Chapter 2

All the major news outlets were basically repeating themselves and each other. ’All is well, stay at home out of our hair, blah, blah!’ Social media, on the other hand, was undergoing a full on meltdown. Feeds were full of people doing pieces to camera, each with their own brand of crazy. Several were even wearing tinfoil hats, which Suzy couldn’t work out if they were simply being humorous or were genuinely brain fried. She clicked on a video titled “Army murderers”.

It’s all mad outside. Like. There’s all this screaming and, like, gunfire and shit. : There followed the sound of revving engines, heavy braking and shouting. The view wobbled as the woman holding the phone moved to the window. Military personnel were forming up outside, weapons at the ready as they looked down the street.

The view didn’t show much and Suzy wished that the unknown woman would just open the frigging window. It almost seemed as though the woman heard her, as the view spun crazily as grunts of effort came over the audio. The mobile phone steadied and the hand holding it was thrust out of the window. The wielder of the phone was trying to look at everything at once and the footage was nauseous. Suzy was about to stop the footage and move on to something less headache inducing when the soldiers all lined up and took aim. The phone wielder finally stopped moving and focused on the soldiers. “Fuck them!” Suzy shouted at the screen.” Show us what they are aiming at!!!” Shouts and screams could be heard over the background

: What the fuck is going on, man? : The view finally moved down the street to where a baying mob was running at full tilt. : What the actual fuck? :

A loud shout from the assembled soldiers. : Ready! Fire! : Shots were fired from rifles that weren’t pointed up into the air, but down the street. Brass casings ejecting in a steady stream. The noise was deafening, and continued as the camera finally moved back to the mob. The gunfire didn’t seem to be having any discernible effect. : The head! Aim for the head! : One of the soldiers shouted. The phone panned back to the soldiers, who were steadily, and calmly, changing out magazines. As the mob drew closer, shots were taking out people, but nowhere near enough. Those behind just ran over the fallen.

“Fucking hell!” Suzy hoped that backup was on the way, because things were not looking good. There was a crash loud enough to be heard over the gunfire. The phone panned round. The military vehicles were turning around in the narrow road and were pushing aside the parked cars on either side to do so. That didn’t bode well. There was another shout from the street that sounded like “I’m out!” As one of the soldiers fitted a knife to the end of his rifle. “I’m out!” Shouted another, also fitting a knife. The black tarmac around them was almost bronze with the amount of spent casings surrounding them.

And then the soldiers were running back to their vehicles, which were moving off even as the last climbed in. A woman on the opposite side of the street who had been leaning out of the window, screamed loudly and some of the baying mob turned to her house. One of the first to reach the door tried the handle and the door opened, some of the mob streaming in.

: Oh shit! : The phone girl quickly moved away from the window and the footage stopped

“Fuck!” Suzy said, as she opened another clip.

This one started in a village somewhere. Dorset, or the west county. Someplace where they probably had more cricket teams than football. The clip started with a phone being pointed at the sky, focused on a helicopter. One of those US ones. The Indian one. Apache, that was it. It was currently firing down into the ground somewhere. A steady stream of tracer rounds.

: Holy shit man! Do you see this! Do you fucking see it! : A smoke trail left the helicopter, then another, and then another. Plumes of smoke drifted up in the distance. : Holy shit man! There’s another! : The view moved and another Apache flew over to join the first, but pointed in a direction, ninety degrees to the first and started firing, tracer and rocket trails streaking across the sky. : What the fuck are they firing at! :

Which was pretty much what Suzy was thinking. There were lots of clips on the internet, all in a similar vein. Some were straight out saying zombies, some were calling them ‘Ragers’ like from the film ‘Twenty eight days later’. Some were even calling them the ‘Afflicted’ whilst government sources and public statements were simply calling it an ‘Ongoing situation’. Fucked up, was what it was. Even as she looked, more and more videos were being uploaded to YouTube and other video sharing sites.

The footage was also becoming more and more gruesome with every posting and a heated debate was growing as to the veracity of the footage. Some arguing that it was all an elaborate hoax, others that it was all publicity for an otherwise well-kept secret zombie film that looked absolutely awesome and they were sooo going to see it...

