Nick didn’t interrupt, choosing to let them have their reunion. Instead, he walked over to the second APC and banged on the side, safe in the knowledge that the bleach job Beckington had overseen had disinfected the exterior. Like with the first APC, the back door opened and Haggard disembarked along with two SAS soldiers. Nick didn’t hear the orders given, but the two SAS ran off down the road, both laden with equipment.
They would ensure the safety of the area.
“Nice location,” Haggard said. As with everyone, Haggard had removed the NBC suit he had been forced to wear anytime he went outside. There were no undead here, so the chances of catching the virus were slim. The remoter the area, the fewer chances there were that the virus had made it there. The nuclear, biological and chemical containment suits were pretty durable, but they were uncomfortable to wear. There was also the worry regarding the filters to the gas masks. They only had so many, and in their rush to leave the barracks in Preston, a good proportion of their supplies had been left behind. Fortunately for everyone concerned, the third APC was filled to overflowing with their equipment because the SAS had already been in the process of loading it up with their assorted shit when the zombies had attacked. It just wasn’t enough, not when faced with the apocalypse.
As for who made it out of Preston, they had done better than Nick had first feared. With the body of his dead colleague in his arms, Nick had experienced visions of the worst. Haggard had lost five men from his troop, leaving ten to continue the fight. Altogether, there were eighteen of them, Nick counting them off in his mind. Natasha, Jeff, Jessica, Haggard, Whittaker and of course Azrael who had been asleep for most of the journey. Captain Beckington had grabbed a ride on the second APC. Hardly an army though, and far from what was needed to defeat the legions of the undead.
“Jessica,” a frail voice almost wept. Nick turned to see an older woman step out from where Jessica’s brother had appeared from. When Jessica took the woman in a loving embrace, it was clear who this newcomer was. Judy Dunn, Jessica’s mother.
“What do you think?” Nick asked Haggard. “Hold up here for a few days?”
“My standing orders are to look after Jessica and any other immune that were found. I’ll stick with that until I hear otherwise. Unless someone comes up with a miracle, it will all be about survival now.” Haggard lit himself a cigarette. “Ultimately I think we need to leave the UK, get somewhere more remote.” That was a plan that had merit, but before they ever thought about that, a place free of the virus would need to be uncovered. “Last I heard most of the Scottish islands had sealed themselves off. Get to the coast and grab a boat might be our best bet.”
“Thanks for getting us out of there,” Nick said. If it hadn’t been for Haggard and his men, Nick believed they would all be dead now. The undead had come in too hard and too fast. The unpredictability of this new enemy made them difficult to combat.
“We are all in this together. We were going anyway, happy to drag the dead weight with us.” Haggard winked at his friend, no insult intended in the words.
Nick pulled Haggard away from anyone who could hear them, noticing in the corner of his eye Azrael who had stepped out of the first APC. The assassin was still in handcuffs, Jeff keeping a close eye on him. Despite the man’s most recent reputation, Nick felt there was something about the man that he could trust.
“When the undead attacked at the base, how did they know to hit us there?” Nick asked. There had been no warning of the attack, the bulk of the zombies the army was dealing with supposedly still concentrated around and inside the heart of Manchester.
“I don’t know enough about the enemy to formulate an answer.”
“Come on Mad Dog, you can do better than that. This is me you’re talking to.” Haggard took a long inhale as if the smoke that infused his lungs would somehow reveal the answer to him.
“If it were a conventional enemy, it would mean they had done reconnaissance and gathered intel. But everything Central Command has told us so far is that these things are just acting on impulse. They are supposed to be mindless, but in my mind, that isn’t the case.”
“Yeah, I think we both know that’s bullshit,” Nick said. “A lot of where we are at is due to us underestimating what we are up against. That felt like a coordinated attack, as if they were after a specific target.”
“I noticed that as well. A lot of them seemed to come for us rather than the rest of the base’s soldiers. It’s why I lost so many men to these fuckers.” The cigarette glowed as Haggard sucked the last of the life out of it.
Nick looked at Azrael again. Something about him was important, had been from the start of all this.
“I don’t know why, but that man is the key to this.”
“The killer?”
“Yes. I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but I think the immune are all somehow connected.”
“What, you mean they are related?”
“No,” Nick said, a wariness coming into his voice. “I’ll go through it with you later once we are settled. I’ll warn you now though, you won’t believe a word of it.”
“I’m sure you can convince me,” Haggard said with a wry smile. If it came from Nick’s lips, Haggard was likely to believe it no matter how crazy the idea sounded. The pair of them stepped back towards the group.
***
“I know you.” Azrael turned to the voice that was clearly talking to him. Judy Dunn had detached herself from her daughter and was pointing a finger accusingly at Azrael.
“Please mum, don’t,” Jessica begged. Judy might have been in her sixties, but she still had fight in her despite her obvious weakness.
