Twice Bitten, Twice Die (The Blood of the Infected Book 3)

by Antony Stanton

  “Not only do we now have the instruction manual from the creator of the Dem-buster himself, but we also have two of the prominent scientists involved with its manufacture. I’d say we couldn’t really be in a better position to make good on that reason to risk our lives. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be sad for our losses, of course we should. But let’s not allow it hamper our work. We still have a long way to go. Let’s keep our eyes on the prize and make it a reality, if only for those that we have lost. Let’s dedicate the survival of humanity to them.”

  Lewis’s speech actually had an encouraging and galvanising effect. Nobody was exactly happy at the moment but there was a definite sense of purpose and the rest of the day was spent with everybody trying to get things as organised as possible. The soldiers sealed all exits in the eastern section of their building beyond the animal area that had previously been unexplored. When Wood had cleared it he had obviously had a busy night as there were various fresh corpses. These were moved into a room near the Incarcerated, ready to be used as food. Hutchison and Mayoh spent a couple of hours turning several of the rat cages into fairly passable traps. Bennett led the doctors through his animal section, looking for useful information and materials. As they went he muttered to himself and exclaimed in dismay at the signs of all his efforts gone to ruin. Despite his distress, he found a lot of the notes that he had made leading up to the state of emergency and even some of his work in the days afterwards, when they were still desperately searching for a way to reverse matters.

  Sleeping arrangements were improved upon, especially as they now had access to more of the rooms that had been used in happier times to accommodate patients of GVF Laboratories. Whilst far from a feeling of home, RAF GVF started to acquire an air of security and permanence. Despite the depression surrounding the latest loss, nobody could help but be uplifted by the moving scenes of Julia and Isabelle. Julia was not yet able to get out of bed but she clasped her daughter to her with all her strength, rocking slowly back and forth with her eyes squeezed firmly shut. Josh now seemed to cling more keenly to Williams and insisted on holding her hand at all times. He smiled when he saw Isabelle with her mother but clouds slipped readily across his face.

  “Will I see my mummy or daddy soon?” he asked Williams with a look of such desperation that she could actually feel pain wrenching in her chest and had to gasp for breath.

  “I don’t know pet,” she said gently, going down on her haunches and throwing her arms around him. “I don’t think so.” The hug he returned was so tight it made her wince through her tears. Emotions of all kinds were running high.

  That evening Lewis, Straddling and the doctors gathered in the medical room. Bennett chatted away excitedly to Dr Rhind, who was still finding it difficult to speak for very long, whilst the others listened avidly. Rhind was awake most of the time now and looked a lot healthier. The two had various ideas between them as to the best way to proceed with finding a cure, and clearly they absolutely had to get Rhind fit enough to participate fully as soon as possible. Only now did Singleton realise just how foolish she had been when she had actually believed they could use Boxall’s instruction manual by themselves to concoct an antidote. They would not have had the first clue where to even start. Without these two scientists they would have failed dismally. Now though she could feel her little flames of hope rekindling.

  “How did you survive?” Bennett asked again.

  “It was George Boxall. Jason’s brother.” Rhind swallowed some water and blinked hard. “He took it upon himself to become my personal bodyguard. I think he had some kind of military background and training in self-defence, and he seemed to know what to do. He came and found us just after I saw Jason for the last time. I didn’t really appreciate how bad things were, nor how bad they were about to become, but he pretty much forced me to hide in a room with Helen. Then things started to get crazy out there. He came back to us a few times, with food and water, but then we didn’t see him again.

  “We heard the sounds of gunfire maybe a week ago and realised there was the chance of salvation. We left our hiding place but couldn’t escape. Helen was weak and there were still too many of the sick everywhere and we were forced back into hiding. We had managed to break a hole in the drain pipe that ran just outside our window and we got some water every time it rained, but we ran out of food. We had to go out and search for some, and that was when Helen was bitten. I tried to defend her but there was nothing I could do, so we hid again in a different room, the one that you found us in.

