WWZ fanfic: Operation DRYPOOL and the fall of Britain

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

First, great TL James G.

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