Preservation (19 page)

“Prologue”

The land stretching from Cornwall to the south of England and running all the way to the Orkney Islands lying to the north of Scotland belonged mainly to the tainted. They roamed free, hunting down the remaining humans, following a three-year feeding frenzy that had spread the contamination throughout the population of 61,000,000 people in Britain. Ireland was almost completely lost to the Walking Dead, as was much of Europe.

All continents, the Americas, Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe and Antarctica had fallen. Bands of survivors throughout the planet had formed strongholds, creating modern day fortresses. Behind those high walls, they lived an existence of constant fear that the tainted would find a way in and devour them.

In London, which was the old capital before the plague, walls of sheer steel over five metres high contained an area bordered by the Thames on one side, running from the famous Tower Bridge.  It extended up to the A1211, turned East as far as the A1, along to the A503, north on the A10 to the A406, and then followed that all the way down to the Thames at North Woolwich. Within North Woolwich were crammed over a million souls, the Pure, which co-existed spending each day doing just that, existing. Numerous other smaller groups had dug in and created less sophisticated strongholds throughout the city and also further afield, across the south of England. Craig Anderson, the Ex-SAS Captain and now the head of security at Fort London had offered those people sanctuary at the capital’s stronghold whenever he came across such a group. Some had accepted and others for reason of religion, stubbornness or idealistic views, had chosen not to take refuge there.

Anderson had even come across a group of Hell’s Angels in
Peckham who had named themselves "The Zombie Chapter.” The Angels had turned a large warehouse into a fortress run by a man called “Hog”, named after the distinctive Harley Davidson motorbike he rode as he led his followers on gathering forays throughout the outer lands on their powerful choppers.

Craig Anderson played a major part in setting up the London fortress, and during the last year had led a snatch squad made up of mostly SAS trained troops into what they now called the outer land.  He led this squad on countless forays to scavenge, and also to gather up and bring in the stragglers of the Pure who were still playing hide and seek with the roaming hordes of WDs. This however, had all but stopped now. There were so few roamers left that the risk could not be justified and his main duty now was to maintain order and security within Fort London, a mini country.   He patrolled and kept the route open with Fort Warwick, a much bigger fortress a hundred miles to the north run by a former drug baron, Karl
Bruger.  A man Craig despised, but a man he had little choice but to deal with, for Bruger controlled the new currency and food, not only over Fort London, but also over most of the smaller strongholds to the north. This gave him power over those who were forced to make perilous trips to Fort Warwick. To the south, his control was through Fort London, as many of the strongholds would turn to the larger fort to trade for food supplies bartered from Bruger.

Just less than two million of the Pure lived within the steel and concrete walls of Fort Warwick, all working under
Bruger´s control through his army of thugs, many of whom were ex-service men and a number of ex-SAS troops. Anderson swore that one day he would take Bruger down, take him down and feed him to the tainted. Anderson knew in his heart the time would come.

However, as much as Anderson yearned for the day to arrive, he had to set that mission aside, for in the gloom and despair of what had become everyday life came a beacon. Suddenly, there was a thin light at the end of the endless Zombie tunnel and the prospect of a future free of the tainted and the living dead, was a possibility. A messiah had come forward, a zombie messiah.

However, not everyone wanted change. Not everyone wanted the old world order back and one of those was Karl Bruger. He was king of all he surveyed and beyond, and he wanted it to stay that way. Bruger and Anderson were set on a collision course, and the messiah was the Holy Grail of their chosen futures. One wished to drink from it, the other wanted to crush it. Therein follows a running battle through the outer lands where many of the smaller strongholds, including the zombie chapter, were caught up in the war for the messiah. Inevitably, there would be a winner and a loser. For in all battles, there could be only one.

Chapter One

"We Need To Kill Him"

'We've got a bleed on the north wall. Go into lock down,' shouted Craig Anderson sprinting to the modified Land Rover Discovery, his four most trusted men in his team close behind.

'What sector?' checked Tom Parfitt, slamming the vehicle into first gear. The huge tyres complained, sending up a plume of smoke as the rubber heated, melted, and smeared another set of black track marks across the garage floor of one of the mobile bases of Bravo Two Zombie Squad, its blaring siren warning of its approach.

'Sector 14,' snapped Pump from the back seat.

'Put out the warning, Pump,' ordered Anderson.

Pump was his
comms man and got his name from his choice of weapon, an 870 Magnum pump action shot gun.

Pressing a series of keys on the on-board communications laptop, he linked into the Fort London BWS (Bleed Warning System) and sent out an automated warning. Within two seconds, a pre-recorded message boomed out through the numerous
tannoys set around the fort, warning the populace to keep away from Sector 14, an area taking in part of Tottenham. Immediately, there was a stampede, as men, women, and children, panicked within the sector. Emergency steel walls, which divided the fort into small containment areas, had already slammed up into position from underground, separating Sector 14 from the rest of Fort London.

Any of the populace in a sector at the time of a bleed would be trapped by the hydraulically operated automated walls, which would be activated at the first warning call. There, the unlucky ones would stay until the clearance units had filtered through the isolated zone.  Each member of the populace would be screened for bites and infection.  Each person at the fort knew every one of the 100 sectors in Fort London. It was part of their conditioning to
memorise them like the alphabet, and automatically react at the first warning call of a zombie break-in. Despite regulations not to, many of the populace would try to escape the sector before the steel walls were activated. However, the CCTV network would pick them up, or other members of the fort would point them out as needing screening, as the only way the fort could stay un-infected by the plague and remain Pure.     

