Ian Lawrence
Well-Known Member
Greetings all!
Just wanted to post a piece of scribbling I'm working on.
It's not a small bit of writing, so far goes to 10 chapters and it's a work in progress.
As a bit of background, I'm a model maker by profession so no writer to be sure but this story I wanted to write as I've never done a large bit of fiction story writing. now I wanted to spread it to a wider audience for hopefully your enjoyment.
There is certainly adult language used so be aware of this when reading.
Also it's not even close to the pure zombie/monster survival tale but it is what it is.
Anyways, read on and all comments welcome.
Take care,
Ian
On with the opener and chapter 1.
This work is based on a role playing game between me and my best friend Chris.
We started gaming long ago with the usual table top RPG's like Dungeons and Dragons
with a group of us playing them, over the years this has evolved in to many games on differing subjects from Star Trek to Wild West themes.
This was one of the rare ones that was just Me and Chris.
He was the GM for this turnout and I did the main player character of Ben Hawk.
As Chris and I have agreed, this deviates a little in terms of circumstance, occurrence and it is fleshed out a lot more in terms of details as it makes we believe, for a slightly better story but the essence holds true to the game we played.
It has some basis in the Resident Evil games/movies but it doesn't stick to the base of the Resident Evil universe rigidly.
Nor does it have what we both think is the overblown stuff like the
'Mutating before your eyes monsters with tentacles,
multiple eyes and mouths full of teeth all over the shop
that the slack jawed and well armed victims to be,
just stand and watch happening without emptying their
magazines in it as soon as it twitched oddly'
And things like that.
This story is written from the perspective of the main character in memoir fashion rather than a narrative so a very personal account which is reflected in the story.
Anyways, enough waffle, on with the story.
PREFACE
It is now the early autumn of 2013. I know not what date it is for your dear reader but I write this now while it is still fresh in my mind.
This is a personal writing as mine is the only perspective I can truly speak from. Others who lived through the times I am about to tell you of may hold different views and if there is anything that is incorrect in your view, then let us simply agree to disagree.
The way I put things in this book, as my lovely lady Joanna will tell you, is me. It’s how I think and look at things. We squaddies/former squaddies can be a serious bunch but only behave that way when we have to. So it may seem like it’s all a joke to us by outsiders most times but that’s how we deal with the dark side of situations.
Any of the persons depicted herein are real people and out of respect and security, are referred to by first name and single letter surname. Some whom it was my pleasure to know and call friends and others whom it was displeasure to know as those who were my enemy. I have no problems naming proper names there.
I write this for those who had neither voice nor choice in the matter. The citizen of Racoon City, Those on the Spanish Island, The people of Portsmouth and most of all as it’s my home, the great city of London.
The attack, for there is no other applicable term in my mind, on the city of London and its people, was an act that still defies reason. Or at least ‘reason’ as defined by what could be called rational minds. The minds of those who planned and executed this are beyond the full understanding of the ordinary man or woman I believe.
For that I am thankful, for those who could fully understand may be the ones capable of doing it again. This must never happen again.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
To my darling Joanna. who knows my soul and heart as I know hers, for we have both been here before.
To My Little Angel, I owe you more than I can ever repay in this lifetime.
To Martha, for her quick thinking that kept me from becoming a walker snack.
To those I was privileged to stand beside and who stood beside me in the fight.
To Chris R. for keeping to our agreement, you are an honourable man sir.
To my fellow Londoners who didn’t make it.
To my children and grandchildren yet to be, I did what I must so you could read about what happened rather than live through it as we few did. I hope you learn, understand and can forgive me for some actions which I believed necessary.
To those who believe they are gods and use people as lab experiments for their own twisted ends, take it as wisdom and warning when I say that there are always those like me who will stand against these acts and seek retribution.
And there are always more of us than you.
(1)
From Light To Darkness
The day had unfolded like the many days of the year thus far.
April 2013, a typical beginning to an English spring/summer season with the ever present spectre of winds and driving rain arriving with no warning. The work day was as familiar and comfortingly unremarkable as usual. A Tuesday as I recall.
Having served for six years in Her Majesty’s Parachute Regiment and three in the Special Air Service, I had done what I believed was ‘my bit’ and was getting comfortable in civilian life having spent the last year working for a well-known building firm in London. Being somewhat larger than the average individual made me useful in being able to carry loads almost twice the norm so a fairly handy attribute to those in the construction business.
Being in possession of hands large enough to carry up to eight mugs of tea around the site without spillage didn’t hurt either apparently.
Knocking off time as usual, followed by the standard rowdiness from the crews planning their evenings either at home or in the pub, widely regarded as a second or even first home for some, as the works buses dropped us off close to our respective abodes. For me, it was my flat. The top floor of a converted Victorian town house not far from the Thames. A solid as a rock structure, which had withstood the ravages of time and people.
It will still be standing firm I strongly suspect, long after I’ve gone.
Climbing the stairs and opening the door to my humble home, my nostrils were greeted by the subtle aroma of paper, long stacked on bookshelves. I always find comfort in the faint smell of books, having a personal collection numbering several hundred made for much comfort in my mind.
I have always loved immersing myself in printed pages and not the ones with many colourful pictures and words like ZAP, KAPOW or SNIKT in them either, though I know some love that kind of thing and to each, their own.
Real, honest to goodness books, from Socrates to Stephen King and all points in between.
Books call to us, the thoughts of those from months or millennia past still speaks to us in those pages. Wit and wisdom, knowledge both old and new enrich our minds and feed the soul. The words offer us a means to impart meaning and whether trivial or profound, they all have value in the things they tell.
Shower, dinner and I found myself in the mood for a German beer and my old friend Wordsworth, after the now standard catching up with the world and local news on TV. Said news from both far and near was the usual mix of good, bad and sensationalist. Nothing new there.
One news item did make me stop and watch, I had known about the influenza problem which was not quite at epidemic proportions but gathering pace in its spread if the media were to be believed.
Apparently some unusual measures were being taken, namely an airborne dispersal of vaccine to combat the spread of this rather virulent strain was underway. I’m no virologist but this sort of activity was something new. The usual talking head media and political brigade were in abundance but the representative of the Umbrella Corp. was another matter.
Albert Wesker had the kind of look that stood very neatly between cardboard cut-out and man from PR heaven. In an all-black ensemble with swept back blond hair that had a slightly unsettling symmetrical vibe. If he had stood side on to a full length mirror, you would have been hard pushed to tell a difference between the real and the reflection.
A little bit too perfect. He could have passed for a CGI actor, his look was almost that flawless.
It’s only a personal thing, but the hangar at London City Airport where the interview was taking place wasn’t exactly brightly lit, so why the dark sunglasses he was wearing remained firmly fixed to his face I know not. This is why I freely confess to having no small amount of a mistrust of those that insist on wearing them indoors.
My experience has taught me that you show your eyes to those you are trying to get the trust of. My almost immediate distrust of this character would bear out in later times.
My thoughts were interrupted by a car horn blaring outside my window, followed rapidly by the screech of tyres skidding and the inevitable and rather expensive sounds of a vehicle collision. Looking out, I saw this is exactly what had occurred and it was no gentle nudge that had happened here.
Covering the distance from the top floor to ground in fairly swift fashion, I went out to see if anyone was hurt. Sadly they were and it was none too pretty for the driver of the rear car judging by the amount of red stuff running down the inside of the windscreen.
