The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 2): The Rise

by Deville, Sean

  “She’s gone,” the nurse said, Renfield pulling the knife clear of its scabbard. But he hesitated, his hand wavering over the corpse. “What are you doing?” the nurse pleaded.

  “I need to see it,” Renfield insisted pulling the old woman’s head so that he could see the eyes. They were still open and initially they kept their whiteness, but as he watched, the darkest of reds began to creep from the peripheries, the lips of the old woman’s mouth starting to curl into a sneer as the resurrection process began. Renfield was lucky, the first zombie he was about to kill was a fast changer.

  “Seriously dude, don’t fuck about,” one of the porters begged, true desperation and urgency in his words. What has this man seen to make him so afraid Renfield thought? As the Private pushed the old woman’s head back onto his side, he felt resistance forming there. So it was true, everything he had been told that he would have thought unbelievable was the God’s honest truth.

  The blade slipped easily into the zombie’s flesh, and he moved the blade around inside as he had been shown by the Sergeant who had given them a brief but thorough tutorial on the best way to kill the undead. How many of them have you killed? Renfield had asked the Sergeant. The only reply he received was a look of pity.

  The zombie seemed to slump into the bed as if gravity itself was pulling down on every muscle with increased force. He knew he should have felt elated, just as he had those times when he had killed in secret, the victims not being attributed to a lanky fifteen-year-old boy. But there was nothing. Renfield had discovered that killing had been the sweetest thing, and yet his actions now gave him none of the rush he had so feverishly needed.

  If he was alone, he would likely have screamed.

  With the knife still present, the blood flow from the wound was limited. His waterproof gloved hand would need decontaminating, and the nurse would help with that. But first Renfield would need to help move the body. Another corpse for the fresh pyre being built outside. He should have felt on top of the world, but all he felt was malignant disappointment.

  22.08.19

  Houston, USA

  With the permission of her Sergeant, Reece ended up walking out of 1200 under her own steam. She was still a Sherriff’s deputy, they couldn’t take that away from her. When she left the cell, a janitor had appeared and sprayed it down, the bleach hitting her nostrils even through the mask she wore…a mask that was now more for the protection of others than herself. She had even been allowed to keep her sidearm, which surprised her. Perhaps things were getting so bad that nobody cared anymore.

  She knew what she had to do and she wouldn’t fail in her duty due to the threat she posed to everyone around her. There were some things she needed to do first. Now sat in the cruiser she had shared with her partner for many months, she rang Rodriguez, not to rip him a new one, but instead to just say goodbye. They were friends, and that’s what friends did.

  “Reece?” the voice said.

  “It sounds like you’re driving?” Reece answered.

  “My wife is. We are heading out of the city.”

  “I heard you didn’t turn up for work today.”

  “Don’t bust my balls Reece, I’m doing what I have to.” She could picture him in the car, probably still wearing his uniform to give him some sort of authority when it was needed. His wife would likely be looking at him nervously, concerned perhaps for the emotional turmoil going through her husband’s mind. The woman would know the confliction he was facing between protecting his family and doing his duty.

  “Didn’t call for that,” Reece insisted. “I think mainly I’m just calling to say goodbye. My test results came back… I have the virus.” She could picture his face as she told him the news.

  “Shit,” the voice came back. “Maybe they are wrong you know. Maybe…”

  “No, the tests are right.” Reece was surprised by how easily she had accepted this. Perhaps when the symptoms really started hitting her, then the anger would come. But right now, she felt resigned to her fate.

  “I’m sorry Reece.”

  “It’s okay, at least you got your family out. I hope your father in law doesn’t become too much of a twat.” She heard him laugh nervously. In the background of the call, she was surprised to hear someone coughing.

  “Use a tissue honey,” Reece barely heard the words of advice from the wife to one of Rodriguez’s daughters, and it made her heart grow cold. He had two girls, the cutest things you would ever meet. Were they infected? If they were then it was all over for Rodriguez too.

  “Listen Reece,” he started to say, only for the call to suddenly cut out. Reece looked at her phone, saw that there was no longer a signal present. The phone told her she could now make emergency calls only. What was the point of that though, the 911 service was likely swamped.

  The fucks. They had cut the cell service, most likely to the whole city. The phone had cost her two week’s wages and now it was a useless piece of junk. That was it, now the anger came like a storm out of nowhere, the eruption surging up from her guts. Reece considered smashing her phone on the dashboard of her car, but instead she calmly put it on the seat next to her. It was only then that the violence came to match the anger, the steering wheel experiencing the full brunt of her assault, her hands slamming down onto it with frustrated ferocity.

  It took her five minutes to get it all out of her system, a brief moment of insanity that was perhaps justified. Her hands were sore and red, likely bruised in places. Who would criticise her with what was going down? Who could possibly admonish her for her justified frustration at the way her life had changed? Taking some deep breaths, she didn’t bother mopping her eyes which streamed with tears. Fortunately, there was no mascara to run. That would have made her look a picture. As it was, she was content to let anyone who saw her know the distress she was in, perhaps more because it increased the chances of them staying away from her.

