WWZ fanfic: Operation DRYPOOL and the fall of Britain

[James G]

This story is fanfiction from the world created in Max Brooks’ tale World War Z.

There is an interview with (the fictional) General d’Ambrosia early in the book where he mentions that the United States sent what are called Alpha Teams on a global battle long before the Great Panic to eliminate outbreaks of zombies.

When I read that, years ago, I thought ‘Britain will be doing that too!’. Britain gets a poor treatment in the novel but is at least mentioned. As this is fanfiction, I will try to stick to the basics yet add my own spin on things.

From the mention of Alpha Teams, US Special Forces, so sprung the idea for my own Operation STONEFERRY.

That story can be found here: alternate-timelines.proboards.com/thread/2591/operation-stoneferry-world-war-fanfic  

In that first story of mine, I had Britain doing the same where it operated in Commonwealth nations across the globe to try and stop the Undead. There was success and also failure. I wrote a follow-up not long afterwards but I believe I have wiped all trace of that from the internet and we’ll pretend that that doesn’t exist.

This new story is called Operation DRYPOOL. You don’t need to read STONEFERRY first. However, it would probably help understand things better, especially when it comes to the references to shooting civilian bystanders being something done then but not now.

Part One of DRYPOOL is posted here. Part Two and so on will come at a later date.



Some things to consider/note:

In this world, while there is a pop culture thing of Zombies, it really isn’t a big deal as it is now. I believe that Brooks said that about his story and I will stick with it. I call them the Undead too on purpose.

The supposedly random codewords aren’t random: they relate to places near where I live and all with a water theme.

The Undead are slow and can be dealt with. It is people that are the problem.

[James G]

OPERATION DRYPOOL AND THE FALL OF BRITAIN


Introduction


Operation DRYPOOL was meant to keep Britain safe from the Undead. Failure came and led to over fifty-three million Britons losing their lives as a result.

DRYPOOL was envisaged as follow-on from STONEFERRY. STONEFERRY had been authorised by the government of the day during the early part of Year Two of the undeclared war and had taken place overseas. Outbreaks of the Undead had been dealt with. Those human cannibals, who were deceased but up and walking, were exterminated where they were met. British special forces deployed to various locations around the word did what they were tasked to do but it cost them dearly. However, as the scale of multiple global outbreaks throughout the Third World took hold, things got more difficult. After the massacre in Kenya, there had been the bloodbath in Sierra Leone. At the Ministry of Defence, orders came for STONEFERRY to continue though at the same time regardless of losses, but there was the creation of DRYPOOL too. This second operation would see that Britain was defended on its borders from the Undead and, if necessary, should outbreaks spring up within the country, those would be put down as well. It was a damn good plan with a high chance of success. Then came politics.

Politics caused DRYPOOL to be shelved with plans meant to be destroyed and also curtailed STONEFERRY too. Media attention to the so-called ‘Zombies’ revealed the scale of the government’s cover up where they lied to the public. Economic collapse came as global trade took a major hit leading to a recession which showed all the signs of becoming a depression soon enough. British workers lost their jobs in their millions and the government fell. A new government was elected in November of Year Two. It was they who cancelled both military operations and decided to do things differently. Driven by ideology and self-interest, they had vastly different ideas as to how to combat this threat. However, despite all the talk of openness and honestly, the new government was even more secretive than the last. They did a very effective job of hiding from the public what was going on and perpetuated the lie that the Undead were no threat to Britain. When outbreaks reached Europe – which was never supposed to happen! –, the government panicked. They told more lies. They refused requests from their military chiefs to restart STONEFERRY and also bring ready DRYPOOL.

No, no, no: they wouldn’t do it.

They wouldn’t have British soldiers shooting innocent people who were unfortunate enough to have come into contact with those infected with a disease. As to those who were infected, then that was a different matter. But those who Solanum hadn’t touched? That wasn’t going to happen! The politicians created the disaster which was Operation BANKSIDE instead.

Then the Undead were inside Britain. They arrived in March of Year Three during the Spring thaw. DRYPOOL could have stopped the Undead in their miserable shuffling tracks there. It would have stopped them in Leicestershire, in Cornwall and in Kent too. But… the military response came too late because the politicians screwed up with their BANKSIDE foolishness.

Thus, while the Undead would try to eat their way through most of the British population, the majority of the lives lost would be because of the incompetence of national leadership.

[James G]

Part One


I


Four times the London Outbreak was deemed to be over. Even when it appeared that after that final declaration that the Undead had finally all been eliminated, that was still false. There had been those who had gotten away and were no longer in sight or sound. They would return and bring the Great Panic with them too.

The outbreak in Britain’s capital started with a ‘slow burner’ just as the Leicestershire Outbreak would occur a week later. A slow burner – a term borrowed from the Americans – was someone living and infected though without the clear signs of infection. Solanum took many forms. It was a disease not fully understood and one which continued to defy all logic. It would often hide itself, seemingly aware it was being sought and using whatever else it could find for camouflage. With those who were slow burners, medical professionals would fail to grasp what they were seeing. They hadn’t been informed of what Solanum was as they (like the public) were fed lies. Solanum could take its time when it wanted and entered people not in the usually identified means of bites and scratches either. At St. Thomas’ Hospital, right in the middle of London, there was an aid worker being treated in a specialist isolation ward. Patient Zero had been infected in West Africa during the refugee panics following outbreaks of the Undead. In Liberia, he had caught a particularly medically resistant strain of the Malaria. This strain had been long mutilated though by an outside force. Finally, the parasite which was Solanum broke free. It burst into life and did so by first causing death. The doctors at St. Thomas’ thought that they were on their way to saving their patient and were at a loss as to how he had suddenly died. Reports were written up and inquires started. That would begin with an autopsy. Patient Zero was on his way to that autopsy, being taken down a corridor inside the hospital, far away from the ward on which he had died, when thirty-six minutes after he had expired, he came back to life. That was how it looked to the porter pushing the trolley on which his body started to rise from: like he came alive.

