The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 4): The Dead

by Deville, Sean

  Jackson was able to return fire now, his aim off, but it was enough for Gabriel to withdraw his hand, the door frame splintering. Carson had counted the bullets, half Gabriel’s magazine expended. There was still the other gun from the first soldier, Gabriel easily being able to reach that. None of this made sense, though. Even if Gabriel succeeded here, where did he think he was going to go?

  Carson felt the strength failing in his legs, a burning agony spreading out through his body. He took another step, a cough suddenly erupting from his lungs. Blood shot out from his mouth, and for a brief moment, he didn’t know where he was, a confused blackness spinning into him. He found himself falling to one knee, the energy seeping out of his muscles, the limbs failing him. The gun he held felt incredibly heavy, and it took all he had to keep it extended out in front of him. Carson coughed again, the body now clearly rejecting the rest of its life. He didn’t know that the bullet had gouged through the aorta, vital blood now pumping into the surrounding tissues instead of around his body. It had also nicked the lower lobe of his lung, which was why his throat was steadily filling up with precious blood.

  Gabriel’s gun appeared again, the wall and door frame exploding around it as Jackson tried to take it out. But even firing blind, the two men were a much easier target, and the second to last round smashed Jackson in the neck. That took the fight out of Jackson, his gun dropped so the hands could desperately try and stem the urgent and chaotic flow of fluid that pumped. Really, when you thought about it, the human body wasn’t designed to survive in any kind of combat. It was a miracle the human race had been so successful at fighting wars throughout history.

  Carson tried to pull the trigger, but his fingers didn’t seem to want to work anymore, the pistol clattering to the ground. The floor seemed to shift under the Major, and he slumped onto his backside, the breathing tortured, his eyesight infested with darkness that threatened the end of him. He and Jackson were in a competition now as to who would die first.

  Arterial spray burst through Jackson’s fingers, painting the wall next to him. Jackson tried to breathe, but the blood just flowed into his trachea. The resulting cough sent him collapsing against the wall, smearing the blood there in some arcane artistry. Carson turned his head to look at the man. Inept or not, he had gone down fighting, which was all any of them could ever ask for.

  When he looked back towards the doorway, Gabriel was standing there.

  “I told you, you should have let me go,” Gabriel advised calmly. Carson tried to raise his gun, only he wasn’t holding it any more. He had been through so many conflicts, to go out like this was unconscionable, and he watched perplexed as Gabriel crouched down in front of him. Gabriel looked over the two men, curious about the damage that he had inflicted.

  Carson expected his enemy to say something more, and he did. First though, the assassin ripped Carson’s ID badge off him.

  “I’m guessing this facility runs on standard biometric scanners,” Gabriel said this more to himself than to Carson, pushing the Major just hard enough for him to collapse onto his back. With a hint of sadism, Gabriel knelt on his latest victim’s chest, wary that more soldiers could appear at any minute, speed now a priority. He was also mindful that he was obviously being watched, the CCTV thoroughly invasive throughout the facility.

  Blood seeped through the material at Gabriel’s knee. For some reason, it felt reassuring to feel the evidence of the mortal wound he had caused, and he pressed his weight down more, knowing it would help speed up Carson’s demise.

  The Major found it impossible to breathe with the added pressure bearing down on him. Something inside his rib cage seemed to rip, the aorta tearing fully open now. A heat spread into his face, the last of his life rapidly seeping out of him. As he tried to cling on to this world, Carson felt a hand rummage around his ankle, the boot knife he carried suddenly appearing before his eyes. There was no denying what was coming next, but fate spared him the agony as blackness finally took him.

  Carson had always wondered what it would be like to die. Would there be a great light, gathering his soul into the afterlife? There was none of that, any pain he was experiencing turning into a brief numbness before his life finally winked out. No angels, no magnificent astral host. Like everyone before him, Carson just ceased to be. Only unlike so many, he didn’t come back to haunt the realms of the living.

