The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 5): The Last

by Deville, Sean

  “Well go then,” the doctor said dismissively.

  “I think I might be a while,” Michelle added. “I think I might have food poisoning.” The soldier looked at her more closely now, a suspicious eye cast over the woman that had already caused them problems.

  “Better get moving then.” If the man cared for her pretend predicament, he didn’t show it. She didn’t try and infect him due to the respirator and heavy gloves he wore. Instead, Michelle thanked him, and ran off in the direction of the toilets. That would take her into the main body of the school, which was exactly where she needed to go for the rest of her plan.

  ***

  General Woolington had been surprised by how easy it had been to seize control of the city, a city he was now prepared to abandon and leave to its fate. He thought he had been able to stabilise matters, but the situation was running away from him. Just like so many leaders before him, over-confidence had been his failing.

  They knew there were going to be outbreaks within the safe zone, that was inevitable. But even with that knowledge, the one last night had almost taken hold. The general hadn’t bothered insisting on written reports on how seven of his soldiers had been killed. Thirty-seven zombies in all had to be destroyed, one showing very worrying characteristics. He’d seen the pictures of that, the thickened skin that made them resistant to bullets. If the hordes that threatened from the south and the west contained enough like that, then there would be no holding Leeds. From the limited contact he still had with the remnants of NATO, it seemed that this was a problem all across the European continent. The armies of man just couldn’t hold back the flood of undead that was washing across the land.

  It was regrettable, but the utopia he had hoped to establish here looked like it was coming towards the end of its brief run. If Leeds fell, he really didn’t want to be trapped within the city limits, which was why he was relocating his base of operations away from Leeds Prison. As strong as the walls of the prison were, they could trap someone inside just as easily as they could keep the undead at bay. He would thus send his headquarters north which would allow him a quick retreat should the need arise.

  Right now though, he needed to know more about this new enemy. Woolington had been told about the immune individual. Andy was presently sat sheepishly in front of him under armed escort, Frank keeping a wary eye on him from the side of the room. This had once been the prison warden’s office, rich with mahogany furniture, and even blessed with a fully stocked liquor cabinet. Woolington had a rule of not drinking alcohol before six in the evening, but he had been bending that rule lately. Running Leeds was a stressful business, the lives of a quarter of a million people balanced precariously on his shoulders.

  Although maybe not for much longer. If they abandoned the city, they would leave most of the civilians to fend for themselves. Only those who could fight would be of any use now.

  It had been easy for Woolington to take charge. When the Queen instituted martial law, he had been the most senior military figure in the North of England and had rapidly deployed the forces he had available. This included thankfully the 21st and 32nd Engineer Regiments as well as the 1st Close Support Battalion of the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, which was just what you wanted when you needed to fortify a location.

  There was also Carlton barracks, based in Leeds. This provided 269 Battery Royal Artillery, 49 Signal Squadron, as well as a host of reserve units. Added to that was the Yorkshire Officer Training unit which provided the command structure Woolington had been able to introduce to the city, officers placed in key civilian administrative roles. This was further bolstered by the bulk of the military force made up from the soldiers from the Catterick Garrison, the largest British Army Garrison in the world, a total of nearly twenty thousand men. This included the mechanized infantry of the 1st Battalion Scots Guards, the 5th Armoured Medical Regiment, the 4th Infantry Brigade, the Light Dragoons and the armoured reconnaissance regiment, the Royal Lancers. There was armoured cavalry of the Royal Dragoon Guards, composed of a regiment of Scimitar tanks.

  There was more artillery with the 5th Regiment Royal Artillery, and more foot soldiers with the 1st Regiment of the Royal Military Police along with the 4th Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. But Woolington’s ace in the hole was the 2nd and 4th Battalions of the Yorkshire Regiment, altogether a sizeable force.

