'How are we looking, Spider?' asked Anderson, his head swivelling around, his eyes never still, 'Stay alert,' he snapped to his ground troops.

'We is alert, Boss,' quipped Bull, the black giant.

´Cut the slave jive,’ grinned Anderson.

'No immediate threats detected in your vicinity, Cap,' came back Spider.

'The fifty exit gates around this sector are crammed with our people trying to get out, but they are still moving,´ advised Pump, his head twitching as the message came through to the comms man. ‘Calculation seems to be that we have around fifty thousand still in the sector, should be clear in around eight to ten hours.’

'Any word on the other squads?’  Anderson was referring to other mobile units who would have sent in four man teams to the sector. Each would have his own Guardian Angel to look over them.

Pump kept in constant touch with the squad’s main centre at Sidmouth Park, the position chosen, as it was the approximate centre of Fort London. 'We've got fifteen other teams in the sector, Craig. Trog's team has taken out four WDs. Bones' boys have six and Jumbo's dead beats eleven.'

Anderson winced. Jumbo was sure to hear about Tom's crack. 'Okay means we still have 9 WDs unaccounted for.'

Pump’s head twitched once more, as a new message came in, the colour draining from his face. 'We got the nine WDs located, Cap. They’ve got a class of five year olds trapped in a classroom at Ferry Lane School on the far side of the sector.’

'Let’s move!' barked Anderson running for the Discovery.

Three minutes later, Tom brought the sturdy four-wheel drive to a screeching halt at the entrance of the school.  The four doors were left swinging as Anderson led the charge through the open door of the building following the screams of children and the frantic shouts of a man. The distraught children drowned out the monotone moans of the WDs until the four men raced into a classroom. There, they found the terrified group of five year olds cowering in a corner behind a man that Anderson assumed was their teacher who was shrieking at the WDs, and wildly swinging a cricket bat. A makeshift barricade of piled up tables and chairs was being broken down as the WDs barged and banged into it.  Arms were outstretched, blood and saliva dripping from their mouths, from which the moans were getting louder and louder as they inched closer to the warm flesh they craved.

'Mind the children,' instructed Craig, his magnum booming out in the confines of the classroom. The 44 shell took the back of the head off an elderly woman, dressed in tweed jacket and skirt. Before the corpse dropped, Bull pulled out a baseball bat from a strap hanging from his belt and hit a young man dressed in football gear directly on the top of his head with such force that it just caved in like a ripe melon.  Grey brain matter squeezed out of both sides with jagged shards of skull.

Tom managed to get clean single shots with his MP5 and took out three WDs standing slightly to the left.

Bull hit two more home runs in a space of three seconds, which left one for Pump, who dropped to one knee to allow him to take an elevated shot because of the children behind the WD. The single shot from the pump action weapon hit the elderly man’s throat, severing it, apart from a few strands of sinew. It left his head dangling as the WD wobbled once and crashed forward onto the barricade.

All the while, the screaming of the children had reached hysterical pitch and the poor besieged teacher was so traumatised that he continued swinging wildly with the bat, even as Anderson screamed at him that it was all over.

The panting teacher suddenly stopped, looking at the four men as if awakening from a nightmare, then stared wide-eyed at the nine corpses on the floor and spread over the barricade.

'Quickly, children, out, out,' he screamed, pulling open the barricade.

The traumatised group ran through, encouraged by Bull, Pump and Tom, who ushered them outside to be gathered up by members of other squads who were arriving outside in the schoolyard.  Anderson was left alone with the teacher as the room emptied. 'You did a great job,' he smiled offering his hand.

The man looked him directly in the eye, his expression pained as he shook his head, 'Not...not so great,' he smiled weakly.

Anderson tilted his head to one side and frowned.

The teacher slowly pulled up his sleeve.

Anderson looked at the deep bite mark on his wrist and arm, dark crimson blood oozing from the wound. Anderson realised the wrist wound would have sent the virus coursing through his body via the ulna and radial arteries along with a number of major veins quickly.

He stepped back and raised his Magnum, 'I'm so sorry.'

'Not as sorry as me,' shrugged the man, fighting the early transition symptoms as his lips curled back in a half snarl, his head twitching as the virus began to take control.

'You have a message for anyone?' asked Anderson softly, his heart sinking.

The man started to sway, building up for the Zombie Mambo, his face contorting as he struggled to speak. 'Tell...tell my wife, I...I…' The man let out a low moan and began to shuffle forward, lost to the virus.

Craig placed one shot between the teacher’s eyes, turned, and walked out.

Outside, the group guessed what had happened.

'You, um...you okay, Craig?' asked Tom softly.

Anderson stopped in his tracks halfway towards the waiting four-wheel drive and spun around, 'Okay...Okay!' he yelled. 'Yeah, I'm good, having a great day. I just had to kill a man who gave his life to save the children in his care.' His voice was getting higher, drawing the attention of the gathered squads. 'Just before I popped him he asked me to...’ Anderson stopped suddenly and took a deep breath, 'Sorry, Tom.'

'Forget it,' shrugged his lifelong friend, 'you always were an asshole.'

Anderson smiled and wagged a warning finger at his friend, 'Don't overdo the friendship card.'

'Whatever,’ grinned Tom climbing into the Discovery. 'Where are we going?'

Anderson sighed deeply, rubbing a huge hand over his tired features, 'I need to deliver a personal message.’

Six hours later, Anderson was sitting with the general council leader in his office set up in the Barbican.

'How are things in sector 14, Craig,' asked Steve Knight, the elected president of Fort London Council of the People.

'Screenings all done, WDs all accounted for.'

'Any newly infected?’

Hanson’s heart lurched for a second at the memory of the teacher and the meeting with his wife, where he had to second-guess the message he wanted to pass on to her. ‘He said to tell you that he loved you,’ he had told her. ‘Said to tell you to remember him as he was,’ he lied.

‘We lost twenty five people,' continued Anderson. ‘Á hundred are being held in the holding area, but I think they’re clean. We´ll know when each reaches the thirteenth hour.´

'Clean up?'

'Done.' It was always just referred to as the clean up. Chucking the bodies over the walls to the tainted might seem thoughtless, even disgusting, but it was the most hygienic way to keep the fort clean. There was not enough ground to spare for burials and the WDs were constantly at the walls anyway, so it made sense to use them to the advantage of the fort. Bodies would be picked clean in minutes, disease kept from the populaces.

'We… um...we have a new problem, Craig.'

'Guessed the day was not going to get any better,' sighed the tired ex-SAS captain.

'The trucks came in from Fort Warwick an hour ago. They...they brought a message from Bruger.’

Even the mention of Fort Warwick and Bruger made Anderson’s heart rate rise. Karl Bruger was the self-imposed leader of the massive fort, an ex-drug baron who had seized control when the opportunity arose, imposing his will over nearly two million souls with a mixture of reward and fear. 'What’s the message?'