The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 5): The Last

by Deville, Sean

  “For fuck’s sake,” Jeff mumbled under his breath. When Andy looked at him, Jeff held up a hand in apology. “Not aimed at you mate, only these things are hard enough to kill as it is.”

  On the road behind where the group was gathered, there was the sound of fresh vehicles. Three cars pulled up, Andy blanching slightly at the sight of them. He knew that middle car, knew who it likely contained.

  “The general is here,” Andy advised the group. He expected the soldiers to snap to attention, but if anything they just showed complete indifference. Some of them even took on an air of hostility.

  General Woolington stepped out of the luxury car that had driven him here. There were two army Land Rovers escorting him, Leeds obviously not as safe as everyone was making out. Although it could be claimed the men guarding him were there to protect the general from the undead, one had to wonder if there were more human threats that were being taken into account.

  Nick stepped forward to meet him, choosing not to salute, Haggard staying by his side. Woolington might have had a higher rank, but Nick was technically much further up the pecking order so military protocol could go shaft itself. That was all assuming that pecking order even existed which was highly dubious now. From what Nick had been able to ascertain, any members of the British government still alive had been spirited away along with the new monarch. As long as the new sovereign, Charles the Third still lived, it could be argued that Britain was still a country of laws.

  The two men shook hands. A courteous gesture, reluctance shrouding it. Much better than Nick punching the man who had declined to send one of his precious helicopters. Woolington was self-aware enough to witness the hostile faces that were looking at him, the SAS soldiers having no respect for a man who chose not to aid them when that request was made. He also couldn’t fail to notice Andy, who was stood by the younger of the two women in the group.

  “I thought I would welcome you to Leeds, Colonel.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone to the trouble,” Nick replied warily.

  “No trouble, not really. We are relocating north of Leeds, preparing to abandon the city, so you were on my way.”

  “Abandoning?” Haggard said exasperated. “But we just got here.”

  “I think you forget yourself, Captain,” Woolington warned. There were six Military Police with the general, as well as his driver and the general’s aide, who both remained in the car. No match for a dozen former and active special forces soldiers. Woolington seemed to know that, as did the MPs who held back. Most of the SAS were standing now. What was the general doing here, thought Nick?

  “Perhaps I do,” said Haggard. “I’m too tired to argue.”

  “Colonel, what are your intentions here?” Ah, there we go, thought Nick. In the car, Nick could see the aide on the phone. Whatever the conversation was about, it caused the lesser ranked man obvious agitation.

  “Survival mainly. You don’t have to worry, I’m not here to take over your little fiefdom.” He was about to say something more, but the aide slipped awkwardly from the car and approached, pulling the general aside. Words were exchanged. Woolington frowned, then cursed quietly under his breath. Nick watched the man’s face go from anger to resignation, the aide hardly reacting. Obviously one could get used to the general’s ways with enough practice.

  Whatever the news was, it was as bad as it could be.

  “Order the evacuation,” Woolington commanded, the aide scurrying off back into the back of the car.

  “What’s wrong General?” Nick had met enough officers in his time to know when the shit had just hit the rapidly rotating fan.

  “Everything,” came the response. “I’m afraid you arrived at a bad time. We had an outbreak last night that I had been assured was under control.” Just as Andy had told them.

  “I’m guessing it isn’t.” That was Haggard who was now feeling a little bit foolish. Getting to Leeds had always been his preferred option, and now he was about to discover how flawed that idea was.

  “Correct,” said Woolington. “One of our food distribution centres has become a focus of the infection. We are trying to contain it, but it means starting all over again with our isolation protocols. We would need to test thousands, but we no longer have that capability.” Nick looked down at his finger, the pin prick from the blood test still sore. “We’ve all but run out of the field test kits. The ones used on you were some of the last.” The unspoken message there was that Nick and his people should be thankful.

  “What are you ordering?” Nick knew what was coming.

  “All military and essential personnel are to evacuate immediately. I’ve done all I can to save this city. I regret to say I have failed.” Just like all the generals and officers before him.

  “That’s a lot of men, General.” Nick had a good idea of how many people Woolington had under his command.

  “Yes, and it will soon be a lot less if I don’t order this.”

  “What about the civilian population?” enquired Nick without any kind of judgement. In his peripheral vision, he could see Jessica and Andy watching the conversation. Was she close enough to hear what was being said?

  “What about them?”

  “You can’t just abandon them. They will be slaughtered,” Jessica shouted. It would appear she could hear what was being said. There was condemnation in her voice, but the general dismissed it. She made a move to storm towards him, but Andy held her back.

  “That slaughter is going to happen regardless. I can save the head, but not the body.”

  “But...” Nick started, only for the general to raise a hand. Woolington turned to one of the MP’s beckoning to them. The MP, a lieutenant, was carrying a computer tablet. “Show them,” Woolington said to the MP, the tablet quickly handed to Haggard.

