by Taylor, Dan
Klutz opened his eyes and they burned from the bright lights above him. He felt as if he was on fire. He could not move as he was strapped down. He tried to wriggle free but the restraints kept him in position. He could feel every nerve inside him twinge. He wailed for a full eight minutes until the pain was bearable.
During the screams Jason had to leave the lab for some fresh air. The cries of pain were dehumanising and he could feel the bile in his stomach rising. He felt like a terrible person for causing this suffering. He wasn't helping the poor man he was torturing him. Dr Leitner had tricked him into torturing this man. Today he had learnt so much about this new virus and he was no longer as confident that overloading a human system with it was going to help at all. Today started off so well. He got to demonstrate his coroner skills to the top scientists and leaders in the United Kingdom. Now he was a HIVE employee under the supervision of a brilliant yet controversial scientist trying to help a town devastated by a virus outbreak. He knew working with Leitner was going to take him into new areas but he was way out of his depth.
"This is a real baptism of fire for you," spoke a gruff voice behind him. Jason did not turn around. He knew who it was.
"I didn't hear you come out Schaf," replied Jason with difficulty. He was cracking under this new pressure.
"I tried to be quiet. I did not want to disturb you whist you are so deep in your thoughts." He paused and took a long look at Jason. "You are a very good coroner Jason, you understand the dead. That is why I chose you to help me with my research. I have followed your career since you were one of my students. You could have gone into any area of medicine but you chose to work on cadavers and people who have gone too far to be saved. Why is that do you think?"
"My work is important," snapped Jason and he sat a thought a little. "The dead are the luckiest people. There is an incalculable amount of combinations of people who will never die as they have never had a chance to live. To be able to study the dead is an honour. To understand the dead is to understand not only the living but to understand everyone who has ever lived. With a cadaver I can tell you who they were, where they come from, what their diets consisted of, their ailments their past abuses. I can tell you how, when and where they spent their last moments." Jason sat quietly waiting for Schaf to reply.
"Today Jason, something terrible has happened to a lot of people. My own lab assistant may very well be the cause. Both Callum Jamison and Ronnie Campbell are dead. They are as dead they can possibly be, but they move they make noises and there is sometimes a glimmer of life in their eyes. To the dead, life is but a dream. We can give them make this dream come true. We can right the wrongs that have been done today. I need your expertise and help. As you have demonstrated your skills on cadavers is of most use to me but what I really need is your understanding of the balance between life and death. We can bring these people back I know we can."
With a pat on the back, Dr Leitner guided Jason back into the Lab. The body of Ronnie Campbell was convulsing and he was still crying out in pain. Jason went to check on him and noticed there were tears streaming down his face. Klutz looked up at Jason and he looked back. There was a sympathetic look in Jason's eyes. Klutz opened his mouth and whispered. "It hurts"
Chapter 31
The infected had made their way into the St. Bartholomew’s church. First the thick wooden door buckled and then came right off its hinges. It toppled over an assortment of objects which were being used to barricade the door. Cold bodies swarmed inside like angry termites invading an ant’s nest. They acted singularly, each scrambling over the next but with the common goal of feeding on the church’s refugees. A mix of smells took over the sanctuary and replaced the candles and incense with earthy dirt, iron blood and sweet decay. The snarls and cries echoed off the high ceilings. The stained-glass window of the skinned St. Bartholomew never looked so at home.
Angela, Abel and Lydia were up in the bell tower. Silent and alone they listened to the horrifying sounds. Trying not to make the wooden floor boards creak, Abel looked around for an escape. He peaked out the window. It was wide enough to fit through but the fall would be too much. Not to mention that a pack of infected would be waiting at the bottom. Aside from the noise downstairs the town was silent. There were no cars passing through their main road, no teenagers playing music from their phones, no joggers or dog walkers. In the distance, he could see search lights. It was the quarantine zone. As much as he hated to admit it, his only chance of survival was to make it there and to not be spotted by the soldiers. Abel never felt so isolated and far away from salvation. He suddenly realised he hadn't told Angela and she might be in as much danger as him. With the rest of the force murdered it might just be him and Angela left. A pang of guilt washed over him but he could not bring himself to tell her. She had been through enough. The infected were the enemies if he told her the non-infected may be after her too, he did not know how she would react. She was particularly fragile and after the attack from the vicar he had seen her become more withdrawn and closed. From the other side of the tower they could climb out and jump onto the church roof. It was only a ten-foot drop or so. And from there they would need a way down. The church was made of old stone and they did have a chance to climb down like a rock climber. In the corner of the bell tower was some old rope. Abel looked at the rope that dangled from the bells and it was new. Luckily for them the church had replaced the bells cord recently and out of laziness or a hoarder’s nature had not thrown the old rope away.
