The Common Cold (Book 1): A Zombie Chronicle Read online

  Anger and resentment fuelling him, Daniel walked calmly over to the struggling pair, put the gun to the fighting policeman’s head and pulled the trigger a second time. Blood and brains plumed from the far side of his head and he flopped back, dead on the floor. Rob quickly got up; the weight of the rucksack had prevented him from righting himself during the struggle. He had been as helpless as a tortoise lying on its shell. Another lesson learnt, almost too late. Neither was sure what to do about the problem, all their supplies were deemed useful and necessary. They would just have to be careful in the future.

  They were both covered in fresh blood from the blowback of the two shots. Daniel walked over to the Baby Care section and grabbed half a dozen packets of baby wet-wipes. “I reckon we’ll be needing more of these before we’re through.” He broke one open and, taking a couple for himself, threw the pack to Rob.

  Picking up his phone, and seeing it now had an eighty per cent charge, he unplugged it, stored the charger in the back pack, and turned to go.

  “As the shepherd said to the sheepdog, let’s get the flock out of here.” He smiled as the shutter was raised as quietly as possible. They stole across the concourse as quickly as they felt they could go without attracting attention, arriving at the farthest platforms without incident. The track alongside platform six was free of trains so they jumped down, being careful not to sprain anything. They had approximately fifteen miles to go; as yet they had no idea how much of it would have to be done on foot.

  “All these trains are electric, Rob. That’s the live track, just outside the pair for the wheels.” Having nothing with which to test for current, it seemed safer to assume it was still live. They began the long march, occasionally stealing a look backwards to make sure they weren’t being followed.

  Arriving at the end of the covered area of the station, the duo stepped out into the sunshine. The day wasn’t warm, but they were grateful for the sun; it gave them a feeling of hope as they trod carefully, crossing over the river towards London Bridge. They made their way across to the opposite side, and peered into the river. Dozens of bodies floated and floundered in the water, most still moving clumsily, trying to stay on the surface.

  “I wonder if they can drown,” Rob mused, “it’s not like they’re really alive. I don’t think.”

  “Dunno. Right now, I don’t care. Let’s keep our eyes peeled.” Daniel was tired, tired of what they had done. All the mayhem he’d seen today had shaken him to the core. On the other hand, he was much more focused; taking the holsters from the dead cops meant wearing the gun would be easier, both for carriage and its use; this made him feel more secure. Wearing his back pack and his rifle slung on his right shoulder - he’d mimicked how the policemen had worn it for a quick response - he looked ready for business, and by God, he felt it as well. His squeamishness at killing was now gone. He was going to get to Janet at the library, or die in the attempt.

  Chapter 7

  Following the Old Iron Highway

  At first, the walk across the river was easy; they could see all around, easily making sure they couldn’t be jumped without warning. It also seemed the most logical, and direct way to get to Eltham, and then to Janet at the library. The rail track was elevated for most of the route, fenced in with few ingress points; far safer than the roads, they both felt, certainly once they had passed London Bridge Station. Daniel was increasingly anxious about his wife; he still hadn’t received a text from her about the trick with the perfume. Was the effect specific to their aftershave, or would any masking scent work in the same way? He texted her again while walking, not satisfied with waiting for her to get in touch.

  They had crossed the river now, and were currently stopped alongside Southwark Cathedral, appraising their position before continuing forward once more. Daniel had never previously seen the cathedral from this angle, except through a grubby train carriage window - it was beautiful, and yet looked slightly incongruous, surrounded as it was by newer and more trendy marketplace and office buildings. It was almost an anachronism. And yet, if society was to be decimated by something so all-consuming, as was possibly happening right now, it was probably the one building that would remain standing in this area, as a monument to some of the best feats of mankind. Modern buildings, made of steel skeletons and flimsy brickwork, interspersed with glass panels, would quickly be relegated to piles of unrecognisable rubble; all our recent history would be lost through the eventual, but rapid degradation of magnetic ink and bubble memory. Mankind would be set back more than a thousand years. Was this good or bad, Daniel couldn’t decide. The upside was that his mortgage would now be a thing of the past.

