The Z Infection (8 page)

       ‘How the hell are we going to get out of here?’
I asked.

       ‘I’m on my way to an aircraft,’ said Anna.  ‘My
friend found it, making ready to leave.  She’s asked them to wait for me.’

       ‘What are we waiting for?’ I asked.

       ‘The gate is at the other side of that,’ she
said, pointing down into the carnage beneath us.  ‘Do you have a plan to get
through?’

Government Announcement

20:00 hours, Friday 15
^th
May

‘This is a government update on the
incidents which happened in London today.  A large part of the centre of London
is cut off from the outside world.  Any persons within the area north of the
Thames, Kensington to the west, Barking to the east and Finchley to the north,
are advised to remain indoors.  Do not approach any person who is displaying
signs of infection.’

‘People outside this area are advised
to evacuate, if possible, to the safe areas we are setting up in Croydon,
Reading and Potters Bar.  These areas will be protected by the armed forces and
there will be medical facilities and food made available.’

‘Once again, if you are in the
infected zone, remain where you are.  Do not attempt to leave.  If you are not
in the zone, then you are advised to get to one of the safe areas immediately. 
Further advice will be given when we have more information.’

Clive Westlake

20:20 hours, Friday 15
^th
May, New Scotland
Yard, London

       When some people talk about the Zombie
Outbreak, or the European Plague or ‘Z’ Day, they often romanticise it in some
respects.  Let me be clear.  There was nothing romantic about anything I saw in
London on that first day.  A nice dinner for two, in a quiet restaurant, with a
candle on the table?  That’s romantic.  People with their guts ripped out is
not romantic.  People being turned into crazed man eaters isn’t romantic. 
Destroying our city because we didn’t know what we were fighting against is
definitely not romantic.  And the battle of New Scotland Yard was the most
unromantic thing I have ever witnessed.  So if anyone ever talks it up and
brims with pride when they talk about those days, then they are either hiding
something or they weren’t there.

       The people who were there are the ones who can
only bring themselves to talk about it now.  It was ten years ago and I still
have nightmares about it.  Ten years of waking up in a sweat, of pissing the
bed because my dreams are so real.  I’m not proud of what I did on that first
day.  I should have been more in control.  Maybe I should have stood my ground
and died with that sixteen-year-old kid in Whitehall, or went back to help the
officer whose name I can’t remember.

       What if I had done those things?  I would have
been killed too.  Some of us had to survive.  We had to survive to be able to
fight back.  It was that or we were all finished.  The planet would have turned
into a Zombie world, full of the dead.  Aimless, wandering ghouls.

       My wife had phoned me to let me know she had collected
our kids from school as soon as she had heard that things were becoming
serious.  We had a house in north London, near the old Arsenal football
ground.  I was sure they would be safe there for the foreseeable future.  The
outbreak was confined to the city centre after all.  How quickly could
something like this spread?  I was convinced we would get it under control once
the government stepped in with a plan.

       The latest government advice changed all that. 
I sent her a text, telling her to go to her mother’s house in Bath.  It should
be far enough away from the danger in London.  I just prayed that she got it in
time.

       After the massacre at Whitehall I had ran down
through Parliament Square and onto Victoria Street.  When I reached the police
station at New Scotland Yard it was already surrounded by a large group of
people.  Most were seeking answers.  Some were trying to get inside, saying
they needed protection.

       I managed to get to the front door, despite the
protests from those I was pushing aside.  I took a couple of punches to the
back of the head but it was to be expected.  These people were terrified about
what was happening.  Many had seen, at first hand, the speed with which the
infection was spreading.  They could also see what it was doing to those it
claimed and I would doubt if any of them would have wanted to become like that.

       I managed to show my warrant card and then
squeezed through the door.  It took all six of the officers who were stationed
in the foyer to close it against the weight of those outside but they
eventually managed.

       Once I had recovered and got my breath back, I told
the officer in charge who I was and what I had seen.  I was asked to wait in a
side room, while he made a phone call.  Then, to my surprise, I was taken
immediately to the Commissioner’s office on a floor near the top of the
building.

He was seated, with a large map on
his otherwise cleared desk and just two other senior officers with him, but he
stood up as I entered the room.

       ‘Constable Westlake,’ he greeted me. 

       We shook hands and he invited me to take a look
at the map.  There were dots all over the area around central London.

       ‘I hear you have been in the thick of things
all day,’ he said.

       I had been, pretty much.  My uniform had seen
better days and I was exhausted.  I must have looked a proper sight.

       ‘I’ve seen a fair bit,’ I said.

       ‘We need a full debrief from you, since you are
the first officer to have made it back from the front line, so to speak.’

       ‘I can do that, sir,’ I said.

       This is what we know so far,’ he went on.  ‘The
red dots signify an incident.’

       I looked at them.  There were dozens.

       ‘The areas shaded in yellow are areas where we
have either lost control or have had no information from in over six hours.’

       The yellow areas covered huge parts of the city
centre, in a rough circle.  The boundaries stretched south to St James’s Park
underground, just a few streets away and north, to Kings Cross railway
station.  To the east it reached as far as St Paul’s Cathedral and to the west
as far as Kensington Palace.  Parts of the south bank were also beginning to
get shaded as the infection spread.

       ‘What are the black dots?’ I asked.  There were
several dozen of them, all close to the red ones.

       ‘That is where we have lost police officers,’
the Commissioner said.

       He turned from the map and gazed out of the
window. 

       ‘I have informed the PM that the Met is no
longer capable of dealing with this and we shall have to hand over
responsibility for order, to the army in the meantime.  He agrees with that. 
This is far beyond our capabilities but we will assist as best we can and offer
every resource we have to the fight.’