The woman in the front car seemed conscious and unhurt, at least physically but more than a bit pale and shaky. She managed to blurt out she was ok. Training kicked in at that point and to go with the old saying in battlefield first aid “If they’re screaming, they’re breathing” so I moved to the fella in the rear car, he was out of it good and proper after his head had an argument with the steering wheel, then windscreen and lost badly to both.
Grabbing my mobile phone from a front pocket and finally remembering to shove the small book of Wordsworth I still had in hand in my back pocket, I hit 999 and waited while looking over the bloke to see if he was still in the land of the living.
A faint pulse greeted my far from dainty digits pressed to his neck through the driver’s side open window.
The ringing tone on the other end sounded for way longer than usual, after what must have been at least two minutes, there was a click and the voice of a lady came on the line, she sounded rather hurried.
I let the much extended phone ringing issue drop without comment and requested ambulance and fire to attend. Gave her the location details but the air of uncertainty in her voice and the very obvious sound of a large amount of activity and raised voices in the background did not fill me with confidence.
It was all a bit hurried rather than the usual calm manner these things are known for with the emergency services.
She took the details, relayed she would try to get someone there as soon as possible then hung up rather abruptly. What confidence I had left in the swift arrival of the men and women of the ambulance and fire services was fast beginning to evaporate.
I went to the passenger side of the rear car and leant in through the open window to see if this poor fella was dented anywhere else than his head and face. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt so I didn’t think it was a good idea to open the driver’s side door and have the unfortunate fellow go crashing to the tarmac.
It was at this point that idiot driver syndrome must have been spreading; I looked out the rear window just in time to see a large MPV, travelling at no small rate of knots I might add, a split second before it hit the back of the car I was leaning inside of.
Sadly I was only mostly out of the window when it hit, the door post and the back right quarter of my head had a bit of an altercation at that instant.
A drop of good luck would have done wonders at this point. As it turned out, my good luck immediately legged it without so much as a “Be back later old chap!”
It was a pretty good whack to the back of my head and after trying to pick myself up off the pavement where I landed and only getting in a half-hearted attempt before noticing the patch of red liquid which seemed to be coming from me, soaking through the collar of my t-shirt.
At which point and to avoid throwing up the rather nice balti curry with naan bread I’d recently eaten, I stayed where I was until my brain played an ace and decided it was lights out time.
(2)
Though Much Is Taken, Much Abides
The mind of an unconscious person is a very odd thing I have heard it said. For a period, I was later to find out was almost a month, my mind behaved in a strange but not unpleasant fashion.
“I wandered lonely as a Cloud that floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of dancing Daffodils;”
My old mate Wordsworth. The voice however was possibly American, certainly female and very pleasant indeed.
“Along the Lake, beneath the trees, Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.”
I sat on a grassy bank, listening to the voice which seemed to be coming from a nearby oak tree. Warm afternoon sun bathed me. As I said, strange but not unpleasant. The voice continued as the image fazed in and out of focus. I had no sense of passing time until my eyes opened. Then I wanted the oblivion of my lovely voiced poetry reader back pronto like.
The inside of the portacabin like room was stuffy; it smelled like a cross between Ramses the second’s recently unearthed laundry basket and a poorly cleaned crapper of the same era. My gradually focussing eyes first noticed the light coming through what appeared to be narrow windows high in the wall and then hospital like wheeled table thing they use for patients in bed no more than a foot from my head. I have no idea exactly how long it took for my peepers to start functioning within an acceptable range.
When they did, I noticed the handwritten note in thankfully large and easy to read print taped to the edge facing my less than fully functional eyes. Inexplicably they got my name right and went on to tell me to drink all the water in the bottles on the table and eat the snack bars. They would be back to check on me when they could.
I know they were having problems but I didn’t think the National Health Service had gotten quite this bad.
The inside of my mouth was doing a perfect impression of what I assumed the bottom of an unkempt budgerigar cage must be like.
I moved my arms, they hurt and over the course of the day and night, interspersed with what I assume were short periods of unconsciousness, I slowly discovered so did everything else connected with them.
As time wore on, I managed to get some water down me and my senses began to work again. Not a good move as I began to realise that the smell pervading the room was emanating from me.
I could only hope they left at least some soap or a bottle of industrial strength Febreze in here somewhere.
The large IV bag of fluid someone had plugged in to my arm was almost depleted so that got pulled and over the course of what must have been at least the next day; I used the water that was left on the table thing. Training again helped here, slowly and easy does it fella. The same thinking went in to getting my limbs moving again. Whoever had set me up in here knew their stuff. They must have been doing some movement stuff to my limbs or something or this would have taken a lot longer I suspect. The place had a fair supply of bottled water so I wouldn’t die of thirst. Kudos to whoever thought of that.
I could keep track of time now and going by the day/date thing on my watch which was on the table, something approaching a month had passed since my less than stellar car-door-post-head-butting episode. My brain wasn’t quite firing on all cylinders yet otherwise that revelation would have bothered me a lot more than it did.
The wound had been cleaned and stitched up quite nicely and I was starting to get mobile, albeit very slowly. The large bucket I found came in handy for waste management.
The door had been barred from the inside which I though somewhat odd. The shape I was in led me to conclude that taking a walk to stretch my legs was probably not a good idea and whoever had put me here had done so for a good reason, plus I couldn’t help thinking the door was barred like that for an equally good reason. Questions were starting to pile up and vie for attention in my slightly dented noodle. I managed to clean myself up a bit in the places the mattered and considered looking for a mirror. Pondering on that led me to conclude that wasn’t a good idea considering I probably looked a lot rougher than I felt, so refrained from that search.
After what I judged was three days or so, I had enough movement in my limbs to shuffle fairly well about the place and take stock of what I had. Food was there in the shape of snack bars but not a huge amount; overall with careful use of supplies, I could probably go for a week before it was time to leave. A folding ladder was resting against one wall, long enough for me to take a look out the small windows. Even at 6’ 7” I would still need a boost to see out of them. In my current physical shape, using a ladder would have been less than sensible.
For some reason, a wooden table of the buy flat pack and assemble yourself type was standing all on its own in the middle of the floor underneath what I assumed was some form of roof hatch or covered skylight. Apart from that, there was a bag of sorts marked ‘NHS London Ambulance Service’. I had a rifle through the contents.
Standard field first aid stuff so all useful. Scalpels with blades, forceps, suture kits, alcohol wipes and some metal implements. I was not sure of the use though some looked like small pliers or grips.
I had taken off the rather fragrant hospital like gown and used a slightly less pungent bed sheet to cover what little modesty I had left. Gave myself a standing scrub up best I could trying not to waste too much water.
Where to go? What to do? I gave this more than a small amount of thought and was deep in concentration on these topics. Without information on the world outside my small and smelly domain, resolution on these things would prove difficult. I needed some focus here.
The sudden sound of light footsteps on the roof solidly focused my attention quite nicely.
What I had assumed to be a roof hatch or low covered skylight moved slowly, whoever it was coming in, they didn’t seem to want to attract any attention. The late morning light streamed in and a shadow took form as a pair of small feet clad in hiking boots connected to a rather shapely pair of legs in tight grey trousers slid in through the hole. I assumed female by the leg shape as I suspect most blokes would. Yes, I’m fairly typical in that respect.