  At the start of the troubles, Woolington thought this would be enough to deal with the undead. It was certainly more than enough to contain and control a city and the surrounding area. Now he wasn’t so sure. Woolington was receiving constant updates on the numbers of undead that threatened to snake up towards his little protective enclave, and their numbers were ten, maybe twenty times the military forces he could put on the table. The biggest problem with the undead was that, over time, their numbers just kept growing whereas humanity just got weaker as their supplies and rations ran out.

  His only saving grace so far was that the swift action he had implemented had kept civil unrest to a minimum, as well as almost eliminating the threat of Lazarus within the city. Without him, Leeds would have gone the way of Newcastle which was in total anarchy by all reports. He wouldn’t tell anyone this, but he modelled his strategy on that enacted by the Russians. Remove all possible threats, take no prisoners, cut the virus off at the head. The problem now was an outbreak in a supposedly secured area and several massed groupings of undead that were threatening the southern and western borders.

  The civilian authorities had willingly rolled over to allow military rule. The Fawkes List of political agitators and those with criminal intent had easily allowed him to start the round-up of those in the civilian structures that would cause problems. The few, isolated voices that had protested against this blatant infringement of civil liberties had found themselves simply disappeared. Complete shock and awe was the only way such a plan could ever hope to be achieved, and Woolington had implemented that plan masterfully.

  The choice was clear for those in the civil services and the local government. Abide with the terms of the new military rule, or get your affairs in order. Most people had fallen into line without even a hint of complaint. There were very few brave and noble people left in the world as far as Woolington was concerned, the Great British public easily led into their own oppression.

  But what to do about Andy? This man had kept his immune status to himself, so one wondered if he could actually be trusted. Andy was no longer dressed in an NBC suit. He’d been allowed to shower, and been given fresh clothes. One had to be presentable when meeting the de-facto ruler of the last semblance of civilisation on the British Isles.

  “Explain to me again what you saw.” Woolington didn’t care that Andy was immune. All he cared about was these new super zombies that posed the greatest threat to what he was trying to create here.

  “The zombie had been one of the men we had rounded up the night before. I put the bullet in the back of his head myself.” Having said the words, Andy could see how they didn’t put him in the best of lights. This wasn’t the time to try and bluff his way through with lies and half-truths. The general was a formidable presence. People like him usually had the ability to see the truth in people and the words they used.

  “And yet it was still able to resurrect?” The scientists had told Woolington that resurrection was the best word to use. Much of what they told him didn’t make sense to the general. Not because he was unintelligent, but because Woolington just couldn’t get his head around how zombies could possibly be real. “Did you maybe do that on purpose?”

  “I’m not that good or bad a shot,” Andy said defensively. “Ask those who were there. I did what was asked of me, and put a round into the back of his head.” He still didn’t feel any guilt about that act. “In fact I will remind you I shot more than one person that day, so whatever happened was just a fluke.”

  “Like you being immune?”

  “Yes. I didn’t choose either,” Andy insisted.


  “Back to the zombie.” Woolington was obviously referring to the creature that had climbed out of the pit and gone on the rampage.

  “It was like a tank,” Andy said. It wasn’t an exaggeration, not the way the thing had come at him. “Bullets didn’t seem to stop it.”

  “The police sergeant who was in charge of Andy managed to finally finish it off,” Frank added. Woolington acted like he hadn’t even heard the captain.

  “I have the pathologist’s report,” Woolington said, brandishing a file of papers, before slamming it down on his desk. “It says the zombie had thick, protective skin. You concur that bullets had difficulty penetrating it?”

  “Yes,” Andy agreed.

  “Troubling,” the general added.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell anyone that I suspected I was immune.”

  “And why didn’t you?” Woolington enquired.

  “Would anyone have believed me?” Andy looked into the eyes of the general.

  “Probably not. There are other immune people you know.”

  “Really,” Andy bluffed. He wasn’t going to sit here and tell Woolington all about the dream world.

