The Undead. The First Seven Days (28 page)

‘Steven, can you make everyone a drink please.’
  ‘Yes, Sergeant.’
  He goes to the end of the room and opens two cupboard doors, the bottom section has a kettle and plain white mugs, the top section has boxes of tea bags, a catering size pack of instant coffee and boxes of sugar sachets and milk cartons.
  Within minutes, we both have a steaming mug of tea in front of us: milk and sugar sachets are put down next to the mugs. We busy ourselves putting milk in, while waiting for the rest to arrive.
    A few minutes later, we hear voices and I look to the door, waiting to see the senior officers and constables file in, but only two people enter: two young ladies -  one with a blue shirt on and one with a black. I realise now that the blue shirts are for the Police Community Support Officers and the black shirts for the proper officers.
  The two newcomers both sit down and I realise that Steven has already made them drinks; there are no more drinks made - no one else is coming.
  ‘Where is everyone else?’
  ‘Err… thank you. We’ll come to you in a minute, there is an order to these meetings you know,’ the Sergeant gives me a withering look.

Ted just sits back and drinks his tea.
  ‘Right, everyone’s here, then let us begin. The time is now 22.07 hours and I am opening the emergency strategy meeting. As the senior officer I will chair the meeting and PC Trixey will take the minutes.’
  I look to the new female officer, blonde hair pulled back into a bun, she looks very young but very serious, and is studiously holding a pen over some writing paper.
  ‘PC Trixey - please record that we have two members of the Armed Forces with us.’
  ‘We are not Armed Forces - we are normal people.’
  ‘Yes okay, I understand. PC Trixey will note that we have two members of the public as observers - just note down, separately, that they are Armed Forces - obviously they can’t officially be here in this meeting.’

She makes quote marks with her fingers as she says the word “officially”.
  ‘For god’s sake - we are not in the bloody army!’
  ‘Er… thank you… Mr… what?
  ‘It’s, Howie.’ I rub my temples.
  ‘Thank you, Mr Howie, but please stop interrupting the proceedings.’
 
