2

  Rex Blackthorn had always been a hopeless romantic, so the sight of lifeless female crazies tugged at his heartstrings. Some were beautiful, and he couldn't help but wonder about missed connections in the happy world before the pandemic. In contrast, now, as a disgraced former civil servant, he now found himself assigned to the grim task of clearing corpses and limbs of the infected who had fallen during their nightly assault on the barricade.

  Working on the St Pancras rail bridge across the Regent's Canal, Rex gazed at the towering barricade separating him from the living dead beyond. It was a patchwork of metal and junk, welded and stacked together from whatever vehicles and containers the Londoners could salvage. Cracks and holes were stuffed with random debris: bricks, concrete, furniture. Old sofas, armchairs, and mattresses that once offered comfort now served as a desperate shield against the horrors outside. The constant wailing and howling of the infected, along with the agonized cries of those suffering at the hands of their own kind, begging for mercy, pierced the air.

  Rex shuddered, trying to block out the sounds and the revolting odour—a mixture of burning buildings and corpses—as he picked up another bloody limb, hacked off by soldiers with machetes to save bullets. Him and the team of losers like him had to clear the bodies to prevent another epidemic caused by rotting corpses.

  Clad in a threadbare hazmat suit and heavy-duty gloves, Rex felt the cold November wind seeping through the holes. Sometimes, he could feel the cold skin of the dead crazies. His job involved killing on the spot any infected still showing signs of life, using a metal rod to drive through their skulls. The infected remains were loaded onto horse-drawn carts for burning. He couldn’t believe his luck when he found the last lonely pill of diazepam in the pocket of his hazmat suit. That would get him through the next couple of hours.

  A squad of soldiers guarded them and the barrier, but they seemed more bored than alert, lounging at the base of the pile Rex had to climb. He stumbled upon a young woman's corpse with a pleasant face, wearing tight jeans and a crop top that accentuated her curves. Wondering about her life before the infection, he felt a pang of pity as he touched her pale cheek with his gloved hand.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The soldiers smoked cigarettes, which, along with booze and sedatives, were the most traded commodities—anything to numb the fear and hide signs of infection. Even soldiers could easily be accused of being crazy, thrown into ghettos, or shot dead on the spot. Rumours spoke of cruel guards who mocked and beat the suffering.

  Suddenly, the girl in the crop top opened her eyes which startled Rex. Bright blue orbs, marred by crimson streaks, stared back at Rex from the heap of corpses. ‘Help me,’ she rasped, her voice a faint tremor in the cold air.

  Torn between fear and pity, Rex knew the soldiers would shoot them both on sight if they discovered her alive. ‘Get in the bag,’ he urged, gesturing to his corpse collection sack. She struggled to stand, but he yanked her back down, desperate to avoid detection. Her mangled foot made every movement a painful ordeal.

  ‘You fool! Idiot!’ she spat, lunging at him with bared teeth. They wrestled, tumbling down the pile. She landed on top of him, her icy, filthy hands clutching his throat. Just as he braced for a vicious bite, a burst of gunfire rang out. She went limp, blood pouring from a hole in her skull.

  As Rex made his way back to his unit, a sniper soldier sneered, ‘You made me waste bullets, you tool!’

  ‘Leave him alone, private,’ the captain said sarcastically. ‘He's only tried to date that crazy girl!’ The tall, clean-shaven captain, with his slick-combed hair reminiscent of a Nazi officer, laughed along with his men. His amusement masked an undercurrent of warning. The captain knew Rex's past as a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Defence, dismissed quietly for bribery, and despised him for it.

  Nauseous at the thought of the woman's brain exploding in his face, Rex vomited. The men chuckled, but the captain surprisingly told him to take a break at a nearby restaurant. ‘Poor bugger,’ he said, ‘he won't outlast the epidemic.’

  To Rex, that line was a thinly veiled threat. He knew the captain harboured grudges and had made veiled threats before. As he eyed the shady Russian restaurant, the fear of being thrown into the ghetto for drunken desertion or suspected infection weighed heavily on his mind.