The virus had almost run its course and exploded throughout Vladimir’s body. Struggling to remain conscious he almost fell from the bus and staggered into the hotel foyer. Halfway across the foyer he fell to his knees, vomited up the entire contents of his stomach, and collapsed on to the tiled floor.
As Vladimir lay convulsing on the floor in a pool of his own vomit, most people recoiled and stepped back, but a few staff and guests hurried forward to try to help him. The hotel receptionist phoned for an ambulance and then put out a call for the first-aider on duty to come to reception immediately.
One of the guests, who had been about to leave for the airport with her husband and children, came forward and explained that she was a nurse. She placed him in the recovery position and set about checking his breathing and vital signs. His breathing was shallow, and his vital signs weak, but he was alive. As the first-aider arrived, the nurse stayed by his side to help until the ambulance turned up. After handing over to the paramedics, she apologised and explained that she needed to leave or she would miss her flight. She washed her hands, teeming with virus, in the washbasin in the ladies’ toilets and then hurriedly left with her family, another virus carrier created.
By now Vladimir was in a deep state of unconsciousness, his brain all but destroyed by the virus. He was destined never to experience another conscious thought. Now his brain would give him only the most basic abilities and instructions. He was able to breathe, to move and to eat. His sole function would be to identify and move towards a food source. The virus inside him could no longer be spread by coughing and sneezing, and now passed through to the final stage of its transformation. From now on, in order to be transmitted to another host, it would require contact with a different bodily fluid.
Their blood.
A few moments later, what was left of Vladimir’s brain began to function again. Had he possessed the ability to understand language, he would have heard the paramedic saying, ‘He’s coming round, support his head.’
All his brain registered was noise.
His empty stomach transmitted an overwhelming sensation of hunger to his brain.
His eyes opened. He could see but he couldn’t recognise individuals or objects. His brain was now at its most basic and primal stage of evolution. It was only capable of distinguishing between what was a food source and what was not.
The paramedic leant in closer to examine him. Vladimir emitted a low noise, part groan, part growl, grabbed the unfortunate paramedic by the head and bit deeply into his neck. The urge to feed was overpowering.
Pandemonium broke out.
It was Zombie Apocalypse Day One.
Before too long thousands of people would be starting to sneeze and the same thought would be running through their minds: Oh no, I think I’ve caught a cold!
It was a perfect day on Chapel Porth beach. The light breeze felt pleasantly warm in the hot sun and the waves were just the right size for Stanley and Daisy to enjoy bodyboarding without worrying us. I’d spent the last few hours in the surf with them, but now deemed them competent enough to be allowed a bit of freedom so I returned to Becky, who was sunning herself on a rug on the warm sand.
Ok, I’ll admit that the thought of the nice cold beer I had in the cool box had tempted me out of the water. I made sure she was awake by placing my ice cold can of lager on her bare back as I sat down next to her. She screamed and jumped up, ready to fight whoever had dared to wake her up. After I’d defended myself from a few playful slaps, she eventually calmed down and saw the funny side. She grabbed a drink out of the cool box and sat next to me, so that we could chat and keep an eye on the kids.
My name is Tom and I live in Moseley, a suburb of Birmingham, with my wife Becky, and my two kids, Stanley and Daisy. We were spending a few weeks of the children’s school holidays visiting the beauty spots of Cornwall in our touring caravan. The usually fickle and unpredictable British weather had been kind to us, and we’d spent the previous week on Cornwall’s beautiful southern coast, pottering around on boats, fishing (unsuccessfully) and visiting the many pretty villages the region is known for, before moving on to the more rugged northern coast, better known for surfing and tin mines.
It was turning out to be a memorable holiday. The kids were having a great time and hadn’t yet reached that bored stage where they were likely to start bickering and falling out. The weather was great and we were all sporting golden tans from being out in the sun all day long. Becky and I were happy because the area was full of great places to eat, which saved all the rigmarole of cooking and cleaning that can sometimes take the edge off a holiday.
