CRISIS (Descendants Saga (Crisis Sequence) Book 2)

by James Somers

  Bishop finds Rostov to be quite insightful on the behavioral patterns of the infected. He hopes Sayers will soon grant his request that Demetri be released to help him and the others in their search for a cure. After all, four heads are better than three—especially when the entire human race is depending upon their work here.

  The soldiers make final preparations to breach the room, pulling on night vision goggles as the lights in this room are dimmed to compensate and not blind them. Preston uses his badge key card, swiping the mechanism. The red LED turns green. The door opens and soldiers rush into the darkened room beyond with their stun batons at the ready and held out before them.

  Jonathan Parks explodes through the wall ten feet from the door where the soldiers are rushing inside to take him down. Drywall pieces shower Bishop and the remaining soldiers, as the boy forces his way into the room. Almost immediately, he sets about attacking the soldiers, tossing men left and right, maneuvering expertly through the bewildered men. He recognizes their dependence on the goggles and bats them sideways on the men’s faces, effectively blinding them.

  Bishop backs away until he hits one of the walls. The melee of uniformed men and one boy in his blue jumper is the last place he wants to become entangled. Jonathan moves like a dark blue blur among the soldiers, all of whom are stumbling over one another in an effort to get at Patient Zero.

  Recognizing some sort of martial artistry to Jonathan’s movements, Bishop understands that the boy is far from defenseless. Sergeant Preston’s numbers are actually working in favor of Parks, and he’s too quick in the darkened room to track accurately among so many flailing bodies. If something isn’t done quickly, the boy might get away.

  Yet, Bishop has little experience with brawling and no protection against the boy’s lethal blood. Should he become exposed, as Tom Kennedy was, then he would be transformed into the one of the infected monsters ravaging through Great Britain’s cities. He would become just like Rollins, a specimen to be studied in hope of a cure.

  But who would conduct the research then, as his mind burned away under the viral rage all of the infected display? Instinctively, Bishop backs down the wall, trying to get as far from the fighting and Patient Zero as possible. He doesn’t want to die. Even more, he doesn’t want to become one of the infected.

  The boy is brutal in his attacks, far from the relatively calm and polite young man taken into custody at the Tombs. Evidently, allowing him to wake on his own within the cell was a bad idea. Yet, they had supposed the barrier would be enough. The boy is known to be stronger than he should be, but they knew nothing of the kind of power it would have taken to break out of the cage constructed by Sayers.

  Nearly two dozen soldiers with stun batons, yet they can’t manage to get a hold on Jonathan Parks. Bishop remains pressed against the farthest corner in the ample room, watching the sight in both amazement and dread. After all, if they haven’t managed to get him under control yet, then how long before Patient Zero is the only one left standing besides himself?

  Then what will happen? Will he let Bishop go? He already knows there is no way he can hope to fight his way out of the room against this young man. If twenty something trained, armed soldiers can’t take him down, then Bishop’s hope is far less than nothing.

  Men fly out of control in every direction. Unconscious bodies land here and there around the room, piling up on the floor. The boy remains undaunted. Stun batons strike at him only to be whipped out of their owner’s hands or smashed and bent like toys.

  After only a few minutes, the last soldier makes his stand and is hit hard enough in the chest to send him back into the wall next to Bishop. The man slides to the floor out of commission. Jonathan’s hard eyes fall upon Bishop now, as he strides toward him.

  Pointing, he says, “I know you from the Tombs…Dr. Bishop?”

  Bishop nods, holding up his hands in a placating manner. “I’m unarmed,” he says, hoping that might actually mean something to Jonathan.

  Jonathan is disheveled; his blue jumper torn in places. His short hair is sweaty and mussed from the fight with the guards. He’s breathing hard, but still looks like he has plenty of fight left in him.

  He holds up two fingers to Bishop’s face. “Two questions,” he says. “First, where am I? Second, where is Cassie?”

  Bishop’s eyes widen, looking at the hand holding up bloody fingers. The scientist draws back instinctively. Jonathan notices what he’s doing and looks at his hand.

