The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 4): The Dead

by Deville, Sean

  “Aim for the heads you useless bastards,” the Corporal roared behind him; Andy resisting the urge to glance at the owner of the voice. That would have likely only earnt him a scowl. He felt like he was being tested, as if the soldiers were somehow analysing his worthiness to wear the green. Andy did his best to prove his worthiness, the gun slowly settling into his hands. He fired off another shot, this one actually hitting its target’s head.

  With the earplugs in and with the cacophony of gunfire, Andy saw the trucks before he heard them. This was the last convoy that had been sent out, a Warrior armoured vehicle leading the way. Instantly the undead turned and ran towards the new threat, sending a wave of relief through Andy who was starting to worry he was going to run out of ammunition.

  The Warrior’s L94A1 chain gun began to chew into the undead, clearing a path through the small zombie mob. If there had been a significant horde of undead, it was clear to Andy, and probably to everyone around him, that their position would have been easily overrun and the trucks lost. Whilst the Warrior was armoured and thus resistant to whatever the undead could throw at it, the trucks themselves were not. Their drivers would have been pulled from smashed cabin windows within minutes, the vital supplies they carried never to reach their destination.

  There would be no more convoys along this road after this one.

  Two of the undead managed to dodge the machine gun fire aimed at them and ran straight at the Warrior. They quickly fell beneath the vehicle’s tracks, squashed flat by the sheer weight of the armoured vehicle. By the time the Warrior had stopped to allow the trucks to pass it, most of the undead that had made it here had been dispatched. All that was left were broken remnants that crawled uselessly across the road’s tarmac.

  Someone slapped Andy on the back, and now he did turn to see the Corporal pointing.

  “Get the barrier open, pal,” the Corporal ordered. It might have been in Andy’s imagination, but he felt the Corporal spoke to him with more respect than the other civilians here. Part of that would be down to the fact that Andy did what was asked of him without question or any real hesitation. He had never once complained. Now was no different, and Andy shouldered his weapon to help two others pull the hastily constructed wooden and razor wire barrier to one side. This was not the world where you questioned the orders of those in uniform, not if you wanted to stay in good health. Andy didn’t want to end up dead in a ditch like so many of those who had already been condemned. The fact that he held that fear didn’t even shock him.

  The trucks passed slowly, the Warrior following them through, some poor soul later in charge of cleaning the mangled zombie guts off it. Not a job for someone with the green wristband, fortunately. One or more of the oranges would be given that rare and exciting privilege.

  “Get that barrier back in place you muppets,” the Corporal shouted. Further down the M1, a mass of moving bodies could be seen. Nearly four hundred metres away, a true horde was charging at them, running with such savagery and purpose that they were spread totally across the motorway like a necrotic sheet. The soldiers were cutting this fine. If they didn’t act now, it wouldn’t matter how many guns they had, the undead would wash over them like a killing wave.

  “Prepare for bridge demolition,” the Corporal shouted. Andy knew what that meant, and with the rest of the civilians, he backed away from the barrier, hoping that the Royal Engineer that had previously set the explosives knew what the fuck he was doing.

  “5, 4, 3, 2, 1,” the countdown came, and then the bridge erupted as the charges ripped out the support structures. A mass of dust erupted into the air, blocking any sight of the undead from Andy’s tired and smoke filled eyes, the street lights past the bridge going dark. The bridge itself seemed to collapse in on itself, the bulk of it falling into the fast flowing river below. Andy was already running to the truck that would take him away from here to one of the other defensive lines that were being set up around the city of Leeds. Some of his fellow civilians seemed mesmerised by what they had seen, which resulted in a tirade of abuse from the Corporal’s lips.

  “Now we see if zombies can swim,” the other soldier said in passing.

  The undead had been slowed down, but they hadn’t been stopped, their numbers too great for that. Andy strongly suspected they could make it across the river, which meant they would keep on coming. Even if they couldn’t, there would be other crossing points. Leeds wasn’t surrounded by natural barriers, and the city would need to rely on human intervention to keep the undead out.

  Jumping up into his transport truck, he heard the jets before he saw them. Even then they were only lights in a black sky. They came in low, strafing the horde, inflicting whatever damage they could. As his vehicle pulled away, he stayed at the back of the truck so he could watch the lights as they banked around, coming in for a second strike, this time dropping bombs on the zombie ranks. How effective that was, Andy couldn’t tell, the explosions limited by the fact only two fighters were used in the attack. Then his vision was blocked by another truck falling in behind his, and he sat back, finally looking around at the assorted faces that shared the vehicle with him.

  Most of the people here looked scared, which made Andy wonder how he came across to them. As his eyes drifted from one person to the next, he found very few of them could meet his gaze. There was something in him now that was apparently lacking in most of his fellow greens. Strangely, Andy felt superior to them, and perhaps he was. Perhaps his recent transformation into a killer had set him apart from most average people. He was becoming the thing he needed to survive in this new world, and there would be very few people out of uniform who could relate to that. He had always tended towards being a loner, and maybe now he knew why. Separated from his friends and family, he had discovered that he didn’t actually miss any of them.