  “Yes, although not enough to have any real impact on defeating Lazarus.” Woolington turned to Frank. “What do you think we should do with him, Captain?”

  “We need men on the Western border. Andy has proven he can fire a gun and hold his head. He was one of the few civilians last night who held his ground.” Many of those involved in the zombie hunt last night had been less than useless. If trained soldiers struggled to hold their nerve when faced off against the undead, it was no surprise that those out of uniform ran.

  “Look,” Andy offered, “I didn’t want any part of this, I never did. I was happy to just keep to myself. Can’t I just go home and let you professionals sort this out?” It was worth a try, although Andy had no doubt what the response would be.

  “That’s not how it works,” Woolington insisted. “You’ve been fortunate, probably best not to push your luck.” Luck? Who was he trying to kid? Lucky would have been living in the bloody Outer Hebrides when all this started. Once again, Woolington turned to his captain, as if Andy was no longer in the room. “Stick him on the M621 wall. Make him earn his keep.”

  27.08.19

  Frederick, USA

  When someone finally came to fulfil John’s promise, Reece was surprised by who her saviour was. Howell stood in the doorway in full combat gear, his hands full with further equipment.

  “Are those for me?” Reece said excitedly. The combat webbing and the holster were something she never thought she would ever get to wear again. There was also a uniform to replace the scrubs she had on. Not the deputy’s uniform which she missed dearly, but army fatigues that were probably going to be too big for her.

  “I figured you could use them,” Richard said. He was smiling, but his face looked rushed, as if there was something he didn’t want to tell her. Reece pulled herself off the bed and accepted the gifts that had been brought. “I couldn’t find you any undergarments,” Richard said, embarrassment threatening to blossom across his cheeks. He held it in check.

  “Fuck underwear,” Reece said. Lizzy giggled in that shocked “oh an adult just said a bad word” manner that still falsely hinted at her innocence. Lizzy wasn’t truly innocent though, not really. Reece reckoned a few bad words wouldn’t damage her any further.

  “What about me?” Lizzy asked. Richard took a moment to try and figure out what he was being asked, finally realising that the kid was hardly dressed for anything but an artificially controlled environment.

  “Sorry kid,” he said. “Didn’t think of that.”

  “But that’s not fair,” Lizzy insisted. “I want a gun.”

  “You want a gun?” Reece asked, truly bewildered. The fatigues were easy to put on, her feet snaking through each leg of the trousers. Reece noticed that Howell turned his back whist she changed. You couldn’t help but like this man.

  “Yes.”

  “But you don’t know how to shoot,” Reece reminded her.

  “You can teach me,” came the response. There was eagerness there, a chance for her surrogate mother to bond further with her. “My mom taught me to read. You can teach me to kill things.” Were the two even comparable?

  “How about we get somewhere safe first.” Reece reckoned teaching the kid to shoot would be part of most children’s futures. Just not right now. Right now, she wanted out of this room and out of this facility.

  In the distance she heard the faint sound of explosions. Reece looked at Howell for an answer. So that was what he had been so reluctant to tell her. The fact she now had a gun didn’t seem so appealing anymore. Should they encounter any undead, her sidearm would have limited impact.

  “The perimeter is under attack,” Howell informed them.

  “Will it hold?”

  “No Clarise, not a chance.”

  “So where do we go?” Reece had visions of them all being loaded onto a truck so they could be driven somewhere far away from here. There would be no chance of that now, not with the undead owning the surrounding countryside. Were they trapped?

  “Essential personnel are being evacuated through tunnels. Many of them have already gone. I’m only here because of the experiment I volunteered for which spared me from being up top with the rest of my squad.” Reece gave him a quizzical look. “I let myself be a guinea pig for the vaccine they have. Looks like I’m immune now, like you.” Reece couldn’t believe what she was hearing. After seeing everything that had occurred down on sub-level fifteen, Howell had stepped forward and let scientists prod and poke him. He was either immensely brave or immensely stupid.

