All the Dead Are Here (28 page)

They closed on the bunkers and Jim could recognise the belt of grenades each wore, swinging wildly as they ran. The miniguns couldn’t track them all with the crowd of normal Zombies moving in behind, past the gate. While the gunners concentrated on the runners, a solitary girl reached bunker number four to where the gun couldn’t reach. She ran behind the bunker and detonated. The steel door was blown off its hinges as a second runner, a thin teenage boy dressed in a dark blue shell suit, reached the entrance and disappeared inside. There was a crimson flash from the bunker and the minigun span down as smoke poured from the slotted window. One by one, the bunkers fell and the mass of dead climbed over their comrades without a word, expanding out inside the city
itself. Small groups closed in on the injured and dying, not to devour them but just to place a single bite so in a few hours they would join the Minister on his crusade.

Jim’s phone rang. It was General Jones, “Jim. I want you to get out. Get on the last Evac and go. We didn’t last a fraction of the time we expected, shit we expected to run out of ammo first.”

“Don’t talk crap, Jonesy. He’s after me, it’s my face on the posters. I’m ‘Uncle Jim’,” he said, quoting the posters all over the City. “He wants to make an example out of me and to prove no-one is safe.”

“That’s why you should go.” Jonesy’s voice was cool and level.

“I’m not going. Full stop. Now give me an update.”

“Update is we’ve got a lot more Z’s left than we wanted, and we’ve lost everyone at the gate and along that section of the wall. At least ten thousand men if you include the support crews behind the gate.”

“Any TIC snipers left?”

“I’ve kept some in the city but most were on the wall.”

“And they saw nothing?”

“No.”

“Bollocks!” Jim shouted. He banged the table in frustration. They had to find him to end this. They had to find the one lone heat signature.

“Pull back into the city for phase two. Let’s hope the gardens thin them down a bit until they get into the streets.”

“Ok, Jim... and good luck.”

“You too, Jonesy,” Jim said replacing the phone gently on the desk.

The Zombies fanned out inside the gate and moved towards the converted gardens. They formed a rough front line before striding towards the Palace. They trampled across fields of corn, potatoes and lettuce, showing no regard for anything that was not human meat. They marched across the poly tunnels of tomatoes and strawberries. Jim watched as all his work was crushed into dirt.

Then there was an explosion as one of the hastily planted landmines exploded, showering dirt and body parts, flicking buckets and pots up into the sky to fall and smash to the ground. The Zombie Nation didn’t need fields or irrigation to survive, all it needed was time and meat. Greater London had the latter, the Minister the former. Further down the line, a pipe bomb exploded flicking a Zombie above it into the air where it spun like a ragdoll before falling to the ground. Explosions ripped down the line as they advanced and the frequency increased until it was an immense firecracker celebrating the revolution. Corpses piled deep as the Dead marched on with most of the force still cramming towards the gate from the outside.

Jim and Jonesy had scant few hours from when the dead miraculously appeared to prepare. Every landmine and explosive had been used to make the killing fields the Zombie army now moved straight through. This was the perfect army. No fear, no morale, unswerving loyalty, invulnerable to pain and fatigue. It would not stop until it achieved the dark purpose the Minister set for it. The
carefully ploughed fields and well stocked greenhouses were destroyed by both sides in their desperation to win this, the largest land battle the world had ever seen.

Eventually, the firecracker died and the army rumbled on past the ruins of Buckingham Palace and the Victoria memorial. It was still covered with notes to the lost, little stories of those trying to find friends and families in the apocalypse: left for all this time just in case, and now ignored by those who could be the object of the note, as they walked on into the city itself.

For months the grey had been a static place, but now the black hole rotated furiously, casting its gaze left and right as the tiny pairs of black eyes winked out of existence around it, and yet the disappeared ones were just a drop in the ocean for the cloud of Zombie minds was seemingly endless. The millions of empty vessels stared in rapture at the Undead Godhead.

