Necropolis (Necropolis Trilogy Book 3)

by Sean Deville

  His arm ached, his head throbbed, and every joint within him screamed with an almost-forgotten arthritis. He was it, the head of the British armed forces, effectively in charge of what was still one the world’s most powerful fighting forces. Many of the senior military and government figures hadn’t made it out of the UK, despite the success of Operation Noah. He was basically it, and it was up to him to deploy what was left of the military. And as formidable as that force still was, it would be quickly spent without resupply, refuelling, runways, and ports. Marston knew he had no choice. So today, he would meet with General Bradstone and agree the peaceful handover of the British territories that the Americans had so politely requested. But he would name his price, that the remaining government and military personnel who had escaped before the quarantine be given American citizenship, and that those still defending have the logistical support they needed to at least have a chance at survival. Marston imagined it was a small price to pay for the Americans. Promises would be made, but those promises would be broken. Not through an act of dishonour, but due to circumstance. Within days, that promised logistical support would disappear in the chaos that would rapidly descend upon the world. And the safe haven of the Americas would be nothing more than a fool’s errand.

  09.27AM GMT, 18th September 2015. USAG Baumholder, Germany

  Those stationed there called it “The Rock.” With over ten thousand military personnel as well as military families, it was one of the largest US Garrisons in Germany, a remnant of the Cold War required to fight a battle that would never happen. And the colonel commanding sat at his desk looking at the order that had come directly from the joint chiefs of staff. Which meant it came from the commander in chief, which meant he had no choice but to follow it. Because that was what colonels did if they wanted to move up the ranks. Part of him couldn’t believe what he was reading, but another part of him, deep down inside, was relieved that perhaps someone high up the chain of command knew their arse from their elbow. As much as he didn’t like the order, it made perfect sense to him.

  His instructions were clear. He was to systematically and methodically redeploy all US personnel back to the United States, starting with active front line military personnel. They would be the first to leave, followed by the administration and supply sections. The families of military personnel could either make their own way back to the USA, or wait for the government to find the time and the means to ship them home. And in fifteen minutes, he had to tell the people, many of whom had made this their home, that they were all leaving.

  It was a monumental task. The equipment alone would require astounding logistics to get back to the States. But he was up to the task. The colonel had seen what had happened in the UK, had seen how useless the military had been to stop the infection. If the virus reached the mainland, the men and women under his command would just fall below the weight of the infected wave that would sweep from the west. France, Belgium, Germany, they would all fall.

  Nobody seemed to believe the quarantine would hold, not indefinitely. Sooner or later, an infected individual would wash ashore on a French beach, and the horror witnessed in London would be unleashed upon the mainland. So they would leave, quietly at first, to little fanfare, a similar situation being played out across US military bases throughout Europe. But soon, word would spread and the outrage at the abandonment would start. NATO had already lost the UK, its remaining forces a sad reflection on the power it once wielded. And whilst the USA would remain at the head of the North Atlantic Treaty, the days of her stationing troops in Europe was, at least for the time being, suspended.

  The colonel looked out of his office window at the base he had commanded for three years. Despite the risk that this most likely meant a hiatus in his military career, it would be good to get back on American soil. The last two nights he had experienced nightmares about the infected, in which his men fell before their masses, turning and wielding their pathogen infested flesh against their fellow soldiers. He did not want to be here when that terror occurred. But he would also be the last to leave, the colonel had already decided that, against the advice of his superiors. They didn’t press the issue, because most of them understood. When you were a leader of men, your own wellbeing often came second place. Like so many before him, he was a true leader. And that meant his was the first foot on the battle field, and the last off. Why should this be any different?

  09.31AM, 18th September 2015. The English Channel

  Alexei hadn’t slept, and probably wouldn’t sleep tonight either. This was not a hardship for him. When you lived on the merciless Moscow streets, sleep was often a luxury you couldn’t afford. As a boy, he had found a way to stay alive on the bare minimum the body could allow, the cold and the thugs and the rapists the biggest threat he faced. Some would have been broken by such privation, but not Alexei. It had made him strong, made him ruthless. And with that ruthlessness, he had learnt to kill. And that had made him useful to the gangs who held the power in the city.

  He was sat in the yacht’s wheelhouse, but despite the almost a dozen people down below, he felt alone and isolated. But then he had felt like that for most of his life, a life of adversity and struggle. All but one of his guests were strangers to him and as such he did not trust them. Trust was not something that came easily to Alexei, which was probably why he was still alive in a world filled with violence and betrayal. Even Snow, the man who had once saved his life, was almost an alien to him. They knew each other by experience, could speak and share a drink, but Snow was not a Russian, and as such he had no understanding of what it meant to be Russian, despite what the MI6 agent thought. To be Russian was more than just a passport, more than just the country you were born in; it was an ideology so strong that few could leave it behind or break from its grasp. So Alexei was alone in a world gone mad. Had it not always been thus? If only the old man had come with him, at least then he would have had someone to drink with, the only man Alexei had ever met who could match him shot for shot, beer for beer. He had truly trusted the old man, but the old man was by now, probably long dead.