What could be better than having a lovely meal, returning to the campsite, and sharing a bottle (or two) of wine, while the children played with their new found friends? Most evenings were spent reading, watching the sun go down and gazing out at the Wheal Coates tin mine, starkly beautiful in the fading light.
The clamour of children’s voices disturbed my peace and I looked up from my Kindle to see Stanley, Daisy and a group of their friends approaching. I remembered that I’d promised them all an ice cream. It looked as if they were coming to collect.
‘I’ll go and get them,’ I said, grinning at Becky, and stood up to get the box of ice creams out of the freezer in the caravan.
As I was distributing them, the father of one of the children saw what I was doing and walked over to thank us both. We stood and chatted for a while and then I remembered my manners and offered him a drink and a seat.
He sat down with a glass of wine and introduced himself. His name was Chris and he was on holiday with his wife and ten year old son. They had a nice looking motorhome on the other side of the field so we spent the first few minutes chatting about the pros and cons of caravans versus motorhomes. A little snigger from Becky stopped us.
‘Just listen to you two! Tom, you sound like an old man; you must be boring poor Chris to death because I’m certainly losing the will to live!’
Chris laughed and of course, denied any such thing. The conversation moved on to the kind of topics you tend to discuss with people you’re passing the time with on holiday but know full well you probably won’t be seeing again. In typical British fashion the weather was commented on. Then abruptly, Chris changed the subject.
‘Did you see the news tonight?’ he asked.
‘No, we were out. Anything interesting?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘Not much. It must have been a slow news day because they reported a cannibal attack at an airport hotel!’ he replied with a grin. ‘It sounded as if two blokes had a fight and one bit the other to me. I guess as there wasn’t much else going on, they felt they had to make it sound more dramatic.’
Chris’s wife came over to see where her husband had disappeared to and naturally we invited her to join us. We spent a further pleasant hour, drinking and chatting, and then it was time to get the children to bed as we were in danger of losing them in the rapidly descending darkness.
Once the children were settled into their cosy bunk beds, we went back outside and finished our drinks. As Wi-Fi was available on the campsite, I reached for my phone and began checking my emails, deleting any junk messages. Remembering what Chris had said about the cannibal attack, I did a quick search out of idle curiosity.
I navigated my way to the main news websites and tapped in the word ‘cannibal’. This brought up a few reports about an incident at a Heathrow Airport hotel in which a number of people, including two paramedics who had been attending at an emergency, had been treated for severe bite injuries.
On one of the websites I found a link to some video footage of the event. The footage was shaky and unclear as it had been taken on a mobile phone; in fact it didn’t show anything much apart from screaming people pushing and shoving each other in a bid to escape from something.
Not giving it another thought, I put my phone on charge and we both went to bed.
Starting with Vladimir Petrov and his colleagues, the infection rate had doubled at every stage of the virus’s rapid progress. From the initial one hundred and fifteen infected on Vladimir’s first flight from the Ukraine to Moscow, the number was now in the tens of thousands, and growing by the second. It would shortly be affecting millions, as it spread outwards like an unstoppable tide from most major airports. In spite of being the first place affected, the isolated outbreak at a small Black Sea coastal town went largely unnoticed. It was a small town, separated by the marshes and miles of road from its nearest neighbour.
Few people visited the resort now that the base had closed down, so the fact that within twelve hours of Vladimir leaving, the entire town had become a mass graveyard and was crawling with zombies would never be known. Had Vladimir not left, the virus might not have spread far. The government might have discovered the outbreak and although more people would have been infected from bites, a quarantine zone could have been established and under conditions of strict secrecy and a complete media blackout, the problem could have been quietly eradicated, leaving the government scientists with the problem of what to do with a virus which had become a potential weapon.
In the final stages of its evolution the virus had become the perfect killer. Within minutes of contact the new host also became contagious, and within a few hours, the subject developed severe cold or flu-like symptoms. Two to six hours after the appearance of these symptoms (depending on their physiological makeup), the host transformed into a zombie.