So began the London Outbreak.

[James G]

II


The Undead would consume a human body in almost its entirety if the opportunity arose. Large bones would be picked clean though smaller ones consumed. Internal organs including the stomach and intensives were part of their food of choice. The consequences upon the bodies of the Undead, ranging from their mouth to their rectum, from doing this were quite something to behold when observed. To eat a whole fellow human was beyond the average member of the Undead unless given the time. They themselves would get distracted and chase other food while others would too come and interrupt their meal. The Undead didn’t jealously guard their kills here. They sought more food with their hunger seemingly never subsiding. Again, the consequences for their already clinically dead bodies in eating like they did, what they did was horrendous.

Not all victims were taken down by the Undead and consumed. Some were caught in their grasp with bites and scratches delivered, even pieces of flesh torn away before the victim could run. Solanum was transferred in these forms from the blood of the infected to the uninfected. It could travel in other forms too where blood released from the Undead, even saliva or other bodily fluids, entered the bloodstream or airways of the living. Organ donation, artificial insemination for the purposes of sexual reproduction and even the act of sexual contact were other means which Solanum could and did spread: this was all very rare though. The disease didn’t live in water nor food (live animals included) and neither was it airborne beyond blood or spittle in-flight. Bites and scratches were the main cause of the spread the infection. Those of the living who escaped the Undead carried in their blood the disease which would kill them and then see them transform into the Undead… to then infect more.

Once Solanum was in the blood, it would kill. With those deaths, as it was with how fast the dead would rise, this too varied in time but also method. Solanum was a killer of quite something when it wanted to. It could kill in minutes by either shutting down the heart or the lungs. In the brain, the infection was focused where it started a transformation there even before death to create the monster which was the Undead. Then, those vital internal organs were back working again… well, sort of anyway. It baffled scientists over and over again as the infection not just broke all the rules of nature but turned them on their head. It killed but then rose a human being with the single desire now being for that clinically dead person to consume human flesh and inners with total disregard for that body’s own safety.


At St. Thomas’ Hospital, the Undead numbered one at first, then two, then three and so on. Their numbers reached a dozen soon enough and topped out at sixty within a couple of hours. In some cases, they transformed from the living into the Undead within a few minutes yet in other cases it could take as long as an hour. Solanum killed at will, in its own time, but then brought forth a new form of life. Many of the Undead remained within the hospital grounds while others went far afield either when infected and remaining alive or walking when Undead. They killed those whom they didn’t infect and manage to escape by tearing them apart. It was a hospital where there were ill people but also staff and visitors. No one knew what was going on. Was it a terrorist attack? Was this mass hysteria? Where there a pack of maniac killers high on drugs loose? How could these people be stopped from doing what they were doing? Those questions were in the minds of those who were faced with the Undead as they overrun this busy hospital and started moving outwards from there. Police officers rushed towards the scene including armed officers too. Onlookers gathered to watch what was going on despite shouts from the police to move away: many of those onlookers had their camera-phones out as they became citizen journalists alongside the arriving professional media. Everyone wanted to know what was going on.

The outbreak could have been nipped in the bud right here or at least within a radius of a few miles. The Undead shuffled along, falling over themselves and were distracted by the numbers of living around. They weren’t going to go far with haste until they had the momentum to do so. They busied themselves where they were with the unimaginable consequences of that when it came to those whom they consumed: there was an administratively separate children’s hospital alongside St. Thomas’ through which some of their number entered to cause horror there. British soldiers who had faced the Undead before as well as other groups who’d been trained to under STONEFERRY and DRYPOOL without ever seeing action would have dealt with St. Thomas’ in the previous manner: the Undead would have been killed alongside everyone else. However, they weren’t here though. Across on the other side of the River Thames, the politicians and senior military officers found out what was really going on at that hospital soon enough. Stupid decisions were made, ones that at the time didn’t seem stupid to those involved. They did implement a military response but their primary concern was secrecy. It was believed that that secrecy would be maintained by moving fast and also telling lies to the public. They should have done things differently. DRYPOOL should have gone ‘live’ at that exact moment of realization that the Undead were here. It wasn’t.

The orders were for BANKSIDE to become active.

[James G]

III


Soldiers who had previously not been involved in combatting the Undead in the manner done abroad were brought onto the streets of London. There were many garrisons in and around the capital. They weren’t called out for an anti-terrorism threat or a public order task because, despite upheavals with personnel, those at the Ministry of Defence wouldn’t abide by effective murder of their people nor see the country lost either. With utmost urgency, BANKSIDE came into effect. The now-active BANKSIDE differed from the aborted-DRYPOOL when it came to dealing with the living, not the Undead and those soon to join them.

The Undead were to be shot on-sight and those infected people were to be taken away to be humanely killed where their brain would be destroyed to ensure they didn’t join them. Where there was a suspicion when it came to others that they might have been infected, things wouldn’t be done as they had been overseas with STONEFERRY. Instead, they were to be detained and screened by medics covered by soldiers. Soldiers on the BANKSIDE mission had seen the news reports in recent years and read the leaflets given out nationwide which contained the lies about the Undead. In recent months, they had been given more information as well as told their duty should they ever be sent against them in the unlikely event that the Undead were encountered on British soil. What they were told alongside their BANKSIDE training was that securing the area around outbreaks to stop possibly infected people fleeing was their primary focus with then rescue of civilians caught inside secondary. That made sense. What they weren’t told about was the experience from others before them of how difficult it was to screen civilians for infection.

