28 Days Later - Death of a Nation

[kspence92]

As the sun set on the evening of May 4th 2002, a trio of well intentioned but ultimately misguided animal rights activists broke into a primate research laboratory near the University of Cambridge, unleashing several chimpanzees which were - unknown to the activists - infected with the highly contagious Human Cortio-Deficiency Virus, or more commonly known as "Rage". Despite desperate pleas from one virologist who catches them in the act, they open the cages and are immediately rushed by the virulent primates thus leading to the worst viral outbreak in recorded history.

Police received their first 999 call from a terrified security guard in the lab complex at 8:45 PM. The phone call cut off amid shattering glass and screaming. Police response arrived on the scene seven minutes later. A single police car was dispatched with two young male officers who were unsure of what to expect other than there had been a break in and a fight seemed to have broken out. They moved quickly but cautiously towards the building armed with nothing more than batons .

As the officers opened the front door they disturbed several growling rabid-like people down the hall. The infected refused to heed the officer's stern warnings to stay back, instead lunging at the bewildered policemen and murdering them both on the spot before they could call for assistance.

Loss of communication with the dispatched officers alarmed Police HQ in Huntingdon, and several more officers were sent to investigate the area, which had since abandoned by the infected who had wandered off in search of more victims. The mutilated bodies of their colleagues were discovered soon after prompting a large manhunt to find the murderers. Several police cars began to patrol the streets around the complex in search of the suspects, finding blood stains and signs of violent struggle in several streets. Members of the public rushed out their homes to tell the officers that mobs of vandals have been running up and down the streets chasing people and smashing windows.

Less than a mile away several car accidents occurred as infected ran across roads in pursuit of victims, forcing drivers to break or swerve. Some infected were knocked down, only to get back to their feet and attack the drivers who got out their vehicles to help what they assumed to be drunkards running out in the middle of the road, adding to the slowly but steadily increasing number of infected on the streets.

A single infected wearing a lab coat staggered into Cambridge train station, foaming at the mouth and covered in blood. Several people who had just finished their shifts and were waiting on the train home had no idea of the chaos that was about to unfold. An off duty nurse rushed over to help the man upon seeing his convulsions. It was the last mistake she would ever make as he tackled her to the ground and vomited several times on her face. Most people stood there dumbfounded, but two young men decided to take it upon themselves to do something about what they believed was a drugged up rapist. They too, like the well-meaning nurse, had just made their last mistake as both she and the man who had attacked her suddenly launched themselves at the would-be heroes. From there it spread like wildfire.

Phone calls to increasingly overwhelmed 999 call centres alerted police to what was mistakenly thought to be a mass brawl between drunken students at the train station. Specialised public order units were dispatched as were several ambulances. Local hospitals were put on alert for a potential influx of casualties. CCTV footage showed the attack clearly. Those behind the cameras were bewildered as to how the number of people involved in the altercation was constantly increasing. Two members of the British Transport Police who were doing a routine patrol of the station attempted to intervene, only to become infected themselves and join in on the growing violence. CCTV camera operators could only look on in sheer horror and utter confusion. As the fighting increased, people began to flee the train station in all directions, with the growing crowd of infected in pursuit. Panic began to take hold.

At Police HQ, dozens of specially trained public order police were gearing up, equipped with stab vests, helmets, riot shields and heavy duty batons. Orders went out to seal off the streets in the immediate vicinity of Cambridge train station and arrest those involved in the riot. Within thirty minutes the riot police arrived at the train station and found it the same as the research facility – abandoned and soaked in blood. The infected had already left in search of new victims and were prowling nearby streets, attacking anyone in sight.

A decision was taken to secure the streets where the worst of the violence was being reported and seal off those streets. This was when the first real contact between Cambridge riot officers and mobs of infected occurred. They formed defensive lines, banging their batons on their shields and marched forward in formation in an effort to intimidate the infected, who were still believed to be drunken hooligans at that point.

Things took a turn for the worst when some of the officers were exposed to infected blood. Within a few minutes, several officers had turned and were fighting with their former colleagues, dragging them to the ground punching and kicking, even clawing and biting them.

The shocked and shaken policemen, horrified at the savagery they were witnessing being committed by both civilians and their own suddenly foaming and mad colleagues, quickly got back in their vans and withdrew from the area to reevaluate the situation. They formed a defensive line on nearby station road whilst waiting on reinforcements from other police stations. The people who were in charge had no idea what to do. This was uncharted waters from everyone. Information was exchanged between officers on the ground and senior police leadership in Huntingdon. It was becoming clear this was something entirely new. These people were not normal.

Around nine o'clock, reports of violence were reaching BBC news in London, though details were sketchy with vague reports of disturbances and vandalism. Journalists could not reach the scene as the roads were closed off to all but emergency service personnel.

An hour later, armed response units were dispatched to the area surrounding Cambridge train station as reports of attacks increased dramatically. Initial attempts by armed officers to slow down the "rioters" by aiming for the legs seem to slow them down, but don't deter them from attacking. Rumours began to spread on the internet of mass murder and chaos but main stream media was still largely unaware of the facts yet.

By midnight, thirty two police officers lay dead, with at least the same number infected. Several paramedics and firefighters had also lost their lives or joined the throngs of infected. Gunshots rang out across much of central Cambridge. Gangs of youths began looting in the town centre, believing the violence by the infected was some kind of riot by drunken students, and so decided to take advantage of the chaos to loot and vandalise property.

Despite the best efforts of the police, small numbers of infected were able to get by the roadblocks and reached the main shopping area at quarter past twelve in the morning, populated only with some students returning from nights out and police officers interviewing witnesses to the looting. Chaos broke out as the infection spread in the town centre, by rampaging infected storming into packed pubs and night clubs causing untold casualties and increasing the number of infected ten fold.

By 0200 the outbreak was more or less out of control in The town centre, with incidents being reported in the southern and south western areas of town at an alarming frequency. Crowds of infected several hundred strong rampaged unopposed in some areas. The police were continually being forced to withdraw from engagements with the infected, and could not understand why some of their friends were turning sides and fighting alongside the rioters, a fact they wasted no time in reporting to HQ, who were preparing a report to pass on to the Home Office.

The city centre was entirely overrun by 0230 along with several residential areas. 40% of the city's police force had become casualties by this time and the rest had been largely scattered and forced to withdraw to regroup and consolidate their forces.

Tens of thousands of civilians found themselves barricaded in their homes with no help to be had. The police simply couldn't respond to all these distress calls and advised people to stay behind locked doors and stay quiet.

The Prime Minister Tony Blair was awoken by an aide just after two in the morning and informed that a major public disturbance was occuring in Cambridge and that fatalities had been excessive.

 

[kspence92]

By the time Blair got into the Cabinet room at 2.45 AM, most of the other cabinet members were just arriving, blearly eyed and tired, and confused.

A meeting of the Civil Contengencies Committee took place shortly after four in the morning in Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, or COBRA for short. The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary along with some junior ministers and senior intelligence officers took part in the meeting.

The ministers tried to piece together what information they had. All they knew was that a major riot was ongoing in Cambridge and that hundreds of lives had been lost in only a few hours. That was the only concrete information by that point, but updates continued to come into Downing Street during the night, growing worse and worse, with civilian casualties growing by the hour and emergency services stretching to breaking point.

As the sun began to rise, the Prime Minister phoned the Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire Police and authorised him to use whatever means necessary to quell the violence, including use of live ammunition and water cannons. The live ammo had already been in use in an unofficial capacity for the past six hours, unknown to the PM. It was desperate times. By lunchtime, communications with Cambridgeshire Police HQ had been lost after reports it had been surrounded by "rioters".

BBC news began reporting stories of eye witnesses, who described being forced from their homes by rampaging mobs who were overturning cars and breaking into houses.

By early afternoon of 5 May, government officials were meeting again, this time armed with information received from hospitals in Cambridge, where a handful of rioters had been detained by police and sedated upon arriving at hospitals. Tests had been run and it was clear these people were very sick. The information the cabinet ministers received from the Chief Medical Officer was disturbing to say the least. The virus caused those infected to be locked into a permanent state of murderous rage within thirty seconds of contracting it. Nothing like it had ever been seen or heard of before out with horror films.

An increasingly anxious Tony Blair held a press conference In the early evening of 5 May and declared that a state of emergency was in effect for all of Cambridge, as well as nearby Huntingdon, and that rioters would be prosecuted with the full force of the law. It had been decided to keep the details of the viral outbreak under wraps for the time being to avoid a panic.

Police lines were continually being pushed back as the remaining officers, exhausted and demoralised struggled to cope with the carnage in their town. At least half of Cambridge's police forces was either dead, infected or had abandoned their posts to be with their families within eighteen hours of the outbreak. The outlook for Cambridge was increasingly bleak.

Twenty four hour after the first case of human to human transmission of the Rage Virus , Addenbrookes Hospital was the second last remaining safe zone in Cambridge, other than Cambridge's small airport, where a significant armed police presence had formed. The infected finally broke through the hastily erected barricades set up by the remnants of the city police force, and rampaged through the wards, engaging in acts of violence that would be appalling to even the worst offenders involved in the Rwandan Genocide. Feeble patients desperately tried to hobble away on crutches or escape in wheelchairs, but it was no use. Many were thrown out of their beds and beaten with their own IV poles or savaged wher they lay. Remaining staff and policemen were brutally murdered as they tried in vain to defend the patients, and within half an hour, four hundred people were dead or infected in the hospital and parts of the building were ablaze.

Some of this was caught on camera with footage smuggled out by a doctor who was airlifted from the hospital roof by an air ambulance and passed it onto the BBC.

The nation was in shock. Violence like this had never been seen in Britain for centuries. Panic started to set in. In offices, in school playgrounds, in cafes and pubs and public transport, the only topic of converation was "that thing" going on in Cambridge. Nobody had come up with a better term yet.

A decision was taken to deploy army units from nearby Colchester garrison and close the roads out of Cambridge and prevent any further spread of the virus once it was realised the police had completely collapsed. An air exclusion zone was declared over Cambridge and Huntingdon with only Royal Air Force Search and Rescue helicopters allowed over the area, which were picking people up from rooftops. By the time the troops could be mustered, geared up and deployed, the infection had already spread to the outskirts of Bedford and was approaching the towns of Newmarket and Royston, meaning quarantine procedures could not be put in place in time to prevent further spread. The roads out of Cambridge were jammed. It was pure chaos.

