7 months later

The Prime Minister walked through the building towards the conference room. The hallway was well lit and had armed guards posted at irregular intervals along it. It wasn't how he'd have had it but there was a serious manpower shortage. Well, the men were still on the base, they were just too dead to help. He straightened his tie as he walked because he needed to look like a leader. He tried to smarten his hair because he wanted to look like a leader.

He looked into his headquarters, it was empty. No doubt Andrew and Julie were off making more zombie food. He saw the scene in his head and imagined himself within it. He stirred and pushed the image out of his head. Now was not the time. A full pot of coffee was on the table waiting for him. He picked it up and moved for the conference room.

His pager bleeped before he got there and he changed course. Soon the corridors became less bright and the guards even more infrequent. He knocked on a door and waited before knocking again. The stale smell of unwashed sweat greeted him rather than the outstretched hand of the technician. The small room was occupied by a single man, short and overweight, who was fabricating a report for the President to use in his speech later that day.

The President was planning to launch nuclear warheads at Russia. He described it as the 'perfect opportunity' to eradicate his old enemies. What the Prime Minister didn't know was that half of the warheads were set to impact on China. This, the President said, was because they were becoming too powerful for their own good. America was the name that people whispered in fear, not China.

'So' the Prime Minister's voice was hushed, 'what's so important? I'm addressing the leaders in a moment.' He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the dark room. Then the lights came on and the Prime Minister took a step back in shock. The technician was lying across the keyboard. The document on the monitor was illegible; the keys pressed by the body of the man had long since destroyed any coherent sentence.

The Prime Minister realised in that moment that it wasn't the smell of stale sweat that had welcomed him, it was the sickly sweet stench of recent death. The man hadn't been gone long, his blood hadn't started congealing and his extremities hadn't started stiffening. Did he page me? Asking for help? Or is it something else?

The lights clicked off and a voice, one he recognized but couldn't match to a face, spoke to him from the darkness. 'The men on the grassy knoll were dead within the hour after the assassination of President Kennedy. The loose ends were tied and the investigation fell apart. It's the same in any conspiracy and it is especially true for this one.'

The Prime Minister turned to where he thought the voice was coming from. In reality he was speaking to the man's left shoulder. 'Am I a loose end?' he asked. Too direct a voice in his head warned. You might as well have said 'are you going to kill me?'

The voice didn't seem to take offence to this; in any case the tone of the voice didn't change. 'We couldn't trust this man not to talk. I know none of this seems real but it's not one of your Hollywood movies. This has to remain a secret. Frankly, if it were up to me, you'd be joining our mutual friend here on his trip over the fence. The President, however, has a different idea. You are going to clean up the mess. You're not so bad with computers; make sure the President or America isn't implicated in this. Blame it on a… bug… call it what you will. When this is over we'll have no need to fear anyone anymore. Everyone will fear us and that is how it should be.'

The Prime Minister looked at the now bloating body of the unfortunate technician and then looked at where he thought the man was again. The man had moved during his speech and the Prime Minister was now talking to an empty wall. 'You're not seriously considering this? I mean it's just ridiculous.' The Prime Minister's sentences trailed off into nothingness when the voice became a hand and put a knife to his throat. He felt the blood of the technician on his neck and wondered how many others had felt their own blood trickle down their neck.

'It doesn't bother me. You say no, you die here and I find someone else. It's no consequence to me.'

The Prime Minister weighed his option. 'Ok, I'll do it. But this IS crazy. No one's going to believe that this was an accident.'

The voice with the knife laughed. 'Yes they will'