The Z Infection Read Online Free PDF Page A

the number of people swelled,
they were unable to get through or over the exits quickly enough and people
started to get crushed against them.  Some fell and were trampled without care. 
Some who tried to stop to help a friend, were pushed aside.  Fights broke out
between men and some women.  And at the back of it all I could make out was a
few shambling individuals, lashing out, grabbing at people, falling on the ones
who had been knocked over.  Biting them.  Yes, they were biting them.  It was
horrible.
           I knew I couldn’t stay there.  I didn’t know
what was going on, but I knew I had to get out.  The mass of those trying to
escape was increasing by the second.  I turned and ran.  I made it out into the
street and ran to Leicester Square.  Behind me the rest of the terrified crowd
spilled onto the street, colliding with pedestrians and cars as they ran for
their lives.  I didn’t look back.  I couldn’t.  Something told me that if I
stayed there I would die and I wasn’t ready for that.  Not yet.  What I really
wanted now, more than anything, was a drink.
     
    Kim Taylor
    08:40 hours, Friday 15 th May, Piccadilly,
London
    When some people talk about that day,
they ask why it got so bad so quickly.  I don’t know.  I never had the answer. 
But when you look at all the other places that were affected, almost at the
same time, it doesn’t seem to be out of the ordinary.  New York City was
effectively shut down in twenty four hours.  Berlin was the same.  Washington
DC, Beijing, Sydney, Bangkok.  The list of large cities went on and on.  The
frightening thing was the lack of information from the government.  There was
almost nothing.  Just some rambling nonsense about staying indoors and not
approaching anyone who looked odd.  This was London in 2015 for Christ’s sake. 
There were a lot of odd people going about.
    I was only eighteen.  I was in London
for two days of flat hunting, with my best friend Ellie Jones.  She’s dead
now.  She was one of the ones who couldn’t take it anymore.  She decided enough
was enough and overdosed on pills she had looted from a shop just a few weeks
after it all kicked off.  What a blow that was.  Ellie was always the popular
one at school, with her long blond hair and gorgeous blue eyes.  All the boys
fancied her.  I’m sure some of the girls did too.  She was infectious and once
you had been in her company it was hard to imagine her not being around.  I was
genuinely shocked when we became friends, because I didn’t think we would hit
it off.  But we had and we had been best friends since we were thirteen.  Now
we were preparing for a new chapter in our lives, both of us having been
accepted to study in the capital.
    We were walking along by Piccadilly
when someone came up to us and told us to run.  We never paid much attention. 
There was usually some weirdo who wanted to chat us up, or least chat up Ellie. 
We just looked at each other and started laughing in that adolescent girl way. 
We weren’t really the streetwise kind.
    A few moments later someone crashed
right through the middle of us, knocking Ellie off her feet.  It was a man in
his thirties I think.  He didn’t stop, just kept running away down the street
towards Trafalgar Square.
    I held out my hand and pulled Ellie
up.  She winced as she put weight on her feet.
    ‘Ow, I think I sprained my ankle,’
she said.
    I didn’t have time to respond.  I was
suddenly aware of more people streaming down the street, pushing past us and
flooding into the surrounding areas.  Then I saw my first one.  A man of about
sixty, eyes completely unseeing, clutching and grabbing at people.  He caught a
youngish woman by her ponytail and pulled her back towards him.  He bit a chunk
out of her cheek and she fell screaming to the ground clutching her face.  He
was going for a second bite when he was hit from behind by a man with a
briefcase.  The woman crawled away as the