Authors: Dave Jeffery
“
Sure, you can,” Thom replied. “Make mine a double.”
Their discussion lasted one hour and twenty minutes, and in this time Thom agreed to “assist” in Dr Whittington’s “ground-breaking research” in return for indefinite, rent free accommodation in Hilton Towers and a cool, mouth dribbling
one hundred thousand pounds
.
“
For that kind of money I’d go through hell,” Thom said downing his last drink of the discussion.
The first ten days of Dr. Whittington’s experiments weren’t quite hell; but they were close enough.
He couldn’t remember much of it, just sketchy images and occasional flashbacks. Whittington had given him something, a concoction that had tasted like vomit. Then the world winked out for a while. Three days, in fact, Whittington had informed him later.
Some of the memories had to have been nightmares, part of the dreamscape he’d sunken into whilst under Whittington’s mind-bending cocktail. Some images were of blood and madness and thoughts of irrepressible hunger.
Then all was well. An apartment to enjoy and more money than Thom could spend. Oh, and the girls. Whittington knew some great girls, everything catered for; all part of the deal. All part of what Whittington consistently referred to as
“The Initiative”
. Now it was only a blood sample every three days. A small price to pay to reap such lofty rewards.
A sharp pulse of pain brought Thom’s mind back into focus. He scanned his apartment. Before he blacked out it was decorated with the spoils of opulence. Large leather sofas, a huge TV; built in stereo that had been pumping out AC/DC while his head had been full of Wei Lin, naked and beautiful and wanting.
Now the room about him was jaundiced by the emergency lighting. In this half-light Thom could see the devastation about him: chairs over turned, the Italian leather suite exposed to the rain blown in through the blown out windows. A standing lamp had fallen across his right ankle and the limb throbbed dully.
Groaning, he pushed the lamp off of him. The wind howled through the living room and fresh rain splashed his face, running down his chin, rousing him.
“
Hello!” he called out. “Can anyone tell me what’s going on?”
Only the wind answered his calls. He gave it a few moments more then headed to the front door, folding his right leg behind him to protect his ankle and using the dear discarded furniture as support.
As he approached the door he heard a sound; a shuffling noise as though someone were dragging their feet over soft carpet.
He pulled at the door handle but it appeared to be jammed.
“
Hello? Is there anyone there?” he cried, staving off his desperation to be free of the wind and the rain and his devastated room.
The shuffling stopped and a pitiful moaning sound started; followed shortly by another.
“
Hey, guys!” Thom yelled. “I know it’s a bummer, but don’t lose it, okay? Give me a hand with this door, would ya? Or at least go get me some help!”
Without warning there were several thumps against the door, fists pummeling the oak panels.
“
That’s the spirit, guys!” he yelled with delight. “I’ll try and yank on the handle to help you to help me! Can’t tell you how grateful I am.”
His saviours didn’t reply. They continued their determined pounding on the door, the din becoming more urgent, frenzied even and the moaning accompanying the slaps and thumps was reminding him of something and it wasn’t thoughts of rescue or the good times, it was of mindlessness lust and irrepressible hunger.
His mind refused to yield its secrets, but it was made up. Thom didn’t want his front door open any more; he wanted it to remain closed, thank you very much, and despite how painful and cumbersome it was, proceeded to pull an armchair and butt it up against the door.
He then sat down heavily, the seat of his expensive trousers becoming damp with rain water, the hand-beating cacophony now behind him.
Uncomfortable? Yes. Unsettling? Why, as sure as God made little apples. But still a damn sight better than having that door open.
***
Shipman sat in his Jackal scout car, his breathing thick and even through the biochem filter. He wasn’t alone. Three of his team was with him, all experienced in special ops via numerous excursions in the SAS, all ready to execute their orders.
His orders.
He’d worked with them for several years. Connors, the driver, was a quiet man with loud red hair. He had a mild Scottish accent, typical of those native to Dundee. His penchant was for jokes, most of which were poor but occasionally welcome to lighten the air on ops.
Keene, sitting behind Shipman, was a mild mannered mountain of a man, who was born in Dudley in the Black Country. The only thing that ever irritated him was when someone called him a
Brummie
. And if anyone was going to do that it would be the short, stocky black guy sitting next to him.
Honeyman was constantly ribbing his colleagues. Most of it was good natured, without any intent. But on occasion Honeyman wasn’t beyond launching a critical assault on his squad mates. It had landed him in hot water before, but Shipman wouldn’t have they guy any other way. There wasn’t a weapons expert like him.
Connors pushed the Jackal along the A38, a succession of heavily manned road blocks lifting readily and easily. The lack of outgoing vehicles was a potent portent as to effects of the Lazarus Initiative. Whittington was the new Frankenstein and like Shelly’s fictitious Doctor, the monster was loose and beyond the control of the creator.
Tin gods don’t make good men
, Shipman mused dourly. That’s why people like Alpha Team existed. To make amends, to put things right.
To tidy up the mess.
Alpha Team traveled light. The Jackal - open topped with a single heavy machine gun mounted at the rear but able to complete a 360° sweep – was traditionally designed to carry three personnel but Shipman’s had been adapted with a rear seated platform to support an extra person. Each man carried a C8 carbine with M208 grenade launcher secured underneath its muzzle. High powered, but the men were weapons in their own right; all experts in close quarters combat honed over extensive tours of duty.
Shipman knew where to find Thom. It wasn’t covert surveillance that had identified his whereabouts, it was simple detective work; the power of deductive reasoning. That Whittington lived in Hilton Towers’ penthouse suite was common knowledge. So why was he paying out for another apartment? Room 409 to be exact - the room directly
below
the penthouse?