  Howell saw all that in Reece’s face. “It’s okay, Dr Lee was running everything. We knew the risks.”

  “How is Jee?”

  “Not great, Clarise,” came the answer. “She won’t be coming with us.” There was no hiding the sadness there.

  “I want to see her before we go,” Reece insisted.

  “Yeah,” agreed Howell, “I thought you would. And I can arrange that, but we need to move quickly.”

  “I still say I should have a gun,” Lizzy persisted.

  “And I said no.”

  The vaccine hadn’t worked. Jee had been hopeful, but it was clear now that there was only one way this was going to end for her. It had come on fast, Lazarus getting the upper hand, pulling the strength from Jee’s body as it overpowered what was left of her immune system. One minute she had been sat hunched over a computer keyboard, the next moment she had collapsed onto the floor, the chair she was sitting on rolling away, blood pouring from her nose. Her eyes had stung from the sweat that had waterfalled into them, and she’d had no choice but to claw at the hazmat suit that she eventually managed to rip away. The arms had felt like lead, legs reduced to useless rubber. It had been fifteen minutes before someone had found her like that, another five minutes before she was lifted onto a gurney and extracted under armed guard from the laboratory.

  She was in an isolation cell now, the one Howell had recently occupied. Like Howell, she was strapped down because she had mere hours before death took her. Everyone knew what happened next. The skin of her neck was turning black, Jee’s eyes bloodshot, the skin hot from the fever that was burning through her. She was already entering the multiple organ failure stage, her lungs filling constantly with thick fluid that she did her best to cough up between painfully harrowing hacking breaths.

  There were men stationed outside the cell in the corridor, the last of the dying volunteers from the test soon to pass. Jee didn't want to go that way, she’d already decided on that. It didn’t take much to persuade one of the nurses to get what she needed. There was no shortage of the relevant drugs in this place.

  The door to her cell opened with a hiss of air, and Reece came in. She left Lizzy outside reluctantly. Better for the girl to remember Jee as she had been rather than this broken and crippled woman that was struggling to even b
reathe. Memories were all a kid like Lizzy had now, better not to overwhelm that pool with sad and distressing visions that might further haunt her.

  It was hard to ignore the sound of gunfire from the surface. Whatever was happening there was escalating.

  “I’m so sorry Jee,” Reece said through tears. She came over to the bed, gave Jee the only gift she could. They hugged, Reece careful due to the way Jee winced. Her lymph nodes were inflamed throughout her body, her neck and armpits exquisitely tender. Despite the lost cause it represented, Jee’s body still battled on. It was a pointless fight, reflecting what was happening on the surface. Across the globe and through millions of bloodstreams, Lazarus was winning.

  “Stick with Richard,” Jee said. “He will look after you.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Yes,” said Jee, “can you be here when I do it?” Jee looked to her side, to a surgical table that held a fully loaded syringe. “You will need to pass that to me, I’m too tired to even reach for it.”

  “Oh Jee.” Could Reece do it? Could she be the one to stand there and watch her friend end her own life? She would. If Jee asked, there was no way Reece could deny such a request.

  “You don’t have to be here,” Jee said, resigned to her now shortened life. “But you will be doing me a mercy. These last few hours I have aren’t going to be worth living, and I don’t want to be alone when I go. I’ve spent too much of my life isolated, wasted so much. I just need someone to give me this.”

  “You told me about the euphoria some people experience.” Was that enough of a reason to hang on? Was that enough to battle this thing to the end? Jee clearly didn’t think so.

  “It’s time, Reece. Do this for me.” Jee was clearly in agony, whatever was being pumped through the intravenous drip wasn’t enough to spare Jee what she was suffering. Surprisingly, the door opened behind Reece, but she didn’t look back. A hand rested itself gently on her shoulder, smaller hands snaking around her waist. Reece looked down to see Lizzy there. Dammit, she shouldn’t be here for this.