The Z Infection (3 page)
08:37 hours, Friday 15
th
May, Piccadilly,
London
I had already decided that I wasn’t going to get off at the Covent Garden
station. I guessed that it might be easier to get a bit closer to the action
if I got off at Leicester Square and walked back. My friend’s flat was on that
side of the action in any case and I thought I might be able to get a few
pictures from one of her windows.
When the crowded train reached
Leicester Square I hoped we might get rid of some of the passengers. There
were quite a few tourists on board and I was hoping they would want to be
seeing the sights and give the rest of us some room.
I was still standing when we drew
into the station and almost at once I knew that something wasn’t right. There
were a lot more people on the platform than I had been expecting and something
was happening at the back, near the platform entrance. When the doors opened
there was a surge of people trying to get on board. Those who were trying to
get off had no chance against that mass of bodies pushing towards us. I could
hear shouts and screams. They were the high pitched screams of people in agony
and terror. It was awful.
Someone shouted to get the doors
closed. Some were shouting for the driver to go. Maybe they had seen what was
coming for us. Whatever it was, they wanted the doors shut to keep what was
out there from getting in. Men and women pushed against the crowd to stop them
getting into the carriage, but the will to live was too great and some
inevitably managed to squeeze on board.
Then the full horror of what was
happening was shown to a few of us unfortunate enough to be able to see. As a
gap in the crowds appeared I could see dozens of people lying on the ground.
Most of them were covered in blood, some had horrific injuries, to their faces
and necks in particular, while others had injuries to their hands and arms as
they had tried to protect themselves.
Amongst them were their attackers.
Men and women of all shapes, sizes, ethnic groups and ages. They didn’t even
notice the terror of those around them and simply carried on attacking others
who had been unfortunate enough to be caught in their path. There was no
mercy. I saw a woman trying to offer the contents of her purse to a man who
stared right into her and then bit straight through her jugular vein, spraying
other screaming passengers with a fountain of her blood.
Another of the attackers staggered
forward and lunged through the door of the train. Someone managed to knock him
back, but another came and then another. There was panic in the carriage as
some people tried to get into the next car. I saw a policeman approach the
drivers cab. There was a conversation. I couldn’t hear it but in the next few
seconds we were moving. We left the station in a scene of absolute chaos as
people fell and jumped onto the line behind us.
We had been lucky in our carriage.
Nobody was injured and none of those demented souls had managed to get in. I made
my mind up to get off at the next station, but when we arrived there we didn’t
stop. We didn’t stop at the next one either, but when we arrived at Green Park
the driver must have realised he couldn’t drive for ever and applied the
brakes.
We poured out of the carriage and ran
for the exits. That’s when I realised that some of the other passengers hadn’t
been so lucky. When I looked back I could see the windows were blood spattered
but there were no more screams coming from within. I somehow knew that
whatever had managed to get inside had finished them off.
Then I saw them. What had been
normal everyday commuters and tourists just three stops before, were now
shambling figures of fear, determined to bring their terror to a whole new
audience. And they did.
Before they knew what was happening
to them, the people on the platform were subjected to a brutal and sustained
attack. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of relentless killing machines streamed off
the train and right into the middle of them. It was Leicester Square all over
again. I turned and ran for my life.
Xiaofan Li
08:38 hours, Friday 15
th
May, Leicester
Square Underground Station, London
My name, Xiaofan, means little and ordinary. I
had, until that day, lived up to it in every single way imaginable. I was
small, at just over five feet tall and I looked normal and dressed in a rather
drab way. But looks can be deceiving.
My father had given up on me over a
year since, when I had failed at my second attempt in rehab. It was alcohol
that was the weakness with me. It started at university. Fresher’s week was
the first taste of proper freedom I had ever had. I had spent all my school
years either studying or working in my parents shop, translating for them when
their poor grasp of English couldn’t handle the drunks on a Saturday night.
When I passed all my exams and was
accepted into Magdalen College in Oxford, it was the happiest day of my
parent’s lives. I say their lives. Not mine. This was their dream and it was
the culmination of all their hopes.
It started badly, I suppose. I got
incredibly drunk on the first night and ended up being sick. You would think
that would have finished me with alcohol, for a while at least. No chance.
The next night I was back on it, partying until dawn. That went on for the
whole of the first week. Drugs were the next thing. Nothing serious. I
didn’t inject myself with heroin, but I enjoyed a joint from time to time. It
helped me to relax and to deal with the enormous pressure I felt I was under.
When my mother died, just six months
into my course, I really fell apart. The alcohol and drugs intake increased. Then
it was sex. One guy one night, another one the next. Sometimes it was two
together. I was trying it all and getting a reputation to fit.
But within a year it had all fallen
apart. My course work dipped alarmingly as the partying failed to subside and
eventually I had a breakdown. My father paid for the rehab. After a month I
was out and feeling better, but within a fortnight I had slipped back into my
old ways. When the drinking got too much for the second time, just six months
later, I found myself back in rehab.
This time I refused to stay and
signed myself out. My father was furious with me. He came to make me return
but I refused. We had a blazing argument and I walked away from him. That was
the last time I saw my father. From that day until Z Day, as some called it, I
slept rough and begged for food. Sometimes I prostituted myself for enough
money to get a room in a cheap hotel, just so I could have a shower and a
decent sleep in a real bed. Most of the time I was cold and hungry.
The morning the world fell apart it was still
early. I had spent an uncomfortable night trying to sleep in a shop doorway
and was forced to move on a couple of times. By the time it was daylight I was
wide awake. Remember it was springtime, so it was light fairly early.
