Necropolis (Necropolis Trilogy Book 3)

by Sean Deville

  Just as with New York, the virus began to spread across the city. Symptomless and silent, it passed from individual to individual, hiding in plain sight, passing via sweat, saliva, and all manner of bodily fluids. People passed it to friends, relative, loved ones. Even the briefest of interactions saw it pass between complete strangers. Within an hour of her landing, thousands of people in the city were carriers, passing it on through handshakes, door knobs, money, and gentle caresses. But still it stayed quiet, the genetic profile enabling it to slowly multiply, hiding from and manipulating the body’s defences, waiting for the time that had been programmed within it.

  Tomorrow, she would be in work. She would pass it to the congressman, and from him through the very seat of government. Within days, America would learn the secret that not even Brother Abraham knew. The secret that Professor James Jones took to his grave would shortly be revealed. And the world would shake on its foundations.

  16.36PM GMT, 18th September 2015, The White House, Washington, DC, USA

  “So we are in agreement. The threat to the Homeland has been eliminated, and we are now free to use nuclear weapons on the British mainland.” The men around the table nodded their acceptance, although some were clearly still hesitant. Rodney’s spy at the heart of Abraham’s fanatical network had confirmed that the threat made in the video aired to billions was a bluff. Nobody was to know that the only record of Brother Abrahams little surprise had been destroyed by James Jones before the SAS raid days earlier.

  There was no viral threat to the United States mainland, of that they were certain. And Rodney knew the essence of the man; Abraham had been his mentor for decades after all. A religious fanatic he may have been, but he hadn’t wanted to destroy America; he had wanted to re-shape it in his own image, turn it into a hard-core Christian theocracy. First, the destruction of the hated British to freeze the senses of the world, then the downfall of the president by the scandal that had fortunately been discovered and suppressed by the very president who now twisted Abraham’s goal. Thank you, Abraham, thank you. This was everything I could have ever dreamt of.

  No, Abraham would never have wanted to unleash the plague on the country that had taken him in as a boy, but there was something else there, something they were all missing. There had to be. Abraham was not a man to do things by half-measures. Even now his business properties were being raided, but the man’s tentacles spread far and wide and were often camouflaged. Even the NSA, who had hacked into the companies many servers could not confirm the full extent of the empire owned by the man known by a select few as Conrad Schmidt. Hundreds of his associates had been rounded up and were undergoing interrogation. Hundreds more had killed themselves either by suicide or at the hands of law enforcement, such was their devotion to the cult leader. Some had even killed themselves whilst in custody. How had Abraham created such devotion in his followers? Rodney was almost jealous. The man clearly had been a marvel.

  “This is the latest satellite map of Great Britain,” said the balding CIA director sat to the president’s right. The screen at the far wall showed an overhead view of the beleaguered country. Red splashes were superimposed over the map.

  “The red is the computer’s best guess at the spread of the infection. As we can see, it has spread from the cities now, into the suburbs.”

  “Selective nuke strikes are unlikely to have much of an effect,” a dissenting voice said. The president turned to General Roberts. The man was a problem; he was an opposing force that Rodney didn’t need right now. He needed meek acceptance, not a constant questioning of his authority. Perhaps it was time to have him replaced.

  “What do your analysts say on that, Keith?” the president spoke to the CIA director, but kept his eyes on the general.

  “There are still millions of infected and potentially infected in the cities. Nuking them will deplete the numbers of those carrying the contagion. The radiation should hopefully kill off more.”

  “But if the radiation kills them, won’t they just resurrect?” Again, there was the general with his negativity. The CIA director was about to speak, but the president stopped him with a hand.

  “From what we’ve seen, the infected are the greater threat. They are faster, more cunning, and have the ability to coordinate their attacks. The undead, well, the British say they just seem to be like mindless stumbling creatures. I’d rather be facing them on the streets than an army of infected who have shown they can think and coordinate.” He turned to his secretary of state. “Bob, what do the French say? After all, there’s only a thin strip of water between them and Britain.”

  “I spoke to the French ambassador an hour ago. The French have started to evacuate the northern coastline. The images of the infected swimming the Thames has them spooked. Basically, they are shitting bricks. They say if we don’t start using nukes, they may have to do it themselves.” The president nodded his approval.

  “Very well. I am hereby authorising nuclear strikes on the five UK cities that were the heart of the outbreak. And remember, this is not only about culling the numbers of infected and potentially infected, it’s also about sending a message. We have to show that NATO is willing to take the steps needed to protect itself. The Russians and the Chinese need to see that we aren’t fucking about here, people. Weakness now will only embolden our enemies at a time where the world needs order and unity.” He turned to the head of the joint chiefs of staff. “General, make it happen.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  17.12PM, 18th September 2015, Hounslow, London

  Kirk had wanted to make his way out of London, but had found the roads clogged with abandoned vehicles making travel by car impossible. His backup plan had been to go by bicycle, but as he moved away from the airport, he had found the area not as deserted as he had once hoped. Several times, he had turned a corner to find a gang of either infected or humans in the street ahead, and he had to retreat to avoid discovery. Yes, he had a shotgun, but its range was limited, and two shots wasn’t enough to stop multiple assailants. He still didn’t trust that the infected would leave him alone. And he wanted nothing to do with humanity, not anymore. The last few days had taught him that much at least.