I have to admit that the legs were quite nice and the backside that followed them was no less pleasing to my eyes which did nothing to dampen the female assumption. The figure dropped to the table top with a surprising amount of agility and lack of sound which I found somewhat impressive.
The body armour was a bit of a twist, it looked to me like the sort of gear dirt bikers wear. The mane of dark, slightly curly hair was controlled only by a hair band and a baseball style cap. The figure was little more than five feet tall and slender; the back pack was a standard high street sporting goods type of thing. Turning toward me, she and happy to confirm it was a she, seemed slightly startled at me, who must have looked like 20 miles of bad road standing calmly looking in her direction.
“Oh…you’re awake.” She had a slightly olive/dark complexion, though I suspect from parental background rather than a sunbed or the like.
I judged her to be no more than 20 years old at a push. A rather pretty girl indeed, full pouting lips with large dark eyes and one of them slightly upturned button noses that did nothing to harm the overall impression.
“So it would seem and no-one more surprised than me.” I answered cheerily.
It is always my manner to inject some humour in to opening conversation lines, seems to help put folks at ease when they are speaking to me and having to almost continuously look up at the same time. Sometimes height can help for putting some fear in folks, social stuff not so much. Also helps to gauge a person’s attitude early on. For a few seconds we looked at each other, and then it fully dawned on me what a bloody shambles I must have looked.
I realised the somewhat stained hospital bed sheet plus the months’ worth of beard growth was not exactly helping to make a good first impression in this instance.
At least I wasn’t naked otherwise I fear that would have sent my fetching visitor heading for the hills with all due speed and I wouldn’t have blamed her in the slightest!
“Pardon the state of me and the place, I would’ve tidied up but hey, no-one called ahead.”
I said gesturing around the room and at myself while speaking in a partially apologetic tone. This appeared to help and at this comment her lips slowly parted and revealed a very beautiful, broad smile of the type that would make anyone feel better even if they were bloody dying.
She visibly relaxed and almost seemed about to laugh but caught herself, stifled that and stepped closer. She and I introduced ourselves, said her name was Maxina but preferred Max. She spoke in a low voice, I almost instantly recognised it as the American accented poetry reading girl. At that point the thought of mentioning the poem reading dreams evaporated with her next words.
“We have to be quiet, sound attracts them.”
Them? Well at least we’d found a different topic of conversation than the one that originally came to mind.
I matched her low speaking tone “and who exactly might ‘them’ be?”
She seemed to take a moment to collect her thoughts then fixed me with her chestnut brown eyes.
“Walkers, that’s what I call them, they are everywhere out there.” she spoke gesturing with a thumb towards the barred door. Walkers eh, I thought. Well this could be interesting to pass the time. She continued.
“You’ve been out for a while, almost a month.” Well that tallied with what I had been able to work out thus far.
“They are what's left of the people in London after what happened.” Before I was able to ask, she expanded on it.
“You remember the flu thing? The airborne spraying of the vaccine?”
I nodded, dimly remembering the TV news blurb. She continued "Well that’s when it all started, people got sick with a fever and then died but they didn’t stay that way.”
“Sorry, Come again?!” was the best response I could muster.
Again, she paused to arrange her thoughts. “The people died, then got up again and attacked anyone living and that’s how it spread. You got bitten or scratched, you get infected, you die and then you get up and it starts again. They will try to eat anyone or anything living they can get hold of.”
Well, I’d heard a few good ones in my time but this tops them all. I was thinking that maybe she got hit in the head harder than me but for some reason, her manner of speech and body language indicated honesty in what she was saying. I could see genuine fear in her eyes and hear it in her voice which only began when she started speaking of this.
I put my thoughts and feelings of disbelief on hold for a while and decided to let her continue though I think my face gave it away.
She went to the ladder and with some care, laid it at an angle against the wall under one of the windows. “Take a look for yourself." she said with no trace of irritation and pointed toward the window. Well this I had to see, despite the still slightly shaky legs of mine even if to humour her. I will freely admit that I was thinking it was the way my luck was running, to meet and get the undivided attention of a lovely young woman only to find out she had a kangaroo loose in the sanity paddock.
Carefully stepping up to the second rung, I could see out the narrow top window.
I recognised the approximate area we were in. It was a bit away from the Houses of Parliament; I could just about see Big Ben to the north and that also made me a bit back from the Lambeth Bridge area. Must have been some building work or the like going on around here at some point and it was about half a mile or so from my home on the north side of the Thames.
The portacabin was up against a wall and the area outside was a small patch of ground, across the road in front of that seemed to be a car park area or the like.
Once that recognition had been arrived at, I noticed the people outside. Some of them were standing still, others just shuffling very slowly along. They reminded me of how I must have been when I first tried standing up. Then I took a look at them closely.
All of them looked like they could do with a severe wash and brush-up. Clothes tattered and filthy, some with almost no clothing at all. The sunburned and leathery skin varying between overly dark tan to necrotic grey was a bit of a giveaway that things were not as they should be. One close to the widow but above his (I assumed it was a he) view line was a bit of a shock. His face was a mess, or more correctly the half of his face that was still attached to the skull was. The shredded clothing and mangled decaying flesh showing through was on a par with some nightmare vision but brought to life in the light of day.
He looked like he’d lost a fight with something large with more teeth and claws than I felt comfortable thinking about.
I’d seen corpses like this after heavy combat that but they were most certainly not upright as this one was. The others looked in various states of goppingly awful. The whole thing had the air of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow crossed with a horror movie and not one I’d usually pay to go see. Sadly I had a front row seat. The credits weren’t going to roll and lights weren’t going to come up anytime soon.
What in the merry ****in’ hell had happened here!? How come those poor bastards are still mobile??
I slowly climbed back down and just stood for a few seconds letting it sink in, because I had no choice. Max was looking at me with a face that just said “Sorry”.
Taking a deep breath and sitting on the bed, I just looked at her and asked her to tell me what she knew and that was everything. It was about an hour and a bit later when she had finished.
The whole of London had gone straight to **** without passing ‘GO’ and collecting £200. This was all over; she said she hadn’t seen another living soul besides me and her friend.
This friend who she called Martha was a doctor who she had met getting out of London and it turns out that one ambulance had arrived on scene while I was having an enforced nap.
Seems the doctor had been pretty switched on, she managed to get me in, or more correctly, over a discarded low shopping cart and push me to this place. Must have been a bit of a herculean move because I’m no lightweight. The Ambulance crew apparently did what they could but services were overwhelmed with incidents and then it all came apart pretty quickly. I assumed the doc had had her reasons for not taking me to a hospital.
No government or officialdom she was aware of and had not been in contact with anyone other than the doctor and me since it all fell apart. I must have made for lacklustre company I remarked. She smiled at that and said that she read to me from the book she found in my back pocket.
Wordsworth strikes again I thought and smiled at her “Thank you me sweetheart, believe it or not, I heard you.” And then recited the words I know so well. That seemed to do the cheer up trick, for us both.
This doctor used what she could from the ambulance to set something up here and then, as Max put it, got ‘the hell out of dodge’. Looking at the gurney I had been lying in, I got the picture. Well bless her for doing that for me and must thank her. Assuming I could get out of this that is.
