UniteDead Kingdom. Stuart Irving Irving
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speed of infection he would soon be at the epicentre of the biggest fight for survival Britain had ever seen. It still didn't seem real but he willed that thought away before it got him killed. Any calm processing of the event would have to come later, once he was safe. He sat down as he began to feel detached and not … really there.
The way he saw it he had two choices. Number one would be to ride it out and stay where he was, barricading himself away for weeks until the food/water ran out. Then pillage what he could in the rest of the block and scavenge further and further, using his relative security of his flat. He had a crossbow if anyone got in his way; he didn't have the size or the strength for close-combat.
Number two would be to leave now, hightailing it out of London … like escaping the beach when he saw the water being sucked out in front of a tsunami. He was already half packed and ready for that. But the main problem he faced related to the conversation with Jack. The outbreak looked like its epicentre was North London, spreading outwards. In reality, if the wind blew the right direction a new outbreak could be in the main road outside. Or someone bitten in North London could already be spreading it across Kent. He stood at the window in his t-shirt and pants, eyes darting up and down the pre-dawn streets, trying to see signs of life … or otherwise. It was fruitless; he couldn't see a thing. Since they outlawed night-time street lighting his view of the stars was impressive but not of the ground. What if there was already a mass of undead outside? I’d never know until it was too late. But it’s madness waiting for one more minute, I must get going. He quickly finished getting ready, took one more look at his home for the last eight years, grabbed his rucksack and strode out the door …
He regretted it as soon as his feet touched the pavement downstairs. There were way more figures walking in the darkness outside his apartment block than was normal for 4.40am. In the darkness he could see the vague outline of dozens of moving shapes only a few metres away. He froze in heart-stopping terror. But then gasped with relief as he noticed their human-looking gait. Of course, it must be everyone with the same idea as me. In a couple of hours, once people check the early morning news, this trickle is going to become a flood. He briefly considered walking the 15 minutes to Canada Water tube station. There’s no way I’m going underground to be trapped with hordes of possible infected. He started walking south-east. Kent was fifteen klicks away. But after only twenty minutes’ walk, and some twenty years of watching movies about them, he came face to face with his first real, flesh-eating undead …
Zan and the growing crowd of hundreds of worried-looking Londoners slowly made their way through Greenwich and were walking en masse down Rochester Way. It was 5am and still pitch dark but sunrise wasn’t far away and the eastern sky already had an orange/red glow. The flow of vehicles had rapidly increased since he joined the exodus out of London. Pedestrians were still reluctantly moving out the way for cars but Zan didn’t see that lasting long. He was amazed at how many people had already decided to flee, but realised worried friends and relatives would be calling each other in the dead of the night after seeing the news flash on their pyjamas. The traffic was already nearly at the level and direction of 5.30pm on a Friday; drivers were furiously honking their horns at pedestrians taking over the road as they were forced to drive at the same walking pace.
One particular vehicle, a black Google sports-car about eighty metres ahead of Zan, stopped dead and its emergency flashing beacon and siren started. That could only mean one thing, Zan thought, a heartbeat inside the car had stopped. The noise was deafening; some in the crowd banged on the roof in frustration. Three minutes later Zan reached the side of the vehicle. He shuffled with the crowd past the bonnet then both car doors swung open behind him, pushing people aside.
Zan stopped walking and turned round to see who came out, his heartbeat rising as fast as his sense of dread. Two teenage boys slowly stumbled out covered in blood. They looked like twins; same dark hair, slender height and slacker clothes. Both had the same fixed unblinking stare and cloudy grey eyes. Their faces and necks were mottled grey as if covered in patches of dampness. As they walked round their open doors he could see their injuries. Others noticed too and screamed and hurriedly scattered in all directions. The boy at the front had a massive, still bleeding bite mark on his ear and neck whereas his twin had a deep gouge in his belly where his innards had slipped out and draped nearly to the ground in front of his shuffling feet. Watch out or you’ll slip on those! Zan thought madly.
Everyone in the crowd around the seemingly living dead twins had fled in howls and screams. What they had seen on their walls or ceilings at home had now appeared right in their midst. Zan stayed right where he was; his stomach was doing backflips and he could barely breathe. His morbid curiosity to see something up close that he’d only ever seen in movies was temporarily more powerful than his survival instinct.
The boy with his ear practically torn off was now just three metres away from Zan. The bedlam around him subsided as everyone had run into gardens or down both directions of the street. No-one stayed to fight. Zan was still rooted to the spot by the sight of this … dead … person shuffling towards him, right arm now outstretched. He finally caught his breath and stepped back, turned and fled, imagining for a chilling second the cold fingers touching his neck …
As he ran through the darkness, people around him crying, panting for breath and shouting each other’s names, he realised something deeply unsettling about what he had just witnessed. Zan had his cross-bow in his backpack and didn't even think to use it. Being up close to something so mind-bendingly awful, had stalled all rational thought. He felt star-struck by the zombie’s presence and incapable of calmly using motor skills to defend himself. The courage he thought he’d have folded completely in the face of such unaccustomed horror. Zan dimly wondered how his friends and family were doing … and felt heavy with a new fear for the future, and the survival of everyone.
Chapter 7: Closing Down Sale
Later that morning in Bromley, SE London, Claire Mills went slowly down the stairs to start preparing the family grocery store. It was the agreement with their parents that she and her sister Molly manage the store and in return live upstairs rent-free while Claire worked on the write-up of her PhD thesis and Molly studied for her first year exams.
“C’mon Molly wake up for chrissake, it’s past seven already.” Claire shouted up the stairs as she descended into the darkness of the ground floor shop.
“Don’t shout at me! You’re always stressing me out for nothing!” Molly shouted back downstairs from her bedroom. Claire groaned. Why am I still fucking babysitting my nineteen year old sister? It’s bad enough having to carry her weight when I'm looking after the shop. I can’t finish my research while I re-stock the soft drinks that she couldn't be bothered doing herself. She’s the one doing a cushy media studies degree but somehow needs twice the time as I do to study. I bet if she wasn’t such an incapable ditz she wouldn’t get favourable treatment from Dad.
Claire stormed down the row of fresh produce, the scent of ripening cauliflower and artichokes filling her nostrils. She liked the fresh aroma of the shop; the one small pleasure she could indulge in every morning. Still mostly in darkness, she looked towards the metal shutters at the front of the store. There were small holes dotted across the joins which let in tiny shafts of daylight. These were intermittently occluded by people walking past the shop outside. It was past 7.10am and workers were already on their way into Central London on their daily commute. Claire tutted to herself in exasperation as she realised the family was already losing potential customers. When her parents managed the shop they opened at 7am sharp.
“Molly, will you bloody get a move on and help me get the shop ready, it’s almost quarter past seven!” Claire shouted even louder upstairs.
“Leave! Me! ALONE!” Molly yelled back even louder. Emergency vehicle sirens sounded outside as if to underline her point.
Just then, someone passing by had chosen to approach the shutters, standing still right in front of the small holes, blocking the shafts of daylight. Claire looked directly at the holes, trying to get a feel for what the person was doing. She couldn’t let the customer in now, the place was still untidy and the till was not connected to the Internet. Claire stood still, thinking. The person had clearly heard the shouting and might