If you were unfortunate enough to be bitten by a zombie and survived that initial attack, the virus’s progression was much more rapid. It took between five and ten minutes for the change to take place and so the cycle would begin again.
Unaware of any of this at the time, Tom had his last night of untroubled sleep.
The following morning we had woken to another fine hot day so we planned to spend another day on the beach surfing. After breakfast Becky packed a cool box with drinks and snacks and I packed the car with body boards, chairs and towels.
The man in the caravan next to us opened his window and shouted to get my attention, ‘Mate, you gotta see what’s happening on the news, it’s unbelievable!’
The look on his face made me think better of the funny remark I’d been about to respond with. I walked over to his open window and looked at the television and he turned up the volume.
A visibly shaken news anchor was talking rapidly and urgently: ‘I repeat, unconfirmed reports are coming in of mobs attacking innocent bystanders at numerous locations around the country. We’re trying to contact the police and the Government for a statement but so far we’ve had no response. Reports of cannibalism are coming in, again unconfirmed. But please stay with us as we try to confirm what’s happening…….’ She paused, held her hand to her ear and appeared to be listening to someone through her earpiece. ‘We can now go live to one of our teams at Central London Hospital.’
The screen went blank for a moment then showed a male reporter standing in the car park of a hospital.
‘Hello studio, this is Mark Smith and I’m reporting to you live from outside Central London Hospital. I’m not sure what’s happening but reports have reached me of people being attacked at random. I’ve seen no actual evidence of this yet, as my cameraman and I were returning from filming in the countryside near Oxford when the call came in for us to head here. The one thing I did notice on the way here is how empty the streets are. The London rush hour just hasn’t happened. I can’t explain it. Also my car radio doesn’t appear to be picking up any stations.’
‘Oh come on, this is rubbish. It’s not telling us anything!’ I complained.
The camera panned out and picked up a few people in the background stumbling towards the reporter.
The reporter spoke off screen, ‘I can see some people approaching, I’ll go and talk to them and see if they can tell us what’s happening.’ The camera shook as the cameraman followed the reporter over to a crowd of about ten people. The shot steadied as he stopped and got ready to film the interview. He zoomed in on the nearest person approaching the reporter. It was a man and he was walking awkwardly, as if drunk, but it was the sight of his face that made my blood run cold.
We’ve all seen zombies depicted in TV shows and films. I was always a huge fan of them, especially the hit US show ‘The Walking Dead’. So in my mind I had a picture of what a zombie should look like. The reality was far more frightening. His face was grey, pallid and disturbingly blank, dark blood dripped stickily from his mouth and his shirt was torn in several places, revealing horrible looking injuries. Almost absently, I thought to myself, ‘Oh! That’s a Zombie!’
A millisecond later it sank in properly, ‘Shit! That’s a Zombie!’
We watched in horrified fascination as, heedlessly, the reporter walked towards the man, his microphone outstretched in front of him.
The danger dawned on the cameraman much more quickly than the unfortunate reporter and we heard him shout a warning, ‘Mark! Stay away from him!’
Unable to look away, we watched as the reporter thrust the microphone in the man’s face. He never got the chance to speak. The ‘Zombie’ grabbed the arm holding the microphone and bit into it. The reporter screamed in pain, unable to pull the arm away. The camera seemed to be frozen on the scene of horror as, for a few seconds, the cameraman was clearly unable to process what was happening. Then the view changed, as the cameraman hurriedly put the camera down. In his haste he must have activated something, because the camera continued to film, at an angle, with the screen now showing a wider view. With his free arm the reporter was frantically lashing out at his attacker, who showed no reaction and only tightened his hold. The legs, and then the rest of the cameraman appeared in shot, as he hurled himself forward to help his colleague. There was no sound, (he must have dropped the microphone), but the reporter was soaked in his own blood and his face was contorted in agony, as he screamed silently and tried ever more weakly to free himself. The cameraman tried desperately to pull the creature away from his friend and we watched helplessly as more ‘zombies’ shuffled unnoticed into view and headed towards the two struggling men.