  “When she started to become ill we agreed I should tie her to the chair and lock her away. Then she started to scream and the sounds must have attracted some sick people as they were trying to break in when you saved us.”

  Lewis could see the pain etched deeply all over the man’s face. “Are there many more survivors in that secondary building?” he asked.

  “I… I’m not sure now. I don’t know of any,” Rhind rasped, “but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”

  “It’s incredible luck then that three of the survivors we’ve found are a child with a laptop containing vital information and two of the main people responsible for the drug’s creation,” Lewis breathed. “We couldn’t have been more fortunate.”

  “It’s not really a coincidence,” Bennett shook his head sadly. “George Boxall helped me to hide as well. As Mike just said, he had a military background. I think he realised faster than most that things were turning nasty. He said something about Jason giving him instructions to help us to stay alive and he probably gave his life doing just that.”

  Singleton had been trying to contain herself but could resist no longer. “So this George has done us all a great service. Let’s not waste it,” she said quickly. “Do you think you can do anything with the instruction manual that Dr Boxall wrote?”

  “By myself, maybe, maybe not,” Bennett said. “But with Mike here…” he paused and looked at his colleague.

  Dr Rhind shrugged. “I don’t really know yet. I haven’t had much time to look at it closely, but if what you say is true then it’s just possible.”

  Straddling was frowning. “What about the actual logistics of making this bloody antidote? We have no electricity here. The machines in that secondary lab were pretty substantial and we certainly can’t get them working. I assume they were used in the Dem-buster’s manufacture? It’s all very well knowing what to do, but if we can’t actually make the damn thing then that knowledge is as good as useless.”

  “You’re quite right.” Rhind replied evenly. “We can’t use those machines, but man has not always had access to such technology. The first vaccine ever created was for smallpox in the eighteenth century. Do you think they had such sophisticated techniques then? No, we won’t be able to use those machines, but we’ll have petri dishes, battery operated microscopes and Bunsen burners with gas bottles. It’ll be back to basics. It obviously won’t be as pure or rigorously controlled as the pharmaceutical industry of today, or rather of yesterday, but it will be possible.”

  “There’s something else we should tell you,” Lewis said hesitantly, almost unwilling to broach the subject. “We haven’t only been under siege from the infected.”

  “Oh?” said Bennett. He could already guess from the look on Lewis’s face that he was not going to like what he was about to be told. Something about Lewis’s demeanour caused him to feel a sense of alarm.

  “We’ve had a couple of incidents with… with what I can only describe as vampires.” He continued to relate their encounters. He tried to keep it factual but it was not easy to avoid sounding hysterical. It gave Lewis goose bumps just talking about it. Neither of the two scientists spoke throughout the account. They listened closely, their expressions remaining impassive so Lewis could not judge their reaction, but he expected a withering argument from both men based on fact and science. When he finished there was silence as the incredible events were digested.

  “Wow!” Dr Rhind finally said, scratchin
g his head. “That’s a lot to take in, and a lot to try and accept. If you had told me that a month ago I would have scoffed at you. It really is an incredible story. But now, well, who knows what’s possible anymore. If Mother Nature can go so utterly berserk as to create an illness that makes humans appear to be zombies, then hell, why not the same for vampires I guess?”

  “Your story is obviously extremely hard to accept,” Bennett added, “but then since you all seem to corroborate it, and there is no reason for you to be lying, I think we have to try and believe that there is at least some kind of truth to this fantastical tale. Ever since man started experimenting and exploring the boundaries of the natural order of life there has pretty much been an unending battle of science against nature; viruses adapting to antibiotics and gaining resistance; genetically modified foods causing new allergies and illnesses; previously unheard of strains of disease passing from animals to humans and so on. That ‘tinkering’ has now come back to haunt us all in this example of science gone mad and nature responding violently. We’re now suffering that backlash with the sick people out there. If what you say is true, at least in part, then perhaps a long time ago Mother Nature had a similar reaction against something and produced these vampires.”

