The Pestilence Collection [Books 1-3]
Page 1
The Pestilence
The Oncoming Storm
By Rob Cockerill
Copyright © Rob Cockerill 2017
All rights reserved
All characters, names and locations are intended to be fictional.
Foreword: The Prequel
When you've written the original and then the sequel, and so many zombie apocalypse stories seem to give no reason for the outbreak's cause, it's tempting to go there with the prequel and bookend the whole thing. It's a nice package to nail that prequel; it's complete.
So that's what I attempted to do here. I always had the idea in my mind for where my zombie apocalypse originated from, so it was simple a case of working in that idea and developing the plot. While the exact origin may be open to interpretation, I want to at least provide some credible causes.
But I've also kept it brief. I want the Pestilence to be about the main book, not the prequel. My hope for the Pestilence was always to provide a gritty, down-to-earth account of what an apocalyptic world might look like, warts and all. I wanted it to be dark, dreary and detailed. What I hope I can do here, is give a little explanation of how it might have come to that and, ultimately, complete the trilogy.
For Jackie
At long last, one of my novels dedicated solely to you!
Without you, who knows whether I would even be here and writing books today. Thank you for being my one, and for understanding that writing is not just a passion for me, it's what I do.
I promise I’ll try not to write any more books for a while…
Table of Contents
Foreword
The Pestilence: The Oncoming Storm
Chapter 1. A storm brews
Chapter 2. The countdown
Chapter 3. Breakthrough
Chapter 4. All for a good cause
Chapter 5. Taking the strain
Chapter 6. A study too far
Chapter 7. On the brink
Chapter 8. The oncoming storm
Chapter 9. Eye of the storm
Foreword
Prologue
The Diary of the Trapped
Epilogue
Foreword
The Diary of the Trapped: Prim’s Journey
Epilogue
The Pestilence:
The Oncoming Storm
21st June 2015
Dear diary, dear Evelyn.
We’re midway through the year and I have chosen now as the moment to start a journal. It’s hardly inspiring timing, I appreciate, but it is Father’s Day and my guilt at being a largely absent father has been weighing heavy on me all day. I therefore elected to begin this diary, in the hope that one day it will come into your possession and you will have a greater understanding of the all-encompassing nature of this career that has so often created such a chasm between us.
It is not through emotion that I have a diminished role in your life, and that of your family, these days – it is by the mandate of my employment.
At times I wonder what this role in life is really all about. The satisfaction of a 'Senior Genetics & Biochemicals Research Officer' – whatever that really means – does not match the executive level pay grade that it provides. It's a ghastly title for an often ghastly job. Checking in on the progress of Sample 8JG today, a Sunday, was a reminder of the sometimes vile work that we are paid so well to undertake seven days a week here in this clinical, sterile laboratory in the Cotswolds. Though classified even to the humble scriptures of this journeyman of a scientist, it is suffice to say that that one sample has the potential to be a nerve gas so potently effective it is the weaponry to end all wars. And yet, it’s unlikely to ever actually see the light of day. Government will likely use it as leverage to neuter a war-in-the-making. Our hard work here will be nothing more than a tool in the facilitation of an exercise in control.
It's not what I set out to achieve as a scientist some 34 years ago, when my head was full of dreams of noble achievements and Nobel awards. Should this journal ever fall into your hands one day, my darling daughter Evelyn, then please take note of my once aspirations and my good intentions. I did not imagine recruitment by Government appointment would transpire in such ungodly products of employment.
And yet there are moments when I do believe again in what we are doing here in this state-of-the-art bunker. Sample 34C is one such example. I'm genuinely excited, truly enthusiastic, for this project that I am working on with Dr. Carla Lane at present. It has the potential to make such tremendous, pivotal strides forward in mankind’s understanding – and maintenance – of the human body. In fact, it is perhaps the first time since your dear mother passed that I have felt invigorated by my work again. It has been such a long, arduous time, a torturous half-decade without her in our lives, that I had almost forgotten what it was to be content, to be excited.
When I took the offer to move here, so soon after our lives had changed irrevocably, I was a broken man, Evelyn. You probably knew that, I’m sure you did. I was still deep in grieving and having fought to keep some semblance of myself together for you during your darkest hours, I needed to take that offer. I needed to throw myself into my research.
It had been six months. Six long months. You had seemingly turned a corner, and together with Richard I felt you had everything in place to move forward. By that juncture, I felt I could only bring you back down, which was something I vowed to myself that I would not allow to happen. So I accepted this new position and devoted my life to the job, for the foreseeable future at least. I know we have discussed this before, but I am not convinced you truly understand. Committing my reasoning to ink is the only solution I can summon.
Five years later and I aim to write regularly here to package my thoughts, feelings, frustrations and aspirations in one journal for you to understand one day in time. It is my very human, very inward means of expressing myself; you know how socially, emotionally awkward I can be in certain situations. I hope this will one day mean as much to you as it does to me now. I will always be proud to be your father, Evelyn.
