“I’ve slept enough,” Jessica said. “I’m going to need to talk to Colonel Carter.”
Jessica found Nick smoking in the old and tattered greenhouse, the one where he had told Azrael he was free to leave. Did the man never sleep?
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Jessica said.
“Old habit. Might as well make the most of things whilst we still have cigarettes.”
“Can I talk to you?” she asked, almost timidly. She hovered in the doorway as if she needed his permission to enter a building her own brother owned.
“I thought that’s what we were doing,” he said disarmingly. “What’s up?” Jessica finally stepped fully through the threshold, sitting down on the same stool that Azrael had himself occupied. Azrael, the man she had once loved, the face just a mask that no longer represented the essence of the man that had once stolen her heart, and perhaps her happiness as well.
“I’m afraid.” There, she had said it. It had been hovering above her for so long. The death of her brother, Peter, the effects of the virus and the tests that had shown she was immune. Then the failed abduction that had almost seen her spirited away from the country. So much had happened to her that would have broken so many minds. Was it any surprise then that she had awoken into such a state?
That wasn’t it though. The fear was created by guilt. Somehow, even though indirectly, Jessica knew she was responsible for much of what was happening.
“Fear is natural and healthy. If you weren’t afraid, I’d be worried.”
“I presume you are going to tell me you’re afraid too.”
“Of course I am,” Nick said. “I just know how to control it, to channel it. This is the zombie apocalypse don’t forget.”
“It’s not that,” Jessica corrected him. “I’m afraid that some of this is my fault.”
“How on Earth could you be to blame?” The idea actually astonished Nick.
“Smith used my blood to create his antiserum. Didn’t Azrael tell you that the men he killed had all received it?”
“Still doesn’t make it your fault.”
“What about the woman, the one who seems to be in charge in the desert?”
“The one you call The Woman of Skulls?” Nick didn’t question what he was told by Jessica and Whittaker before his death. He had seen first-hand the evidence of what the dream state could do to the immune.
“What if she was created by the antiserum that was stolen?”
“What if she was?” Nick countered.
“My blood, hello.”
“So what. You had no say in that. It was taken by force by someone we all trusted and who ultimately betrayed that trust. You can’t hold yourself responsible for that.”
“But…” Jessica tried to protest.
“No.” The word came out perhaps louder than Nick had intended it to. “There is no but. Whatever caused Smith and the others to go insane like that isn’t down to you.” Jessica seemed to deflate in front of him.
“I don’t think I can make it through this.”
“I know the feeling well.” She was genuinely surprised by the response. Before she could counter, he continued. “I’ve been in situations people in civilian life usually can’t even imagine. I’ve been tortured and shot more times than I’m happy with, but the worst of it was always losing men in the field. The death of Brodie hit me hard, much harder than I expected. You can be reassured you aren’t the only one being put through it here.” The words were said with reassurance, not dismissal. “Perhaps we can help each other through this.” Even in the gloom of the single candle, Jessica’s eyes brightened.
“But how can we survive?”
“By never giving up.”
“I don’t know if I can do that,” Jessica admitted. Despite the anger that had burned away the depressive thoughts, their toxicity still remained within her. She was filled with doubt, the breeding ground for hopelessness. Nick suddenly leaned forward and grabbed her hand gently.
“I can help you, but you have to make me a promise.”
“What’s that?” asked Jessica.
“That you help me.”
“Help you?” The words hung on her lips. Nick was their leader, had been from the start. He had rescued her, watched over her and his team had saved her more than once. The darkness she had always seen within him reassured her now. He was a man who would go to any length to protect those people he felt responsible for. Cared for would have been the wrong words. A man like Nick could rarely hold affection for someone, not with the way life had unfolded for him. Comradery and duty, however, that was everything that made Nick the man she saw before her. She knew he would never back down, despite his own proclamations of weakness. No, such words only cemented the strength she saw in him.
“I can do that,” Jessica said, “but you will need to show me how.”
26.08.19
South of Preston, UK
Despite his success with the horsemen, Azrael knew he still had work to do. Whether he would be successful a second time was open to question, but he knew he had to try. The Woman of Skulls was still a threat, and it was unlikely he would survive any encounter with her in the desert. He needed to get to her before she decided to hunt him down.
As unpleasant as it was, Azrael had spread fresh gore across his body. His own stench mingled with it, his body almost trying to compete with the crude olfactory armour he was inflicting upon his own person. He hoped it would be enough, and so as not to push his luck, he followed the railway lines again, his GPS guiding him to the coordinates Nick had given him. He had no idea what he would find there.
Up ahead, a road bridge crossed the path he was taking, the wandering undead clearly visible crossing it. He knew they couldn’t see, so he sat on the rail tracks, hoping to wait them out. They might not have been able to smell him, but he worried that they would detect his footsteps walking on the loose gravel. There were far too many for him to deal with, which became apparent by him still being sat there twenty minutes later. There must have been thousands, and he had no idea where they were heading, many of them ignoring the bridge to cross across the rail line itself. Likely they didn’t know where they were going either, just sent on some sort of instinct that no human would ever understand.