  “You mean like an allergic reaction from the environment against us?” Dr Handley asked.

  “Perhaps,” Bennett replied solemnly. “It’s impossible to say. Or maybe it really is something else completely, something a lot ‘darker’ and more satanic, more cursed, that we have absolutely no scientific knowledge of, who knows. My attitude towards science has been somewhat challenged of late, to say the least.” In the growing darkness the conversation left them all feeling entirely disturbed.

  Just then Sergeant Harper Hutchison bustled in proudly holding a cage. Inside were several rats of varying sizes, squirming and clawing at the bars.

  “Voila!” he announced proudly.

  “Those odds I mentioned to you before,” Bennett said to Singleton with a twirl of his moustache, “I think they just decreased a little more.”

  Before they could relax too much there was still one unpleasant and dangerous task to be completed. They would need unhindered access to the secondary laboratories because a lot of the necessary equipment and chemicals were there. This would not only require clearing the building itself, but also totally securing the entire complex. They would have to be able to walk outside from one building to the next and this would be a lot easier if there was no risk of attack every time.

  As the soldiers retired to bed, Corporal Newman was left on first watch with the patients. Lewis wearily sank down onto his makeshift mattress in the dining area, holding his head in his hands. Singleton watched him for a moment in the dim light of a solitary candle, then slowly crossed the room to him. As he looked up at her she reached down and took his hand.

  “What is it?” he asked quietly.

  “Come,” she said and led him to a room she had made up for herself to sleep in, guiding him in and closing the door behind them.

  “But I should be out there,” he protested gently although he did not have the energy to resist too much. “Someone might need help.”

  “Someone does,” she said. “I do,” although what she really meant was ‘you do.’

  His protestations died and he sank onto her rudimentary bed as she knelt beside him.

  “I don’t know if I can keep on going,” he whispered.

  “Yes you will,” she replied softly, “because you have no other choice. And because we all need you.”

  He started to say something else but she kissed him lightly on the lips, silencing him. She drew him down onto the bed and wrapped her arms about him. His body was rigid at first, tense from all the pressures he had been under, and he moved carefully to avoid aggravating his injuries. The ache in his ribs was not quite so great, now that he was taking strong pain killers, and slowly she felt him relaxing. She kissed him again and snuffed out the candle. He took a deep breath and gradually the rising of his chest slowed and became regular as he finally slipped into unconsciousness. She lay watching him for a while, watching his handsome and weary face crease and frown as demons plagued his dreams, before she too drifted off and slept, and comforted him there as well.

  When Lewis awoke he was alone. All was quiet outside. He rubbed his ribs and struggled to his feet, feeling dazed. He had not heard Singleton leave. When he made his way into the dining area he saw that it was later in the morning than he had anticipated. He had intended to get up early and start preparing for the day’s mission but had overslept. Almost everybody was there already but clearly they were moving as silently as possible so as not to disturb him. Many looked nervously in his direction as he emerged.

  Singleton greeted him with a smile and a cup of tea.

  “You should have woken me up,” he murmured.

  “Absolutely not,” she said sternly. “You needed your sleep, doctor’s orders.”

  Straddling bustled up to him as Singleton moved away.

  “I’m sorry I overslept Sergeant…” he started to apologise but Straddling cut him short.

  “Not to worry sir. The lads are all ready, whenever you are. I’ve selected the team to come with us today, I hope you approve. Take your time, I’ll get everybody prepped and we’ll go when you’ve had a bite to eat, no rush.”

  He hurried away before Lewis had time to reply. Lewis glanced over at Singleton and saw she had been watching out of the corner of her eye. She tried to quash a smile as she turned away.

  Lewis noticed Dr Rhind staggering out of the medical room. He held onto the door frame for support and looked frail and ill. Singleton was on him in a flash.

