The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 5): The Last

by Deville, Sean

  Reece herself would have loved to make herself useful, if only she wasn’t sporting a broken limb. To think that injury had been sustained in her sleep by what was effectively a demon forged from the blood of their saviour. She shook her head, she had to stop referring to the woman called Jessica in that way because she was starting to sound religious. If Rodriguez had been here, he might even have tried to infect her with his chosen religion, spurred on by the biblical undertones Jessica represented. Over the years she had been partnered with him, Rodriguez had never tried to push his Catholicism onto her, respecting her boundaries. But this was the end of the world man, there would be a lot of people praying for some sort of salvation.

  Jessica was just a person. To think anything else risked her becoming some sort of great hope, and Reece was all out of that.

  27.08.19

  Leeds, UK

  The slaughter that had been perpetrated at the enclosed feeding station had spread to the body of the school. The video surveillance footage had shown where Michelle had gone, had given evidence of the doors and the people she had contaminated. It was Doctor Holleron’s good fortune that she was already off shift when that madness happened.

  She was thus not on the school grounds when the men with guns began walking the corridors, shooting everyone in sight. Holleron would never learn of that atrocity because she would never return to the school. She would discover the merciless nature that men were capable of though. Exhausted from her work, Holleron had returned home and slipped into bed with her sleeping partner, the one who had the nightmares and who told her all about the immune people across the world. It would have been so easy to reject what she was being told, but their relationship was built on trust. Besides, what was more unbelievable, some crazy psychic connection, or the dead walking?

  She was woken by the sound of heavy traffic. It had only taken a few days for the sound of vehicles to become a rarity in this part of the city, so when it now occurred, her brain woke up to the perceived anomaly. To her distant ancestors, that had been a survival mechanism. To modern man, it mainly became an inconvenience. Not today. The temptation was to try and ignore the sound, but it was too persistent. Holleron slipped out from under the covers and, naked, pulled the curtains aside. How her partner, Claire, could sleep through this was beyond her.

  Her new role saw her rotated between venues, so the house she lived in wasn’t particularly close to the school. It stood back slightly from the main road, and that road was now filled with vehicles. This was the first wave of retreating soldiers, army bulldozers leading the way, ready to push aside anything blocking the convoy’s path. That wouldn’t be needed here, the roads having been cleared as a priority to allow the free flow of military traffic.

  What Woolington hadn’t mentioned was the measures he had put in place right from the beginning. Just as Wellington had planned for retreat at the battle of Waterloo, so Woolington had drawn up a blueprint for how to evacuate over twenty thousand men.

  All Holleron saw were army trucks and armour, although her instincts told her exactly what this meant. The army was leaving, there was no other explanation that made any kind of sense to her. Looking down from her bedroom window, she watched as the vehicles trundled past in the centre of the road. A single column, worming its way northwards, unlikely to face any resistance they couldn’t handle. Where they were going exactly, she didn’t know. What she did know was that without them, Leeds would be undefended.

  Holleron sank back onto the bed and shook her lover awake.

  “Claire, you have to get up.”

  “What?” Sleep filled Claire’s eyes, a visible reluctance to be dragged from wherever she was. There was horror there too, remnants of the torments from the desert she almost constantly dreamt about. It lingered there for a moment before the mind began its blissful process of purging the worst of the memories. When asked, Claire could only give a hint of what the desert represented, but the people she met there stayed vivid. The names, like those of Jessica were etched into her consciousness.

  “The army, they are leaving. You need to get dressed.” Claire was also a doctor, a different speciality to Holleron’s. They had both been classed as green status, their sexual preferences fortunately of no relevance in the post-Lazarus world. They were essential workers, surely they would be needed. Surely they would be allowed to leave with the army.

  The sound of motorbikes broke through the cacophony outside. Holleron didn’t think anything of it, even when the noise suddenly ceased outside.

  “Pack some things. I’m hoping they aren’t going to leave us here.”

  “Are the army really leaving?” Claire seemed astonished by the very concept.

  “I think they are. It certainly looks like they are.” When the knock came on the front door, Holleron was actually relieved. She shouldn’t have been. Giving Claire a reassuring look whilst donning her dressing gown, she left the bedroom and skipped down the stairs, the silhouette of several heads visible in the privacy glass of the door. The fist pounded again, with more urgency this time. Holleron should have reversed course, fleeing back up the stairs.

  When she opened the door, it wasn’t soldiers she found, but men with purple arm bands, three of them. She didn’t know if she knew them due to the protective clothing they wore, the respirators hiding their features.

  “Who is it?” Claire’s voice came from the top of the stairs. Holleron didn’t respond, she was too concerned by the pistol that was being pointed at her.

  ***

  The army couldn’t be spared, so it was the mishmash of police and civilians that were sent to deal with those now known to be infected. In truth, they could have been left whilst the military evacuated, but the cogs of common sense moved slowly in the bloated bureaucracy that ran Leeds. The infected were to be dealt with, that was the standing order that was handed down and enforced.