“That’s the son of a bitch who broke your heart. I recognise him from his photograph.” Jessica had never introduced Azrael, then known as Kevin, to any of her family. During their relatively brief courtship, most of their time together had been taken in hotels at weekends snatched here and there. But the passion and the connection had been undeniable. It had been scary even, sweeping Jessica along in a whirlwind of emotions that were sometimes as painful as they were intoxicating.
When Kevin had disappeared, Jessica had kept it all to herself. But when she had learnt of Kevin’s apparent death, Jessica had needed the healing counsel of her mother, the heartache too great to bear alone. That had involved showing Judy the photos that Jessica had taken, and which had been the only memories of something that could have been. There were a lot of photographs, Jessica never really getting round to deleting them from her cloud account. Sometimes you just didn’t want to let go even when you knew you should.
“You are supposed to be dead.” Judy was not one to give up on the defence of those she loved.
“Mum, it’s not what you think.” Judy took a step towards Azrael who just stood there apparently mystified. “Azrael, I’m sorry, she doesn’t know.”
“Azrael?” Judy questioned.
“I’ll explain it all later, mum,” Jessica begged. “Let’s walk back to the house.”
“No,” Judy insisted. “Explain it to me now.”
“You are right to be angry,” Azrael said before Jessica could answer further. “The man I was…the man I was before what I am now, he was a coward and a manipulator. To many, he was better than what I have become, but in other ways, he was worse.” Judy stared at the man gobsmacked by the nonsense he was spewing.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The man your daughter loved died. I am what was born from his ashes.”
“Enough of this,” Jeff suddenly said wearily, grabbing Azrael’s arm. Azrael was surprised that there was little in the way of harshness in the gesture. “This man is a prisoner, he’s not here to engage in philosophical chats. Come on, mate, back in the APC.” Judy watched open mouthed as Azrael let himself be frogmarched out of sight, disappearing into the interior of the vehicle. Inside the APC, Jeff re-connected Azrael’s restraints to the bench he was sat on.
“Thank you,” Azrael said. There
was relief in his voice as if the conversation with Jessica’s mother had been traumatic. He didn’t like remembering that he had caused Jessica such pain. Well not him, the man he had once been known as. Did it make it worse that Jessica had fallen in love with a lie, a construct of Soviet Russia’s psychological science? Could Azrael even be blamed for the actions he had taken in that programmed life?
“Family mate,” Jeff said, “best avoided wherever possible.”
23.08.19
Preston, UK
Smith had needed to fire his gun three times just to prove that he was deadly serious. His three subjects needed to understand that he wasn’t fucking about here. The first time was out on the parade ground where Shah had made to bend down to pick up a discarded L85A2. Smith wasn’t prepared to have his candidates armed just yet, perhaps not ever. The second time was when Dawson and Cartwright had got into an argument about who was going to get the antiserum first, the pair close to coming to blows which would have been very unfortunate for Cartwright. Short tempers, sleep deprivation and desperation. Smith found that reassuring, an indication that he had chosen the correct men for this experiment.
When you considered how close to death the three men obviously were, Smith was amazed any of them had any energy left to still think about fighting. They would need every ounce of what they had left to survive the next few hours, and Smith had guided them towards the medical block. He supposed he could have administered the XV1 right there in the quarantine facility, but the scientist in him wanted to control and document the procedure. The more people he saved with the antiserum, the more he could prove it worked.
“What’s the point of all that?” The Voice had questioned. “Just inject them already.”
“My work is still important,” he had answered, trying to persuade himself more than The Voice. The three infected men had found it a bit odd that Smith was so eager to talk to himself, but they kept their concerns unvoiced. Smith wouldn’t have cared anyway, the experiment was everything to him now.
In the barrack’s medical facility, the three men now lay strapped down to trolleys, all together in the same room. They had objected to that at first, which was why Smith had been forced to fire his gun a third time, almost deafening everyone in the confined space, including himself. Smith had insisted that all three men strip to their underwear, not out of some unrecognised perversion, but so he could treat their injuries once they were all tied down. They each had cuts and gashes that, while not life-threatening, could pose a risk of infection if not dealt with. There would be little point saving them from Lazarus only for them to then suffer gangrene or blood poisoning.
Smith had further insisted that Dawson be restrained first by the other two, eliminating the threat of the strongest amongst them. Shah was next, and then Cartwright was instructed to strap his legs and one arm to the bed using the restraint cuffs. Smith had applied the final binding, holding Cartwright's wrist tight to prevent any funny business. Then he had left the room to the men’s great distress. Had they been tricked? Was this all some mad game? Their shouts had followed him out of the room, but they had been ignored.
They needn’t have worried, Smith just needing to fetch his laptop and the cameras to record this momentous occasion. He set up two cameras in total as well as connecting the men up to heart and blood pressure monitors. His attempts to contact anyone in the outside world to share in the experiment were for nought, however. He could not get through to anyone at the Atlanta CDC, nor any of the other people who had been involved with observing the previous experiments. Even his own research facility, Porton Down, stayed mysteriously silent to his attempts at contact.
