The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 2): The Rise

by Deville, Sean

  I’m dead, she thought. There was no way around the truth of that.

  “I don’t like it, but we are going to have to ship you to the Astrodome. The feds know you came back positive. If we don’t send you there, they will just come and take you.”

  “Any chance that the test was wrong?” Reece asked. Foolish question she thought, but she had to ask.

  “No. The CDC guy said it was pretty accurate. Obviously they will check it again at the Astrodome, so you never know they might just send you straight back here.”

  “And Rodriguez?” They had shared a car together, so it wasn’t looking good for her partner.

  “Came back negative, but it doesn’t mean much because he went home and hasn’t come back.” The Sergeant sounded almost accusatory. He had a job and he should be here to do it.

  “I can’t blame him,” Reece admitted, “he cares about his family too much.” She wouldn’t lie to herself and say she wasn’t disappointed in him. She could understand it, but it didn’t mean she accepted what he had done.

  “If my wife wasn’t a goddamn witch I doubt I’d be here either,” the Sergeant lied. Reece laughed, thankful for the respite the humour brought.

  “Can I at least go under my own steam?” Reece implored. “I don’t like the idea of being shipped there in a bus. With me and Rodriguez gone, you won’t need our patrol car. I can go there without wasting any resources.” She saw the doubt in the Sergeant’s eyes. “It will give me chance to deal with this.”

  “I know you Reece, so I know you are as good as your word. Do you promise me you will go straight there and not fuck about?”

  “Cross my heart and hope to vote Democrat,” she stated making the mandatory hand gestures. She felt sick, the thought of what this meant churning the acid in her stomach.

  “Ouch, you really mean it. OK, but remember my butt’s on the line if you don’t turn up. So go now before I change my mind.” Reece began to rise from the bed, her body stiff from the mattress that was more lumps than it was soft. The Sergeant took another step back, staying what he deemed a safe distance even with the protection over his face.

  “How many have we lost?” Reece asked.

  “Twelve per cent of the roster has gone AWOL. Five per cent came back positive. And we lost three good men last night in a firefight.”

  “It’s all going to shit isn’t it Sarge?”

  “You got that straight Reece.”

  22.08.19

  Manchester, UK

  Sometimes the nicknames soldiers were given seemed particularly apt. Private Renfield had picked up the nickname “Delmonte”, because no matter the task, he would always say yes and volunteer, so eager was he to prove his worth. Nobody was really surprised therefore when he stepped forward to accept the role nobody else really wanted to take.

  He had to guard the patients on the ward he was assigned and “end their suffering” when one of them passed over.

  It didn’t matter that those that needed ending were already dead and a danger to everyone around them. Shooting them at a distance was a lot easier than getting close and personal and sticking a knife in the base of their necks, the most effective way the scientists had now determined that zombies could be killed. Bullets though, at such close range would produce blood splatter, bits of flesh being propelled from the body. Plus, the sound, in such a confined space would not be conducive to a seemingly orderly hospital. It was therefore decided that the knife was much more efficient. That made finding volunteers even more difficult.

  The thing was that, with the exception of his dear mother and one particularly insightful Sergeant who had spotted something in Renfield’s eyes, the Private had hidden a truth about himself from most of the people he met. That truth was that death fascinated Renfield. Most mothers have a certain degree of nervousness when their sons tell them they have decided to join the military. The thought of the apples of their eye coming home in body bags, or with pieces missing from their bodies and minds a harrowing image that was haunting because of the truth it threatened.

  Renfield’s mother was relieved when her son gave her the news. She saw it as the only safe path for her son. His fascination with death clearly needed an avenue to express itself, and if not for basic training and an acceptance into the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, his mother reckoned that prison or death were the only real future for the boy she had pushed out of herself eighteen years before. Whilst she had never even seen him commit a violent act against another person, sometimes a mother just knows these things.

  To the staff on the ward he was stationed at, he was like a morbid Guardian Angel, watching over them, ready to act should he be needed. Without even a constant supply of tea brought to him by the depleted nursing staff, he sat vigilantly over the sedated, bored, terrified and sleeping bodies that were packed into the room around him. Difficult to drink from a mug when you had to breathe through filters and keep your face covered.

  Every hour, hospital staff seemed to bring more people and more beds to be squeezed onto the ward, some now being left in corridors. There were other soldiers on this floor of the building, all tasked with the same essential job as Renfield. Despite the knowledge that hospital personnel were glad to have him around, he also saw the wariness in most of their eyes. To do his job here would have to go against everything that medical ethics protected, the doctors themselves pushing the limits of what the Hippocratic oath even allowed. But then Hippocrates never had to worry himself with a global zombie pandemic that threatened to wipe the human race from the history books. Renfield’s job was to simply destroy what the doctors and nurses couldn’t save, which was likely to be everything in the room.