She told me that they are slow and they could be out run easily but react to sound. Well currently, running was not on the menu for me I have to say. At least not for a while. It turned out that the doc and she had sort of found each other near where Max lived. A place called Eel Pie Island near Twickenham.
I knew of the place she was talking about.
“So you drove all the way here? Don’t tell me you walked.”
She said no, her grandfather had a small boat at their place on the island and it’s tied up at a dock near here. I was hoping she meant Westminster Pier as that was pretty close by.
Still no small journey along the Thames by boat though, I’d estimate that’s a good fifteen or sixteen miles along the river. The question of her grandparents being ok was met with silence and not meeting my eyes.
Ah, subject number one to avoid in later conversation then.
She related that she had come here on her own as many times as possible to make sure I was ok. Alone, unarmed and in harm’s way. Guts and gorgeousness in one small and well-shaped package, I fully admit I was righteously impressed with this girl. If not for her bravery and that of the doctor, things would have turned out less than splendidly for yours truly.
Well, a plan and a way out was starting to form in my mind. “Ok then, assuming that I can get out of here under my own steam, any chance you can put me up at your gaff for a bit?”
Apparently my usual English wording was a bit lost on her but she got the idea. “How will you get out?” She asked.
“Same way you got in.” I answered. “But it will take a few days to get my legs and the rest of me up to that task.” She unloaded her pack, more water, snack bars with some first aid gear. Not much but it was something to work with. She also produced my old clothes and trainers; I smiled when I noticed they had been washed.
I asked her to describe exactly how she got from the dock to here and she was happy to oblige.
“Thanks me blossom! Now then, here’s what I propose…”
She decided to closely examine the opposite wall of the room while I got myself scrubbed up proper and changed in to my standard civvie clothes as we talked. I managed to ascertain that the dock she had her boat moored at was indeed Westminster Pier. One up for our side then, that made it about a mile and a smidgen of ground to cover. Normally I’d consider that a short stroll but right now, it was more like a fair old tab in Army parlance, a route march in my current physical state.
One which I was not looking forward to in the bloody slightest.
So that was one problem down and more problems than I’d like to go. I got her agreement that in three days, about the 20th at mid-day, she would be at the dock and wait for no longer than 30 mins. If I hadn’t shown up by that time, then about face and don’t look back. My Little Angel, as I’d taken to calling her over the short time we had been speaking and she seemed to like, felt just the opposite about the pickup plan.
“Listen Max, I’m not exactly ecstatic about it meself sweetheart, but if I haven’t made it out by that time then I’m not going to be there. Seems that the way things are, catching a break as you might say is a rare thing and I’m not in the habit of pushing me luck any more than I have to, in this situation, doubly so.”
The frown on her face was fairly firmly set.
”Besides” I continued “I move best on my own and how exactly, are you going to get me up if I fall over? Nothing personal but I’m a tad above your lifting capability I’d reckon unless you have a forklift truck in ya pack, so you leave the details to me and I’ll see you then, okedoke?”
Far from convinced was she but the frown softened slightly and that would have to be good enough.
I continued in a low but slightly more upbeat tone. “Now then, times getting on and you have a boat to catch so I’ll see you in three days my little angel.”
She agreed, stood in front of me and it was at this point I noticed some wording on the front of her body armour. It wasn’t part of the original design I think as this was that loud hot pink colour, looked hand painted on and simply read ‘Z.F.F.’ with a lightning flash.
I asked what that was about; she went a rather nice shade of crimson and looked at the floor with no small amount of embarrassment. Max answered in somewhat sheepish fashion.
“It stands for Zombie Fighting Force”
Now if I needed a pick me up, I got it with all the bells and whistles with those words and I then realised that I was dealing with a girl rather than a woman. A bloody brave girl to be certain but still not quite all there in the ‘grown up’ status. At that point, I knew I seriously liked this young lady and would be more than honoured to call her a dear friend. I ended with a smile that seemed to come very easily in present company and a gentle hug.
Luckily, her nostrils must have become accustomed to my current cologne as I held her for a moment, something along the lines of 'Eau-de-sewage works' I think but she didn't throw up or recoil in horror so all good.
She elected to leave the pack and made her exit, on her own. Rather neatly I might add by way of doing a rather elegant standing spring from the table top, which was just enough to reach the open skylight at arm’s length, hauling up then out and away without a look back. The gruesome gang and their friends outside must have noticed or heard her moving away. A mixture of gurgling, rasping moans rose up from the ones I assumed were close to the cabin. As I listened to the noise, it seemed to spread outward; I risked a look out one of the windows.
Indeed the sound was spreading, not loud or rising in volume but it seemed like the sound spread from figure to figure as they slowly all turned and started to come toward the cabin and move to the back wall Max had disappeared over. Mental note then, they have a call of sorts that attracts one to another when a self-propelled smorgasbord is in the vicinity it would appear. Stealth will be a deffo advantage around the shuffle and moan brigade.
A few hours after my little angel had departed; they seemed to calm down and went quiet again. The only sound was the odd bump against the outside of the cabin as they shuffled about doing whatever they were doing.
I had no intention of fighting my way out in my state so over the next three days I drank, ate and exercised near constantly to get my chassis back in shape enough to make the journey from here to the boat dock and prepared myself. The fiction I had read over the years concerning zombies, granted Max called them ‘walkers’ but these…things by and large fitted the description so beheading or skull crushing implements would be a good idea. Or at least a place to start at making the un-dead really dead.
Some bastard is going to make a ****ing mint off a ‘how to combat a zombie horde’ book sooner or later. I smirked at the thought of getting in a patent or copyright sharpish, planning ahead as I do.
Some form of weaponry was called for just in case I should be unlucky enough to have to go hand to hand with some of these things. I couldn’t muster enough of an optimistic or compassionate perspective to call them ‘people’.
The wooden table gave me something. Carefully turning it over to keep noise to a minimum, I studied the underside, specifically where the legs joined. As I had hoped, they were attached by butterfly nuts and undoing one gave me length of timber some two and a half feet long with a steel threaded spike for want of a better term.
Time was something I had a fair bit of so used it to take the other three legs off and using what I had, implanted the threaded bits from the other legs in the top of the first leg I’d removed. Each one inserted at 90 degrees from the last. That at least gave me a spiked club. Not ideal but it was something that could impart some serious injury if I was left with no option.
As I worked, I thought about what had led to this as Max had told me. This made my brain start off on a numbers exercise. It’s a by-product of my forces life that I always consider and analyse the tactical situation. On any given weekday in London, you have about 10 million people give or take a few. This happened mid-week. Assuming at best, only 25% of that lot infected by whatever this is. So we are looking at a mobile munching mob of about 2.5 million. Not ****in’ great by any stretch of the imagination.
I decided that to consider what would constitute a worst case would not help matters so discarded that. I could only hope that London was the only place to cop this but had to admit to myself, it didn’t look good. I needed a way out (got that), a place to dig in (ditto I hope) and then consider what to do about this. I might have been just one bloke but I was dammed sure I wasn’t just give up on my city all together.
An attitude of bravado? Quite possibly but I just couldn’t leave her and walk away for good. One way or another, I’d win back my home and someone would answer for this…in blood if needs be.
A lofty aim to be sure but it gave me a sense of purpose none the less.
