by G M Sherwin
Gary M Sherwin
The Lazarus Gene
First published by Sherwin Publications in 2017
Copyright © Gary M Sherwin, 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
First Edition
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Contents
Dedications
Thank You
The Corridor
Edmunds
Oh God no..
Awake
Stanmore
The Conversation
More are coming
The Major
Escape
Collins
Emelia
Lockdown
The Garage
Daniel
Emilia takes the call
Rage
The Arrival
Takedown
Whats the plan?
Hunted
Other books
About the author & more books
Dedications
This book is dedicated to my Wife Jodie and my 3 children who are my rocks when I've been at my lowest.
A special thank you to My Dad and Sue who reignited my passion for writing.
My editor Lauren Moore for her encouraging words and going that extra mile for me.
Thank You
Thank you for taking the time to read my book. If you would like to keep up to date on the latest news and insights into future books, please feel free to sign up to my newsletter gsherwin.com
I don’t give out any emails to third parties nor will I bombard your inbox with dozens of emails that is my promise. You will only hear from me as and when I have updates on new releases or books of a similar genre that may interest you.
The Corridor
“Just shoot the damn thing before it gets out.”
The guard drew his firearm and raised to shoot. What the hell IS that thing? was all he could think as he pulled the trigger.
The sickening sound of metal tearing through flesh filled the corridor and yet the creature still lunged towards them, unfazed by the gunshot wound that shredded its shoulder.
The doctor turned to the soldier by his side. “Shoot it again. This time make sure it stays down.”
Several rounds slammed into the creature before it tumbled to the floor. Hands trembling, the guard stood stock still, shocked. The voice next to him brought him back to his senses.
“Get rid of that mess, soldier.”
He didn’t argue with his orders even though he detested the prick standing next to him.
“I’m a soldier, not a fucking morgue technician,” he muttered under his breath. Throwing his superior a look, he grabbed the body by its clothes and started to haul the bloody mess down the corridor.
Heaving along the dead weight of the thing he had just put down, the soldier kept on muttering to himself about the task at hand.
Two tours in Iraq and I’m reduced to body shovelling. What the hell are they doing with these poor souls? he thought.
For a split second, he could have sworn it moved as he dragged it through the corridors. Nah, surely not—he'd pumped enough lead into it to stop two men.
But he was wrong, and he would pay for that mistake.
A bloody hand grabbed his trouser leg. Flinching, he tried to twist away from the moving mess of flesh and blood. But he was stuck and he knew it. Reaching for his weapon, he kicked at the creature that gripped him, but it only clamped another blood fist on his leg.
Horrified, the guard kicked and punched in a way that would have rendered most humans unconscious after the first few blows.
Its mouth hung wide open, bloodied teeth snarling at him, and the hiss it made filled him with absolute fear. Still fumbling to get his gun, he felt a searing pain in his leg.
It’s biting me, for fuck’s sake!
“Get the fuck off me, will ya!” he screamed.
By now someone must have heard the commotion of his struggle as boots ran in his direction. Thank God for that—he was going to need all the help he could to get this damn thing off him. He smashed the handle of his gun down on the side of its face, popping an eye out of its socket.
Nothing seemed to stop it. It bit down harder on his leg and now he could see his own blood flowing from the wound. He aimed the gun directly at its face and fired.
Skull, flesh and brain matter sprayed the wall as the body slumped to the ground. Exhausted from the struggle, he fell backwards, holding onto the gaping wound in his leg.
Fuck, this is bad, he thought as his blood poured from him.
Staring up at his observers, he said, “I need a medic and quick—this fucking thing has ripped a hole in my leg.”
The approaching soldier started to radio in for assistance but was stopped by the doctor at his side. Stanmore looked back at the soldier clutching his leg with unsympathetic eyes.
“Delay that order,” Dr Stanmore said.
The guard’s eyes widened.
“What are you doing? Get a fucking medic and fast—I'm bleeding out here! Don't fuck around, mate, I need help and fast,” pleaded the wounded soldier.
Unfazed by the fallen man in front of him, Stanmore looked directly at the soldier to his left.
“Shoot him.”
“Sir?” the soldier asked.
“Did I not just give you an order?”
“Yes, sir, but—”
Stanmore didn’t let him finish. Pulling out his own gun, he shot the wounded soldier in the head.
The soldier that had stopped radioing looked perplexed. He didn’t get the chance to ask his question.
“Shoot him now. That’s an order, soldier.”
Edmunds
Edmunds stood watching through the one-way glass, his hair standing on end.
Why is it always so damned cold in here? Feels like a fucking morgue. Quite an apt comparison, considering the experiments they’re running around the clock, he thought to himself.