“Rob! Are you seeing this shit?” There was no answer, so she stopped the clip that she was watching and walked over and into her brothers room. “Rob, are you seeing this shit on the net?” Rob was currently watching someone being dismembered on a street somewhere to the screams of those in a stationary car watching and filming. “That’ll be a yes then...”

“Huh?” Rob looked up. “There’s some crazy shit on the internet...”

Suzy rolled her eyes. “Do you think that’s happening outside?” She asked him worriedly.

“It’s happening all over the country Suzy.”

“Oh.” There was shouting out on the landing outside and she grabbed his arm in fear. “What if they are outside?”

“Never heard a zombie speak or swear...”

Well, there was that. Suzy admitted to herself. Rob stood and headed towards the door of the flat. “Don’t!” Suzy said as he reached for the dead bolts. Rob ignored her and opened the door. The rest of the floors occupants were standing out in the stairwell, and a full blown difference of opinion was in full swing between the residents of various Stairs. The reason for the chaos ongoing on the internet was every bit as varied between the inhabitants of the block of flats as it was with the denizens of the internet

“It’s the fucking rag-heads! They’ve released a biological weapon!”

“Don’t be daft! They can barely count their toes let alone produce something like that. It’s five G masts. It’s, like, fucking with our brains.”

“The only thing fucking with your brain is the tablets that you buy from Number seventeen.”

“It’s not ISIS, it’s the Chinese. Not happy with how they haven’t been able to take over Taiwan. They have released something which has got out of control...”

“If that’s the case, why are we infected and not Taiwan?”

“Who CARES!!!” Rob shouted. Everyone on the landing turned to look at him as he walked to the railing at the stairwell. “Has anyone barricaded the front and back doors to the flats?” There was a pause as everyone looked around at each other. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then. Who started or created whatever is going on outside, is a moot point if we get infected or the infected get in. We need to board up the doors. Make a choke point. Something defendable...”

“And where the fuck are we going to get the materials and tools smart arse?”

“I don’t know, I’m a kid, you’re the adults...”

“I’ve got tools on my van...”

“There you go.” Rob pointed out.

“So who else going to do all this?” Some bloke shouted.

Rob pointed to the joiner two stairs down. “He said he will, and I’ll give him a hand.”

“You will?” Suzy said in surprise.

Rob shrugged. “Someone has to.”

“When do you want to do this?” The joiner asked Rob, who shrugged again.

“Time waits for no-man, and I doubt the things out there will wait either. Besides, standing here talking about it, isn’t getting windows and doors boarded up.” Rob stepped back from the railing and moved towards the stairs. Suzy followed as well, because it wasn’t as if she had anything better to do. They picked up the joiner on the floor below, along with his partner who was also a joiner. It was common knowledge within the building that they were a couple, but no-one made an issue of it, as they did homers and their rates were very reasonable.

They picked up a few more ‘helpers’ on the way down, their reasons for doing so varied from curiosity to outright boredom.

They congregated at the south entrance and looked towards Rob. Wishing that he had kept his mouth shut. Rob pointed to the glass windows and doors to the foyer “We need to block them off. Strengthen the doors, maybe add a horizontal bar for the doors to brace them.”

“How are we getting the materials? Whose paying for them?”

Rob pointed across the carpark to the building site across the way, where another block of flats was currently in the process of being built. “I was thinking of, you know, just err, pinching the hoarding around the site.”

One of the joiners produced a tape measure, seemingly from nowhere, and quickly measured the window frames. His partner slowly nodded. “Do-able.”

“Okay.” Rob said, all fired up. “Tell us what you need, and we’ll help.” Everyone turned to look outside. It seemed very quiet. Suspiciously so. Even the usual traffic flow was missing from the surrounding street. No-one was making a move towards the door.

Suzy stepped forward and opened the door “Best we get started before the hordes arrive and eat us.” No one laughed. They had all seen the various clips on the internet.