'What's the source?' shouted Bull, checking through the side window as the sturdy Discovery swung wildly around a sharp corner bringing them up to Sector 14. Tom pressed a release button on the dash and the steel wall closing off the zone dropped below ground, allowing the four-wheel drive vehicle in. Immediately, they crossed through the gap and the hydraulic ram system lifted the wall to its full 5
metre height, enclosing them within the breached zone.

'Waste hatch was left open north end of
Tottenham. Fifty nine WDs got in before one of the perimeter guards spotted the bleed and slammed the hatch closed,' responded Pump, sharing the information feeding through his earpiece.

'Is the guard okay?' asked Anderson, jumping from the Land Rover as they screeched to a halt in front of a group of twelve shuffling WDs, which were still a safe distance away. Walking to the back, the four men slipped on their personal weapons. The last item lifted out was Anderson's back harness, containing a pair of lethal Kukris, better known as
Gurkha Knives. Anderson had this pair made for him with 40 cm long steel blades, formed in the traditional curved shape with a razor sharp inner cutting edge as deadly as a Samurai sword. The handles, made of aluminium to keep the weight of each weapon at just over two pounds, were fitted while still hot so they shrank onto the blades and giving an extremely tight fit. Either one of the honed edges could slice through bone or sinew as if it were paper and each sported the notch out on the blade near the handle, which would allow blood to drop from the razor edge and not flow onto the hand of the combatant.

'Not sure about the guard,' replied Pump as the four men walked forward, shoulder to shoulder. They came to a sudden halt as they spotted what appeared to be the guard shuffling at the front of the group of WDs, blood streaming from a number of bites to both sides of his face. His right cheek hung down completely, looking like a piece of uncooked steak.

'Make that 60,' whispered Anderson.

'It...
it’s not as bad as it looks,' stammered the guard, shuffling a little faster to keep ahead of the moaning group behind him. His voice already corrupted as the virus seeped its way through every cell in his body.

'You´re
gonna be okay,' smiled Pump striding forward.

'Thank you, thank you,' gasped the guard, reaching out with a bloodied hand.

Standing six feet from the guard, Pump lifted his shotgun from his side and pulled the trigger. The guard’s head disappeared as the magnum slug slammed into him, sending forth a cloudy mist of red and grey.  The scent was like a feeding aphrodisiac encouraging the moaning WDs to keep coming.

Bull lifted his MP5 machine gun and cut a devastating swathe of fire across the legs of the approaching zombies. Eight dropped immediately as the 9mm bullets smashed kneecaps and shins. Still they came, dragging themselves towards the four men, their walking food. Their incessant moaning never altered in pitch or tone despite the splintered bones and cartilage. One of the WDs at the back of the group, a young girl of no more than eleven or twelve with long, blonde hair, dropped to her knees, the side of her head disappearing in a cloud of bloodied grey matter as a high velocity bullet passed through it.

'That you, Spider?' asked Anderson, speaking into his throat mike as he scanned the roof tops.

'Three o´clock high to your position, Cap,' answered Spider, the squad’s babysitter, using Craig’s shortened title. Whenever a bleed was called, Spider would deploy with his M24 Sniper Rifle. An unusual choice for someone in the SAS since the weapon was American. Spider would tell you the story behind it if you asked him, but it amused him to change the tale each time, making it more outrageous with each telling. In either case, the 43 inch long bolt-action rifle with the 10×42
Leupold Ultra M3A telescope sight had saved many in his squad.

'Got you, Spider,' waved Anderson spotting his guardian angel.

'Heads up, Cap, you got eight WDs coming into the street from a side road at 9 o´clock,' responded the roof top Angel.

'Roger that,' came back Anderson, seeing the first of them, a man in overalls, lumbering into view.

Pump and Bull had already put to rest the remainder of the first group of 12, Pump’s shotgun dealing with four, whilst Bull's MP5 ripped into the others.

The pair now linked back up with Anderson and Tom
Parfitt, who were closing in on the overall clad man thirty metres away, who looked as if he could have been a car mechanic. As they walked, the automatic follow up message came over the tannoy system repeating constantly, "Please move to one of the exit points for screening." At those exits, members of Craig’s small army at the fort would open hatches to allow inmates to exit and be screened for bites. This would involve stripping each inmate naked for a visual check. Any scratches or abrasions of any type would be treated as suspect and the inmate would be contained in an isolation area for thirteen hours. Each contained person would be cuffed three metres apart so they could not reach the person next to them, harsh, but necessary. Most of the people at the fort accepted it for the greater good. Thirteen hours was a key length of time, as it had been found that the maximum incubation period for transition was twelve hours. The thirteenth hour had become a watchword within the Fort as the golden number. Everyone wanted to reach the thirteenth hour. Some would succumb after only minutes, depending on how many bites they received or the severity of the attack. The guard was a good example. He had serious wounds to the face and was displaying a shuffling walk only minutes after being bitten and his voice was slurring. Anyone displaying signs of contamination was immediately shot.