  He had placed his chair at the end of the ward by the closed double doors which allowed him to keep an eye on the whole room. Without even the luxury of a toilet break due to the military issued diapers he wore, he did not waver in his task until his relief came. Sitting there for six-hour shifts, with little to entertain the mind except for the quietly moaning forms that filled the room’s beds would have left some people bored. Not Renfield. The process of death fascinated him, and every ten minutes or so, he would rise from his seat and wander up and down between the two rows of beds to check that the patients had not yet converted. He was always disappointed when the relief soldier stepped through those doors giving Renfield a chance to decontaminate himself and get something to eat.

  Whilst regrettably none had yet passed on his shift, Renfield had been shown videos of how the undead were born from the living. The convulsions and the writhing death throes were not difficult to spot. The videos had been made from the last remaining survivors of the outbreak at Wythenshawe Hospital, not all those zombies having been dispatched in the name of medical research. If the military doctors who had briefed him were competent in their observations, the Private was certain he wouldn’t be mistaking the dead for the living.

  Psychologically it helped that the patients were all strapped down, although he had been advised, in the strongest terms, not to rely on that. The undead were strong, much stronger than when they had been alive, bonds and restraints that could hold an adult human faring poorly against what some of his fellow squaddies were now calling “Dead-heads”. The Chinese whispers that filtered through the army ranks had told him that Dead-heads could smash their way through doors and take a shotgun blast to the chest. There were other tales that were surely exaggerations, of zombies working together to overwhelm armed defensive positions, of men ripped apart, limbs being torn clear out of their sockets. Renfield didn’t know what he was supposed to believe, so he kept a healthy level of scepticism from anything he didn’t hear from the lips of his Sergeant and his superior officers. His fellow soldiers could sometimes be full of utter shit.

  Renfield did have a distraction though for there was one patient in the room that almost mesmerised him. Whilst the other people in the room would get an almost cursory examination by his eyes, Renfield had found the most beautiful woman in the world
in the midst of all the chaos. He would often linger by the end of her bed, mindful of how that would look should a member of the nursing staff make one of their infrequent visits to check on the patients. The patient’s name was Lucy, and she slept with a peace that would make Sleeping Beauty appear restless. Renfield wasn’t sure, but he thought he might be in love. Not a romantic love, the concept being alien to him. The thoughts that formed in his mind dwelled more on what he could do to her, myriad ways he could use and abuse her body dancing through his mind.

  How strange that this should happen when there was no chance such molestation could blossom. It was almost as if God himself was taunting the hapless soldier.

  Standing for the umpteenth time, Renfield walked slowly down to the end of the ward, watching the slow steady breathing of those who mainly had no awareness that he was even there for them. About a third of the patients had accepted the restraints willingly, and the awake ones followed the soldier’s progress with wary eyes. Most had objected to being tied down, but none of them were given a choice, sedation forced on those who objected. Of those who were induced into slumber by drugs, the sedative heaven occasionally wore off or was not enough to fully knock them out. Renfield had no idea what was being used to keep the majority of patients sedated, and he had overheard one doctor’s concerns about such mass medication. There weren’t enough electronic devices in the hospital to monitor so many individuals, and there was the worry that the drugs might speed up someone’s demise. Still, the sedatives were used. Even some of those who had seen the wisdom of restraint chose chemical sleep when they were told they would also need to be catheterised.

  He stopped by the end of Lucy’s bed, and for the first time he noticed that her eyes were open. Her face told him he was deemed a threat by her.

  “It’s okay,” Renfield promised. “Nobody here will hurt you.” A lie so easily spoken.

  “Who are you?” she almost begged. Her gaze kept flitting around the room, the restraint making it difficult to raise her head off the pillow. She was spread eagle, two sheets covering her legs and lower torso. The hospital gown hid the swell of her breasts well, but Renfield’s eyes still lingered there, the gas mask hiding his perversions from her. She was just absolutely perfect. He would like to take that from her.

  “Just a soldier ma’am. Here to keep you all safe.”

  “Why am I…?” Lucy asked, struggling slightly with her bonds.

  “Do you not remember being brought in?” Her chart, which Renfield had spied a look at several hours earlier, stated she had been admitted five hours ago after being reported as infected by her parents. Her own parents had watched as the paramedics had come under police escort to take her away. Amazing how quickly fear could unravel the chemical love of Oxytocin. She had not come willingly, forcing the paramedic to dose her.

  “It’s a blur. Why are we all tied up? What the hell is this?” It wasn’t just a question, it was a plea for sanity.

  “Everyone here is infected. You need to be restrained in case one or more of you dies and…” For some reason, he couldn’t say the words, not to that face. His heart was already in his throat, the blueness of her eyes like heroin to him. He was suddenly glad he was wearing the gas mask for it hid the nervousness that was coursing through him. She let her head fall back onto the pillow, resignation and exhaustion seeming to seep out of her. The medical chart didn’t state what the paramedics had sedated her with.

  Renfield didn’t know how he would react if he woke up in her situation.

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked impotently. The intravenous fluids being poured into her meant she wouldn’t be dehydrated and it wasn’t like he was able to rustle her up a sandwich. He could have kicked himself for asking such a stupid question and fortunately she just shook her head. Lucy gave the bindings on her right wrist a final pull, and then she just started to cry.

  “Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he tried to reassure her.