Stanmore stood beside him while they viewed the scene in the next room. The doctor was a snide bastard with not many friends around the place, but he was a smart son of a bitch and he knew it. Tall and lanky, the military scientist came from a wealthy background. Edmunds, on the other hand, had risen through the ranks and beaten some well-qualified doctors into this program. That at least he could feel some smugness at.
The subject on the table was awake and screaming the place down, writhing in pain. Anger, fear and rage pulsed through its body and it showed no signs of stopping. Struggling against the restraints that held it down to the table, it was certainly doing all it could to release itself.
It—Edmunds couldn’t think of any other word to describe the once living, breathing, sane human being that was now replaced with this creature.
“It’s the same every time,” Edmunds remarked. “We’re missing something, I just know it. Every subject exhibits the same side effects and within the same timeline. All, that is, except one.”
Stanmore said nothing.
“The blood samples have the gene but we can’t identify how that gene works and why he’s the only one so far that has not gone fucking nuts after the implantation.” He could see that Stanmore was listening as well as judging him. That annoyed him the most about this condescending asshole. Nonetheless, Stanmore was going to hear him out, damn it.
“How long has he been comatose now? Two years, is it? That can hardly be called a success,” St
anmore finally said.
“Ah yes, but he’s still alive and that’s what counts. He’s the only one so far to come through the process. True, he may be a vegetable for life, but it’s everything we have been working towards for all these years and the higher echelon won’t let us fail.” Edmunds shuddered slightly at the thought of what would happen if that were the case.
“We will go back a few stages and recreate that test we performed. Replicate every detail to see what is so significant about test subject one-one-five-three.”
“All right, doctor, but all eyes are on us,” Edmunds said, watching the subject thrash against its bonds, “and God help us if one of those things ever got out.”
Stanmore pressed the intercom to his left and spoke into it to the technicians in the other room. “Time to stop, men. Terminate the subject and dispose of it in the usual way.”
On the other side of the glass, the scientists nodded. One of them eased the syringe into the intravenous drip line and plunged the toxin directly into the creature. Nothing happened for a minute as it writhed and snarled. But it slowed and finally went limp. Then silence.
Crossing the room, a tech opened the door and beckoned the soldiers in from the corridor. They briefly spoke and immediately set about removing the body and the table from the room. The clean up now began, always a messy business trying to revive the subjects as they often shit themselves or puked everywhere, or both. As he moved away from the observation room, Edmunds thanked his stars that he wasn’t involved in the clean up.
“Have you ever considered what we would do with subject one-one-five-three if he ever comes out from his coma? I mean, what would we tell him?” Edmunds asked.
Oh God no..
Rising from the morgue table, surrounded by a company of bodies, it moved slowly until it was upright and standing firm. Its foggy vision was of no use to it but that smell, the smell of human flesh, filled its nostrils and a faint moan left its throat. It stumbled towards the doorway. The corpses it stepped over did not seem to interest it, but it could smell new flesh close by and the faint thud of a heartbeat. A sweet, lush odor wafting its way.
Looking down it could make out that the door was unlocked. Faint memory flooded back to the creature, allowing it to open the door and move on out of the foul-smelling room of decay and towards the scent of its prey.
Slow and deliberate movements helped it make its way towards the guard who was fiddling with his phone, engrossed in pornographic pictures. By the time he noticed the walking corpse lunging at him, it was too late. Cold teeth sank into the soldier’s shoulder and wrenched—he shrieked in pain. The terrified soldier fought hard, lashing out at this thing that had attached itself to him but would not let go. Agonizing pain shot down through his body as the terrified guard saw his own flesh being ripped away from the bone of his shoulder. Stunned, the guard stumbled backwards, holding onto his open wound, trying to stem the flow of blood.
His panicked eyes fell upon the thing that had wounded him so badly, and recognition replaced shock. The thing before him—something about the eyes seemed familiar. But how was that right, or even possible? The crazed eyes looked like the colleague he’d been asked to shoot in the corridor. A co-worker, dead at his own hands. Fuck no, this isn’t right! His panicked mind was not making any sense, but he had enough control of himself to start stumbling away from the man he once knew as Paul.
Before he took two steps, the thing lunged for him again, its blood-stained face barely human anymore. It licked the blood from its lips, baring its teeth with straggles of torn flesh clinging to the side of its mouth. It wanted more of him.
He panicked, kicking and punching with all he had left. Despite the viciousness of the blows the guard rained down on this thing, it made no difference as it gripped onto him and tore flesh and muscle. His screams made no difference; the pain overwhelmed him as he fell backwards with this thing on top of him now.