  25.08.19

  Manchester, UK

  Brian ventured downstairs, but he kept away from the rest of the men who were gathered desperately in the kitchen. Their panic was infectious but not as infectious as he likely now was. One of the French windows was shattered, the shutters supposedly protecting it only half way down. The furniture that had been pushed into the breach was smashed, the bodies of several zombies lying in the gap. While he watched, one of the dispatched zombies was dragged out of sight, only to be replaced by another who tried to climb in. The shutter was stopped at about thigh height, but had already been bent away somewhat. It wouldn’t be long before the strength of those attacking made the hole bigger.

  They were going to get in. It was inevitable.

  Whenever a zombie’s head appeared, one of the men would shoot it. Sometimes that had the desired effect, sometimes the zombie kept on crawling, congealed blood and brain matter splattered all over the inside of the adjoining window. Some of the shots had gone wild which Brian couldn’t understand considering the short distance people were firing, but then he remembered the young buck who had unloaded his weapon wildly when the zombies first attacked. People panicked, even those who were used to violence.

  Yeah, maybe he did understand.

  If the undead could pull that shutter away further, they would be in, the double glazed window already gone in that panel.

  “Where’s Clay?” Bulldog almost begged.

  “He’s locked in his bathroom,” Brian responded. Technically, it wasn’t a lie.

  “Has he got the cure?” Bulldog persisted. “I saw Susan run into the house. We all know Florence gave her one of the doses.” It would seem that Clay’s big secret was out.

  “Things…things didn’t go so well for Susan.” Again, not technically a lie. “Clay has her in there with him. He has the vials of the cure too.” Ears seemed to prick up at that, eyes darting towards Brian and Bulldog in-between fighting off the ever insistent zombie attack. There was a metallic tearing sound as the shutter’s weakened integrity failed slightly.

  “Well, we need to go up there and get it,” Bulldog insisted. Clearly, any loyalty the men had towards Clay had evaporated.

  “It won’t do you any good.” An outright lie by Brian this time. “Florence said it only works if you are infected, and Clay only has two doses.” Bulldog didn’t need to hear anymore, he made the connections in his own mind himself. Two doses?

  “I always said Clay couldn’t be trusted,” Bulldog said, before turning to the window and watching as one of the men unloaded into a pair of zombies that were trying to squeeze through the gap.

  “Yeah,” Brian said, placating the man. He backed out of the room, the itch in his ankle now evident in his calf. It felt like half his leg was being attacked by stinging nettles. Brian hoped that nobody else noticed the limp he was developing. “I’m going to get more ammo,” Brian stated as the excuse for why he wouldn’t be around. As he left the kitchen, there was a further wrenching sound as the shutter was pulled away from the wall another few precious inches. The undead were going to get in, there was no stopping it.

  25.08.19

  Frederick, USA

  The door opened, a bloody smear left on the reader where Gabriel had placed Carson’s eye against it. Behind him, two more soldiers lay dead, Gabriel aching from where a bullet had hit into the Kevlar he had stripped off Jackson’s body. Bruises were better than holes. Every soldier he killed, he stripped them of their ammunition, his bulletproof vest resplendent in pockets to hold all the magazines he had acquired. Gabriel had no illusion he was going to get out of here, but h
e would at least go down fighting and continue with his new found purpose.

  He had decided that nobody could be allowed to learn the secrets of Lazarus that lived within him. Mother might not have agreed with it, but for Lazarus to be defeated meant that Gaia would ultimately be destroyed. Better to die fighting for what he had once been made to believe, than to end up as the centrepiece of some experiment. Schmidt’s intentions had been clear, and Gabriel was not prepared to have anything to do with her sadistic ways. Gabriel had spent years killing scientists across the North American Continent, and meeting Schmidt had only reinforced the validity of his actions. Adding one more to the list wasn’t going to give him any sleepless nights. It was just a shame Schmidt hadn’t been added to the inventory of those he had been originally required to kill.

  The door opened sideways, Gabriel stepping into a long corridor. Once white, now it glowed yellow with the emergency lighting. To his right, another corridor branched off at a T. Straight ahead were the cells where he had been briefly kept against his express wishes. Which path was the priority for him?