My exercises continued.
Just wanted to post a piece of scribbling I'm working on.
It's not a small bit of writing, so far goes to 10 chapters and it's a work in progress.
As a bit of background, I'm a model maker by profession so no writer to be sure but this story I wanted to write as I've never done a large bit of fiction story writing. now I wanted to spread it to a wider audience for hopefully your enjoyment.
There is certainly adult language used so be aware of this when reading.
Also it's not even close to the pure zombie/monster survival tale but it is what it is.
Anyways, read on and all comments welcome.
Take care,
Ian
On with the opener and chapter 1.
This work is based on a role playing game between me and my best friend Chris.
We started gaming long ago with the usual table top RPG's like Dungeons and Dragons
with a group of us playing them, over the years this has evolved in to many games on differing subjects from Star Trek to Wild West themes.
This was one of the rare ones that was just Me and Chris.
He was the GM for this turnout and I did the main player character of Ben Hawk.
As Chris and I have agreed, this deviates a little in terms of circumstance, occurrence and it is fleshed out a lot more in terms of details as it makes we believe, for a slightly better story but the essence holds true to the game we played.
It has some basis in the Resident Evil games/movies but it doesn't stick to the base of the Resident Evil universe rigidly.
Nor does it have what we both think is the overblown stuff like the
'Mutating before your eyes monsters with tentacles,
multiple eyes and mouths full of teeth all over the shop
that the slack jawed and well armed victims to be,
just stand and watch happening without emptying their
magazines in it as soon as it twitched oddly'
And things like that.
This story is written from the perspective of the main character in memoir fashion rather than a narrative so a very personal account which is reflected in the story.
Anyways, enough waffle, on with the story.
PREFACE
It is now the early autumn of 2013. I know not what date it is for your dear reader but I write this now while it is still fresh in my mind.
This is a personal writing as mine is the only perspective I can truly speak from. Others who lived through the times I am about to tell you of may hold different views and if there is anything that is incorrect in your view, then let us simply agree to disagree.
The way I put things in this book, as my lovely lady Joanna will tell you, is me. It’s how I think and look at things. We squaddies/former squaddies can be a serious bunch but only behave that way when we have to. So it may seem like it’s all a joke to us by outsiders most times but that’s how we deal with the dark side of situations.
Any of the persons depicted herein are real people and out of respect and security, are referred to by first name and single letter surname. Some whom it was my pleasure to know and call friends and others whom it was displeasure to know as those who were my enemy. I have no problems naming proper names there.
I write this for those who had neither voice nor choice in the matter. The citizen of Racoon City, Those on the Spanish Island, The people of Portsmouth and most of all as it’s my home, the great city of London.
The attack, for there is no other applicable term in my mind, on the city of London and its people, was an act that still defies reason. Or at least ‘reason’ as defined by what could be called rational minds. The minds of those who planned and executed this are beyond the full understanding of the ordinary man or woman I believe.
For that I am thankful, for those who could fully understand may be the ones capable of doing it again. This must never happen again.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
To my darling Joanna. who knows my soul and heart as I know hers, for we have both been here before.
To My Little Angel, I owe you more than I can ever repay in this lifetime.
To Martha, for her quick thinking that kept me from becoming a walker snack.
To those I was privileged to stand beside and who stood beside me in the fight.
To Chris R. for keeping to our agreement, you are an honourable man sir.
To my fellow Londoners who didn’t make it.
To my children and grandchildren yet to be, I did what I must so you could read about what happened rather than live through it as we few did. I hope you learn, understand and can forgive me for some actions which I believed necessary.
To those who believe they are gods and use people as lab experiments for their own twisted ends, take it as wisdom and warning when I say that there are always those like me who will stand against these acts and seek retribution.
And there are always more of us than you.
(1)
From Light To Darkness
The day had unfolded like the many days of the year thus far.
April 2013, a typical beginning to an English spring/summer season with the ever present spectre of winds and driving rain arriving with no warning. The work day was as familiar and comfortingly unremarkable as usual. A Tuesday as I recall.
Having served for six years in Her Majesty’s Parachute Regiment and three in the Special Air Service, I had done what I believed was ‘my bit’ and was getting comfortable in civilian life having spent the last year working for a well-known building firm in London. Being somewhat larger than the average individual made me useful in being able to carry loads almost twice the norm so a fairly handy attribute to those in the construction business.
Being in possession of hands large enough to carry up to eight mugs of tea around the site without spillage didn’t hurt either apparently.
Knocking off time as usual, followed by the standard rowdiness from the crews planning their evenings either at home or in the pub, widely regarded as a second or even first home for some, as the works buses dropped us off close to our respective abodes. For me, it was my flat. The top floor of a converted Victorian town house not far from the Thames. A solid as a rock structure, which had withstood the ravages of time and people.
It will still be standing firm I strongly suspect, long after I’ve gone.
Climbing the stairs and opening the door to my humble home, my nostrils were greeted by the subtle aroma of paper, long stacked on bookshelves. I always find comfort in the faint smell of books, having a personal collection numbering several hundred made for much comfort in my mind.
I have always loved immersing myself in printed pages and not the ones with many colourful pictures and words like ZAP, KAPOW or SNIKT in them either, though I know some love that kind of thing and to each, their own.
Real, honest to goodness books, from Socrates to Stephen King and all points in between.
Books call to us, the thoughts of those from months or millennia past still speaks to us in those pages. Wit and wisdom, knowledge both old and new enrich our minds and feed the soul. The words offer us a means to impart meaning and whether trivial or profound, they all have value in the things they tell.
Shower, dinner and I found myself in the mood for a German beer and my old friend Wordsworth, after the now standard catching up with the world and local news on TV. Said news from both far and near was the usual mix of good, bad and sensationalist. Nothing new there.
One news item did make me stop and watch, I had known about the influenza problem which was not quite at epidemic proportions but gathering pace in its spread if the media were to be believed.
Apparently some unusual measures were being taken, namely an airborne dispersal of vaccine to combat the spread of this rather virulent strain was underway. I’m no virologist but this sort of activity was something new. The usual talking head media and political brigade were in abundance but the representative of the Umbrella Corp. was another matter.
Albert Wesker had the kind of look that stood very neatly between cardboard cut-out and man from PR heaven. In an all-black ensemble with swept back blond hair that had a slightly unsettling symmetrical vibe. If he had stood side on to a full length mirror, you would have been hard pushed to tell a difference between the real and the reflection.
A little bit too perfect. He could have passed for a CGI actor, his look was almost that flawless.
It’s only a personal thing, but the hangar at London City Airport where the interview was taking place wasn’t exactly brightly lit, so why the dark sunglasses he was wearing remained firmly fixed to his face I know not. This is why I freely confess to having no small amount of a mistrust of those that insist on wearing them indoors.
My experience has taught me that you show your eyes to those you are trying to get the trust of. My almost immediate distrust of this character would bear out in later times.
My thoughts were interrupted by a car horn blaring outside my window, followed rapidly by the screech of tyres skidding and the inevitable and rather expensive sounds of a vehicle collision. Looking out, I saw this is exactly what had occurred and it was no gentle nudge that had happened here.
Covering the distance from the top floor to ground in fairly swift fashion, I went out to see if anyone was hurt. Sadly they were and it was none too pretty for the driver of the rear car judging by the amount of red stuff running down the inside of the windscreen.
