THUS SAITH THE LORD
Author's Note: Intense spoilers ahead! Read at your own risk!
While living in exile in Manchester, John Dee compiled his work with Edward Kelley, and their conversations with angels, into a manuscript entitled "In Enochum Colloquia" ("The Enochian Conversation")
The book was published in 1602, reputedly financed by Queen Elizabeth 1 herself; But the Queen died shortly after publication. Her successor, the Puritan James I, decreed the Colloquia a blasphemy and ordered all copies to be burned. Only a few copies escaped this fate and remain to this day, but their authenticity is perpetually in doubt.
Enochian Conversations, November 1585:
"In the year of our Lord two thousand and twelve, the alchemy of wealth from air will bring a second Blight upon mankind. As the Revelation shows, 'when death overcomes life, so shall man walk eternally in purgatory, and those who long for the bosom of God shall not find it, as death itself flees from them to smother the world in gray damnation.'"
The BBC News crew, having moved its station to Bristol, continued to report the terrifying developments from London's outskirts. The term "infected" and "carrier" and now fallen away for the more popular term of "zombies, ghouls, and undead." Horror enthusiasts watched as the stuff of their dreams and fantasies came true on live TV. End-times preachers on the Internet clashed with the conspiracy-obsessed video posters, who dismissed the crisis as a great hoax generated by the Western dictator-democracies to solidify their hold over a terrified populace.
That night, an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council in New York ratified Resolution 2020 in a unanimous vote, authorizing 'exigent deployment' of military forces to blockade London and Great Britain as a whole. The decision was met with standing ovation by the World Health Assembly in Geneva and the representatives of the European Union, Canada, and the United States. The British representative merely sat quietly as the world called for the isolation and death of his nation's greatest city to save their own.
In mainland Europe, the French military was mobilized to Normandy and Pas de Calais. Farther back at the Chunnel entrance, GIGN officers armed to the teeth gunned down fifteen infected and twelve survivors indiscriminately. The Pope himself at the Vatican, in full ceremonial garment, wrung his hands and declared the fall of London a "great tragedy for the innocent," and a punishment brought down by a "God grown tired of man's sins."
Across the Atlantic, the Americans and Canadians stood on high alert. Inside the E-4 Doomsday Plane over Maryland, the President ordered sat at his desk and chewed on Wrigley's to calm his nerves. The order went out across the nation for DEFCON Three. NORAD scrambled the Air Force and shut down the airports and harbors. Off of Nova Scotia, Canadian Navy cruisers patrolled the coastlines. At least one Baptist fanatic in rural Alabama proclaimed it a time of rejoicing, falling on her knees with glories to God On High for smiting the heathen house of "Protestant filth" from the Earth.
"This fog of death will cloak the land, and those men who are not prepared will succumb to its foul clutches. Harken not the beast with a thousand eyes, whose split tongue defiles and embrace your demise, and none shall escape its gaze."
A young girl screamed in horror as she raced away from the horde of undead shambling towards her. She stared in sheer terror at the hungry mouths and withered hands that reached out for her body and its scent of fresh meat.
With one last gasp of air, she threw herself into the nearest door and slammed it shut, severing a set of decomposed fingers in the process. She then ran to the nearest table and shoved it across the floor and across the door's path.
With a sigh of exhaustion, she fell to the wall and slid to the floor. She was about to close her eyes when a glint of blue caught them. A little toy train with a smiling face stared back at her. Curious, her eyes scanned the room she was in and saw the interior of a nursery.
A nursery with a blood-splattered floor.
Horrified, the girl's heart began to beat as she scanned the room for danger. She looked to the left and saw nothing. She looked to the right and saw nothing.
She looked in front and saw the decomposed face of a women dressed in a nurse's gown staring straight at her a few inches from her face, reddish-yellow eyes gleaming in the dim light. Before the girl could wonder how she had gotten there so quickly, the creature let out an ear-shattering shriek and bit down on the young girl's face.
"Therefore prepare, for a small few shall be spared, and they will be the enlightened ones, the prepared ones, the ones who seek to possess the fabled Panacea."
"For the others, hell and fire will be their soul's reward. Fathers will not know their sons; sons will damn their fathers.
In a petrol station shack, the decomposed body of a man once called Vikram sat unmoving next to the disemboweled and flayed bodies of his wife and son, the remnants of the boy's jaw between his father's teeth. Grubs, flies, and maggots, uncaring of the situation, simply took no notice and began to feed.
In the southern outskirts of London, a Royal Marine major directed his men's L85A1 gunfire against the growing, oncoming horde that sought to break free from the barricades and into the world. In one short instant, a single infected – no more than 20 – broke through and shoved a greenie out of the way before charging at the major himself.
The officer grabbed his own rifle and laid waste to the young zombie's face. He gave out another order to hold the line and prepared to turn away when he noticed a glint of white in the dead man's pocket. It was an old Polaroid photo, picture centered about a white backing. The major looked into the photo and saw the past stare back at him. The caption read A little lucky charm for you, my son.
At that moment, the major – a veteran of the Falklands, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan – felt his legs turned to jelly fell to his knees, dropping the photo and laid his head on the ground before sitting up again. On his belt was a 9mm Browning Hi-Power which he unbuckled with trembling hands. The major then let out a single, unnatural scream that was far too human before turning the gun under his jaw and pulling hard on the trigger.