  Bringing himself back to the here and now, he could see larger numbers of afflicted loitering on the streets below their elevated position, supported by Victorian brick arches, above the streets of London. It was as they had expected; London Bridge was a main rail hub for the south east of the country, and as such would be constantly teeming with people. He found it hard to believe that it was only that morning that he had been carried on these same lines on his way to work, his main concern at the time being the success of the first day in the new office; that and pleasing his newly deceased boss, Bill. It seemed an age ago.

  Looking over the side of the steel-plated walls, they watched two or three people running for their lives, clothes dishevelled, being chased by fast running undead.

  “God, will you look at that,” Daniel said, pointing at a group of feasting creatures. They could hear the bone crushing, slurping and other sloppy, wet noises from their position, high over the street. It was like watching, and listening to, a pride of lions at work. The smell was making its way to them as well.

  A shout caught their attention. Around a corner, from the outdoor market below and to their left, came a man, running as fast as he could, panic written all over his face. Close behind him was one of the fast runners, gaining ground quickly. With a practiced swing of the rifle, Rob sighted on the creature and a single round caught him in the temple, dissolving half of the head. The remains slithered to a stop, reddening the cobbled ground with its blood. The intended prey looked up, trying to see where the shot came from, but after a moment he gave up, and carried on his headlong flight. Next moment another fast one attacked him from the side, lunging at his throat; it appeared to have been lying in wait. In a moment it was all over, blood spurting from the victim’s neck. The powerful smell of warm blood attracted a number of slower ones, and together they fed on the poor soul, someone’s father, son, uncle or brother.

  “Bugger me! Did you see that?” Daniel asked, incredulous at the behaviour he had just witnessed. “They seem to have developed some sort of communal survival tactic, the fast ones like cheetahs, bringing down the prey; the slow ones are behaving like their young, food brought to them.” Daniel had seen enough nature programmes to be able to recognise the beginnings of a hierarchy of these undead. It was like a new life force was springing forth; out with the old, in with the new. Taking that idea to its logical conclusion, it appeared likely that food would only run out when the non-dead could no longer be found. He shivered at the thought.

  There were several feeding groups in action at that moment, and Daniel looked away, disgusted that he could hear the grisly eating sounds from where he stood. Rob watched, with a mixture of fascination and horror, before eventually pulling himself away from the spectacle, and back to the business at hand. They continued their journey, doing their best to wipe the ghastly images from their minds.

  “Can you see anyone on the platforms, Rob?” Danny asked, not having a clear view yet. His musings on the plight of mankind, and the feeding frenzy below, had temporarily distracted him from his duty, his need to survive to save Janet.

  “Not yet,” he replied, peering forward, leaning out over the steel structures at the side of the tracks to get a better view. “We’re still too far from the station, we need to get closer.”

  “Any ideas about how we get past if it’s loaded wit
h them?”

  “Well, we can start by re-spraying when we get closer, make sure we can’t be detected, as best we can; I would also suggest we stay low, crawl even, and keep to either the far left or the far right of the station. I don’t want to get caught in the middle of enemy territory.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Daniel replied as he picked up a large, rusty spanner found on the side of one of the tracks. He showed it to Rob. “I think we ought to see if the tracks are live before we go on, that certain knowledge might come in useful as we go through the station. Perhaps it could help thin out those bastards if we are chased.”

  Rob nodded his approval. “Go for it.”

  Taking careful aim, trying to throw it as flat as possible, he managed to bridge the gap between the live rail and the one next to it. A white flash, blue and yellow sparks flying, told them what they wanted to know. The spanner bounced off, breaking the connection it had made.

  “Jeez, I wouldn’t want to touch that by accident,” Rob said, watching the blue smoke rise, smelling the ozone that filled the air.

  “So, it looks like we’ve got a potential weapon we can use, then. All we have to do is make sure we don’t touch it ourselves, especially if we have to run for it,” Daniel commented, hoping that fear didn’t make him clumsy enough to misstep; it looked like it would be a very painful way to go.

