Darren Wearmouth - First Activation

I surveyed the scene on the opposite side of the road as we turned on to the Long Island Expressway, this was new territory, but it had a similar feel to Queens Boulevard. Some cars had been used as weapons, others had pulled over, and corpses were spread in and amongst them. I stared at a man with a shredded face, his upper torso was hanging through a car windshield and a hawk was sitting on his head. Bernie brought the SUV to an abrupt, screeching, halt, causing the hawk to fly away and I felt myself strain against the seat belt.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking for signs of danger.

Jack poked his head between the front seats, “What is it, Bernie?”

“Guys, look down there to the right, there’s two men standing outside Aldi.”

“I can see them, they’re carrying shotguns.” Lea pointed from the back seat.

I looked down to the right of the vehicle and saw the two men staring over at us. They were about seventy yards away in front of the store entrance. Around thirty corpses were piled in the middle of the car park close by. The shotguns were pointed in our direction.

“What shall we do? Do you reckon they’re like us?” Bernie asked.

“At this range, they could still be dangerous, I have a feeling that if there are two just standing on guard, then others will be close by,” Jack said.

“I don’t know. Remember that man on the bridge I told you about? He killed two people and ran away. There are other bad people out here,” Lea replied.

Lea’s earlier revelation suggested that not everyone had been affected in the same way. We thought we had the pattern worked out, kill-suicide, perhaps there was another trend we were yet to discover. The one common theme was the need to kill, but the men below weren’t showing any signs of this.

“I’m going to get out and call over to them; we should at least give them a chance,” I said.

“I’m coming with you; it will show them there are two of us,” Jack replied.

“Are you sure about this guys?” Bernie said.

“Let’s go,” I said, and detached my seatbelt. Jack did the same.

I exited the SUV and walked to the side of the road, Jack joined me. We were in an elevated position above the two men, whose shotguns were still aimed in our direction. I heard the noise of electric windows being lowered behind us.

“Lower your weapons, we don’t mean you any harm,” I shouted over.

“There’s four of us here, we’re not trying to kill anyone,” Jack added.

One man lowered his weapon, and I felt a rush of excitement. He said something to the other man, and then walked towards us, holding out the shotgun to one side in his right hand.

“Did you fly from Manchester?” he said. I was just about to reply when the man shouted, “Hey, you’re those two guys from the plane, the ones that went to the terminal, but never came back.”

“We did come back, you didn’t wait long enough,” Jack replied, I could hear slight anger in his voice.

He walked further towards us and stood beneath the road around twenty yards away. He spoke in a British accent, was quite short with brown hair and a faded tattoo on his right forearm.

“It’s been crazy since we left the airport. Thirty of us split from the main group after someone drove at us in a fire truck. I don’t know where the rest of them are.”

“There’s thirty of you here?” I asked.

“There’s only twenty two of us left.”

“What happened to the others?” Jack replied.

The man looked down for a moment.

“They didn’t make it here. We barricaded ourselves in the store. A few people tried to break in, but whenever someone else showed up, they fought each other to death. We haven’t seen anyone for the last few hours.”

“How did you manage to take a store?” I asked.

“We just rushed in, locked the doors, and secured the back entrance. There was only one person alive in there, she slashed Morgan across the eye, but he managed to beat her brains out with a small fire extinguisher.”

“He was that dick in business class, brown blazer?” Jack said.

“Yeah, that’s him. He figured that somewhere with supplies would be the best place to hide out. Nobody will get through the back and we can see anyone coming from the front. We started moving the dead an hour ago.”

Without warning, the man crouched and aimed his shotgun to the left, a plastic bag drifted along the concrete past him. He looked back at us and puffed his cheeks.

“Do you have any idea what’s happened?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Jack replied.

I gestured to Lea and Bernie. They joined us at the edge of the road.

“Did you hear all that?” I asked.

They both nodded.

“Hey,” The man called up in greeting.

“Sounds like you’ve had a rough time. Do you plan on staying here?” Bernie replied.

“Do you have any better ideas?”

“We’re heading away from the city…”

Bernie paused and looked towards the store.

Two men were carrying out a corpse. I recognised one as Morgan; he was wearing a makeshift eye-patch. Morgan noticed us, let go of the corpse, and its head hit the ground with a dull thud. He came striding over to where the armed man was standing.

“Who are you?” he barked, looking up at us.

“I’m Harry, that’s Jack, Lea, and Bernie.”

“You’re those two cretins from the flight. Thanks for nothing.”

“Are you serious?” Jack replied.

“Mister Morgan, come on, these…”

“Oh shut up, Harris, I’ll take the negotiations from here. Go and help Tweedle clear the store.”

The man took a step back behind Morgan, looked up, shrugged his shoulders, and then walked away.

“What do you want?”

“We’re not here to negotiate anything. I’m just happy to meet others who are alive and not trying to kill us,” I replied.

“What are you doing here then? Where are you going?”

Morgan’s tone was irritating me and his attitude was surprising, considering the situation we were all in.

“Away from the city. Can we get some supplies?” Lea asked.

“I thought you said you weren’t here to negotiate anything?” Morgan said, looking at me.

“Fucking hell, Morgan, get a grip, why…”

My reply was cut short by Morgan’s reaction. He took a pace back, his eyes widened, he turned, and sprinted for the store entrance shouting, “Harris, Harris.”

Jack looked at me and frowned, I heard footsteps below us.

A woman appeared from underneath the expressway holding an axe above her head. She was slow but chased Morgan, who disappeared into the store entrance along with the other man who was still outside. They must have locked the door as the woman rattled it a few times, and then chopped at it with the axe, cracking the glass panels but not breaking them.

She paused, turned, and looked directly at us.

“Holy shit,” Bernie gasped.

I glanced back at the SUV. Something moved in my peripheral vision. I looked along the road in the direction we had come from, around two hundred yards away, a figure darted from behind one car to another.

“Let’s get out of here,” I shouted.

Jack had turned and noticed as well, “Move!”

He aimed his rifle.

“That woman’s coming,” Lea screamed.

We jumped back into the SUV, Jack and Lea pointed their weapons out of the open windows from the back seats. I looked across and saw Bernie struggling to get the key in the ignition, his hand was shaking.

“Drive, Bernie, bloody drive,” Jack shouted.

“I’m trying,” Bernie frantically replied. The engine turned over and the SUV quickly jerked forward.

I looked back through the rear window as we moved away. A short, fat man had abandoned stealth and was now running towards the SUV; luckily, Bernie managed to pick his way through the stationary obstacles on the road faster than our pursuers speed. He stopped when he arrived opposite the Aldi. He must have seen the woman with the axe as he jumped off the side of the expressway. For now, the immediate danger had gone.