  Don’t go near the scary lady with the gun and the nasty infection.

  The key caught the engine first time, and she carefully drove out of the underground parking garage so as to discover what the last days of her life would hold.

  Reece wasn’t surprised to see the streets virtually empty. There was plenty of military traffic, but nothing really civilian. There was the occasional work van, essential personnel having to go places to keep the city running. Houston was like a living organism, it needed feeding, it needed energy and it needed its waste dealt with. For any one of those essentials to stall, the whole city could easily die. It had already lost the ability to talk to itself.

  With the number of buses Reece was seeing, she reckoned the city was dead anyway.

  Her route to the Astrodome had to be detoured due to a whole block being sectioned off. As she drove past, Reece saw Houston Police engaged in a firefight with armed civilians in a large warehouse. Already the resistance to martial law had begun as she knew it would. Texans did not like being told what to do, and a large proportion of them were going to be highly dubious of what the government was telling them. Calling out the state militias had only been partially successful. Some had chosen not to heed the call, and there was no telling what they were planning. Reece resisted the temptation to help her fellow law enforcement officers. This wasn’t her fight anymore.

  Perhaps the most surprising and surreal thing she discovered on her final drive was an open fast food drive through. When she got closer and saw all the first responder vehicles parked up outside, the logic of it came clear to her. Those battling lawlessness and the growing zombie menace still needed to be fed.

  “Why the hell not,” she said to herself, and she pulled in to the queue that had formed. In front of her, a National Guard Humvee bristled with armed soldiers who didn’t look old enough to be out of school never mind fighting a war. She envied them their naivety, just young men who probably knew nothing about the world. Days from now, if they were still alive, they would have likely aged mentally by a couple of decades.

  It took fiv
e minutes for the line to deplete enough for her to be able to give her order. The place wasn’t that busy, but she reckoned the staff inside the place were depleted in numbers. She didn’t know how right she was. It was a franchise chain drive through, owned by a married couple. They and their teenage daughter were the only people running it. It wasn’t even for the money, the food being given away for free to anyone in a uniform. They just felt it was their patriotic duty to help those fighting the zombie outbreak, and it had earned them the right to be given blood tests which had come back as all clear. The military was still willing to look after their own and those that helped them. With a constant flow of soldiers and police moving through, it also gave the owners the illusion that they were safe in the midst of all the madness.

  A big handwritten sign duct-taped to the outside of the building stated, in big bold red letters, that they would be serving anyone in uniform until the food ran out.

  “What can I get you?” the friendly and somewhat harassed sounding female voice said over the intercom. Reece gave her order, more food than she would ever eat, just feeling the desire to gorge. With her fitness regime, she rarely got to eat crap like this, and she needed the indulgent hit. Something perhaps to remember in the coming days…or was it hours? Something to remind her of the good things in life, which seemed to be largely absent the last twenty-four hours. Reece tried to ignore the gunfire that appeared to be constantly in the distance.

  At the serving hatch, Reece wasn’t surprised that the bag holding her food was delivered on the end of a pole. Why risk it right? With the logistics, it made sense that only canned and bottled drinks could be supplied, the sugar laden milkshakes totally off the menu.

  The smell of the food filled her car and made her mouth begin to water. It suddenly struck her how hungry she really was, and parking her car up in a free car park space, she let the air conditioning bring the scents from the bag to her nose. So many times she had denied herself this kind of mouth pleasure and for what? It wasn’t like she had extended her life any.

  Reece knew the food wasn’t good for her, but just by unwrapping the first of the burgers she had ordered, it dawned on her that she should never have cared. With death staring her in the face at such a young age, it all seemed like a game that she had played wrong. There was so much Reece could have done that she hadn’t, so many experiences that she had denied herself because of bullshit rules she had set out for herself.

  Looking at the bun she was surprised at how juicy and delicious what she was about to eat looked. Normally when you ordered this kind of food you got a sorry, squashed affair, but not here. Taking her first bite, she almost died with delight, not caring that liquid dribbled down her chin onto her uniform. It was probably the greatest thing she had ever tasted, and she greedily took another chunk with her teeth. Reece took her time, concentrating on every bite, every mouthful nectar to her. The peak of human civilisation had come down to this.

  Yesterday, towards the end of her shift she had killed her first zombie. Down a side alley, they had uncovered what had once been a homeless person eating the remains of a large cat. Kneeling on the ground, the creature had turned its head to them as they cautiously approached on foot, the cat’s carcass quickly becoming irrelevant now that more acceptable flesh had arrived. Reece had even heard its joints clicking as it stood up to full height, the bare emaciated face hidden by the blood that coated it. There was no mistaking what it had been, and Reece had ended it in three shots. She reckoned that was the moment Rodriguez had truly lost his nerve. Her partner hadn’t even pulled out his sidearm, instead he had just stood there, horrified as his belief about the world was turned upside down. To finally see it was more than some people could bear.

  Reece had no idea how she had contracted the virus. In the great scheme of things, it probably didn’t matter. At least she hadn’t passed it onto Rodriguez, so that was some comfort she could take from this.