  The truck ride took around twenty minutes along deserted roads. When it finally stopped, Andy found himself in an unfamiliar part of the city. Disembarking, Andy looked around in confusion, the building he had been driven to some kind of school. Why had he been brought here?

  “Andy,” the Corporal said, walking up to him. “Captain wants to see you.” The Corporal pointed at a large green tent that had been set up on the edge of the school playground. Next to it, a line of people stood outside a mess tent as they waited patiently for food to be handed out.

  “Do you know what about?” Andy asked apprehensively.

  “Not a fucking clue mate,” the Corporal answered before walking off to shout some abusive orders at Andy’s fellow civilians. At least he had been spared that so Andy made the short walk over to the tent and, stealing himself, he pushed his way through the tent flap.

  There were three people in the tent, and they all looked at Andy as he entered. The Captain was the same one that had placed the green band on his wrist the other day, and strangely, the man seemed pleased to see Andy. The other men were both lieutenants. Inside with them, the tent had radio equipment and a table with chairs, upon which nobody was sitting.

  “Andy,” the Captain said, “I hear you did alright out there today.”

  “Thank you, Captain.” He kind of felt in a daze, immersed suddenly in a world he was unfamiliar with. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes, my commanding officer wants to create a new civilian unit. I said you would be an ideal candidate for it.”

  “What kind of unit?”

  “Even with the threat of the undead right on our door, there are some individuals within the city limits who are taking it upon themselves to act against the greater good. Us soldiers are needed to defend the city, not deal with petty insurrections. You have been volunteered to be part of our new police force.”

  “Volunteered?”

  “Nobody gets much of a choice these days, Andy.” The Captain actually sounded apologetic about that.

  “That’s okay, I understand. So you want me to arrest people?” He hadn’t expected that.

  “Not exactly,” the Captain said. “We d
on’t really have the luxury of trials and judges at the moment.” That sounded ominous. There wasn’t anywhere to put them either, not with the prison that serviced Leeds now being used as one of the city’s prime fortifications.

  Right at the start of the carnage, when it was obvious that the cities were getting overrun, the General who had taken charge of Leeds under the new Military government had been able to make the tough decisions. One of those had been to empty Leeds Prison. It was a formidable structure, already fortified, the occupants incarcerated and easy to dispose of despite them being over twelve hundred in number. As a Category B prison, it was filled with people nobody wanted running loose on the streets. There was thus only one fate for those who could not be trusted.

  Whilst the manpower might have been useful, the decision was made not to take the risk. The occupants were thus some of the first to be labelled “red”, a story concocted that most of them had become infected by Lazarus, and in small groups they were taken away for “treatment”. Treatment had involved being driven to Elland Road football stadium where they were lined up against a wall and shot. The bodies were then dragged inside to be added to a huge pyre that was being created. There was nobody willing to argue for the lives of rapists, violent convicts and thieves. Even if there was, who would have listened?

  With the prisoners moved out, the prison had become the base of operations for the military commanders. Its walls were so thick that it would easily be able to withstand an assault by a whole army of undead. That was the hope at least.

  “I’ve got no training in that sort of thing, though,” Andy protested mildly.

  “Doesn’t matter,” the Captain insisted. “You will be teamed up with regular police officers. They will be your guide. Just follow their lead.”

  “I suppose I should say thanks then.” Andy gave him a genuine smile, not realising what was actually being asked of him.

  “Damned right, you should. And feel free to call me Frank, you’re not in uniform.”

  “Okay, thanks Frank.” The shorter of the two Lieutenants stepped up to him.

  “Can I see your wristband?” the army officer said. Andy held out his wrist and was surprised when the band was swiftly cut off. “You won’t be needing that now,” the Lieutenant added. Any confusion in Andy’s face quickly evaporated when a purple band was produced from the Lieutenant’s pocket. Methodically, it was sealed around his wrist, the hologram on it twinkled in the tent’s artificial light. Andy was also given a purple armband which had the Union Jack stitched to it. Somebody seemed to believe there was still a country to fight for.

  “Welcome to the club,” Frank said. Andy wasn’t so sure it was a club he wanted to be a part of. He would soon realise though that it was everything he had secretly ever hoped for.

  25.08.19

  Preston, UK

  The last time Azrael had been here, he had been in chains. Now he returned, armed and ready to bring the fight to those who probably didn’t deserve to die. Those who had become the horsemen were innocent pawns in a battle nobody would ever understand. Azrael would show them no mercy, though, not today. Every one of them needed to be eliminated if humanity was to somehow have a chance to live.

  The road he took to the barracks was littered with the remnants of undead slaughtered by machine gun fire. The lack of human corpses was telling, most having been consumed by creatures whose mouths overflowed with the carnage they aimlessly chewed. The horde had swept across the barracks and picked clean anything they didn’t convert to their cause. Any human bodies he did see were usually scattered in pieces.

