WWZ fanfic: Operation DRYPOOL and the fall of Britain

You mean kill the people who are alive so you can wipe out the Undead.

Would those that are normals turn into Undead if they are killed other than being bitten by the Undead.

So people who are normal and die normal, stay death and not become Undead, thanks for the answer James G.

Thank you.
This is a British-focused story but I will move away elsewhere in the world at times to link it into the story. The Undead overrunning India and then the use of nuclear weapons between Iran and Pakistan will have a role to play too: the familial connection with many Britons to the Sub-Continent is immense but even then there is that emotional connection felt strongly in Britain too. I'm trying to figure out how to work that in eventually.

The Undead might want to avoid Coventry, it is not what is was in the past.

LIII


The rifle section was down from eight men to just five now. Corporal William Kingston – King Billy – was left with just Lance Corporal Mitchell and Privates Edwards, Slater and Wood (aka Woody). The trio who were missing hadn’t been lost in combat with the Undead.

They’d deserted instead.

Private Maguire had gone first followed by Croft and Stokes, two more privates who disappeared together. Each man had taken their personal weapon with them with Croft taking his Minimi light machine gun: Maguire and Stokes both had SA80 assault rifles. Those disappearances had occurred at night-time in both cases with those who abandoned King Billy’s section giving no hint to anyone else of what they were about to do. In the hours ahead of his desertion, Maguire had been caught by Mitchell inside that crashed people carrier. King Billy had thought that Maguire, someone who he had always believed was light fingered, had been out to steal something from there but after he disappeared, the thinking was now that he had been trying to see if he could make use of the vehicle. Croft and Stokes had joined in with everyone else the morning after Maguire had gone in voicing disgust at what he had done and even volunteered to search for him. King Billy, concerned for their safety should they wander away from everyone else, had told them not to. Had the two of them been thinking of running like Maguire had done at that point? He didn’t know.

Those three fellow soldiers of his who’d abandoned them all caused King Billy to have hatred for them yet at the same time he somewhat understood why they run. Each had young families far away from here. They were concerned for them like he was worried about his own. The situation here was hopeless and it was clear that they’d been cut off and forgotten about. The things that had to be done and the growing despair had caused those men to forget their friends, their loyalty and their oath of service. He’d never forgive them and his anger remained but he did understand why they had gone.

Who in their right mind would stay here like King Billy and the others were?


“What’s burning, King?”

Woody, who’d said that he’s strangle Maguire with his bare hands, and meant it too, attracted King Billy’s attention. He pointed towards the black smoke rising in the distant, a good half a dozen or so miles off.

“Southwest of here, would you say?” King Billy knew that more than anyone else, Woody had an excellent sense of direction.

“On the mainland.” That was off the Hoo Peninsula and back towards where Kent’s Medway Towns were. “I reckon its Chatham that’s alight.”

“I don’t know, it could be…” King Billy didn’t get to finish what he was saying.

“Contact! Contact!” Mitchell made sure he got everyone’s attention. “I got two of them, nope, three of the creepy f***ers, King, coming out of the trees on the left.”

‘Creepy f***ers’ (no asterisks) was what Mitchell had recently started calling the Undead and everyone else was either copying him or knew exactly what he meant.

King Billy saw them too. A trio of adults. For a moment, the thought struck him that they might be Maguire, Croft & Stokes, all coming back, but that was quickly dismissed. Anyway, seeing for himself these three – two women and a man – stumbling about, covered in dirt, blood & gore coming this way brought him back to reality.

“Stand to!”

What was left of his section got ready. Once the Undead reached a certain point, lone shots rung out. Slater and Woody took done each of them with head shots. Four rounds were fired with one of Slater’s only razing the skull of one of the Undead and him needing to take a second shot.

King Billy waited to see what would happen next. Had these three been alone? Would any more of the Undead follow? The afternoon, a real scorcher with the sun in an unbroken sky, wore on and that smoke in the distance kept on rising up into it.

No more of the Undead were seen.