This is why Britain was soon to be doomed. BANKSIDE, stuck to when it was clear that DRYPOOL was the only unfortunate solution, wasn’t how to properly deal with the consequences of the infection spreading.


Parts of St. Thomas’ Hospital were on fire from within. Groups of civilians were doing all that they could to save themselves and the helpless inside the complex of buildings from the Undead and that included making the use of fire. Fire could stop the Undead but it wasn’t something that should be unleashed without thought because it would kill far more innocents. Firefighters were at the hospital grounds alongside armed police officers – who had already shot several of the Undead; they’d hit their torso and limbs before finally making headshots – when the soldiers arrived.

Grenadier Guardsmen and soldiers from the Royal Irish Regiment too converged upon St. Thomas’. In full protective gear – modified Biohazard suits reinforced with supposedly bite-proof lining in key places –, trucks deposited the armed men in the area around the hospital. They were on Lambeth Palace Road mainly (between the hospital and the river) yet also spread elsewhere into the gardens around Lambeth Palace, into the grounds of Waterloo Station and also onto Westminster Bridge. Traffic was stopped and evacuations took place of people from multiple areas. The soldiers did their best to follow their orders when checking civilians for signs that they might have come into contact with the Undead. The obvious cases were dealt with first with such people fast detained. A couple of the infected were shot after they died and then transformed into the Undead. There were so many people about though. It was the middle of the day and civilians everywhere. Reports came that the Undead were here, there and everywhere. The soldiers responded to those, finding that most were false brought on by hysteria but thus leading to great distraction. They had checkpoints set up yet there were gaps in between these.

More than that though, while none of the Undead had wandered far away from St. Thomas’ before either the armed police nor the soldiers had, civilians already infected had fled in every direction. Some of them had got onto the train tracks stretching away from Waterloo Station – causing utter chaos there – and others had gone either northwards towards County Hall or south to Lambeth Palace. A few of those infected hadn’t been spotted leaving the area which a cordon was being thrown around.

[James G]

IV


There were nearly one hundred and fifty soldiers assigned to the two rifle companies which were dispatched to deal with the Undead at St. Thomas’ Hospital. Almost twice as many more British Army personnel were there with them and while all carrying weapons too, they were there in a support role. Lt.-Colonel Daniels was among the latter and the on-scene commander. Assigned to BANKSIDE from the day of the creation of this planning, he had knowledge of what STONEFERRY and DRYPOOL had done and planned to do with those infected by Solanum. His orders weren’t to shoot such people but to secure them… maybe someone else, somewhere else might do so, but his men were only to kill the Undead. The Royal Irish Regiment men who’d come up from Woolwich Barracks in South-East London would contain those clearly infected and search for others who had left the area, working alongside the Met. Police in doing so. As to those soldiers from Wellington Barracks, the Grenadier Guardsmen were sent into the hospital by Daniels. They’d practiced this. Broken down into fire teams below company, platoon & section level into these small groups, the soldiers started their sweep of the hospital.

They came into contact with the Undead.

Shots were fired. Headshots were made with a good performance put in by the Grenadier Guards. They faced scenes of quite the unimaginable horror but kept on moving. They rescued civilians and eliminated those trying to kill them. Controlled bursts of fire were used as these men kept their order and moved room-by-room, floor-by-floor. It worked a treat, all their training paid off. The Undead didn’t defend themselves, walked into gunfire and lost quite the unequal fight.

This all took time though. Daniels made sure that the officer commanding those Guardsmen, Major Roberts – one of the few STONEFERRY veterans –, didn’t rush this. The hospital grounds were extensive with many multi-story buildings. He wanted this done properly and done well. While the process was ongoing though, the Undead were still roaming through the grounds. Daniels had operational control over the armed police detachments and also had a section of snipers too: men from the Special Air Service. They took shots against a few wandering Undead though also saw inside windows. Out of some of those, civilians leapt to the ground: through the glass of others there were faces of death and a lot of blood.


Doctors, nurses, hospital staff, patients and visitors came out of the hospital. Some of them had been directly rescued by the soldiers who had gone in shooting while others had been hiding and now took the chance to run. These people fled in fear of their lives. They knew what would happen to them if the Undead got to them. Now was the time to get out of here!

The second company of soldiers, those men under the command of Major Fitzpatrick, did their very best to control these people. They were aided by those police in spotting them and making sure that they were all brought where they were supposed to be. Inside tents which had been erected in the hospital car-park, medics took over where the soldiers left off once the people had been guided there. Examinations commenced. There were some people who had sustained injuries in surviving, most people were clear of injury or infection but there were a few who weren’t. They had been bitten or had other visible close contact with the Undead. Asked about this, most relayed their tales of what had happened to them; others were silent though, still in shock at all that they had seen. Then there were those who lied. They feared to tell the truth and so did their very best in an effort to hide what had occurred. BANKSIDE had detailed measures to be enacted to screen evacuees. However, there were cracks in the system. It was human beings they were dealing with.

Both those identified as being infected with Solanum and those deemed clear were put into quarantine. There were different types of quarantine for each; the more secure was naturally for those infected. Transport was coming to take these elsewhere and Daniels – who didn’t have to be a genius to understand their eventual fate – was concerned over them while they remained here. His mind should have been on those supposedly uninfected though, the ones which had managed to tell successful lies and weren’t yet showing any signs of infection.