I wandered around some of the streets and
checked the bins at the rear of the Pizza Express on St Martins Lane. It was a
regular visit for me and it usually paid dividends. I had learned that people
often ordered a pizza and then failed to collect it. Those pizzas usually
ended up in the bin.
That morning I hit the jackpot – a
sixteen inch pepperoni in perfect condition. It was going to feed me for the
rest of the day. I stuffed a cold slice into my mouth and chewed on it while I
put the rest of it carefully into my rucksack, then I set off to do some rounds
of the charity shops to see what people had left overnight.
By half past eight I was inside the Leicester
Square tube station, trying to beg enough money for a cup of coffee. It was
slow going. Too many tourists who were busy deciding what to do for the day,
or too many people in a hurry to get to work.
I was just about to give up and had decided to
head off, when I suddenly heard a noise from deep within the station. It was
distant at first. Screams? Certainly shouts. They became louder and louder
as a passenger, who had been waiting for her train, suddenly came running
towards the exit. She was followed by another, then a few and then dozens.
Before long a wave of human fear exploded up the stairs and over the
turnstiles, desperate to avoid something down there. The staff tried to hold
them back, to make them scan their Oyster cards. Were they really that
stupid? I could see that there was a serious problem down on the platform.
The terror filled faces of the fleeing told me it was something life
threatening.
Very quickly, as the number of people swelled,
they were unable to get through or over the exits quickly enough and people
started to get crushed against them. Some fell and were trampled without care.
Some who tried to stop to help a friend, were pushed aside. Fights broke out
between men and some women. And at the back of it all I could make out was a
few shambling individuals, lashing out, grabbing at people, falling on the ones
who had been knocked over. Biting them. Yes, they were biting them. It was
horrible.
I knew I couldn’t stay there. I didn’t know
what was going on, but I knew I had to get out. The mass of those trying to
escape was increasing by the second. I turned and ran. I made it out into the
street and ran to Leicester Square. Behind me the rest of the terrified crowd
spilled onto the street, colliding with pedestrians and cars as they ran for
their lives. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. Something told me that if I
stayed there I would die and I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. What I really
wanted now, more than anything, was a drink.
Kim Taylor
08:40 hours, Friday 15
th
May, Piccadilly,
London
When some people talk about that day,
they ask why it got so bad so quickly. I don’t know. I never had the answer.
But when you look at all the other places that were affected, almost at the
same time, it doesn’t seem to be out of the ordinary. New York City was
effectively shut down in twenty four hours. Berlin was the same. Washington
DC, Beijing, Sydney, Bangkok. The list of large cities went on and on. The
frightening thing was the lack of information from the government. There was
almost nothing. Just some rambling nonsense about staying indoors and not
approaching anyone who looked odd. This was London in 2015 for Christ’s sake.
There were a lot of odd people going about.
I was only eighteen. I was in London
for two days of flat hunting, with my best friend Ellie Jones. She’s dead
now. She was one of the ones who couldn’t take it anymore. She decided enough
was enough and overdosed on pills she had looted from a shop just a few weeks
after it all kicked off. What a blow that was. Ellie was always the popular
one at school, with her long blond hair and gorgeous blue eyes. All the boys
fancied her. I’m sure some of the girls did too. She was infectious and once
you had been in her company it was hard to imagine her not being around. I was
genuinely shocked when we became friends, because I didn’t think we would hit
it off. But we had and we had been best friends since we were thirteen. Now
we were preparing for a new chapter in our lives, both of us having been
accepted to study in the capital.
We were walking along by Piccadilly
when someone came up to us and told us to run. We never paid much attention.
There was usually some weirdo who wanted to chat us up, or least chat up Ellie.
We just looked at each other and started laughing in that adolescent girl way.
We weren’t really the streetwise kind.
A few moments later someone crashed
right through the middle of us, knocking Ellie off her feet. It was a man in
his thirties I think. He didn’t stop, just kept running away down the street
towards Trafalgar Square.
I held out my hand and pulled Ellie
up. She winced as she put weight on her feet.
‘Ow, I think I sprained my ankle,’
she said.
I didn’t have time to respond. I was
suddenly aware of more people streaming down the street, pushing past us and
flooding into the surrounding areas. Then I saw my first one. A man of about
sixty, eyes completely unseeing, clutching and grabbing at people. He caught a
youngish woman by her ponytail and pulled her back towards him. He bit a chunk
out of her cheek and she fell screaming to the ground clutching her face. He
was going for a second bite when he was hit from behind by a man with a
briefcase. The woman crawled away as the older guy turned and attacked her
rescuer. The two of them seemed to lock in an embrace as they fought one
another. But before long another one, a woman this time, with the same vacant
expression, dived on him. He fell, unable to fight them both off and I could
see them clawing and biting him. It was unspeakable.
Then something else happened. The
woman with the pony tail had fallen. She was on the ground, convulsing. She
looked like she was having a seizure. Her body shook and trembled as something
unseen gripped her. A man ran to her aid and tried to put her in the recovery
position. He was knocked down in turn and the confusion increased, as did the
crowds.
Then she stopped moving completely.
She was absolutely still for a few seconds and then she began to get up, very
slowly. She wasn’t holding her face any longer. A flap of skin hung down and
blood was pouring from the wound. It must have been agony, but it didn’t seem
to bother her any more. Her face was an empty mask of nothing. That was the
first one I had seen turn. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, and I saw
many more do the same thing over the course of the next few weeks, but that
first one will stay with me always. The speed they turned was incredible. I
tried to scream but nothing came out. Instead, all I could hear was Ellie’s
pleading voice.