  “That should test our coordination to the limit,” Rob replied, looking along the track.

  “I hope to God it won’t need testing,” Daniel said. Rob held up his crossed fingers.

  They stayed on the left hand side track as they approached the platforms, stepping from sleeper to sleeper, making slow and guarded progress. So far, so good; nothing had either noticed or obstructed their path eastwards.

  Ahead of them, they spotted two of the undead that had somehow found themselves on the tracks, and were walking towards them, one track to the side. If they kept on going, they would walk straight past the pair, a mere six feet away. With fingers on their rifle triggers, Rob and Daniel approached them, keeping their movements regular and slow. The men could smell them now, their decaying corpses venting significant gases, from which orifice it was hard to tell; there certainly wasn’t much romance on their cards in the immediate future. The aftershave was still working; the two walking cadavers hadn’t even glanced sideways as they stumbled past. The lads held their breath as they got close, not so much to avoid the smell, but more afraid that the sound of their breathing would somehow give them away. Soon the distance between them increased enough for the living to start breathing once more.

  They walked stolidly on, all the while concentrating on not stumbling into the deep rubble that surrounded the concrete sleepers. It felt like they were walking through a minefield; it was not just the live rail, but the rubble which was problematic. Apart from being difficult to walk on, it made a light, clinking sound when disturbed, which of course sounded like cannon shots to their ears, capable of attracting seriously unwanted attention. The concrete sleepers would be the key to their success.

  The walkway to platform one began to rise to their right, past the yellow-painted barriers, there to prevent people from walking down onto the track. Normally. It sloped gradually upwards until it levelled off at the platform proper. They had arrived at the main, cavernous tunnel that fed commuters to and from the platform. Its darkness had them fingering their triggers, anxious as to what they would find; both believed this point was likely to be the greatest threat to their successful negotiation of the station.

  Daniel was leading and peered over the edge of the walkway, staring into the darkness. Bringing his rifle to bear, he aimed into the black hole. Slowly his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, and much to his relief he could see no-one. Relaxing a little, he dropped down once more and sat on his haunches.

  “No-one there. They must have walked down the slope. Maybe they’re in the Underground.” Daniel felt bizarrely happy; this was the one place where he thought they would actually die. At any other time, this part of the station was packed with people, far too many for the bullets they had. Raising himself once more, he looked across at the other platforms. There was an unimpeded view across to the brick partition wall on the far side of the station. All in all, no more than eight of those things could be counted, wandering slowly or standing, staring into space.

  Rob joined him, peering at the scene. Those they could see were clearly in the throes of the disease, definitely infected. They appeared to be waiting for a train to come in. The nearest one was a very pretty girl; seen from one side, in profile, she had strong Slavic cheeks, long brunette hair and was dressed to kill. Her face, once perfect, now was the stuff of nightmares. Her complexion was waxen and grey, lifeless milky irides, rings under her eyes. Blood was dribbling slowly from her nose, down to the corner of her mouth, and onwards down her chin, eventually collecting on her expensive silk blouse. She burned an image into Daniel’s brain that was not likely to be forgotten in a hurry. She had nice legs, though, he thought. He looked away, not wanting to humanise these creatures. It would almost certainly make it harder to pull the trigger if, and when, the time came. They ducked back down and continued on their way along the track. It seemed as if no trains had actually stopped at London Bridge; Daniel bet himself there’d be a good few trains piled up against the buffers at the termini of Charing Cross and Blackfriars. He’d already seen how they’d not stopped properly at Cannon Street; the drivers must have succumbed to the illness during their journeys. It would be mayhem.

  “God, my back is killing me,” said Rob, trying to straighten up without rising too high. In spite of the strain of their crouched position, and the weight of the rucksacks placed upon these normally deskbound office workers, they continued to make good progress along the track, nothing apparently in their path to stop them.

  “Look,” Daniel pointed, one hand holding Rob’s sleeve to arrest his forward movement. At the end of the platform were two people, wearing cagoules and holding note pads, their lunch boxes at their feet.

