The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 5): The Last

by Deville, Sean

  “Let us live,” Holleron said. Perhaps it was selfish, and she looked into Claire’s inner soul to ensure she was doing the right thing. She was. Claire would have stepped in front of her rather than let Gary just shoot her.

  “You know what this means?” Gary insisted. Of course she did, she was a fucking doctor.

  “We understand,” Claire said, and then, hugging Holleron tighter, “I understand.”

  “Okay then, you might want to cover your ears.”

  “What?” Holleron begged, not understanding the instruction.

  “Cover your ears,” Gary said again. And they both did, finally realising why. Gary fired two shots into the ceiling, then two more several seconds apart. “Keep out of sight and don’t have any lights on at night. You can’t give anyone the idea that there is anyone alive in here.” With that, Gary stood and walked out of the kitchen only to stop and reverse course. Bending down, he uncovered an ankle holster and pulled out a Beretta Pico, carefully placing the tiny handgun on the kitchen table.

  “You might need that... at the end.” None of the women made to pick the gun up, still likely in shock with what he had told them. He closed the kitchen door behind him, to make sure nobody on the street would be able to see the lives he had spared.

  He didn’t know if he had done the right thing. When Holleron got sick, Claire would need to make a choice, which would end with her needing to mutilate the fresh corpse. That was assuming the undead weren’t running rampant through this part of the city by then.

  Gary was fucked if he could do this shit anymore. It was true, most people reached their limit eventually, and this was most definitely his.

  27.08.19

  North of Leeds, UK

  There had been no point waiting around. If they were to escape Leeds, the evacuation had to start immediately.

  Tom found himself in a vehicle again, but this time it was a truck, the back thankfully open to the world. He could cope with that, the air and relative freedom enough to keep the demons at bay. There was none of the pressing panic that had taken over in the APC, so he felt more able to relax. The scratchiness of his throat that had just started didn’t concern him, nor did the tickle in his nose that was beginning to threaten, the result of a cold that had been building due to the stress of the past few days. Closing his eyes, he worked to steady his breathing, safe in the knowledge that the undead were far away from him.

  Or so he thought. Sleep eluded him and he found he couldn’t keep his eyes closed for long. Whenever he did, the demons started to creep up on him.

  The kid called Billy was sat next to him, Jessica one along from that. Sitting across was his mother, Natasha and Jeff present also. Jeff was relieved to finally be out of the driving seat for once, both MI13 agents seemingly asleep. Andy was the furthest away from him, another stranger for him to deal with. Jessica just seemed to keep finding them.

  Permitted to join them upon Jessica’s insistence, Tom could tell that Andy still felt like the outsider, the newcomer allowing himself plenty of smiles but very few words, speaking only to those who engaged him in conversation.

  Beckington had been reassigned to another unit, doctors in short supply. As for the SAS, the bulk of them were in another truck. Tom was happy with that, he wanted them as far away from him as possible.

  Nick was in another vehicle entirely, the general insisting that he and Captain Haggard share the delights of the general’s company. Tom was ecstatic about that. He didn’t want to be around Nick, the bastard who had mercilessly choked him out. Jessica kept telling her brother that it had been for his own good, but that just added to the humiliation Tom felt. To have lost it to such a degree that somebody else had needed to make him unconscious played havoc with Tom’s ego. And for his own sister to be in agreement that he deserved such treatment was surely a betrayal. Did family loyalty not mean anything?

  Tom found he couldn’t even look at Nick without wanting to punch the man’s lights out. Which was a completely foolish thought process, and he was well aware of it. You didn’t just go around trying to deck special forces operatives. Tom might have been physically bulkier than Nick, but there was no hiding the sheer superiority that the colonel had over the reclusive conspiracy theorist. Nick could easily wipe the floor with him.

  Still, the desire for violence and retribution remained, rolling around in his thoughts, poisoning any future interaction he was likely to have with Nick. Better for them both to stay separated, even if Jessica would have preferred Nick to be here.

  The other problem was Billy. The kid kept looking at him.

  “Why do you keep gawping at me, kid?” Tom half snapped.

  “Tom!” Jessica admonished him before Billy even had a chance to answer.

  “Well, he keeps staring at me,” Tom insisted. He didn’t like children and didn’t see why he had to sit next to one. Billy turned his gaze to Jessica and put on a well-rehearsed what did I do face.

  “You don’t need to worry about my brother, Billy. He will be fine.” Jessica tried to reassure the child, not understanding what was going through the boy’s mind. Billy wasn’t worried that Tom was going to go crazy again, his concern was greater than that.

  When they had initially boarded the lorry, Billy had waited till Tom was on board and had then held out his hand to be helped up. Tom had reluctantly obliged, pulling the kid on board, the slight slickness he found on the child’s palm wiped away on the dark coloured cargo trousers Tom preferred to wear. Billy still had the finger in his pocket, had been rolling it around in his palm before allowing Tom to help him into the truck.

  “Jesus kid, wipe your hands, why don’t you.”

