Cobra Z Read online

  But because of that, and because they fought together, they formed bonds of friendship that could never be matched by civilians. Even though he had been an officer, the men under him were his responsibility, his family, and even now it wrenched at him to know some of them were no longer alive. He in turn had proved his worth to his men, and they treated him with a level of respect that was unusual in Special Forces. Croft had not been a “Rupert” to them; he had been seen as a competent officer, who could out run, out drink and out shoot most of the men under him. He had earned the respect that others demanded just because they held rank. He smiled at the memories, one in particular coming to mind. 2003 on the road to Baghdad. He and his SBS troop had been ahead of a convoy of American grunts, most of them in open top trucks. It was hot, and sat in the military Land Rover, Croft had been startled by an explosion that erupted several meters to the right of him, peppering his armoured vehicle with shrapnel.

  “Contact, do we have contact?” Croft had shouted into his radio. Several minutes of chaos ensued as troops dismounted to protect the column from attack. Only there hadn’t been an attack. One of the American soldiers had unwittingly fired his M203 grenade launcher, the projectile rocketing into the air at an angle, only to land and almost hit Croft’s vehicle. An unsecured weapon in the hands of a tired private on a bumpy road was not a great combination. When the truth of this had come out over the coms, Hillier had gone ballistic.

  “Fucking Yanks trying to kill us again,” he said referring to a previous incident where American artillery had landed dangerously close to their forward observation post. He had grabbed his sidearm out of its holster and was halfway out of the Land Rover before Croft grabbed him. Hillier had looked back, saw the look in Croft’s eyes, and had sat back down. Croft had been the one to go over to the Americans. Walking casually over to the American commanding officer, he withdrew a cigar from his top pocket and lit it with his lighter. “Colonel, I want the bloody idiot who failed to control his weapon under arrest.”

  “I’m not sure I like your tone, Captain,” the colonel had stated, puffing his chest out. The Americans knew they were with British Special Forces, and knew the reputation the men had, but still the colonel’s ego was being attacked. “I will deal with him when we get to camp.”

  “Colonel, you don’t understand. He almost killed me, and more importantly, he almost killed my men. And my tone should be the least of your concerns.” Croft took a deep inhale and blew it into the desert wind that whipped at his uniform, fluttering the stained and tattered British flag that flew from the back of his Land Rover. “There are ten men over there,” Hillier cocked the hand with the cigar behind him, “who are just as pissed off about that as I am. In fact, probably more so. And if they don’t see that incompetent cunt in cuffs within the next minute, they will deal with the matter in THEIR way.“ Croft put the cigar back in his mouth and put his hands on his hips. He waited for the colonel’s reaction. Croft, fortunately, got his way.

  Croft stood up and stepped inside to return the newspaper to the wall rack in the cafe. Waving goodbye to the proprietor who reciprocated animatedly, he stepped back out and stood to the side of the door, watching the people go by. What would most of them make of him if they knew the things he had seen, the things he had done? What would the people do if they knew there were plots within plots uncovered every day to reduce this city, this nation, to a charred, radioactive remnant? That there were schemes and agents who would think nothing of releasing Sarin gas in the London Underground, or sprinkling Ricin onto the Queen’s cornflakes. This is what the government had to deal with every day, all the while keeping the frail sensibilities of an easily offended and easily outraged population in check. The populace – the Proles as George Orwell had so rightly called them – just couldn’t be trusted with the decisions that really mattered. Croft sometimes felt like a tiger walking amongst lemmings. When the shit really hit the fan, most of the people around him would be dead within a week. They would beg him to help save their lives, but they would also be the first in line to see him hang.

