Necropolis (Necropolis Trilogy Book 3)

by Sean Deville

  His stomach spasmed again, this time so violently that he doubled over, his feet losing contact with the floor. So exaggerated was the movement, that he lost his balance and tumbled sideways, fate directing his head towards a perfectly placed bathtub. His right temple impacted with the corner of the bath, which was just sharp enough to cause his skull to fracture. The internal haemorrhage that occurred, worsened by the Warfarin he was on due to his atrial fibrillation, was so quick and so severe, that his brain began to die. Lying on the ground, fluids seeping out of every orifice, the virus took him. Too late though. Even with its degenerative powers, it couldn’t account for the bleeding in the man’s skull, which pushed and squashed the vital centres of the brain. Trying to get to its feet, it slipped in its own mess, smashing its head on the floor which just compounded the injuries. Within five minutes, the newly infected individual died in the hotel room.

  When the body resurrected, it rose off the soiled marble floor and sensed its environment. It could feel the flesh all around it, behind the walls, outside in the world below. With a groan, it lurched forward, leaving the bathroom. It was a beast of reaction, and it had no sense of where it was, what it was or when it was. All it could do was crave the flesh it so desperately needed, and within minutes, it had found the door to the hotel room. Something within it told it that the door was the way out, but it had no notion of how doors worked, so it beats its fists and its head on the painted surface. With the security chain lock on, it had no chance of getting through, and so it backed up, driven by impulse, drawn to something outside.

  It bashed softly against the edge of the bed and almost fell. Righting itself, it made its way over to the window with its fourth-floor balcony. That had been where he was when the pain had struck. One minute he had been enjoying a cigar and a glass of port, the next he had been forced to flee. Now his resurrected form returned, passing through the fluttering curtains, stepping out into the cold Moscow air.

  The balcony looked out over the main road outside the hotel, and it hit the barrier. Its eyes could just make out the human forms below and it reached over the balcony towards them, a fetid moan escaping its throat as the last of the air in its lungs was expelled. It pushed itself forward, toppling over the edge where it fell like a ragdoll to the street below, the impact loud and sickening. With broken bones and dislocated limbs, it tried to rise up, but could do no better than crawl with one arm. It got about two metres before the first bullet struck it, the fourth and fifth ending it as they entered the skull finishing off the damage the bathtub had tried to originally inflict. By the end of the day, twenty-seven people in the city of Moscow had been transformed by the virus, a total of two hundred and nine subsequently infected by them. But every one of those infected met death at the hands of Russian security forces. The Overmind never got a foothold in Russia, and the Russian people would have to wait several weeks before their fate would be determined by the carriers of the London virus.

  13.52PM, 20th September 2015, Newquay Coast, Newquay

  The infected were extremely strong swimmers, but many of them got sucked away by the notorious currents in the seas off Newquay. They drowned, their reanimated bodies lost to the ocean. But those were the minority, and thousands still came ashore and found themselves faced with incomplete defences. It was impossible to defend a coastline against this kind of attack, something the French had quickly discovered. Military planners like to think they can account for every eventuality, but nobody had envisaged so many of the infected avoiding the land altogether by making their incursion by sea. So the defenders that were there found themselves underprepared, undermanned, and not fit for the task set them, the best troops put where the commanders thought they were best needed.

  This was not to say the beaches were undefended. Hundreds of the infected were mowed down by the machine gun fire, but that still left thousands to sweep off the beach into the surfing town of Newquay. Those who had been left to defend the beaches lasted just over five minutes, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and the wide expanse of the landing area that the infected had chosen. They came aground wherever they could.

  Breaching the first of the human’s defences, they found a town ripe for their consumption. But with the alarm now raised, the near dead found a monumental task ahead of them. Before the largest group of their invasion force could get to where the people were, two attack helicopters swept down out of the clear mid-afternoon sky and began to spray their numbers with death. The infected’s only defence to that was to find a hole and try and disappear into it. Hundreds more were thus torn apart by bullets that could easily punch through stainless steel, leaving the beaches and the surrounding areas fresh with candidates for resurrection. Their flesh and bone was no match for such technological slaughter. Of course, it was a waiting game. There were only so many helicopters, most of them at the front lines of the infected assault. And the two that had been left to guard only had so many bullets. When they eventually flew away, only half the original number of the infected were left. But it was to be enough.

  The helicopters and the machine guns weren’t the end of their torment. They found something else obstructing their invasion. Guns, lots of guns. Anyone who could shoot had been issued with a weapon, many sporting their own array of shotguns and hunting rifles. In the movies, they always disarmed the civilians, but this wasn’t the movies, General Mansfield ordering that anyone capable be enlisted in what he called “the People’s Militia.” So for the first time in generations, the people got to carry guns on their hips and on their backs whilst out on the streets of Great Britain. Many of them felt nervous about it, that crime would run rampant. But others felt emboldened, honoured that the military would trust them with the defence of their own lives. They were being given the chance to fight for their own existence.