  This was why he travelled by foot not bike, the unpredictability of the roads ahead making two-wheel travel hazardous. It also meant he could keep the shotgun handy. But foot travel was slow, and, not being accustomed to strenuous exercise, he had to stop often to rest his weary limbs. His progress was thus hampered by the threats around him and his own inadequacies, his body more accustomed to sit behind a desk than take the long march across a dying city.

  To top it all, he had also developed a nasty case of diarrhoea, which had meant him spending a good two hours glued to a random toilet in a random house as his sphincter threatened to empty the contents of his bowels into the world. It was the worst he had ever experienced by far, and he had even almost blacked out on several occasions. The fact that he hadn’t really eaten anything suggested to him this was another example of his body trying to shut him down rather than face the trauma of the previous day’s events. The subconscious sometimes had a way of sabotaging what the conscious mind thought was important. Life had just become intolerable for him to deal with, and a part of him just wanted to curl up in a corner somewhere and give up. But he didn’t give up, he carried on.

  The road he was on was quiet, and a light breeze gently massaged his hair, bringing him smells that were less than pleasant. There would be death all around him, the smell of a society decaying, destroying itself. He felt like shit, but as he had already decided, finding somewhere to crawl up into a ball wasn’t going to get him to where he needed to be. Only perseverance and ignoring the fire in his abdomen and the weakness in his legs would do that. His guts still churned, but he doubted there was anything left in him to expel. To top it off, his stomach now loudly and angrily told him it was hungry and demanded food, his actions burning calories in a fashion not seen since his twenties. Raiding a corner s
hop about an hour before, he had loaded up on fruit juice and energy drinks. For now, his stomach would have to settle for a liquid diet. He wasn’t willing to take the risk of solids.

  His feet hurt also, undoubtedly blistered. But sore feet were the least of his problems today, and it was something he would just have to put up with. Kirk had made the situation better by dumping his existing formal shoes for a pair of comfortable trainers he found in a deserted clothes shop, along with some thick socks. But he suspected that, when he took those socks off tonight, they would be damp with the fluid from several burst blisters. That was why he had also raided a pharmacy for bandages plasters, Imodium, and a host of other useful medications. He was a walking apothecary.

  The gun felt heavy in his hands, and he stopped briefly to extract another energy drink from his backpack, noticing the shakiness in his hands. The caffeine and the sugar hit him like a freight train, and he almost didn’t notice the fresh smell that wafted over him, carried by the breeze that danced through the city streets. It reminded him of the open sewers he had often smelt on his travels through the far east, and it was not an odour he expected in a modern metropolitan city. Not this strong, even with the dead all around.

  Then the sound hit him, and panic welled within. Throwing the half-consumed can aside, he picked his shotgun up from where he had propped it against a wall. Where could he go to escape what was coming? The noise grew louder, and the smell grew more intense. That’s when he saw the dogs.

  There were about a dozen of them, and they came around the corner at the end of the road at a great pace, eerily silent in their flight, their barks eerily absent. Kirk knew he couldn’t outrun them, so he stepped to the side of the pavement, pushing himself up against the wall hoping they would pass him by. They did, and they completely ignored him. Within seconds, they were out of sight down the road. The dogs left, but the smell didn’t; in fact, the breeze got momentarily stronger, bringing fresh torment to his nostrils. The dogs were running from something, and they were running from something that smelt like it had emerged from the bowels of Satan himself. He looked around him for somewhere suitable to hide.

  Rachel emerged into the afternoon air, the brightness causing no reaction in her now-deceased pupils. She was advanced enough to understand that she was dead, that what she was able to do should be impossible. Her body’s functions had shut down, and yet her limbs moved and her mind worked to a degree not seen in the rest of the undead. She could even now form rudimentary words, rather than the guttural sounds her kin made. It did not detract from the truth that she was no longer amongst the living and that she should be lying in a rotting heap somewhere on the Victoria Embankment where her arm had been ripped off and her abdomen pierced by twisted steel.

  All around her, the streets were filled with the dead. Thousands of them still remained underground, but something told her it was safe to come out of hiding now; in fact, it was essential. Despite the stench of her brethren, and despite the fact that the cells lining her nasal cavity were turning necrotic, she could still smell the delicious aroma of her prey. The living were all around, hiding in buildings, rummaging the streets trying to survive. And amongst them were the equally precious commodity of the infected. They smelt just as sweet, and she sent the message out to the horde, the message that created a groan of what some would mistakenly call delight.

  “Go, feed.”