The last of their rations had long been used up. There was a shop in the village behind the crossroads. King Billy had spoken to the shopkeeper the other day and agreed to look after her business – to protect it against looting – once she left. She’d taken her daughter with her and followed other people from the village in going to what they’d all called the ‘Isle of Grain safe zone’. What was that, he’d asked, because it was new to him. She’d looked at him like he was crazy, that surely he should know of it. At the other end of the Hoo Peninsula, there was an industrial port which sat out in the Thames Estuary and that was the Isle of Grain. King Billy had been told that those going there were hoping to get on a boat going somewhere else. He doubted that would happen and he doubted greatly that there was a ‘safe zone’ there too.

As to the shop, King Billy had agreed to leave a list of what food his men would take and to sign for it all in a receipt book which was left for him. Once evening came, he and Woody went down to there and into the shop. They took what was needed and nothing more before he wrote it all down, signed for it and then locked back up again.

This was what it had come to when it came to making sure they were all fed.

Woody appeared to be thinking the same thing he was as they walked back up the road. Each carried a carrier bag while having their rifles slung over their shoulders. King Billy’s fellow soldier had a question on the issue of them having to provide for themselves: “King, when do you think we’ll hear anything? It’s been four days with nothing on the radio but static. They know we’re here, right?”

There was a lot that King Billy could have said in response. Maybe he should have tried better than he did. He was only a corporal though, not a sergeant or officer. He didn’t have the answers he was sure that one of them would have.

“I don’t know, mate.” He was just as concerned as Woody was with the complete lack of communications from their platoon, company and battalion. But he’d already said all he had to say on that to Mitchell beforehand. “We’ll just do our job and things will sort themselves out. We hold the crossroads, stop people coming this way and look after each other.”

Woody sighed loudly and threw up his arms. It was a bit over the top. He wasn’t a teenager and didn’t need to act like one. He said nothing for a while as they walked on but then, after a few minutes, had another question.

“Do you think London is okay?”

King Billy knew that Woody’s family was in London.

“If anywhere is safe, London will be.” He was sure of that. “Coventry’s okay too though.”

He said that for his own benefit. Coventry was where his family was, somewhere safe.

“Yeah,” Woody agreed, “London’s got to be the safest place right now.”


The two of them got back to the crossroads without saying anything else.

Slater was half in a hedge, half hanging out. One of the Undead was chewing on his face.

Edwards was underneath another one of those ‘creepy f***ers’. He was in the road, his rifle beside him, and moving only as that Undead atop of him pulled more of his intensives out.

Mitchell was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh my…”

“Kill ‘em, Woody, kill ‘em!”

King Billy and Woody dropped their shopping bags and started shooting. The Undead were finished off in moments with Woody killing the half-dead Slater too.

What had gone on while the two of them had only popped down the road and back?

LV


Romford, in East London, saw an outbreak of the Undead occur when one of those infected with Solanum out on the M-25 during an attack there returned home and died. The back of his left hand had a scratch across it, one which had drawn blood. Only a small amount of the disease had got into his bloodstream but it didn’t take much at all. Circulation issues, chest pains and then trouble breathing occurred. At home with his wife and two young children, the motorist hadn’t told anyone what had happened while assuring himself that he would be okay. You had to be bitted by the Undead to get infected, didn’t you? And then he could get that Phalanx vaccine from the hospital if things got really bad, yes? He went to sleep early that evening and hoped to feel better in the morning. Solanum killed him soon enough, shutting down his heart and lungs. His brain was still functioning though. Death came and then reanimation. He climbed out of bed when his wife opened the bedroom door. She was first to be attacked and killed – she wouldn’t become one of the Undead after he had finished with her – before he moved onto his two children plus another child who was in the house too: a friend of his daughter’s. That victim had been on the phone to her mother, screaming about a maniac, when she had been attacked. Both parents, who lived three doors down along the suburban street, came rushing over. The father broke down the back door with his wife right behind him. They became victims #6 and #7 of the Romford Outbreak. Behind them, they had left that door open.

Over the next couple of hours, between eight and ten o’clock that night, the Undead would grow in number as they spread far and wide across Romford. There were attacks made in the street, on the doorsteps of houses, at a residential care home for the elderly and a late-night supermarket. Traffic accidents were caused, car & home burglar alarms wailed and people started screaming when they came across the Undead. There was quickly a police presence though due to the night-time as well as the general chaos of people panicking, whether the Undead were in Romford wasn’t known. Commissioner McCoy had been removed by the Home Office as the head of the Met. Police. The home secretary had found a compliant underling, one who would do as told unlike others who had loyalty to their former boss who was seen as being too close to the London Mayor, and when made aware that there might be attacks made by the Undead in Romford, he demanded that the officers on the ground provide proof. This was no easy feat among the panic which gripped the streets. Certain proof did eventually come though when a report when back to Havering Borough Command that two of the Undead were physically tearing apart one officer. This was far too late. It should never have been the case at all yet it happened.