[James G]

V


Forcing open a closed door, one of the fire teams of Grenadier Guards inside St. Thomas’ Hospital inadvertently let loose a group of the Undead. There were four of them who all seemingly rushed forward. This wasn’t the case though. In the ward behind them, civilians had pushed them against the door and held them in-place using a bed-trolley in quite the act of bravery by three patients who saved the lives of a dozen more. When the door was opened from the outside, they surged forward as the pressure was released…

…into those soldiers now ahead of them.

The ‘bite-proof’ protective gear that the soldiers were wearing had been something quite contentious since it was introduced. Rushed into service in what could best be described as a no bid contract, causing quite the stir within the MOD with the suspicion that someone had made a boatload of money, the Grenadier Guardsmen didn’t like their modified NBC suits. They were uncomfortable in them and had no faith in the ability to protect them. The material looked cheap and so did the stitching. Bits had fallen off their suits at time – the elbow and knee pads – while the helmet and scarf fitting designed to protect the head was restrictive when it came to moving about in them.

The Undead fell upon the soldiers. There was an urgent struggle. Tangled soldiers and tangled Undead were on the floor. Arms and legs were everywhere while several rifles had fallen to the side. The Undead bit those on the floor where they could, facing punched and kicks while doing so. One of the soldiers had his rifle still and was out of the sudden melee but held his fire. His buddies were there and wouldn’t get out of that way.

Shouts, screams and cried echoed down the hallway. Then there was gunfire. Another man got his rifle too, after the first shots, and squeezed the trigger several times. Bullets went everywhere. Some were well-aimed, others not so much. There were ricochets and bullets which went through walls.

All four of the Undead were put down. They’d bitten three soldiers before their final end.


Major Roberts and then Lt.-Colonel Daniels were quickly informed of the incident where the Undead had attacked their men. They were told that one of the soldiers had bled out and died there on the floor, moments after being savaged by one of the Undead. His helmet had been ripped off: half of his face was gone while his neck had been torn open. Extra men were dispatched to the scene and when they arrived they set about evacuating the two wounded men as well as those civilians caught in that ward. The bodies of the Undead there were given another coup de grace on Roberts’ command – he’d ordered that done last year when in Oman – but there remained the issue of the dead British soldier.

Guardsman Philips was a comrade-in-arms of those men up there. Roberts ordered them to give him a shot to the head as well. A sergeant took responsibility and did it.

There were those two others, both who had been bitten but remained alive. They knew their fate. One refused to accept it as screamed that he was okay, that he wasn’t infected. The other quietly urged his fellow soldiers to shoot him now before he ‘turned into one of those ghouls’.

Both men were taken to a secure point within the hospital grounds for others who had wounds too which had come from physical contact with the Undead. Within hours, the two soldiers would be killed though in rather more humane circumstances than Guardsman Philips.

[James G]

VI


The soldiers from the Grenadier Guards and the Royal Irish Rangers who had come to St. Thomas’ Hospital were busy but effective. They’d trained for this. BANKSIDE had many weaknesses which DRYPOOL didn’t have yet doing as they did, the soldiers engaged the Undead as they were meant to and saved hundreds of lives. They came across some terrible sights indeed and faced those losses of their own. But they carried on. More of the Undead were met and put down. Civilians were pulled out of danger and then pushed through the screening process set up to separate those who had been infected with Solanum away from those who were not.

There weren’t enough soldiers though. Moreover, they might have got to the scene of the outbreak fast, but that hadn’t been fast enough. A few wandering Undead didn’t get very far when leaving the hospital grounds as they were shot down by armed police joining with soldiers but the cordon set up wasn’t secure. It was breached by those who would soon be the Undead but had yet to ‘turn’.

They walked or ran away. Some of them understood what was going to happen to them but most didn’t. They sought safety, away from what they had seen and been subject to back at St. Thomas’. None of them were out to cause what came next.


A man got away from some maniac who had bit him on the arm in the A&E Department. Liam pushed his attacker away and left during the panic and chaos of people fleeing like him. Getting far away was his only intention and he went to Westminster Bridge, over that and headed up the Victoria Embankment going northwards. Solanum streamed through his blood. He collapsed and died when it shut down his heart. People, unaware of what was happening across the Thames where all the sirens were, came to his aid. A heart attack it looked like, the bite mark on his arm underneath his jacket and shirt was not seen. An ambulance was called for by several people using their phones. Before it arrived, Liam suddenly sat up despite everyone being sure he was dead. Well… he was. Now he was one of the Undead. He sunk his teeth into an off-duty nurse.

With St. Thomas’ being beside the river, the Thames offered a means of escape for another man. One of the Undead had come after Mark and he escaped by getting to some steps that led to the water. Going into the Thames, when the trainee doctor got there, was something he decided wouldn’t be the best move once he saw the river up close though. The water was cold and the currents strong. Mark decided to fight. The intention was to push his attacker into the water. In the struggle between them, where they were both balanced precariously beside the water, Mark was bitten on the throat. He bashed open his attacker’s head to kill him but his own injury would kill him too. With his arms around his killer, they both fell into the water. The two of them were now in the Thames. That river would take each far away from St. Thomas’.

A woman visiting her ill mother was scratched on the hand without being fully aware of that injury at the time during her escape from the hospital. She caught a black taxi out on Lambeth Palace Road and Sarah directed the driver to take her home down to Streatham in South London. The driver asked her what had happened, why was the road closed up ahead? She told him there was a riot. Sarah’s focus was on her phone as she sat in the back of the vehicle as she messaged her sister and her niece too to have either of them find out what was going on and whether their mother/grandmother was okay. The taxi driver would drop her at her home and then head back into the city. She had caused him no concern and tipped him well. He had no idea that when she got home, Sarah went to bed after suddenly feeling rather unwell.