  So the thousands of remaining infected found themselves faced with thousands of people willing to shoot them, many of the guns wielded by people who knew how to use them. The horde took the fight to them regardless, going street to street, but as much progress as they made, their numbers began to get whittled down. So they tried to spread the virus amongst those they attacked, only to find the humans had developed a new tactic.

  The militia had been split into squads of fourteen, each assigned to a larger group. Within those groups, seasoned military and police veterans were placed, overseeing the other duties the squad members were expected to perform. The group leaders were there to keep order, to show the way, to advise, and to counsel…and to kill anyone who showed any signs of the infection. This had been one of the main reasons for the harsh discipline imposed on the civilians. The hangings and shootings for breaches and transgressions of the conditions of the Martial Law imposed by General Mansfield were to show that there was one way, the military way. To serve in the Militia and to accept the protection of the military meant acceptance of those terms. Being in the militia meant ration privileges and a steady supply of alcohol and cigarettes. It also meant that you accepted the rules that now defined your own safety. With many of them kept in reserve, the Militia still had chores assigned to them, and they were there to be used to reinforce whoever needed reinforcing. Now they did what they were designed to do.

  It was widely accepted that there was no cure, and it was widely accepted that if you became contaminated, you would become something that was worse than death. There was no counter-belief amongst the population, any conspiracy theories remaining hidden in the fevered minds of those who foolishly believed them. The infection was real, and it meant the end of everything you were. For many in this life and death struggle, a bullet through the back of the skull was preferable to the fate now experienced by millions across the country. They had often seen friends and loved ones stricken with the virus, or had witnessed the fevered attacks on the news before the channels went dark. Very few people wanted that fate.

  Like the Russian Commissars of old, those leading the Militia were merciless in their duty when the battle raged. And whilst
some resisted the slaughter of those deemed to carry the virus, few stood in the way as the leaders performed their duties. It was like a madness that swept across the battlefield, a fever of desperation gripping the defenders. Some even took their own lives, so horrifying was the prospect of falling foul of the plague. And slowly the streets and the houses of Newquay were cleared of the threat, whole buildings firebombed on occasion rather than risk a human’s life.

  If you had a gun in your hand, if you built the walls, if you had a skill that the enclave needed, you were valuable and you were fed as well as the governing forces could feed you. Your dependents were looked after as reward for your services. But for those who were unable to work or to fight, there was no place for you in the new Jerusalem. Whilst many of the rumours about the mercy killings and the euthanizing of the sick were exaggerated, by the twentieth day of the month of September, it was already happening to the extent where it couldn’t be hidden. Where once paramedics were rushed to attend to those suffering heart attacks and strokes, with the exception of essential personnel, those people were just left to die. With family and community units shattered, with armed men ready to do violence on every street corner, very few people objected to the degree that intervention was needed.

  “This is the way it has to be.”

  And then there were those who had refused to help. In the first days as the refugees flowed into the defensive zone, it was to be expected that all manner of people would be amongst them. Lawyers, journalists, bankers, accountants, cancer sufferers, and criminals. Some came and saw opportunity. Not understanding that the rules had now changed, they thought they could use the system to their advantage, not realising the system they were used to no longer existed. So in the early days, there was theft and rape and assault by people who didn’t understand that the military could not afford the luxury of jails any more than they could allow thugs to have free reign on the streets. So when they were caught, and they were, many of those who thought themselves smart suddenly witnessed the harsh reality of military justice in a land where the generals were king, and that the kings had complete autonomy. The people soon learnt what ultimate power actually meant. You did your bit and you got fed and housed. You built the walls and defended the walls you built, and your children were looked after. You showed that you had a skill that could be used for the betterment of the enclave and you utilised that skill without complaint. There were no more human rights, only human obligations and survival. Break the rules and you ended up dangling on the end of a rope or with a bullet in your brain.

  One of the most sought-after skills was that from mental health professionals. Hundreds of thousands of people were traumatised by the loss of loved ones and the forced march they had endured to get here. So many were mentally damaged, that the counsellors and the psychiatrists were working twelve-hour shifts, to get as many people into a state fit enough to do their part. Suicides were rampant and hundreds slipped through the cracks. Broken people were given guns in a place where hope was a commodity most people no longer had.

  The battle went the way of the defenders, initially. They thought they had everything under control, the Hazmat-wearing clean-up teams already moving through the carnage, piling the bodies up in great heaps so they could be burnt, the ground around them sprayed with an abundance of bleach. But off in the coastal waters, the second wave came. Tens of thousands this time. And behind them the third wave. The defences would not hold.

