In the open doorway, a zombie stood dressed in army fatigues, its flesh riddled with bites and tears. John thought he recognised the soldier but didn’t know its former name. From its neck dangled a lanyard with a door access card that was clutched in a broken and bloodied fist. John had heard of the things using tools, but never did he imagine they would have the semblance of memory that would allow them to use something like a key card. It could have been pure fluke, but John wasn’t so sure.
“Take it down,” John roared, the men behind and around him opening fire. The zombie bucked, its body perforated by dozens of bullets that utterly destroyed its usefulness to Lazarus. It didn’t fall back and was propelled forward, further zombies behind it, the first one effectively being used as a shield. And along the ground more rats came.
“Back,” John ordered, the men already retreating. He unleashed a long stream at the floor, the rats igniting, the first zombie’s legs and abdomen catching. It shuffled forward, still pushed, the flames spreading to the half a dozen undead that now surged forward. John raised the flamethrower nozzle and sent a sustained blast at their heads, scorching the meat, using up the last of the fuel. The corridor filled with further smoke, the air filtration system unable to deal with the extent of the conflagration. The respirators the men wore saved them from choking on the fumes, but their visibility was reduced considerably.
There was no fire suppression system here because the designers had noticed that there was nothing that could possibly burn. How wrong they had been.
The fire stopped the rats. The humanoid zombies, now burning fiercely, didn’t seem to care that their flesh was melting off. They came on regardless, like fiery demons, some of the men with John turning tail, their morale totally shot. The men that remained were enough to end this particular zombie menace.
“Get this fucking thing off me,” John ordered, trying to shrug the fuel pack off. Two men rushed to comply, the smoke worsening now, blocking their vision, forcing everyone to slow in their movements. It was like moving through thick fog, and John realised this made them vulnerable. Zombies didn’t need to see, but the smell would also restrict them to hunting by sound.
As a group, John’s team moved forward, the deserters noticeably absent. John would deal with them later. There would be no forgiveness for cowards. Bending, he stripped the lanyard off the first zombie, still amazed that the creature had been able to show that level of awareness. That showed just how vital it had been to blow the control panel to the tunnel door back at Fort Detrick. You underestimated the undead at your peril.
The last man through the security door closed it behind him to seal off their flanks. Without the flame thrower, any undead rats that remained would need to be dealt with the hard way, although John had no idea how many rats they would be dealing with. Truth be told, he expected they would need to abandon this base as well because there was no real way they could ensure it was clean of the infection. They could sweep and clear every room and corridor, but you couldn’t eradicate the threat from every duct, every pipe and every toilet.
The rats would likely already be in the sewage system. Who would want to sit on a toilet with the risk they would have their nether regions nibbled at?
Ahead of them lay several bodies, victims to the zombies that had come this way. With a signal, John sent several men down the corridor to do what was now vital for everybody they encountered. It didn’t matter how anyone died, they all got a knife in the back of the brain just to make sure they wouldn’t rise up. Even better would be then to burn or cremate the bodies, just to be sure. He had no idea how many people had been dispatched in that fashion, but if he had to guess, John would say it was in the hundreds of thousands in the USA alone. Add in the nuclear fire, and it was definitely into the millions. However many the number, it hadn’t been enough to stop the zombie menace from gaining dominance over the planet.
John was the first one to hear the crying. It was muffled, indistinct, but it was most certainly the cries of a young child.
“Oh shit,” John said under his breath.
A lot of the early arrivals had come as families, and families meant children. There were probably about a hundred of various ages, and the decision had been made to school them, to try and give some sort of normality and structure to the lives of children that had been ripped from the comfort and privilege many of them had been used to. Up ahead was a makeshift kindergarten where the youngest kids spent most of their days. The door to that room lay in the corridor, pulled off its hinges. John felt himself falter, his pace slowing. Could he really go in there with what he expected to see?
For the first time in his career as an officer, he sent others in where he wasn’t prepared to lead. He signalled to men to take point, their guns up as they crept by, four men left behind him. John became sandwiched in the centre of the group, his breathing ragged as the adrenaline began to spike again. If not for the crying, he might have turned back for he thought he knew what to expect in that room.
He wasn’t even close. The first of the two men looked into the open door and fell back against the wall of the corridor.
The kindergarten was basically a room about twenty metres square, set up with chairs and tables as well as toys for the children to play with. The toys would never be used for that purpose ever again. Of the room’s occupants, the adults were absent, most likely the ones John had set fire to. Most of the children were still here, although not all whole. There were one or two bodies that had been completely ripped open and apart, limbs and guts scattered to the four winds. There was actually blood dripping from the ceiling.
At the far end of the room, three child zombies were tucking into a carcass, battling with each other for the choicest cuts. John felt himself stepping into the room, the men with him fanning out, two staying in the corridor. It would be difficult to walk through this room without stepping on something that squelched.