Finally, the last of the zombies staggered across the bridge, and Azrael was allowed to continue his journey. With so many undead though, a voice inside his head told him he wasn’t coming back from this. It was unusual to have such pessimism inside him, but who could deny the odds he was clearly facing? Normally his inner voice was confident of the success he would have in his mission. But since meeting Jessica again, since breaking his programming and being freed from his obligation by Mother, the doubts had begun to surface. He ignored them as best he could, but they chipped away at him.
Further on he saw evidence of more carnage, two tiny bodies discarded by the side of the rail line. Miraculously they were virtually intact, and as he got closer, he saw that there was no real evidence of a zombie attack. Two girls, cut down before they had even had a chance at life. They lay next to each other, hands folded across their chests, eyes closed.
“Daddy, please don’t hurt me.” The voice was like a phantom, clearly a product of his own mind. It lingered in the air around him, Azrael turning in a complete circle just in case the owner of the voice was a physical being. The words had come from his memory, dragged from the time when he had killed so many in the house of blood. They were the words of the child that he now knew to be his daughter.
“I want my mummy.”
The other daughter spoke, the twin corpses having triggered something in his mind, his feet taking him closer to where they lay. He tried not to look at the bodies, but his eyes became fixed to them. They looked exactly like the faces he remembered. Even their clothes were the same. As he stared, wounds appeared, those blossoming necklaces made from the bruises that fit nicely to the shape of his hands.
“No,” he said under his breath. Stepping back, he almost lost
his footing, his eyes being torn from the macabre to help check his fall. Retaining his feet, Azrael looked back only to find the bodies were no longer there. He was hallucinating. If Mother had been here, she would have been able to tell Azrael why. Despite his own perceived strength, his mind was a fragile creation, fragmented and manipulated by scientists who really hadn’t perfected what they were doing. When he had broken his conditioning, when Jessica had helped him remember his time before the house of blood, it had unleashed a domino effect in his mind that cascaded faster as stress was inflicted upon the body. Everything was starting to unravel now, just when he needed to be at his strongest.
He’d had glimpses of it on the road to Preston, but here was the proof, imagining people and voices that existed only in his memory. Part of him felt he should phone Nick and tell him what was occurring, but what was the point of that? It wasn’t like Nick would be able to help him in any way, and the Colonel was likely living with his own concerns without Azrael adding more. Azrael was on his own, and he wasn’t sure how long he could even trust his own senses now. What if he began to degrade further, the unwanted and aberrant thoughts rushing through him unchecked?
Azrael had faced powerful enemies before, but never the rebellion of his self. Taking a deep breath in, he forged on down the railroad track, glancing back to make sure the bodies hadn’t in fact been real. They weren’t; the phantoms gone for good, at least for now. He would go on until he couldn’t anymore. That was the only way a man like him knew how to cope.
26.08.19
The Peak District, UK
When Nick’s satellite phone rang, he had expected Azrael to be on the other end again because really, that was the only person left who had cause to call. There was little left of MI13 or the rest of the British security services. Then he saw a number he didn’t recognise. Who the hell else would be ringing him?
“Hello?”
“Nick, how you doing there, buddy?” The words dripped with venom, and it took only a second for Nick to recognise the owner of the voice.
“Campbell?”
“Got it in one. So how have you been?”
“What do you want, Campbell?”
“No need to be so hostile,” Campbell said, clearly pleased with himself. “I’m actually doing you a favour with this phone call.”
“How did you even get this number?”
“Please, remember who you’re talking to.”
“I’m going to hang up now,” Nick said, already tired of dealing with the man.
“That would be a mistake.”
“Would it now?” answered Nick. He should have hung up then, he really should, but something kept him on the line.
“Yep. Because then you would never learn about the traitor in your midst.”
“Spare me your bullshit,” Nick insisted. He wasn’t going to believe a word this man told him.
“Oh, I don’t expect you to believe me,” Campbell added. “Which is why I’ve sent all the information I have through the usual channels. The evidence is irrefutable.”
“So why tell me?”
“Why?” Campbell sounded genuinely surprised by the question. “Because I know it will hurt you, Nick. I know that betrayal is one of the things that you can never forgive, and it will tear you up inside knowing what you have to do.”
“You always were a bastard.” Nick kept his voice calm, but inside, he felt the anger welling up. Maybe he should have defied orders and put a bullet between Campbell’s eyes when he’d had the chance. No maybe’s about it. That was exactly what he should have done.
“I know you love me really.” Nick heard Campbell chuckle at the other end of the line and detested him all the more for it. “We raided the hideout of the people who created Lazarus, just so you know. We have the vaccine, and we have their research. We also have several years’ worth of their files. There is some very interesting stuff in those files, Nick. A name of someone you trust, who you would have gladly given your life for. It proves they have been working for Gaia all along.”
“You’re lying,” Nick insisted. But was he? What kind of evidence did Campbell have?