  “Shit,” was all the SAS captain could say. The tablet showed a live video feed from the M1, probably the same drone that had spied on them when Nick’s tiny convoy had arrived at the defensive wall. That wall was now being attacked. If the helicopter hadn’t been sent for them…

  “I think the General might be right,” Haggard expressed sadly. Nick grabbed the computer gadget, stared at the images for several seconds. The undead weren’t through yet, but they were putting the wall under considerable strain. They were also spreading out along its length, clawing at each other to try and get over it.

  “Can you deal with this?” Nick almost begged.

  “No Colonel, we can’t. Truth be told, the undead are changing. I’ve advised the word to use is mutating, but whatever the cause, they are becoming more durable and harder to kill. Added to that we have an unknown number of infected individuals within the civilian population. I cannot battle these things on multiple fronts.”

  “You would leave everyone to face this alone?” Jessica, standing closer to them now, was horrified. Andy hovered by her, not to hold her back this time, but because he felt strangely protective of her.

  “Yes,” Woolington said. “At the start of this, we got control of the situation by going house to house, purging those with invisible and visible infection from the population. We removed thousands, including the criminal element and those undesirables on the Fawkes list.”

  “Andy told us about that,” Nick said. The general gave Andy a brief flash of anger before resuming his attention on the important people here.

  “Drastic times required drastic measures. I’m not proud of it, in fact, I’m sure I’ve damned my soul. But it worked, and only because NATO was able to supply us with an effective means to filter out who was infected and who wasn’t. That test is no longer available to us.”

  “He’s right, Nick,” Haggard suddenly insisted.

  “But the people will never stand a chance.” Nick also knew the general was right, but he found himself needing to be the voice of conscience. Was this Jessica’s influence? Did he feel the need to try and prove his decisions to her?

  “They probably never did.” Woolington actually looked ashamed. If
there had been any other emotion showing, Nick likely would have carried on arguing, but now he knew there was no disputing it. There was just no point fighting this anymore. All they could do was flee.

  “Where will you go?”

  “I have already prepared for this contingency, an evacuation by sea. The Royal Navy was pretty much spared the worst of Lazarus. With their help, I can get my men out. And you and your people too if you are in agreement.”

  “Evacuation to where?” Haggard asked.

  “Iceland ultimately.” Woolington seemed to brighten when he said the word. The new hope for his men. Many of the soldiers would desert, which actually made the logistics of moving so many personnel easier. Many would insist on bringing family, and that would be allowed. But only immediate family. Most of the soldiers had already lost so many people in their lives, so they would insist on saving what they could.

  “Iceland?” Nick repeated the word.

  “They have a vaccine,” Woolington added. “When I learned of that, I think I already decided that abandoning the city was the only option.” He would have preferred to take as many of the civilians with him, but that needed time. And it needed a civilian population that wasn’t harbouring the recent outbreak of Lazarus. Neither of those options existed.

  ***

  The undead hit the wall in force, Rashid(Z) now one of them. It clung to the wire, tried to shake the barrier from the hastily created foundations. The wire held however, the zombies’ enhanced strength not able to breach it. Further to its right, other zombies began to pound at the wooden palisade. They were having more luck, their shattered hands tearing splinters from the wall. Despite their numbers, they couldn’t push the wall over, but with time they would go through and around.

  Rashid(Z) suddenly pulled itself upwards, its upper body strength easily strong enough to defy the gravity that held it to the ground. Pulling its right hand away, one of the fingers got trapped in the wire, the skin peeling away as the digit struggled to free itself. Black slime erupted where blood would have once poured, the bone sticking through as the hand yanked. It continued to climb, others following its lead, the fence not looking so tall now.

  Its foot gained purchase on the shoulder of a fellow zombie, and Rashid(z) pushed itself further up the fence, no complaint being aired by the zombie who was being stepped on. Others did the same, using their kind as a glorified ladder, the top of the barrier now within reach. Rashid(z) climbed again, its right hand grasping the razor wire which cut deep into its palm. The zombie didn’t care, the cuts merely added to the bite marks already adorning its body. In its former life, it had been feasted on, almost to the extent where it would have been useless to the horde. Something in those consuming it had stopped them going that final step, Rashid(Z) rising quickly after the agonising death it no longer remembered.

  Holding the wire with bone crushing strength, Rashid(Z) slipped, losing its purchase on the fence, falling down onto the crowd below. The razor wire came with it, pulled from its moorings, severing three of Rashid(Z)'s fingers as it did so. Slipping between its fellow zombies, Rashid(Z) fell to the floor where the massed feet there began to trample it, not caring that it was on the brink of being destroyed. A worker’s boot came down hard on its chin, shattering the mandible, dislocating it almost completely off the skull. That same boot came down again, this time on the rib cage, caving in the chest.

  It tried to get back to its feet, it really did, but Rashid(Z) was no longer for this world. More feet pounded on it, the neck breaking, severing the connection to the body. The head flopped there, kicked around as more of the undead stormed the wire. Rashid(Z) wouldn’t be there to enjoy the feast that was about to take part in Leeds.

  The undead weren’t just massing from the west, but also from the south. Mankind’s attempts to keep them outside the city were about to fail spectacularly. The slaughter was about to begin once again.

