“If you say so,” Florence said. Susan was surprised by the tone of the doctor’s voice. Everyone she had met seemed to treat Clay with reverence, but Florence seemed to regard him with a combination of mild pity and passing disinterest. She tapped a pen impatiently on a clipboard that rested on the table.
“Florence is an addict like you. Before the world ended, I was the only thing keeping her out of prison. Now, with the streets filled with the blight of the zombie menace, the only person Florence can get her precious heroin from is me. I suspect she resents me for it somewhat, but I find her manner refreshing.” Clay stepped up to Susan and whispered into her ear. “It can be so tedious to have everyone treat you with such unwavering reverence, although I will be expecting such from you at all times.” A strong hand enveloped the back of Susan’s neck, and she was pushed forward with just enough force to propel her to the table where Florence sat, Clay following in her wake. “Please Susan, sit. The doctor is in, and she has some questions for you.” Susan sat.
“Coffee?” Florence asked, to which Susan nodded, the empty cup on the table in front of her filling. “Black or cream?”
“Black please,” Susan said. Her mind felt numb.
“Like your men, eh,” Clay added, erupting into a fit of booming laughter, clearly impressed by how funny he thought he was. Florence shook her head in exasperation.
“Now then Susan, I need to ask you some questions. Don’t worry, this won’t take long.” Susan nodded, wondering where this was all going. She wasn’t comfortable in Clay’s presence, but it was better that there was another woman here. “Do you have any allergies that you know of?”
“Penicillin,” Susan answered.
“Any heart problems? Ever suffered angina?” The questions continued, Susan answering no to most of them. “And you are an alcoholic, yes?” The words stung Susan, her face going red. “Oh, you silly thing, I’m a doctor, you can tell me.”
“But he isn’t a doctor,” Susan said sheepishly pointing at Clay who grinned at once again being at the centre of things.
“Just pretend he isn’t there. I do that all the time.” Clay whooped with delight at Florence’s subtle dig.
“Yes,” Susan admitted, “I’m an alcoholic.” The truth of what she said weighed heavy on her. It was probably the first time she had actually said those words, much of her problems caused by the denial of how bad her addiction actually was.
“Well admitting such puts your foot on the road to recovery,” Florence stated. Susan couldn’t tell if she was being genuine or just taking the piss. “Although that doesn’t seem to have worked for me.”
“So what do you think Florence, do we have ourselves a patient?” Clay asked eagerly.
“Well, apart from likely borderline malnutrition, I think so. I’ve already checked her bloods, so there are no abnormalities there. So yes.” Hey, I’m right here thought Susan.
“Susan I asked you to make a decision, one that I know was hard for you,” Clay said. He pulled up a chair and sat down next to Susan, too close though, breaking into her personal space, making her feel like she had to back away, but that would just leave her pressed up against the windows. A hip flask appeared as if by magic, and Clay introduced a sizeable portion of its contents into the cup holding Susan’s coffee. “And your answer is due now, but before you do I have something that might, shall we say, sweeten the pot.”
“I don’t...” Susan started, but Clay put one of his thick, calloused fingers to her lips. She was powerless against this man.
“Shush now. Let me finish what I have to say.” He nodded to Florence, and the doctor lifted a metal case off the floor and placed it on the table in front of her. With a flick of her thumb, she undid the latches, opening the lid. The case spun on the table revealing the three vials that were inside.
“What’s this?” Susan asked.
“Oh nothing much,” Clay said, “only the cure to the nasty little virus that’s ravaging the planet. Take me up on my offer, and you get one of these doses. What do you say, Susan? Are you up for a bit of fun? I’ll only bite if you want me to.” Susan looked at Clay, then at Florence. She couldn’t understand how the Doctor could just sit there while Clay said these things.
“I’m not…”
“Yes or no answer now, Susan. Clock’s ticking, and you will have noticed there are only three samples of this cure. If you turn it down now, you won’t get a second chance.” Clay grabbed her roughly by the chin, pulling her face in close. Alcohol and cigar smoke hung heavy on his breath. “If you hesitate, you lose. Come on, girl, give me a yes.” Susan said the only thing she knew she could say.
“Yes.” The word escaped her lips so easily. Clay smiled.
“I knew you would see sense. See Doctor, people always know what’s best for them.”
“You are a sick man, Clay,” Florence stated, standing from the table.
“You know me all too well,” Clay said in response to the insult, “but another insult like that and I’ll cut your ration in half.” Florence’s face paled. “Leave us until I call for you. Susan and I need to get acquainted before she gets her medicine.” Susan looked into Clay’s eyes and saw the hunger there. What the hell had she just agreed to?
When Florence left, the Doctor gave one last look at Susan. The look was pure pity.
23.08.19
Peak District, UK
Tom had shown apprehension at letting so many people onto his property, but realistically, what was there he could have done to prevent it? Begrudgingly he had allowed Nick and the SAS to set up in the various buildings of the farm, but Tom had put his foot down and said that the main farmhouse was for his family only. Nick and Haggard had acquiesced to that demand, but only because the other farm buildings gave them enough shelter.