The screen of his laptop was split into four for the video conference call programmed into the computer, three of the panels just useless snow. The three broken channels were Porton Down, the Atlanta CDC and Glasgow University. The live channel was labelled USAMRIID, but nobody there seemed to be answering his Skype call. All he saw was an empty office interior. As far as he could tell, the internet connection was still functioning, so the problem wasn’t on his end. Had things really got that bad out there? Unfortunate as this setback was, it wouldn’t stop Smith making his own record. Even if they couldn’t watch it live, he was recording everything. People could watch it later, assuming there would be anybody left.
“I still don’t get it. It’s not like anyone cares anymore,” The Voice mocked.
“I care,” Smith insisted. “That’s reason enough.” Again he said this out loud, reinforcing the opinion in his guinea pigs that Smith might not have been playing with a full deck. Even as close to death as he was, Shah, in particular, was starting to seriously think he had made a terrible mistake.
With everything prepared and the patients ready, Smith told them something further about the antiserum.
“There’s something you need to know,” Smith stated to the three men. “You may have noticed I’ve been speaking to myself.”
“Oh, do shut up,” The Voice demanded.
“Hard to miss, sir,” Shah replied.
“I have a voice in my head. It tells me to do things, but most of the time, I can resist and retain control.”
“Oh Jesus,” Dawson said, pulling at his bonds. Despite his muscular strength, he was unable to break himself free. “Get me the fuck out of here.”
“No,” Smith said. “I feel the voice is a side effect of the antiserum, but I’m not sure. After I had administered it, I was bitten by a zombie. It’s possible that attack might have something to do with my condition. I’m thinking I might need to recreate that aspect of the experiment.”
“That’s a good point,” The Voice said. “I heartily recommend this idea.”
“I have administered XV1 to one other individual, and as far as I’m aware, he didn’t experience anywhere near the side effects I suffered. So other parameters need to be evaluated and taken into account.”
“Sir,” Shah said, “with all due respect can you stop fucking babbling and get this over with.” Smith looked at him.
“Yes, you’re right. Who wants to go first?”
23.08.19
North London, UK
Sid, they had once called her Sid. There was nothing left of her in the carcass now, just the dead eyes and the yearning for human flesh that drove the Zombie ever onwards. Before, Sid(Z) had led a zombie horde to a hotel, drawn by the faint aroma of an immune human. Only the bones were left of that individual now, and even some of them the zombies had tried to consume. They had stripped the carcass clean, almost fighting to get the slightest morsel. Sid(Z) had broken several teeth trying to eat the immune victim’s hand, a shard of finger bone still stuck deep into the base of its tongue.
The flesh of the immune was the tastiest they had ever encountered. For those who could still swallow the meat in their mouths, the food took away the yearning hunger…if only for an hour or two. While the viral mutation that caused this desire for the immune was rare, it was occurring in an increasing number of zombies across the planet. The virus was intent on eliminating the only thing that threatened its existence. Even a single zombie could lead its dead brothers and sisters to the door of someone capable of fighting off the virus.
The virus was adapting and evolving far in excess of what its creators could have imagined. Soon billions of them would be on the hunt for the immune who dwelled within the rapidly dwindling numbers of humanity. The immune, of course, were rare, so when they weren’t present, the undead would just have to settle for plain old regular meat. There wouldn’t be any complaints from creatures that didn’t even have the capacity to think.
Sid(Z) didn’t lead the pack now. Instead, it was pulled along in the centre of the zombie mass that filled the streets, spilling into the surrounding houses and businesses. The zombies were degrading, their bodies wracked with injuries that could never heal. The one big thing in their favour was the lack of guns held by the UK population which had mainly been disarmed by politicians who actually feared an armed po
pulace more than they cared about the protection of the innocent. Even the police lacked sufficient firearms to make a difference which left the military as the only real enemy to the undead. This was the same military that had been routed from London, a scene that was playing out across most of the UK. There just weren’t enough soldiers to battle the legions of the returned.
At its feet, Sid(Z) sensed something small moving along the ground, the zombie rat one of the hundreds that travelled with the horde. They were possibly the greater threat to mankind, their numbers growing rapidly, their size allowing them to slip past any defences thrown up by the desperate. Rats found it easier to break into the buildings that the meat cowered in, squeezing through thumb-sized holes and making their own where said holes didn’t exist. One bite was all it took, no matter how small the mouth, the teeth they possessed able to gnaw through concrete and brick.
If Sid(Z) had any kind of memory, it would have been able to recall the five rats it had crushed beneath its boots, their bodies left broken and twisted miles behind. This hadn’t been a deliberate act, just accidental collateral damage in the war to end all wars.
Much of the police uniform covering Sid(Z)’s torso had been ripped away, leaving it just with a soiled t-shirt to cover what had once been deemed an attractive figure. Gone were the days when Sid(Z) would need to fend off unwanted male advances, or ignore the catcalls she got from the criminal elements when she had encountered them on the streets of London. Its body was for pure slaughter now, no longer even close to existing as a sexual being.
The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 3): The Fall Page 11