Thom Everett had somehow survived the Lazarus Initiative, which made him vital as a control in future research. Whittington had to keep him sweet, keep him close-by. But to the populous of the UK Thom Everett was the cornerstone of finding a way to stem the terrible tide threatening to consume them all.
The reports were already coming in of those inside the target zone trying to escape. There had been collateral damage, and there would be more until Alpha Team netted Thom Everett and brought him back so that the Cone heads could work on him and develop an antidote for those who had been bitten. And a method to inoculate the masses against further contagion.
The Jackal sped on through the night, the wind slurping in Shipman’s ears, his face plate covered in a moist film from the drizzle above. The streets were littered with abandoned vehicles, some in the middle of the road, so that the car had to navigate its passage, but still maintaining its pace. Other cars were parked on the pavements. And here and there, some vehicles had ploughed into the fascias of shops, spilling goods and glass out onto the street.
It was all a bizarre and eerie sight, and Shipman found himself wondering if there could ever be any way back from all of this. Had science created the beginning of the end?
They peeled off the A38 at Colmore Circus, putting them in the shadows of
The Sentinels
, the ominous structures of Clydesdale Tower and Cleveland Tower.
Something caught Shipman’s eye: a shadow falling from the sky and it landed ten metres in front of their vehicle where it exploded like a small, wet bomb.
“
Jesus God!” Connors said, swerving to avoid the glistening mass in the road. “Was that a civilian?”
Before anyone could reply another entity hit the road, and this time there was no doubt. It was a woman and her skirt flapped furiously as she fell from one of the buildings overhead. Her body hit the unforgiving concrete and burst open like a balloon filled with water.
“
They’re fuckin’ jumping!” Honeyman said in disbelief. As if to confirm his thoughts, another body smashed into the ground to Honeyman’s left, spattering the vehicle with gore.
“
Get us away from the buildings!” Shipman ordered. “We can’t afford to have someone hitting the vehicle. It’ll kill us all.”
“
Sir!” Connors agreed, but just as he slammed his boot down on the accelerator, something happened.
Either side of the street, from out of the shop façades and the abandoned vehicles, people began to emerge. A huddle at first, then bigger groups; a small stream before the flash flood. But there was something about the growing, flowing throng, something about the way they
moved
. Other than the fact they were walking, there was no sign of life; they moved as one, automatons in a gigantic, organic machine.
“
We have multiple contacts,” Connors yelled.
“
Nothing wrong with your eyesight then eh, Connors?” Honeyman jibed standing and cocking the heavy machine gun. He panned the muzzle, making sure that the targets were keeping their distance. Several automatons dropped to their knees next to the bodies of the jumpers and began shoveling chunks of meat into their eager, hungry mouths.
But the mass had only interest in the Jackal, and its occupants. The thong stopped for a few seconds, Shipman looking into their yellowed eyes; the twilight within them, the death.
There were so many different people, the young, the old, those in between; from all walks of life, but united in death. Shipman spotted a woman, her left breast exposed, her dead, bloodied hand still clutching a small, vanity mirror. The glass was a web of cracks. Next to her was a man without trousers, his genitals swinging in a pendulum motion. Next to him: another man, his body part dirt part putrid flesh, his mouth, clogged and blackened with soil, his mourning suit moldered and ripe with post mortem juices.
It was a passive moment, where the enormity of what may lie ahead for mankind should they fail was underscored in triplicate.
Then, as one, the zombie horde opened their collective mouths and groaned. And began to move.
“
Orders, Sir?” Honeyman called from behind the gun.
“
Clear a path, Honeyman!” Shipman shouted as twenty or so zombies began to gather ahead of them. “Shoot to kill, Sir?” the gunner asked with a wry smile.
“
Just get on with it, soldier!”
The blast from the gun was loud in the dead, desolate streets. The muzzle flashes flickered in the shop windows; spent cartridges tinkled incongruously as they hit the sidewalk.
Shipman observed the tracer fire as the heavy machine gun spat its fury into the crowd, literally shredding the undead, a few incredulously stood their ground before the shells punched holes into their skulls, knocking heads from shoulders the way wooden balls take out coconuts at a fairground shy.
And then there was the blood, a great spray - dark and copious - painting the street, the glass, the grey stonework. It pooled under the bodies as they collapsed, but those who had not been hit in the head either climbed back onto their feet, or wallowed in the bloody mire, like the drowning swimming against the tide.
From his seat at the front of the Jackal, Shipman pumped bullets into the skulls of those that Honeyman had missed.
Then Alpha Team was moving again, its urgency to put distance between the living and the dead matched only by the need to find the youth with the potential to put an end to it all.
***
10
Suzie Hanks found Kevin O’Connell to be a man of surprises. This notion came very early on in their relationship where the man who had promised to kill her abusive father, pulled up in an Aston Marten, James Bond style. He invited her out on an impromptu date. She half expected a grand casino to be waiting at the end of their car journey, but instead there was a Learjet.
“
Where are we going?” she’d asked incredulously.
“
I told you: on a date,” he’d replied smiling broadly.
They were in the air for two hours and ten minutes before landing at Madrid Barajas International Airport; clearing passport control in five minutes flat.
O’Connell hailed a cab and told the driver to head for the Museo del Prado; Madrid’s prestigious museum and art gallery, where the world’s finest collection of European art stood for the admiring public. The taxi had covered the 15 kilometers within ten minutes and Suzie gasped at the museum’s ornate facade, with its multiple archways and expansive courtyards.