No Zombies Please We Are British (10 page)

“What could have caused it?” Jack asked, the flames proving to be a little more mesmerizing than was good for them.

“It could have been anything.” Steve stared at the building as part of the walls crumbled inwards.

“Watch out!” Alessa screamed from the back seat.

Her cry pulled their attention back to the road where a man was standing, waving his arms like a lunatic.

Steve slammed on the brakes and swerved the car, missing the gesticulating man by a hair’s breadth only to crash into the side of a much smaller and more fragile car.

“Shit,” he cursed to himself as he put the big beast into reverse and pulled away.

There seemed to be no real damage to their car, but the one they hit had certainly paid the price.

The man was at the door before any of them could react. His open palms slapping against the windows. His hands frantically grabbing at the handle.

It was only Jack’s quick thinking that saved them. He reached over and locked all of the doors, preventing the man from getting in.

“We need to help him,” Alessa said as the man pushed his face against the window. Terror widened his eyes and sweat dripped from his face.

“No,” Steve answered strongly.

“But –”

“He is hurt, look.” Jack pointed to the man’s flank. Beneath his jacket, they could make out the torn shreds of his t-shirt and the broken flesh beneath.

“We can’t save him,” Jack said, looking over at Steve.

It was a wholly unnatural act, to gas the car and pull away from the man. Especially as there were two fresh-looking, red-eyed death-walkers coming up behind him.

They drove away, and while Alessa buried her head in her hands and wept as the man’s screams cut above the sound of their car’s revving engine, the two men could not help but watch in the mirrors as the dead descended upon the man. Ripping large chunks of flesh from his frame, and dragging him to the floor in amidst a shower of thick blood.

They drove on in silence, not even looking at the continuing scenes of destruction and devastation. Once they circled around the stadium and started heading towards Camden, it became clear that the military had been through. The road was clear; the cars that had presumably been blocking it had been ruthlessly ploughed through, pushed to one side, and crushed under the weight of whatever military beast had acted as the procession’s ramrod. Many of the cars had people still trapped in them. It didn’t serve well to stop and wonder if some were still alive, alive and unharmed by the dead.

“I think this is where our journey ends, my friends,” Steve said as he brought the car to a slow crawl and eventual stop.

“Why?” Alessa asked, leaning forward to peer between the two front seats.

“The military is set up down there. The road is blocked not far up, and behind that you can see them milling about.” Steve pointed up ahead of them. Both of Jack and Alessa saw the uniforms moving around.

“So what do we do now?” Jack asked, looking at them both.

“We go the rest of the way on foot.” The words spilled from Steve’s mouth as if they were the most straightforward and uncomplicated ones he had ever uttered.

“I can’t ask you two to do that.” Jack was once again struck by the heavy weight of guilt that he was leading these two perfectly kind strangers to their deaths.

“You’re not asking. We are offering.” Steve clapped Jack on the shoulder and opened the door. “Better look sharp. They probably saw us coming and will have someone coming to collect us soon.”

They disappeared from the car, and hurried for the cover offered by the row of brightly coloured buildings. Behind them, a couple of death-walkers appeared from the shadows. They turned and began to amble towards them. Their pace quicker than the recent crowds they had encountered. Their eyes were black and their wounds not as fresh as the others they had seen.

“Quick, in here,” Steve said, pulling them both out of the street and through a small alleyway.

A few moments later, a burst of gunfire rang out. Alessa screamed but caught herself. The three of them pressed their bodies against the wall, hidden by the dark. A few moments later, two uniformed men walked by the alley’s opening. They could hear the whispered chatter from the two, but they could not make out the exact words.

Steve raised a finger to his lips and pointed. Together, they inched their way to the end of the alleyway. It opened up into the main internal market area. A large sign announcing their entry into Camden Market greeted them. Row after row of empty market stalls sat like skeletons of a time gone by.

The market square was quiet, eerily so. Every sound echoed around in the normally bustling place. Broken windows on the stores inside, showed signs of looting and was the first real indicator that maybe the riots story that had been used as such a masterful cover story had not been a complete work of fiction.

Moving through the stalls, choosing the wider path to take them away from the line of sight of the road, the trio moved on towards the river and the famous loch.