Beyond he could see the same familiar scene from all his dreams. He walked left, right, left, right endlessly walking with the thirst and hunger nagging him on, and then in daytime hiding in sewers and houses, in ruined sports halls and crumbling churches from the Helicopters that infrequently flew overhead.

As he lay in the hospital ward, numb from morphine with a memory of pain shooting through his temple and eye, he drifted in and out of the grey. He wondered, for the first time, just why the dream ran contiguously and yet he couldn’t remember a day between waking up and shouting for his mother, and waking up screaming in the orphanage. Yet the dream was changing and, rather than the endless monotony of walking and hiding, now the dream was a dream of carnage and horror as he joined his red armoured cohort and walked with the throng through the gate. He stumbled over corpses and rubble with the smell of death in his nostrils and the ripple of explosives and gunfire ahead in the distance. Then, as he walked, he realised that the black suited man in the centre of the cohort was a priest or Minister, yet how he knew this and exactly who the Minister was escaped him.

Jim and the personnel in Control saw it first. Moving through the gate, like Astronauts to the flight, sauntered the Minister, surrounded by his personal guard. Six of Jim’s Special Forces troops, symbols of Greater London, England and humanity itself, murdered so their loyalty turned, with their black armour spray painted the colour of blood. It was aimed, like the phone call, at Jim personally, but with a psychological component recognised by anyone who hadn’t already fled the city. He was using the army to clear his route and allow him to walk straight into the heart of Greater London.

Just over half a mile ahead the forefront of the Zombie Army entered The Mall, Birdcage Walk and the treeless St James Park. The wide streets were covered in multicoloured lines of drying washing, and cabling crisscrossed the street, providing the city’s jerry rigged power supplies. Old buses and lorries had been moved and converted into cafés and shops, and on every street corner there were posters and banners reminding you of your responsibility to the collective and the rewards of safety and growth for you and your family for that work. The banners were red lettering on a black background with a portrait of Jim Bramer himself watching over those under his protection. Prince William was still the titular Head of State but Jim was the power in Greater London and everyone knew this city wouldn’t function without Uncle Jim. On every building along the route, on top of the once opulent buildings that lined the route to Westminster, lay the bulk of the British Army. They hid between windmills and rain water collectors for the advancing horde.

The front line came within range, and over the comms Jim heard Jonesy give the order to fire. The CCTV operators changed the screens to show the route through to Westminster and Jim watched as the troops opened up on the Zombies below. Jim expected it to be more frantic than it was. The troops were confident that the entrances to their individual buildings had been sealed by steel doors
and rubble. They took their time, drew a good bead and fired when they were confident of a head shot.

From the window of his office Jim could see the rising gun smoke in the distance as the troops engaged the enemy, the rumble of gunfire punctuated by grenades tossed from rooftops into the crowd below, bangs and flashes echoing through the ruined canyons of London. The troops settled into a steady rhythm of fire, reload, shoot. Once again the tide was slowed and once again the humans had underestimated the time and thought the Minister had put into the invasion and the resources he had gathered on his drive through the ruined countryside.

Gun smoke burnt the nostrils of the troops and made vision difficult in the windless summer. On the streets below, Zombies wandered aimlessly up to the barricaded doors of the buildings in which lay the soldiers. They meandered as close to the building walls as possible to make them difficult to hit by the soldiers above. In turn, the soldiers picked easier targets still making their way down the centre of the street. The dust and gun smoke obscured the Zombies close to the walls so they could not be seen to pull the pin on the grenade or clamp the landmine that many of them carried in each hand. The troops on the building rooftops could feel their barricades crumble and the slow tramp of feet up the stairs before they engaged the Dead that made their way slowly up to their position. Using time and numbers, the first building fell, then the second, then the third. Then, as the afternoon wore on and the troops began to run out of ammo, the buildings fell more frequently and still the mass crowded through the gate, with many more waiting their turn outside ruined London.

The Undead Army weaved its way through the streets, denser now and filled with the colour and life of the rebuilt city now abandoned for the second time. They made their way circuitously towards Westminster. Jim could smell the gun smoke now and see figures running through the streets as the troops backed from building to building in a running retreat, picking away at the masses as they went.