There was another woman too, this time a nurse. Bitten on her lower back, Michelle understood what would happen to her. She had no idea when it would happen yet realised that she would die and then become one of the Undead. That wouldn’t happen before she got to see her children one last time, Michelle told herself, not before she would say goodbye to them. Making it to Waterloo Station moments before it was shut, her intention was to get a train. There were going to be no trains arriving nor leaving. The police were evacuating the station and Michelle saw that there were a few soldiers there who were questioning people as to whether they had been bitten. There was no intention in her to be taken outside and shot… her imagination was running away with her on that fact but if DRYPOOL procedures had been being followed, that would have been the case. She decided to hide. Michelle got into the women’s toilets and into a cubicle. It was only when in there did she start to feel rather unwell. Her breathing slowed considerably. Michelle fainted.


They’d call it the ‘London Strain’ later.

Solanum had many forms and had arrived in London among one of those slow-burners. The infection took seemingly forever to kill the first patient but within him, once he became the first of the Undead inside the UK, it transformed into a fast killer. There would still be wide variations and the London Strain would mutate as it went along, slowing down in fact, but for now it was taking lives rather quickly and also seeing the Undead rise up quickly.

Away from St. Thomas’, the London Outbreak was spreading unawares to those who believed they were nipping it in the bud with haste.

[James G]

VII


Both quarantine zones set up within the hospital car park were the responsibility of Major Fitzpatrick using one of his rifle platoons there as security (the other two establishing that cordon) and an attached specialist medical team. As per BANKSIDE instructions, everyone from inside the hospital pulled out of there was to be kept within them. No one was going anywhere, even those clearly unharmed. He was thankful that his Royal Irish Regiment soldiers weren’t roped into many of the first aid duties that they could have been with the large numbers of people present. Hospital staff – still not wholly sure of what was going on due to the panic and all of the rumours running rife – were treating people too. The soldiers could stand guard.

They were also called upon to shoot dead two of the Undead as well: one who emerged out of a ‘cleared’ area and the second who died while being treated and then came back to life.

Zone #1 was for those infected. They had bites and scratches spotted or had come into contact with the bodily fluids (blood mainly) of the Undead. Many of them were seriously wounded and were receiving medical attention. Others showed no serious sign of their ultimate fate at first. The situation in Zone #1 got out of hand. Faster than believed, those who were going to die from their wounds did so and began to turn into the Undead. Moreover, those who had seemed okay despite the knowledge that they were infected started to have trouble breathing or had chest problems related to their hearts. The military medics started to withdraw. Some civilian doctors and nurses did so too but others wouldn’t.

These people needed them!

There were children here along with the old and the infirm!

Fitzpatrick ordered the pullout though. His men were instructed to start shooting. Just kill the Undead, they were ordered, and not those only infected. This was impossible to do. Those inside Zone #1 wanted to leave. Attempts to escape had been made by several before the shooting started but now that only intensified. Everyone wanted to leave less they be devoured or shot. They rushed the soldiers, some grabbing makeshift weapons. BANKSIDE orders called for a calm and orderly manner to be maintained. That was now impossible. The platoon lieutenant froze, unable to see civilians mowed down by his men. His sergeant had to take over and ordered the soldiers to start firing. They couldn’t save those inside, just themselves.

“Them or us”, he bellowed at his men, “them or us”.

The firing gained in intensity and close to a hundred people were shot. Two of the men told their sergeant that he’d be court-martialed and probably shot himself for this. They were wrong but at the time it did seem that they were right. When the shooting stopped, the junior officer composed himself somewhat and had his men detain their sergeant on the charge of murder.

In front of them was a heap of bodies strewn a collection of tents ripped apart by gunfire.


In Zone #2, where Fitzpatrick was at the time, the gunfire was heard. This was nothing like the shots still coming from inside the hospital. Light machine guns – the LSW version of the SA-80 – made a whole different sound that that of assault rifles firing three-round bursts. He rushed over to where the slaughter had just taken place to try to restore order. There was a distraction there with discipline and then a couple of the Undead – complete with bullet holes – crawled out of the pile of bodies.

A dozen soldiers were at Zone #2. All wanted to know what had gone on, including their NCO. The corporal remembered his training and told the men to focus on their mission. The steadiness of his voice from a man who’d been under enemy fire before and could still sound perfectly calm kept almost all of the men in-line. They did their job and made sure that none of those held in the quarantine zone were going anywhere until each had been physically checked over by a military doctor: quite the invasive examination was coming their way. They were lucky though. During STONEFERRY missions overseas, and if this had been a DRYPOOL task not a BANKSIDE one, they all would have been shot by now.

One of the young soldiers looked away though. He was trying to find out what was going on. Among those many civilians inside Zone #2 – a fancy name for some tents and barbed wire – a couple of the detainees noticed his distraction. There was an opportunity that they took but one which others around them saw yet didn’t dare to. Three men and two women slipped away. One of them, a petty criminal in police custody who’d been taken to the hospital after being arrested but was no longer with that pair of (dead) police officers, had been bitten while in the Accident & Emergency Department. It was a small bite on Colin’s inner thigh and it hadn’t bled much at all. Asked about it, he feigned ignorance and it was assumed by the foolish medic who looked at it that the blood was someone else’s and the wound was the cut Colin said he was here to have treated before all of the pandemonium. How stupid do you have to be!? Colin knew he was bitten but didn’t understand the consequences. Troubles overseas with maddened cannibals who had rabies… what did that have to do with him?