They heard the cahoots and the shouts before the river came into view. Once in position, they could see the problem.

The water level had been taken down. A boat was sitting there, waiting to be brought up, only it was clear to see that was never going to happen. The boat was packed with death-walkers, who stood scratching and snarling at the sides. While above them, on the banks, stood soldiers, or at least men in uniforms. They were laughing at the dead, throwing scraps of food and general post-riot debris at them.

“That’s terrible,” Alessa spoke without thinking. Her voice carrying through the abandoned market.

Moving fast, Jack wrapped his arms around her and pulled her away, back into the darkness offered by the location.

None of the soldiers seemed to hear, although the aroma of fresh meat seemed to catch the attention of a couple of the death-walkers, for they turned their backs on the military and resumed their struggle on the other side of boat.

A gunshot rang out. It was followed by a series of hoots and whistles. The soldiers were taking pot-shots at the dead.

“That cannot be the military.” Jack looked at Steve.

“I have some ideas, but now is not the time. Whoever they are, they are dangerous, and we need to get away from them.” Steve turned away from the loch and moved back into the market.

They followed it a while longer, emerging farther down river, the gunshots and wild laughter faded behind them like a sinister echo.

Chapter 11

They walked through the streets, sticking to the back alleyways as best they could. The undead population seemed to be less concentrated here, although as they passed through the residential areas, the growls coming from behind the garden gates told a story that would end quite differently should any of them learn how to open a latch.

“Who on earth were those people?” Alessa asked when they stopped to rest. They had moved at a quick pace and were leaning against the side of a building in a dingy alleyway that smelled worse than any of the undead folks they had met until that point.

“They were the military. What’s left of it,” Steve answered.

“What do you mean, what’s left of it?” Jacked asked through deep inhalations.

“Exactly that. This plague, or whatever you want to call it. I don’t think anybody was really expecting it. It caught us off guard. The military too. I think these guys, and maybe those in the city itself, just got caught out. They are trapped and alone, and all they have to keep them sane is the uniform they are wearing.” Steve was sweating, his face flushed. He darted his gaze around the alleyway, not stopping to rest for a moment.

“They didn’t look very sane,” Alessa said, moving closer to Jack.

“It is funny what you can suddenly justify when you are wearing a uniform,” Steve told her. “Come on, we can’t stop. The day is getting older and we have a lot of ground to cover.”

They emerged from the alley and onto a main road. The cars here had also been moved, pushed to one side in an effort to block both sides of the street. To the left and right, cars were set blocking all thoroughfare. There was a cluster of death-walkers in the street, but they had yet to notice the arrival of the trio.

“If we head straight across, that brings us into the zoo. We can cut through the zoo, and jump across out of the park. It’s only a short sprint then through to Piccadilly Circus. Finding the theatre your girl is in should be easy, as long as we know the show.” Steve looked from Jack to Alessa and back to Jack. His eyes did not have to travel far because the two were stuck close together.

The park stretched out all around them, and the walls of the zoo seemed as tall as those of a castle. Impregnable and imposing as the three stood by the base looking up in awe. The sign for London Zoo stretched out above their heads, and from the inside, the sound of the animals could be heard.

“Here goes nothing.” Steve smiled.

“What if the animals … what about if they are also death-walkers?” Alessa asked as they slowly crept their way towards the main gates.

“I don’t think so. I’ve seen plenty of cats since we set out this morning, and none of them seemed to have turned.” Jack surprised them all by answering.

“Turned?”

“Died,” Jack corrected himself. “I think animals are immune or something.”

The entrance glass was smashed, the barrier turned into a dark maw of jagged shards of glass. Each spike was just as hungry for flesh as the death-walkers that roamed the world. Moving carefully, creeping through the broken glass, not wanting to draw any unwanted attention to themselves, they moved by the empty cashiers’ desks and scaled the turnstiles. Inside the zoo, the real world suddenly seemed so far away. To their left, penguins waddled and flapped noisily. The appearance of the strangers rousing them, or so it seemed.

“They must be hungry,” Alessa said, stopping to look at the creatures. There were more than a few lying dead, strewn around the floor, both inside and outside the enclosure. “The poor things.”

