Necropolis (Necropolis Trilogy Book 3)

by Sean Deville

  “Can you shut the bitch up? Jesus,” he said turning to shout at those that were presently engorging themselves on Joyce’s entrails. The screams were suddenly stifled as an infected pushed his hand firmly onto her mouth, whilst at the same time biting down hard on her shoulder. “Thank you. You see, this is why I don’t let them feed too often. It gets so noisy.”

  “You sick fuck,” Elizabeth shrieked.

  “Now that’s just rude. And also unfair. I could have let them eat you up straight away, but here I am giving you a choice.”

  “What choice? You’re a maniac.” Owen turned to face Fabrice and feigned disappointment.

  “Women, I’ll never understand them. So ungrateful.” He turned back to Liz. “The choice is simple. Join Joyce there as the main course for an infected banquet. Or enjoy one last fuck.”

  “You come near me and I’ll kill you,” she threatened, her voice shaking.

  “Me?” Owen said pointing to himself. “Oh no, not me. I think you already know the person you’ll be fucking.” Owen snapped his fingers in the air, and behind him, the infected parted allowing one of their number to step through.

  “Keith?” Elizabeth fell to her knees, the asphalt opening the skin. She didn’t even seem to notice. It was indeed her boyfriend, but now he was naked, sporting several bite marks on his left arm. His eyes glowed crimson red with the obvious signs of the infection. The naked black man stepped forward so that he was right in front of her, and she flung her arms around his waist.

  “So what do you say, Liz? One more roll in the hay, or dinner for five hundred at the Ritz?”

  “Fuck you,” Liz whispered through gritted teeth.

  “Dinner it is then,” Owen said, the disappointment in his voice palpable.

  Fabrice could abide no more. Utterly disgusted with what he was seeing, he turned and walked away from the scene. This was not God’s work. This was a walking sickness. Fabrice never got to witness the choice Elizabeth made. Fabrice didn’t understand though. Owen was worried and needed the distraction. There were so many voices now, and it was becoming difficult for him to control them all. It was like he had a sphere of influence, and any infected that came into that sphere became his. But too many, and he felt his concentration slipping, felt a dullness come across his senses. Owen realised he wasn’t as powerful as he thought he was, and had almost lost himself in the chaos of their collective more than once. His blessing was also turning out to be a curse. So fleeing London was not solely out of fear of the nukes flying. It was to get away from the largest concentration of the infected, and as he had fled south, Owen had cast off a dozen infected here and a dozen there. It was fortunate he didn’t need to sleep, because if he closed his eyes for more than a minute, he might never again wake up as a sovereign being. He would no longer be lord, he would just be one of those he sought to control.

  10.59AM, 18th September 2015, The English Channel

  Clarice Sterling, United States Air Force. Yesterday, she had taken off to fly sorties against the infected in her A10 Tank Buster, only for that plane to be ripped from the sky by a force even now she couldn’t fathom or describe. It was only her ejector seat that saved her, and now she was on a yacht in the English Channel after making a desperate escape from London by river with a group of people she didn’t even know. It had definitely not been her average day. Alone now in the yacht’s galley, she poured herself a cup of coffee, and after a brief thought, poured a second. She’d found some UHU milk in one of the cupboards and added it to the two mugs. This was not the coffee she would have chosen to drink; in fact, it was perhaps flattering to call it coffee, but it was all the boat had. Clarice had drunk worse, and the way things were going, this might be classed as a luxury a few weeks from now.

  The galley was well stocked, enough food for a couple of weeks at sea. With its own desalination system, the boat could also produce fresh potable water for everyone on board. They could even shower, which had been a blessing for her. So they were okay for now, assuming of course that NATO didn’t blow the ship out of the water. She was a fighter ace, and she knew how trigger happy some of her fellow pilots could be. The man called Croft seemed to have been the one to stop that from happening the last time. But it didn’t really help her predicament. She had been downed within the quarantine zone, which meant she was trapped. So long as the quarantine remained, there was no going home.

  Shit.

  Picking up both mugs, she made her way up the stairs, buffeted slightly by the motion of the sea. Sterling hated boats, always had. Her passion was the sky, flying Tank Busters was her life. Why the fuck would anyone want to join the Navy and risk sea sickness?

  “I brought you a coffee,” she said to the man in the wheelhouse. He was a big man who clearly looked after himself. Alexei looked at her as she placed the mug down beside her and nodded his thanks.

  “You’re Russian I hear.”

  “That is correct,” he said. “My name is Alexei. It is a pleasure to meet such a beautiful lady as yourself.” Sterling hadn’t expected that, and she caught herself in a laugh. She half-expected him to stand up and kiss her hand like some nineteenth century count, but fortunately, he didn’t.

  “Are all you Russians so charming?”

  “No, most of us are pigs.” She put her hand out, and Alexei shook it gently.

  “My name’s Clarice, Clarice Sterling.”

  “Hello, Clarice Sterling of the United States Air force.” She was briefly taken aback, but then remembered she was still in her jump suit. Clarice took a sip from her mug.

