Cobra Z Page 11

  “Morning, lads. What kicked this all off then?”

  “Fucked if I know, Fred. But if this carries on, we’ll have to close down the station. Riot police are already en route.”

  “The mayor’s not going to like that,” said the other armed officer. Aycoth shook his head and was about to say something when his attention was drawn to a man stumbling towards them. He had no physical injuries, but his skin was deathly pale, and he obviously had difficulty keeping himself upright. An ambulance pulled up behind Aycoth’s police car

  “Officers, I need …” The guy coughed violently and fell to his knee.

  “Sir, are you alright?” Aycoth’s partner asked, moving to help the man. Bloody stupid question, thought Aycoth. Did the guy look alright? He didn’t really get on with the man he was assigned with this morning if he was honest, but you went where they put you.

  “I don’t feel …” The man heaved, and Aycoth stepped back. I’m not having someone vomit on me twice in one week, he thought. And then the man started to retch, and within seconds, he projectile vomited all over the legs of Aycoth’s three fellow officers. Aycoth stood there surprisingly unscathed.

  “For fucks sake,” someone said as the ill man collapsed in front of them. His body began to twitch, going into full spasm. Aycoth’s partner tried to hold him steady, not knowing the ultimate fate that now awaited him due to his humanitarian act.

  9.32AM, 16th September 2015, Paddington Train Station, London

  The Hilton staff member serving drinks in the dining area of the Hilton Hotel had been a tad irked at the nine Japanese tourists who had sat down only to be joined by a tenth a moment later. He was annoyed because the tenth was carrying carry out cups from the local corporate chain “coffee” house. Luke considered making an issue of it, but he had seen them coming and going from the lifts, and as they were undoubtedly paying a small fortune to stay here, he let it go and concentrated on the myriad of customers vying for his attention: the paying customers, the ones that would give him his much-needed tips. The Japanese tourists had followed exactly the same routine for two days in a row. They would arrive early, sit and drink coffee not purchased from the hotel, and talk about whatever Japanese tourists in London talked about. He seriously suspected none of them even spoke any English

  That had been over an hour ago, and they were still chattering away when one of them cried out. Luke glanced over annoyingly and turned back to the customer who was trying to order a gin and tonic. Luke smiled outwardly and asked if there was anything else the woman wanted. Inside, he was amazed that someone could even consider drinking alcohol at this hour in the morning. But it wasn’t his place to judge – that was the lesson taught to him by the mentor assigned to him when he had first gotten work in the hotel. “It doesn’t matter what you see, or what you hear. Just smile and act like it’s an everyday occurrence. People are entitled to their quirks, and they are entitled to their privacy – remember that.”

  He was about to walk over to the bar to collect the lady’s order when there was another cry of pain, and one of the members of the Japanese party fell forward off the sofa she was sitting on. She began to writhe on the floor, legs knocking against the glass table at her side. Luke turned, watching the spectacle for a second, only to see another of the Japanese lunge backwards in a cry of pain. There were panicked mutterings from the other Japanese tourists, and Luke did what he was trained to do. Quickly moving to the bar, he stepped behind it and picked up the walkie-talkie.

  “Code 99 in the lounge area, code 99 in the lounge area.” It was eerie to hear his voice booming out from the surroundings, and within seconds other, more senior staff members arrived on the scene. Code 99, possible medical emergency. They trained regularly for this eventuality, as tourists had a tendency to be an unwell bunch, suffering from a host of afflictions that could leave them near death’s door at any minute. Either that, or they tended to be very drunk. Especially with a clientele that seemed to feel comfortable drinking gin and tonics for breakfast. As the three extra staff members arrived, another of the Japanese tourists cried out in pain. Then the first – the one still lying on the floor – vomited all over the carpet. Luke closed his eyes and shook his head in frustration. I’m likely going to have to clean that shit up, he thought to himself.

  The most senior staff member reached into a pack on his belt and withdrew a set of Nitrile gloves. Donning them, he bent down to the stricken woman, who was now shaking violently. He was about to try and hold her steady, when the nearest Japanese still seated vomited all over him. Luke almost laughed, but the scene quickly descended into chaos as one by one the tourists all began to convulse and expel whatever bodily fluids their orifices held. “Jesus Christ,” the Samaritan cried as he tried to wipe blood-stained vomit out of his hair and off his face. He stood up and made to step back only for a hand to shoot out and grab him by the ankle. Luke saw him stagger for a second and then fall, smashing the back of his skull open against the edge of a glass table. Someone screamed. One of the Japanese laughed.

  The woman on the floor slowly stood and looked at her fellow travellers. Only three of them now seemed unaffected by the sickness that was spreading through their ranks, and she rushed to them, sniffing their odour deeply, pawing their faces as they cowered at the slime that was dribbling from her mouth and nostrils. She examined them one by one, then turned to the fallen hotel staff member, who was moaning and trying to right himself. Luke heard her shout something in Japanese and then she pounced, landing on him, biting straight into his neck.