The Prime Minister chaired another meeting of the COBRA committee , tired and stressed, they desperately tried to hash out an effective plan to combat the outbreak, but they couldn't come to an effective conclusion. It was therefore decided to meet again later that night with senior officers of the armed forces including the Chief of the Defence Staff as well as the respective heads of the Army, Navy and RAF, as the politicians realised lethal force was the only practical answer. The news was still reporting on the escalating riots and increasing death toll, but thus far most people remained unaffected outside of Cambridge and neighbouring towns. Rumours continued to abound of terrorism or a chemical leak being behind the violence amid a lack of official government information. Protests broke out In London's Parliament Square as the public demanded answers.

On the morning of 7 May, three days into the outbreak, the Home Secretary and Health Secretary held a joint press conference in London, and told the public the truth.

From the statement of the Home Secretary David Blunkett and Secretary of Health Alan Milburn, 10:00 AM, 7 May 2002

David Blunkett, Home Secretary "Good morning and thank you all for coming on such short notice. The situation in Cambridge continues to escalate, with riots and vandalism being reported in all areas of the city. Casualties amongst members of the public and the emergency services have been high, and continue to climb. I would like to commend the bravery of the men and women of Cambridge's police, fire and ambulance services who have done a fantastic job and saved many lives and extend my condolences to the families of those killed. I'm also announcing that access to Cambridge and all villages and towns within five miles of Cambridge is hereby prohibited until further notice and all roads in and out of the area are closed to unofficial traffic as we begin a establish a quarantine zone. I'm going to hand over to Alan Milburn, who has a major announcement to make."

Alan Milburn, Secretary of State for Health "I will no longer disguise how serious a situation we are facing. I have been in constant contact with colleagues in the Health Protection Agency and I can confirm that we are facing a very serious viral outbreak in Cambridgeshire. Symptoms of this as yet unidentified viral strain include internal haemorrhaging, convulsions and finally engaging in acts of aggression. The virus is spread by bodily fluids including blood and saliva and is highly contagious. Symptoms typically show in victims in between twenty and thirty seconds, sometimes less, sometimes more depending on the proximity of the infected wound to the brain. Members of the public are urged to avoid contact with infected individuals at all costs, including infected friends and family members. Rest assured the situation will be brought fully under control in a timely manner. Thank you for your patience. No questions."

Later in the day, the government put several Territorial Army units on high alert and additional active army personnel were dispatched from the army garrison at Colchester and set up defensive positions on the M11 to slow the spread of the virus as it moved southwards towards London. The traffic chaos that resulted from this was indescribable.

Likewise, the army began setting up blockades on the southern outskirts of the city of Peterbourgh, and also began to enforce a quarantine of Bedford, which was reporting a major outbreak of infection in the town centre and northern outskirts. Several hundred people were reported killed or infected and police officers, now fully aware of the viral nature of the violence, fled the outbreak with their families, leading to the collapse of Bedford in mere hours. Refugees pouring out of Bedford were followed soon after by the infected, who set upon the army checkpoints swiftly breaking through the soldiers defences, who were unused to the absolutely insane human wave attacks they were facing. The army was forced to retreat.

Within hours of the announcement of the outbreak, panic buying set in across the country, particularly south east England, as people stocked up on basic essentials. In areas close to the outbreak, looting broke out as shop employee's quit the tills and looted essential's right alongside everyone else. The police did little to stop it with their hands full dealing with the infected or managing the traffic chaos that was developing as people fled towards London.

Four days after the first cases of infection in Cambridge, cases were being reported in a dozen towns in East Anglia and casualties were numbering in the tens of thousands, though it was impossible to get anything other than vague estimates. Nobody was going into infected territory to count the dead after all. Although armed policemen and soldiers had sealed the roads, some infected had wandered through the woods and fields and stumbled into small villages leading to outbreaks behind the lines. The first major engagement for the army occurred south of Peterbourgh on the afternoon of 8 May, as at least a hundred soldiers of the Royal Anglian Regiment opened fire on a large group of infected advancing from the south, in pursuit of refugees. Said refugees made it past the army blockade and into military protection, just as the soldiers opened fire on the infected. Dozens of infected were gunned down, but more kept coming, attracted by the sound of the gunfire, soon the soldiers fell back as the blockade was overrun and as darkness fell on 8 May, and the infection had inundated the south western part of Peterbourgh with soldiers falling back from one defensive position to another. By dawn the next morning, Peterbourgh was a desolate blood bath.

That day the English Football Association held an emergency meeting with the government's Culture Minister and agreed to postpone all matches in England until further notice due to the violence and allow some football stadium's to become temporary displaced persons camps should the need arise.

It was only four days later and already the country was gripped in panic.

 

[kspence92]

By Day Five, the epidemic was raging out of control across East Anglia and parts of the Home Counties. Panic was rife and people were packing up their belongings and fleeing for their lives despite official pleas for the public to remain calm.

By the early hours of 10th May, Milton Keynes was the scene of disorganised evacuations as Thames Valley Police did what they could alongside the local council to open up transportation routes and bring in enough buses to move everyone northwards into the relative safety of Northampton, where the Red Cross had set up shelters for the thousands of people forced to run from their homes. Despite a lack of clear directon and constant delays, the evacuation was a success and the population of Milton Keynes was largely saved. BBC news covered the evacuation for several hours showing the massive traffic jams on the M1 as vehicles moved at a snails pace. Cars and vans were restricted to the right hand lane whilst government run buses had free use of middle lane as the one remaining lane was kept clear for military and emergency vehicles.

Hurried evacuations were also occuring all over Essex, Befordshire and Hertfordshire as the infection continued to spread unchecked in some areas where the police had been forced to pull out of, leaving terrified residents to their fate. Every person left behind would be another potential enemy down the road should they fall victim to the virus. This was a fact not lost on government officals. There was even some talk of bombing cut off, unevacuated urban areas in the event the population could not be moved to safety to prevent them contracting the infection should the infected breach the areas defences. Such talk was muted on the order of the Prime Minister who would "not go down in history as the PM who blew up his own people." The "sacrafice the few to save the many" argument fell on deaf ears.

Major roads were jammed as people tried to flee the ever expanding carnage, forcing the government to commandeer public transportation due to the massive numbers requiring evacuation. Over a million people were to be evacuated northwards whilst several hundred thousand others were to be evacuated south into London, already bursting with refugees and stranded commuters from Cambridge. In densly populated Hertfordshire, there was confusion and fear as all public transport was shut down and taken over by government to evacuate the area. The state of emergency declaration gave local authorities free reign to seize private property, including vehicles, in the name of national security, so when company bosses complained over the draconian measures they were told to shut up and help or be arrested. Needless to say most complied.

The first cases of infection were reported in Luton and Stavenge on the morning of 10th May, whilst further east the army garrison at Colchester and the town of Ipswich were under serious threat. Senior officials met in a panicked COBRA session the same day with high ranking military officers to coordinate the defence of London. There were more than a few raised voices at the table that afternoon as ministers argued their point on how best to deal with the situation, some calling for quarantine and containment, others wanted mass evacuation and rescue operations, and the the Army and Air Force chiefs wanted to throw everything the British Military had at the infected irrelevant of what the arguing ministers thought about potential political backlash against such a thing. What was agreed, however, was that Luton was too strategically important to lose due to its major airport, and that it must be defended at all costs. Initially 10,000 troops were deployed north of London, using the M25 as their main defensive line from where they intended to halt the spread of infection. They were to be joined by another twelve thousand reservists by the end of the week.

The British Army launched its offensive to save Luton during the night of 10th May, deploying soldiers equiped with CBRN suits riding in Warrior IFV's backed up by Challenger 2 tanks with Apache helicopter support above whilst the Royal Air Force deployed Torando strike aircraft to contact airstrikes on heavy concentrations of infected. The result was a blood bath, as due to a breakdown in communications, the Ministry of Defence was unaware that thousands of civilians were still trapped in the town, unable to escape due to blocked roads and infected prowling outside their homes, resulting in thousands of innocent men, women and children dying under a hail of cannon, rocket and machinegun fire as well as air strikes. The video footage smuggled out by one brave ITN camerawoman of a severed arm holding a doll would haunt the nation and cause an outcry.

Thousands of infected also died, but many thousands more charged towards the soldiers, overwhelming their main forward operating base at Luton airport and forcing the surviving troops into a chaotic retreat towards the M25 defensive line where blockades and checkpoints were still being set up. All civilian traffic had been barred from the M25 and directed elsewhere. For all intents and purposes, the M25 Motorway (North) was now a military installation.

News reports of the Luton Massacre and the military's rout soon broke, and the sense of dread in the country only worsened, with fringe religious groups calling it a sign of the coming apocalypse. Rumours of the horrendous military casualties during engagements with the infected in Luton and nearby towns spread amongst soldiers, many taking the decision to desert their posts and go home to their families. Several deserters were rounded up, given a field court martial and executed by firing squad to be made an example of, but for the most part deserters got away unpunished, as the army did not have resources to spare looking for them.

Colchester Garrison was overrun after a bloody battle several hours after the Luton debacle, and with that, an undefended Ipswich was stormed by the infected shortly thereafter. The token police force left behind could offer little resistance and fled right along with everybody else. Places such as Hemel Hempstead, Pottersbar and St Albans became fortresses overnight as armed soldiers set up checkpoints and defences in preperatios for preventing any further spread of the infection towards London.

It became clear to senior officials in the Blair administration that the constant video footage and news reports of refugees fleeing, of bloodied bodies and funeral pyres being tended by soldiers wearing biohazard suits was killing the nations' morale. Citing the State of Emergency, the Home Secretary brought up the idea of a "temporary state take over of the media" until the crisis passed. Prime Minister Blair agreed, albeit reluctantly, and within 24 hours all British television and radio stations of significance had been brought under control of the Home Office with support of the MoD, who deployed soldiers and "advisers" to make sure editors adhered to the new "its all going to be fine" guidelines. Nodody was happy with this, and plenty editors and journalists resigned in protest, but they were replaced. And so it came to pass that on 11 May 2002, Freedom of the Press died in the United Kingdom. The rest of the nation wouldnt be far behind it.

Blair made a speech at 4:40 PM 11 May in front of 10 Downing Street, declaring that the government and the armed forces would gain control over the situation, and urged the public to remain calm and obey the authorites. In an apparant attempt at emulating Winston Churchill he said "We shall never surrender. We will stand united, and will fight this scourge until it is wiped from our nation. We will rebuild the broken homes, we will resettle the shattered neighbourhoods, and pray for those that died."