  “How long before we reach our destination?” This was the reason she had come here. She wanted, no she needed, information. She hated just sitting around waiting for stuff to happen. She craved action which was sadly lacking from her life at the moment.

  “We should be there in another two days, sea and weather permitting.” He wasn’t looking at her now, having turned back to look out of the window. It was clear to her that the conversation was over. She’d never met a Russian before, and she wondered if they were all as mysterious as this guy. Still, there was something about him she spotted under the layers of his external mask.

  “Okay, well I’ll leave you to it.” Backing out of the room, she made her way back down the stairs. Alexei picked up the mug, and then put it back down further away from him. He hated coffee, and he hated the smell of it. But what he hated more was Americans, and right now, he seemed to be surrounded by them. Even Clarice with her blonde hair and her pretty face held no real interest to him. He had learned long ago that sex was a weakness, and Alexei despised weakness in himself and in those who served him. Because to be weak was to be vulnerable, and that was something he could never allow. Alcohol was a permitted exception, because that often revealed the true nature of the individual.

  In his game, vulnerability meant death. And now, more than ever, developing affections for others would be a fatal miscalculation. All that mattered at this point in his life was survival, and that meant every man for himself. There was no place for friendship or romance, not in this world, not when everyone you knew could become the source of your doom.

  11.13AM, 18th September 2015, Defensive Position 5, Cornwall, UK

  Colour Sergeant Vorne scanned the distant tree line through his binoculars and saw nothing that gave him cause for concern. They were out there though; he could feel them in his bones. He hadn’t survived Gulf War two, two tours in Afghanistan and the fucking Irish without developing a sense of when the shit was going to hit the fan. It was almost like there was something in the air that he could taste. He knew his lads talked about him in awed hushed tones, the stories that followed him of his deed and his so-called heroism. Some of the stories were even true, others sheer fabrication, barrack room gossip that lived on the breeze of confused whispers. When he turned up wearing his dress uniform, replete with enough ribbons on his chest to make a fucking blanket, even the officers treated him with a degree of respect. But he was no hero; he was j
ust a man doing his job to the best of his ability.

  He was harsh with the men under him, but he was fair. He would have no bullshit under his watch. Every man who served with him was his charge, and he expected, no he demanded, the same level of dedication to the uniform and what the uniform stood for as that displayed by himself. Vorne cared not about race, colour, or creed. The sergeant treated all political leanings with the same level of disdain. He certainly didn’t care what kind of hole the lads liked to stick their dicks into, or what other perversions might take their fancy. That was for when they were on leave, and as long as they stayed out of the Glass House, and as long as they did their jobs, he let them be. But when they were in the uniform, they would honour the regiment and the cloth and the memory of the millions who had died in wars through the centuries. So long as they did their duty when it was required, that was enough for him and they all knew it.

  He had never married, never knowingly fathered children. The Army was his life, and he had no desire for command. Whilst officers were promoted from the ranks, they often had a harder time of it than those who entered the Army with the rank. He had seen it before, the lads finding it hard to take orders from someone who had been one of their own. It was different being a sergeant, because although he told the men what to do, he was still one of them. He was where he needed to be, and he would do it until either a bullet ended him or someone in command told him he was no longer capable. Being nearly fifty, there was talk of moving him from front line duty. But he was a machine, and could outrun most of the lads who passed under his wing. He had spent most of his adult life serving her Majesty, and he’d loved every minute of it, although you wouldn’t know it to look at him. The dirt, the rain, the heat, the pain, he had relished every second. And even now, faced with what might be his certain end, Vorne almost longed for it. What true soldier didn’t secretly crave the foe to beat all foes?

  He had not objected when the orders came to shut the gates to stop the civilians entering because those were the orders. And when those same civilians had rioted and the shots had come out of the crowd towards the fortified positions, he himself had returned fire, to show the way, to be the example. The captain had told him to prepare the defences for just such an event, and he had known which men to put in the key positions, the men he watched more closely than the others, the men who you wouldn’t want to be left alone with your daughter. He knew the sick and the twisted just as he knew the ones who would hesitate and need him standing over them to show them the force of will required to kill another human being. And then there were the ones he had utter confidence in, but he rarely let them know that, of course. His praise was as rare as hen’s teeth, because when it came, it was for a purpose and it would hold the power to reshape a man.

  Vorne also understood the pain his men were suffering. They had all lost someone when the contagion hit, some losing whole families. Psychologically, they were ripped apart, made even worse by the fact that many of them had fought the infected, had seen what they were capable of. So Vorne had to be their rock, because the damned officers didn’t see what he saw, didn’t feel the anguish of the men who were close to blowing their own brains out. He’d lost five men last night to just that. So he was there, among them, a reassuring nod here, a calming hand on a shoulder there. And all the while his guts churned inside with the fear that was always there before the battle. But he would be damned if he would ever show it. He had a job to do, the hardest job in the Army.