Of the five, four of them were caught in the cordon. The bitten Colin wasn’t and made an escape. The infection would soon catch up with him.

There were others within Zone #2 who likewise were carrying Solanum. Small wounds or the inadvertent transfer of blood to them which came during attacks of the Undead were hidden by them or not even properly realised. They waited inside the quarantine area. They were angry and scared but stayed where they were. Yet, several of them were getting unwell rather quickly.

[James G]

VIII


St. Thomas’ Hospital wasn’t just one building. It was several buildings spread over a large site. The Grenadier Guardsmen went into those building leaving the men of the Royal Irish Regiment outside along with civilian policemen now being joined by a platoon of BANKSIDE-trained military policemen as well. Communications with the men involved in the operation were excellent and Lt.–Colonel Daniels was pleased with how things had been going. Then came the twin blows of three of his men attacked by the Undead and then the gunfire at one of the quarantine zones outside. He was dealing with his superiors at the time the news came to him – dealing with their barrage of questions – and he ended up moving from the first issue to the second with undue haste. He lost his cool and came close to losing his perspective. It was a personal failing for him: he wasn’t pleased with himself.

He had to get back on top of things though. A lot of lives were at stake, more than just those here.

Daniels kept in contact with Major Roberts as it was his men inside the hospital buildings though focused mainly on Major Fitzpatrick. It was men under the latter’s command who had started shooting wildly, had a discipline problem and also had had some of the people at Zone #2 temporarily escape from detention. He discovered that there was one person missing, a man named Colin Smith. Fitzpatrick acted quickly in response and had a search commence at once as well as broadcasting the alert among all those involved around St. Thomas’. The missing man wasn’t found though.

Still outside Zone #2, Daniels and Fitzpatrick were there when word came out that inside there, one of those supposedly uninfected had died of heart failure and a bite mark had only then been found. It was a child, a young girl on her own aged somewhere between eight and ten. Quickly she was removed from there. What was going to happen to her body was going to upset many people. Neither British Army officer wanted to see another panic follow that.

The girl was taken away to be shot in the head before she could become one of the Undead.


There were other children caught up in all of this. They had been encountered dead, injured and also as the Undead. There were some of those inside the main hospital, the grounds and then too the attached children’s hospital too. Last year, during STONEFERRY missions, British special forces had shot children dead overseas and they did so again today. Like before, there would be plenty of emotional trauma involved in all of that. Those others, those infected and those who had been torn apart by the Undead (thus not transforming like others from the living to the walking dead), also brought about upset to those who came across them. The soldiers involving in the clearing & rescue operations discovered many of them. It was clear that while many adults had gotten away, children hadn’t been so fortunate.

There were stories of cowardice and selfishness to tell but which would never be heard.

As they did with adults, those soldiers pulled out those living children they found alive and killed those who had become the Undead. Even if they were unable to move, to wander about and attack, they were to be shot. The Undead were to be killed like they had been killed before elsewhere and that was done despite the horror of having to do it.

Destroying the brain was how the Undead were killed, the only way that they could be. With Solanum in the brain, the dead came back to life – sort of – and set out to kill. The one and only desire of the Undead with an intact brain was to attack the living and try to devour them. There was no inkling personal safety, no memory of life before and no aim to do anything else. The brain kept functioning even with other organs destroyed or missing. Blunt force trauma, fire or a bullet would do it. The brain controlled the eyes, ears and the sense of smell which allowed the Undead to locate those they attacked. It controlled arms for grabbing, legs for movement and the mouth for chewing. It retained the function to allow for the body to digest flesh consumed too.

Without a functioning heart, lungs and so much more, the Undead shouldn’t be able to ‘live’ no matter what the brain did. For the opposite to be true, dumbfounded so many when told and left a sense of disbelief in what they were told. British people who heard these rumours alongside the supposed truth about ‘African Rabies’, refused to believe it.

It had to be a trick, it had to be a lie.

Well it wasn’t.

Regardless of the wild stories told, the government’s lies were believed. Moreover, there was that wonder-drug Phalanx too, wasn’t there? Any that protected against rabies, yes?

Bullets were used by the soldiers inside St. Thomas’ to destroy the brains of the Undead – adults and children – and that put an end to them. What was left behind, all around the eliminated Undead, were other bodies. Blood and gore was everywhere because the Undead had been feasting upon them. What had Phalanx done faced with that?

[James G]

IX


News reports concerning a ‘security incident’ at London’s St. Thomas’ Hospital appeared and then fast subsequently disappeared. Some Britons questioned their memory, even their sanity a bit, about this.

Did they really read that?

But there was quickly no trace online nor on the television or radio about something happening at one of the city’s most-important hospitals. Using pre-existing emergency powers legislation, under the Civil Contingencies Act designed for the fight against terrorism, the government erased news of what was happening. This came from a government which had won an election on the back of the outrage it promoted when in opposition at government lies, disinformation and not telling the truth to the British public. Official bodies – government departments and independent agencies – worked with haste to do this.

Nothing is happening, carry on with your lives, please.

Something was going on though. The soldiers dispatched to that hospital opposite the Houses of Parliament were joined in getting movement orders like others within London and in its immediate environs. The codework BANKSIDE went out to barracks and communications posts. Another company of Grenadier Guardsmen also out of Wellington Barracks were quickly in Whitehall and also around a couple of the royal palaces. The police closed roads and the soldiers were kept back out of sight, but they were called out ready to deal with the Undead if necessary.