It was not Tony Blairs Winston Churchill moment and there was no Dunkirk Spirit. The only resemblance to Dunkirk in fact was the British refugees crossing the channel TO France and not the other way around.

Worse was too come for the British people. Much worse.

 

[kspence92]

By the 12th May, eight days into the outbreak, the Health Protection Agency declared the virus to have reached epidemic levels and the Prime Minister authorised the use of deadly force by all police and military forces against anyone hampering the efforts of security services to maintain law and order. It was draconian but the fate of the nation was at stake.

Over a hundred looters were shot in Coventry by armed police. Soldiers shot at people protesting against fuel rationing in London the same day when they tried to approach Parliament, which was holding an emergency session. Eighteen people died and dozens were hospitalised. None of this went reported in the now government controlled media. Even some newspapers were censored.

Rolling blackouts were occuring in London in an effort to conserve power, and in some areas the water supply began to fail.

Food and fuel hoarding became problematic, and prices for basic commodities soared sky high, forcing the Chancellor Gordon Brown to impose a price freeze and a ban on bank withdrawals over £300 to keep the economy from collapsing entirely. It was an increasingly pointless effort. The pound was in free fall and nothing would save it. A rationing scheme was introduced in some areas where supply problems were increasingly an issue, with ration books being issued for families.

Conditions for thousands of refugee's from East Anglia and the home counties crowding the Millenium Dome as well as the massive tent cities in Hyde and Regeants Parks were becoming what the UN's refugee commitioner described as "inhuman and intolerable" as food and clean water ran low, and chemical toilets overflowed.

The MoD began to put out advertisements on the TV and the papers calling for a new "Home Guard" which would essentially be a militia force used to back up the army and police. They would be armed and equiped with older, mothballed equipment and given only a mimimum of training. Enough to fire a gun and follow basic orders. There wasnt time for anything else. "Grasping at straws" the Chief of the General Staff said when the Defence Secretary presented the idea to him. Nevertheless despite the army's reservations the new Home Guard would be created and deployed, though their overall level of involvement would be neglagible. Less than 2,000 volunteers would receive the training despite over 50,000 putting their names forward. Events would tragically just move too fast.

In London itself, violent clashes bordering on rioting broke out due to the unpopularity of the new food rationing scheme, resulting in supermarkets and ration collection depots being ransacked and looted. Running battles between riot police and hungry Londoners continued for hours until an order went out to use live ammunition. The dissent stopped after that. Vigilante groups formed to protect neigbourhoods from mobs of looters as police presence began to dissipate as officers abandoned their posts to be with their families.

On 14 May, the day the infection reached London's northern borough's outskirts, thousands of Londoners rushed to Heathrow, Stansted and London City airports as mass panic set in as the public realised the epidemic was going to hit the capital.

At least 50,000 people fled from London via air and rail travel over the following 24 hours, and number that would rise dramatically over the next week. Fear and dread gave way to panic as the lethal virus spread without mercy towards millions of terrified Londoners hoping and praying that their great city would be spared. Their hopes and prayers would go unanswered.

 

[kspence92]

The dawn of 14th May saw day ten of the outbreak, with the infection about to hit the army blockades in north London, and outbreaks occuring in the midlands. Britain was a nation in panic.

The infected ravaged the city of Leicester , after making their way up the M1, killing and infecting drivers in the huge lanes of stalled traffic, one of the reasons it spread so fast, the infected infecting their way up and down the stalled lanes on the motorways between cities.

Pandemonium reigned in Leicester as council officals and local police and Red Cross workers desperatley tried to hash out a plan and organise an evacuation for the unprepared city. Some got out, but in the chaos, thousands were left behind as the buses and trains fled the city, some people clinging onto the roofs of trains like something you would see in India. Over 30,000 people died in Leicester alone, and triple that number were infected. It had been the worst violence of the outbreak since Cambridge and yet much worse was still to come in other, larger cities.

Corby and Rugby were overrun in the hours that followed, though both had been abandoned the previous day after rumours that the infected had been sighed nearby.

In Birmingham, Britains second largest city, the military was digging in for a fight, to give local police and officals time to evacuate the city of some 1 million people.

The first infected were reported on the outskirts of Birmingham on the afternoon of 14 May. They were quickly dealt with, but more kept coming and tried to break through the Army Blockades set up on the M6, M42 and M54 set up to prevent the virus entering the city.

The number of infected had grown significantly and although a large number of troops, police and armed civilians were defending the blockades vigourously, the government realised it was only a matter of time before they got through. The next day, the evacuation of Birmingham began. In all, close to a million people were to be evacuated.

It was obvious that the government could not save everyone, there was not enough time, but the troops were ordered to fight to the last man to give the evacuation effort as much time as possible. The troops followed their orders, and they never retreated, fighting the infection until they ran out of bullets, and even then, they charged the infected with beyonettes.

The M6 blockade was the first to fall, with the M54 and M42 falling a few hours later. 425,000 people had been evacuated by the time the infection got into the city. That still left more than 400,000 in Birmingham, awaiting evacuation. Those who were left behind but managed to survive to tell the story told of "the streets running with blood" as the infected rampaged through the evacuation centres where people were waiting for help, that would not come.

The RAF bombed the infected hordes in the city centre, after the government finally relented to RAF command, killing many thousands, but by the next day, there were hundreds of thousands of infected in Birmingham, all of them spreading out of the city and into neighbouring towns, including Wolverhampton and Stafford. By this point, there were serious discussions in Cabinet about the use of Britains nuclear arsenal to destroy cities rife with infection, but the Prime Minister was extremely reluctant to do so, and ultimatley decided against it.

The number of displaced people in the UK was well over 6,000,000, and many more were soon going to become displaced. The British Red Cross, as well as other NGOs were utterly overwhelmed and the camps established in the safer areas of Britain were full. Many people were turned away from these camps, and in desperation and frustration, they chose to seek shelter abroad.

On the 15 May, the first British refugees landed in France. The French government had anticipated this situation days earlier, and had built camps in Normandy and Brittany to house refugees, but these camps were quickly overwhealmed, and the French Government asked for United Nations assistance.

The U.N. began to construct giant refugee camps in northern France, and as the days went on, camps were being built in Ireland, Norway, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium to cope with the growing refugee crisis. In all, over 100,000 refugees had fled the United Kingdom between 13 and 14 May. Many more would follow, dwarfing that number. All major airports in England were inundated with tens of thousands of people demanding flights, many of whole were without a ticket, cash or even a passport.

The British Government demanded that all British airlines allow refugees on board for free, regardless of them having a passport or ticket.

The British airlines agreed, and even international airlines came to the aid of the British people and helped in the evacuations. By the night of 15 May, over 300,000 people had fled the UK by air and another 250,000 via trains or boats.

Tony Blair visited the troops manning the 18th blockade on the M25, who had been engaging the infected a few hours earlier, and thanked them for their hard work and bravery on behalf of the British people.

He returned to Downing Street and spoke on live television to the British people, and in particular the people of London, declaring that the fight against the infected must go on, and that the people must stand united against a common enemy.

It would be his last public address from Downing Street.

A large scale evacuation was ordered for the capital that night, with the majority of the evacuee's being directed to tents cities in southern England, particularly in Kent and in Cornwall, still far from the frontlines. The roads to the north had been closed due to the infection largely cutting London off from the north of the country, though it was still possbile to travel west from London then head north, but still not very practical. All public transportation in and around London was commandeered by the government over the next twelve hours. Cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, helicopters, even barges and Royal Navy patrol boats aided in the evacuation.

By the 16 May, twelve days into infection, 75% of the population of London had been evacuated to the south. Thousands remained behind, some too stubborn, some too scared to leave. Others chose to commit suicide. Some five thousand suicides occured in London between the 14th and 16th May.

Tony Blair and his cabinet remained in Downing Street working day and night, with only a few hours sleep.

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott resigned from the government on 16th May and left the country with his family to go to Australia. Home Secretary David Blunkett followed two hours after and left for Dublin. Blair's senior advisers were fleeing the sinking ship that was Great Britain.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw left for the coast the next day hoping to catch a ferry to France, without formally resigning, fearing that London would fall and he would be killed. His car was stopped by panicked citizens trying to flee the city who had not been able to get out after the evacuation vehicles did not return. He was mugged and his car stolen, according to an eye witness who later escaped to Spain. No trace of him was ever found after that, and it is generally agreed he died when the infected overrun the city only a few hours later, although one man claimed to have seen his body swinging from a lamp post with a noose around his neck, nobody will ever likely know what happened to him.

The government was in a state of near collapse, but Blair refused to leave London despite the insistance of his advisers, as did the Queen, who defiantly remained in
residence with the Royal Standard flying at half mast over Buckingham Palace in respect for those who had died.

The infected finally overrun the beleagured army on the M25 line at 4:00 PM 17th May, killing and infecting thousands of soldiers, those soldiers that were infected turning and spreading the virus behind the lines and finally into the city itself. Soon the growls and snarls and knashing of teeth could be heard drifting through deserted streets of north London.

Blair finally relented an hour later and was driven from Downing Street to nearby Horseguards where a helicopter awaited on the parade ground. He was airlifted from the city, along with what remained of his cabinet and taken north to York, where they established a temporary capital.

Blair would later recall in his best selling memoirs, "A Journey" released in 2005 : "I felt a tremendous sense of guilt and shame as i boarded that helicopter, and looked back at the black door as i swung shut one last time. I felt as though i was abandoning not just our nations capital, but our nation itself. We managed to get a lot of people out of London in time, but not everyone, it was impossible, there were too many people and too little time, even with that accomplishment, i still can't forgive myself. When we flew over the gridlocked motorway, i remember watching the drivers bumping the cars in front of them, and people running and jumping from roof to roof on the cars to get away from the infected. All i could think was, im safe up here, and those poor people down there are left to die. I made my mind up to resign from my position as soon as the crisis had passed, how could i lead a country i had abandoned to utter savagry ? I pray every night asking for forgiveness, i doubt those prayers will ever be answered."

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were extracted by an SAS team from Buckingham Palace and airlifted to the relative safety of Windsor Castle just west of London, which had a military cordon protecting it and had been fortified.

Nealy 30,000 civilians and police died in London as the infected overcome the few remaining defences in the mostly abandoned former capital, most of the deaths occuring in a packed Paddington Station as desperate Londeners tried to get a train to Heathrow airport, the infection spread like wildfire amongst the tightly packed crowd of close to 20,000 terrified men, women, kids, infecting almost all those there in a matter of minutes.