       ‘This is something much more dangerous than we
might ever have imagined,’ I said.  ‘I lost a colleague in an incident in
Whitehall as we were making our way here.  There were civilians fighting
against…’

       He looked at me again.

       ‘Against what?’

       ‘Zombies.’

       He frowned.  One of the other officers looked
sceptical.

       ‘We have heard those reports too,’ he said. 
‘Fanciful nonsense.  Too many ridiculous films and books on the subject have
addled peoples brains.’

       ‘With all due respect sir,’ I said.  ‘I saw one
officer shoot two or three of those things.  Double tapped to the chest.  They
should have been killed outright, but they got back up again like nothing had
happened.  They just kept coming.’

       ‘They can’t be killed?’ said the Commissioner.

       ‘They can,’ I said.  ‘A young boy at Whitehall
told us to aim for the head.  That’s the only thing I know that stops them for
good.  That’s what I came here to tell you.  That information needs to be
passed on to the general public.  It might save them.  It will at least give
them a fighting chance.’

       ‘No,’ said the other officer.  ‘All that will
do will cause more panic.  Really?  Zombies?  The dead walking the streets of
London, preying on the living?  That’s what you want us to tell people?  It
would give us more problems than we already have.  Vigilantes on the streets,
killing at random.  It would be chaos.’

       ‘It’s chaos now,’ I said.

       But the Commissioner agreed with his assistant. 
‘There’s no way we can be sure about this, so we wait until we have more
information.’

       That was it.  I think, if we had acted then and
notified the government, we might have had a fighting chance.  Instead we
waited, not knowing what to do, waiting for others to make the decisions for
us.  It was a catastrophic error.  The infection, which was moving too fast for
us to cope with that moment, suddenly upped a gear.  Before long it would be
completely out of our control, with no chance of regaining it.

Anna Hasker

20:25 hours, Friday 15
^th
May, Heathrow
Airport, London

       I knew it was going to be difficult getting
through the concourse.  I dreaded the very thought of even trying, but it was
the only way to reach the aircraft.  It wasn’t going to wait for us for ever
and I knew that the chances of finding another pilot, who could fly us out of
there, were unlikely at best.

       Mike was in much better shape, now that he had
come to terms with what was happening.  I was worried, when I first met him,
that he was too intoxicated to be of any use, but he had sobered up quickly
when he had seen the slaughter in the departure lounge.  It would have been
enough to make the drunkest man take note.

       I pointed to a stairway.  It led down to an
opening at the far end of the lounge.

       ‘That stairway is at the end of this
concourse.  The opening you can see leads into a wide corridor.  It has moving
walkways on it and leads to the gate where the plane is.  We need to get
through the opening and down to the gate as fast as we can.’

       Mike looked unsure.

       ‘There are dozens of them down there.’

       ‘We have to get to that plane,’ I said. 
‘There’s no other option.  The entire airport is overrun and it’s the only way
out.’

       ‘We need a distraction then,’ said Mike,
suddenly focused again.

       I agreed with him.  One of us would have to try
to create a diversion, perhaps lead them away from the opening, so that we had
a chance.

       ‘I’ll do it,’ I said.

       ‘I think I should,’ said Mike.

       He obviously thought, that as the man, it was
his duty to save the poor helpless girl.  I was used to sexist remarks.  You
got them all the time as cabin crew.  Everyone thought that you were a bimbo,
or an easy lay.  The fact I could speak three languages fluently, didn’t
matter.  The fact that I was studying at nights, for a degree in Anthropology,
also didn’t matter.  As soon as the uniform went on, you were a brainless
trolley dolly.

       ‘I think I can manage,’ I retorted.  ‘I’m in
better shape than you and I know the airport too.’

       He thought about it for a moment, before
realising that I was right.

       ‘Okay,’ he said.  ‘What do we do?’

       Five minutes later we had formulated a plan.  I
sent Mike to the stairs which led down to the concourse and told him to wait
there.  I then doubled back to the next flight and walked down them until I was
able to see what was going on.  I counted twenty people walking around, trance-like. 
There was nobody left for them to attack.  Everyone who had been in that part
of the building was dead, had run away or had been turned into one of them.

       I shuddered at the thought of what I was about
to do.  Once I was sure that I knew where they all were, I quietly stepped onto
the concourse.  The smell of death was overpowering.  There were bodies
everywhere, some half eaten.  Parents lay on top of children in their last
desperate bids to protect them from the savagery.  None of them would have
understood what was going on.  It was horror beyond belief.

       Pulling myself together, knowing that there was
nothing that could be done for any of these victims, I crept towards a seating
area.  Two of the things were checking something at the side of a table.  I
couldn’t see what it was but I was grateful they were distracted.

       Carefully I lifted one of the plastic chairs. 
It scraped in the floor as I lifted it and they turned almost immediately. 
Christ, they were tuned in.  The slightest noise and they were attracted to it
in an instant.  They started walking towards me.  I knew I would have to act
now.  Standing up, I picked up the chair and threw it at them with all the
strength I could muster.  It hit the nearest one and bounced off his chest.  He
never flinched.

       I turned and ran, shouting and cursing them at
the top of my voice.  The shouts drew the attention of the others and before
long I had the whole ensemble following me.  I felt like the Pied Piper of
Hamelin as I led them through the piles of bodies, although I knew that these
rats wouldn’t be drowning in any river.

       As I got to the stairs I turned to look back,
to make sure they were all following me.  They were.  Every single one of
them.  The noise was enough to attract them to me.  I turned to climb the
stairs and suddenly felt a hand around my ankle.  It yanked my off my feet and
landed hard, banging my head and opening a deep gash on my knee.