The woman in the front car seemed conscious and unhurt, at least physically but more than a bit pale and shaky. She managed to blurt out she was ok. Training kicked in at that point and to go with the old saying in battlefield first aid “If they’re screaming, they’re breathing” so I moved to the fella in the rear car, he was out of it good and proper after his head had an argument with the steering wheel, then windscreen and lost badly to both.
Grabbing my mobile phone from a front pocket and finally remembering to shove the small book of Wordsworth I still had in hand in my back pocket, I hit 999 and waited while looking over the bloke to see if he was still in the land of the living.
A faint pulse greeted my far from dainty digits pressed to his neck through the driver’s side open window.
The ringing tone on the other end sounded for way longer than usual, after what must have been at least two minutes, there was a click and the voice of a lady came on the line, she sounded rather hurried.
I let the much extended phone ringing issue drop without comment and requested ambulance and fire to attend. Gave her the location details but the air of uncertainty in her voice and the very obvious sound of a large amount of activity and raised voices in the background did not fill me with confidence.
It was all a bit hurried rather than the usual calm manner these things are known for with the emergency services.
She took the details, relayed she would try to get someone there as soon as possible then hung up rather abruptly. What confidence I had left in the swift arrival of the men and women of the ambulance and fire services was fast beginning to evaporate.
I went to the passenger side of the rear car and leant in through the open window to see if this poor fella was dented anywhere else than his head and face. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt so I didn’t think it was a good idea to open the driver’s side door and have the unfortunate fellow go crashing to the tarmac.
It was at this point that idiot driver syndrome must have been spreading; I looked out the rear window just in time to see a large MPV, travelling at no small rate of knots I might add, a split second before it hit the back of the car I was leaning inside of.
Sadly I was only mostly out of the window when it hit, the door post and the back right quarter of my head had a bit of an altercation at that instant.
A drop of good luck would have done wonders at this point. As it turned out, my good luck immediately legged it without so much as a “Be back later old chap!”
It was a pretty good whack to the back of my head and after trying to pick myself up off the pavement where I landed and only getting in a half-hearted attempt before noticing the patch of red liquid which seemed to be coming from me, soaking through the collar of my t-shirt.
At which point and to avoid throwing up the rather nice balti curry with naan bread I’d recently eaten, I stayed where I was until my brain played an ace and decided it was lights out time.
(2)
Though Much Is Taken, Much Abides
The mind of an unconscious person is a very odd thing I have heard it said. For a period, I was later to find out was almost a month, my mind behaved in a strange but not unpleasant fashion.
“I wandered lonely as a Cloud that floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of dancing Daffodils;”
My old mate Wordsworth. The voice however was possibly American, certainly female and very pleasant indeed.
“Along the Lake, beneath the trees, Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.”
I sat on a grassy bank, listening to the voice which seemed to be coming from a nearby oak tree. Warm afternoon sun bathed me. As I said, strange but not unpleasant. The voice continued as the image fazed in and out of focus. I had no sense of passing time until my eyes opened. Then I wanted the oblivion of my lovely voiced poetry reader back pronto like.
The inside of the portacabin like room was stuffy; it smelled like a cross between Ramses the second’s recently unearthed laundry basket and a poorly cleaned crapper of the same era. My gradually focussing eyes first noticed the light coming through what appeared to be narrow windows high in the wall and then hospital like wheeled table thing they use for patients in bed no more than a foot from my head. I have no idea exactly how long it took for my peepers to start functioning within an acceptable range.
When they did, I noticed the handwritten note in thankfully large and easy to read print taped to the edge facing my less than fully functional eyes. Inexplicably they got my name right and went on to tell me to drink all the water in the bottles on the table and eat the snack bars. They would be back to check on me when they could.
I know they were having problems but I didn’t think the National Health Service had gotten quite this bad.
The inside of my mouth was doing a perfect impression of what I assumed the bottom of an unkempt budgerigar cage must be like.
I moved my arms, they hurt and over the course of the day and night, interspersed with what I assume were short periods of unconsciousness, I slowly discovered so did everything else connected with them.
As time wore on, I managed to get some water down me and my senses began to work again. Not a good move as I began to realise that the smell pervading the room was emanating from me.
I could only hope they left at least some soap or a bottle of industrial strength Febreze in here somewhere.
The large IV bag of fluid someone had plugged in to my arm was almost depleted so that got pulled and over the course of what must have been at least the next day; I used the water that was left on the table thing. Training again helped here, slowly and easy does it fella. The same thinking went in to getting my limbs moving again. Whoever had set me up in here knew their stuff. They must have been doing some movement stuff to my limbs or something or this would have taken a lot longer I suspect. The place had a fair supply of bottled water so I wouldn’t die of thirst. Kudos to whoever thought of that.
I could keep track of time now and going by the day/date thing on my watch which was on the table, something approaching a month had passed since my less than stellar car-door-post-head-butting episode. My brain wasn’t quite firing on all cylinders yet otherwise that revelation would have bothered me a lot more than it did.
The wound had been cleaned and stitched up quite nicely and I was starting to get mobile, albeit very slowly. The large bucket I found came in handy for waste management.
The door had been barred from the inside which I though somewhat odd. The shape I was in led me to conclude that taking a walk to stretch my legs was probably not a good idea and whoever had put me here had done so for a good reason, plus I couldn’t help thinking the door was barred like that for an equally good reason. Questions were starting to pile up and vie for attention in my slightly dented noodle. I managed to clean myself up a bit in the places the mattered and considered looking for a mirror. Pondering on that led me to conclude that wasn’t a good idea considering I probably looked a lot rougher than I felt, so refrained from that search.
After what I judged was three days or so, I had enough movement in my limbs to shuffle fairly well about the place and take stock of what I had. Food was there in the shape of snack bars but not a huge amount; overall with careful use of supplies, I could probably go for a week before it was time to leave. A folding ladder was resting against one wall, long enough for me to take a look out the small windows. Even at 6’ 7” I would still need a boost to see out of them. In my current physical shape, using a ladder would have been less than sensible.
For some reason, a wooden table of the buy flat pack and assemble yourself type was standing all on its own in the middle of the floor underneath what I assumed was some form of roof hatch or covered skylight. Apart from that, there was a bag of sorts marked ‘NHS London Ambulance Service’. I had a rifle through the contents.
Standard field first aid stuff so all useful. Scalpels with blades, forceps, suture kits, alcohol wipes and some metal implements. I was not sure of the use though some looked like small pliers or grips.
I had taken off the rather fragrant hospital like gown and used a slightly less pungent bed sheet to cover what little modesty I had left. Gave myself a standing scrub up best I could trying not to waste too much water.
Where to go? What to do? I gave this more than a small amount of thought and was deep in concentration on these topics. Without information on the world outside my small and smelly domain, resolution on these things would prove difficult. I needed some focus here.
The sudden sound of light footsteps on the roof solidly focused my attention quite nicely.
What I had assumed to be a roof hatch or low covered skylight moved slowly, whoever it was coming in, they didn’t seem to want to attract any attention. The late morning light streamed in and a shadow took form as a pair of small feet clad in hiking boots connected to a rather shapely pair of legs in tight grey trousers slid in through the hole. I assumed female by the leg shape as I suspect most blokes would. Yes, I’m fairly typical in that respect.