By the time night fell, anyone left in London would notice an odd sight. The streetslights hadnt come on. And they never would.

 

[kspence92]

As news broke that London had fallen, the next day a minutes silence was held across the country in memory of those that died.

Meanwhile, the infection continued to spread northwards, generally in a northeasternly direction, with army blockades on the M1 being overrun with rampaging hordes of infected, leading to outbreaks of infection in Sheffield exactly two weeks after the first outbreak.

Scientists accross the country scrambled to develop a vaccine to the virus, with aid from scientists from the CDC and ECDC, but progress was painstakingly slow, and some of the labs overrun as the infection spread or as test subjects escaped their confines.

Attempts at evacuating Sheffield were haphazard and chaotic at best, with some evacuation centres not even opening and not enough buses or trains to get people out. Roads were gridlocked resulting in many drivers being killed as they tried to evacuate. Power failures did not help matters either as people struggled to flee the city in the darkness. Rotherham, Stocksbridge and Barnsley fell the same night or early the next morning with thousands of people losing their lives.

Army units began to disintegrate or desert their posts when they started running out of ammo and supplies, and morale seemingly collapsing as the virus spread uncontrollably, allowing the virus to spread almost unchecked by authorities in some areas.

Further west, the infection was spreading towards Manchester and Liverpool, and outbreaks were starting to occur in Wales also, but due to the smaller population of Wales compared to England's, the virus spead slower there, until it reached the capital Cardiff.

On 17 May, thirteen days into the outbreak, a large crowd of infected tried to break through the 35th blockade south east of Liverpool, and were beat back by troops from the 4th mechanised brigade, but once they began to run out of ammunition and supply lines began to collapse, the end came swiftly for the defenders of Liverpool.

The remants of the 4th Mechanised retreated into the city centre, fighting the infected all the way, trying to buy time for the city's population to escape by ferry and plane over the Irish Sea to Ireland, or in some cases the Isle of Man.

The infected advanced eastwards from the ruined city of Liverpool in pursuit of retreating survivors from the army and refugees who couldnt make it out by sea. By 18 May, they had reached the outskirts of Manchester, which was arguably the most brutal engagement of the outbreak.

The infected rampaged through St Helens and Warrington, and rampaged along M602 motorway, killing motorists as they fled the city.

The main blockade on the M602 was defended by the 42nd(North West) Brigade which was based out of nearby Preston, commanded by Major Henry West after the CO, Brigadier John Reynolds, and second in command Colonel Michael Patterson were Killed in Action.

The brigade, despite coming under near constant attack for several days, held out for a long time, even after the virus overrun Manchester.

Manchester was in a perilous position, as it was blocked off from the north and west by the infected, and everything to the south was a warzone. The city itself was suffering for what was bascially complete societal collapse. Running water had been shut off, power had completely failed in the area and sewage overflowed as rubbish piled up in the streets, as there was no fuel for refuse collection trucks. Hospitals were working by candlelight as backup generators began to fail, all schools, colleges and universities were closed indefinatley and Old Trafford Stadium had been turned into a refugee centre. The few police who had not deserted their posts struggled to cope with the increase in crime, as looters stole what they could from the few shops that remained open. Summary executions became common place for looters and rapists and food or fuel hoarders. Funeral pyres in back gardens were the order of the day as disease spread with the collapse of sanitation, and mass graves were dug in public parks or bodies just dumped in churches.

As the situation in the city became untennable, it became clear that evacuation was the only option. The evacuation of Manchester was to go northeast along the M62 into Bradford and Leeds and from there, towards Newcastle, where ferries were going to and fro everyday between England and Norway carrying refugees.

The infected broke into Manchester from the south and east on the night of 18 May, with elements of the 42nd Brigade, the 11th Light Brigade and survivors of Greater Manchester police, as well as some of the Royal Artillery holding the line. MLRS and howitzers pounded the infected in the city centre, as did appache gunships and RAF Tornado jets.

The Battle of Manchester ignited a massive firestorm that would sweep the city for weeks afterwards, the flames could not be tamed by the remnants of Manchester Fire and Rescue Service. The inferno forced what was left of the city's defences to flee towards the east coast of England. Thousands of people who had barricaded themselves in their homes commited suicide rather than burn to death or face the infected. The raging inferno drove thousands of infected out of Manchester resulting in nearby towns and villages being swarmed.

The government knew things were falling apart, and that the military was too overstretched to regain control, or even hold what remained of the country. It was time to cut and run, and save as many lives as possible. What remained of the British cabinet, operating from the now fortified city of York, began to discuss how to evacuate the entire surviving population of the UK to Europe.

The map below shows the general layout of central England and Wales, if anyone is unsure of the geography of the UK. (New capital York is in the north east of the map)

 

[kspence92]

"This is BBC News from Edinburgh. This morning Her Majesty the Queen died. The palace announced that Her Majesty died at 7:55 AM this morning of a heart attack. Her eldest son, Charles, Prince of Wales, will take the throne, although a coronation date has yet to be set. The Queen will be buried in the castle grounds, at a ceremony attended by family and castle staff on Saturday. She won much praise from the public for her decision to remain at Windsor Castle and not go to the saftey of Balmoral Castle, Scotland with Prince Charles." - BBC News report 12:30 PM 19 May 2002.

The sudden death of HM Queen Elizabeth II came as a shock to an already shocked nation, and only damaged the already weakened national morale even further. The governments announcement only a few hours later would serve another blow to public morale. Tony Blair went on national TV at 2:25 PM that day, and made the following address from York :

"Her Majesty reigned over this realm for many years. For most of us she was the only monarch we have ever known. Yet even with her passing there is hope. Hope that our nation will rise again. Hope that the end is in sight. Hope that this dreadful blight will soon be lifted from our green and pleasant land. We must stand firm and united, as one, and face this evil together. Like Her Majesty, we will be strong and we will remain resolute. Last night, it was agreed that this plague cannot be allowed to spread any further. I have ordered a mandatory evacuation for all citizens living south of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, the North York Moors, and the Lake District. Those evacuated will be taken to temporary accomodation in Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern areas of England, as well refugee camps in Europe. This decision was taken under advice i have recieved from both military and medical professionals regarding this virus. The simple fact is, if we remove the potential hosts of the virus, i.e., the public, and take them someplace safe, further north, the virus will have no one to infect as it cannot spread any further without more hosts, eventually it will burn itself out. Then we can begin to rebuild out nation, it will take years, perhaps decades, it will take perceverance and patience, it will take teamwork and community spirit. It will take faith. We can do it, together. We have already gotten through the worst i believe." - Prime Minister Anthony Lynton Blair - 2:25 PM 19 May 2002 (Day 15)

The cities of Southampton, Portsmouth, Plymouth and Brighton on the south coast, as well as York, Hull, Bradford, Leeds, Preston, Wakefield, Lancaster and Blackpool in the north were all to be fully evacuated over the next 48 hours before the infection hit those cities. Many would get out in time, but millions more would die in the chaos that ensued. The governments evacuation of over 5 million people from England and North West Wales was hailed as the biggest rescue operation in history, swaddling the Dunkirk evacuation by several magnitudes.

The Prime Minister and remaining members of his government and military command left York at 10:00 PM that night in an RAF helicopter and offically moved the national capital, for a second time, this time to Edinburgh, until London could be reclaimed. They would settle in Holyrood Palace, surrounded by the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and Lothian and Borders Police.

 

[kspence92]

International response to the epidemic
This update was going to be about the evacuation but i decided to expand on this first before continuing with the evacuation efforts.

The morning of 5 May was no different from any other for most people in the world, and that included US President George W Bush, who woke up to the news on TV that there were riots in England, but took little notice, he was preoccupied with preperations for Israeli President Arial Sharons visit in a few days time.

That night however, he did take notice, as his National Security Adviser woke him at 3:00 AM to inform him of a "serious situation" in England.

He met with his cabinet in the White House, just as his counter parts were doing in Downing Street, and tried to piece together whatever information they could, which was very little, and a personal phone call to Tony Blair didnt yield any new information either. The UK government was clueless on what was going on too. The only real information was coming from the British media, which was reporting hundreds of casualties in what eye witnesses were calling "massacres".

Over the next 24 hours as the news broke that the riots were caused by a highly contagious virus that drives its victims into a state of murderous rage, millions of people around the world tuned into their tv's in a state of disbelief.

Some TV stations in the US, Canada and Europe suspended regular programming about four days into the outbreak to cover the escalating carnage engulfing the UK, as viewers couldnt take their eyes away from their tv's, both horrified and fascinated at the situation.

George Bush held a Press Conference on 9 May, five days into the outbreak and promised to help the British people in anyway possible during their hour of need.

Blair took Bush up on his offer two days later and asked the US to protect the Falkland Islands whilst the Royal Navy withdrew to aid in evacuating parts of Britain. Bush complied and dispatched several destroyers and a contengent of Marines to the islands, which did not go down well with Argentina, but they didnt do anything more than make diplomatic protests about that.

British forces in Germany had all been redeployed to the UK by 10 May, and a phased withdrawal from Afghanistan began the next day to allow time for other ISAF forces to replace the British Army.

After the London Stock Exchange permenently closed on 11 May, the economy of several European nations began to suffer. Several airlines went bust with the end of tourism to the UK, which also damaged tourism to Europe in general, as many non Europeans were wary of travel to Europe, in case the virus reached the continent. The massive influx of refugee's caused even more strain on Europe's economy, which began to head for reccession. More than a few fights broke out between refugee's and nationalists of their host countries, who blamed them for taking jobs and ruining the economy, although most people were welcoming and sympathetic, some even fostered or adopted orphaned refugee children.

Countries around the world rushed to evacuate their citizens from Britain, and most embassies were closed and the staff evacuated to their respective countries when it was clear the UK as a nation was doomed.

Media corporations outside the UK made massive viewing figures as people tuned in almost constantly to their TV's, but as the danger to reporters increased, most news teams were pulled out of the UK.

One CNN reporter who was reporting on the evacuation of Bristol was killed by the infected on live TV in front of millions, prompting the few remaining news teams in England to flee the country, mostly back home, or some to Northern Ireland where they could report from relative saftey.

By 12 May, over 100,000 people had arrived in France via the Channel Tunnel, but two days later, the French government sealed the tunnel on their end using concrete and cement, to prevent spread of infection (and refugees for that matter, who were becoming a drain on the national economy).

Still, ferries and other boats travelled almost constantly between southern England and northern France in what some called "Dunkirk in reverse" , rescuing many thousands more refugees from the dying nation.