  He looked at his watch and sighed. Okay, another meeting to get through. And then lunch with Captain Savage. He couldn’t believe he’d asked her out. Noticing the lack of wedding ring after the briefing, he’d had a sudden impulse that he just hadn’t wanted to resist, despite how nervous he felt. He could face armed insurgents and issue orders that could result in countless deaths, and yet asking a beautiful woman out to lunch made him feel almost nauseous. Surprise was actually his genuine response when she said, “Yes, I’d love to go to lunch.” Croft hadn’t been out with a woman since his wife had divorced him six months before the helicopter crash that had temporarily wrecked his life. Mostly because he was either wrapped up in a cloak of despair, or else living the life that wasn’t really conducive to dating a civilian. But of course, Savage wasn’t a civilian, and asking her out had just seemed right. Croft surprised himself by actually finding himself looking forward to something. For years, he had simply been going through the motions, almost machine-like, and now here he was excited about going on a date.

  Croft made his way towards York Road and Westminster Bridge. He wasn’t witness to the free newspaper vendor behind him collapsing on the street, his armful of newspapers scattering to the ground. He wasn’t witness to the blonde he had found so attractive staggering in the street and falling to her knees. He left before all that.

  9.21AM, 16th September 2015, St Pancras Train Station, London

  Jesus, he had almost missed his train. Holding the precious laptop case to the side of his body with his right hand, Carl walked quickly to the departure area, finishing what was left of the day’s second cup of coffee. He’d spent the last hour and a half in the coffee shop with his business partner going over the final battle plan for his business meeting up North. Carl had even been there to witness some religious nutter make a fool of himself. There were some strange people in London, there really were.

  He paused briefly to leave the empty paper cup on a table due to there not being any bins, and looked up at the train time’s display. The departure board showed he had minutes to spare, and he weaved his way through the people awaiting other trains and slipped his ticket through the gate. He hated travelling, always had. It was a noisy, dirty business, and every time he ventured up North, he seemed to catch some sort of disease. Even thinking this, he realised his throat was starting to itch. Goddamnit, next time Jeremy could go and make the bloody presentation.

  Carl bundled himself onto the train and found his designated seat in First Class. At least now he could relax and be by himself, even if just for an hour or so. It was these precious moments that made life worth living, he thought. He would sit down, switch off his phone, and hopefully finish the book he had been “reading” for the last month. Taking the book from his case, he dropped it on the seat next to the one that displayed his reservation. Carl always preferred an aisle seat; he didn’t like being hemmed in, didn’t like to feel contained. Placing the case on the overhead shelf, he sat, and as he did so, his guts suddenly did a cartwheel. He almost fell into his seat so surprised was he by the pain.

  “Oh great,” he said to himself, believing this was most likely the first signs of food poisoning. Oh, that was just what he needed.

  “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, we would like to welcome you on board this nine twenty-five Midlands Mainline train to Leeds. Calling at Derby, Sheffield and arriving in Leeds at eleven forty-two.” The voice over the tannoy continued with the mandatory messages to the passengers who were quickly filling up the compartment. Carl felt pain again and wondered how long it would be before he would be forced to run to the toilet. Sweat began to break out on his face, and he reached up and delved back into his case, taking out a half-filled bottle of water. With that in hand, he sat, wincing as another spasm shot through his intestines.

  Drinking the water made him feel a little better, and the pain began to subside. Taking deep breaths, he closed h
is eyes just as the train began to pull out of the station. His symptoms began to improve, and he sighed with relief. That was until three minutes later, when he released a godawful fart that stank like the arse of a hellhound. There were muttered complaints from his fellow passengers, and some looked at him in disgust. Carl’s stomach tied itself in a knot, and he cried out in agony. He farted again, even louder.

  “I’m sorr …” he tried to say, but more gas escaped, only this time the horror of him soiling himself occurred. “Oh no, oh God,” Carl said, and he tried to stand, only to fall into the aisle, as his legs failed him. He vomited, and people moved away from him with mutterings of dismay and disgust.

  “Someone had a bad night,” he thought he heard someone say, and then the fire started in his head. But over all that, deep within his mind, he thought he heard a voice asking him….he couldn’t quite hear it. What was it saying?

  “Someone better go and get the conductor,” a far-off voice said.

  Feed with us. Carl sat up and looked to the nearest person. He was drenched with sweat.