The Tower shall fall when the Ravens flee. And when the Tower crumbles, so too, will England, and surely as night follows day."
The jet-black UH-1Y Venom roared away from the Tower, its pilot wrestling the controls to bring him and his passengers away from London as fast as humanly possible. Down below, a fresh horde of the damned swarmed its stone surface.
Behind him, the unnamed survivor collapsed onto the hard metal floor, exhausted from the entire ordeal. Sondra, ever the pragmatist, immediately seized the USB stick in his hands. "Is this it?" she called out above the rotors' roar. "Is this the cure?"
For a moment, the survivor looked blankly at the black-clad woman standing above him. Then, with barely a whisper, he breathed out three simple syllables: "N-no. Vac-cine."
For a long second, Sondra stared at the man she had rescued, then at the USB chip. John had been right. There was no real cure.
She pushed those thoughts of doom and gloom straightaway. It didn't matter; she could still save this world, even with a vaccine. She dragged the man up to the nearest bench and laid him against the bulkhead before turning to the pilot.
"We have the Panacea!" she called. "Get us out of here now!"
With a roar from its turboshaft engines, the Venom raced away from the once mighty fortress of the Realm, away from London, away from the once gleaming jewel of British might.
"If you would survive, bury yourself in the earth's bosom, that she may protect you"
In a bunker within the London Underground beneath the Shadwell Station Tube, a man dressed in combat gear and a prosthetic foot watched the ensemble of monitors and screens presented in front of him, each linked to every closed-circuit camera throughout London. His safe house had been stocked to the brim with ammunition and provisions, the doors barricaded and shut tight. A lifetime with Royal Signals had served him well.
He watched as the black-clad helicopter puttered away from the Tower of London, carrying the ungrateful son of a bitch that deserted him. The man's face twisted into a grim smirk. Ah Sondra, you romantic little bitch, he thought. When will you learn? You didn't think I'd heard that mad doc's message did you? Even for a hopped-up vaccine doesn't last forever.
Something black and angular caught his eye on the far left screen, the one that he had pointed upwards towards the grey-out and glowing orange skies. He pushed aside a pair of dog tags labeled WRIGHT, JOHN W. and took a single look at the monitor. His smirk became an insane smile as leaned back in his chair, triumphant. Right on time, he thought. Thus the angels of death spread its wings over Egypt…
His voice sent peals of victorious laughter echoing across the safe house halls.
"For God shows no mercy to those who heed not His words, and the man who has grown fat upon the backs of his fellows with insatiable greed will himself starve for life and turn at last to devour his own children."
Inside the enormous makeshift coliseum, blood flowed like a river from the podium that stood a few feet above the scabbed-over stone floor of the arena. Undead of all types moaned about, many of them moaning from the pleasure of their great feast. At their feet were half a skull and various bloodied bones: all that remained of the once great King of the Zombies and his apocalyptic followers.
"Thus will the end come, and the world made unworthy in His eyes, so that He may begin anew. You will know when His Heralds sound seven bells, to reveal His glory."
At the empty Palace of Westminster, Big Ben chimed seven times to mark the morning hour. But the smoke and flames had obscured the sun, making it impossible to tell night from day. The dead, not understanding the noise, merely took it as a sign that food was nearby, and shambled towards the source.
"And a cleansing fire of black angels will purify the world."
Three squadrons of Panavia Tornado fighter-bombers from RAF Marham rocketed across the smoky English's skies, their payload bomb bays filled to the brim with weapons once outlawed by the Geneva Convention. The Security Council would make a snit about it, but Air Command had assured them that the red tape would disappear before long. Under the banner of Task Force Sennacherib, these bombers were Great Britain's last hope of containing the Black Plague before it consumed the rest of England. If they failed, the Trident missiles of HMS Vanguard would fire and signal London's total abandonment.
Within the hour, the Tornados screamed over London. The lead pilot, a veteran of the Falklands War and Desert Storm, lined up his angle and called for the rest to follow his lead. From their wings and bellies, napalm pods fell away one by one and sailed towards the ground. The pods burst open and fused the napalm to ignition, becoming massive conflagrations that lit the streets, seeped into building ventilations and windows, and gutted them from the inside out. Every living thing died within minutes as the shock of the burns became too much for their bodies to bear. The undead took longer, as they felt nothing from the fires that licked their decomposed skin and decaying muscles. Only when the fire reach what remained of their contaminated brains did they fall, defeated.
For yet again in its great history, London burned.
"From these ashes shall arise a new utopia in Londinium, like unto Heaven on earth."
BBC News – November 22, 2012
"…The North Atlantic Council has agreed to the UN's request for a NATO-led peacekeeping force of 50,000 to accompany the already 40,000 peacekeepers tasked with humanitarian and reconstruction efforts. Under the banners of Britain-Force (BFOR) and the United Nations Reconstruction Mission (REMIUK) to the United Kingdom, these 90,000 troops will bring a semblance of law and order back to the devastated nation.
Queen Elizabeth II has sent out a proclamation from Windsor Castle in Berkshire, calling for her "brave subjects" to 'fight on against this black scourge.'
Meanwhile, military and police forces in France are responding to similar incidents of violent activity within the Channel Tunnel…"