Of the three zombies, one detected the new presence and leapt with surprising agility to its feet. It had once been a girl, probably seven or eight years old, and it barrelled towards the nearest soldier, only to be brought down by withering fire, its legs buckling beneath it as both kneecaps were destroyed. The brain persisted though, and it began to crawl, using its hands to claw at the carpet. It took another two further bullets to stop it.
The crying intensified. John could now tell it was coming from a side room, the door there closed. Hugging the wall as best he could, John made his way there, spotting a scurrying in his peripheral vision. There were rats in here too, undoubtedly feasting on the ample rewards that had been left strewn on the floor.
John reached the door, the remaining zombies surprisingly too interested in filling their bellies than the fresh meat that had walked in. Being encased in an NBC suit helped to prevent much of the smell humans gave off. A soldier followed behind his captain, ready to protect the officer who was the most important person here.
The door wasn’t locked, and it opened inwards into a walk-in supply closet. On the floor sat a girl, her face and upper torso covered in blood which most likely wasn’t hers. There was a body there also, the girl cradling its head in her lap, the body’s throat torn out.
“Mummy won’t wake up,” the little girl said.
“You need to come with me now, ok?” John said, extending a hand which the girl seemed to cower from.
“No, I want my mummy.” Mummy was undoubtedly the body lying sprawled on the floor. It was only a matter of time for that very body to start moving and tearing and devouring.
“Take her,” John ordered, knowing that it was harsh, but stepping back to let the soldier in anyway. The child screamed again, this fresh noise enough to entice the other child zombies. As they rose from the corpse they were devouring, gunfire erupted which sent the child into a panicked frenzy. Gunfire also came from the corridor outside.
Struggling with the girl, the soldier was unable to stop her wayward foot kicking the door part closed.
The
girl tried to fight off the soldier, but it was a hopeless battle. She even at one point tried to bite, but her tiny teeth had no chance of penetrating through the thick chemical resistant suit the soldier wore. Neither John nor the soldier saw the female corpse’s eyes open. Preoccupied with the wriggling child, the soldier was too slow to react when “mummy” grabbed him by the ankle and pulled him to the ground with a terrifying tug.
Soldier and child both went to the floor with a bone crunching thud. Mummy(Z) grasped for the soldier who had fallen on top of the now unresponsive child. A blood-smeared hand grabbed the back of his suit, the undead fingers curling to get a hold, the zombie flipping the soldier onto his back. John tried to open the door, but as the zombie pulled itself up, it fell against the door as its own incoordination sent it sprawling. The result was the door closing completely. John would have tried to force his way in, but he suddenly had his own more pressing problems.
Every intact dead child in the room was now starting to rise.
There were shots from within the closet, a bullet breaking through the door. John should have known, should have predicted that a side-arm would be employed, and he felt the impact in his left hip, the bone there shattering. Pain erupted through him, and he collapsed to the floor, his hand slipping on a line of guts that had been flung over here. Zombies didn’t need their intestines to walk.
At ground level, the agony intensified. John had been shot before, and that time he’d barely felt the impact until after. He wasn’t blessed with that now, his hip and leg on fire. There was no way he could walk with this injury. What was even worse was the penetration of his suit.
All around him the undead erupted. Being smaller, child zombies were also faster and harder to shoot. Two brought down one of his men, rats pouring in from the corridor. Through a daze, he managed to bring up his pistol, putting two rounds into a zombie that was coming for him. Because it was travelling on all fours, he was lucky in the angle he got, the zombie falling dead less than a metre from him.
Another one of his men was felled, some of them even hesitating due to the psychological barrier they had. They might have been undead, but the things attacking them still looked like children. To John, they were more terrifying than the grown-up versions, and he fired off another round, his vision wavering. There were more zombies than men, an equation that rarely ended in a winning result.
He didn’t see the rat creep nimbly towards him. It stopped by his damaged hip, the odour of the blood pumping there sending a shiver through its spine. John barely felt it as it landed, its claws digging into the material, its teeth widening the hole it found. By the time John realised the peril he was in, the rat was already halfway through, its tongue lapping at the free-flowing fluid it found there.
With a roar, John tried to grab at the creature, his hand clamping around its rear. It was too slick however, and it squirmed free, fully inside the suit. With no way for him to stop it, the rat ran onto his abdomen, its feet pricking at his skin. John realised he was done for, his exposure to the virus now certain. As he felt the teeth bite into his flesh, he knew what the rat would do. It would burrow into him, ripping its way through his muscle until it reached his innards. Ripping the mask free, John roared in desperation, knowing that nobody could help him.
He should have gone with Reece and Howell. Instead, he had put duty over his own well-being, as had all the men with him. He blamed himself for their demise because they were here on his orders. Had they even bought time for anyone, or had it all been a wasted effort?
As the torture intensified, John accepted the truth that he only had one way out. With barely a thought, he lifted the gun and stuck the end of it into his mouth. From the corner of his eye, he saw another zombie come for him, but he would deny the bastard the satisfaction. If the Gods had been truly unkind, his gun would have jammed, but if there was a deity overseeing this carnage, it let John release himself, the bullet that erupted blowing out the back of his skull.
