closed shortly after opening as trading was suspended, panic wiping out trillions of dollars in mere hours. Commodities and FOREX markets across the globe suffered similar fates, and the British pound plummeted in value to near worthless paper. On Wall Street, suicides skyrocketed as fortunes were decimated and people hurled themselves into the street below.

All international flights to the UK were cancelled and every sea border with the country was closed. Before the order came, hundreds of private jets and helicopters took off and left UK airspace as the rich and the connected fled. Except for the earliest flights, all were directed to Ireland, which was to be the world’s buffer zone. The United States went to DEFCON 2 and NATO began to mobilise forces in two directions. Firstly, to the northern border of mainland Europe, and secondly to Eastern Europe in case a recently empowered Russia saw this as an advantage to claim back former glories. Now with no mainland government to control them, the remaining UK forces, including its nuclear submarines, were taken under NATO control. But even with its losses, one of the world’s most powerful militaries had escaped relatively unscathed, most of its personnel and heavy equipment overseas. Queen Elizabeth II may not have had a country left, but she was still the sovereign of an effective fighting force.

Fearing an influx of infected, the Channel Tunnel was sealed at the French end, and demolition charges were set midway through. In the Mediterranean, the United States Navy Carrier Strike Group 2 was ordered to the Atlantic to coordinate the naval blockade of a country that had once used the sea to conquer a quarter of the globe. En route from America, Carrier Strike Group 8 was redirected to help with the blockade. NATO instructed Britain to deploy every ship it had out at sea to help quarantine their own home. Despite the fact that their families were being left to die, very few of the remaining service personnel refused their orders. There was, after all, nothing they could do, no homes for them now to go to. With the certainty that their families, their friends and loved ones back on the mainland were most certainly doomed, all that was left was duty. And suicide, there was plenty of that.

Operation Noah was deemed a success. Over four hundred individuals were extracted from the mainland, with very few no shows. Scientists, doctors, industrialists, authors, and artists all found themselves whisked away from a dying country, in planes and helicopters also laden with precious art and rare trinkets, mainly from private collections. Any initial resistance to abandoning the country was quickly countered by the horrific news coming out of London that was broadcast across every available channel. People watched in horror as a country of sixty million people burned and tore itself apart.

Epilogue

David, his name had been David. He still remembered that on occasion, but it meant nothing to him now. The brief spark of memory hit him again as he wandered down onto the beach, the sky slowly beginning to darken as the sun began to disappear from the cloudless sky. Then the thought was gone, replaced only by the hunger and the churning of millions of voices. The voices drove him on, urged him, forced him to continue what the virus demanded. Somewhere along the way, he had lost one of his shoes, and he walked lopsided, the wet sand soaking through his sock. He barely registered the chill of the ground or of the air around him, his attention fixed on the distant horizon. The abrasions on his foot and the glass embedded in it were of no consequence to him.

His arm no longer ached from the gunshot wound and broken arm, the virus having partially repaired the ripped muscle and shattered bone, knitting him back together over the days it had taken him to make the journey from London. He had been in the vanguard, spreading the contagion through the towns and cities that surrounded the nation’s capital. At first, he had found nothing but abandonment and desertion, but eventually, his kind caught up with the fleeing humanity. The motorways, the trains and the airports all clogged with frightened, defenceless beings with nowhere to go. It had been a slaughter. Deserted by the government whose armed forces had all but fled, those caught by the infected were easily converted and swelled the ranks. By the time he had reached the beach, there was an army of over thirty million infected. And now he was at the edge of the island’s humanity, and yet the hunger spurred him onwards. Ever onwards. Never stopping, never sleeping, his body a wiry, emaciated mass that fed upon itself to feed the viral hunger.

He walked into the surf as it came in to paint the sand, the sun visible in the clear sky above. There was movement to his left, and his head briefly turned to see dozens of his kind walking towards the ocean’s edge. They were all of one purpose, one mind, one vision, the virus wanting to spread, to seed itself further and further. David looked back at the horizon, and although he could not see it, he knew there was more land out there. In his human days, he would have called this the English Channel, would have known that people had swum it countless times. He stepped further into the water, oblivious to it as it came up over his knees, then up to his thighs. He could hear more infected behind him, and knew that there were hundreds, no thousands doing as he was doing.