  Gary had been dispatched with two others to deal with the doctor. The surveillance feed showed she had been in the presence of the known infected, that they had engaged in physical contact. Whilst there was a chance that Holleron hadn’t been contaminated by the virus, the chances of that were extremely slim. The standing order was to now execute everyone suspected of infection. It wasn’t actually true that there were no more test kits, there just weren’t enough to maintain the infection free status of two hundred and fifty thousand people. There were a few hundred doses left, all those reserved solely for military personnel and those rare VIPs that were also being allowed safe passage.

  The key now was to move the men and women of the armed forces out whilst maintaining discipline and moral. That required a promise to look after the soldiers and their kin first, whilst getting everyone to safety in an orderly fashion. A rolling retreat, abandoning the city a section at a time whilst maintaining strict discipline. Speed was also of the essence, because the undead were coming, and they were coming in force. Despite all that, desertions were already occurring. It was clear that some people didn’t believe what their officers were saying. Understandable as it was to be distrustful, the only chance people had now was to somehow get to the coast and hope there were enough ships to take them off the dying island.

  Leaving nearly a quarter of a million people behind left a bad taste in Gary’s throat. He had sacrificed whatever soul he had for this city, accepting the need to kill his fellow man for the greater good. And all that had been for nothing.

  Gary was the senior police officer of the three dispatched to Holleron’s residence, only one of the men with him another member of His Majesty’s Constabulary. The two with him both did what he told them which was all Gary would ever ask. Gary himself was quite capable of following orders, so it was the least he could expect from his subordinates. Right now he felt conflicted though. The massacre at the school had continued until everyone who posed a danger had been eliminated. Gary could have so easily been one of those put to death. All it would have taken was for him to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And no
w here he was ready to kill on orders he didn’t fully understand. They didn’t make sense, which was the exact opposite of everything he’d had to deal with the past few days.

  Although he never would have admitted it, he had hated rounding up those people only for them to be killed, often by his hand. Every bullet he had fired had been an abuse on him, his guts wrenching with the task he felt forced to do. He did it because it was the duty that was handed down to him, an essential act to make the city safe. So he had been told. And now it seemed to him that every trigger pull had been needless, every face pleading for one last second of life a ghost that would forever be with him. He had fought against himself to make Leeds safe because those who were in command had told him that was the only way. Well, clearly that had been a lie because the other alternative was to just stick your tail between your legs and make a run for it. That’s what the army was doing now, and it sickened him. Gary saw it as cowardice, even though he could see the brutal logic of it. Those victims of Lazarus, the ones he had rounded up and left dead in that fetid ditch deserved better than this.

  Even the violent criminals he had dealt with deserved an answer as to why things had gone so badly wrong.

  And yet here he was, following orders as if he had no other choice. It was as if he was on automatic pilot, the shocking scenes at the school sending him numb with the witnessed brutality. The worst had been the children. He hadn’t been there for that, thank God, but he’d overheard two of the soldiers joking about it. Had that been a coping mechanism or a reflection of the calibre of soldiers that had been sent to do such an odious duty? Having been around those men for just a few days, Gary reckoned it was the latter.

  sary couldn’t remember the last time he smiled. It felt like his innards had been ripped out and shoved back in upside down. There was a void, something in his humanity missing now. He had always been a humourless authoritarian, the day he got his sergeant’s stripes the best of his life, only to find himself wasting away behind a desk. In a way, he was ideal for the role he fell into. Uncompromising, willing to obey orders, and with a constitution that allowed him to perform acts so brutal they would make children weep with fear.

  Stepping off the motorbike, he was buffeted by the armed convoy that rolled past him. Briefly, he saw faces looking back at him, soldiers weary of the duty they were forced to endure now given respite by the chance of escape. Those soldiers were now abandoning the very people they were supposed to be protecting, and many of them felt a level of shame that they had yet to put into words.

  Gary couldn’t understand it, couldn’t get his head around how quickly things had changed in less than a day. If the city was being abandoned, why was he required to deal with this woman? What was the point?

  “She’s a threat that needs to be accounted for.” That was all he had been told, although he felt he knew the reasoning behind the decision. With the military leaving, there was going to be a rush of panicked people fleeing the undead. Any infected within their ranks would spread the virus ahead of the undead menace. But that threat was surely flawed because, by the look of things, the army would be long gone by then.

  Were his instructions enough of a reason for him to simply murder a woman in cold blood when there was no proof of her infection? No, it wasn’t. She wasn’t the only one either, there were others that had escaped the massacre at the school, slipping away innocently before the outbreak was even known about. He had a feeling any civilians trying to make a run for it wouldn’t find the army too accommodating for them.

  He could accept the need to eliminate the proven infected because there was no hope for them, and he could tell himself it was a merciful act. Of all the ways he could have gone about his duty, he had never abided cruelty for the sake of it. In a way he considered himself a surgeon, cutting away the dead flesh so the society could carry on living. But they were always filtered and quarantined so that they could be processed in an orderly fashion. Perhaps not humane, but there was no malice when he was on duty, just brutal efficiency.