John was now useless to Lazarus, but it made a nice snack to a zombie that had once been called Jane and who, upon resurrection, had bitten off its own thumb.
27.08.19
A1, UK
The convoy stopped, because whilst vehicles could go on for hours, the people travelling in them needed breaks.
Billy reckoned it had been over four hours since Tom had been infected, and he was eager to keep as far away from the walking time bomb as possible. Billy was kind of regretting doing what he had done now because it was clear that the danger represented by Tom was growing rapidly. That regret increased when, after stepping down from the back of the truck, Tom helped his mother out of the vehicle. A hand held out to aid the elderly woman down to the road’s surface was all it would take to spread the contagion further.
Billy almost said something, but he held his tongue. He didn’t want to be alone you see, didn’t want to be abandoned by people he liked. Billy hadn’t liked his family, not really, not with the way they alternated between shouting at him and outright ignoring him. He’d not liked the way his mum’s breath had always smelt of that drink that made her drowsy. His father had been violent, and his mother had been weak. The other relatives rarely came round, and the kids at school had been an irritation that Billy had needed to try and blend into.
Jessica though, she was all right. She seemed to actually care for Billy, which was something he had always wanted. There had been glimpses of it with his mother in earlier years, but as Billy grew older, the woman that had given birth to him seemed to shut herself away as if she was growing a thick shell to protect herself. Jessica didn’t have that, and she reminded Billy of the earlier memories he had of his mother. The nice ones, the ones that should have been the majority.
If only someone could have loved him consistently, then maybe things would have been different. Whatever the truth of that, Billy had developed abnormally, his mind having thoughts that ten-year-old kids just shouldn’t be able to contemplate.
Billy held his breath when Tom held out his hand for the woman called Natasha, but she ignored the offer of help. Billy exhaled an almost inaudible sigh of relief, not fully understanding the way the virus spread. His main regret about infecting Tom was that he didn’t want to be stuck in the back of the truck with one potential zombie, never mind half a dozen of them. There was no actual concern for their lives.
He wanted to stay in the truck, but Jessica insisted he stretch his legs. That didn’t make sense, he was only little. It was easy for him to stretch them out where he was sat. Jessica persisted though, and who was he to deny her?
***
The general’s convoy had joined up with a much larger one, heading towards the city of Middlesbrough. Although there were tracked vehicles, the bulk of the retreating troops were being carried in trucks that could only use the road networks. It was thus slow and laborious progress along highways that constantly needed unblocking, the military bulldozers managing that job admirably. Much of the route had already been dealt with, a rear-guard established to keep the main artery to the port they were heading to free of civilians. Those civilians were now considered as big a threat as the undead. Not only did those outside the safe zone carry the risk of being infected with Lazarus, there was always the risk that they would react violently to the army’s presence.
Some of the blockages they encountered on the roads had been created deliberately.
Tommy was happy to tag along. As much as he loved this country, he didn’t want to stay here anymore. It was definitely time to leave before the undead had them all for breakfast. There was a general feeling that the threat of the undead was far behind them, but any of the cities and towns that lay in their path could harbour the virus, either in its visible or invisible form. This was not the time to relax, the manned fifty calibre machine gun on the armoured vehicle following Tommy’s truck a welcome sight.
Haggard had told them all about the vaccine, which had raised everyone’s spirits. If they could get a ship to Iceland,
then the likelihood was they would finally be out of the frying pan. The past few days had been intense, just the sort of thing the SAS had been trained for. But they all needed rest. Even the best trained couldn’t go on like this indefinitely, snatching sleep and meals wherever they could. The uncertainty drained you, the constant flow of adrenaline putting you on edge whilst sapping your ability to focus.
Tommy reckoned that in just a few more hours they would all hopefully be safe. If this had been a work of horror literature, Tommy would have realised just how foolish such thoughts truly were.
27.08.19
Site R, USA
Fairchild’s hand throbbed. It was enough to distract her from the general malaise a body her age suffered with, but it did nothing to dim the brightness of her mind. She might have been a religious fanatic, but she was still probably the most intelligent person in the room.
“Madame President, I’m not sure that’s wise,” General Franklin insisted. He kept his voice calm and on an even tone, even though he was screaming inside. This woman was obviously a certified maniac.
“I respect your opinion, General,” Fairchild said to placate him, “and it is a decision I have come to with much regret.” They were sat in the Site R Command Centre, the hub that allowed the President to communicate with the rest of the forces at her disposal. “The answer came to me as if sent by the heavenly host. It is the only way we can win this thing.” The only door in was sealed, the armed personnel wary of the air ducts above them. Through the concrete walls, the muffled sounds of gunshots could be heard.
“But you will be destroying the country.” He had agreed that the use of nuclear weapons had been warranted in the early stages, and was surprised at how ineffective they had been on the undead hordes. “I would advise the deployment of the smaller yield tactical nukes. We can target them on specific groupings.”
“Haven’t most of our stockpiles been overrun?” the President countered.
The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 5): The Last Page 34