  Tom was now infected with Lazarus, and Billy kept looking at him because of the fear that Tom would turn into a zombie at any moment. Billy didn’t know the ins and outs of how Lazarus worked, he had only seen its effects from when the undead had attacked. He did know that you could get it from bites and contact with the undead, so he was sure a finger was enough to pass it on.

  It did occur to Billy that maybe he hadn’t thought this through. He had deliberately infected Tom, only to wind up being sat next to him in the confines of a truck that, whilst moving relatively slowly, didn’t seem to be stopping any time soon. If Tom turned into a zombie then Billy might be the first person to have his face eaten off.

  He should have asked to sit next to somebody else. This wasn’t going to end well, which was why he kept looking at Tom to make sure the big man wasn’t going to attack him.

  “Come on Jess,” Tom said exasperated, “I just need him to stop giving me the dead eye.”

  “He’s not,” Jessica insisted. Jessica stood up and told Billy to shimmy over, Jessica dropping down into his place. Billy was not going to object to that at all.

  “Better?”

  “Much,” Tom agreed.

  “The boy’s been through a lot. You could do with being more sympathetic,” Judy said. It was clear she was angry with her son, had been since their faltered conversation.

  “What, so I’m the bad guy now?” Tom couldn’t believe this. None of this was his fault, why couldn’t they see that? If they had both listened to him from the start when he told them the world was destined to end, they would still be on the farm now, free from the virus.

  “I guess right now you are,” Judy insisted.

  “Hey, that’s not fair, Mum.”

  “You seem to think everything is about you.” Jessica had rarely seen her mother like this, and she reached across to put a hand on the older woman’s knee, but the gesture was rejected. “Well, it isn’t. We are all suffering here, this little boy more than most.”

  “I know that, but can’t you see it?”

  “See what?” begged Jessica. Please, can’t you just shut up was what she really wanted to say.

  “There’s something not right with him.” Tom regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, and yet he had still said them. Billy began to cry, which drew Jessica to him. Bill
y had mastered the art of turning on the waterworks nearly two years ago. He’d rarely used it on his dad due to the I’ll give you something to cry about threat that invariably followed, but it worked well on his mum and some of his teachers. Billy knew not to use it on his fellow school children because that weakness would be pounced upon viciously. He used it now, gaining sympathy from those he had tricked, increasing the villainous shroud that now hung over Tom.

  Jessica gave Tom a look that showed him just how far Tom had stepped over the line.

  “Billy is traumatised. He saw things no child should see,” Judy continued, her voice deep with the distaste she now felt for her son. Was this the man she had raised? The question revealed that she herself was open to criticism, for the sins of the child are often shared by the parents.

  Tom didn’t answer. Instead he just stubbornly turned his head to look out at the world that was passing them by. They were out of the residential area now, farmland the predominate scenery. Wherever they were going, they could do with getting there. It was just a shame that nobody was prepared to listen to Tom, because there was indeed something wrong with Billy.

  As for the argument, Jeff and Natasha didn’t hear a word of it. They slept through the entire thing. They also weren’t awake when Tom started sneezing, so had no concept of the peril they had now been put in. The droplets from his breath hung in the air threatening to be inhaled by any lung that would take them. Lazarus might not have caused the sneeze, but it accepted its contagious benefits none the less.

  27.08.19

  Site R, USA

  Stuck in a concrete room once more, Reece wondered when she would ever get to look out of a window again or draw a breath of air that hadn’t been sent through artificial filtration. At least this room wasn’t locked, and in theory they were free to leave. But where would they go? Most of the base was off limits to them, the areas that weren’t just a series of corridors and rooms that merged into one bland and endless grey warren that led nowhere. The surface was off limits, not because of protocol, but because of the undead that now owned the surrounding countryside.

  The room was larger than most she had seen recently, housing ten bunk beds. Lizzy was asleep, as she so often was now, her brain perhaps needing the rest to protect it from everything it had seen and experienced. They had been here an hour, and apart from someone bringing them food, they had been all but ignored. Howell also slept, and Reece figured he’d earnt the opportunity. If not for him, they would still have been stuck at Fort Detrick which meant they would undoubtedly be zombie food by now.

  She hoped they were finally safe. Pessimism though, it was an annoying thing. It couldn’t let her have a moment’s peace, never really had, always poking and prodding at her. Now it told Reece that she was still in great danger, that her chances of finding any kind of sanctuary in this world were slim at best and that the roof was probably going to cave in at any second.

  They had let her keep the gun, which was something. A woman with a broken arm lumbered with a terrified child didn’t seem to be a threat to anyone. They wouldn’t have held that opinion if they had seen her in action on the streets of Houston. When she was in uniform, when she had been backed by the power of her authority, she was a force to be reckoned with. Sure she got cat calls and threats, but rarely more than once from the same person. And then the apocalypse had happened, and she had met this frightened little kid who brought out a part of her she really hadn’t believed existed. The problem was the doubt that now plagued her. Who did she think she was kidding that she was even fit to raise Lizzy?

  The sound wrenched her from her thoughts.