As London fell, hundreds of barges crammed with desperate refugees sailed down the Thames and out into the sea, some docking in the Netherlands, others in Belgium. A few sunk when they crashed into others in the crowded waterway, with hundreds drowning in the mad dash to escape London by boat.

France and the Republic of Ireland finally decided to begin putting restrictions on ferry access on 20 May, the numbers were now overwhelming and the threat of infection too great, with massive numbers of infected overrunning much of the UK.

The Irish Republic's economy threatened to stagnate with the almost complete collapse in trade with its main trading parter, the United Kingdom. Things were looking increasingly grim for the economic situation in the European Union.

21 May finally saw the United Nations Security Council (absent the British Ambassador to the UN) vote to quarantine the island of Great Britain, and restrict all travel between Britain and the rest of the world. A no fly zone was imposed, as was a naval blockade. A French Air Force Colonel was detained and dishonourably discharged from the military after refusing orders to fire on a airliner fleeing the UK full of civilian refugees. He was greeted as a hero by the French and British people alike for his actions. Similar incidents occured in American, Irish, Norweigan and German military units as they refused to prevent refugees landing.

A communications blackout was imposed on the entire UK by NATO countries on 22 May, and the surviving British media fed rumours of outbreaks in Paris and New York. This was a ploy to prevent more refugees attempting to flee the UK, and it seemed to work. No more international news broadcasts reached the UK after that date, as satelite and other signal jamming went into effect, with the remnants of the UK government in Scotland strongly pressured into supporting this action by the US and EU members.

 

[kspence92]

Blackpool and Fleetwood evacuated with relative ease, with the area's intact police force managing to direct traffic northwards and into temporary camps in Cumbria or into Scotland.

The same cannot, unfortunatley, be said of Leeds and Bradford. The population of Bradford, some 270,000 people, had to evacuate to the north using the roads that go through Leeds first. The problem was, Leeds was trying to evacuate too. This resulted in horrendous traffic jams that in some cases would move no more than than a mile or two in an hour.

When the radio began reporting the infection was approaching Leeds, drivers panicked and began honking their horns or tried to bump the cars in front, not that either really made much difference.

When it became clear that the stalled lanes of traffic were not going to move, and that the infected would soon be rampaging up the motorway, drivers abandoned their cars with their families, grabbed their belongings and made a run for it.

Leeds fell shortly after Bradford, with the infected rampaging up the stalled lanes of traffic, infecting thousands of evacuee's as they tried to flee towards Scotland.

York, Doncaster and Hull all were at least partially evacuated by the time the infected overrun all three cities on 21 May. Thousands of bodies lay decomposing in the north of England, a testiment to the haphazard and chaotic attempts at evacuating the area.

By the early hours of the morning on 22 May, the infection continued to spread up along the traffic snarls along the A1, which lead to a bloody battle at the army garrison town of Catterick in North Yorkshire, which fell quickly due to most of the soldiers having been deployed elsewhere. The troops that survived withdraw northwest to the nearby market town of Richmond, and held a defensive position on the town bridge over the River Swale. The infected finally cought up, and rushed the bridge leading a bloody battle. The bridge was blown by C4 as the soldiers retreated, allowing a temporary reprieve. The remaining soldiers, a total of thirty two men led by a Captain Paul McDonald set up a command post in Richmond Castle, which they barricaded. They held out for several days before running out of food, and, with their command post surrounded by infected, chose to turn their guns on themselves rather ran starve or be beaten and torn to pieces.

Four hours after Richmond fell, chaos reigned a few miles to the north east in unevacuated Darlington, which was still full of its population, as the government assumed the virus would have burned itself out as it spread northwards. Their assumption was wrong. The fact that all radio and TV stations in England had been overrun, and the remaining radio stations in Scotland being jammed, did not help matters as the population of Darlington was completely unaware of what was headed their way.

At least 80,000 people died or were infected in Darlington that day, and the virus continued its unabated northwards spread towards Scotland. Newcastle soon fell to the Plague also, the last major city in England before the border. Several ships made it from Newcastles ferryport before the city was overrun, several thousand people escaping into the North Sea, many of them were evacuated up to Scotland, arriving in Ocean Terminal, Edinburgh, or in Aberdeen. A thousand men and women of the British Army gave their lives to allow time for Newcastle's population to evacuate.

 

[kspence92]

By 21 May, the southern front was witnessing intense battles as what remained of the army did what they could to hold back the tide of infection.

Cornwall and Devon had a significant military presence, mostly troops that had been unable to evacuate to the north. Remaining police forces and hastily created civilian milita's manned barricades to slow down the spread of infection.

The clogged roads of the M5 led the infected all the way from Bristol right down to the south west of England.

Exeter was the scene of a massive conflageration as RAF jets based on the HMS Ark Royal aircraft carrier in the Irish Sea launched airraids on the city as it succumbed to infection, the inferno burning to death many hundreds, if not thousands of infected, and completely gutted the entire city.

This, unfortunately, only worsened the situation, as it drove the infected out of the city and even further towards the uninfected areas.

Dartmore National Park became a refuge for over 15,000 people from Southern England, as surviving army units and British Red Cross volunteers built a large tent city, miles away from any towns. Conditions in the camp were rather bad, with food supplies low and on ration, and sanitary conditions absolutley abhorent due the quarantine enforced on the UK ending food and other goods being imported to the UK.

Torquay fell to the infected without a shot being fired, as the entire army presence there had withdrawn hours earlier to a defensive line established between Plymouth and Bideford.

But the inevitable collapse came as the army began to run out of ammunition, no longer being resupplied by NATO or by the now abandoned arms depots and factories.

The Channel Massacre occured on 23 May as over 15,000 people tried to flee Plymouth by sea. There were a few ferries, some barges and tug boats. Fishing boats and even rubber dingies. Some people even tried to swim, most of those desperate poor souls drowned in the cold waters. The English Channel was clogged with refugee boats trying to cross to France, ignoring the quarantine, accepting that death by drowning or at the hands of a missile is preferable to being savaged by rabid lunatics.

In an event that would become as controvesial as the atomic bombings of Japan in World War 2, NATO air and naval forces, in this case, mostly from the French Navy and Air Force, but also several USAF jets, began activley bombing the Refugee Flotilla as it fled Plymouth.

The exact death toll is not known, but over 4,127 bodies were recovered, and 10,000 or so others who successfully crossed were placed in quarantine camps.

The Interior Minister of France resigned from his job in protest at what had happened, and the chief of the French air force resigned also, and commited suicide a few days later, wracked with guilt. Norway, Greece and Portugal withdraw their military personnel from the quarantine in protest also, declaring the attack on civilians "mass murder".

Many of the military personel involved in the Channel Massacre would need counciling for years afterwards, several would commit suicide, and one shot his commander in the head with his side arm when he returned to base, disgusted with what he had ordered him to do.


Plymouth fell that very day. One refugee who escaped recalled in an interview with Paris newspaper Le Monde.

"There were twelve of us on the boat. Me, my wife and two sons, and the captain and his family and a few others too. It was about eight at night, the sky was clear, only the moon and the lights of the boats illuminated the area. I took a look back at Plymouth, the power had been cut off for days by that point, but i could see the darkened buildings, and the orange glow over the city, illuminating the sky. Huge fires had broken out when the army tried to hold off the infected to give everybody time to escape. It was an eerie sight, watching Plymouth burn as we headed out to sea. I dont think anybody noticed i was crying as i looked back, i pretended the tears were just from the waves splashing over the boat. Rough sea that night you see, lots of swimmers drowned. We saw the lights in the distance, it was jets. We thought it was rescue coming. Then we saw those missile streak towards the sea. The screams....watching that cruise ship sink, after the missiles slammed into the side of it, it toppled on its side and sunk within maybe five, ten minutes at most. Hundreds, maybe a thousand people, jumped into the water. Most of them drowning, the other boats were too full to pick them up. We watched helplessly as the other boats near us exploded and sank, people screaming in the darkness. The jets eventually left, having run low on fuel or ammunition i assume, i know a few returned because they were refusing to follow their orders. They didnt come back, there was no way they could sink every boat before we reached the coast. When we arrived, we were pushed around and shoved into "quarantine camps", which i guess is the new way of saying concentration camp. It was horrendous, but the public outcry across France finally forced to the government to relent and release all the refugees. Now we're living in this UN run camp, much better than at Calais, but i yearn to return home one day, to see if there's anything left."
Interview of Paul Henderson at the Brest Refugee Camp , 23 July 2002.

By 25 May, three weeks after the outbreak, all of south west England had been overrun, barring a few isolated villages, military bases and the Dartmore National Park Refugee Camp.


Next : The fall of Scotland

 

[kspence92]

The predictable spread of the virus had almost led to the remnants of the government becoming complacent when plotting where to defend and where they thought the virus would strike next. It was always known the virus would spread fastest in urban areas, and that rural areas would fare best. Thats why the sudden outbreak in Scotland took the government by surprise.

It wasnt massive hoards of infected rampaging across Hadrians Wall that would spread the virus into Scotland, but rather, a single crow that had been feating upon the corpse of an infected just north of Newcastle.

Rage did not affect birds, or any non humans/non primates for that matter, but they still acted as carriers in some cases.

The crow was flying over Glasgow, Scotland exactly three weeks to the day the outbreak first began when a 10 year old boy shot at it with a BB gun, to relieve the bordom from the cesession of TV and radio broadcasting in Scotland only days previous.

The birds body tumbled as it fell from the sky, and hit a middled aged woman in the face, in what was nothing more than a freak accident. But thats all it took, one drop of the crows blood entering her mouth.

It took a few seconds for the shock of the bird hitting her to settle in, and by the time that happened, a burning sensation was tearing through her body, contorting and twisting violently as she screamed and doubled over on the pavement much to the horror of bystanders, who knew exactly what was happening.

16 seconds later she had turned and mass panic had began on Oswalt Street in Glasgow city center as hundreds of people fled the scene, dozens dying the stampede that followed.

Glasgow's armed response units and public order police were on the scene in minutes, and were doing all they could to hold back the tide of infection, but the virus spread, as it had in ever other engagement the security forces had faced since day 1.

Twenty minutes later, Tony Blair and his cabinet were informed via telephone call that the infection had somehow broken out in Glasgow, and that hundreds of people had become casualties and that law and order was desintigrating rapidly as the population of Glasgow fled in terror.

