No one knew how it started. It just did. The nanites were probably designed to fight cancer or restart dying cells. They certainly did that. The upshot was that most of the world seemed to be infected by a real-life zombie plague.

The UK government thought that they could contain it with masks and lockdowns. It didn't work. Eventually, you have to leave home for one reason or another and a simple thing like a scratch from an infected person would mean a living death.

Like the covid virus, you could pass on the infection while appearing to be healthy. You apparently felt good while the nanites did their work rewriting your DNA.

Within 48 hours you died. Your heart and breathing just stopped. Then the final stage of the nanite's work took hold and you revived with just your "lizard brain" functioning. You died then awoke seconds later. The lizard brain was hungry. It wanted to eat. It wanted to eat living things.

The problem with fighting zombies is the only way to stop them is by destroying the brain. These nanite zombies were no different. The nanites keep every cell fed with energy, but they still need a brain to direct the body.

The cities fell quickly. The army and the police were using shells and guns to stop the hordes of zombies. The problem was any normal humans stop when they are shot. These zombies keep moving with only one arm left to drag themselves along.

Many battles ended with the soldiers screaming after the first intense salvos were fired. It did not help that the majority of the UK has no access to firearms. Anyone engaging in a fight with a zombie would invariably get scratched. Human nature meant they would not tell anyone. They felt fine, and they knew if they told anyone the only cure would be a bullet through the brain.

This is how the UK would eventually fall.

My name is Andy. I live in a town called Hertford, 20 miles north of London. Two months ago the army evacuated the town. I refused to go. I begged my mother to stay with me. I could keep her safe. She wished me luck and left with my older sister. She always did believe that the government knew best.

Above my bed was the loft hatch. Since the plague started I had cleared out the loft and been stocking it with dried food, canned food, and water. The header tank was in the loft and I had connected a tap to the bathroom. I could keep it filled until the water pressure died.

We had a 50-gallon tank. A human needs about half a gallon a day. I knew when the water pressure went we would have around a month's supply left, plus the other bottles and sealed containers I had stored in the loft. Now that I was going to be alone I had over 3 months' supply. I thanked god I had also stacked the loft with several boxes of books.

I promised my mother and sister I would stay put in the loft for at least 2 months. The government said that everyone would be kept in the camp for 4 to 6 weeks while they would sweep the country, city by city, town by town, killing anyone they saw. They hoped to keep the healthy safe, while they sterilized the country.

The first few weeks were not too bad. I had a wind-up-powered radio that had a torch built in. I knew the batteries in my torch would not last forever, so I made good use of the tools I had taken with me. I cut a hole in the roof lining and carefully removed the tiles.

It was good to breathe the fresh air. My toilet consisted of a bucket that I emptied down the overhang in the far corner of the loft. Some of the waste hit the wall on the way down, its smell filled the air even when the hole was covered.

What I saw through the hole filled me with despair. Shuffling figures filled the street. They just wandered up and down bumping into each other. I heard a fox bark as it attacked a black plastic bin bag. It must have walked passed most of the figures without them noticing, but at the sound of the bark they jerked towards the sound and moved quickly to find its source. The poor animal was surrounded and torn apart.

I noticed that the noise had attracted others. These walking corpses must be attracted to sound. That made sense. The pictures I saw on TV before everything went to shit all showed dead milky eyes. They must have poor vision, but their ears seemed to work well enough.

As I ducked back in, I dislodged a tile. I heard it shatter on the path and prayed they would not realize where the sound had come from. I taped a sheet of clear plastic over the hole. This would give me light and allow me to charge my solar battery pack.

I heard a crash reverberate throughout the house. They must have come through the window. This did not worry me as they were basically mindless reactive creatures, they would never know how to use a ladder to climb up to the loft, even if there was one to use.

The problem now was they had cut me off from the rest of my house. Even after 2 months, I could still hear them moving about in the rooms below. They must have been trapped after falling through the window. I had to figure another way out.

I enlarged the hole and climbed out onto the roof. With infinite care, I moved across to the next house in the terrace of four. I removed the tiles and cut a hole big enough for me to fit through, then went back for my extending ladder.

The other loft had the usual junk, boxes, and old suitcases. I lifted the hatch and listened for a few minutes before climbing down into the Johnson's bedroom. The first thing I did was bolt the door. I checked the window to see if I had attracted any attention. There were only 4 or 5 of the dead shuffling about. I was safe.

I don't know if was the excitement of what I had just done or the need for relief. I did something that I had tried my hardest to stop doing. I opened all the drawers and the wardrobes. I said in my head that I was looking for something useful, but I knew my real motive was Mrs Johnson's clothes. Mrs. Johnson was considered a "MILF". This was wrong, as the Johnsons had no children. She always looked sexy and sophisticated though.

It still felt wrong, but as far as I knew, I was the only one left alive in the town. So, fuck it. I pulled a selection from her underwear drawer onto the bed. There was a beautiful black basque. I had always wanted to wear one. I had only dressed in my mother's and sister's clothes in the past. Neither are what you would call girly girls.

That thought nearly stopped me in my tracks. A wave of guilt hit me, but then I thought they were probably safe and well-guarded in a camp somewhere.

I hooked the basque around my slim chest. I added some simple black briefs. These were black silk with a tiny lace frill around the legs. I shivered as they made contact with my semi-hard member. I had never worn silk before. I found several pairs of old-fashioned black nylon stockings. I threaded the suspender straps through the knickers and rolled them up each leg. I put the other pairs in the bra cups.

I found a simple long-sleeved, blue house dress. Once that was on, I felt a calm come over me. It had been so long. I had wanted to be a girl for as long as could remember. I had never told anyone as I was ashamed of myself. After my father died I was the "man" of the house. I couldn't let my family down.

I had no right to feel this calm, this right while the country was dying. I looked in the mirror and saw the stubble on my chin. With a good shave, and little of Mrs Johnson's makeup on, I would look quite passable. Not now though. I felt so relaxed I lay on the comfortable bed and drifted off to sleep thinking of what treasures I could take back to my loft from here and the other two houses.

It had taken the end of the world to allow me to be who I really am, Andrea. If I was going to meet my end soon it would be as a woman. Sod the world. Now I would finally be me. There was no one left to judge me. Or so I thought.....