"Ok ladies. Let's get moving." He tried to sound assured but could not manage in this dire situation. Abel threw the bell rope out onto the church roof. He then helped to lower Lydia down and then Angela. A bang from below him let them know the infected had made their way into the tower staircase and would be in the bell room soon. Silkily Abel dropped down onto the church roof. He signalled to be quiet by placing a finger on his lips. Angela and Lydia nodded in agreement. They would be in a heap of trouble if the hoard at the gates or now in the tower spotted them. Lydia tied the rope to the weathervane at the back end of the church. She tugged at it to test its strength and then climbed down to the church yard. Angela followed gracefully and silently like a cat. Abel being the heaviest was last. He had not climbed a rope since he was in school and so burned his hands and he slid down. He landed with a quiet thump and rested his palms on the cold dewy grass to ease the burn.
The trio snuck as quietly as possible between gravestones and tombs. There was infected wandering around and they had to time their movements to not be seen. The darkness helped them to move without being spotted. The infected were noisy. They dragged their feet along the stony paths and groaned so they always knew when one was close. It took ten minutes of pacing forward and then stopping to reach the end of the graveyard and then quietly as possible climb up and over the stone wall. Once all three were past the wall and onto the street they breathed a sigh of relief. The street they had climbed into was quiet and they were safe for now. The nightmare of St Bartholomew's church was past them, although the skinned priest was still fresh in Angela’s mind who was still in a state of shock.
Their detour through the church and graveyard had an unexpected piece of good news. They were much closer to the quarantine zone than before and now they just had to stick to the main road for about a mile to get out of Bayhollow and to safety. The search lights from the quarantine zone shone in the distance. A beacon of hope in the dark like a lighthouse steering them to safety. The main road was littered with abandoned vehicles. Cars rested with broken windows, bloodied handprint and crash marks. Some engines were still running from where their owners had deserted their vehicles in a panic. Lydia took some photos on her phone. She was constantly documenting their journey. When questioned by Angela about why she would want photos so grim, Lydia replied that the world would want to know what happened here. She had sensed that this horrible outbreak in Bayhollow was linked to something much bigger. Abel could feel it as well. It was unprecedented for such
an aggressive disease to get loose and infect a town. But why Bayhollow? If it was London or another big City, he could understand the terrorist motivation, but Bayhollow was a small rural town with nothing distinct about it.
Back at Camp Nectar, Dr Schaf Leitner was wondering the same thing. Why did Callum choose to do this here and now?
Chapter 32
At Camp Nectar Schaf and Jason were taking turns sleeping and monitoring Ronnie Campbell metamorphoses progress. Jason was on first duty and, although tired, was buzzing from excitement at every twitch groan or flutter that emerged from Ronnie’s corpse. Schaf was in the barracks trying to get some needed sleep but tossing and turning at the thoughts of what had happened today. He was used to the noises of London and the quiet of Bayhollow was unsettling. Just beyond the newly built concrete wall was an infection which has possibly killed hundreds and this infection had originated from his lab.
A few miles away at opposite end of Bayhollow another camp had been set up. Camp Pollen. This one had similar, although smaller, quarantine area for survivors who would be transported to camp Nectar for further evaluation before being moved to various hotels, hostels and town halls set up for disaster accommodation. This camp was alive with soldiers securing the perimeter and finishing off fencing and walls to keep the infected in. There were trained HIVE units who had been routinely deployed in small groups into the infection zone to rescue survivors by the hour. They had been given strict orders not to harm any infected civilian which had severely slowed down progress to the point where they had not ventured into the central, worst affected areas. Over a hundred civilians had been saved but the General was not stopping his units entering the zone yet.
Inside a large terrapin modular building, General Holt and Prime Minister Ken Lockhart were sat discussing the town.
"How many do you predict have been infected?" Asked the Prime Minister.
"Rough estimates put the town at four and half to seven hundred infected. That is including the guests at the Royal Duchess hotel." Predicting the next question, he was going to be asked, he continued, "The town has mostly been evacuated, we have had over eleven thousand pass through quarantine. One hundred and twenty of those are in segregation while we monitor their developments. Civilians who refused to leave because of loved ones have been forcibly removed from the town. This will no doubt be looked upon as negative but my troops did not have a choice." Ken Lockhart raised an eyebrow at this comment. "It's not within human nature to leave others to die Mister Prime Minister. HIVE units have been deployed into the hostile area but the number of survivors has slowed down to two or three per expedition. We are unable to reach the centre of the town as the infected seam to congregate in this area as they do near the quarantine entrances. I'm certain that there are more survivors that we cannot reach but unless we are given the go ahead to engage the infected, we unable to reach further survivors."
"Has any civilians tried to get back into the town?" Asked the Prime Minister.
"Oh yeah. A whole bunch. Families whose relatives they cannot find at the temporary accommodation, reporters hoping to get some good photos, we even had an old fellow who tried to get back in because he had lived there his whole life and wanted to die there too. I am more than confident in the British army handling the crowd control, but unless there is a press conference soon things will turn ugly."
"I have scheduled one first thing tomorrow morning. Have you managed to secure our missing police officers?" questioned Ken.