  Some of those around her actually looked at her for a moment as if in disbelief, and then they followed her command, stumbling off in groups to hunt down and devour anything they could find. They would feed, and by feeding they would spread, those they killed resurrecting to join Rachel’s growing army. But no matter how they much they consumed, they would never be sated. Their dead bodies, unable to digest anything, would merely go through the motions of biting and chewing, the vast majority of the zombies not even able to swallow. Their mouths would simply become engorged until the mashed innards of their victim’s dribbled and poured from their salivating mouths.

  And Rachel would join them, even though she knew all this. Because the hunger was there, and no matter how impossible it was to quench the viral fire, they had to try. For what else was there to do. She moved her head through the air, allowing the air to enter her nose. As her lungs could no longer work, she could not inhale, and the motion she made was mimicked by countless around her. It was like an almost shambolic epileptic dance, but it worked to get a sense of where the living were.

  “Come,” she ordered Rasheed, who followed her with blind trust. He was the puppet and she was the master and he did whatever she bid of him.

  Kirk had retreated into the third floor of a residential complex, the ground floor door between two shops fortunately open and unbarred. He had corrected that omission. It was locked now, and he hoped it was sturdy enough to repel what he was seeing. He had left the street at just the right time, because after the dogs came dozens of infected. They too were in flight, and even though he suspected that some of them saw him as he had stepped into his new stronghold, none of them made any indication that they were up to pursuing him. Did the undead even see? Looking out of the window, now he saw why the stench had been so bad.

  Although slower than their once human forms, the undead filled the street with their decaying bodies rapidly. Despite the fact that their motion was chaotic, there was more order and coordination than in the many depictions he had seen from Hollywood over the years. Likely their ability to move would deteriorate as their bodies carried on the inevitable breakdown, but as it was, they could travel at a speed resembling a half-run. What frightened Kirk the most was the way they moved their heads as they moved, moving their heads in an almost rhythmic fashion that he couldn’t understand. As he continued to watch, the tide came ever closer to his position, the road in the direction he had been travelling now full as far as he could see.

  At the edges of the crowds, the dead broke off from the main group to attack doors and windows. Some they penetrated easily, others held them at bay, but the sound of their assault couldn’t be ignored, and it was joined by their moans that rose into the air above them. It was clear that here was the source of the horrendous smell that had thankfully forewarned him of their approach. Even high up and with the window closed, their stench reached him, and it made him gag. It was the smell of clothes and bodies soiled with bodily waste, of bloated stomach and swollen intestines that cried out to burst, breaking free of their muscular prisons. There were hundreds of them down there, and more followed which meant there were likely thousands. And they were all right under his nose.

  Kirk retreated from the window and walked to the main door to the apartment he was in. It felt solid, but was it solid enough. If the main door on the street didn’t hold though, it was unlikely this one would. How many people were here, cowering like him? Kirk wasn’t going to try and find out. Firstly, his shouts might bring the undead to him, and secondly, there was no telling what forms of human pond life lurked behind those locked doors. He was better on his own. Half-standing in the corridor that linked all the other apartments, it was then that he heard the first assault on his building, and from several doors away, Kirk thought he heard a distressed sob.

  The street door was formidable. Armed only with their bodies, the three zombies beat on it with a force diminished by the necrosis in their muscles. The black reinforced door, what the insurance trade called a “drug door” for its ability to resist forced police entry, did not yield. They would never get through such a barrier, and yet they persisted for mindless action was all they had, all they were. One took to smashing his head into the plastic of the door, the flesh of his forehead splitting, smearing itself almost invisibly across its dark surface. A second broke the bones in his hand punching the door, but continued anyway, the appendage quickly turning into a bloodied stump, two fingers actually flying off into the road as the arm brought it down repeatedly upon the door. A third zombie, however, stopped, stepping back from the door. It cocked a chewed on ear
as if listening to some distant voice, and then the other two zombies did as he did. They moved away from the door, stepping onto the tarmac of the road.

  All along the street, the undead stepped back from the portals and lined up in the street in two ragged columns. Between them, Rachel walked, Rasheed faithfully in tow. She stopped, turning full circle, knowing her minions were eager for her to send them back to wreak their unique form of carnage, the desire to feed strong within them. But she made them wait, for she had a better plan, and she turned to Rasheed and projected into his empty mind what she wanted him to do. He gazed at her passively, the muscles of his face no longer able to make the facial expressions the meat did when it was devoured alive. Rasheed merely nodded his head once and looked up at the sky. He drew forth the impossible strength that dwelled within him.

  Looking back out of the window, Kirk felt the ground under him lurch slightly and he felt himself stagger back from the glass, almost losing his footing. But he was still able to witness the impossible in the street below, even more impossible perhaps than the walking dead themselves. He couldn’t explain why or how it happened but every window in the street below utterly shattered. Realising his peril, Kirk flung himself away from the portal, falling over a plush leather sofa that must have cost the flat’s owner several month’s wages. He tumbled to the floor on the other side of it, bruising his arm in the process. Just as he landed, the window he had been looking out of blew inwards, sending shards of deadly glass flying like brittle, killer knives. He remained unscathed, but cut himself pushing himself up off the floor from the glass that was now all around him. What the fuck had just happened?