  Luke panicked. He wasn’t trained for this, and he certainly wasn’t paid enough for this. He rushed from behind the bar towards the back entrance to the lounge, which also led to the toilets. Backpedalling, he didn’t see the huge bulk of a man stagger out from the gents, and Luke ploughed right into him. Both of them fell to the lushly carpeted floor, Luke landing face down. Spread-eagled on his front, Luke tried to get up, but he felt hands on him, then a weight on his back holding him to the ground. Someone crawled up his back, and Luke felt fingers grabbing onto his hair. Then there was warmth on his ear as someone exhaled. And then a voice came.

  “We feed, we spread,” said the voice. The same words were shouted from another part of the hotel, and then something bit into him. As he felt his ear being ripped from his body, Luke put all his effort into escape. Just as he thought pain and his assailant would have him, the weight lifted, and Luke was able to scramble forwards, escaping the clutches of the madman. He turned onto his back and used his hands and his legs to scoot away from the giant who now stood looking at him. Luke found his progress stopped by a wall, and he clutched the side of his damaged face, the pain flowing through his body. The attacker suddenly moved towards him with inhuman speed and spat into Luke’s face, half-chewed ear landing in his lap.

  “We feed, we spread,” the man said, and with that, he was away with an agility a man of his bulk should not have possessed. Luke watched him go, bile rising up into his mouth as shock took him. Before he lost consciousness, he heard the howl that chilled his soul.

  9.36AM, 16th September 2015, 10 Downing Street, London

  Croft waited whilst the officer checked his name and his ID off on the roster. Sergeant Smith wandered over, a playful grin on his face.

  “Twice in one week, you’re getting popular, Major,” Smith said jokingly.

  “Hello, Sarge. That wife of yours still feeding you then?” Croft said, indicating Smith’s somewhat enlarged belly that was only partially hidden by the man’s body armour.

  “Bloody woman’s got me on a diet. She says she’s fed up sharing a bed with a bloated whale. Says if I don’t start looking after myself, she’s going to restrict me to bread and water. And she doesn’t just mean in the food department.” Croft laughed, and was ushered through the gate by the police constable. Smith was going to say something more, but he was distracted by a voice in his left ear.

  “Be advised, we have reports of a live fire incident invol
ving SO16 officers in Canary Wharf. All SO6 officers are advised we are at Amber Alert.” Sergeant Smith listened to the voice. Standing outside the gates to 10 Downing Street, he saw that his lads had received the same instructions.

  “Lock her down, boys,” Smith said. The three other officers outside the gate with him withdrew and one by one passed through until they were all behind the protection offered by the reinforced black gate. Once upon a time, the public had been free to walk up and down 10 Downing Street as if it were just another street. But the multiple threats from the IRA and the more recent Jihadist threats made that now an impossible dream. With the pavement barricades still out, nobody could approach the gates directly.

  Now on the other side, Smith saw Croft looking at him concerned.

  “Trouble?” Croft asked.

  “I don’t think so, Major. Just another day in London.” Croft nodded and turned, walking down Downing Street towards the entrance that would allow him access to the Cabinet Offices. Smith watched him go for several seconds then turned to look back out at the world outside their protected fortress.

  “CW23 to control, any word on what’s going on?” Smith said into his shoulder radio.

  “Negative CW23. So far just sporadic reports of rioting.” Smith’s eyebrows raised in surprise – rare to have an officer-involved shooting. And if it was riots, were they a result of the shooting, or the cause? Further up Whitehall, Smith didn’t see the man fall down in the street outside the Household Cavalry Museum. But the CCTV did; the CCTV saw everything.

  9.40AM, 16th September 2015, Hounslow, London

  It was unusually quiet for this time of morning. Okay, the rush hour was over, but the fast food restaurant was on a major road, and they still had the breakfast menu on. There were only two customers sat in the restaurant, and Jack stood at the tills, found himself staring into space. Noticing the traffic passing by outside the establishments’ windows, he found himself thinking back to the other day. He hadn’t seen any more of that cunt Owen Patterson, but it was only a matter of time. Whilst Jack could handle himself, he wasn’t sure of how he was going to deal with someone who was probably packing. Jack was confident he could deal with it though. He was well built, and – unbeknownst to many – he had been undergoing training in a rare form of Russian martial arts for three years now. Systema they called it, and it was absolutely incredible. Jack just hoped he would never have to try it out in a real live situation, because that’s the first thing they taught you. If running away was the safest thing to do, then that’s what you should do. No question about it. There were plenty of egos lying dead in cemeteries.

  “Woah, check this out.” Jack found himself pulled out of his dream world by one of his fellow workers. She was holding up her smartphone, which displayed Facebook, and a smile was adorning her Goth visage.

  “Chris, you know you shouldn’t be on your phone. If Clive catches you, he’ll do his nut.”

  “Chill dude,” Chris said. “What Clive doesn’t know won’t hurt him, and he won’t be back for an hour yet. But check it out, there’s a riot in Canary Wharf.” She showed him the various Facebook threads, some displaying pictures, others video.

  “Good,” said Jack. “It’s about time those rich fuckers realised how the other 99% live.” Jack didn’t actually believe that, but he felt it was the response the people around him would want to hear. Although Clive had left him “in charge”, he knew he wasn’t. The people he worked with would do the bare minimum to keep their jobs even when Clive was around. They weren’t going to show respect for some eighteen year old who started trying to throw his weight around. So Jack did the wise thing and didn’t even try.