Its eyes held no compassion or emotion, only hunger. He just couldn’t fight this thing off and no one heard his pleas for help. The thing was just too damn strong. He was going to die. Not like this—he couldn’t go out this way. His gun! But he couldn’t reach his weapon with it pinning him down like this. Fight, damn it. He found some last ounce of strength to grab its throat with his hand to shove it away from him, its blood-soaked face still intent on eating what it could, teeth gnashing and thrashing hungrily.
That’s when he saw them. The corridor had filled with walking corpses, and every eye was locked on him.
Oh God, no. More of them coming. All moving towards him. He screamed loudly to get someone in here but still no one came. One by one they knelt beside him, gnawing at him like a pig roast, hands forcing their way into his torso and ripping his insides out of his stomach. The floor was covered in his blood as he lost consciousness. The fallen soldier let out his last breath as the last one of them gouged out his eye.
Awake
Edmunds entered the observation room where test subject one-one-five-three lay as he had done for the last two years. Motionless but unwithered—surprising for someone who had lain unconscious for a long period. Atrophy was the most common of problems for long-term coma subjects and yet he showed no sign of that disease or any other, for that matter.
His stasis certainly baffled the whole of the team. He was intravenously fed but needed no respirator and his resting heart rate was barely detectable. No infections of any sort, no bed sores. Nothing seemed to be wrong with him other than he refused to wake from his frozen state.
Edmunds spent quite some time with this one after the others had long gone. His curiosity got the better of him after nearly two years. He wanted to know who this man was and why his reaction had been so different from that of the others. What made him so unique? Edmunds looked over his daily chart and, no surprise, it the was the same old same old.
Of course, he had been careful when he made his visits—never when the higher-ups were on site and even when they were, he would come in on a professional capacity.
Reading through his notes, he almost threw the tablet across the room when a warm hand gripped his wrist. He stared down and saw test subject one-one-five-three staring back at him, blue eyes wide and full of confusion.
“Well, you just nearly gave me a heart attack!” Edmunds said.
Edmunds took hold of the wrist that a moment before had scared the living shit out of him. Pulse normal. What woke you up then, my friend? Edmunds thought. Now that his wits had returned, he felt a little silly. The guy had been comatose for two years. What the hell did he think the subject was going to do?
“This might seem a little strange to you right now, but don’t worry I will tell you as much as I can before they come in and start using you as a Petri dish.”
The eyes of one-one-five-three fixed him in his gaze, never moving off Edmunds as he talked and moved around, looking for ways to prolong this encounter.
“Listen. Just nod if you do understand what I’m saying,” urged Edmunds, knowing all too well someone could interrupt them at any time. He couldn’t allow them to spoil what was happening.
The man nodded.
Incredible! Edmunds shouted inside his head. Now what?
“Do you remember who you are?”
A slow movement of his head from side to side. That was a no, then.
“My name is Doctor James Edmunds, my friend, and I’m here to help you. Nothing is going to happen to you while I’m here. Do you understand?”
A nod.
“I need you to do something for me. Do not let anyone know that you are awake. This will save your life from a miserable existence here. You may not know it, but you are a miracle, and I’m not letting anyone use you for their own gain.”
This is amazing, thought James. He checked all the equipment that was attached to the subject. How was he going to this quiet? More importantly, how was he going to keep that prick Stanmore away while he made plans?
Stanmore
Stanmore wat
ched the monitor with fascination. He knew Edmunds had been privately monitoring test subject one-one-five-three in his spare time. Edmunds thought he was being discreet, but Stanmore had eyes and ears everywhere on the base. It pays to know what’s going on in my absence, he thought, and with what he was seeing here, he was glad he did.
What was Edmunds up to? They had been tasked with discovering what kept this subject alive with no side effects. So why was he keeping secret the fact that the subject had come out of his coma? Edmunds had worked alongside Stanmore since the program had started, and yet he knew so little about his work colleague. His professional and his personal background were on file; they never mixed socially.
Edmunds had no family to speak of. Both parents were retired and lived in the north of England where they were born and raised. There were no siblings and no significant other that Stanmore knew of.
Picking up the phone, he slowly sipped his coffee and listened to the dialling tone until a voice on the other side answered.
“Sir?”
“Yes, Stanmore.” The voice was stern and passionless.
“He’s awake, and he seems alert.”
“When did this happen?”
“An hour ago. Edmunds is with him now. The thing is,” Stanmore paused, “it appears Edmunds wants to keep this quiet.”
“What’s your assessment of Edmunds, Stanmore?”
“He has an agenda of his own. Not sure what yet, but I intend to find out.”
“Observe him and keep him contained. Give him some leeway but do not let him leave the base under any circumstances. Is that clear, Stanmore?”