Chaos reigned in the city of some 600,000 people. Nobody had expected the infection to hit Glasgow, and certainly not so soon. All major roads were jammed with cars, vans, trucks, buses, basically anything with wheels. The deathtoll was rising constantly by the minute as the infected rampaged accross Britain's third largest city, although by then the most populous place in country after London and Birmingham were abandoned. In the chaotic and rushed attempts at evacuating Glasgow, staff at hospitals and nursing homes were forced to make an extremely difficult choice. Abandon their patients that could not be moved, or mercy kill them. Dozens of patients in Glasgow's hospitals and nursing homes were overdosed on medicines that day to prevent them from horrendous deaths at the hands of the infected.

Within eight hours, Scottish regiments of the British army and police forces from other areas of Scotland had failed to contain the outbreak, and most of Glasgow was a bloodbath, with tens of thousands dead or infected.

On the night of 24 May, with Glasgow having entirely fallen to infection only hours earlier, and the infection rapidly spreading towards Edinburgh and Fife, the government convinced NATO to allow them to flee Scotland via a Royal Air Force helicopter, allowing the no fly zone a one hour lift. They left at 11:30 PM from Edinburgh, with all remaining members of the British Cabinet aboard. They landed in Belfast, Northern Ireland soon after, where they established a new capital from where to govern what remained of the country, which by then was not much. The remaining members of the Royal Family holding out in Balmoral Castle evacuated to Canada an hour or so later, a few chose live in Belfast and some went to Australia.

Although broadcasting had ceased, some newspapers continued to print, and a very few landlines remained operational in some areas. Word got around quick that the government had abandoned the country, and it became clear that all hope was lost for Great Britain.

The next day, the power grid in Scotland failed for one last time, and did not come back on, and water supplies in most of southern and central Scotland were failing also. Society was crumbling, piece by piece.



Over the next few days, the breakdown in communications ruined any chance that the remaining military and police forces had in regaining control, or even holding onto what they had, facing both the increasing numbers of infected, as well as dwindling stocks of food, medical supplies and ammuntion, as well as accomodation for the thousands of refugees from England and southern and central Scotland.

The Forth Road and Rail Bridges over the River Forth were destroyed by retreating remnants of the Black Watch regiment as they withdrew from Edinburgh, as the city and its famous castle's defences crumbled. The decision to demolish the bridges bought a few hours, maybe a day, but the end still came for the Scottish nation as Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy and Dundee, and then Perth, Fort William and Aberdeen all were overwhelmed by the infected.

28 days after the outbreak, almost all of Great Britain had been infected or abandoned, although some areas in the Scottish Highlands survived relatively intact due to their georgraphic isolation. At least 14,000 people survived in isolated towns and villages in the north.

As of 2 June 2002, four weeks after the outbreak, the United Kingdom of Great Britain effectively ceased to exist as a nationstate. With the exception of Northern Ireland and some islands around the mainland, the UK was no more.

After being coronated in Belfast on 3 June 2002, King Charles III, formerly Charles, Prince of Wales, made a heartfelt speech that was broadcast around the world and into refugee camps all over Europe housing British refugees. He appealed to the surviving citizens to stand united in grief, and in strength, and assured Britons and they would once again return home, once the scourge had been swept away.

 

[kspence92]

The exact death toll caused by the epidemic will most likely never be known, but the UN's best estimates have a deathtoll of 54 million people. Only three million had escaped Britain.

The world was in a state of shock as the events transpired, but as the broadcasts from the UK ceased and contact with the island lost, news stories turned to other things, such as the economic downturn in Europe, which was threatening to spread to the US and Asia.

Charities were set up in many countries to help those refugee's who had managed to get out, with donations of money, as well as blankets, bottled water and clothes flooding into refugee camps from generous citizens.

The massive influx of refugee's into Northern Ireland, mainly from Scotland and North West England, had placed strain on Northern Ireland's resources, and caused some resentment amongst die hard nationalists, who saw it as an attempted colonisation of Ireland. There were a few protests and riots in Belfast and Portadown, although nobody was killed and only some minor injuries. A car bomb was defused outside the Bangor refugee camp before it could explode.

For the most part, Northern Ireland, including a large number of nationalists who wanted reunification with the Irish Republic, were sympatheic to the plight of the refugees, with many welcoming them into their homes when the camps began overflowing.

The economic situation in Northern Ireland was also rather grim, with the British pound having become near worthless by the second week of the epidemic, many shops and indivduals unoffically began using the Euro that their southern neighbour was using.

Mainland had gone dark. Communications had entirely ceased, and satelite imagery showed nothing but miles and miles of desolate landscape, decaying bodies, crashed and abandoned vehicles and deserted towns and cities. The island of Great Britain, had lost the "Great" part of the title.

The number of survivors on the island after the government fled and the last military remants in Scotland were overrun fell significantly, not just due to the infected, but as groups of survivors fought amongst themselves for resourses, such as fuel, food, clean water and basic medical supplies.

Six weeks after the outbreak started, there were an estimated 25,000 survivors all around the UK, with thousands more survivors having died in the previous couple of weeks from starvation and disease, as well as the infected.

Worried about nuclear meltdown at Britians plants, several special forces teams, mostly French and American, were dispatched by helicopter to secure the UK's ten nuclear power plants, four of which had not been shut down as the staff had abandoned the facilities in the early days during the mass panic.

The special ops teams escorted nuclear specialists who shut down the plants safley. The teams remained behind to guard the plants from any would be infliltators who would want to sneak into the UK and steal the materials for selling on the black market or building terrorists weapons with.

With all of the UK's plants shut down, the world, and in particular Britains neighbours, were able to breath a sigh of relief.

Most of the teams did not encounter the infected and the few that did noticed that most of the infected individuals were dying from starvation, and unable to even attack, leading to specualtion the infected did not eat their victims.

By the end of week 6, most of the infected were dead or dying from starvation or exposure, or in some cases blood loss due to vomiting blood.

NATO began to draw up plans for mopping up some areas of the UK and reestablishing order. After that, the refugee crisis across Europe would be alleviated by repatriating thousands of refugee's.

Sites included for resettlement were as follows :

.Folkstone, England

.Dover, England

.London, England

.Portsmouth, England

.St Andrews, Scotland

.Fort William, Scotland

.Angelsey, Wales

Folkstone, Dover and Portsmouth were chosen for their proximity to mainland Europe, with Fort William and St Andews chosen for their relatively small size allowing for easier clearing up operations. Angelsey was chosen as it would be easy for repatriation of Welsh refugees in Ireland.

London was chosen as a purely symbolic gesture, to show the British people that their nation could rise again.

 

[kspence92]

When Tony Blair resigned his from the office of Prime Minister on 15 June, he did so a near broken man, and was bordering on alchoholism, only his wife and kids kept him from completley going off the rails.

Riddled with guilt for failing to prevent the destruction of his nation, the pressure was too much, and upon his resignation, handed power over to Chanceller of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. After a period of severe depression, Blair would eventually pull himself out of it and write his memoirs in 2005.

The British Government, or what remained of it, came under significant influence from both the governments of the Republic of Ireland, and the United States, and although puppet government would be an extreme term, it wasnt far from it either, and the UK government was willing to comply, what else could they do ? The British army was almost non existant except a battalion of soldiers in Northern Ireland and a companies worth in the Isle of Wight and Isle of Man respectively along with a small hold out at Fort George in Scotland. The RAF had survived to a degree by flying some of its plane to friendly countries, as was the case with some Royal Navy ships, but most of those had run dry of fuel, or their crews had deserted to go and find surviving family members.

About eight weeks after the outbreak, three survivors were found by a patrolling Finnish Air Force jet north west of Manchester, and shortly after picked up by helicopter and taken to a German refugee camp. There names, Jim, Selena and Hannah, the first survivors that had been found for over two weeks.

Having been in temperary quarantine and been given a good wash, and a decent meal, they were then questioned as to their ordeal. They relayed the events about what happened at the mansion near Manchester, and death of the soldiers.

What happened next may have come as a shock, as Jim was arrested by the authorities on suspicion of murder, the British embassy in Berlin argued that since British authorites still survived, even to a small degree, that all laws in the UK pre infection must still be upheld.

But as their ordeal made it to the newspapers, and subsequently headlines around the world, pressure on both the British and German authorities resulted in all three being freed to go, and subsequently get housed in Hamburg, where Jim got work as a builder, Selena as a chemist and Hannah found new friends and a boyfriend at the British Refugee School.


The Irish Times
4 July 2002

Dublin man wakes from coma
in London hospital
AFTER outbreak .


Many tragic things have occurred in what was once Great Britain in the past weeks, but what could be more tragic than waking up in a deserted hospital after coming out of a coma, to discover that the entire city of London is abandoned and that civilisation as you know it has been destroyed ?

Thats what happend with Jim McDougal from Dublin, who had been living in London for the past eight years and had suffered a serious injury after a car accident the day before the outbreak, and woke up 28 days later, to a city abandoned to the infected.

Its been reported that Fox corporation are considering turning the story of Jim and two other survivors he met into a movie titled "28 Days Later", something that has been strongly criticised as "ill timed and insensitive" by survivor communities and the British government alike.

Full story on page 1 and 2

 

[kspence92]

Over the next few weeks, more survivors would be picked up by aircraft patrolling the UK, only a few hundred were picked up, most others who had survived the outbreak had died of other diseases that had prevailed with the huge numbers of decaying corpses nationwide, with cities that were unable to evacuate in time such as Birmingham and Glasgow impossible to enter without a respirator due to the smell.

Conditions in the refugee camps deteriorated due to severe overcrowding, and a major riot broke out in a large camp outside Cherbourg, France on 15 August, that led to the death of one policeman and four refugee's, with dozens more injured.

It was agreed that the situation was untennable, and that the refugees must be repatriated as soon as possible.

10 weeks after the outbreak, secure in the knowledge that the infected had all starved to death, several units of US Marines secured the towns of Dover and Folkstone on the south coast of England, Dover being a major port and Folkstone hosting the English side of the Channel Tunnel.

Over the next month, both towns were cleared of corpses, and all objects that showed signs of being contaminated with infected blood were incinerated. Engineer brigades soon arrived to restore electricty and running hot and cold water for both towns.

An American led NATO force entered London on week 11, searching for survivors and desposing of bodies. They designated the Isle of Dogs area to be the "Green Zone" for the city, that would be host the former capitals first human inhabitants in weeks.

By week 16, both Dover and Folkstone were declared fit for habitation, and repatriation was set to begin. Three days later, a lottery selected 10,000 refugees from all over Europe who would settle the towns and within a month, both towns had been resettled, under military guard by the US Army. Hot and cold running water, electricity, health care facilities and other ammenities were present also.