“It wasn’t hunger that killed them,” Jack said, moving beside Alessa, enjoying the sensation that came with her close proximity.

“The dead?”

“I wish,” Jack spoke softly.

“It was the living who did this. The sick fucks. Killing innocent animals,” Steve growled, the rage in his words came through like a gust of strong wind.

The two looked at him, knowing that his chosen profession was dealing in animal meat. He clearly saw their joint gaze.

“Being a butcher doesn’t make me a hater. I love animals. Always have. I pay more to animal charities every month than anything else.” There was no anger in his words when he spoke to his friends, but his desire for them to believe him was strong.

“The living suck,” Alessa said, pouting as she bent down to stroke the feathers of a penguin that had waddled up to the walls.

The three walked through the zoo, fully alert for anything and anybody. It looked, for all intents and purposes, that they had the zoo to themselves. It was an eerie feeling, with the animals all reacting to their movements. Growling and crying out for attention and food. There were several bodies lying around, and it shocked Jack when he stopped looking at them. The dead, those ripped apart to such an end that re-animation was no longer an option; headless corpses, bellies bloated to the point of bursting. Skulls cracked open and floating on a now dried-up bed of brain jelly.

They moved deeper into the zoo, alongside a restaurant that had been ransacked. Tables and chairs overturned and smashed, windows shattered. Pools of blood lay amidst a sea of glass shards farther into the heart of the zoo where they found the Gorilla Kingdom. The gorillas were all outside and seemed to be playing with something. Pushing and shoving it around like a toy. How the death-walker had gotten into the enclosure nobody dared asked, but it was there, and the muscular creatures were manhandling it like a rag doll. While it was still very much alive, even with its bones broken, piercing its skin at all manner of angles, it seemed to have no inclination to attack the animals.

Yet as soon as the group got close, it sensed their arrival and tried to turn and snap at them. The gorillas noticed it too, and a series of shrieks and hoots rang out. It was an awe-inspiring sound. A cacophonous din that made the ground shudder and tremble.

That was when the alpha male showed himself. He strutted out of the complex and into the field, moving through the chorus of yelps and excited barks. He eyed the three newcomers. His dark hazel eyes seemed to shine against his pitch-coloured fur. There was sadness behind them, and a pent-up rage.

He stuck his chest out and walked to the group, to the death-walker that was floundering on the ground like a fish out of water. Without pause, the creature slammed his enormous fist down on the thing’s head. It burst like a balloon, showering globs of rotting brain tissue over the ground.

“We need to move,” Jack barked, instantly grabbing Alessa’s hand. Their fingers locked as if made to fit.

“It won’t be able to escape–” Steve began to say just as the large male leaped through the air, catching himself and hauling his gargantuan muscular frame up and onto the edge of the enclosure.

“You were saying,” Jack said as they turned to run.

The gorilla stood tall and beat its chest, belting out a roar that shook the glass loose from the shattered windows, while the echo of its chest slaps rumbled like thunder.

“Follow me,” Jack called, his grip tightening around Alessa’s hand.

Her pace matched his, their bodies close together. They ran along the enclosure deeper into the park, moving past Tiger Pit, where the bodies of at least half a dozen death-walkers lay, dismembered and disembowelled. The stench of their rot was strong, carrying on the light wind.

The tigers stared at them, and nervously paced back and forth.

Turning left when they ran out of room to move straight, they came to a crossroads. The pictographic sign posts failed to indicate a safe hiding place in case of gorilla escape, but they chose to move straight again, heading towards the exit they had planned on using all along.

They didn’t get far though, because up ahead of them they saw a group of military figures moving forward, a bunch of struggling death-walkers caught between them.

“Psst. Over here,” a voice called out.

It took a moment for them to realize the voice was calling to them.

“Jack, look.” Alessa clapped him on the shoulder and he turned his body to stare at the faces peering from inside one of the work buildings.

Not moving, Jack stared at the older man.

“Come in if you want to stay alive,” he said, his glasses catching the sun, making it look as if the lenses were winking.

