“None,” I said. “But I really need to move. There’s an infected person in there.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What do you know about the infected? Has one of your group been bitten?”
Another creak on the stairs. A low moan.
“It’s the owner of this house,” I said quickly. “Please, I have to move. Don’t shoot me.”
“Stay where you are or I’ll shoot your friend. Don’t even think about stepping away from that doorway.”
Lucy glanced sideways at me, her big blue eyes gleaming with tears. She must have seen what was behind me because they opened even wider and she screamed.
A low groan sounded behind me. The farmer was almost at the bottom of the stairs now.
The dead meat smell got stronger, making me want to vomit.
If I ran, the soldier would shoot Mike then the rest of us. If I stayed where I was, the infected farmer was going to kill me.
“Please…” I begged the soldier.
“Don’t you move,” he ordered.
I closed my eyes.
The farmer reached the bottom step. He was in the hallway now.
I heard his footsteps coming closer.
The smell was overwhelming.
Mike, his face still in the dirt, pleaded for me. “Please, let him move away from the door. Please.”
The soldier looked down and told Mike to shut up.
Bang
The gunshot came from behind me, from inside the house. I felt something wet hit the back of my jacket.
The farmer collapsed to the floor with a heavy thump.
I looked over my shoulder. A second soldier came from the kitchen, looked down at the farmer and nudged the body with the toe of his combat boot. “We need to get rid of this thing, Cartwright. It fucking stinks.”
He stepped out onto the porch and looked us over. “Back inside, everybody. There’s a whole bunch of nasties coming this way and I don’t think you want to be outdoors when they get here.” He looked over at his companion. “Let him up, Cartwright. He isn’t going anywhere.”
Cartwright stepped back, allowing Mike to get to his feet.
We went back into the living room while the soldiers dragged the farmer’s body out of the house and into the grass.
They came back inside and closed the front door behind them.
The soldier who seemed to be in charge came into the room and said, “Right, listen up. My name is Sergeant Brand. You can call me Mr. Brand or Sergeant. Anything else will get you shot. I am in charge. If you want to live, you will accept that. Ladies, close all the curtains in the house. Gentlemen, find the keys and lock the doors.”
We did as he said. Mike and I went into the kitchen looking for the house keys. We found them hanging from a cast iron rooster on the wall next to the back door. As he locked the door, Mike whispered, “Do you think we can trust them?”
“We don’t have a choice at the moment.”
“What happened to the farmer, man? He was like a fucking zombie.”
“All the more reason to trust these soldiers. They have guns. If there are more of those things out there, we don’t stand a chance without weapons.”
We walked through to the hallway to lock the front door. Lucy and Elena stood at the foot of the stairs. Brand came out of the living room. “What’s wrong, ladies?”
“We don’t want to go upstairs,” Elena said. “That’s where he came from.”
“Cartwright, check upstairs.”
Cartwright went up, rifle raised.
Brand looked at me. His eyes were steel grey. “You need to wash your jacket. Got some blood and brains on the back there. What’s your name?”
“Alex.”
“Well, Alex, once Corporal Cartwright has cleared upstairs, you need to wash your jacket in the bath. It stinks of death.”
“What regiment are you from?” I asked. Neither man wore any identifying insignia. They didn’t even have stripes on their arms to designate rank.
“We’re from the Regiment, lad.” He winked at me.
“What does that mean?” Mike asked.
“SAS,” I said. “They’re from the SAS.”
“I didn’t say that,” Brand said lightly, “If I told you that, I’d have to kill you.” He winked again.
“Clear,” Cartwright shouted down from upstairs. “There’s a hell of a mess on the bed, though. I reckon he was lying there when he turned.”
Lucy and Elena went up to close the curtains.
I followed them. I needed to get the pieces of farmer off my jacket.
With the house in darkness, Cartwright lit a fire in the fireplace with logs he found next to the wood-burning stove in the kitchen. The flickering flames lent the room an eerie orange glow. My cleaned-up jacket hung in the hall drying along with everyone else’s. We were making ourselves at home as much as possible but we all kept our boots on, knowing we may need to make a quick escape from the house.
Brand and Cartwright had removed their combat jackets. Beneath, they wore dark green army sweaters over green shirts. They sat near the window, occasionally pulling back the curtains to peek out. They kept their weapons close.
“Can you tell us what’s happened?” I asked Brand.
He looked surprised. “You don’t know?”
“We were in the mountains. All we know is what the EBS says. I heard something about a virus but my radio wasn’t working properly.”
“There is a virus. One fucked up virus. Yesterday morning, India went dark. No communication from inside the country at all. Nothing. There had been reports for a few weeks about a new outbreak of bubonic plague there. You know the black plague that killed off most of England in the middle ages? Well, that plague still exists in India. So nobody thought much of it.
“There were some strange reports coming out of the country about infected people going mad but this all happened in the mountains, in the villages. Then yesterday, the entire country went off radar. People over here tried to contact relatives there, the newspapers had news crews out there, but suddenly there was no word coming back from them. Nothing.
“Then it turns out a doctor in London who had been working in the mountain villages for a couple of months and returned to Britain last week got put into quarantine three days ago. Whatever had been killing people off over there was now over here. Fucker brought it back with him. By the time they got him into quarantine, it was too late. He was already dead.”
He took a glance out of the window then turned his face back to us. “He was dead but still trying to attack people. He managed to bite a nurse and a paramedic. Probably already infected people on his street before they took him to hospital.
“By Saturday lunchtime, the police were overrun with emergency calls. People being attacked on the street. Loved ones suddenly taking ill.”
He shrugged. “You can guess the rest. It’s a virus. It spreads itself by making the host bite the uninfected. It’s like one of those late-night films. Who’d have thought they’d have hit the nail on the head when it came to the end of the world?” He shook his head as if in disgust.
“The world?” Lucy asked. “Is it really the world?”
He looked at her and nodded. “That doctor wasn’t the only person coming out of India on that flight. There were other flights that flew from there all over the world before the country’s lights went out. The virus has gone worldwide.”
Even though I already knew something terrible had happened to society, having it confirmed made me feel sick. I tried to imagine the chaos and panic spreading across the world, through all the cities, through every neighbourhood, every street.
“What about survivors?” I asked, remembering the addition to the emergency broadcast.
“We’re doing all we can,” Brand said grimly. “The hospitals are under military command. We’ve set up checkpoints along all major traffic routes to try and contain the virus in certain areas. We’re not winning the battle. The infected are a big problem. They move slowly but they’re bloody determined. And they move in groups. So if you shoot one there are ten more still coming at you. We’re trying to keep the survivors safe while also fighting the nasties. It’s a losing battle. Especially when the survivors you save have a nasty habit of turning into nasties themselves.”