  To his right, the English coastline loomed menacingly, and he kept it within sight, knowing that to stray too far into the channel might draw the attention of NATO forces again. In the early morning he had heard the squawk of the radio, the harassed voice accosting him, demanding he not breach quarantine. Nothing the Russian had said could placate the voice, and it was only the arrival of a somewhat inebriated Croft that had probably saved the situation. Croft had said the words that needed to be said to stop the missiles slamming into five million dollars’ worth of luxury. Then he had merely handed the radio mike back to Alexei, picked up the bottle he had briefly discarded, and disappeared back below decks without another word. Alexei had approved of the man’s decisive nature. His demeanour wouldn’t have gone amiss in Mother Russia.

  For the first time in a long while, the Russian felt nervous about his future. Before the infection he had feared little, death relatively meaningless to him because even with the wealth he had accumulated, life itself was a sombre, joyless affair. That’s why he had enjoyed the company of the old man, because his elder could laugh and enjoy life where Alexei felt those emotions lacking. They had been beaten from him in his youth. Staying one step ahead of your enemies, killing those who crossed you, and being aware of the fact that any failure in the eyes of his Pakhan was probably a death sentence also did not instil in one a sense of mirth. For as a Brigadier in the Russian Mafia, his role was unique. It was rare for such as him to have been given such power and such responsibility. But his skills at creating wealth had become almost legendary, almost as legendary as his loyalty to those who had rescued him from the cold winter streets of Moscow. No more, of course. Whilst it wasn’t his fault that the UK had collapsed in on itself, it was Alexei who had made the investments in England’s real estate sector which were now completely worthless. And in the Pakhan’s mind, he was responsible for that. Alexei was responsible for all of it.


  Which was why he was now helping Snow. His usual network had abandoned him and would undoubtedly turn against him should he appear amongst them. As strong and as formidable as Alexei was, even he couldn’t face off against the Russian mafia single-handed. He would never again be able to return to Mother Russia; this he had already accepted. But where did his future lie now? For over a decade, his life had been one of structure, control, and discipline, and now he found himself once again fighting to survive with nothing but his own wits. Well, his wits and a multimillion dollar yacht.

  Despite the people on the boat with him, he was alone once again, like when he had been a child, stealing from and murdering the unsuspecting to get the money he needed to survive. Alexei had vowed he would never go back to that kind of life. Ever a cautious man, he had resources he had spirited away. But the problem he faced was he was unable to access them now. There was nearly five million in a Cayman Island’s bank account that he had legitimately made from his own investments, enough to live off for the rest of his life in relative luxury. This was his money; he wasn’t foolish enough to steal from fellow Russians. But how could he get to it with the country quarantined by planes and ships and missiles? So Snow had been his best choice, and he would go where the tide took him, taking any opportunity when it presented itself. That was the Russian way after all.

  09.31AM GMT, 18th September 2015. Northern Manhattan, New York City, USA

  Joe had owned the café for nearly thirty years, and being a night owl, preferred to work the graveyard shift behind the counter. And in that time, he’d seen a lot of things. Witnessed riots and protests, seen the Twin Towers fall. He’d seen people shot outside his establishment, had been robbed three times, two of them attempted robberies thwarted once by himself and once by the plain clothes police officer who had been enjoying a black coffee and a plate of waffles. There hadn’t been many days when his café had been closed, but that had been one of them. My how that police officer had been enjoying his waffles, right up until the moment the crack addict had walked up to the counter and pulled a gun on Joe. Things had gone down fast, the officer pulling his gun from where he sat down the counter, the addict turning, firing a shot, the bullet ripping out his cocaine-infused heart a fraction of a second later. The officer shot the robber and took a bullet in the leg for the privilege. That had been a day of interviews, blue tape, paramedics, and flashing lights. But he’d never seen the likes of this before. He’d never seen the military block off the street and put up a road block. He’d never witnessed them erect fences with metal detectors for people to pass through.

  “It’s happening all across the city,” Fred said, holding his cup up for a refill, which Joe duly obliged. Fred was a regular at this time of the morning. A reformed alcoholic, he substituted his former vice with coffee. Lots of coffee. Joe knew this because they went to the same AA meetings together. “Apparently, the order comes right from the president himself.” Fred worked for the New York Works Department, so if anyone could be trusted with such tales, it was him. And over the years, he had indeed told some stories. From alligators in the sewers to the “known fact” that his sources in NYPD and NYFD both swore blind that on 9/11, building 7 had been brought down by controlled demolition. Fortunately, that story had tended to dry up as Fred’s alcoholic intake decreased. Nowadays, he rarely mentioned it.

  “This is fucking ridiculous. It’s going to cause chaos on Broadway.”

  “Good for you though. Think of all those federal and Army guys popping in for coffee.”

  “Yeah,” Joe agreed. “But still, this isn’t right. This is America for Christ sake.”

