Infectious (Book 1): Death is Just the Beginning

by Davies, Steven

  Grizzly Adams spoke first, looking at me with quiet interest through pale blue eyes. “First things first George, and this is key so take it on board. There is no HPA. As far as we know, it was overrun and we are not going to stick our necks out trying to find out for certain. Other HPA buildings just aren’t equipped for this, so they are out too. If we are right, and you really can help us, then we are not going to risk losing you on what could well turn out to be a one way trip”

  He opened his mouth to say more, but I interrupted before he could, “Did you know about me, before today? It just seems like I was expected”

  “Know about you? No. We were hoping to come across someone like you, and we have been planning accordingly, but not you specifically, no”.

  “Carl has been reaching out to mercs and traders for a while”, Tan was looking at something over my left shoulder as she spoke, almost wistfully, “Asking them, us, to be on the look out for somebody like you. He thinks there could be a way out of this for us. Church had other ideas, still does” Tanith glanced at Carl, who seemed to take that as his cue.

  “Church is insane, George. Tanith has been filling us in on the progress that he has been making, and believe me; that guy is totally batshit crazy. There is no way on earth that the infected can be controlled, let alone trained.

  He is right about one thing, though; We’re running out of time. When the infected run out of food, and they are beginning to already, then they are going to come at the settlements. We cannot win that battle, George. Once it starts, it will never stop until we are all dead.”

  They both looked at me, like I was meant to pull a solution out of my arse and hand it to them with a flourish. All this time I had had just one idea, one goal – get to the Health Protection Agency HQ and do my bit to try and end this thing. Now this hairy arsehole and Tanith were telling me that there was no help, and no hope? The more I looked at this bearded idiot, the more I wanted to tear his face off.

  While thoughts of murder swam through my head, one solitary thought stayed grounded and kept shouting “did he say there was a way out?”.

  “Wait, hang on a minute”, finally winning my mental battle and, with immense effort, not killing him I looked at him through a still red haze “did you say that you were waiting for somebody like me? Why, what are you up to?”

  “You are special, George. We know that those who stay relatively human, after turning, are few and far between – my guess is that it is around the two percent mark that could be semi-immune like you. That’s still a lot of people, in the grand scheme of things, but we have to assume that the vast majority of those are dead – killed by other infected, if nothing else”

  It made sense that I would be on the sharp end of a minority, and I knew already that I was ‘special’ – but the rats were too, weren’t they? Even more so. “Rats are the only mammals that don’t display any symptoms at all, that I’ve seen anyway. My thinking was that maybe someone could use my blood and compare with the rats…”

  I stopped talking as I realised that they were looking at as though I were a small child licking the window of the school bus.

  “We just can’t rely on some miracle cure, George; I told you, we are running out of time. Even if the main HPA complex was still up, or there was another somewhere, still operational, manned and capable enough, even if they could use your blood… How long do you think it will take for them to come up with something from that? Using samples from one person?

  It’s a nice idea George, but it’s a non starter I’m afraid. What we need to do is to take on the infected, extend the borders of the settlements and take back what is rightfully ours”

  “Extend the borders? If the settlements are vulnerable now, which is exactly what you are saying they are, then surely extending them outwards would just make the situation worse, wouldn’t it?”

  Carl was nodding as he replied, but looking concerned as he did so “That’s the hard part, I know. What we need to do is create a safe zone around each settlement while work can be carried out erecting walls – big enough, strong enough to keep the hordes out for good; no matter how hard they come at us”

  “You would have to clear areas a hell of a lot bigger than the ones you were trying to fortify, just to make sure the builders were safe for long periods, and to give them some breathing room. If you had the kind of army that would require, you could probably march on the infected anyway. So what’s the point?”

  “The point is, we don’t have an army. Probably never will. That’s why we need semi-immune people like you. We have a plan, and we think it could work. Will you help us?”

  I just stood there looking at him, and I couldn’t help but wonder who was crazier; Carl, Church or me for not just walking away.

  “Help how, Carl?”

  “The rats, George. It’s the rats. We experimented with them, trying to find out why they didn’t get infected. For a while, we did our best to infect them – just to see how they turned.

  We found something else, though. George, the rats were always the answer – we were just asking all the wrong questions”

  I found myself agreeing to go back with Carl, back to the others he was with, so he could show me what was going on – so he could introduce me to the salvation of the human race.

  End Of Part One

  Notes

  Steven J Davies is an independent everything; author, freelance writer, self employed and ready to tackle bears.

  For more information about his work, or to scratch your head at his ramblings, you can find him here…

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