Deadfall a zombie apocal.., p.1
Deadfall: A Zombie Apocalypse Thriller, page 1
Contents
Title page
Copyright
Disclaimer
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Thank you
DEADFALL
Infernal Contagion Book 1
by
Phil Maxey
Copyright © 2023 by Philip Maxey
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The Work of Phil Maxey, aka Philip Maxey, may not be used or accessed in any manner which could help the learning/training of artificial intelligence technologies.
First Printing, 2023.
https://www.philmaxeyauthor.com/
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is purely coincidental.
CHAPTER ONE
JOE
Location: South London, UK.
Early June.
8: 21 a.m.
“Hey, turn that up.”
Joe Halter slowly lifted his arm to adjust the volume on the digital radio. He had no interest in what the newscaster was spouting, but his wife, Liz, liked to hear about the latest news that was going on.
A stern sounding male voice continued with the broadcast. ’Apart from the heatwave the country is experiencing, in what is becoming the biggest biological disaster to hit the U.K, the CEO of Sentriculture is reported to have said that his company had no idea that their GM insecticide would have such a devastating effect on the agriculture of the country. In a culling, the like of which has never been seen before, millions of cattle and other livestock are having to be destroyed due to the and I quote ‘tissue damaging virus’ that the company’s insecticide appears to produce. Todd Mannings, the task force leader for the government was pressed this morning on other long term effects the company’s product could have had on the environment, but Mannings simply replied ‘It’s too early to tell.’ Reports are suggesting that some of the meat has already made it into the food chain, but the environment agency has said these reports are false, and there is currently no threat to the public.’
An ad started to play and Joe turned the volume back down, then looked at his wife, whose spoon was hovering over her bowl of crispy nut cereal.
“Currently,” she said. “You think it’s safe to eat?”
He produced an expression she had gotten used to over their seven years of marriage, causing her to frown as well.
He looked at his watch, an old school time piece that he had used throughout his career in the military. It was five to eight. Almost time for Tia to be woken. He pushed his chair out, nodding to the bowl. “What if you eat that, and it gives you a super power or something. Why’s it always a negative side effect?”
She ignored his attempt at humour. “What if the milk came from a cow that was infected? They said tissue damaging?” She looked up at him for an answer.
He moved around the table, took her spoon and slid it into his mouth, then gave it back. “Tastes fine, or… we’re both going to grow another arm.”
“Another arm might be useful.” She took a mouthful of the cereal and started munching while he moved into the passageway of their Victorian three-bed house, and trekked up the carpeted stairs to the first floor landing. He knocked gently on the first door to his left. “It’s time, Tia. I’ll get your breakfast ready.”
A grumbling, muffled reply came from somewhere inside the room.
“Big day today, young lady.”
Another grumble.
“Grandma’s gonna be here in thirty minutes.”
“I know!”
Joe smiled then stopped. The door to the spare room was open, allowing him a view across the storage boxes, single bed then out of the sash window, across the small front garden, and others in the nearby streets, to the slate rooftops. Just above the middle one was smoke, maybe two or three miles off. But that wasn’t what held his gaze captive. On the breeze coming through the few inches of gap between the green paint-chipped frame, were noises. The distant sound of emergency sirens. Nothing unusual for this part of Greater London.
That’s what his right ear was telling him. The left had forty-percent hearing loss.
Tia’s bedroom door opened and she pushed past him with a towel and some brightly coloured clothes in her hands, not acknowledging her father.
“Excuse me,” he said to her back as she headed to the bathroom.
“I’m awake, aren’t I.”
“Thank God for small mercies, I—”
The bathroom door slammed closed.
A creak at the bottom of the stairs heralded his wife’s enquiry. “Is she up?”
“Up yes, awake I’m not sure.”
“Well tell her to get a move on, I don’t want to be—”
A scream made him flick his head back to the other room.
“— Late.”
He took a step towards the spare room’s doorway, ready for a similar sound, but there wasn’t any, then leaned a little over the bannister to ask if his wife had heard the sound, but she was gone.
The bathroom door opened and he turned around stifling a laugh. His ten-year-old daughter stood in the doorway dressed as a bee.
“You know this is going to emotionally damage me forever, right?”
He let out a snort then cleared his throat. “Sometimes we need to make personal sacrifices. It’s called growing up.”
“I’m ten.”
“Exactly, not too old, to not dress as a bee for grandma.”
“Every age is too old to dress as a bee.”
Joe walked towards his daughter. “Grandma thinks this outfit will make her friends buy her honey. This is what we call business promotion.”
“So I’m getting—”
Another scream, this one clearly closer than the first, made both them look towards the tall window in the third-bedroom.