  14.07AM GMT, 20th September 2015, The White House, Washington DC, USA

  The five-dollar bill had been infected by a man flying in on the redeye from DOHA when he had exchanged some of his currency for the mighty US dollar at the currency exchange. It had been passed to the taxi driver, who had then passed it to the customer who had paid with a hundred-dollar bill note. That five-dollar bill then was passed over the counter to the barista at a coffee house near the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 18th Street, and ended up in Selina’s hand two days ago when she bought her morning pick me up. The virus, close to death at that point, hungrily attached itself to her skin and wormed its way through into her blood stream, where it slowly started to multiply. It grew inside her, carefully and quietly building up its forces within her system, hiding from the forces of her immune system aligned against it. Now she walked to a job she loved, the sounds of the protests heavy in the distance.

  Selina showed her security pass to the guards on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 17th. Where once pedestrians could gain easy access to the road in front of the White House, this was now cordoned off with high razor-wire-topped fences and armed personnel carriers. The military were everywhere. She smiled hello at a secret service agent she recognised, and was ushered through the barrier and walked briskly to where she seemed to spend most of her time nowadays. As Secretary to the White House Chief of Staff, she tried not to miss a day, even when she had the flu. Over the past three years, the only days she had missed through illness were the ones where she had been sent home by an understanding superior who had told her that she was being stupid and that she should be home in bed. But her job was important, it was, in fact, her life. And it would, in a roundabout way, be her death.

  She had worked at the White House for almost ten years, and had slowly moved up the ranks. She was important now, and her parents felt great pride for her. They had struggled and suffered to give her the best life they could having fled Iran during the fall of the Shah. Arriving in the USA with nothing, they had worked hard to create the American dream, and had raised three children, Selina being the oldest. Her brother was a doctor, and her sister a vet, and the three of them helped their parents who, now too old to work, found their health failing. Her mother was due to have a cataract operation in the coming weeks, and operation that would never be performed.

  She didn’t like the new security measures. They felt oppressive. To be fair, she didn’t like the president either, had always felt there was something “wrong” about him. She couldn’t put it in words, and she kept her thoughts to herself. She might not like the man, but she was an American and so she respected the office the man represented. Besides, she rarely saw him, and Ben Silver, the White House Chief of Staff was a great, caring boss. He had never treated her with anything but professionalism and respect which she was grateful for. That was after all one of the many ways to gain loyalty in your underlings, and she was loyal to a fault. As it stood, she couldn’t ask for anything better from her life. Well, apart for a husband and children, which her mother not so subtly kept prodding her about. But deep down, she wasn’t really bothered. She was a career girl, and not even in her forties yet. Marriage and offspring could wait.

  Fifteen minutes later, after numerous other security checks, she was in her office. That was about when the headache hit her. Dull at first, but quickly turning into a bastard behind the eyes that made her almost weep with its sudden intensity. She downed two Ibuprofen from the stockpile in her desk and sat down in the plush leather chair. A headache she could deal with, so long as it didn’t get any worse. But why were her joints aching? Hell, what was she coming down with now? There was a knock at her door, which was always half-open. Ben Silver walked in clutching a number of files.

  “Morning, Selina, I need you to… Hey, are you okay?

  “Just a headache, Mr. Silver,” she said, the palm of her hand clutching the side of her head. “I’m sure it will go in a minute.”

  “But, Selina, your nose is bleeding.” She hadn’t even noticed, and with her free hand, she wiped fresh blood off her top lip. It had dripped down onto her white blouse, three drops. The drops merged as fresh blood fell there. She swore under her breath and grabbed a tissue from her desk. The blood started in earnest then, and as the tissue quickly soaked red, she began to panic.

  “It won’t stop,” she said through tears. The tears were partly the panic but partly the fresh pain that was tearing through her skull. Ben watched helpless as she suddenly doubled over and let out a howl of anguish, her
head almost smashing onto the desks surface. He took a step back out into the corridor.

  “Code 99,” he shouted. The practiced signal for a medical emergency. Someone came running to him, a hand-held radio gathering urgent assistance. Silver looked back into the room, saw that Selina was now on the floor below the desk having slipped out of her chair. Her legs poked out from underneath, and they were battering up and down on the floor with chaotic rhythm. One of her high heels had come off as her convulsions really started and lay halfway across the room. That was when the smell hit him, and something in the back of his mind sparked. A memory, something he had learnt the last couple of days. From the other end of the corridor, a medical team rounded the corner, and the memory slipped away. He walked back into the office.

  Seconds later, there were other people in the room with him, and they urgently pushed past him to reach the stricken secretary. Two of them grabbed her legs which were already bruised from where they had impacted against the edge of the desk, and tried to stem the violence within them. Another person went round the other side. The third person, a paramedic, bent down to where Selina’s head was, virtually disappearing from Silver’s sight. He stood there mortified as they got to work.

  “Selina, can you hear me?” One of the restrained legs broke free and kicked out, the other shoe sent flying through the air. It almost hit Silver square in the face, and he ducked and turned to watch its progress. That’s when the stench hit him as Selena shat herself explosively, painting the carpet and the insides of her legs, sending those holding her down into retreat. Then a sound anyone with children knows so well hit him.