The Z Infection (13 page)

Xiaofan Li

06:15 hours, Saturday 16
^th
May, Chinatown,
Central London

     
When I had first seen those ones in the street I almost cried out in
fright.  But a year of living rough had taught me a lot of things.  One of the
most important was never to show fear, no matter how much you felt it.

       That had kicked in almost at once.  I regained
my composure and walked quickly away from them.  They were slow moving things. 
I could have ran, but I decided I would keep my strength for when I might
really need it.  There would come a time I guessed, and I was proved right many
times, when I would have no other option but to run.

       I turned off the main street about a hundred
yards further down.  Here, once I was sure it was safe, I broke into a jog.  It
didn’t take long to leave them far behind me.  I could hear them wailing and
groaning in the distance, probably angry at losing a meal.

       Two more turns and they were out of sight. 
Even though my heart was pounding I stopped and forced myself to relax a
little.  I did a full minute of meditation, counting my breaths as I had been
taught as a child, trying to calm my mind and body.

       It worked.  My heart rate returned to normal. 
My body was back to its original factory pre-set.  Pity the rest of me was so
fucked up.  I jogged another couple of blocks and checked behind me every few
seconds as I went.  They weren’t following any more.  Perhaps they could only
act on sight and sound, I thought.   Whatever?  I was glad they were gone.

       It’s not really too far from Holborn to
Chinatown.  I was used to these streets and I would often take a wander to the
fringes of the Chinese community, although I never ventured down the street
where my father’s restaurant was.

       Despite the close proximity it took a lot
longer than it would normally have and it was hours later before I was on the
edge of Leicester Square.  It looked like a battlefield.  Hundreds of corpses
lay scattered around.  Men, women and children.  Nobody had been spared.  It
had been a massacre. 

I was scanning the square, trying to make
some sense of what I was seeing, when I suddenly heard another sound.  A
helicopter appeared overhead and I instinctively ducked into a shop doorway to
avoid it.

       It was a police one.  It circled the scene for
a few moments, before heading off to the north.  They must have been looking
for the infected, I thought.  They might be plotting their movements using
helicopters.  Whatever they were doing I didn’t want them to see me.  I don’t
know why, but I just wanted to be on my own and do my own thing.  I felt safer
that way.  Certainly the hundreds of dead in Leicester Square hadn’t been saved
by being in a crowd.

       I skirted the edge of the square, past the
Odeon cinema, where another pile of dead bodies lay at the front doors.  It
looked like they had been trying to get in, perhaps looking for a safe place to
hide, when they had been trapped and slaughtered where they stood.  Once I got
to the other side I slipped down a lane which I knew would take me to Lisle
Street.  From there I hugged the buildings as I walked down to Wardour Street
and then along a short distance to Gerrard Street.

       It was deathly quiet here.  There was a stench
in the air, however.  One which was becoming familiar as the dead began to
decay in the streets.  I covered my mouth with my scarf and carried on.

       At Gerrard Street I took a glance around the
corner.  Again it was empty.  Just a few bodies here.  I could hardly believe
how I was beginning to think.  This previous morning I would have been
horrified to have seen one dead body.  Now there were thousands littering the
streets and I was taking it in my stride.

       I jogged up the street until I came to the
opening on the left hand side, where the London Chinese Association has its
offices.  I paused there.  I hadn’t been this close to home in a year, but the
urge to make sure my family were safe spurred me on. 

       I’m not sure what I expected to find that
evening.  I should have guessed that my father and brother would have fled with
the rest of the community, but I had a nagging feeling that the stubborn old
fool would be determined to stand his ground and battle for what was his.  He
was a fighter, after all.  Many times I had seen him chase a gang of youths out
of the restaurant, a meat cleaver in his hand, hurling his few choice English
swear words at them as they ran.  He hadn’t ever grasped English.  He had
always said he didn’t need it.  He lived and worked in the Chinese community. 
Most of his customers were Chinese and his children could speak fluent English,
so it didn’t matter.  In the end he always planned to retire back to Hong Kong
in any case.

       I crept along the street and to the front door
of his restaurant.  There I paused, listening for any sounds of danger.  It was
quiet.  I tried the door and it opened.  Silently I sneaked through and into
the main part of the restaurant.  It was dark and empty. 

       I was almost too afraid to go any further, yet
I was too afraid not to.  I wanted my family back, more than anything at that
moment in time.  I didn’t want to be apart from them any longer.  I wanted to
be better.  I wanted to hear my father’s voice again and listen to his
ridiculous tall tales about his youth.  I was prepared to do anything to make
it happen.

       And suddenly he was there, his slim frame
silhouetted against the doorway to the kitchen.  I recognised him almost at
once, seemingly small and fragile but radiating an enormous energy and purpose
that had driven him to be the success he was, in a country where he was still
sometimes ridiculed.

       I stood up tall as I faced the figure.

       ‘Lou Dou,’ I said, addressing him.

       He didn’t answer.

       ‘Lou Dou?’

       My father stepped forward and I could suddenly
see the glazed and heedless face of the infected.  A low moan emanated from him,
rising to a pitch.  Oh, shit.  He had found food, and he was calling others to
join him. 

Anna Hasker

06:30 hours, Saturday 16
^th
May, Heathrow
Airport, London

     
We ran for what seemed like a mile and my lungs burned from the
exertion.  We could have slowed down, but I was terrified that aircraft was
going to leave without us.  Added to that, every time we passed a gate, there
seemed to be more of those things joining the chase.

       ‘Keep going,’ I said to Mike.  ‘It isn’t much
further.’