  What Carson hadn’t known, what even Gabriel himself wasn’t aware of, was the other reason behind Gabriel’s escape, the thing that had been triggered in the deepest recesses of his mind. It was programming, decades old, forced into Gabriel’s young mind as a child. As a member of the Russian Illegal’s program, it was hard-wired into him to resist any form of incarceration. If he was captured, it was almost a compulsive reflex to try and take as many of the enemy with him as he could at any opportunity that presented itself. That same reflex had not been triggered in Azrael because Azrael had already started to break his programming thanks to Jessica’s influence. Seeing Jessica and being asked to kill her had unlocked something in Azrael’s head. Gabriel’s programming was still intact, thus he was just doing was he was designed to do. The plausibility of continuing the work of Gaia was the excuse created by his conscious mind to explain his actions to himself.

  He chose the route away from the cells, and if he had been a minute sooner, Gabriel would have encountered Doctor Lee and would most likely have killed her too. Schmidt was the priority here, anything else was secondary.

  Another door opened for him, Carson’s eye and ID badge enough, it seemed, to open every door in the facility. To his left was a large laboratory, the transparent walls of the same substance used for his former cell. The faces of scared and desperate people looked back at him. These weren’t soldiers, they all wore lab coats and pitiful faces, Gabriel tapping lightly on the Perspex with the end of his gun. That made most of them jump like frightened mice, one of the men in the room actually retreating beneath a desk he had been sitting at. How pathetic.

  No threat to him existed in that room, but Gabriel felt he had to be methodical. Carson allowed him entry once again, and one by one, Gabriel shot the room’s trapped occupants until there was one left, a female scientist who was in hysterics. He witnessed no bravery, just pure selfish cowardice. The contempt he felt for those he shot couldn’t even be described. Most of them weren’t even worth the mercy of the bullets he wasted on them.

  “Where is Schmidt?” Gabriel demanded. He kept his voice quiet, a complete contrast to the violence of the noise he had just introduced.

  “I don’t know.” The words came out tattered, painted with sobs and hysteria. The woman was close to having a mental breakdown.

  “You do know. If you tell me, I will let you live.”

  “You promise?” There was a sudden wide-eyed look of hope on her face. Such foolishness. Why did people crave their lives so much?

  “Of course,” Gabriel said. “I have no reason to lie. I will find Schmidt sooner or later.”

  “I think she locked herself in her office.” The woman then babbled some instruction as to where that could be found.

  “Thank you,” Gabriel said. “And now the blood you undoubtedly took from me. Where would that be found?” The scientist pointed, and Gabriel stepped aside slightly to let her pass. She opened a large refrigerator and extracted an array of test tubes, her hands shaking so bad she risked dropping everything. “Here,” she said, “this is all of it,” placing everything on a work surface next to her. Waving his gun at her, Gabriel told the scientist to step back so he could extract what rightfully belonged to him. Keeping the gun aimed in her general direction, he pulled the glass test tubes out of their rack one at a time, dropping them onto the ground in front of him. Each one shattered, but that wouldn’t be enough for what he wanted.

  “Ethanol please.” Again the woman pointed, directing Gabriel to a cupboard just above his head. He found the liquid easily and unscrewed the lid, no concern that for a moment he had left his captive unguarded. She wasn’t any kind of menace to him, and there was no risk that she would try and randomly attack him. He poured the alcohol onto the spilt blood, destroying its usefulness forever.

  “You have been very helpful,” Gabriel said to her, genuinely pleased that she hadn’t been an obstructive pain in the arse. Then he shot her point blank in the chest, the force of the blast sending her to the floor. The scientist was killed almost instantly, which was a mercy Gabriel was happy to provide.

  Stepping out of the laboratory, Gabriel went in search of Schmidt.

  ***

  The alarm blared loudly around them. The lights in the cells had also changed colour to the sickly yellow.

  “What’s happening?” Lizzy asked nervously. Reece clung the girl to her chest, not sure what the faint gunfire was all about.

  “I don’t know, honey.”