  Will you feed with us? Will you spread with us? The voice, inside him, became part of him.

  Carl looked around, no longer looking through the eyes of human consciousnesses. All he felt was pain and a burning hunger, a ravaging craving that ripped his innards out and demanded satiating. And he knew, just knew that the cure for the pain was to surrender to the hunger.

  Will you feed with us? the voice from within said, voices now, dozens of them, stronger, louder, more demanding.

  Carl blinked, confusion draining from his mind. And then he said the last words his mouth would ever utter. “Oh yes, yes I will feed.”

  9.25AM 16th September 2015, Pentonville Rd, King’s Cross, London

  The end of the world would, it seemed, be televised. Despite the plethora of 24-hour news channels and internet bloggers, it was not the conventional media that first broke the story of the end. The first recorded case of the infection hit YouTube at 9.47AM London time. The video, taken outside the second coffee house visited by Brother Fabrice, showed utter mayhem. Taken from the perspective of a cyclist’s head camera, the jerky, often out-of-focus video showed about a dozen people fighting. The video showed an average London rush hour street as the cyclist weaved in and out of the gridlocked cars. He turned a corner, and the mini riot came instantly into view. The cyclist (Jez453Ihatecars as his 240 YouTube subscribers knew him) positioned himself in the centre of the road to get past the bedlam. As he passed, there was the sound of glass breaking, and his head panned round to see someone landing on the pavement, having been apparently thrown through the front window of the coffee shop. A teenage girl jumped through the window and onto the man sprawled on the floor, tearing into him with her fingers and teeth. The two wrestled on the ground, the teenager winning the battle.

  “Holy fuck!” the cyclist’s voice exclaimed over the general traffic noise and the screams. He stopped and the camera centred on two men on the floor. The one on top was biting down and ripped an ear from the side of his victim’s head, blood smearing his face. His eyes were seen to light up at the morsel in his mouth, and he thrashed his head from side to side, blood flying off. Then he started to chew whilst the violated beneath him wailed in agony. The cannibal’s eyes locked onto the camera, seeming to break the fourth wall, and then the assailant looked back down at the meat suit he was astride and began punching the man beneath him relentlessly.

  “Fuck me.” Again the cyclist, who obviously decided caution was the ruler of the day, cycled off, cutting through a red light. In the distance, a police siren could be heard, and the video ended with his panicked breath as he cycled fast to get away from a brief glimpse of chaos. The time stamp on the video said 9.25AM. In days, it would become one of the most viewed videos in the history of YouTube, reaching into the billions. Seeded relentlessly, it would be the starting point for the end of over fifty million lives.

  9.28AM 16th September 2015, Claremont Primary School, near King’s Cross, London

  Wendy looked up from her drawing as Miss Scott rose from her desk and left the classroom. Wendy liked Miss Scott; she was funny and made her laugh. She looked at the door a moment longer, and then looked down at her picture and picked up a blue crayon. Unicorns should be blue—everyone knew that—and she began to colour it in, her tongue stuck out from the corner of her mouth. Miss Baker said something, but Wendy didn’t hear it because Miss Baker was talking to Gavin. Wendy didn’t like Gavin. He picked on her and pulled her hair when Miss Scott wasn’t looking. She didn’t really like Miss Baker either because she smelt funny and sometimes got angry when Miss Scott wasn’t around. Miss Scott never got angry, so it was a good thing Miss Baker was only the teacher’s helper. Wendy realised there was something missing from her picture, and she picked up the yellow crayon to add some flowers. You couldn’t have unicorns without flowers, everyone knew that.

  Rachel Scott had started to feel unwell within the first half hour of class. She tried to ignore it, but very quickly she realised that that just wasn’t going to cut it, and she had to excuse herself. Fortunately, the female toilets were just across the hall from her classroom, and she rushed in just in time. Throwing herself into a cubicle, the morning’s breakfast erupted into the toilet bowl, some even coming out of her nose. She threw up again, and almost blacked out with the force of it. She tried to reach up to flush the cistern, but the strength just wasn’t there. She vomited a third time, a sharp pain erupting in her neck as if something had ripped open, and then everything went black.