  The burger finished, Reece unwrapped another one. She didn’t care about trans fats or cholesterol anymore. All that bullshit was past her. There were probably four thousand calories in the bag, and she didn’t care about that either. As it was, she was already on a death sentence, so wasn’t she allowed the right to one last meal? Reece doubted there would be anything this good in the place she was going. Her food from now on would likely be crackers, MRE’s and at the end, needle delivered fluid from a bag. Was that the way she wanted to go? Was going to the Astrodome the right thing to do?

  As good as the food was, Reece had never felt so alone. The knowledge that Reece had nobody truly close to her came at her like a revelation. An orphan, she had joined the force because of the injustice she had seen in her childhood. Her last five years had been a whirlwind of work and failed relationships, mostly from people she worked with, all of them ultimately a disappointment. None of them could compare to the one man who had meant everything to her. Nobody even came close. She fell in love with him knowing it was a risk, knowing that he would be away for days on end. Those were the perils of falling for someone who worked undercover. The ultimate peril was when that undercover work turned south fast, her reason for being getting his brains blown out in a drug bust gone bad.

  It had devastated Reece, putting a considerable coating of ice around her heart. From that moment on, the job became an all-consuming passion rather than just a way to pay the bills. And now even that was going to be stripped away from her. Mid-bite, the food seemed to sour in her mouth, but she forced it down anyway. What was the point? What was the point in any of this?

  That was the moment she almost gave up like so many others would in the coming days. It would have been so easy to put the car in gear, drive to somewhere secluded and just put a bullet in her skull. An escape from everything the world had to offer was there waiting at the short length of a barrel. Reece had even pictured herself doing it, knowing that nobody would likely even be there to clean the blood off the upholstery. Would that be an acceptable end to her though? To slowly rot in the Texas heat, bloating as the flies found their way into her flesh.

  No, she wasn’t giving up so easily, she still had a life to cling on to. As long as she was breathing there was still hope. There would be no suicide, not today.

  22.08.19

  Manchester, UK

  Sitting around, doing nothing was not something Stuart could easily do, especially not with what was happening in the streets and the houses outside his window. He needed to get out, to feel the air on his face.

  It wasn’t really him saying this though. In the complex chemistry of his mind, Lazarus was working away to manipulate him, causing him to seek the presence of others. The streets were relatively quiet at present and he reckoned it would be safe for him to go out and…and what exactly? Have a walk? Why did he want to go strolling around Manchester when it was safe right where he was?

  His lawyer’s brain valued logic, so it was confusing to him that the urge just kept growing. Twice now he had even put his coat on, only for him to swear at himself that to leave the flat would be a bloody insane thing to do. He had witnessed violence in the streets below, did he really want to risk being caught up in that? Whilst he was a big man who could handle himself in many an altercation, his size was unlikely to help against someone armed with a knife or a gun. Best to sit down and try and fill his mind with one of the many box sets of unwatched TV series. If things got any worse, this might be the last chance he would get to see them.

  Are you seriously thinking about watching fucking TV? It’s the end of the world.

  He had to do something though, the need to leave and seek humanity like an insane itch that just couldn’t be scratched. Perhaps if he just went for a short walk? He was out the door to his flat before he could stop himself.

  What the hell?

  Standing by the lift he had used so many times before, his finger wavered over the call button. No, this was insanity. He should just go back to his flat and try and calm down. Millimetres away, his finger seemed
to be frozen in space. And then it moved, impacting the button, the green circle of light appearing around it. Stuart heard the elevator start to move, ascending to come and get him.

  He had his phone on him and it was at that moment that it rang.

  “Stuart? Why haven’t you been answering your phone?” Jessica said on the other end. The call felt broken, patchy, only one bar at best on his phone. Looking at his phone he noticed that she had tried to phone several times.

  “Jessica, something isn’t right.”

  “What do you mean?” The elevator stopped and the door opened before him invitingly. Stuart resisted, partly because he was scared of what he was doing but also because the reception might cut off.

  “I have this urge that I don’t understand. It’s like I have to go outside for some reason, to leave the safety of my flat.”

  “But it’s not safe out there Stuart,” Jessica said stating the obvious.

  “I know. And yet I still want to leave. Just for a walk. Why do I want to do this?”

  “I don’t know Stuart. Do you feel okay?” He could hear the concern in her voice.

  “I think so, although I’m a little light headed and I think I might have a fever. My thinking is a little fuzzy as well.”

  “Where are you now?” Jessica asked. The elevator door started to close, and Stuart found himself stopping it with his foot.

  “I’m stood outside an open elevator. I don’t know why I’m here.” Desperation started to creep into his voice. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Go back to your apartment Stuart,” Jessica said sternly.

  “But I feel like I can’t breathe in there. Even here, the air feels like it’s getting thicker.” It wasn’t, the virus merely pushing buttons to try and compel him into this action. Anxiety was building within Stuart, a claustrophobia he had never experienced before, the virus randomly demanding that he go out and spread his gift to the world. Suddenly the idea of entering the elevator filled him with unexplained dread. This time he let the door close.