Bloody hell, why is everyone calling me, Mr Howie
?
  ‘Now, for the record, also present is PCSO Steven Taylor, PCSO Jane Downton, Detention Officer Ted Harding, PC Terri Trixey and…’ she looks at Dave.
  ‘Dave…’ he offers.
  ‘Dave, what?’
  ‘Just, Dave.’
  ‘Oh…of course… Terri mark that down will you, obviously they can’t give their full names, for security reasons. Now… onto proceedings. PC Trixey will just go over the minutes from the last meeting.’
  PC Trixey flicks to some previous notes made on the same writing paper, then she clears her throat.
  ‘The last emergency strategy meeting was held today at twenty-hundred hours,’ she looks up and glances round at everyone.
  ‘Er… the same people were present at the previous meeting with the exception of our two “members of the public” here.’ She does the quote things with her fingers too.
  ‘Now, at the last meeting it was required for a full inventory of supplies to be done. There was an issue with PC Jenkins walking into the female officer’s shower room and consideration to be given to the fuel supply for the generator.’
  ‘Thank you, PC Trixey. First I would like to say that, in relation to agenda item two, I have spoken with PC Jenkins, who assures me it was an accident and promises that it won’t happen again.’
  ‘Fucking pervert!’
  ‘Yes… thank you PCSO Downton. I have dealt with the matter and made it clear that disciplinary procedures will be instigated if it happens again. Now… in relation to item number one, who undertook the assessment of the supplies?’
  ‘You said that you would ask Tom,’ says PC Trixey.
  ‘Ah yes, of course I did… well he isn’t here, so we can find out later. What about the fuel for the generator? Who did we task with that one?’
  ‘It was Tom, again.’
  ‘Right, well we can find that out later too… onto new items. We need to establish a cleaning rota, any volunteers to draft one for approval?’
  ‘I can do that.’
  ‘Thank you, Steven. Please draft the cleaning rota and submit to me for approval - once it has been approved it will be posted in the canteen. Now we also need a sleeping rota - a schedule so that we make sure we don’t all sleep at the same time - like last night.’
  ‘I can do that, too.’
  ‘Thank you Steven. Please draft the schedule and submit it to me for approval - once it has been approved it will be posted in the canteen.’
  ‘Tom should go first - he slept all bloody night.’
  ‘Yes, thank you PCSO Downton, good point. Steven, make sure that Tom goes down for the first night.’
  ‘Yes, Sergeant.’
  ‘Right, well, that just about covers everything. Questions from the floor? Steven, do you have anything?’
  ‘Er… just one thing Sergeant… Tom keeps eating all of the lasagnes from the prisoners’ food cupboard. He knows I can’t eat the curry and I don’t like the all day breakfast.’
  ‘Thank you Steven. I will speak to Tom and request that he does not eat all of the lasagnes. PCSO Downton?’
  ‘Nothing from me, just keep that pervert out of the showers.’
  ‘Yes, I’ve already covered that. Listen Jane, if this is really bothering you, then you can take out a grievance against PC Jenkins, just submit a report to me for approval and I will deal with it.’
  ‘Okay, thanks, Sarge.’
  ‘PC Trixey?’
  ‘Yes I have a point to raise. At a previous meeting a decision was taken to limit each person to a five minute shower each. Now, while I accept that the water supply and power are important, I feel this is victimisation and prejudice. Female officers have longer hair and it takes more time to wash and rinse out, therefore I request that the showering time for female officers be extended to ten minutes.’
  ‘Good point, PC Trixey. I am in favour of this. It is true that female officers generally have longer hair and need more time for adequate cleaning. I pass the notion and this will be effective immediately. Please note that down PC Trixey.’
  ‘Noted, Sarge.’
  ‘I hope that isn’t just female police officers. I have longer hair too and I don’t wish to be discriminated against just because I am a community support officer.’
  ‘Very true, PCSO Downton - and a good point raised. Please amend the notes to show that all female employees are entitled to the extended shower period. DO Harding?’
  ‘No, nothing to raise thank you.’
  ‘Thank you DO Harding. And now the observers… Dave do you have any points?’
  ‘When can we get our weapons back?’
  ‘Ah right… a good point for discussion.’
   I interrupt, exploding in fury.
  ‘Now… just hang on a minute, what shower of shit is this? What the fuck are you lot going on about? Showers, cleaning rota? What the…’
  ‘Stop right there, Mr Howie. I will not allow the use of profane or abusive language within this building.’
  ‘I DON’T GIVE A FUCK!’ I say as I slam my hand down hard on the table and they all jump, with the exception of Dave and Ted - who are both drinking their tea.
  ‘Where are the senior officers? Where are the Inspectors and Superintendents? Where are the bloody policemen?’
  ‘Er… excuse me - the term is police officer actually - not policemen,’ PC Trixey says, glaring at me.
  ‘I don’t fucking care what the term is, and forgive me for not being politically fucking correct. Miss or whoever the hell you are… but what are you all going to do about that lot out there? There are thousands of zombies running round and eating people. Other people are killing each other too. Where are the police…MEN and the riot squad and the armed officers? Why aren’t they here patrolling and putting that lot down? What about the government? What have they said to you? Have you had updates or been told anything?’ I glare at the sergeant.
  ‘No, we haven’t been told anything,’ she says softly.
  ‘Nothing? No updates?’
  ‘No, nothing.’
  ‘What about your radios? You must be able to speak to each other?’
  ‘They went down with the phones - they work off mobile phone networks.’
  ‘Fuck me! What about the old radios that use radio frequencies?’
  ‘Oh… we sent those back when we got the new ones.’
  ‘Jesus Christ,’ I rub my temples again. ‘You must have secure phone networks, some hot line to your head quarters?’
  ‘This isn’t the movies Mr Howie, we don’t have anything like that.’
  ‘Email? You have power… what about emails? Oh… they won’t work without phone lines. Policemen then? Where are they all, and the senior officers?’
  ‘They’ve gone…’
  ‘Gone where? Be specific.’
  ‘It was a Friday night, we had a duty inspector but he left when the troubles started, some of the officers were out patrolling and just never came back, those that did, left to be with their families.’
  ‘What about your armed officers?’
  ‘We didn’t have any on, we don’t have enough as it is, the next division was covering our sector.’
  ‘So this is it? The glorious British police reduced to a couple of community support officers, two infant coppers and you?’