“Only one way you will find out, isn’t there. My department has shared everything with what’s left of your security apparatus. I’m sure it will find its way to you, that’s assuming you haven’t already intercepted it. What’s the name of that awesome supercomputer you guys have?”
“Moros,” Nick replied. Once a secret, now that secret was irrelevant. Moros was still functioning, its self-contained power supply able to keep it alive for several more months. Deep below the surface of London, it had survived the effects of the nuclear blasts that had levelled buildings and destroyed monuments. Unfortunately, the communication with it had been lost due to the effects of the nuclear blast that had been unleashed on the British capital.
“That’s right, Moros. We are sending you everything, including the identity of the traitor and all the research on the vaccine. I’m sure Moros can figure out how to use that information. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have shared that last bit, but my superiors still seem to dwell in the illusion of that old special relationship everyone likes to get all gooey-eyed about.”
“Don’t do me any favours.”
“There’s gratitude for you,” Campbell stabbed back. Nick could tell he really was enjoying this. “Anyway, must fly. Have a good life, Nick.” With that, the line went dead.
A traitor? But who the hell was it though?
***
Campbell looked at the satellite phone in his hand and felt the self-satisfaction slowly ebb out of him. The urge to make that call had been building during his flight over the Atlantic, but he had resisted the temptation until he was once again on terra firma. Now at the Frederick Municipal Airport, he looked through the plane’s cockpit windows at the heavy military presence that had taken over the small commercial facility. Sitting in the pilot’s seat, he finally let the pervasive tiredness wash over him. He didn’t succumb to it though. There would be time for sleep, but that time wasn’t now. Campbell reckoned he could go another twenty-four hours yet, easily.
“You ready?” The voice was from the Delta Force medic who stood in the cockpit doorway with a loaded syringe in his hand. Before leaving Tristan da Cunha, Campbell had insisted that the men who had raided the Gaia base should be given the chance to have the vaccine before it was passed over to the scientists at Fort Detrick. Some had been reluctant, not wanting to trust what had been found in the bowels of Gaia’s secret base, but most had jumped at the chance. Anything to spare them the horrors of the deadliest plague ever to hit the planet.
It was only fair that those who found it get the first doses. Who could argue with that?
Campbell and the other men piloting the planes had needed to wait of course. There was always the chance of side effects with a drug that could counter something as powerful as Lazarus. You didn’t want the one and only person capable of flying your plane passing out mid-flight.
“Let’s do it,” Campbell said, rolling up his sleeve. Unlike some vaccines, this one was a single dose affair and didn’t seem to give much in the way of side effects from what he had been able to witness. It was very possible that someone, somewhere would take issue with him taking one of the few doses available, but he didn’t care about that. He also didn’t think his direct superiors gave a damn about that either, the pouch on his belt presently containing ten vaccine ampules for their personal use. Winters, upon getting approval for Campbell to go on the mission to raid the Gaia stronghold, had given him a second task to perform once the Delta team he was with had secured the facility.
“If there is a vaccine, I want you to try and acquire some.” Despite being part of the great and noble structure of the US intelligence community, Winters and those she reported to, obviously didn’t trust that there would be a fair and equitable sharing of the vaccine. Whatever was left of the US government was broken and fragmented. Rivalries that had initially been forgotten
were now actually getting stronger as different agencies battled for dwindling resources. Campbell had expected the Delta team Captain to raise an objection to this, but he had been one of the first to volunteer to take the vaccine himself.
That was why Campbell was still on the plane. It was presently being refuelled so that it could make the short hop over to Washington DC, parts of which were still being held out of the clutches of the zombie hordes. The facility where Mother had been interrogated had already been abandoned, as had the Defense Intelligence Agency headquarters. The plane would take off, this time piloted by a regular pilot, and land at Dulles where Winters and most of the DIA hierarchy that were still alive were waiting. They had been ordered to join the President at Site R, but no transportation was presently available. Going by land would be a perilous journey, helicopters and aircraft being in short supply with the number of people now fleeing.
Military analysts were predicting that Washington DC would be overrun by the end of the day. Surely, everyone was thinking, the President won’t order that city be nuked too?
Campbell felt the needle as it entered the muscle of his upper arm, the liquid injected slowly. Rolling down the sleeve, he stood from the pilot’s chair and patted the Delta team medic on the shoulder.
“Who did your injection?” Campbell asked.
“I injected myself,” the medic said, beaming. Of course you did, thought Campbell.
“Have all the doses been dispatched to Fort Detrick?” Campbell asked. The medic shook his head.
“Only half of the supply, the rest is being sent to Site R. There has been an outbreak at Fort Detrick, so our masters want to hedge their bets.”
“Shit,” said Campbell. It was clear to him that they were running out of time. He would go on one last mission and then hopefully, fully inoculated, he would be allowed to retreat into the vast array of subterranean bases that existed beneath US soil. If they had to abandon the cities entirely, would mankind ever be able to reclaim the surface though?
The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 4): The Dead Page 29