Right now, the bulk of the SAS were working on improving the farm’s perimeter. To the casual human, it was truly impenetrable. The farm was basically a plot of land in the shape of a triangle, two of the sides bordered by a fast flowing river. The third wall was an assortment of barbed wire and bramble hedges. The problem with that was the undead didn’t care about their skin being cut to ribbons. If enough of them came, they would press against any barrier and sacrifice their own to get through it, and there were areas that they might be able to push through with enough persistence. So the soldiers worked on strengthening the defences, going so far as to put barricades in the small road that led to the farm in the hope of steering any undead away onto a different path. They still planned to leave at some point, so a route out for the APC’s was kept.
A few dozen claymore mines and grenade traps were put at the barrier’s weakest locations. Taking the lessons from history, the banks of the river were also set up with flare traps just in case something, or someone, made it across. As fast as the river was, military history had shown never to fully rely on natural barriers. Be it the impassable Alps with Hannibal, or the mangrove swamps for the Japanese invasion of Singapore, man often found a way to penetrate the obstacles created by nature.
The final touch in the defences was to program the three surveillance drones they had to rotate around the property, the heat vision cameras they contained there more for the warning of any human incursion. The soldiers knew that the zombies weren’t the only threats here. The drones would work in shifts to allow for their batteries to be regularly recharged. Nobody would be sneaking up on the defenders anytime soon.
As defences went, what they had was pretty solid. The dirt path from the road that led to the heart of the farm was the weakest part of it, and this could easily be covered by snipers and the fifty calibre machine guns the APC’s had been blessed with.
While the SAS men did what they were trained for, Nick convened his war council. Nick, Natasha, Jeff, Haggard, Whittaker, Beckington and Jessica all now had a part in what happened next. Azrael was also here, still in handcuffs. Nick had something he wanted to discuss.
There hadn’t been much of a chance to formulate an official str
ategy since their retreat from Preston. The initial priority had been to escape the zombie horde that had attacked the barracks, which they had managed with relative ease. Out on the streets though, they had met their next challenge, the tens of thousands of people clogging the roads as they had fled to wherever they thought was safe. The fleeing humanity had become particularly bad around Rochdale, north of Manchester, as the exodus became very noticeable. Manchester, the country’s seventh largest city, was being abandoned by its people as the zombie presence there grew too big for the depleted defenders to hold. From the brief radio snippets Nick had been able to catch, Manchester was lost, which meant the surrounding areas would be quick to follow. This pattern was being repeated across the country.
The three Bulldog APC’s had traversed the motorways and dual carriageways with relative ease but had encountered persistent obstacles as they diverted to the smaller roads that led into the Peak District. There were now dozens of crushed civilian vehicles, the owners of which either being unable to move, or more commonly, refusing to move. Nick hadn’t liked it, but with the traffic as it was, the cars had been useless to those who owned them anyway. The Bulldog was particularly adept at dealing with such obstructions, as well as going off-road, which became more and more common as they made their journey.
On the table between where they all either stood or sat was the armoured laptop that Natasha used to contact Moros. The bullet it had taken had pretty much destroyed the screen but had fortunately left the rest of the laptop intact.
“The laptop screen is shot boss, but I should still be able to access it. I just need a monitor or a TV.” Natasha was glad her news wasn’t catastrophic, the single bullet from Renfield’s gun having done the damage. It could have been much worse. The laptop was encrypted, designed to log into the secure satellite network that linked MI13 agents to the Moros super-computer. Without it, to get access to Moros, they would need to physically go to Central or District, which meant going to London itself.
London was now the heart of the undead legions in the UK. Not somewhere you wanted to be if you could avoid it.
“I’d rather lose a laptop than have one of my team take a bullet in the back.” That was the truth of it. Without the protection the computer had given her, Natasha would likely be dead or crippled now.
“My brother can help with the laptop,” Jessica said. “But that wasn’t what you wanted to talk to us about, was it?”
“No,” Nick admitted. “Before we lost access to it, I asked Moros a question. I was hoping to give it more data, but we didn’t get that chance.”
“The question being?” Beckington asked. He was surprised to have been included in the meeting despite his rank. As the only doctor they had, however, he was deemed just as essential as any of them. His medical training might be able to help in the discussion.
“Jessica and Whittaker are immune,” Nick continued. “Although Azrael was given XV1, we think he was already immune before the antiserum was administered. There is indication Azrael was given a vaccine nearly a year ago, but I think his immunity is actually natural.”
“Why do you think that?” Beckington asked.
“Because of his dreams. Your nightmares started about a year ago, right?” Nick asked the manacled assassin.
“Yes,” Azrael agreed. “I first noticed them several days after I was asked to inject myself.”
“Jessica and Whittaker both experienced the same dreams after being exposed to Lazarus. I think the virus, either whole or deactivated in the form of a vaccine activates something in the human mind.”
“That’s a bit thin, Nick,” Haggard warned.
“Just hear me out. Jessica, Chris, if I get any of this wrong, just correct me okay.” Both Jessica and Whittaker nodded. “I’ve confirmed that these three immune all share the same dream and that they see each other in that dream. This was established before they had met each other. I can see no reason why they would lie to anyone and trust them enough to accept that they at least believe in what they are telling me.”