  “Just leave me alone,” Lucy demanded. He was going to say something more, anything just so he could keep looking at her, when the person in the bed behind him started to shake.

  Renfield turned at the sound, the old woman was one of the latest patients to have been brought in, and she had not been one of the ones needing sedation, dementia seeming to deal with that aspect of her care. Even without that, she was so frail that she would have been unable to offer any kind of effective resistance. Looking at the old woman now, Renfield was surprised by how she was able to contort her body so violently, the entire torso lifting off the mattress, the sheets that had been tucked in offering nothing in the way of resistance. Her arms and legs seemed to lock into place, and then they relaxed, the bulk of her falling back down onto the bed. As he watched, her head began to thrash wildly, as if she was trying to shake her own head loose.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Lucy pleaded from behind. Renfield didn’t answer, too engrossed by what he was seeing. This was exactly how it had looked on the video he had been shown, and his right hand fondled the handle of the knife he knew he was shortly about to use. It was a stiletto blade, just right for slipping into the reptilian part of her brain. All the men guarding the patients had been supplied them, the thinness of the blade ideal for what was required.

  Renfield took a step closer, froth now foaming at the old woman’s mouth. Not long now, he thought, not long at all. His eyes were wide, and he noticed several people watching what he was doing. The privacy curtain would be useless here, the beds having been pushed too close together to get the maximum number on the ward. It looked like Renfield was about to free up his first bed.

  At that moment a nurse pushed her way through the swing doors, the noise drawing Renfield’s gaze. Her timing, although pure fluke, was impeccable.

  “Get the porters,” Renfield ordered, his voice calmer than he could have expected. The nurse just stared at him for several seconds as if he had grown a second head. Truth hit her, the moment she had come to dread that was now commonplace, then she turned tail and ran out the way she had entered.

  “Why won’t you tell me what’s happening?” Lucy demanded. She was now fighting against her restraints again, panic starting to set in. Renfield didn’t even look at her. Instead, he moved down the side of the bed he stood by, the patient nearest the old woman chemically oblivious to what was occurring.

  He watched her death struggles, eager to help the old woman on her way. Not from any sense of compassion you understand, he just wanted to feel it again, the rush when he took someone’s life. Even though he had never been in active combat, Renfield had taken life twice before. That was what his mother sensed in him, the murderer that lurked below the surface. A serial killer in the making, but one that was able to control his impulses and bide his time.

  The old woman began to cough up blood. Inside his glove, the knuckles of the hand holding the blade were turning white.

  “Not yet, not yet,” he mumbled softly under his breath,

  “Tell me what’s happening, you fuck,” Lucy roared. Renfield couldn’t ignore that, but he didn’t take his eyes off his pending prize.

  “You need to be quiet now Lucy. It would be better for everyone if you were quiet.”

  “Don’t tell me to….” she tried to counter, but then the finger shot out, pointing directly at her heart.

  “Shut the fuck up.” The words were cold, not how he wanted to speak to someone so stunningly attractive, but her interference was spoiling the moment. Objects like her needed to know their place in the world.

  The doors opened again and the nurse returned, a male porter in tow. Still pointing at Lucy, Renfield issued an order with a voice that commanded authority. He was in his element here, he was in charge. The people present were to do as he said and they all knew it despite how repulsive what was coming was to them. The knife in his hand, the handgun on his hip and the supremacy of the Lord Almighty were all the legitimacy he needed. Although as for the latter, God could lick his balls.

 
; “That patient needs sedating.”

  “You sick fuck,” Lucy screamed, realising the soldier was referring to her. Her outburst actually cemented the nurse’s wavering mind and moments later she was there with a readily loaded syringe.

  “Don’t you fucking touch me,” Lucy exploded, her face red with anger and desperation, her mind close to hysterical now. The nurse didn’t even try to console Lucy. Any empathy the nurse possessed had been used up by the dozens of people she had seen die on her shift. This wasn’t the only ward she was helping to run. The drug was easily administered by Lucy’s IV line, and a troublesome patient rapidly drifted off into narcotic compliance.

  The old woman had stopped convulsing now, the raspiness as she inhaled suggesting the end was close. With his non-dominant hand, Renfield pushed the woman’s head to the side, exposing the base of the skull. He did it gently, savouring the moment. He wanted to take his gloves off, to feel the skin with his own, to feel the heat and the power coming off his next victim. There was a twitch in the woman’s right arm, the fingers clawing at the air as if trying to grasp something that only she could see. Then came the death rattle, the air expelling itself from the lungs which this time did not inflate. Underneath his mask, Renfield was smiling.

  “Is she gone?” he asked the nurse. She came next to him, placed a portable pulse oximeter on a withered finger. It was a small thing, almost inconsequential. But in its cheap battery driven circuitry, it now had the power to determine who met the ultimate fate. The device registered nothing, the body soon to grow cold and rigid. At least, that was what would happen in an ordinary world. A second porter entered, this one pushing a trolley with a squeaky wheel, a portent of the death that was to descend upon the rest of the ward’s inhabitants.

  Someone in the room whimpered.