"No, we have not. We are now under the impression that PC Abel Coleman witnessed the shootings at the hotel and since fled into Bayhollow where he was himself most likely infected. Sergeant Green is pissed but he has started to calm and is beginning to understand why it had to be done. He is insistent we get his remaining officers and to be honest I'm afraid he will become a problem if we do not get Abel or the station officer. Some investigation form one of our special units found the police station locked but in a strange state. There was a prisoner who had been locked up and was infected. The strangest thing was he was wearing a Royal Duchess uniform. Our theory is that somehow this prisoner was infected at the hotel, managed to escape the police and the fire and wandered into Bayhollow where it spread the disease and then strolled into the police station. The station officer then had a struggle with the prisoner and other infected and managed to lock the infected in a cell. HIVE looked in to this station officer. Her name is Angela Crow and is a five-foot female with little to no experience on the beat. We have a unit trying to locate her now. If we do find her or PC Coleman, it may placate Sergeant Green."
The story had aroused the Prime Ministers suspicions. He questioned about the hotel employee.
"He has been taken to the Doctor. He has performed some sick operation on the kid. He said he was trying to cure him but it is best you ask him yourself exactly what he has done. My men couldn't watch. We also had a situation. One of the infected broke into the camp before the wall had been erected. He killed two of my soldiers. Decapitated them in fact."
Ken Lockhart didn't flinch. He replied calmly, "And then what happened?"
"We secured the target and he is now with the Doctor. The infected was one of our own. We believe it is patient zero. Dr Callum Jamison."
"I know of him. He's Leitner's assistant before the new guy. How did he get infected? Did he do this by accident at the lab in London and then come here and infect everyone?" Mused Ken Lockhart.
"That's a negative sir. All signs point to this being a deliberate act. The evidence suggests he came here by himself and purposely injected himself with the virus. We are unsure on the motive. Leitner has not been interrogated as he is needed to research and stop this thing getting worse. The virus changed Dr Callum Jamison in a way we have not seen before. His body looks like it is rejecting the virus. He has horrific scaring and oozing boils on his body. Leitner and his new assistant have been collecting the weeping's for some reason. It all looks a bit barbaric but I'm not the scientist." General Holt did not suppress his disdain for Dr Schaf Leitner and his science.
The two men stared at each other for a while. The general tried to feel out the Prime Minister feelings towards the day but he was unmoving and still like a switched off robot. He sat with his elbows on the desk and his hands cradled together in front of his face. A sweet cologne radiated from his black Armani suit. The cogs were clearly whirring inside Kens head. This was not good news. The fact that this outbreak has been found out to come from one of HIVE’s rogue employees was potentially catastrophic. This information needed to be contained until he could think of a plausible spin for this situation. Maybe the assistant had links to a terrorist organisation they could dig up or fabricate. He could rely on General Holt not to release this information. He was a loyal like a dog. After what felt like an eternity to General Holt the Prime Minister sat up.
"Thank you General. You have handled this situation most effectively. Please make sure there is round the clock security on our two infected guests. Tomorrow, you have two families we need to inform about the soldiers being killed on base and I do not want any more. Keep sending in the HIVE units until we are either sure every survivor is safe or that it is too dangerous to carry on these missions. They are under strict command to watch out for the two missing officers and extract them safely. If they do not manage to do this, we may have to deal with Police Sergeant Green ourselves. You have had a long Day General you may retire. On way out please make sure you tell someone to bring me a pen and paper. I have a press conference in the morning which I need to work on."
Chapter 33
Three and a half hours had passed since Dr Schaf Leitner had gone to his barracks. In the makeshift lab, Jason was struggling to keep himself awake. Ronnie 'Klutz' Campbell on the other hand looked to be in a deep sleep. His eyes were fixed shut but Jason could see his eyeballs were darting around beneath the eyelids. He rolled and wriggled as much as his strap would let him. Occasionally he would murmur something. It was feint but w
as sounding less like groans and distinctly more like words. Jason has sworn he had heard him say 'It hurts' earlier but maybe this was his imagination. He tried not to look at Callum. The whole time Callum had been starring at him intently. His eyes looked to be burning with rage but there was a crooked smile on Callum's Face. Whenever his boils grew and popped, Jason would collect the excretions into jars and Callum would stare at him attentively always with a crooked smile. His pupils were constantly following him around the room. It was like there was something he knew which Jason didn't. It felt as if Jason was the one being examined and not the two corpses. Jason did not like this feeling. It was odd how even though he was not the one strapped to a gurney he could be made to feel this way by someone who was. The excretions stunk but the Lab kept its clinical bleach like smell. The filtration system hummed dully but worked well to keep the offensive odours at bay.
Another half hour passed before anything of interest happened. There was a sudden gasp of breath and Klutz's eyes shot open. Callum took a break from starring at Jason and was now looking at Klutz. His evil grin was fixed to his hard face like a ventriloquist dummy. At this moment, there was a hiss of air as the decontamination units kicked in and Dr Leitner walked in through the doors.
"Schaf! He has just awoken," Jason exclaimed and the doctor ran over. There was not time for pleasantries.
"Where am I?" Spoke the reanimated Klutz. His words we eligible which surprised even him. It had felt like so long since he could communicate properly.