“What was that?” she said.
He walked to the top of the stairs. “Probably, usual nonsense. Keep getting ready.” He jogged down the steps, then paused to look along the hall to the kitchen, before moving to the front door, opening it, and walked over the welcome mat onto the small path which ran to the front gate. He looked left and right.
The street was empty. Opposite was another row of houses similar to his own, while vehicles sat at intervals beside the pavement, leaving only a narrow channel down the middle of the road. He began to turn around, to move back inside, when at the end of the street someone sprinted across the junction. A young man with wild eyes was running, but was soon out of sight.
It wasn’t strange to see a young person running in this area. There were worse places, far worse if you moved further into the centre of London, but this borough still had its fair share of crime. The Halter family were in Zone five, where the suburban sprawl and grey blocks began to give way to more greener spaces. Having lived there since his discharge from the army due to injury, Joe knew the surrounding streets and local city better than the scar lines on the back of his left hand and wouldn’t live anywhere else.
He shrugged his shoulders and moved back inside, closing the door behind. He could hear the argument before he entered the kitchen.
“But you said it would only be for a few hours,” said Tia. “I told Jane she could come over at two! Her mother said it would be ok as well!”
Liz’s brow tightened and she flicked her shoulder length hair back. “Well nobody told me about that. Mum will have you back by noon. I’ll have a word with her to make sure, so your plans can stay just as they are. Ok?”
Tia frowned, folding her arms as the doorbell buzzed.
“I’ll get it,” said Joe.
He opened the door to the rosy cheeks of Liz’s mother, Ella. Her face had the usual plastered smile, she would have when seeing him. It was the same twelve-years ago when Liz brought him home to her parents’s house in Kensington and it hadn’t changed since.
He produced a warmer expression in reply. “She’s ready.”
Ella nodded then looked back at her high-end sedan, the kind of vehicle that Joe wouldn’t buy even if he could afford it, although he had to admit it drove nice the few times he had been a passenger.
“No one’s going to steal it, Ella.”
“Oh, yes, I know. But I saw some people running, on the way out here. Seem to be more police in this area than usual…”
At any other time he would have been irritated by the small dig at where he lived, but this morning he just nodded. “Yeah…” He looked at the sky. “I have a feeling it’s going to be one of those da ys.” He backed up a little to let the five-foot-three bee walk past, with a little satchel over her shoulder.
“Oh! Look at you!” expelled Ella.
Tia’s reaction was something between a smile and a frown.
“My friends are going to love you! Don’t forget, if we sell more than twenty jars today, we’ll be able to go for ice-cream!”
Liz was right behind her daughter. “Not too much of that stuff, and she has to be back by noon, that ok?”
“Oh, yes yes. I’m sure that won’t be a problem.” Ella smiled a more honest grin then looked at Tia who still couldn’t properly manage her own happy response, but at least did not look as pissed as she had before. “Ahh, aren’t you a cute bee!”
They both moved down the path, while Liz and Joe waved, then got in the car and drove away.
Liz walked back to the kitchen, mentioning the housework she needed to get done but Joe paused at the doorway. Looking once more at the houses opposite and listening to the early morning din, then moved back inside and closed the door behind.
*****
As Liz pulled her underwear from the washing machine, placing it in a plastic basket, Joe walked slowly up behind her. She stood and he placed his arms around her shoulders causing her to smile, but she resisted turning around.
“I swear this thing eats my clothes.”
“Maybe it has a fetish.”
She giggled. “I need to get this out before they get back.”
“We got maybe two more hours. More than enough time…”
She turned slowly around to face him. “Well if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, then two-minutes would be more than enough time.”
He feigned an unhappy face and she giggled again putting the basket on the countertop, looking up at him. Closing her eyes, she leaned in for a kiss, then opened them again when she did not feel his lips on hers.
He was looking at something behind her. She slowly turned.
“Hey? What happened to…”
Through the glass of the kitchen window, at the very back of the garden something was shunting across the patchwork of dry dirt and beige stalks. Just in front of an array of yellow flowers, a creature of brown fur was limping. Joe walked into the living room, to the patio doors, squinting to better see, then slid the door open.
The smell of rot was just distinguishable within the warm, fragrant early morning air. “What the…”
“What is that?” said Liz, still in the kitchen.
“I don’t know. Some animal. Look’s injured.”
“Come back in. I’ll call the RSPA.”