The water, now up to his waist, held no threat for him. The currents and the cold would not end him. Should his life be taken, then would he not merely be transformed? Now the water was up to his chest, and he paused briefly. David knew where he had to go, where they had to go. On that horizon, the enemy waited, and he and his kind would bring to them the new order of things. He looked around him one last time, and felt the cry rising in his throat, heard his brethren join him in the chorus of the damned.

“
SPREEEEAAAAAD.
” With that, a thousand voices were silenced as they submerged themselves under the water and began to swim towards the French coast.

Coming soon……….

The Contained

Book 2 of the

Necropolis Trilogy

By Sean Deville

“They’re coming to get you, Barbara”

– Johnny,
Night of the Living Dead

NSN 75690-01-21207904

A confidential report to the President of the United States from the office of the Secretary of Defence

11.17.2015

To: The President of the United States of America

From: Carl McGruber, Secretary of Defence

Mr. President,

Through liaison with the Director of the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we have collated the information regarding the events in the United Kingdom and have concluded that the terrorist threat to this country is real. It is our recommendation that we take no action at this time to suppress the biological threat on the UK mainland, and instead concentrate on finding the culprits that we believe reside on our own soil.

Our present understanding of how the contagion works is this. Initially spread through contaminated milk in coffee shops, the pathogen is spread by bites and by direct exposure to bodily fluids. From analysis of the information forwarded to us by the remnants of the UK government and MI6 still holding out in their London headquarters, we know that someone exposed to the virus, even via skin contact, will turn within, on average, ten minutes. They will then become violent, with immense strength and stamina, similar to someone on PCP. They will be immune to most painful stimuli and can sustain injuries that would kill most humans. If they are killed by anything other than brain trauma, they will resurrect as
–
what you will know from popular horror fiction
–
the undead. Of the samples captured by MI6 agents on the ground, we have been told that the undead display no vital functions. They have no heartbeat, no blood pressure and show only the faintest of brain readings on MRI or EEG. Although dead, the isolated virus seems to kill all other pathogens in the body, slowing decomposition considerably. The reanimated can move although they cannot perform fine motor functions. It is understood that they can climb and open doors. It has been shown that they can only be stopped by destroying the brain stem. This explains why the UK forces had such difficulty killing anyone infected.

The NSA were able to salvage much of the data from their UK counterparts at GCHQ upon the facility’s evacuation. That combined with the MI6 interrogation of the captured terrorists has led us to believe that, whilst the laboratory used to make the virus was on the UK mainland, and that the chief scientist behind the virus was still at that lab on its destruction, the main perpetrator of this atrocity is still at large. We have as yet no knowledge of how the lab was funded or whether further samples of the virus have been smuggled out of the country. We have been advised that we will be kept appraised of any developments brought forth from the data seized at the laboratory, but we have not, as yet been given access to it. Due to the biological hazard presented by this contagion, the Joint Chiefs rejected the initial proposal to send our own Special Forces to aid the operation to seize the laboratory.

Regarding the threat made via the uploaded YouTube video, which, despite our attempt to suppress it, has reached almost one and a half billion views, the original upload was done through a host of proxy servers, and it is impossible to determine even which country it originated in, never mind who created the video. We believe, however, the video is real and that the threat posed to our nation is possibly the worst since the Cuban Missile Crisis. We advise that all Federal and State law enforcement agencies be put on high alert and that operation Clean Sweep be implemented. We have confirmation from the Justice Department that Clean Sweep is legal under Executive Order and that FEMA can have the detention camps ready for detainees by the end of the day. The first stage of Clean Sweep should see half a million radicals, terrorist suspects and undesirables taken off the streets within 24 hours. The NSA will begin blocking alternative media sites, and the main news broadcasters and print news have confirmed they will push the narrative we give them. All it requires is your approval, Mr. President.

Regarding the quarantine of the UK mainland, this is now complete. There is a twenty-five mile naval exclusion zone and all air traffic is banned from going anywhere near the UK in a three-hundred-mile radius. This has obviously impacted on European air travel, but no country has yet objected. Any vessel trying to breach this quarantine will receive one warning, before being either shot down or sunk. We have confirmation from NATO and the Russian Republic that they will aid in this quarantine. The Russians have assured us that they will not use this crisis to further their territorial demands. The only fear at present is if infected individuals try and swim the UK channel, or if reanimated corpses fall into the ocean and get swept away.

We will brief you further as and when developments arise. We do not at this stage recommend declaring martial law, and do not advise suspending the Constitution at this time.

Carl McGruber,

Secretary of Defence