       My mobile started to vibrate in my pocket.  It
had been on silent for hours, ever since the situation at Heathrow had
developed.  Now it was buzzing with an urgency.  I knew it would be Lucy.  I
hoped she was still there.

       I pulled it from my pocket and pressed the
green ‘answer call’ button.

       ‘Hello.’

       ‘Anna?’ It was Lucy’s voice.  ‘Where are you? 
We can’t stay for much longer.’

       ‘We’re on our way,’ I said, gulping down air. 
‘Are there any of those things at your gate?’

       ‘Not yet,’ she said.  ‘But I can see a whole
group of them approaching from Gate 14.’

       I knew that the aircraft was at Gate 18.  Lucy
would be able to see in both directions.  We were running towards her from the
shops and other amenities.  The group coming from Gate 14 had somehow found
their way down there and were now walking back.  They had likely been looking
for victims and had presumably missed the aircraft, loaded with scores of
frightened passengers.  If one of them got on board.  I shuddered at the
thought.  It would be the departure lounge all over again.

       ‘We’ll be with you in less than a minute,’ I
said

       I started to run faster.  I was hurting, but
the thought of being torn to pieces made the adrenalin kick in and pushed me
on.  Beside me, Mike silently acknowledged the increase in speed with his own. 

       Within a minute I could see the departure
gate.  Lucy was standing there, waiting.  Behind her I could see the mass of
bodies coming from the direction of Gate 14.  There were hundreds of them.

       Lucy saw me and waved at me to speed up again. 
I don’t know where it came from but we seemed to find another gear.

       Unfortunately the crowd also noticed and they
too seemed to speed up, covering ground much faster than I had seen before. 

       ‘Nearly there,’ I said to Mike through gasps.

       We covered the last few metres in an almost
trance-like state.  The leaders of the pack were almost there as we arrived and
Mike swung at the first one with his briefcase, catching it on the side of the
head and sending it spinning into another one.  They fell into a heap and
several others fell over them as their momentum carried them forward.

       ‘Run,’ said Lucy.

       What the fuck did she think we had been doing?

       We raced down the walkway, towards the aircraft
door, the wails of the dead ringing out behind us.  I had the most awful
picture in my mind, of the door closing just as we arrived.  I still get that
dream today.  Many people talk about the wails and howls, or the smell, or of
shooting them and then seeing them rise.  I never got those ones.  That day,
running for the plane, was the closest I had ever come to death and it stayed
with me.

       In the end we turned the last corner to see two
male cabin crew manning the door.  They urged us forward and the three of us
dived through the door and landed in a heap.  The two then shut the door behind
us, just as the horde arrived around the corner. 

       The crowd slammed against the door, faces
pressed against the window as they clamoured to get inside.  On board there
were shouts and screams.  Many were crying and clutching one another in
fright.  There were far more people than there should have been on board.  Many
didn’t have anywhere to sit.

       ‘Glad to have you on board Anna,’ called the
Captain through the open cockpit door.  It was Adam Smith.  I knew him well. 
We had flown together a few times and he was a first class pilot. 

       ‘Thanks for waiting,’ I replied and gave him
the thumbs up.

       He reversed back from the gate.  I went to the
window and looked out.  There were hundreds of them falling from the walkway,
onto the tarmac below.  It was a fall that could have killed or seriously
injured any normal person, but these people were getting right back up again.

       The runway wasn’t much better.  There were
hundreds out there now, wandering around the grass and on the tarmac, causing a
hazard.  There was no air traffic control any more either.  No maintenance crew
to check the aircraft before take-off.  But we had no other choice but to go
for it. 

       We taxied to the edge of the airport and
stopped.

       ‘The Captain is waiting for one more
passenger,’ said Lucy, seeing my surprised look.  ‘His wife.’

       I knew Adam’s wife, Sarah.  She was also cabin
crew and they had met through work. 

       ‘Where is she?’ I asked.

       ‘She was in Terminal Two,’ whispered Lucy.  ‘It
all started in there.  We all know there’s very little chance that his wife
could still be alive, but he’s determined to wait for her.’

       ‘We can’t stay here,’ I said.  ‘They’ll
surround us.’

       ‘I’ve told him already,’ said Lucy.  ‘Give him
time.’

       We waited on the tarmac for hours, the infected
crawling all over the aircraft.  Some even managed to climb onto the wings. 
Eventually, with many of the passengers beginning to freak out and with
children crying, I had had enough and opened the cockpit door.

       ‘We have to take off,’ I said.  

       There was no answer.

       ‘Adam,’ I said.  ‘We have to go now, there are
hundreds of them out there and more are coming all the time.’

       ‘Just another ten minutes,’ he said. 

       ‘We can’t wait for ten minutes,’ I said.  ‘What
if one of them gets pulled into an engine?’

       ‘I know you want to wait for her,’ said Lucy. 
‘But she wouldn’t want you to risk the lives of everyone on board.’

       Adam’s hand went up to cover his mouth.  There
was almost no chance that his wife could still be alive.  We had to leave now,
he knew it and he gathered himself together just in time to save us.

       ‘What about the runway?’ asked the co-pilot. 
‘There are hundreds on it now.’

       ‘We’ll get around that ,’ said Adam.

He started the engines and slowly
nudged his way through the mass of bodies, crushing many of them beneath the
wheels as we went.  Slowly we taxied along the outer edge of the airport, a gathering
throng following us, waiting for an opportunity to attack.

When we got to the end of the runway
and had led most of the infected with us, Adam did a last minute check of his
instruments, visually inspected the sky for any rogue aircraft and then hit the
thrusters.