He stepped out onto the paving slabs, grabbing a shovel that was up against the house wall and descended the stone steps onto the lawn. At this range he could better see the creature, but it still didn’t make any sense, for its ribs were exposed and its head hung low. A large gash on its back showed vertebrae. It was obviously seriously injured. Almost impossibly so, but he had seen animals in bad states on his tours in Afghanistan. He was going to have to put it out of its misery, there was no way it was going to be saved, and he couldn’t stomach animals suffering. He looked back at the kitchen. Liz was still watching the strange spectacle.
“I’ll take care of it,” he shouted, then turned back to the damaged feline and took a small step towards the deteriorating thing, that moved with the fluency of a malfunctioning toy. Ignoring the questions being raised at the back of his mind, he stepped closer to the—
“Fred?”
He whipped his head to the right. Mrs Fletcher was peering over the top of the fence, her eyes large and bloodshot. She appeared to be trembling. Her expression and the strange crawling mess just ten-feet from him, connected two, inexplicable ideas in his mind. ‘Fred’ was the neighbour’s cat which died of old age a few weeks earlier. He had seen the old woman bury it, solemnly between a small patch of flowers at the edge of her garden.
He looked back at the undead creature that somehow had propelled itself across two-thirds of the width of his garden.
“Fred?” the woman questioned again.
“It’s not Fred,” said Joe, looking at her. “Can’t be. He’s been buried for—”
Her expression changed to a smile. “Fred!”
He turned back to the creature, which was now facing the fence. The oddity of its sudden change of direction, only eclipsed by the fact that its head was lifted, and milky eyes were fixed on its former owner.
She lifted her arms. “Fred! You have come back…”
The creature walked towards her as if being puppeted by some unknown force. Joints cracked and muscles ripped as it increased its pace towards the four-foot high fence.
Joe watched, not understanding how this broken thing had found the strength to move at the speed it was. He looked at the neighbour. “Get back.” But the woman remained anchored to the spot, worse, her hands were—
The thing leaped and somewhere mid-air the woman’s expression changed from delight to horror, then screams as it landed and clamped its claws to her face, tearing chunks from her cheeks, slicing across her eyes, nose.
She fell back on the ground, her screams turning to gurgling as blood clotted in her throat.
Joe vaulted the fence, grabbing the manic creature, threw it to the ground, then slammed the edge of the shovel across its neck, shearing it in two, the head continuing to bite. As Liz climbed over the fence, attending to the neighbour, Joe brought the shovel down once more, crushing the thing’s skull.
CHAPTER TWO
“I can’t get through! The network’s jammed or something.” Liz kept shaking her head as she paced the dining room, stealing glances at the heavily bandaged elderly lady. Mrs Fletcher sat on a chair near the dining table. Towels that began as multicoloured, were now only one color, that of crimson, and were wrapped around her face, dampening the occasional anguished cries and muffled attempts to make sense of what had just happened.
Joe pulled his phone from his pocket, tapped the emergency code and was immediately met with a ‘network busy’ message appearing on the screen. He looked at his wife. “Something’s going on. I’ll drive her to the—”
A shrill scream pierced the confusion. It was different to what he had heard earlier, an incident he he had almost entirely forgotten. This was the sound of desperation.
He and Liz looked through the patio doors to the back garden, which he took a step closer to.
“Help me!”
The young woman’s voice echoed from beyond the rear of the property. Behind the bushes and the shed, where an alley ran along the back of the gardens, making up the block.
He looked at his wife again, she shaking her head in confusion as to what could be happening, just beyond their view.
“Please! Someone!”
The rear wooden gate, the access point to the alley, rattled as something crashed into it.
Joe pulled open the patio doors running outside. “Close it behind me!”
“Be careful!” said his wife, pulling the doors closed.
Joe located his shovel that was left on the lawn and walked to the end of the garden. “Anyone there?”
He was sure he could hear heavy breathing.
Drawing the latch across, he slowly pulled open—
The wooden gate slammed into him, knocking him backwards as a blur of limbs moved into his view. A young woman, eighteen perhaps, quickly pivoted and pushed the gate closed, sliding the latch across to lock it. As he noticed the blood streaming down the teen’s arm, a yell rang out. He scrambled to his feet as Liz came running out of the patio doorway. Whipping his head between the intruder and his wife, he waved for her to go back. “I got this!”
Liz hesitated at the top of the stone steps.
He whirled back to the young woman. “Were you attacked?”
She held her left forearm with her right hand and nodded. “Yes,” she said with a strong Eastern European accent. She gestured towards the alley. “Man. Attack me!”
A number of options ran through Joe’s mind. Check the woman’s injury. Run back to Liz. Run to the shed where he kept his ‘special chest.’ But instead, an almost inaudible noise from beyond the gate made him do neither. More out of curiosity than anything else, he moved towards it.