I don’t mention Ted, out of respect, he doesn’t seem to notice but carries on drinking the tea - that tea cup must be bloody deep.
  ‘Yes, this is it.’
  ‘Shit! So why are you here? Why didn’t you leave to be with your families?’
  ‘We don’t have anyone. Steven and Jane are both single. Terri and Tom are new and got posted away from where they grew up. I’m not married and… I have no family.’
  ‘What about you Ted?’ I soften my tone.
  ‘Me? Oh no, I’m quite happy here. The wife took my kids to Australia years ago. The job’s been my family ever since.’
  I lean forward and rest my head in my hands, looking down at the desk. The realisation hits me that there is no hope for the authorities to get a grip on this.
  ‘We lost the plot a few years ago, I’d say.’
  I look at Ted and he looks deep in thought as he speaks.
  ‘We used to be good at this sort of thing. Oh… we were shit at the community policing and yeah, we did isolate people - but we nicked more then than we do now, and we were good at major incidents. We always trained and undertook exercises to prepare, but now it’s all done from a desk. Us old dinosaurs tried telling them about the new radios but they didn’t listen. These young ‘uns get more training in
diversity
than they do in crime or major incidents now.’
  I sit back, rubbing at my chin - which is fast becoming stubbly.
  ‘I guess you couldn’t have done much anyway - it spread so fast. I was just hoping that there would be some plan or something amazing, you know?
Hold on
…
help is coming
- that sort of thing.’
  He shakes his head: ‘Nope.’
  ‘So what will you do? Just wait here?’
  Silence - no one wants to answer me.

I look at Dave, but he is devoid of expression, as usual.
  ‘Armoury? You must have one… with weapons… firearms?’
  The Sergeant shakes her head.
  ‘No, we used to, but they centralised it and all the firearms officer’s have to go to the divisional HQ to arm up.’
  I shake my head slowly, dumbfounded at the turn of events and looking at the desperate people around me, clinging on to a world that has already disappeared, trying to use grievance procedures and make cleaning rotas. Maybe it’s better than John Jones and his way, but it’s sad, very sad.
  ‘So you have no weapons, no communication, no direction - what will you do?’
  ‘We do have weapons,’ PC Trixey, buts in.
  Dave looks at her: ‘Where? What are they?’
  ‘In the evidence room, we seized a load of stuff a few days ago.’
  ‘What are they?’ I ask her.
  ‘There’s quite a few air rifles.’

Dave sits back, suddenly uninterested.
  ‘And some bullets.’
  ‘What kind?’
  ‘I don’t know? They all look the same to me.’
  ‘Can we see?’ I ask the Sergeant.
  ‘Terri will show you.’
  ‘Dave, do you want to go?’
  ‘Okay, Mr Howie.’
  He gets up and follows PC Trixey out of the room. The sergeant then asks Steven and Jane to leave us in private for a few minutes, and, as soon as the door closes, she turns to me.
  ‘I know things are bad, I’m not stupid but they have nowhere to go, none of us do, but we’re safe here, the building is strong and we can wait it out. We have plenty of food and water.’
  Ted nods.
  ‘It must seem strange to you, but they won’t last five minutes out there, so we keep on - it gives them hope. Anyway, what have you seen out there, what do you know?’
  I recount to them what we had seen so far - I leave out the bit about the undead stripper and Marcus, I guess they wouldn’t be that interested.
  I also tell them about John Jones and the Carter Street barricade, then about the radio message and the Forts. They both lean forward and listen intently about the message - asking probing questions. I answer all of the questions as best I can, which doesn’t take long, seeing as I don’t know much.
  Finally, I tell them of my plan to head to London for my sister.