Jack moved, Alessa still glued to his side. Steve followed a short way behind, his gut wobbling, his face a deeper shade of red than they had seen before. Yet, in spite of it all, he seemed to be relatively alert and had soon caught his breath.

Inside the feeding station were five scared people, all wore the uniform of park employees.

Stan Matthews, Ayse Sukür, Richard Whyte, Nathalie Jenkins and Callum Hennessey all introduced themselves in quiet tones, before taking cover just as the military folks came into view. The three newcomers threw themselves to the floor.

The voices of the group could be heard, and the snarls of the death-walkers interrupted them from time to time.

“Are they the same guys from the loch?” Jack whispered to Steve.

“I don’t know. I hope so. It’s close enough, and they had vehicles, so the timing fits,” Steve answered.

“Shh,” one of their rescuers spat from wherever they were hiding.

The group walked past, and after a long period of prolonged silence, everybody got back to their feet.

“They come through once or twice a day.” Stan spoke first, thus assigning himself as the main spokesperson for the group.

“Why?” Alessa asked.

“To play,” Steve filled in. “They feed the death-walkers to the animals, don’t they?” He stared at Stan, his eyes burning with hatred for those who mistreated the creatures he held in such high regard.

“Yes.” Stan hung his head, his own sorrow equally grand.

“They killed the penguins, too?” Alessa made the assumption.

“Penguins … don’t tell me. I think it is safe to assume you are right. We’ve not seen anybody else come through in days.”

“How long have you been here?” Jack asked.

“Since it started. Saturday, I guess it was.” Stan paused as he spoke, calculating how many days and nights they had been cramped together in a stuffy, relatively foul smelling – the relative part coming as a result of being exposed to the open innards of rotting death-walkers – room.

“The riots started not far from here. We didn’t know what happened. Everything just went crazy towards the end of the afternoon. They came through in a wave. There was so much panic. People were being beaten, killed, and trampled. Everybody was screaming. It was just … just …” Nathalie burst into tears and buried her head on Callum’s shoulder.

“You guys cannot stay here anymore. We need to move, to get out of the park,” Steve said.

“We are safe here, for now,” Ayse responded sharply. Her olive-tanned skin and dark hazel eyes were bright with defiance. She was safe in the food preparation room, safer than being outside.

“Well, maybe not for long. One of the gorillas, a real big bugger, just jumped out of the pen. He’s loose around here somewhere. Plus, with those military guys running around, it’s only a matter of time before they find you.” Steve’s words were stern, but he was not angry. It was a voice that would have made him a great father, had he chosen to settle down and have children.

“Where are you headed?” Richard asked.

‘We are headed into the city,” Jack answered. “Someone I know is trapped down there, and we are going to rescue her.”

This response was greeted by a round of nervous laughter.

“I think we will stay here. I’d rather wrestle the fucking gorilla.” Callum snorted.

“Fine, but we are moving on. We stand a better chance in a group.” Jack stood his ground and stared at Callum. The man tried to match Jack’s gaze, but couldn’t.

A burst of gunfire rang out, ending their conversation. A window shattered in the building, just two rooms down from them. 

Ayse and Nathalie screamed. Richard threw himself to the floor, and Callum stumbled as Nathalie clamped herself around his neck, as good as jumping into his arms.

“We need to move, now,” Jack ordered.

He went to leave, but the door behind them suddenly opened and a soldier ducked inside.

He was not looking at the others, in his panic, he was blind to them. With his rifle raised into his shoulder, he peered out of the door. He collapsed a second later. Not even able to force a scream out of his lungs before his head was pulled from his body and thrown against the wall.

The gorilla appeared, filling the doorway. It stared at the people inside and pulled back its lips, baring its teeth.

“Kitaka!” Ayse’s voice rang out as she moved to the front of the group.

The gorilla stared at her, its eyes finding hers. The pair stared at each other for a few moments.

“Kitaka, no!” Ayse’s voice was strong and powerful. It was commanding and the gorilla took a step back.

Standing to its full height, the gorilla stared at them and beat its chest, snarling and growling.

“Stand down, Kitaka,” Ayse said again.

A moment later, the creature’s head exploded in a mist of red and grey. The headless corpse remained standing for a moment, before collapsing in on itself.