  “Word is they want to try and defend against any possible outbreak of that shit that happened in Britain,” Fred said happy to be the fount of knowledge.

  “That could never happen over here, could it? The president said so. I mean, I didn’t vote for the guy, but presidents don’t lie about shit like that. Do they?” Fred just shrugged and downed half his cup. If it had been whiskey in that cup, he would have done a lot more than shrug. But it wasn’t whiskey, and he was two years clean. And being sober, Fred had learned not to say things that rocked the boat. Best to keep your conspiracies to yourself.

  Outside, another lorry arrived, and the Army guys who were undoubtedly National Guard, began to unload the sandbags from the back of it. Why did soldiers always look so young?

  “I know the president said Martial Law, but shit.” No, Joe didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all. He also wasn’t aware that the taxi driver that had left fifteen minutes before had infected him with the virus. Buying a slice of cheesecake and a diet coke, the virus had gratefully travelled to another unwilling subject via the coins in the taxi driver’s hand. And Joe would be the source for hundreds more to be infected as the days progressed.

  09.46AM, 18th September 2015, London Underground, London

  She was moving now, the undead following her in their uncoordinated fashion. Occasionally, the secrets hidden by the blackness of the tunnels would be unveiled by the lights from the station platforms, and the words written there sporadically meaning something to her. The words she could not read, but their shapes seemed to have substance in her damaged mind. From this, she had a sense of where she was, but her brothers and sisters cared not. They merely followed her commands, and her orders were to spread out to the far reaches of the city, but wherever possible to head west. Something was coming, she could sense it, something gnawing at her, something troubling, and they needed to be away from here.

  The walking corpse of Rasheed stayed with her. He was now her protector, her guardian, a force strong enough to wipe out whole buildings and whole armies. And still, his power grew. Rachel didn’t know why she needed him, just knew he had to be there. To be ready for something she didn’t know quite what. There was still the voice in her head from the other up on the surface, but she had long stopped listening to his commands. Rasheed also now listened only to her, obeyed only her, and as her mind continued to reshape and repair, she was more able to articulate what was needed of him. Everything was proceeding by some unseen design. And she was to be at the heart of it.

  She stumbled briefly, and half a dozen decaying hands grabbed her to stop her from falling, their devotion to her complete. The undead were one with her now, part of her. She controlled them like she controlled her own limbs. The control was haphazard and awkward, but it was there, and improved with every hour, the undead themselves seeming to slowly lose their shambling awkwardness. She was the brain of an unstoppable dead army. Whereas the collective mind of the infected had no centre, that was now no longer the case with the undead. She was they and they were her, and she felt their presence in cities all across the ravaged country. Rachel called to them, even across such vast distances, and she heard them respond. Despite the apparent vulnerability of her being their core, their nerve centre, she was comforted by the fact that, should her mind be lost, they would revert back to their old scavenger selves, driven by the burning need that was ever present within them, but which she merely suppressed by her force of will. For now, they were hers.

  Light appeared again ahead of her, and she slowly shambled out of the darkness. The words on the platform said “Earl’s Court” which sparked something from long ago. She needed to get further, it still wasn’t safe, and she groaned something that would be incoherent to the living. But not to the dead; to them, it was perfectly understandable. Behind her, one of her brothers fell onto the live rail, and he sparked and writhed, the electricity making it difficult for him to coordinate. If his body hadn’t been slick with fluid and pus, it might have even caught fire. The undead ignored their fallen comrade and carried on almost in single file, tripping and stumbling over the feet of those in front. And as the undead exodus surged outward, the tsunami of rats preceded it continued, abandoning the tunnels wherever possible. The rodents sensed the danger the dead presented, and they did not wish to become meals to those who ate relentlessly.

/>   Briefly, an image flashed into her thoughts, the image of a small child. There was an emotion linked to it, something she couldn’t describe. She didn’t want the image, and it was gone almost as quickly as it had come, replaced by a sense of doom. What was it? What was it she saw that spurred her on so? All she knew was that it involved fire and destruction. Flee, they had to flee.

  09.47AM, 18th September 2015, Newquay Hospital, Newquay

  Brian woke up to a world he had hoped wouldn’t be there, ripped from dreams that were more reality than make believe. Yesterday had been bad, today felt even worse. He had fled London with a woman he hardly known. And yet, out of nowhere, something had grown between them. Brian had quickly come to feel he had known her more deeply than anyone he had ever met. And now she was dead, killed by a plague created by maniacs. It was supposed to be safe here. They had told him it was safe.

  Even worse, yesterday he had been intent on killing a man, the one who had inadvertently infected Simone. But he was an innocent, a victim in all this just like the rest of them. He didn’t deserve to die. The only people who deserved to die were the wankers who had unleashed the virus. Brian still couldn’t comprehend how anyone could have done this. Ten years in the force dealing with the worst that humanity had to offer, and he still had trouble dealing with the insanity of it all. It made no sense.