  There were some who held him in fear, some who held him in awe, and some who held him in contempt. He cared not. So long as, when the time came, they pulled the trigger of their weapon and helped defend their comrades from the terrors that would come streaming over those fields. He would fight by their sides and die with them if need be. Because their failure was his failure, and that was something he could not abide. So long as he was able to stand, he would take as many of these infected fuckers with him. But now he waited, and hoped that the barriers would be completed in time. But time was a double-edged sword, because the longer it took for the army of the near dead to arrive, the more of them there were likely to be, and the less chance there was of having air support when it was needed. Captain Grainger was counting on it, but not Vorne. He understood how these things worked, and knew that when the chips were down, it would be the men on the ground that would decide the fate of this.

  11.49AM, 18th September 2015, Croydon, South London

  Fabrice was ill at ease. He was virtually indestructible, was doing God’s work, and yet he felt doubt and terror in his heart. Owen troubled him immensely. How could God use such an individual to forge his master plan? Yes, the eighteen year old had helped rescue him from the now derelict and probably still burning MI6 building, but it seemed that Owen had done that out of curiosity more than a sense of duty to the higher power. His sadism and his obvious growing madness were manifestations of a diseased mind. And it was obvious to Fabrice that Owen was losing himself amongst the collective. On multiple occasions now, he had witnessed Owen staring blankly off into space, the barriers he erected against Fabrice’s intrusions slipping. And when Fabrice slipped into the boy’s mind, he found the collective there, growing strong. If he lost himself, if he lost his control, would Owen become one of them, or would he become a target for the collective who felt constrained and trapped by the boy’s telepathic manipulation of them? The infected felt fear, anger, and the need for self-sacrifice. But could the infected also be capable of revenge?

  But there was something else that troubled him. He felt the infected’s single consciousness, felt their thoughts and the instructions their joined minds gave to individual units, and the sacrifice that meant to each and every identity. Still, that was not the thing that disturbed him. Off in the void, the unknown realm where the infected communicated, he felt another mind. It felt different to the infected and it felt different to the Horsemen. It felt cold and clinical, and it grew in strength by the hour. Still, it was weak, and it was far away, similar to the infected but so very different. Fabrice wondered if perhaps it was the voice of God. Was this the next stage of his evolution? Was his mind changing to the extent where he could communicate with the higher power? Would he get to see the face of his Lord and Creator? Or was this just the pride he had once been so guilty of, his ego still a threat to his connection to The One True God? Was it even God at all?

  He didn’t think so, because there was just the hint of malevolence there. Fabrice couldn’t understand why he thought that, because as yet nothing discernible about this other presence was definitive, but his gut told him that something had changed, and it would not be the benefit of his cause. It was like a dark thundercloud far, far off in the distance. Completely harmless due to its distance, but holding within its presence a very real danger. At the moment, it didn’t pose a threat, but the lightning that flashed within it and the winds it brought told a story of mayhem and destruction. Something was coming, and he didn’t know what it was.

  He wondered if Owen felt it too, and almost asked him. But Owen was not someone he could trust right now, despite the obvious need for him in God’s plan. Fabrice decided therefore to keep his own counsel for now. He would watch and listen and hopefully, the wisdom of God would be delivered upon him. For had he not passed the tests? Had he not gone through the trials and tribulations that would match even that of Jesus Christ? Or was that arrogance again.

  “Forgive this sinner’s foolishness,” he mumbled under his breath.

  16.12PM GMT, 18th September 2015, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Washington, DC, USA

  Her plane had been late, and now she stepped out into the cold September air. At least it wasn’t raining; she’d had enough of bloody moisture to last her a lifetime. Being awoken in the middle of the night by the hotel’s sprinkler system going off had really been the perfect end to a truly disastrous trip. She’d seen the pyramids, but only from afar, a nasty case of food poisoning felling her on the third day of her t
rip. The closest she had gotten to the oldest wonder of the ancient world was looking at it in the distance from her hotel bedroom. Most of her week there had been spent either in her hotel bed or chained to the lavatory. As holidays went, it hadn’t been great. In fact, it had been fucking terrible. And then to top it off, she had been woken up from one of the few occasions her illness had allowed her to sleep, by water pouring from the ceiling. Unbelievable.

  She still felt rough, but her guts had behaved themselves on the flight back, thank God. She’d saved up for this trip for so long, and it had been a nightmare. Still, she was back now, and she would go straight home, go to sleep, and try and get herself ready for being back in work tomorrow. As secretary to a congressman, she knew she was going to be thrown right back into the meat grinder within the first five minutes. The incessant inane phone calls of his constituents complaining about all manner of things would descend upon her like a cloud. Sometimes, they actually had complaints about stuff that actually mattered. Most of the time, it was an assortment of conspiracy nuts and insane evangelical Christians. And then there would be the congressman’s excessive demands. When was the last time he made himself a cup of coffee anyway? Did he even know how?

  Her presence on the plane had infected ninety percent of the people in the economy section, the virus passing from her to the stewardess and onto the multitudes of unsuspecting passengers. She infected the barista at Starbucks when she handed over a ten-dollar bill to pay for her overpriced coffee at the airport. Washing her hands in the lady’s restroom momentarily killed the virus there, but it soon overcame the annihilation wrought by the soap. Which was why she spread the virus to the taxi that she caught to her apartment, why she spread the vile contagion to the taxi driver who then infected every passenger he took thereafter.