25th June 2015
Well, diary, I return. Just four days have passed since I began this record, and I think that is a good level of commitment from me considering I seem to spend so very many hours of each day staring intently at samples, cultures and screens as I log test results.
I have been doing exactly that – tirelessly chronicling the minutiae of white blood cells in three critical tissue samples that we are studying at present. These three humble samples could go on to have far more superior, significant impacts on society and their importance cannot be understated.
Given the enormity of the task, I hope you can forgive me some day for not being the kind of father that I had always aspired to be. I had certainly made a reasonable effort at it for the first 20+ years of your life; I only really lost my way in the last half-decade. But I have some gusto back now, I feel immensely positive about the work we are doing here at the moment and I truly hope that one day you will be able to say, “My father was instrumental in that modern miracle of science.” Let’s hope so, Evelyn.
I would dearly love to write more, my darling, but these eyes really are tired from all of today’s scrutiny and I need to go and rest them on a pillow for a short while. Assuming all is well, I will in all probability write again in just a few days. All my love, father.
Chapter 1. A storm brews
14th July 2015.
6:58pm
“A wave of heavy wind and rain is coming in across Wales and the Southwest of England, according to weather reports, a band of miserable weather that appears set to continue throughout the rest of the week.” It was an understated forecast from the local
news and weather anchor. The UK had just endured one of its wettest and coldest winters in almost a century or, as so many newspaper headlines so predictably described since records began, and it was already shaping up to be one of the wettest July’s on record too.
Swirling winds were coursing through the foothills of the soaked and sodden Cotswolds, as the pouring rain continued to lash the UK’s Southwest. Regional TV reports were literally awash with news of broken riverbanks, torrents of rainwater sweeping through towns and villages, and sandbags stacked up in front of doors and driveways. It may have been the height of the summer months, but it felt like winter had set in already. What was usually regarded as an area of outstanding beauty in the region had been transformed into the bleakest of postcard pictures, now photographed as cold, wet and decidedly miserable. The hills were alive, but with a raging storm brewing.
At almost 100 miles in length and 25 miles wide, the knolls were a hotspot for ramblers and campers that would flock to the area to tackle the notorious Cleeve Hill, the highest point both of the Cotswolds range and the county of Gloucestershire itself. The summer months and rolling hillside panoramas only inspired them further. Little did these enthusiasts realise, Cleeve Hill was also home to a biotechnology testing laboratory hidden deep at its core. A remnant of Europe’s Cold War past and long since de-commissioned, the laboratory was now a pharmaceutical R&D facility home to test tubes, cell cultures, the very latest in cryobiological equipment, and state-funded studies into microbials.
Officially, in eyes-only documents circulated to a mere handful of civil servants within the government offices of Whitehall, the facility was tasked with the very highest level of research into advanced pharmaceuticals and medical science. Unofficially, it was home to two classified and yet very different projects: the development of serums to suspected microorganisms of terrorist origin; and research into that apparently most elusive of panacea, the cure for the common cold. So while the rest of the county sought refuge from the storm-like conditions outside, a small cluster of dedicated scientists lived on-site at the laboratory, developing and testing sample after sample, oblivious and impervious to the deluge outside.
Pristine white surfaces confirmed the clinical, sterile nature of the laboratory, while the state-of-the-art equipment that adorned the facility demonstrated its advanced capabilities. Row after row of mass spectrometers, gas chromatographs and glistening new microscopes were lined up along the long workstations, with hundreds of test tubes, Petri dishes and tissue samples carefully organised throughout the laboratory, and the backlit LCD screens of countless laptops and computer terminals brightly illuminated with lines of code and data. Two huge, cryogenic freezers sat in the corner of the test facility, loaded with thousands of frozen embryos, blood bags and classified specimens. Every time a freezer was raided for more samples, a whispy white cloud of vapour would emerge and immediately rouse the air conditioning system back into life to correct the miniscule dip in room temperature. The room was so clinical it was practically cold. Even the white chemical suits that hung by the door were in immaculate condition.
Professor Christopher Smith was among a score of carefully selected scientists esteemed enough to be enlisted to the facility. He had worked in medical science all of his life and now had the time and lack of other commitments to devote himself to the cause and truly make it his life’s work. He did so with his trusted colleague Dr. Carla Johnson by his side, at 44 years of age a bio-scientist 10 years his junior but whose work, intellect and humour he maintained the utmost respect for. They had a strong rapport and, crucially, shared the same moral compass when it came to medical science and what one might consider to be the true ‘greater good’ in research projects. Neither was one to be bullied into ‘eyes-only’ pharma projects that masqueraded as noble causes, but actually only served to line the pockets of multinational corporations and their Boards of Directors. Rarely did they find themselves in disagreement and that was an essential pre-requisite for work that demanded long and often intense 10-12 hour shifts.