  Above her on the ceiling, the air duct creaked. Reece looked up, the groan coming again, a skittering noise travelling along with it. The duct was square in cross section, with grills at regular intervals to ensure the air they were breathing was constantly circulated. Something was up there though, she was sure of it, something alive...hopefully. Some sort of rodent no doubt. Humanity had never really been able to escape them, no matter what they tried or where they went.

  Reece was not a fan of rats, ever since the time they had found the homeless guy, an army veteran abandoned by the country he had served. Reece had still been a rookie at the time. The veteran had been out of his head on God only knew what, and had been lying there oblivious, barely noticing Reece and her fellow officer. The torch she had shone on him also showed the homeless man being mauled by rats. They had been attacking his feet, eating through the worn boots, going at the toes. She had shooed them away, the little bastards scurrying away as she approached, afraid of her but not of the man who was close to death. As for the homeless man, all he did was hurl unintelligible abuse at them. He had died in hospital several hours later. Reece had never been able to forget the utter harshness of existence the resultant corpse had represented to her.

  The noise came again, one of the grilles rattling. There was the sound of more tiny feet now. Yes, there was no doubt in her mind that this place had a pest control problem. She told herself they didn’t have anything to fear, rats rarely attacking anything that could fight back. Unless it wasn’t just rats that they were faced with. She had no idea why that thought had sprung into her head, but she stepped up off the bed, drawing the gun for whatever good it would do. Aiming at a tiny running creature would have been some impressive feat of marksmanship at the best of times.

  It was hard to see into the grille, the duct too high up on the ceiling. She certainly wasn’t going to make any effort to get her face closer to it. Nobody wanted a face full of rat, and as long as they stayed up there in the metal containment, she would be more than happy for them to do whatever it was they felt was so urgent. Regrettably, Reece wasn’t going to be happy for long, which was a recurring theme for her lately.

  The louder thump made her jump. It was as if something had been thrown at the grille, only from the inside of the duct with a force that defied logic. The noise came again, the metal shaking as it came under attack. Whatever was in there wanted out, and she watched as the duct began to rock back and forth slightly on its support struts. Could rats break through metal? Did she want to hang around and find out?

  “Howell,” she said, the urgency in her voice surprising even to her. He didn’t react at first, so he said his name louder. That woke up both Howell and Lizzy. By the time Howell was looking at her, it sounded like there was a full on battle inside the metal tube.

  “Get to the other end of the room by the door,” Howell ordered, Lizzy and Reece complying without question. There was no need to ask what this was, they all knew. This was Lazarus, come to visit them once again. Above them, the air duct seemed to dip as if it had suddenly got a lot heavier. The sides of the metal, basically just thin aluminium, began to bulge, the grille seeming to swell as if it had suddenly been afflicted with some cancerous tumour.

  To their horror, the grill popped off, and about three dozen large and gore soaked rats began to tumble out. The thrashing terrors did so silently, except for the noise they made as they landed on the ground. It was a wet, chaotic sound, the rats quickly regaining their feet and scattering across the floor to allow room for the waterfall to continue. They were a plague unto themselves, although they brought with them the doom of all mankind.

  “Out,” Howell demanded, ripping the door to the bunk room almost off its hinges. They were quickly out into the corridor and Howell had the door closed before the rats could reach them. The sound of them fettling on the other side could just be heard.

  “Fucker,” someone shouted down the corridor. Reece couldn’t see who it was, but she could easily figure what the expletive was about.

  “What do we do?” Reece begged.

  “Head to the mess area.” There would be safety in numbers. The more fellow humans they were around, the more they would have some sort of defence against this attack.

  ***

  Fairchild was in her private quarters again. As the hours and days progressed, she seemed to be spend
ing more and more time to herself. The running of the war didn’t need her constant input. She wasn’t a soldier, and she was more than willing to let the generals fight their little battles because it ultimately didn’t matter. In the material realm, there was no winning this, she knew that, probably had ever since she had been told to abandon Montauk. The fact that she was holding the office of President, despite her being so far down the list of succession, had been all the proof she needed that this was the time of the chosen. For someone with her faith to be put at the pinnacle of power was a reflection of how close they were to true Armageddon.

  She now spent as much time as she could praying. Not so much for the guidance, but for comfort and reassurance that the decision she was about to make was the right one. There would come a time when she would need to accept her death, and when that moment arrived, she would not falter. Fairchild was still afraid, it wasn’t like she wanted to die. As conservative and as reserved as she was, she had enjoyed her life. It was sixty odd years of accomplishment, service, with a fair bit of retribution and revenge thrown in for good measure. She knew her God wouldn’t mind that, he was always one for making people pay for their sins.

  Something moved on the edge of her hearing. Opening her eyes, Fairchild looked around, the light low the way she always liked it when she conversed with her maker. At first she couldn’t detect anything, but then the noise came again, from the direction of her bed. She had no intention of finding out what was causing it. Instead she stood and moved back towards the door where safety beckoned. If there was something in here with her, she would get one of the guards to come and deal with it.

  Fairchild had the right idea but she wasn’t fast enough, not from the rat that suddenly exploded from beneath the ornate king sized bed that was way too big for her.