  He was not surprised to find the occasional undead creature lurking here, and he walked past them quietly, trying his best to mimic the sound of their movement. Some twitched as he got close as if sensing his presence, but none of them came for him. He had found the weakness of the undead, and had relayed his discovery to Nick via the satellite phone he carried. That phone was switched off now because the last thing he needed was some inadvertent squeak from it which would have been like a screaming claxon to the undead. Every footfall he made was careful, everything on him set up for stealth. Methodically, he crept into Smith’s lair via the barracks’ front gate.

  More undead stood inside the barracks’ grounds. Azrael wasn’t sure, but he suspected they had been drawn here as some sort of protection for Smith and his fellow Horsemen. Most swayed where they stood as if they were pulled in two competing directions. There was the desire to hunt and feed, but there was possibly also the need to comply with whatever command Smith was able to conjure up. Azrael didn’t think that this ability was beyond the former Colonel. He saw no more than a dozen here though, and even without his odour defying armour, there would have been a chance he could have dealt with that number. Not a good chance mind. Still, Azrael kept his distance as much as he could. There was no point pushing whatever luck he had left.

  His task now was to find Smith and the others. If they had been smart, they would have spread out, finding themselves places to hide. Azrael came here because it was Smith’s last known whereabouts and because some inexplicable intuition told him that Smith was still lurking here, that the others were too. Perhaps they thought themselves safe in a land now pretty much devoid of humanity. It was clear that most of the surrounding area had been stripped of anything living. This was a zombie-infested landscape that would need an army to defeat the dead legions that were at this moment raising hell. An army… or perhaps a single infiltrator with a trick or two up his gore covered sleeve.

  The closer Azrael got to the barracks’ medical facility, the more he could sense that the Horsemen were inside. He intended to kill all of them quickly except for Smith because Azrael had some questions for the former Colonel. He had never liked Smith from the first instance he had met him, and would have no hesitation in killing him. But first, he needed to know what Smith knew.

  More zombies ignored Azrael as he walked slowly across the car park and the barracks’ parade ground. This would hopefully be a battle between living men.

  The door to the medical facility opened silently, Azrael stepping inside. He brought his stench with him, the confined space of the corridor heightening the odour of guts and congealed blood that seeped from him. Truth be told, it made his eyes water, but he put up with it for fear of the alternative. When he had left here the other day, this corridor had been in disarray, and yet now it seemed almost pristine. He wasn’t to know that Shah had taken umbrage to the disorder and had swept the floor, cleaning all the debris that he could away. As meticulous as the action was, it meant Azrael had no hindrance to his silent approach, and it took him only two minutes to find the three sleeping figures.

  Three, where the hell was Smith?

  He vaguely thought he knew the three men’s human names, but that knowledge wasn’t important. Despite looking completely different from their forms in the desert, he knew them for who they were. The White, The Pale Rider and The Red Waste. One was dressed in such finery that Azrael knew he was the last one he would kill, and Azrael reattached the restraints that had held the now well-dressed soldier during his initial transformation.

  This murder would not be done by bullets. This was a job for the silent knives so as not to attract any zombies that would take any interest in the sound his suppressed shots might make. It was time for Azrael to do what he did best.

  ***

  Cartwright took his time worming his index finger into the helpless victim’s eye. He rotated it slowly, pushing further, feeling the bone at the back of the socket. Dawson and Shah were with him, each dealing death to more of the immune. A smile flitted briefly across Cartwright’s face, but it was replaced by a grim determination as he began to work further on the howling facade before him.

  The sudden wetness on his neckline surprised him. Lifting a hand, he felt at his neck, noticed the moisture there. Pulling his hand away, he looked at it in confusion, the blood there clearly not that of his victim. It didn’t show well on his red garmen
ts, but for some reason, he knew he was bleeding. His other hand let go of the immune that was still alive, just. Staggering, an arc of blood shot out from his neck, followed by a second, the steady pump of his heart emptying his arteries of the very fluid that kept him alive.

  This couldn’t be!

  Wasn’t he invulnerable in this place? How could anyone hurt him, and where was the attacker? Cartwright tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come, Azrael’s blade having sliced deep, filling his throat now with blood which was brought forth with a desperate cough. Behind him, he felt her shape in the distance, The Woman of Skulls as she came to his aid, but too late. He dropped to his knees, the strength seeping out of his body. Dismounted as he was, his horse suddenly reared up and fell onto its side, the life of his steed inextricably linked to that of his own.

  In painless confusion, Cartwright rapidly bled out in the desert, the land rejecting the blood that ate away at the rocks beneath him like the harshest of acids. Looking up into the sky, the scarce clouds there the deepest black as they churned with the poison they threatened to unleash, Cartwright finally realised he was about to die.

  Dawson was drawn to the scarlet horse’s distress. What was this? At first, he didn’t see the blood that poured so readily. Dropping the body of the soul he was torturing, Dawson walked over to where Cartwright was kneeling. His brother fell into his arms as Dawson knelt, Cartwright now clawing at his neck to try and stem the relentless flow of blood. But such an action was pointless, for, in the real world, his arms stayed calmly by his side, the precious life fluid freely flowing. Dawson tried to help, his own hand now pressed against Cartwright’s neck.