  “Of course,” he says, “You know what my blood can do to a person, don’t you, Doc?”

  Bishop musters himself. “You wouldn’t.”

  Jonathan glances left and right at the soldiers moaning in various states of consciousness around them on the floor. “Wouldn’t I? Are you willing to test me?”

  Jonathan reaches out and snatches a wad of Bishop’s lab coat in his hand, applying a red smear to the white fabric.

  “All right!” Bishop cries. “I’ll take you to her.”

  “Better,” Jonathan says, turning Bishop toward the door. He takes hold of the clothing between the scientist’s shoulder blades and marches him through into the corridor beyond. Apparently, all of the available guards are left in the room behind them. No one stands to stop them in the hall. Bishop leads the way, and Jonathan, holding tightly to his captive, follows.

  “Jonathan, I want you to consider what you’re doing,” Bishop says as they make their way down the curving corridor.

  Jonathan nudges him in the back. “Just keep moving and remember the curse on my blood. Unless you want to end up as one of the monsters roaming through London, you’ll take me straight to Cassie with no tricks.”

  “I’m not trying to trick you, Jonathan,” Bishop pleads. “I’m trying to help you and everyone else by attempting to find a cure.”

  “Locking me in a cage like some science experiment, isn’t exactly what I would call help,” Jonathan protests. “I’m through with being treated as a specimen to be dissected.”

  “But I don’t want that at all,” Bishop replies.

  “Really?” Jonathan snaps sarcastically. “You certainly could have fooled me. I wake up in a giant geranium complete with a fold out cot and privy with a little curtain to do my business. Oh yes, that’s grand accommodations. Not that it was much better in the Tombs. I woke up there to find myself surrounded by bloodthirsty zombies. You lot really have a mother’s touch.”

  “I’m sorry about that, but I don’t exactly call all of the shots around here,” Bishop complains.

  “Too right you don’t,” Jonathan adds. “I’m calling them now. How much further?”

  “Just up ahead,” Bishop says, discouraged. His voice wanes suddenly when he finds two people standing in the corridor barring their way. He recognizes them immediately, not that it brings him much comfort.

  The boy stops abruptly, pulling Bishop to a stop as well by his clothing still knotted in Jonathan’s powerful grip. He has no weapon, but the young man does position himself behind Bishop with his right arm threaded under the virologist’s chin. Bishop winces, knowing there may be blood on that arm that is now touching his skin.

  “I can snap his neck in an instant,” Jonathan threatens.

  Standing at the other end of the corridor, a man in a soldier’s fatigue pants and a gray t-shirt holds a rifle aimed in the direction of Jonathan and his captive. Bishop realizes that Major Bingham must have left the infirmary after all, when he heard the alarm triggered by Jonathan’s escape.

  The woman standing next to him is Director Sayers herself. She carries a pistol in her right hand held at her side. Bishop has heard rumors, while working here at GCHQ, of the Director’s history with MI6, serving as a field agent of no mean talent. However, this is the first time he has seen her carry a weapon on her person.

  “I’m afraid we can’t allow you to continue this rampage, Jonathan,” Sayers says calmly.

  She smiles gently at the boy. However, the pistol in plain view at her side and Bi
ngham poised at her left shoulder with his rifle tells a different story. Force is not only an option, it may be exactly what they intend.

  “You started this,” Jonathan says flatly. “I just want Cassie and to get out of here.”

  “After all we’ve done to assure your safety?” Sayers asks. “I’m sorry, Jonathan, but you must realize by now that you are simply too important to be allowed to wander off.”

  “All you want is to experiment on me!”

  “Actually, what we want is a cure for the disease you spread to Tom Kennedy,” Sayers retorts sharply.

  Bishop feels the boy’s arm tighten around his throat in anger.

  “I didn’t know anything about a virus in my blood,” he says. “Tom Kennedy attacked me, not the other way around.”

  “Be that as it may,” Sayers says. “We can’t allow you to go free.”