Military support with a company of soldiers trained in BANKSIDE roles was dispatched with more on the way but that was not going to have any meaningful effect. As usual, the Undead were slow but those running & driving away from them, some of whom were infected, were much faster.


A similar situation with how the Woolwich Outbreak erupted came with regard to the first victims down in South East London. Again, someone who’d come into contact with the Undead down on the motorway on the edges with Kent brought Solanum home with her in her blood. She lived just outside Woolwich proper, up on Shooter’s Hill, and fell gravely ill at home. She managed to get into her car and drove down into Woolwich itself to see her boyfriend: he was a doctor and she hoped he could help her. The car stopped outside his flat in the upmarket bit of Woolwich (yes, that does exist!) but she died before she was unable to get out of it. Within minutes, with the car door open, she came back to ‘life’ as one of the Undead. One person then another was attacked in the street. Both of them survived and ran away. From up above, her boyfriend watched. He knew what he was seeing. He ran to double lock his front door and also pushed a sideboard against it too. Going outside wasn’t an option for him.

Woolwich overall was a deprived area. The new-build area along the River Thames, where the historic Woolwich Arsenal had once been, was separated by a busy main road from the commercial areas. There were urban inner-city housing stock areas just beyond. A pub, a social club for Woolwich’s once-thriving immigrant community, and several passing cars & buses attracted first attention of the Undead first. People who saw the Undead, and weren’t attacked by them, ran away quickly. There were vehicle crashes on the streets. A couple of gangs of teenagers witnessed the commotion though weren’t aware of what they were really seeing. It looked like a good time to commit some common criminality which Woolwich was famous for! They had no idea of what they wandered into though. Several fleeing people made it to Woolwich Arsenal Train Station (not located where the arsenal itself had once been) but found it shuttered closed: there was no escape route there. Another infected person tried to flee via the Woolwich Foot Tunnel which went under the Thames but that too was secured closed. It was night after all. However, next to the over-ground train station, there was an underground station. The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) had been extended to Woolwich and access to the station was gained. There were tunnels there.

While Shooter’s Hill loomed high above Woolwich, much of the urban areas were at a higher altitude away from the river too as the terrain climbed like it did above the Thames. There was a military barracks at this mid-level point. From here, BANKSIDE-trained troops had been involved in dealing with London’s first outbreak at St. Thomas’ Hospital. Two companies from the Royal Irish Regiment who were stationed at Royal Artillery Barracks were currently down in Kent though there were other soldiers at the garrison. They weren’t alerted by the police early on in the infection yet their capability to deal with this would have been pushed to the limits regardless. Every minute they were unaware decreased any chance of success significantly. The Undead soon reached their gates though as they came out of the lower reaches of Woolwich. Moreover, into Plumstead, Thamesmead and Charlton the Undead would be soon present before the alarm was raised. A huge, heavily populated area of South East London was quickly overrun with the Undead in the streets and trying to break into buildings where tens upon thousands of people were located. Some foolish ones opened doors or windows though, when concentrated enough, and if the window was big enough, the Undead would force their way in through other windows too among shattering glass under pressure.

The Woolwich Outbreak was bigger than the one in Romford. Troops would be dispatched but those from the Royal Artillery Barracks found themselves in action with immediate effect, on the road outside, rather than elsewhere. One place they would get nowhere near that night was that London Underground Station. Over in the Docklands, the driverless trains which ran on the DLR went high above the ground in a monorail fashion yet the Woolwich extension was provided by a pair of tunnels – plus a service tunnel for personnel – which went under the river. The Undead were soon in there. No trains were running to ‘slow’ them down. They wandered throughout the night below ground. This would be something seen, on a far bigger scale, across the Atlantic in the Big Apple too where the Undead could spread themselves wide below ground all while undetected and unmolested.