Necessary it became. That man who’d got away from the hospital after being bitten, made it across the river to the Embankment and then turned into one of the Undead, was the cause of this. He attacked a total of nine people. Liam bit that off-duty nurse first, then spectators before attacking policemen including those guarding the Ministry of Defence plus the front of the Met. Police headquarters at New Scotland Yard. There was quite the scene of shouting, screams and blood.

Then his head exploded in a wave of gunfire which also caught two of his victims too in that fusillade. Soldiers rushed forward, sorting casualties as they did so. Police officers and a responding ambulance crew were kept back. Those lying dying on the ground from horrific wounds inflicted by an accountant who’d gone to the hospital and then just got out of there alive were killed on London’s streets. The Grenadier Guardsmen shot them despite pleas from help and mercy. Those who’d long ago taken part in STONEFERRY missions and those who too had drawn up DRYPOOL procedures wouldn’t have been impressed by what happened next though. As seen over at the hospital, there were those who Liam had attacked who got away unnoticed. A proper cordon wasn’t thrown up and through the gaps out when those carrying Solanum in their blood.


Neither the gunshots on the Embankment nor those over at St. Thomas’ were heard by government ministers and officials. They weren’t that far away in a physical sense but they might as well have been a few hundred miles off when it came down to it. Inside buildings on Whitehall and especially below them, security measures were enacted. The lock-down was effective and sealed them off from what was going on elsewhere. Meetings were had in person and by tele-conference. The prime minister and much of his Cabinet spoke with each other and officials from the fields of intelligence, security, the military and the civilian emergency services. BANKSIDE operations were underway and this was how things were meant to be done.

Elected politicians made the decisions now, not generals whom they believed had beforehand gotten out of control in quite the bloodlust.

Shutting down news of the first stage of the London Outbreak – which they believed at the time to be the only stage – was done first and then came the deployment of soldiers for security tasks on the city’s streets.

It was in that order things were done.

[James G]

X


The current government had been a disunited opposition when during the first two years of the global conflict ultimately known as World War Z. Upon taking office, following the utter collapse of the then sitting government, the new administration wasn’t ready. It proclaimed that it was yet that was all a façade. Division over so many matters was present and bubbling below the surface during the general election. Once the unexpected victory came – and it was unexpected to them – that all came back with a vengeance. They inherited a financial mess of unimaginable proportions as worldwide trade collapsed yet also they discovered the secrets of Operation STONEFERRY along with other hidden aspects of the ongoing fight overseas against the rising spread of the Undead. The new prime minister had the full support of his Cabinet in cleaning house at the MOD by forcibly retiring generals and admirals from there, calling them in private (though fast leaked to the media) ‘cold blooded, callous murderers’. Number two in the government, and to many the power behind the throne, was the chancellor of the exchequer. He was busy implementing his drastic economic ideas to ‘save’ the country but also retained his well-known venom for ideological opponents. The Americans were at the top of that list but right behind them was Israel. When that Middle Eastern nation declared an emergency and a national quarantine, it publicly called for Jews around the world to come to Israel where they would be safe. Over a hundred and forty thousand British Jews would answer that call, to the fury of the new chancellor. He called them traitors and cowards. However, he didn’t have any names to call the almost ten thousand Palestinians – half of the portion of the international diaspora which was in Britain; Muslims and Christians alike – who also left the UK to go to Israel as well. That decision from those whom he believed shared his views on the hatred of Israel to go there was something he remained unable to get his head around.

The prime minister, the chancellor, most of the senior Cabinet members, government officials and top-level military officers were part of the lock-down across Whitehall when the first reports came from St. Thomas’ Hospital just across the river. At the MOD, the Cabinet Office and also below Downing Street, they gathered behind tight security to be brought up to speed with regards to what was going on. The home secretary had already worked with defence secretary to give the green light to Military Aid to the Civil Power which saw troops in action on London’s streets with utmost haste. That initial cooperation between the two of them quickly soured, as it always did. The pantomime between them, which amused and also enraged colleagues with equal measure, came back. These two were long-time political rivals with a personal animosity between them two. They argued over who was in charge of this first Operation BANKSIDE mission.

Nudged by the chancellor, the prime minister told them that it was he who was in charge, not either of them.

From the COBRA facility – Britain’s somewhat answer to Washington’s Situation Room – the government’s decision-makers involved themselves in what was going on as was their right to do so. They micro-managed events which, again, was their prerogative too. Was that a good idea? Nope, it wasn’t. They badgered those involved for information and issued instructions which changed dramatically as the afternoon went on. They wanted to know how the outbreak had started – exactly – and who was to blame. They demanded numbers on casualties. Progress reports of the troops involved, covering the smallest details such as floor-by-floor progress inside St. Thomas’, were called for. They changed the orders for those soldiers there and also outside, going against the ‘advice’ of officials and generals. When news came which they didn’t like, there was outrage. When they heard something they deemed positive, they all clamored to take credit. It was quite insane. Against the wishes of the chief of the defence staff and the director special forces too – both men new in their jobs after the firing of their predecessors – contact was established direct with the operational commander on the ground at St. Thomas’. Lt.–Colonel Daniels soon found himself on the line with the Cabinet.

Everything about what his men were doing they wanted to know. Which main buildings were clear and which smaller ones? Had the basements and sub-basements been cleared? How big exactly was exclusion zone? What casualties had been taken among civilians? How many of the Undead were there? Where were evacuees being taken? On and on it went. New instructions came to Daniels and he had to follow them. He was admonished by both the chancellor and the defence secretary for his ‘tardiness’ with the Cabinet when it came to his answers and the gaps between them too. Operation requirements kept him busy? Too busy to talk to them?