  “True dat,” Chris said with a grin, and she wondered off to join her fellow employees in the kitchens.

  9.41AM, 16th September 2015, University College Hospital Accident and Emergency, Euston Rd, London

  “We’ve got more coming in,” the face said as it popped into the door of her office. The face didn’t stay long enough for her to give a response, and Dr. Simone Holden realised she was in for another busy morning. She let out a sigh, massaging the bridge of her nose, hoping that the two Aspirin would hurry up and kick in. She had drunk too much last night, and although she wasn’t suffering a full-blown hangover, she was still definitely suffering from an alcohol-induced headache. Holden knew she was drinking too much, and even felt the urge coming on her during the day sometimes. So far she had resisted that, but the lure of the wine bottle seemed too powerful when the end of her shift came. There had even been a few mornings when she had thought about rehydrating herself by the use of a saline drip. Things hadn’t quite come to that yet, fortunately.

  As one of the A&E consultants, she not only had to help run the department but also deal with the cases as and when they came in. Ten years she had been doing this – ten years of heart attacks, strokes, poisonings and even the occasional gunshot victim. The stress of the job was definitely having a toll on her health, and she knew at some point she would have to consider her career choice. She wasn’t cut out for this anymore. For fucks sake, things were supposed to get easier when she became a consultant. But they didn’t; if anything, the stress increased. And today looked like it would be even worse, the hospital was already running out of beds due to the rioting.

  She got up from her chair and left her, quite frankly inadequate, office. Closing and locking the door behind her, she made her way towards the main treatment area. It wasn’t right that she had to lock her door, but the problem with hospitals was they attracted all manner of lowlife as well as the normal decent human beings that she wished were the norm in her department. Unfortunately, it wasn’t, and much of her time was spent dealing with drug users and those intent on killing themselves either through suicide, alcohol or stupidity. The fact that she kept seeing the same faces on a regular basis had reinforced her opinion that alcoholism was just a drawn out form of suicide.

  The hospital sounded busy, and she heard running feet behind her, but didn’t turn. Two security guards moved past her, one brushing her arm roughly. She thought she heard a faint “sorry” uttered, and the guards both ran around the corner ahead. She followed them and saw (as well as heard) that there was a commotion in one of the treatment cubicles. The guards had obviously been summoned there by panic alarms, and they both ran into the cubicle.

  “Now what?” Holden said under her breath. It was too early for this kind of shit – it really was, even for London. She walked two more steps only to stop dead when one of the guards was flung back out into the corridor, hitting a cart of medical equipment, which spilled noisily to the ground. He collapsed to the floor and lay there apparently stunned. More bodies appeared around her drawn by the noise and the impending drama, but Holden’s attention was pulled to a cubicle to her right where a nurse was trying to hold down a young girl who was thrashing about on the bed, vomit spraying everywhere. Who Holden assumed to be the child’s mother was in hysterics.

  “Feeeeed,” a voice roared, and the second security guard staggered back out into the corridor, a hand up to his head. He was bleeding, and a nurse ran from the cubicle, obviously distressed and in tears. Holden saw a blood-stained hand grab the cubicle curtain, and the curtain was pulled from its runners onto the floor as a man in police uniform staggered out in front of Holden. That was probably what surprised her the most, not the bloodshot eyes and the face of madness, but the fact the man was a police officer. The first security guard had already picked himself up and was backing away, hands up defensively.

  “I don’t want any trouble, mate,” the guard said. Holden felt herself taking the same action, putting distance between her and the officer, but slowly so as hopefully not to attract his attention. He didn’t see her, his concentration briefly on the guard. The policeman hissed violently, and then took off in the same direction as the nurse who had just fled.

  There was a scream from her right, and Holden looked to see the nurse with the previously convulsing child cli
nging to her. The girl was clawing at the nurse’s face. Then Holden saw the blood and witnessed the nurse try and fling the child off her with frantic hands. But the child dug its fingers into her hair and bit down hard onto her face, just under the left eye. The whole accident and emergency department just seemed to erupt around her, and for probably only the second time in her life, Dr. Simone Holden panicked. The first had been when she had witnessed the death of her mother through cancer at the age of nine. The woman who could intubate a fitting child, who could re-inflate a lung, who could suture a spurting femoral artery, felt her sanity slip. As the world around her descended into anarchy, she did the only thing her brain allowed. She ran.

  Others ran also. Some fled, some chased, and the wails of a fearful and endangered humanity began to fill the hospital. And as the minutes ticked by, the predators grew in number, infected by bites and scratches and bodily fluids that were more infectious than Ebola. Their ranks swelled, finding easy pickings amongst the hallowed halls of medical science. Doctors, nurses, patients and other hospital staff all were worthy targets of the infection. Holden, close to exhaustion, staggered on, the disease strangely ignoring her. Several infected passed her by chasing other prey, and soon she found herself wandering the hospital almost in a daze, her body shaking as the initial adrenaline of her panic began to wear off.