  “Then you’re going to lose the doctor here,” Jonathan warns.

  “Really, Jonathan?” Sayers asks in a somewhat condescending tone, as though speaking to a very small child. “Are you prepared to kill even more people than you already have?”

  Bishop winces at this remark. He understands Sayers’ intention well enough. She hopes to play upon the boy’s guilt—expand upon the idea that this plague is actually his fault. However, he is concerned that this tactic will only set him off. His arm is growing tighter around Bishop’s throat with each new chiding comment from Sayers.

  Also, Bingham’s menacing presence isn’t helping matters. In Bishop’s humble opinion, Jonathan is already on edge without pushing him further. More to the point, it is his neck on the line in this situation should this plan—whatever it may be—end up backfiring.

  “A deadly plague has turned England into a death zone,” Jonathan says. “I’ve had to fight zombies that used to be normal people. I’ve had to killed or be killed numerous times over the past week, and now you threaten not only me but my friends—people I trust. I’m prepared to do a great deal more than you might think, lady.”

  Sayers and Jonathan stare one another down for a long moment, before she finally replies.

  “I suppose you are,” she says.

  Then, unexpectedly, Sayers whips her pistol up and fires. Bishop cries out in pain as the bullet rips through the flesh of his thigh. His body crumples unsupported toward the ground. Taken by surprise, Jonathan allows the virologist to fall. He can’t believe the woman shot her own man. He realizes too late that he’s now totally exposed.

  Major Bingham fires his rifle as soon as Bishop’s body clears the boy. The shot takes Jonathan high in the chest—a tranquilizer dart like one might find used on a lion or other predatory beast. Jonathan staggers back, unsure what has happened. When he realizes the dart is protruding just below his collar bone, he jerks it out.

  Blood pours from the wound, seeping through his jumper, but Sayers is not concerned. Patient Zero’s healing factor is already well known to her. The wound was not ideally placed, but neither will it prove fatal. In moments, the blood flow has subsided. Jonathan stands in the corridor for a moment, not saying anything.

  Neither Director Sayers nor Bingham approaches him. There is no need. As long as the tranquilizer does its work, there is no reason to endanger themselves further.

  Jonathan blinks several times and then begins to stagger sideways. He braces himself against one wall of the corridor, shaking his head. However, the drug is already coursing through his veins. He might be able to fight two dozen men to a victory, but he can’t overcome the lethargy creeping over him.

  Steadily, Jonathan’s resolve is undone. He leans against the wall, his mind seemingly too numb to formulate any verbal response to what has happened. After another few moments, he slides down the wall to the floor and drifts away quite peacefully.

  Bishop, on the other hand, writhes on the floor in pain, holding his leg. Sayers comes to him, while Bingham checks on Jonathan. She kneels down with her gun still held in her hand—the gun she just shot him with. Bishop still can’t believe she would do something like that.

  “I apologize, Mr. Bishop,” she offers. “I’m sure you understand the importance of subduing him?”

  Bishop nods through gritted teeth. Sweat pours off of him, as he holds his upper thigh in a death grip. The leg is bleeding, but not badly considering he has just been shot.

  Sayers inspects her handiwork with some small measure of pride, much to Bishop’s chagrin. “Exactly what I hoped for,” she says. “The bullet passed cleanly through the muscle. It hurts, no doubt, but there should be no permanent damage. We’ll get you to the infirmary and have that stitched up in no time.”

  Bishop lays his head back onto the carpet, still clutching at his leg with fingers that refuse to let go of the aching appendage. The boy is unconscious, he realizes, looking over his shoulder to where Jonathan rests against the wall. Bishop sighs, considering all that has happened. He is quite certain that he never signed on for any of this.

  Metamorphosis

  A steady breeze filters through the tunnel where Hu Takashi and so many others of his kind sleep. The air is chill here in the dark—at least until one draws near to the many bodies that carpet the concrete and gravel. They lay huddled together. Their combined body heat would stifle any normal person who comes near. The air around them is like a furnace.