  “What on earth are you doing out of bed?” she asked brusquely.

  “I’ve got work to do,” he said.

  “No you don’t, you need to rest. You have got to recover or you could very well make yourself much worse.”

  “My wife isn’t going to recover unless I start to work on this antidote,” he replied stubbornly. “I have no time to waste, else Helen will be lost to me. Now stop arguing and help me to a table. I’ll take a little sugar in my coffee but no milk. Thank you!”

  Singleton was speechless having been put firmly in her place, but she did as she was told. This time it was Lewis’s turn to hide a smile.

  The soldiers were all assembled and standing quietly, waiting for his command. Little by little their manpower was being depleted. Every time they left their home it meant taking fewer men or leaving fewer behind to guard it. Corporal Kevin Berthon would drive again but he would remain in the Bedford by himself this time. With Lewis and Straddling would go Bannister, Hutchison, Matthews, Pellegrini, Gray, Mayoh and Allen. There was no rousing speech from Lewis this time, no words of encouragement. They all knew what they had to do by now. They just wanted to get on with it.

  The Bedford stopped outside the secondary laboratory with the rear facing the building, as before. The tailgate was raised to their waist height giving them protection from anyone down on the ground; as before. This time however there was no Wood to provide the covering fire. Lewis steadied himself for a moment, then banged on the side of the lorry and Berthon started to blast the vehicle’s horn. As before. Matthews shouted out on the megaphone and the rest of them waited. Soon enough there were the distant screams of the insane as they reacted to the noise. Like drawing poison from a wound, Lewis thought. Four of them came from different exits but all racing with the same desperate intensity towards the lorry and their doom. Lewis had briefed the soldiers to wait before shooting, so that they did not miss and waste ammunition. The diseased were almost at the lorry before the shooting started. It was over in a moment. Four gunshots rang out. Four fresh corpses added to the bloodshed and the carnage. Four more bodies to feed to the Incarcerated.

  The silence afterwards lasted a minute. No more came and eventually Lewis looked at his troops.

  “Okay,” was all he said, and Straddling ordered Allen and
Gray to lower the tailgate. Feeling numb and almost immunised to all the killing, Lewis climbed down and silently led his team inside.

  Singleton continued to fret about Dr Rhind, who continued to insist upon working. Bennett showed him the laptop and he looked through Dr Boxall’s work with growing excitement.

  “Yes, yes,” he kept on muttering to himself. “Brilliant, Jason my boy. Clearly I didn’t pay you half enough.”

  By the time he had finished, Singleton had stopped fussing around him and was sitting quietly beside Bennett, impatient and desperate to hear what he had to say.

  Rhind looked up, realising he had a captive audience and relishing the moment. He stretched and yawned.

  “Well?” Singleton asked.

  “How about a coffee?” he replied.

  “You’re not getting anything until you answer,” she said only half-jokingly.

  “Oh all right then,” Rhind capitulated. “Yes, well it does look quite good I must admit. Even, really rather brilliant.”

  Singleton squealed and jumped up, hugging Handley, but Rhind held up his shaking hands.

  “Hold on there, I’m not going to go out on a limb and actually say that we can make an antidote. But…” and even he was smiling by this time, “…but it does indeed look promising. Dear Jason may have just redeemed himself and all of us, to some extent at least. Now, how about that coffee?”

  By the afternoon they had managed to achieve quite a lot. Scientific equipment had been assembled in one of the offices just along from the canteen so that Rhind could work without having to traipse all the way down to the lower level where most of the small laboratories attached to offices were located. He was still very weak and could only function for a short period before Singleton had her way and insisted that he rest, but they seemed to work out some kind of mutual understanding and gave each other the respect their professions deserved. With the soldiers absent the place had an almost serene air to it, like a library. Conversations were hushed and laughter minimal. Julia also seemed to be responding well to the medical attention and was showing vast progresses. The only one who was still not improving was Vida.