  As for the criminals and the political agitators, they lay in a bed of their own choosing. Nobody forced them into that life, so they only had themselves to blame. This doctor though, she didn’t deserve this, made worse by the fact that Gary kind of knew her. Still, when he had been given his instructions, he had failed to say no.

  Walking up to the door, he slammed on it several times with his gloved fist. The two portals of his respirator showed him a figure descending a staircase inside, and he thumped the door again, harder this time.

  The thought occurred to him that he was calling the soldiers cowards in the knowledge that he would be joining them shortly. That probably made him a hypocrite. The modified police force would be the last to leave but go they would, their rear-guard action deemed essential. That promise had been made. They would stay behind whilst the military withdrew to keep order in the streets. And then, on the given order, they would slip away with whatever families they still had. Gary found himself wondering if his trust in the interim government wasn’t perhaps misplaced.

  The door opened, the doctor standing there in growing shock. It was almost by automatic that Gary found himself pointing his gun.

  “Who is it?” a voice said from inside the house.

  “Doctor Holleron, could you step back away from the door please.” She did, shock overriding any outrage that might be forming. He didn’t want to do this, his reluctance greater than he had ever encountered. Normally he could just bludgeon his own doubts into submission, but even on auto pilot, he knew he was struggling to do what was expected of him. All he had to do was move his finger a fraction. It was no great act, he’d done it dozens of times over the last few days, and yet his finger stayed stubbornly on the finger guard. What were the men with him thinking? They knew him as someone who took action without any real hesitation, and yet here he was...hesitating.

  “You need to give me a moment. I know this woman, so I want to do this myself, alone,” Gary said to his comrades. “It’s the right thing to do.”

  “That’s against protocol,” one of the men said. Gary arched his head around and stared at the man. It was the fellow officer, someone who should have known better. Gary didn’t like him, saw in him the sadism that was almost as infectious as Lazarus. The sergeant continued to give his steely gaze until the other officer broke off eye contact.

  “Wait here,” Gary instructed them, and he stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

  “You can’t be in here,” the woman at the top of the stairs shouted fearfully at him. She started to descend, afraid of him but also afraid for the woman she loved. Gary ushered her down with his gun, making sure nobody got too close to him. He felt resigned into an action that shouldn’t be taken.

  “You need to understand that I don’t want to be here,” Gary almost pleaded. He felt emotion flushing through him, as if a deluge had been unleashed. If he couldn’t remember the last time he smiled, there was absolutely no chance of recollecting the last incidence tears had welled in his eyes. Well, they formed there now. This weakness was unacceptable.

  “What are you doing here?” Holleron demanded, Claire joining her, the pair retreating into the kitchen at the back of the house. Gary followed them, keeping a buffer zone in case they chose to go out with some valiant act.

  “Dr Holleron, earlier today, you were exposed to an individual infected with the Lazarus virus.” He said the words knowing that Claire would recoil away from the doctor, only to find they hugged each other closer. Was this the truest of love, or was it something else?

  “That can’t be,” Holleron insisted. “Everyone was screened.”

  A man attacked me last night...oh God.

  “It is. I have orders to terminate you and anyone you have come into contact with.” The words flowed out so easily. Could he really do this? That was the wrong question. He was more than capable of pulling the trigger. Should he though?

  No, he shouldn’t, not without her permission
.

  “You can’t do this,” Claire insisted and was surprised when Gary lowered his gun.

  Looking around, Gary picked a chair and sat down on it. He felt weary. He hadn’t slept properly for days, his mind churning with thoughts that kept him troubled and awake. It was one of the reasons he had been so grumpy, that and the growing feeling that he was doing something against his very nature. There was a constant grumble in his midriff as if he’d pulled a muscle or something. Was it simply muscle strain, or was his body rebelling against the atrocities he was helping promote? Maybe an ulcer forming. Gary doubted the alcohol he was consuming helped.

  He let the gun dangle towards the floor.

  “The woman called Michelle, the one that was brought in yesterday after fainting, she was the infected person.” He could see the realisation dawning on Holleron’s face, the truth of what he was saying filtering in.

  “How?” Claire begged.

  “Unknown,” Gary said in a manner that was too clinical even for him. “Look, I’ve been sent here to do a job, and I’m not sure I can. So I’m going to give you a choice.”

  “A choice?” Holleron repeated. She looked like she was close to breaking down.

  “It’s only fair. Nobody deserves this, not even the wankers on the estates.” Well, maybe some of them did. “I can leave you both here unharmed, and you can live out whatever is left of your lives. Or...”

  “Or you can euthanise us.” Would anyone but a doctor come up with that word?

  “You’re a doctor. What would you do with a patient who you knew was going to suffer an agonising death?”

  “You’re seriously giving us the choice?” Claire asked.

  “I am.”

  “Claire’s immune,” Holleron suddenly blurted out.

  “There seems to be a lot of it about,” Gary replied. The two women looked at each other, the love they held even greater now. It always was at the end. Gary had seen that a lot the last couple of days as well, the way people clung to one another when they knew their last minutes had arrived. “What is your choice?” He didn’t want to make it for them.