Zombie Business

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Several corpses have been heaped in the middle of Jubilee Gardens, a small park between the bridge and County Hall. Furniture has been stacked nearby, and many mutants are adding to the pile, racing in and out of the building with tables, chairs and bedding, which they deposit on the growing mound.

As other mutants soak the pyre with petrol, one lights a torch, then steps forward and shouts a warn ing. The rest of them scatter and the torch is hurled on to the primed furniture. A bonfire explodes into life. The mutants cheer and applaud.

Then they start tossing the bodies of comrades on to the flames. my slain

toasty, Holy Moly murmurs approvingly, but I don't react, reminding myself that the baby's been brought up to see nothing amiss in atrocities like this. Despite my improved vision, I can't see from here if the Angels being fed to the fire were some of my room-mates, Shane, Ashtat, Carl, or others I felt close to. And I don't want to know. Better the corpses remain faceless. That way I don't have to mourn them.

I spot an Angel climbing on to the roof in an attempt to get away. It looks like a girl but I can't be sure. She stumbles off in the direction of St Thomas's Hospital but doesn't get far. Babies follow and launch themselves in a deadly swarm at the helpless revi talised, dragging her down and ripping into her.

I spy another Angel, a boy, in a pod on the London Eye. He must have been on watch when the attack commenced, so it can't have been more than half an hour ago, which is roughly the time it takes for a pod to complete a revolution.

The Angel is gazing down on a group of mutants. They're packing all sorts of weapons and howling gleefully, waving at the trapped boy, making crude gestures. Some begin to climb up to the pod, impa tient, eager to strike the first blow.

As mutants scrabble across the top of the pod and try to smash through the glass, the Angel makes a crude gesture of his own, then drives the bones stick ing out of his fingers through his skull. The mutants screech spitefully, but he ignores them and digs around inside his head. Moments later he drops to the floor of the pod, set free from the torment which would otherwise have awaited him.

I hate being a helpless observer. I want to dash across the bridge, cut through Jubilee Gardens, fight and die with those who have become my family over the last few months.

But I don't have the energy for a stylish finale. If I start limping across this walkway, I'll be spotted long before I reach the other side. Mutants will flood the bridge and either kill me or haul me back for Mr Alfie to deal with.

So I hold my ground and watch numbly as County Hall falls to its foes. I'm surprised they were able to take it so easily. I thought the Angels would have offered more resistance. Master Zhang trained us to be clinical fighting machines. We should have been able to at least trouble the mutants and babies. But it looks like they took this place as swiftly and casually as they took Battersea Power Station.

I wonder if Dr Quinn has been killed. There aren't that many dead Angels outside the building, so most must be lining the corridors inside. Dr Quinn's corpse almost surely lies among one of the groups, unless he happened to be at his secret lab when Mr Alfie surged up out of the depths.

If the doc was here when the invasion began, how did he react? Seeing that the end was upon him, die he uncork his vial of Clements-13, figuring Mr Alfie wouldn't have attacked unless he'd been robbed of his sample of Schlesinger-10? Maybe ulti mate victory is already ours, despite the casualties and the loss of our base. Perhaps this is merely Mr Alfie's compensation prize, annihilation of his most hated enemy before he falls foul of the unleashed virus and drops dead in a matter of days.

Then again, Dr Quinn never told us where his vial of Clements-13 was stored. I'm sure he has some in his hidden laboratory, but did he keep another vial on him, or tucked away in a safe nook in County Hall? I'm guessing he did, in order to be ready for a a surprise attack like this, but I can't be certain.

Mr Alfie can't have been certain either. That's why he never struck the first blow. But now, robbed of his ultimate deterrent, he's had to gamble. I left him with no other choice.

Understanding the clown as intimately as I do, I knew that his first task would be to find me and retrieve his vial of Schlesinger-10, to re-establish the status quo. He likes things the way they've been since the world fell, the war between the living and the undead, the chaos and disorder.

But I didn't consider what he'd do when his mutants failed to track me down. He must have decided to strike immediately before I returned to County Hall. He probably figured that he was definitely dead if he waited. At least this way he had a chance.

I should have anticipated this. If I'd been thinking clearly, I would have acted more swiftly, made for the surface as soon as I could, maybe sent Holy Moly on ahead of me to warn Dr Quinn and tell him to clear out. I thought I had time to play with. I was wrong.

'It's a b****y mess,' I sob, turning away from the c*****e, sick of it all, not wanting to t*****e myself any further.

"mummy? Holy Moly asks, surprised by my sad ness. The baby doesn't understand why I'm miserable. The s*******r across the river is nothing more than a jolly piece of theatre as far as it's con cerned, par for the course when their father is abroad. what's wrong mummy? don't cry. we don't like it when you cry. we love you mummy.'