  She must have passed out, she realised. Lying on the floor, she picked her head up off the tiles and noticed the smell. Her trousers were damp, and her hair and face felt sticky. Sitting up, she propped her back up against the cubicle wall, wincing as someone drove a nail between her eyes. At least that was what she imagined it felt like. The nail was hot, and it was being pounded in by a sledgehammer wielded by a professional weightlifter who had that very day overdosed on steroids. The pain hit again, and this time, she cried out. Rachel panicked, and she tried to stand, but the invisible nails suddenly embedded themselves in her stomach, and she collapsed back to the floor. She’d never felt pain like it, and there was something else there, forming in the back of her thoughts. Her vision blurred, and a shiver ran through her entire body. The thing in her mind grew, and she began to drool.

  The door opened, and Wendy looked up as Miss Scott walked in. Oh no, she looked terrible. Her hair was all over the place, and her blouse was all stained. And she smelt, she smelt worse than Miss Baker.

  “Rachel, my God what happened?” Wendy heard Miss Baker ask. Miss Scott kind of gurgled and took another step into the room, the door closing behind her. Miss Scott said something that nobody could hear. All thirty children were looking at her now, their classwork no longer of interest. Wendy heard someone crying and looked behind her to see Claire in tears. Claire was always in tears. That was when everyone but Wendy jumped. Wendy looked back, and she saw something she had never seen before. Miss Scott was fighting with Miss Baker. Why were they fighting? And why was Miss Scott biting her? Adults didn’t bite each other.

  “We feed!” shouted Miss Scott, and bit into Miss Baker’s neck this time. All the children screamed, and some jumped from their chairs and ran to the back of the class. Don’t hurt her, Miss Scott, Wendy said in her head. Please, look I’ve drawn you a nice unicorn. That was when Miss Scott pushed Miss Baker to the floor and turned to look Wendy right in the eyes.

  “WE SPREAD!” Miss Scott shouted, and by the time the screams brought other teachers to the classroom, half the children had already been infected. Within fifteen minutes, fifteen turned to over a hundred.

  9.31AM, 16th September 2015, Kings Cross Train Station, London

  The last thing he needed on a Wednesday morning was to have to deal with a fucking riot. I mean, who rioted at nine o’clock in the bloody morning for Christ’s sake? Any self-respecting scrote would still be in bed at this
hour. Pulling up outside the front of King’s Cross Station, Police Constable Fred Aycoth watched the panicked masses as they ran away from what to him looked like a mass brawl.

  “Can you believe this shit?” Aycoth said to the man sharing his car. He put on the hand brake and spoke into his radio. “EO47 to control, looks like we’ll need back-up here. Definitely looks like this is getting out of hand.”

  “Wilco EO47. Additional units have already been dispatched to your location. Be advised, SO19 units are already on scene.” Over the police radio, a call went out to his fellow officers. Aycoth removed his seatbelt and opened the car door. A hand grabbed his shoulder.

  “I don’t like this, Fred. This doesn’t look right.”

  “We don’t get paid to like it, mate. Besides, you heard her, SO19 are here. Who’s going to try and fuck with someone wielding a fucking great machine gun?” The hand on his shoulder retreated. Aycoth stepped out of the car, placing his cap over his neatly cropped ginger hair, then removing his baton from his utility belt. He could see there were people fighting on the Pentonville Road. Looking around, he saw two armed officers, what control had called SO19, standing outside the main entrance to King’s Cross. The two new arrivals made their way over to them, knowing there was safety in numbers. A woman ran past them, bleeding from her left ear, part of which was missing. Aycoth tried to stop her, but she dodged him in what was obviously total terror. In the distance, more sirens could be heard as reinforcements arrived. They walked quickly over to the armed officers, both of whom were known to Aycoth.