Daniels tried his best. He gave them all the information they demanded. They weren’t happy though. They baulked at the casualty numbers he delivered – counted and anticipated – and also the news that there were children among them: children who had become the Undead and thus had been shot by his soldiers. The chancellor announced to the Cabinet over the open radio link with Daniels that this was STONEFERRY all over again! He openly pondered too over whether Daniels was the ‘right man’ for this BANKSIDE task when he had experience of STONEFERRY operations and also had the hint of the hated DRYPOOL plan about it. The operational commander on the ground heard all of this. He was sure that there was a deliberate non-muting of the connection: they wanted him to hear this.

It was the defence secretary who ordered the shooting – extermination more like – of those being held in quarantine in the hospital grounds in Zone #1, those clearly infected with Solanum but not yet Undead. The sudden ‘turning’ of a few in there brought panic back in the safety of COBRA (buried below ground) and with the nodding consent of the prime minister and chancellor, but with the home secretary arguing against it, that shooting was done.

Moreover, within the hour, when there were some detainees in Zone #2 who unexpected too died and then came back to life, it was once again from the Cabinet that the orders came. The same was done to those held there in a non-discriminatory fashion. While BANKSIDE was officially in effect, it was DRYPOOL in all but name at St. Thomas’…

…with those politicians ordering it to happen despite everything to the contrary they had said in the past.

[James G]

XI


Lt.-Colonel Daniels hadn’t wanted to have the Royal Irish Regiment soldiers kill those in Zone #2 like they had in Zone #1. Much of the hospital was cleared of the Undead with hundreds of lives saved among those un-attacked and trapped within there. Outside in the quarantine zones where evacuees had been pushed into, sorted into one or the other, he held out hope that there would be no need to. Those people saved could have left St. Thomas’ Hospital with their lives. An invasive and time-consuming medical examination awaited them, but he was prepared to see that done. BANKSIDE-trained doctors and medics – all military personnel – were here alongside the soldiers with guns ready to physically examine those pulled from the certain death if the Undead had got to them as well as run blood tests on them. He personally favoured this over the shooting of people on just the suspicion that they might have been infected with Solanum. He’d been informed that ‘other option’ had been taken with the UK Special Forces teams sent all over the Third World last year. He’d never agreed with it. This was a chance to do something different. His superiors knew this and hence why he had been promoted and then assigned to this post.

The orders came though. Kill those whom you have saved, he was told to do, and do it now. Daniels did as he had been ordered.

There were several of those infected who had become the Undead and got into Zone #2 to start attacking civilians as well as his people in there. Only a few of them were there at the moment but seemingly every second that went by, as was the way with the Undead, their numbers increased. The indiscriminate shooting started. Heads shots were made with expanding ammunition – dum-dum rounds – from British soldiers firing on British civilians who pleaded for their lives, screamed in fear and tried to run. Covered head-to-toe in their Biohazard suits, looking inhuman to many, these men did what Daniels did and obeyed orders as they killed.

Not everyone had reached Zone #2. There were those held back from entering that holding area itself who weren’t caught up in the killing. There were about three hundred of them who were held back out of the way while another one hundred and nineteen (including some of Daniels people unfortunately caught up in this) people were shot. There were on the ground allegations made once again that this was murder, pure and simple.


From COBRA, the Cabinet did what they did in issuing those instructions because they were told first about the incident with that unfortunate man Liam who’d run from the hospital to get as far as Victoria Embankment before becoming one of the Undead and then the follow-up from that. Grenadier Guardsmen coming from the MOD grounds had shot him and taken away three other civilians to do the same to them out of public view but another pair of those infected had gotten away. The two of them stuck together – they were a couple of young lovers – and made it up to the Charing Cross area before they died and then ‘came back to life’. Like with Liam, this was very fast, quicker than all official expectations. The London Strain was quite something.

Attacks were made against passers-by. Others ran away in every direction, some knowing what was going on but most seeing others run and doing the same with the view that it was better to be safe than sorry. Maybe it was terrorism which they ran from but there was that issue with the Undead – all supposedly overseas, far from Britain – in the back of their minds. It was the Met. Police who intervened. A warning had been sent out for London’s police force to implement measures to protect the public and this they did. The two Undead were near the major train station which was Charing Cross. There were two London Underground stations plus also such parts of the city as Trafalgar Square also nearby.

The transport interchanges were shut down as shutters were rolled closed: those outside were left outside, those inside weren’t allowed out. Unarmed policemen rushed towards the screams but hot on their heels were armed units who had already heard about St. Thomas’. Shots were fired. Both of the Undead were hit multiple times and put down for good: they were slow and careless, thus easy targets for well-trained shooters. There were injured civilians who’d been bitten who were quickly secured and the police proved very effective here in keeping them under control. Soldiers were dispatched and allowed into a quickly-established exclusion zone around Charing Cross. London Ambulance Service teams were kept out.

The police had done their job, doing it well, but now the military were involved. There would be more targeted shooting where those who’d survived murderous cannibals were killed by British soldiers on London’s streets. This would include a couple of those first-responding police officers – armed with batons and CS spray – as well.

[lordroel]

First, great TL James G.

Second i made a banner, if you approve and allow i will post it on the Twitter account.

[James G]

May 27, 2019 14:37:44 GMT lordroel said:

First, great TL James G .

Second i made a banner, if you approve and allow i will post it on the Twitter account.

That's EPIC!
Yep, go ahead. More of Part One coming.
The Undead continue.