  27.08.19

  Site R, USA

  The zombie rats had made good time down the tunnel. Quick and nimble, they easily escaped the detonation that blocked the route behind them, forcing them to go in the only available direction.

  On their journey, they encountered other rats, creatures that had found a home in this subterranean domain. There they invaded any nests they found, spreading the virus, increasing their numbers, forging an army that would take the battle to humanity. Previously, the tunnels were scoured to remove the vermin that naturally found a home here, but the rats were too clever for the humans who hunted them. They were too able to adapt, too able to hide and far too numerous to be effectively eliminated. Even the poisons laid down were no longer effective, the rats either immune or quick to learn which bait to avoid.

  Now the vermin were all infected with Lazarus. It would take time for them to die and reanimate, so the initial pioneers forged on, ready to take the battle to those who believed that hiding down here would bring them some sort of salvation. The humans who thought they owned this place were wrong about that.

  The three undead rats reached Site R before most of the humans travelling down the other tunnel. More rats would follow, but for now these scouts crawled along the tracks, staying out of sight from the train platform that serviced this most important of secret realms. There were no guards here because the humans had once again allowed assumption to take precedent over common sense. There should have been sentries posted so as to cover all eventualities. How many times had armies been beaten because they left the “impassable” undefended?

  The rats didn’t attack, instead they stopped and waited. Soon they would make their way further into the facility, hiding in the ample shadows, travelling along the suspended pipes and cables rather than on the floor where they could be seen. They were here to guide those that followed, their smell an attractant to the newly reborn. Although the hunger drove them on, the need to bite and claw and chew would be delayed until the bulk of their forces arrived. It was the cunning of scavengers driven to its extremes by the adaptive properties of the virus. If they revealed this facility’s vulnerability too early, they would lose the advantage.

  Lazarus was not conscious, but it acted in its own best interests on a molecular level, changing the way its hosts worked so as to best spread the virus. At the start, before it was known to the world, it had spread quietly, lying dormant for days before erupting into a frenzy of undead. As their numbers grew, the zombies coalesced where it benefited them. At others times, they splintered, so as to better weather the onslaught of human weapons. Deep within the brains of those it conquered, the remnants of what the hosts once were allowed it to adapt and spread. This was why the human hosts were the most powerful, their strength and their numbers unstoppable. But sometimes, there was need for the lesser creatures, like the rats.

  ***

  Reece had no concept of what time it was. The tunnel had been longer than anything she could imagine, its endless expanse finally coming to an end at an impressive armoured door that stood open, promising sanctuary. She was just one of maybe three dozen refugees who were now lined up to gain access. No doubt, everyone would need to be tested, which put everyone here in danger. With the people jostling together, just a single infected individual could be the end of them.

  Reece had a strong suspicion that all incidences of infection would now be met by an immediate death sentence. Would those guarding the facility that held the President continue testing if such an event occurred, or would they just start shooting indiscriminately into the gathered crowd? That would be a dangerous tactic to employ because at least half the people trying to gain entrance had the ability to shoot back.

  “Follow me,” John said, Howell and Reece following him obediently, Lizzy dragged along, clinging to Reece’s hand for dear life. Although only a captain, John was higher up the hierarchy here than most, a hierarchy that was slowly being re-established as people realised there was still some semblance of authority left. Fort Detrick might have been lost, but Site R promised a new beginning.
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  The soldiers moved towards their captain, the highest-ranking officer in the group of escapees. Anyone complaining about John pushing to the front of the line would have them to deal with. The murmurs of disapproval were easily ignored, except by Lizzy who kept giving people worried glances. She couldn’t understand why some people were saying nasty things, one man in particular free with his words, despite the guns the soldiers carried.

  “It’s okay peanut,” Reece said reassuringly.

  “That man had a potty mouth,” Lizzy said, referring to the individual who had used some particularly choice language.

  “Yes he did,” Reece admitted. “You better not use words like that.”

  “I would never,” Lizzy said. She actually sounded genuinely shocked. “Although you do swear a lot, Clarice.” That brought a smile to Reece’s lips.

  “Oh I do, do I?”

  “Yes, but I don’t mind.”

  Reece and Lizzy followed in Howell’s wake, led by their own military escort. Although it was highly unlikely, Reece feared that she would be turned away. Her luck hadn’t been so good these last few days, and she wondered if there was any real chance for her and Lizzy. Even though she kept getting out of precarious situations, that didn't change the fact that she kept getting into them.

  Would her prospects have been any better if she had been able to stay in Houston? Probably not. Jee had told her what had happened with regards the hurricane that had hit, the army pulling out to leave what was left to the undead. Even without the hurricane, Reece didn’t think the plan there would have worked. If the undead could overwhelm a place as heavily defended as Fort Detrick, how could a city have held off the onslaught?

  The sergeant processing the new arrivals saluted John, but there was no instant access to be had here. Even John had to be tested, as did they all. Their only advantage was their ability to cut in line. It was clear that the military was looking after their own in preference to the civilians, many of whom had no real role to play now. How many of those who had fled from Fort Detrick were trained to fight? Probably not enough to make a difference.