Within a month, small areas of Portsmouth had been resettled with 1,600 people, Southampton with 1,000, Blackpool with 2,800 and Anglesey in Wales with 2,000 Welsh refugees. St Andrews in Scotland had been cleared by Canadian forces and hosted 5,250 Scottish refugees. All these areas had basic ammenties that the first repatriation areas in Dover and Folkstone had recieved.

The main target for repatriation however, was London.

24 weeks after infection, reconstruction began on the Isle of Dogs, London and was designated District 1. Four weeks later the area was clear and power and water were running, as was a medical centre, supermarket, a pub and a church. Plans for schools to be reopened were postponed until children would begin arriving in large numbers in the coming weeks.

28 Weeks Later, the population of District 1 is around 15,000 civilians, with over 2,000 military and support personnel. The total number of repatriated civilians in other areas of Britain excluding London came to around 21,000.

The pressure on the camps was relieved slightly, but millions of refugees were still awaiting new districts being declared safe and opened to the public.

It was 4 December, 7 months later - 28 weeks. A survivor was found in her home on the outskirts of London, Alice Harris. She was infected, yet she didnt show any symptoms. She wasnt violent, she wasnt vomiting blood or foaming at the mouth. She was a carrier. The virus was in her blood, yet it didnt affect her. One passionate kiss with her husband who had visited her in the medical centre led to a chain reaction of events that would cause death and destruction on an unimaginable scale.

Next : Second Battle of London

 

[kspence92]

Many things have been said about the events of that fateful December night. None of them good. The Second Battle of London, the Isle of Dogs Massacre, some even called it the Second Great Fire of London.

Whatever you chose to call it, almost all of those who were there that night are not around today to hear you call it by its name. 13,649 was the official deathtoll. About 40% of the troops stationed there were evacuated in time to a military camp in the countryside south west of London. Almost all of the civilians would die in the massacre.

One man's kiss with his infected wife, even though she showed no symptoms , would lead to the death of thousands in only a few hours.

His wife was his first target after the infection consumed his body, then the nearby guards. Within five minutes ten people had become infected, and General Stone, Commander of the US Army's 82nd Airborne that was overseeing District 1, called a Code Red.

The first part of the Code Red order was to evacuate civilians from their homes and into designated safe rooms, mostly warehouses or large parking garages. The doors were locked, sealing the panicked population inside.

When the doors to the largest safe room were broken by a single infected, a bloody massacre ensued and the virus spread at an almost unbelievable rate, leaving hundreds dead and nearly a thousand infected within a few minutes.

Gunfire was soon echoeing throughout the streets of District 1 as the infection pursued their victims without mercy. 50 cal. machineguns mounted on humvee's cut them down by the dozens, but it became hard to tell the infected apart from the non infected in the huge crowds.

The order to exterminate EVERYTHING, infected or uninfected, came through 15 minutes after the first attacks. It was out of control, and the only way of stopping the spread was to kill everyone the virus could potentially spread to.

Snipers and machineguns gunned down hundreds of people, infected and uninfected. Some began to abandon their posts as the infected numbers grew and panic set in, others abandoned their posts refusing to shoot unarmed civilians.

Most of the soldiers began to fall back to pre planned positions on the ouskirts of district 1 to await helicopter extraction when it became clear all was lost.

USAF jets began bombing the streets of District 1 within half an hour of the outbreak, killing thousands of infected and uninfected, followed by the deployment of poisonious gas and special forces squads wearing NBC suits and armed with flamethrowers to kill the remaining survivors.

Three hours after the outbreak, District 1 was devoid of human life, and over 13,000 people lay dead in the streets or in burnt out buildings. A handful of civilians had escaped the area and were on the run, along with two army deserters, it was reported to General Stone as he was flown to safety.

News broke that "something" had happened in London within four hours. Nobody was quite sure what as communications were severely limited, but rumours persisted of an outbreak of infection, and anyone with access to a satellite could see the columns of smoke rising from London.

The Pentagon issued a statement 6 hours after the city was bombed, announcing that there had been an outbreak of infection in the city, and that District 1 had been bombed, leading to the death of all infected in the city. When queried about civilian casualties, the spokesman claimed that all civilians had already become infected or had been killed. Claims that were not believed by all, and online rumours of massacres of civilians by the military persisted. General Stone would be dishonourably discharged from the army and arrested and tried for negligence, for having allowed an infected carrier into the city.

In all the chaos and confusion, a single helicopter had crossed the channel unnoticed and landed near the town of Calais, France. When a farmer came up to see what all the fuss was about, a young boy who had been in the helicopter happened to sneeze before he could bring up a tissue, a little speck landing in the farmers eye. The first though of that farmer was "How bloody rude". The next was a little less coherent as a wave of burning pain shot through his body...

Next : The Fall of France

 

[kspence92]

At around 3:00 PM on Christmas Eve 2002, several people peered out of their windows in the village of Sangatte, France, a few miles outside the port of Calais.

They may have wondered what the shouting down the street was all about, and wondered even more as they saw a young boy sprinting down the street for all he was worth chased by a man in US army fatigues, a man who was obviously a farmer, and a young women no older than 18.

Curiousity gave way to terror as the villagers realised that the pursuers eyes were red, and they were frothing at the mouth. They were infected. The boy escaped, this is known because he was picked up by authorities, and when it was realised he was an English refugee who was apparantly immune to the virus, he was immediatley taken to a safe location in the US, still in tears about being responsible for his sister becoming infected after their helicopter landed in a field only ten minutes earlier.

Some villagers armed themselves with bats, spades and knifes and tried to form a barricade on the main road to halt the infected. The defence of Sangatte failed as the villagers were overrun and infected themselves, and panicked calls to police were initially thought as pranks, as it was was believed the infection would not cross the channel.

By the time the police became aware that it was infection, the village had been overrun and the Sangatte refugee camp was suffering an outbreak also. Dozens were dead and over a hundred were infected within half an hour.

Armed police closed the roads into Sangatte and shot at anything that moved, even though shoot to kill orders had not yet been given.

President Jacques Chirac was informed of the outbreak twenty minutes after it began, and immediately ordered the military to blockade the western side of Calais to protect it from the infection coming from the west.

When the TV channel France 24 broke the story of the Sangatte outbreak, panic followed in its larger neighbour Calais, as thousands tried to flee the city , fearing the infection would reach them soon. Over 5,000 British refugees in Calais also joined the exodus south, or in some cases east towards Belgium.

By the time the first army units had arrived outside Sangatte, they discovered the police roadblocks abandoned and strewn with bodies.

The infected had already broken through, and were in the outskirts of Calais. Some residents took matters into their own hands and grabbed fuel cannisters from local petrol stations and doused the roads into the west end of Calais, and set them alight to slow the spead of infection. Some people tried to barricade roads with cars and dumpsters, even park benches and shopping trollies were used to block roads, anything not nailed down.

Police officers helped in the efforts to block the roads, to allow the residents time to evacuate. Some of the refugees from Britain stayed behind to defend the town that had taken them in and sheltered them, and felt they had to repay the favour.

The infection breached the road blocks soon after, and the handful of armed police, soldiers and civilians who were defending it quickly were overwhelmed or forced to flee. It took an hour, maybe a little less before the infection had taken over most of the town. Thousands were dead and infected, and the mass evacuation of refugees in all directions from the town complicated efforts at containing the virus.

Panic buying started all across northen France when news broke that Calais had fallen to the infected. People as far east as Dunkirk began to evacuate fearing further spread of infection. In a widely reported incident caught on camera, a tank belonging to the French army crushed several refugee's cars as it stormed towards Calais trying to contain the spread of infection .

That night, the sky around Calais was lit up orange as the French Air Force destroyed the entire town, as well as Sangatte, using their bombers. However, it was too late, the infection had already spread beyond Calais, and the panic had spread even futher than that.

Chirac, knowing full well what the Rage Virus was capable of, declared a national State of Emergency the next morning as the infection reached the town of Dunkirk.

This declaration gave authorites sweeping powers to deal with anyone causing a nuisance or somehow hidnering the government's response to the outbreak. Opposition parties threw their support behind the President, something that was fairly rare in any democracy. But desperate times call for desperate measures. The government used the emergeny declaration to begin censoring the media and impose information blackouts in some areas, in an effort to reduce the panic. This would ultimatley backfire as not only would protests break out over it, but the public would not know the true extent of the danger until it was breaking through their windows.

Next : Fall of France part 2

 

[kspence92]

Chirac was on the brink of getting into a brawl with his Army Chief of Staff, witnesses attested years later. The Army, and elements of the air force, well aware of how fast the virus conducted itself, wanted to incinerate the infected area with a nuclear device. Other members of the cabinet including the foreign secretary and defence secretary also opposed the nuclear option, whilst a few others supported it.

Of course it was a desperate option, but what other choice did France have if she wanted to survive, the army and air force chiefs said.

Chirac, according to his private secretary's diaries that were published in Canada years later, attested that Chirac feared the potential political backlash of lobbing a nuke or two at France's channel coastline. There could be riots when people found out their families had died in the bombs. Radiation would be a problem too, and in all likelyhood he could be forced from office.

After twenty minutes of heated debate, the military men stormed out of the cabinet room, and began discussions with other military officers, ones they would be able to trust. Ones that would do what was neccesary for the Republic.

On Christmas Night, as Dunkirk fell to the infected, and the ruins of Calais and Sangatte smoldered in the darkness, something extraordinary occured on the streets of Paris.

Under the cover of darkness as the clock approached midnight, several armoured troop carriers rolled towards the Élysée Palace, home of the President, as well as towards the Defence Ministry and the Charles De Gaulle Airport. Soldiers loyal to the Chief of Staff of the French Army disembarked and secured the airport and defence ministry without resistance, and only light resistance from guards at the presidential palace, that left several guards dead and three soldiers dead.

A panicked Jaques Chirac made several phonecalls to military officers he knew he could trust whilst the guards tried to hold off the coup plotters.

Two hundred soldiers mobalised from a nearby base under orders to put down the coup, and a several major fire fights broke out in the streets of Paris.

They were too late to prevent the fall of the presidents palace, and Chirac was arrested and held under charges of treason. The soldiers loyal to him finally disengaged and held their fire when the army chief of staff made an annoucement on national TV declaring Chirac had been removed from office, and that those soldiers loyal to him will not face charges if they return to their barracks immediately.