“Go on,” Haggard added.
“As mad as it sounds, the virus seems to have given the immune some psychic link which they can only access in the dream state. Dr Patel was also sceptical about this, but Moros determined that there was over an eighty per cent chance that what I am saying is true.”
“Eighty per cent?” Haggard said with raised eyebrows.
“Yeah. I’ve never known a Moros evaluation to be wrong.” Haggard nodded his head in acceptance. He hadn’t even heard of Moros until the other day so it was hard for him to truly assess the super-computer’s powers and he supposed he had to trust Nick in what he said. Nick had already explained to everyone else what Moros was…one of the most powerful quantum computers on the planet. The Official Secrets Act be damned.
“Sounds like telepathy,” Beckington added.
“Yes, it does. What do you think about that?” The MI13 way was that everyone had a voice.
“Telepathy used to be considered pseudoscience and still is by some. But I’ve seen too many cases of soldiers in the field being able to feel when the enemy was close by.” Those in the room who had served could all attest to that. “There has also been some recent research that indicates humans do have a very rudimentary form of telepathy.”
“It’s more than telepathy,” Azrael suddenly interrupted. Jeff glowered at him but didn’t give any verbal reprimand. He didn’t agree with Azrael being in the room, but Jeff was willing to give the man some slack because it was what Nick seemed to want. Azrael had most likely saved Nick’s life when Renfield had opened fire, and Nick seemed willing to at least listen to what Azrael had to say.
“How so?” Nick asked.
“The nightmares are more than a dream state,” Azrael said. “They are like another reality.”
“I think he’s right,” Jessica added. “I remember the dreams, but for some reason, the brutality in them doesn’t stay with me when I wake up. I can feel everything when I’m there, and yet when I wake up, it feels more like I’ve been watching a movie. I should be dreading sleep, but the more times the nightmare happens, the more I acclimatise to its effects when I eventually wake up.”
“And you say you can communicate with each other in the dream state?” Nick continues.
“Yes. And every time we are there, the more people like us we see.” Jessica looked at Azrael to see if he agreed with her, and he smiled to say that he did. She had loved that smile once.
“How does this help us, though?” Whittaker asked.
“I don’t know yet. That’s the only answer I can give you,” Nick answered.
“There is also the enigma of your Colonel Smith,” Azrael said. “He is more important than any of you seem to realise. He is there with us when we sleep. His presence is a recent thing, but he’s there. I can feel him.”
“Chasing us,” Jessica added.
“Hunting us,” Whittaker corrected. He definitely remembered being hunted by the threat of the horsemen.
“Yes, hunting,” Azrael agreed. “When I am there, in the desert, I always feel like I am being pursued. I can never really see who it is, I just know that they are there and that they are coming. As much as the pain makes me want to stop walking, I know if I do that, those following will catch me.”
“And you think Smith is somehow involved?” Nick asked.
“Very recently, yes.” The certainty in that word made Nick believe. “I can feel him there now. His essence seems to be in the very wind I breathe.”
If this was all true, thought Nick, then how the hell did they use this information?
“When did Smith inject himself with the remnants of my blood?” Jessica suddenly asked, Nick providing the answer. “And when did you first notice him Azrael?” Right there was the possible answer as to why Smith had suddenly become such a threat.
XV1.
If that was the reason behind all this, then Jessica’s blood wasn’t the answer to Lazarus after all.
23.08.19
Emmitsburg, USA
Father Steven Shepherd was aptly named for the role he had chosen in life, that of Catholic Priest. All he had ever wanted since the age of twelve was to be given his own church so that he could bring the word of God to the masses. The thought consumed him, becoming an overriding passion that drove him through good times and bad. Ultimately, the church had finally blessed him, placing him in charge of one of the top Catholic pilgrimage destinations in the United States.
Shepherd had also recently been witness to a miracle in his life, a sign from God that had warped the grief that flowed through his heart. That miracle was his own immunity, the dressing he wore on his arm easily concealed by those who would question what had happened to him. For those who had seen it, the simple explanation that he had burned himself while cooking his sister her lunch had been enough to placate their curiosity.
Everyone seemed to admire the way he so selfishly looked after his sibling whilst also attending to the never-ending needs of his flock.
Seven years ago, his sister had broken her spine in a car crash caused by another reckless driver. Although she had survived, she had been left with most of her body paralysed. To add to her misery, she was then quickly abandoned by a husband who couldn’t face a life looking after a virtual quadriplegic, despite the payout the insurance had brought. With no other close living relatives, Shepherd had insisted that his sister come and live with him in the sleepy town of Emmitsburg. Despite only having just over two thousand inhabitants, the close proximity of it to a host of government and military facilities meant that there was ample medical care available to help in the attempted rehabilitation of his sister. And now there was a growing supply of soldiers, due most likely to the importance of one of those installations. Site R was a fourteen-minute drive into the forest.
While his sister left friends behind in California where she had once lived, it was sad to say that most of them had chosen to gradually cut their ties with her, they too realising her friendship was something they could no longer continue with. The selfishness of those around her left her with few other choices.
The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 3): The Fall Page 19