Jim and everyone in control heard the voice, it was quiet but authoritative, and in the background the moans of the Dead could be heard very close to his position.

“Control? This is James Rogers. TIC crew seventeen. I have the target but no thermal signature. I repeat I have the target but no signature. Do I take the shot?”

The Minister and his red armoured cohort had entered the city; the start of the Mall was quieter now as the front line moved inexorably on a few hundred yards ahead. James was hidden on the roof of an already overrun building near the entrance to The Mall but they hadn’t seen him and he had waited for the opportunity that now presented itself. The CCTV showed the Minister walking down the street looking up at his troops on the rooftops above but the smoke made an outline of the Minister and Jim couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something wrong. Why was there no thermal signature?

Jonesy didn’t hesitate. “Rogers, take the shot!” There was a loud crack over the radio and the the Minister’s head flicked back, his back arched and he fell to his knees before collapsing flat on his face. The comms went silent, no-one, including Jim, knew what to expect. Nothing changed as the cohort moved on, leaving the black suited corpse behind, and then, in the crowd of Zombies behind the personal guard, one pushed through to resume the Minister’s position. With a flourish, he removed his thick overcoat to reveal the white dog collar and black suit within.

Over the open comms Jim could hear James Rogers fight his last desperate battle as the rooftop Zombies tracked in on his position from the crack of the shot. There was a scream before the operators cut the comms, “It’s a decoy, any TIC crews remaining keep scanning the crowd for as
long as you can. Standing orders remain. Only take the shot if you have a signature,” Jonesy said, dourly. Jim was sure he could hear, “Goddamn it!” as he cut the connection.

Jim picked up the phone on his desk, hesitated slightly, and dialled the number.

“Miss Mitchell, could you come in here please?”

“Yes, sir.” The door opened and she stepped in.

“It’s time for you to go, Miss Mitchell. You and the rest of the troops downstairs.”

“Are you leaving?” she asked, hand on hip.

“No.”

“I took the liberty of asking the men their opinion and if you are staying, so are we.” Jim was dumbfounded. She walked over to his desk drawer, took a fresh bottle of whisky and two glasses from inside, poured two generous shots, took a glass and sat down on the cracked leather sofa on the other side of the room. She sipped half the glass straight off the bat. Jim raised the glass at her, without a word, and drained it in one and she raised her glass in response.

It was nearing the endgame now. Jim stood slowly and looked out of the window. In the distance he could see the rooftop troops firing at the mass below. He could hear the distant rumble of continuous gunfire and could see squads of troops directed by Control retreating from buildings to take up defensive positions closer to the Houses of Parliament. Jim sipped the whiskey and waited. Miss Mitchell watched the CCTV screens as the Zombies continued to pile through the gate in a never ending flow.

“How many do you think there are?” she said finally.

“It doesn’t matter,” replied Jim flatly.

Paul couldn’t sleep. He had spent the day practising the Z Kata on live targets in the new armour Jim Bramer had provided. The cage had been set up in the courtyard with troops positioned to take the captured Zombies down if Paul let his concentration slip for just a moment. Paul was young and strong, intelligent and quick witted, and had known the Z all his life; he worked hard to perfect his skills.

However, even with the Zombies’ nails and teeth removed, the fear of fighting them was still omnipresent. It was their stench and that ungodly moan they made. He lay in bed unable to sleep because of the adrenaline pumping through his system. He thought about the day’s exertions and what he would say when asked about the effectiveness of the armour and the Union Jack sword. Suddenly, Paul thought he heard a noise like an explosion and a scream. He stood up quickly, his pumped muscles sore from the lactic acid of the day’s work. He looked out of the window to the courtyard and cage below but saw nothing. Then he had the strangest sensation that he was walking, slowly and steadily, and he could hear the screams again. He lay back down in the bed and confusion clouded his mind. What had he done yesterday? What had he eaten this morning? He couldn’t remember yet he could remember dreams from years gone by. What did it mean? Finally, as tiredness overtook him, he questioned what was the dream was and what was the reality.