They moved across the carpark in a tight nervous huddle, not towards the construction site, but towards a dirty white van with a large ‘No tools left in van overnight’ sign over the back doors. The doors were unlocked and the joiners pulled out their tool belts with hammers already attached, fastened them around their waists, then pulled out a collection of jemmy bars, a battery powered circular saw, some spare batteries for it, and a chainsaw. The van was shut and locked and the gaggle made their way over to the site perimeter fence. Rob turned to Suzy as the two joiners conferred briefly and started measuring up panels on the fence. “Suzy, can you go stand at that corner. If you see anything untoward, fuck it, if you see anything, run back with the speed of a thousand gazelles and let us know, so we can get tae fuck.” Suzy nodded and ran off. Rob looked around and grabbed a young lad as the circular saw bit into the wood “Can you do the same on that corner?” the young lad nodded and ran off. “And don’t forget to tell us first, before heading back to the flats!” Rob called out after him.

They all stepped back as the chainsaw roared into life, easily and quickly chewing through the hoarding at about five times the speed of the circular saw. The first panel fell to the ground and Rob picked it up and carried it back to the entrance of the flats, meeting a steady stream of likewise encumbered flat inhabitants on his way back to the building site. The chainsaw was producing more panels than there was bodies, so the other joiner hooked his circular saw onto his belt and picked up a panel.

“What the fuck do you think you are doing! That’s criminal damage! I’m calling the police!” A man in his forties was approaching them across the site. A peaked cap and black jacket both had ‘Site security’ emblazoned across them in large white letters.

“Fuck off dipshit.” Was growled at him. Rob looked round at the growler, using the excuse to delay lifting the panel as his arms were already complaining at the unusual exercise. Terence from two floors up was staring at the security guard, who was now quickly back peddling away. Terence, or ‘Big T’ as he was more commonly known, was a gym aficionado and rumoured to be muscle for the local drug gang. And also rumoured to have a distinct enjoyment for violence. Rumoured, because no-one really wanted to find out the truth either way. He was also carrying three panels at a time with an obvious ease that made Rob weak at the knees just watching.

By his third walk back to the flats, more inhabitants had joined their effort. Some were holding panels up whilst the other joiner pressed a bright orange Paslode nail gun against the board and fired a nail into it, others were hammering metal breaking bars under wooden bracing struts to remove them from the Hoarding boards. Rob dumped his board down on the pile. “We need to do all the bottom floor windows as well.” The joiner nodded in agreement as Rob grudgingly headed off back to the construction site. They were quickly working their way around, which had the unforeseen result of increasing the haulage time and distance. Their effort had also not gone unnoticed by the residents of the other tower blocks, who were engaged in various defence strategies of their own.

There was a crash as a car has driven into the fence on the opposite side of the site and hands quickly pulled the panels aside as people streamed into the site, heading for the site offices and store compounds. The security guard quickly got into his car and drove off. The locks on the storage containers were smashed off and people quickly rummaged through the contents, making off with sheets of weatherboard and bizarrely, toilet pans and sinks.

There was an argument going on when he staggered back with a sheet of perimeter fence. One of the occupants of the ground floor was complaining about, and stopping the further boarding up of their windows. “Am I to live in darkness? You are not fucking boarding up my windows, if you do, I’ll just rip it back off again.”

Rob walked over. “Just leave his windows. Board up his door instead.”

“The fuck you will, you little shit.”

“There are twenty five floors, in our building. That’s twenty four floors to your own floor. I bet every one of those twenty four floors will agree to the blocking up of your doors. Anyway, have you not seen the fucking news? We are doing you a favour blocking your windows.”

“Favour my fucking arse! That shit will never make it here. They will stop it soon...”

Rob pointedly looked over at the activity going on at the other tower blocks. They don’t seem to think so.”

“There’s a free flat on level four. Move in there.” Someone else chimed in.

“Druggies died in there!”

“So? You’ll probably die in yours if the crazies get here. First floor are going to be easy targets. I say block their doors anyway.” There was growing agreement.

“Woa! hold on a fucking moment! What if it was you living here?”

“I would be moving my stuff out, not standing here being a dick, putting every other fucker at risk!”

The others on fence removal duty were running over. Rob looked to Suzy “What’s up?”

“I heard screams.”

“Fuck!” Someone shouted and bolted inside.

Rob looked to Sandy, one of the joiners. “How are we?”

“Front and back entrances are secure, just need to finish boarding the windows.”