I have to admit that the legs were quite nice and the backside that followed them was no less pleasing to my eyes which did nothing to dampen the female assumption. The figure dropped to the table top with a surprising amount of agility and lack of sound which I found somewhat impressive.
The body armour was a bit of a twist, it looked to me like the sort of gear dirt bikers wear. The mane of dark, slightly curly hair was controlled only by a hair band and a baseball style cap. The figure was little more than five feet tall and slender; the back pack was a standard high street sporting goods type of thing. Turning toward me, she and happy to confirm it was a she, seemed slightly startled at me, who must have looked like 20 miles of bad road standing calmly looking in her direction.
“Oh…you’re awake.” She had a slightly olive/dark complexion, though I suspect from parental background rather than a sunbed or the like.
I judged her to be no more than 20 years old at a push. A rather pretty girl indeed, full pouting lips with large dark eyes and one of them slightly upturned button noses that did nothing to harm the overall impression.
“So it would seem and no-one more surprised than me.” I answered cheerily.
It is always my manner to inject some humour in to opening conversation lines, seems to help put folks at ease when they are speaking to me and having to almost continuously look up at the same time. Sometimes height can help for putting some fear in folks, social stuff not so much. Also helps to gauge a person’s attitude early on. For a few seconds we looked at each other, and then it fully dawned on me what a bloody shambles I must have looked.
I realised the somewhat stained hospital bed sheet plus the months’ worth of beard growth was not exactly helping to make a good first impression in this instance.
At least I wasn’t naked otherwise I fear that would have sent my fetching visitor heading for the hills with all due speed and I wouldn’t have blamed her in the slightest!
“Pardon the state of me and the place, I would’ve tidied up but hey, no-one called ahead.”
I said gesturing around the room and at myself while speaking in a partially apologetic tone. This appeared to help and at this comment her lips slowly parted and revealed a very beautiful, broad smile of the type that would make anyone feel better even if they were bloody dying.
She visibly relaxed and almost seemed about to laugh but caught herself, stifled that and stepped closer. She and I introduced ourselves, said her name was Maxina but preferred Max. She spoke in a low voice, I almost instantly recognised it as the American accented poetry reading girl. At that point the thought of mentioning the poem reading dreams evaporated with her next words.
“We have to be quiet, sound attracts them.”
Them? Well at least we’d found a different topic of conversation than the one that originally came to mind.
I matched her low speaking tone “and who exactly might ‘them’ be?”
She seemed to take a moment to collect her thoughts then fixed me with her chestnut brown eyes.
“Walkers, that’s what I call them, they are everywhere out there.” she spoke gesturing with a thumb towards the barred door. Walkers eh, I thought. Well this could be interesting to pass the time. She continued.
“You’ve been out for a while, almost a month.” Well that tallied with what I had been able to work out thus far.
“They are what's left of the people in London after what happened.” Before I was able to ask, she expanded on it.
“You remember the flu thing? The airborne spraying of the vaccine?”
I nodded, dimly remembering the TV news blurb. She continued "Well that’s when it all started, people got sick with a fever and then died but they didn’t stay that way.”
“Sorry, Come again?!” was the best response I could muster.
Again, she paused to arrange her thoughts. “The people died, then got up again and attacked anyone living and that’s how it spread. You got bitten or scratched, you get infected, you die and then you get up and it starts again. They will try to eat anyone or anything living they can get hold of.”
Well, I’d heard a few good ones in my time but this tops them all. I was thinking that maybe she got hit in the head harder than me but for some reason, her manner of speech and body language indicated honesty in what she was saying. I could see genuine fear in her eyes and hear it in her voice which only began when she started speaking of this.
I put my thoughts and feelings of disbelief on hold for a while and decided to let her continue though I think my face gave it away.
She went to the ladder and with some care, laid it at an angle against the wall under one of the windows. “Take a look for yourself." she said with no trace of irritation and pointed toward the window. Well this I had to see, despite the still slightly shaky legs of mine even if to humour her. I will freely admit that I was thinking it was the way my luck was running, to meet and get the undivided attention of a lovely young woman only to find out she had a kangaroo loose in the sanity paddock.
Carefully stepping up to the second rung, I could see out the narrow top window.
I recognised the approximate area we were in. It was a bit away from the Houses of Parliament; I could just about see Big Ben to the north and that also made me a bit back from the Lambeth Bridge area. Must have been some building work or the like going on around here at some point and it was about half a mile or so from my home on the north side of the Thames.
The portacabin was up against a wall and the area outside was a small patch of ground, across the road in front of that seemed to be a car park area or the like.
Once that recognition had been arrived at, I noticed the people outside. Some of them were standing still, others just shuffling very slowly along. They reminded me of how I must have been when I first tried standing up. Then I took a look at them closely.
All of them looked like they could do with a severe wash and brush-up. Clothes tattered and filthy, some with almost no clothing at all. The sunburned and leathery skin varying between overly dark tan to necrotic grey was a bit of a giveaway that things were not as they should be. One close to the widow but above his (I assumed it was a he) view line was a bit of a shock. His face was a mess, or more correctly the half of his face that was still attached to the skull was. The shredded clothing and mangled decaying flesh showing through was on a par with some nightmare vision but brought to life in the light of day.
He looked like he’d lost a fight with something large with more teeth and claws than I felt comfortable thinking about.
I’d seen corpses like this after heavy combat that but they were most certainly not upright as this one was. The others looked in various states of goppingly awful. The whole thing had the air of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow crossed with a horror movie and not one I’d usually pay to go see. Sadly I had a front row seat. The credits weren’t going to roll and lights weren’t going to come up anytime soon.
What in the merry ****in’ hell had happened here!? How come those poor bastards are still mobile??
I slowly climbed back down and just stood for a few seconds letting it sink in, because I had no choice. Max was looking at me with a face that just said “Sorry”.
Taking a deep breath and sitting on the bed, I just looked at her and asked her to tell me what she knew and that was everything. It was about an hour and a bit later when she had finished.
The whole of London had gone straight to **** without passing ‘GO’ and collecting £200. This was all over; she said she hadn’t seen another living soul besides me and her friend.
This friend who she called Martha was a doctor who she had met getting out of London and it turns out that one ambulance had arrived on scene while I was having an enforced nap.
Seems the doctor had been pretty switched on, she managed to get me in, or more correctly, over a discarded low shopping cart and push me to this place. Must have been a bit of a herculean move because I’m no lightweight. The Ambulance crew apparently did what they could but services were overwhelmed with incidents and then it all came apart pretty quickly. I assumed the doc had had her reasons for not taking me to a hospital.
No government or officialdom she was aware of and had not been in contact with anyone other than the doctor and me since it all fell apart. I must have made for lacklustre company I remarked. She smiled at that and said that she read to me from the book she found in my back pocket.
Wordsworth strikes again I thought and smiled at her “Thank you me sweetheart, believe it or not, I heard you.” And then recited the words I know so well. That seemed to do the cheer up trick, for us both.
This doctor used what she could from the ambulance to set something up here and then, as Max put it, got ‘the hell out of dodge’. Looking at the gurney I had been lying in, I got the picture. Well bless her for doing that for me and must thank her. Assuming I could get out of this that is.