As the summer storm began to intensify above ground, Professor Smith completed his mandatory paperwork below it, authoring it with signature, date and time, and logging it in the system. He immediately began to unzip his chemical suit as he moved toward the door and pondered what the evening had in store. He had been so involved in this particular research paper that his shift had already extended 34 minutes past its scheduled 7:00pm finish and a hearty TV dinner was beckoning. The bunker was high-tech in almost every respect, but it had relatively scant leisure facilities for a man of Professor Smith’s age. The communal canteen or television room could be tedious at times; despite all being very harmonious and definitely on the same intellectual playing field, spending every waking moment between colleagues could be stifling. It was much the same in the games rooms, where snooker or decks of cards could become repetitive, while the library and drawing room could almost be considered work-from-work. Would you really want to read all about different doctorates and medical journals when you’ve spent all day chronicling your own? And the gym, which was incredibly well stocked and supported, was more accustomed to the younger researcher in his prime, Professor Smith believed – though he was partial to pounding the miles in on the treadmill once or twice a week. All of which more often than not left the more discerning research fellows such as Smith and Johnson to unwind with a glass of red (or three) in the bar or slink off to one’s room and seek solace in the TV or the bath. Professor Smith secretly loved nothing more than grabbing a healthy-but-hearty meal from the canteen, taking it back to his room and sinking into a TV box set with a glass of red of an evening. It allowed him to process his thoughts in peace, while enabling just enough escapism to switch off from work and rest the soul. He might occasionally head back out to the bar to meet Carla and chew the fat over the day’s events beyond the bunker.
This evening, he had no idea what might lay in store. Another day, another dollar, he thought as he swiped his card through the clocking machine and proceeded to punch a four-digit code into the keypad on the wall. As the automated locking system activated and released the heavy steel door before him, one of the laboratory’s computer terminals gave a momentary beep in the background. Probably just another software update or bloody error message. I’ll come back after dinner and sort it out. Without even a cursory glance, a tired Professor Smith passed through the door and the digital locks whirred as they sealed the room again.
Chapter 2. The countdown
In the corner of the laboratory, among the many brightly lit screens, Professor Smith’s computer sat far from idle as it began a five-minute countdown to an update operation. A pop-up message asked:
Mainframe update in progress.
New project algorithm received.
Confirm download?
Yes / No
System download will begin in 4 minutes 39 seconds.
Postpone download and update later?
Update now / Postpone download
The professor’s folly in ignoring that beep meant that the message would go unanswered. From 7:00-8:00pm was the lab’s so-called graveyard slot; at 6:58pm the facility’s main computer terminal automatically downloaded updates from the mainframe and network operations began on the servers, which temporarily locked all terminals until 7:58pm and provided a rare break in the team’s shifts. But with the professor’s system still in use as he completed his research paper, network updates were postponed until he logged off. Now, with no shifts scheduled to reconvene until 8:00pm, no-one would be in the lab to respond to this additional download request.
The timer continued to run down until the screen froze and the download automatically commenced. Less than an hour later and it was done. Systems were updated and new data had been received on the facility’s huge servers. All terminals were online and available for use again. No error messages, no on-screen notes or memos, seemingly no changes at all. Business as usual, it seemed, for the next shift of scientists
that were now able to belatedly log-on to their systems and set to work.
And so, the labs began to whir into action. Terminals were logged into, passwords were entered and classified project screens began to load up in their inimitably gradual way. Vacuum pumps and leak detectors were online; nitrogen generators booted up; mass spectrometers and gas chromatographs were routinely purged, checked and recalibrated. As scientists reset their microscopes and unsheathed shiny new pipettes from their packaging ready for use, and moved toward the environmental chambers and ultra low temperature freezers to select their latest samples for testing, automated systems ran diagnostics on the liquid nitrogen dewars and liquid helium cryostats that powered them.
In a demonstration of the state-of-the-art in digitisation and automation, high pressure cylinders were pressure-checked and an automated mini quality-control laboratory integrated into each research lab continually checked calibration gases and mixtures for purity, weight and volume. The slightest gas leak could flood the closed laboratories if undetected, displacing the oxygen and suffocating staff without warning, emphasising the importance of the facility’s safety systems and the electrochemical detectors that continually monitored oxygen levels at floor and ceiling. It meant the labs resembled a rainbow of colour-coded LED’s on monitors, continually checking systems and delivery equipment, none more so than when scientists logged into their terminals again to boot up projects and seal their rooms for testing.
Professor Smith duly logged into his primary project, Research Paper 8400C, for another few hours, though he would dearly love to have been giving more time to Sample 34C and the urgent quest to develop new antibiotics. Professor Smith, like so many of his peers within The Bunker, had a particular strength of feeling about antibacterials beyond that of the mass public hysteria that was inevitably building following a series of irresponsible front page headlines. He had studied their introduction and subsequent development – and proliferation – in his thesis and during his formative years in medical science. Far more recently, he had seen first-hand how their efficacy had deteriorated.