The "mini civil war", or often called by some, "the Christmas War", in Paris came to an end after an hour and a half that left nearly a hundred French soldiers dead and several homes ablaze. The people of Paris began to survey the damage the next morning and were in a state of near shock, after all, their country had come perilously close to civil war. The French Army shooting at eachother on Christmas in the streets of Paris, what kind of foolishness is that, especially for 21st centuary France ? and then the rabid lunatics rampaging alone the northern coast, killing everything in sight. It was hard to take in for the regular people. They knew exactly what had befallen the island across the Channel. They knew what was coming, and as much as they feared it, they would face it with courage.

Bernard Thorette, the Army Chief of Staff, assumed command of a military council that would run the country until elections could be held. His first order for a nuclear bombardment of several tactical devices along the coast between the burnt out ruins of Calais and the infested town of Dunkirk.

 

[kspence92]

From the book : "Death of a Nation", published post-Eurasian Epidemic

"We were wondering what all the fuss was about, the Americans pulled out of Dover in a hurry, and left us to our own devices. By then it didnt matter too much, we had a police force again and running water and electricity in the town, we could cope. What worried us was why the soldiers were leaving and in such a hurry, the ones that replied when we asked geniouinely didnt seem to know, there seemed to be a lot of confusion. Then the rumours started, about another outbreak in London.

Three days after the Americans left Dover, i was walking along the beach with my husband, just enjoying a nice little stroll in the moonlight. It was cold, given it was the day after Christmas, the sea breeze didnt really bother us as we were wrapped up well. There was this flash coming from the other side of the channel, at first i thought it was maybe a boat of something flashing it lights. But it seemed to bright for that. Then when the light subsided, a wave of absolute horror overcame both of us. There on the horizon, was a a mushroom cloud, it wasnt particulary big, but it was there. A nuclear bomb had just detonated in France. Of course, we had no contact with the outside world after the Americans left, but the rumours of the outbreak in London, and the nuclear explosion in France were enough to convince us that infection was back, and had reached Europe this time." - Pauline Willis

******

Three tactical nuclear weapons detonated over the French coast that night, oblitaterating everwhere between Calais and Dunkirk, killing thousands of infected, and several hundred survivors who were hiding in their homes.

The news that the military had bombed their own country with nuclear weapons shocked and horrified the French people, and thousands protested on the streets, in spite of the martial law. Four protesters were killed and twenty others injured in clashes with police and troops.

Refugee's from north east France fleeing the infected and the feared radiation streamed into Paris, or in some cases towards the Belgian border.

For the next several hours, the government struggled to piece together coherent information, as communications had been disrupted by the bombs. It seemed clear that almost all, if not all, infected had been killed.

They were wrong.

Rage only needs a single drop of blood or saliva to spread. One carrier is all it takes. As it turned out a few dozen infected were far enough from the blast areas to actually survive. The bombs had done nothing but cause destrution, and only served to slow down the infection, rather than destroy it.

Rumours abounded that the virus was spreading southwards and the bombs had failed. The rumours, unfortunatley, were correct. Abbeville was overrun on 27 December, and an outbreak was reported in Aimes the next day, where the French army was massing to destroy the infected.

Chaos and panic struck Aimes as soldiers and police fought the infected in the streets. Hundreds died in the first hour. By the end of Day four of the France outbreak, the infection had swept the entire north east of the coast, and had reached as far as Aimes, Arras and Dieppe.

When a news channel in Paris rebelled against the military imposed censorship and broke the story that the infection was spreading out of control in parts of the country, and that the nuclear bombs had for a fact failed to contain the outbreak, mass panic ensued, especially when some unconfirmed reports suggested that the virus was appoaching Paris. Whilst this was true, Paris would not be in immediate danger for at least a few days. But people being people, they panicked.

Thousands of cars and busses streamed out of the capital in a flight of great panic.

Precious works of art were taken from galleries and museums and hoarded in underground bunkers and the Louvre was boarded up. Fights broke out in Paris as citizens demanded a end to the information blackout, and for lower fuel prices, as they could not afford the fuel to evacuate from the city.

Many neigbourhoods in Paris burned on the 28th, with twelve rioters being shot dead, and two policemen being killed in a hit and run by a rioter.

The death of unarmed civilians in the capital provoked more riots accross France, forcing the government to deploy more troops to maintain order, troops that would better be of service stopping the infection.

The military council fled Paris on 29 December as a mob of thousands of angry youths stormed their headquarters, and soldiers either abandoned their posts or defected to the protesters side.

France's new revolution would not last long however, as the infection reached the northern ouskirts of the capital the same day, and it seemed law and order had collapsed in the capital, with nobody sure who was in the charge. Its estimated that 150,000 people died in Paris between 29 December and 3 January, as the infection took hold of the city, and the break down of authorties and communications severely hindered evacuation efforts.

The military council, which still claimed to be the legitimate government, had set up its new base of operations in Bordeaux, just north of the Spanish border.

By 7 January, two weeks after the first outbreak in France, anarchy prevailed across the nation, with many major French towns and cities inundated with infected. Three more nuclear explosions would occur in France, levelling Reims, Orleans and Dijon, before a counter coup overthrow the military council and replaced it with new officers, who refused to use nukes on their own nation.

By that point, French central government was no longer really governing anything, it was everyman for himself outside the barricaded city of Bordeaux and secure military installations.

On 10 January, the day after Bordeaux burned to the ground, several French members of Parliament, as well as a group of high ranking military officers held a meeting on the island of Corsica and formed a new government, that formally replaced the military council with civilian leadership, albeit civilian leadership with siginifant military oversight.

In a radio address by the new government, it was promised that mainland France would one day be liberated from infection, and that the capital would be moved back to Paris as soon as the city was retaken.

By that point, there were not really all that many people left in France to hear the broadcast.

The rest of Europe looked at France with terrified eyes, and braced themselves for Hell on Earth. Everyone knew what to expect. In Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Switzerland, military units mobalised and fortified their borders. They were not letting in the infected without a fight.

 

[kspence92]

With the collapse of France, the European economy went into free fall, much worse than after the collapse of Britain.

Two weeks after the begining of the new year, the continent was in a state of panic. Borders were sealed, airports closed, flights cancelled and forces mobalised.

Infected rampaged across the Belgian border chasing after terrified refugees, swamping poorly set up border defences and forcing the Belgian army to retreat to the city of Liege and Fort Eben-Emael, made famous during its hold out against the German invasion in 1914. Now the tourist attraction would once again be used for the Belgian army. To the north, the Belgians set up defences outside the port of Zebrugge, which would be essential in evacuation operations. The Belgian government and Royal family quickly evacuated from Brussels to a military base in the countryside. within a few days, Belgium had fallen, with the exception of Liege and the nearby Fort, where most of Belgiums military assets had relocated to, and the northern port at Zebrugge, which had evacuated 10,000 people to Denmark in the space of four days.

The Dutch military fared a little better, having had more time to set up defences. They had evacuated thousands that lived near the border and took then behind the canals in the northwest, where the main defences were being established. The entire southern and eastern parts of the Netherlands were abandoned by the army, who saw little sense in defending strategically invalid areas.

The Noord Holland Kanaal Defense Line was designed to protect Amsterdam and the north west of the country. All bridges across the cannal were wired to detonated if the infected tried to cross, and huge military defenses made sure that that would not happen.

This plan would save millions of Dutch lives, and the infection would not reach Amsterdam , Haarlem, or the coastal islands, although those survivors abandoned behind the lines would not forgive or forget their government leaving them to die.

By the 3 February, German troops suffered a catrasrophic defeat at Aachen as infection overrun the border with Belgium, and thousands of German soldiers and civilians succumed to the rage. Similar outbreaks were occuring along the North German coast as infection crossed the border from the areas of the Netherlands abandoned by the army.

Chaos and panic preceeded the infection, and already panic buying and hoarding were occuring as far away as Austria and Poland.

******************
From "Death of a Nation" Chaper 12 - page 215
"It was the 14th of January i think, maybe the 15th, i can't remember, but ill never forget looking out across the channel and seeing all those boats dotting the horizon. The last time i saw all those boats, they were crossing from Dover to France and Belgium. This time, they were coming here ! At least 1,500 people was a total we came to later. Mostly Belgians and French. There were event a few British refugees who had been residing in France. We didnt understand what was happening at first, why were they coming here to Dover ? They explained soon enough, the one that said he was a Member of Parliament in Belgium said the outbreak had destroyed France and was sweeping into Beligum and Germany. We couldnt believe it. The irony was not lost on anyone of course, but ill never forget seeing the look on the face of one refugee when he saw me, i recongnised him from my time in the Calais refugee camp. He had berated me for destroying the French economy and had moaned about how we were "stealing" their jobs. He saw me, and lowered his head and looked at his feet as he shuffled past with tears in his eyes. Of course, we took these people in and sheltered them, after all, they had done the same for us a few months back, it was the least we could do."
- Jake Carlson, 44 years old, orginally from Canterbury, England.

 

[kspence92]

As February progressed, the infection reached France's southern border with Spain. Mountain passes along the Pyranees were destroyed with explosives and others mined and barricaded. The border between France and Spain was became almost as fortified as the border between North and South Korea.

Spain and Portugal would survive the collapse of Europe, and would not suffer any outbreaks, although the economic collapse brought on by the fall on tourism and trade with the EU would see a rise in Catalan and Basque independence movements and a new round of violence in those regions.

By the begining of March, Germany was a warzone as German forces backed by US troops based there pre-outbreak, fought desperately against the infected. The mainland of Denmark, as well as many parts of Austria and northern Italy fell to the infection, and by 14 March, over 85 million people were dead across Europe, and that was just counting those who died since the first cases in France.

Switzerland would survive the outbreak relatively intact owing to its geography, as would parts of Norway and Sweden, who used their sparsly populated terrain to their advantage in combating the infected.

As the last American forces evacuated from Europe on 28 March, and Polish border defenses struggled to cope with waves of German refugee's that were followed by hundreds of infected.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia were soon experiencing their own outbreaks as the epidemic ravaged the continent. Governments collapsed and military defenses fell apart. It was every man for himself as anarchy took hold of what remained of Europe, especially as panic took hold in the Balkans and Poland and some other countries, fearing the spread of the virus.

To the east, the Russian Federation eyed the collapse of Europe with great worry, but also viewed it as an opportunity. Once the infection had burned itself out, Europe's abandoned territory would be up for grabs. But before that, the Russian leadership agreed that the most important thing was to prevent the virus destroying Russia. Plans soon went into effect to build a giant defensive line, an effort unseen since the early months of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.