  If trains were to pass through this place, Hu Takashi and his kind would not stir. They lie comatose, unaware of their surroundings, unaware of the changes taking place within their own bodies. They are vulnerable now, but they will not be for long.

  Unfortunately, for those who are still completely human, they do not know of this metamorphosis. Were they aware, they might hunt the creatures while they lie helplessly in repose. Still, there are the younger creatures—those newly transformed by the rage virus now spreading through multiple nations and peoples. The young ones still move with vigor and speed, hunting anything living in their path, consuming or infecting all whom they encounter.

  Soon, these young—after they have produced more after their kind—will begin to slow as Hu Takashi did. They will lose some of their vigor. They will infect less and consume more. They will wind down like toy soldiers. They will long to feed, even as their bodies drive them to their rest in a dark place with others driven as they are. Just like Hu Takashi, sleep will overtake them and they will change, becoming something the world has not yet seen.

  Clearing the Air

  Dusk is falling upon the Battersea Power Station, and zombies have come to investigate the fire and smoke issuing from its fractured structure. A great gray plume ascends steadily still from the smoldering wreckage of the Mi26 Russian helicopter smashed to pieces inside. The infected pay the smoky atmosphere no mind, wondering through the collapsed ruin in search of the sources of much moaning of those wounded in the calamity of the crash nearly two hours earlier.

  Those among the debris of the building, who blindly cry out for some assistance, often making their pleas in Russian, have no awareness of the monsters lurking among the foggy murk all too willing to come to their aid. As the wounded are discovered—sometimes half buried in stone and wood and aluminum framing—they cry out after a different manner. Rather than discovery, they desire nothing more than to be left alone, as ravenous plague zombies descend upon them, tearing the crash victims from the rubble one piece at a time.

  Holly watches at an open window high up in one of the completed flats not far away. The screams echo up to her from the ravaged power station, as darkness and hopelessness covers London once again. Behind her, Vladimir Nesky sits upon a sofa that is still in pristine condition. Whoever owned the flat had paid dearly for it. The Battersea Development was marketed to those wealthy enough to afford accommodations in London’s newest upscale community.

  “Close the window,” Nesky says, sounding weary.

  “How can you just sit there, knowing they are dying, knowing those things are ripping them apart?” Holly says accusingly.

  “Those men ar
e my countrymen,” he says coldly, “and there is nothing you or I can do for them. We could not remain; not with the infected beginning to comb through the ruins. You know that very well, so don’t bother feeling guilty about it.”

  “Perhaps, you should feel guilty about deceiving us,” Garth says. He sits in a chair by the door, having his katana ready should something attempt to gain access to the flat. “You lied to us.”

  He did not address Holly specifically, nor is he looking at either of them now. However, Holly can hear the disappointment in his voice—his disappointment with her. She feels that she owes the young man an explanation—especially after all they’ve been through together recently—but she is unsure what she can say that would make any difference. She did lie. She is a traitor to England and a spy for the Russian government. There is little she can do to change that now.

  “I’m sorry,” Holly says to Garth, looking at him.

  His eyes meet hers in the dim light provided by a single lighting fixture suspended from the living room ceiling. She can see anger in his eyes, but also the pain of betrayal. She has hurt him—something she never meant to happen.

  “Show a little self-respect Agent Tavers,” Nesky says. “You did your job. Surely, the boy isn’t so naïve as to think the world is all sunshine and daisies.”

  Holly glares at him.

  “I don’t think such things,” Garth says. He looks at Holly. “I was just taken by surprise. I thought I knew you better; what sort of person you are.”

  “I am the same person,” she says, “but Vladimir is correct. This is my job.”

  “Even now, when the world is falling apart?” Garth asks.

  Nesky laughs. “You might as well get over your feelings of betrayal. We both know you will eventually. She is a pretty woman, and you probably like her more than you let on, so drop your wounded pride. We have more important matters to attend to.”

  They both glare at him now—Holly more than Garth.