British Zombie Breakout: Part Three by Peter Salisbury

Chapter 1: The Last Of The
Zombies?
    The last of the
captive zombies were so far gone they hadn't responded to the new
vaccine. Five bodies were burnt in the Facility incinerator. A
sample of fully infected zombie blood had been removed from the
twisted corpses before they were destroyed and an extract placed in
a single phial within a computerised safe. Only when the miserable
wretches had been reduced to ash would the Zombie Alert Status be
returned to zero.
    'Surely,
Mason,' The Minister said through an encrypted line, 'keeping even
one phial of the stuff means you're making the same mistake as your
predecessor?'
    'Smith was
careless with testing vaccines, not with how the sample was
kept.'
    Professor
Albert Mason put his feet up on the steel edge of his desk and
swung back in his chair. He'd be glad to spend some time away from
the Breathdeep Biological Research Facility. In a day or two it
might actually be possible to get away from the stench of zombies,
from having to maintain the strictest bio-hazard protocols, and at
the same time assist the army in tracking down the zombies which
had escaped.
    'So, Mason, my
sources tell me the army picked up the fugitives from
Kilkorne.'
    'That's
right.'
    'How far did
they get?'
    'They managed
to stay ahead of the zombies, until the showdown at Stannicvale.
That was the worst encounter yet. The commander in charge said he'd
never seen such ferocity from the zombies. Blood, bits and slime
everywhere. Not a single one was taken alive. The southern part of
the town is the most horrendous source of infection.'
    'Where are the
fugitives now?' the Minister said, ignoring the major issue of the
clean-up operation that would be required after the zombie
battle.
    'They'll be
held in quarantine until I get them back here,' Mason lied. The
fugitives' location was to remain a secret, especially from the
Minister and they certainly weren't going to be kept at
Breathdeep.
    'So they're
infected?'
    'Too early to
tell for sure.'
    'I thought your
army commander friend had given orders to shoot on sight.'
    'I guess the
guys who actually found them drew the line at women and kids.'
    'But you'll
arrange some sort of infection incident after you get them at the
Facility; put them in a cell that's not been cleaned out or
something?'
    'That's not
hard to arrange.'
    'You'd better
not drop the ball on this one, Mason.' The Minister's tone was
stern, displeased at the professor's evasion. 'Because right now
the detector gadget is going into production at the factory I've
acquired. This is going to be an absolute gold mine.'
    'The Zombie
Detector Torch, ZDT.'
    'ZedDeeTee, or
as the Americans will call it the ZeeDeeTee. Got quite a ring to
it: they'll love that. I'll use it in the ads.'
    'I'd have liked
to work on optimising it first.'
    That wasn't
anywhere near truth; during the latest crisis Albert Mason had
worked, eaten and slept at the Breathdeep Facility. In the past
week, he'd done little else than try to stay one step ahead of the
marauding zombies, while they bled, drooled and littered the
countryside with their rotting body parts. In fact, he couldn't
wait to get away for a night or two, so the last thing on his mind
was improving the ZDT.
    'You said the
thing worked better than anything you'd tried before.'
    'Always room
for improvement.'
    'That's good to
hear because in a few months' time, I can be selling the new,
improved model and everyone who bought the first version will want
to upgrade.' The Minister laughed, unpleasantly.
    'You're going
world-wide on this, then?'
    'Absolutely. As
soon as you confirm to me the fugitives are out of the way, I'll
make an announcement to the world press.'
    'It would be
inconvenient to have someone lodging a patent on your
invention.'
    'Your
invention, Mason; you simply didn't realise how much it was worth
when you 'sold' me the rights.'
    'I'll keep you
informed of what you need to know.' Albert Mason had no intention
of passing any useful information to the