  “Have the zombies escaped?”

  “I don’t think so.” Like Reece, Schmidt had done her experiments on Lizzy, so the child was well versed in what zombies were. That in itself was a crime that Schmidt would need to pay for, her twisted mind not able to appreciate the damage she was doing to such a young mind. Or maybe she did fully appreciate the impact she was causing and did it anyway.

  Reece half expected someone to come for them, and this time it was Jee. The Doctor looked harassed, as if she was in danger. Reece hadn’t been expecting a rescue, so when Jee opened the door to her cell, she sensed the danger they were now all in. Reece heard the gunfire that marked the death of the scientists, the walls of the facility not thick enough to prevent that.

  “What’s happening Jee?” Reece demanded. Following the same pattern, Jee opened Jessy’s cell as well. Gianni still hadn’t come round, but Jee still unlocked his confinement.

  “That new arrival, Gabriel, he’s escaped. I watched him on the surveillance cameras. He killed Major Carson.”

  “Seriously?” Reece said, astonished.

  “And Jackson,” Jee added.

  “Yay,” Lizzy said, clearly pleased with the news.

  “Lizzy,” Reece said, admonishing the child. Lizzy just looked up at her confused as to why she was being told off.

  “I’m with Lizzy on that one,” Jessy said, which got a big grin from Lizzy.

  “Go Gabriel,” Lizzy added.

  “We need to go, now. It’s not safe for any of you here anymore.” Lizzy seemed reluctant to leave her cell, but Reece was able to gently carry her out, finally lowering her to the floor. Gianni, for his part, remained dead to the world. Jee stepped into his cell and tried to wake him, but the man was still deep in unconsciousness. There was no way they could take Gianni with them.

  “Shouldn’t we just stay put?” Jessy asked.

  “No,” Jee insisted. “This is your only chance, and you have to take it.”

  “Why, Jee? What aren’t you telling us?” Reece could see the panic that lived in Jee’s eyes.

  “We discovered that we can’t make the anti-serum from your blood. Before this emergency, Schmidt was all ready to sign the orders.”

  “What orders?” Jessy demanded.

  “Termination orders.” She hoped Lizzy wouldn’t understand what she meant, but the look on Lizzy’s face told Jee the child understood all too well.

  “Can you ge
t us out?” Reece queried.

  “I don’t know,” came the response from Jee, “but I think we have to try.” They would need to get another ID from one of the soldiers Gabriel had killed. Her ID alone wouldn’t allow Jee up to the surface. They were all trapped down here, to one degree or another.

  That was when the main door opened again, and Howell entered. He was dressed in full combat gear, armed with an AR15 that he pointed briefly at the women. Jee turned, saw the soldier, her hopes of somehow salvaging something here evaporating.

  Howell lowered his gun.

  “We need to move,” Howell said. The women looked at each other, but they didn’t need telling a second time. They hurried towards him but stopped briefly as Lizzy suddenly grabbed the soldier around the waist and hugged him with every fibre of her being.

  “Thank you, Richard,” Lizzy said. Howell seemed taken aback, as if he didn’t know how to respond. He muttered something, and Lizzy let him go.

  “Follow me,” Howell said, taking charge. They passed quickly into the changing area. He looked at their worried expressions, committed now to an action that risked seeing him court-martialled. “Trust me, I have a plan.” It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the best he could come up with. “When we move from here, we need to turn left. That will take us to the armoury.” He looked directly at Reece. “I know you can fire a gun, what about you Doctor, Miss Whitethorn?”

  “I’ve never fired a gun in my life,” Jessy stated, almost embarrassed.

  “I’m good with that,” Jee insisted.

  “Seriously?” Reece asked.

  “Just you watch me,” Jee insisted.

  “I’m sorry for my part in this,” Howell said. “I didn’t know what was involved when I was assigned to this duty.”

  “If you get us out of this, all is forgiven,” Reece said reassuringly. “Isn’t that right, Lizzy?” The girl looked up at Howell and gave him her best salute, which managed to drag a smile onto his reluctant face.