  “Ugh, train spotters!” Rob exclaimed, his disdain evident. “I’ve never understood the point of all that hanging around, writing down the numbers of the passing engines. Don’t get plane spotters either. Sad bastards. Some people really should stay in more.” The two men, one in his forties, the other likely a mere apprentice and looked to be in his late teens, were gently swaying, staring fixedly down the track. Despite no trains being in view, they continued to make notes, appearing to write on their pads.

  “Look, there are more on the other platforms.” Daniel pointed out similar groups on each of the other platform buttresses. All in all, there were some twenty of them standing, peering in the same direction, eastwards down the track; they were due to be disappointed in their efforts this day.

  Just passing the enclosed flyover bridge that allowed passengers to move from platform to platform, Rob and Daniel’s focus had been on the spotters. Suddenly, gurgling screams erupted from behind them as three crazed commuters ran in their direction, having descended the stairway in silence. Both swung around to face the threat. It was good to have guns sometimes, and this was one of those moments. These zombies ran fast, closing the gap between them and their prey in seconds. The lads opened fire simultaneously and the three went down under a hail of bullets, their heads exploding as the rifle rounds found their target.

  “Shit!” Daniel exclaimed. “That was close.” Feeling an ominous tingling between his shoulder blades, he turned around to see that the train spotters’ attention was now firmly on them. The two closest began lumbering forwards. Without a further thought, Daniel drilled each a third eye in their foreheads. Still got it, he thought, mentally patting himself on the back.

  “Nice shootin’ bud,” Rob exclaimed, surprised at this Townie’s skills with a rifle. Daniel just shrugged. One of the spotters on the furthest platform turned out to be one of the fast moving ones, the cheetahs; with impressive agility, he leapt from his own platform to th
e next in one bound. Having done it a second time and preparing to do it a third, and final time, he was caught by a lucky shot. Rob’s bullet caught it on the knee cap and instead of clearing the final gap, the man-beast plunged onto the tracks, right onto a live rail. In dreadful spasm, arms flailing, the creature remained stuck in place until his strained and tearing muscles gave up their tension, no longer supporting the rest of his body. He slumped onto the track in a cloud of smoke and lay still, a look of extreme surprise staining his now-blackened features, small flames and smoke licking from his eye sockets.

  As other spotters joined in the chase, Daniel called out to Rob. “Save the ammo, let’s run for it!” Chances of the Infected being able to negotiate the density of rails across the intersection without eventually touching the live ones was slight; electricity was more prevalent than bullets right now. Together they ran as fast as they could, out onto the junction, the complex overlapping of steel lines making their pace difficult and stressful. Eyes straining, their rucksacks making balance uncertain, they concentrated on making sure they avoided the live ones; they had run about a hundred yards when Rob cried out in pain.

  “Argh, I’ve got a stitch,” he cried, standing still, clutching his side. Daniel ran to him and, putting his arm around his friend, helped support him, and together they made a good speed down the track. Within moments several of their pursuers met their grisly end on the live rails; it looked surreal, the violence of their demise reminiscent of cartoon deaths. Several of the remainder were slow movers, and were not a threat unless Daniel and Rob chose that moment to sit down and have an impromptu picnic. One, however, appeared to have learnt from his fellows, and could be seen jumping over the live rail, still in pursuit. Not as fast as some, but due to their current handicap, it was gaining on them. He was the last one on their trail and finally, Daniel lost his temper; the bloody thing wasn’t going to give up. Letting go of Rob, he turned around, drew his pistol at the same time. Waiting for the cadaver to catch up, he placed a shot in its forehead from no more than three feet away. It’s face registered surprise as bits of skull spat from the back of his head. In slow motion, it fell to its knees before collapsing sideways onto a live rail, the one it had so carefully avoided earlier, and began to sizzle until its clothing caught fire. The smell of burning, rancid flesh and fat reached Daniel’s nostrils, and he decided enough was enough; they needed to get moving.