She told me that they are slow and they could be out run easily but react to sound. Well currently, running was not on the menu for me I have to say. At least not for a while. It turned out that the doc and she had sort of found each other near where Max lived. A place called Eel Pie Island near Twickenham.
I knew of the place she was talking about.
“So you drove all the way here? Don’t tell me you walked.”
She said no, her grandfather had a small boat at their place on the island and it’s tied up at a dock near here. I was hoping she meant Westminster Pier as that was pretty close by.
Still no small journey along the Thames by boat though, I’d estimate that’s a good fifteen or sixteen miles along the river. The question of her grandparents being ok was met with silence and not meeting my eyes.
Ah, subject number one to avoid in later conversation then.
She related that she had come here on her own as many times as possible to make sure I was ok. Alone, unarmed and in harm’s way. Guts and gorgeousness in one small and well-shaped package, I fully admit I was righteously impressed with this girl. If not for her bravery and that of the doctor, things would have turned out less than splendidly for yours truly.
Well, a plan and a way out was starting to form in my mind. “Ok then, assuming that I can get out of here under my own steam, any chance you can put me up at your gaff for a bit?”
Apparently my usual English wording was a bit lost on her but she got the idea. “How will you get out?” She asked.
“Same way you got in.” I answered. “But it will take a few days to get my legs and the rest of me up to that task.” She unloaded her pack, more water, snack bars with some first aid gear. Not much but it was something to work with. She also produced my old clothes and trainers; I smiled when I noticed they had been washed.
I asked her to describe exactly how she got from the dock to here and she was happy to oblige.
“Thanks me blossom! Now then, here’s what I propose…”
She decided to closely examine the opposite wall of the room while I got myself scrubbed up proper and changed in to my standard civvie clothes as we talked. I managed to ascertain that the dock she had her boat moored at was indeed Westminster Pier. One up for our side then, that made it about a mile and a smidgen of ground to cover. Normally I’d consider that a short stroll but right now, it was more like a fair old tab in Army parlance, a route march in my current physical state.
One which I was not looking forward to in the bloody slightest.
So that was one problem down and more problems than I’d like to go. I got her agreement that in three days, about the 20th at mid-day, she would be at the dock and wait for no longer than 30 mins. If I hadn’t shown up by that time, then about face and don’t look back. My Little Angel, as I’d taken to calling her over the short time we had been speaking and she seemed to like, felt just the opposite about the pickup plan.
“Listen Max, I’m not exactly ecstatic about it meself sweetheart, but if I haven’t made it out by that time then I’m not going to be there. Seems that the way things are, catching a break as you might say is a rare thing and I’m not in the habit of pushing me luck any more than I have to, in this situation, doubly so.”
The frown on her face was fairly firmly set.
”Besides” I continued “I move best on my own and how exactly, are you going to get me up if I fall over? Nothing personal but I’m a tad above your lifting capability I’d reckon unless you have a forklift truck in ya pack, so you leave the details to me and I’ll see you then, okedoke?”
Far from convinced was she but the frown softened slightly and that would have to be good enough.
I continued in a low but slightly more upbeat tone. “Now then, times getting on and you have a boat to catch so I’ll see you in three days my little angel.”
She agreed, stood in front of me and it was at this point I noticed some wording on the front of her body armour. It wasn’t part of the original design I think as this was that loud hot pink colour, looked hand painted on and simply read ‘Z.F.F.’ with a lightning flash.
I asked what that was about; she went a rather nice shade of crimson and looked at the floor with no small amount of embarrassment. Max answered in somewhat sheepish fashion.
“It stands for Zombie Fighting Force”
Now if I needed a pick me up, I got it with all the bells and whistles with those words and I then realised that I was dealing with a girl rather than a woman. A bloody brave girl to be certain but still not quite all there in the ‘grown up’ status. At that point, I knew I seriously liked this young lady and would be more than honoured to call her a dear friend. I ended with a smile that seemed to come very easily in present company and a gentle hug.
Luckily, her nostrils must have become accustomed to my current cologne as I held her for a moment, something along the lines of 'Eau-de-sewage works' I think but she didn't throw up or recoil in horror so all good.
She elected to leave the pack and made her exit, on her own. Rather neatly I might add by way of doing a rather elegant standing spring from the table top, which was just enough to reach the open skylight at arm’s length, hauling up then out and away without a look back. The gruesome gang and their friends outside must have noticed or heard her moving away. A mixture of gurgling, rasping moans rose up from the ones I assumed were close to the cabin. As I listened to the noise, it seemed to spread outward; I risked a look out one of the windows.
Indeed the sound was spreading, not loud or rising in volume but it seemed like the sound spread from figure to figure as they slowly all turned and started to come toward the cabin and move to the back wall Max had disappeared over. Mental note then, they have a call of sorts that attracts one to another when a self-propelled smorgasbord is in the vicinity it would appear. Stealth will be a deffo advantage around the shuffle and moan brigade.
A few hours after my little angel had departed; they seemed to calm down and went quiet again. The only sound was the odd bump against the outside of the cabin as they shuffled about doing whatever they were doing.
I had no intention of fighting my way out in my state so over the next three days I drank, ate and exercised near constantly to get my chassis back in shape enough to make the journey from here to the boat dock and prepared myself. The fiction I had read over the years concerning zombies, granted Max called them ‘walkers’ but these…things by and large fitted the description so beheading or skull crushing implements would be a good idea. Or at least a place to start at making the un-dead really dead.
Some bastard is going to make a ****ing mint off a ‘how to combat a zombie horde’ book sooner or later. I smirked at the thought of getting in a patent or copyright sharpish, planning ahead as I do.
Some form of weaponry was called for just in case I should be unlucky enough to have to go hand to hand with some of these things. I couldn’t muster enough of an optimistic or compassionate perspective to call them ‘people’.
The wooden table gave me something. Carefully turning it over to keep noise to a minimum, I studied the underside, specifically where the legs joined. As I had hoped, they were attached by butterfly nuts and undoing one gave me length of timber some two and a half feet long with a steel threaded spike for want of a better term.
Time was something I had a fair bit of so used it to take the other three legs off and using what I had, implanted the threaded bits from the other legs in the top of the first leg I’d removed. Each one inserted at 90 degrees from the last. That at least gave me a spiked club. Not ideal but it was something that could impart some serious injury if I was left with no option.
As I worked, I thought about what had led to this as Max had told me. This made my brain start off on a numbers exercise. It’s a by-product of my forces life that I always consider and analyse the tactical situation. On any given weekday in London, you have about 10 million people give or take a few. This happened mid-week. Assuming at best, only 25% of that lot infected by whatever this is. So we are looking at a mobile munching mob of about 2.5 million. Not ****in’ great by any stretch of the imagination.
I decided that to consider what would constitute a worst case would not help matters so discarded that. I could only hope that London was the only place to cop this but had to admit to myself, it didn’t look good. I needed a way out (got that), a place to dig in (ditto I hope) and then consider what to do about this. I might have been just one bloke but I was dammed sure I wasn’t just give up on my city all together.
An attitude of bravado? Quite possibly but I just couldn’t leave her and walk away for good. One way or another, I’d win back my home and someone would answer for this…in blood if needs be.
A lofty aim to be sure but it gave me a sense of purpose none the less.
My exercises continued.
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