Necropolis (Necropolis Trilogy Book 3)

by Sean Deville

  The average conversion time was ten minutes; that was what they had seen in Great Britain. The test result, however, took at least two hours. The obvious disparity was not lost on Rodney, and he voiced this as a question rather than a criticism.

  “The British have shown that some people are carriers, Mr. President,” one of the doctors had said. “They carry the disease without showing any symptoms.” That still meant he would be stuck in a room for two hours, so the room Rodney was in had been kitted out so as to connect him to the FEMA national radio system. This connected him to the States of the Union, as well as the heart of the US military and most federal public safety agencies. Sat in that room, awaiting his all clear, he tried his best to help the country survive. And in that time, he started to hear the world die.

  It became clear that the spread of the disease was happening, not just across the country, but across the world. Some states were affected worse than others, Alaska and Nebraska not reporting any outbreaks as of yet. New York was collapsing in on itself, and the security procedures put in place in DC had held the infection at bay, for now. But across the country, more and more cases were breaking out. The military were already talking about nuking cities. Could he do that? Could he order the use of nuclear weapons on US soil? These were his people. It gnawed at him, the betrayal and the injustice of it all. He didn’t get to where he was today, to be so close to fulfilling his life’s goal, only for it all to be taken from him by a man who was supposed to be beaten. He was the President of the United States, for Christ’s sake; that was supposed to mean something.

  “God damn you, Conrad,” he swore under his breath, referring to the man who had once been his mentor and chief donor. Although dead, Conrad, who the religiously insane he had surrounded himself with had lovingly called him Brother Abraham, had gone too far. The man had most likely killed the human race.

  It had become common knowledge in modern fiction that there was a list of those to be saved in the event of a national catastrophe. Not unlike the British Operation Noah, which had seen the best and the brightest extracted from the British mainland before the quarantine was imposed, the elite of American society were now being flown to this very spot and others like it. There was a nationwide system of secure bunkers, but this was the place for the scientific, political, and military hierarchy. Mount Weather was deemed the best place for the survival of the American way of life and the continuation of government. On one of those helicopters sat Davina, who was being debriefed by her handler at Langley, the CIA headquarters, when the virus hit the US mainland. Her contacts and her connections had pulled strings to get her a seat on that helicopter.

  Those who worked in the mountain complex watched as the rich and the powerful arrived. Part of them felt blessed that they had a chance to survive in such a secure facility, but there was also the unease about what the future held for everyone. Could humanity actually survive this, even underground? Could they endure and thrive in a man-made environment of filtered air and recycled water? Eventually, if the infection got out of control and the country was lost, there would come a time when they would have to re-emerge from underground. What would the world look like when they did?

  Everyone who worked at Mount Weather was vetted to the extreme degree. As radical Islam was the current bogeyman, anyone with any kind of family background to the countries that harbour and promoted Jihad were banned from the facility. You did not apply to work there, you were recruited based on your experience and your merit so important was the facility. Unless, of course, your bloodline couldn’t be traced back several generations, any hint of a threat eliminated from the selection process. For that reason, the vast majority of the base’s personnel were either Caucasian or African American. China, also feared for its growing military, might had been hacking the US for over a decade, and so there were few if any personnel of Asian descent. Some of the liberal left who were presently dying on the streets of the country’s biggest cities may have called this racist, but for the planners who designed the system, it was common sense. They had, of course, forgotten that some of the biggest breaches in national security were not done by people of a different race, but of a different ideology. But the result was that there were only a handful of people in the facility who contained the genetic code that allowed the virus to mutate the body into a blood-thirsty killer. Right now, it was the safest place on the planet…but shortly, that would change.

  16.03PM, 20th September 2015, Newquay, Cornwall

  Gavin walked the streets of the damned. He had found some clothes in a locker in the hospital, the surgical gown he had been draped in not suitable attire for the task at hand. What that task was exactly, he had no real idea, but at the very least he needed shoes on his feet and something warm to keep the autumn chill off him. And food, Christ was he hungry. He had already busted open a box of crackers he had found in the hospital canteen. Apart from the infected who ran rampaging through the structure buffeting him occasionally as they ran past, he’d had a free reign of the place.

  He had left the hospital grounds to scenes of chaos. What little he saw of humanity was either fleeing or being fed on. The infected themselves seemed to ignore him, as if he was of no interest to them, and because of that, they had performed their evil right in front of him. Gavin witnessed things in that hospital that would haunt him till the end of his days. He saw a child being ripped apart by four infected who tugged at her pre-teen body on all limbs until two of those limbs simply came away from the torso, her screams almost hypnotic. He saw a woman with one red eye punch a hole in another woman’s stomach and pull the guts out so that they spilled out and unravelled on the floor. That had only seemed to excite the infected even more, and it had fallen to its knees to scoop up the intestinal banquet. And the stench, my God, the smell of these things.

  By the time he had escaped his prison, for that was what it was, there were no soldiers or police anywhere to be seen. Well, actually, that was a lie, he saw plenty of uniforms, but the creatures wearing them were no longer fighting for Queen and Country. They fought for their own kind, fought over the bodies that were scattered throughout the hospital grounds, scrabbling over the scraps. He watched them fight amongst themselves to get the best bits, enthralled in a killing spree that would have made Genghis Khan weep with joy. Gavin had even had to step over several infected, who were sprawled out in corridors stuffing their mouths with human flesh. Three times he had nearly fainted from the visions life had decided to gift him with. The infected had entered some sort of feeding frenzy. With their victory complete, the collective mind that controlled them had finally relented. It let them feed.

  Now he was outside, and a cool sea wind saved his nostrils at least. He could still smell burning, but that was heaven compared to blood and guts and faecal matter. His limbs were stiff from being so immobile for so long, and it was good to walk, to move, to be free. Gavin wandered the streets, not really sure where he was going or what he would do. He could never be amongst humankind, his body too contagious to risk. Never again would he feel a lover’s touch, or even a skin-on-skin handshake. He was an outcast, wanted by nobody, spurned by humans and infected alike. Why had they done this to him?

  There were plenty of fields that SAS helicopter could have landed in. Why did they have to land in his farm? Why did they have to bring their war to him? They should have left him alone, and at the end, they should have insisted he come with them. But instead, they had jumped onto their helicopter and had flown off into the sky, but not before leading those devil hounds to his farm. It was his fault, of course, for not going with them, but he denied this reality, choosing to blame those who were just doing what they thought was right. Oddly enough, Gavin didn’t put any blame on the people who released the virus. No, it was all down to those cunts who had deserted him. That was how he had become infected, that was how he had broken his arm, and that was how he had ended up here, how he had ended up killing someone.

  Gavin had no future; that was wh
at his own despair told him. That was why he wandered Newquay in a daze, witnessing the last survivors be exterminated by the overwhelming force of the infected. He saw children in their dozens attack grown adults, saw buildings burn, and even saw one man blow his own brains out right in the middle of the street, a swarm of infected descending upon his fallen remains. Such sights he was witness to clenched down on his already-broken psyche, twisting and distorting what was left of his perception of reality. Whatever was left of him broke.

  At no time did he consider going home to his farm. It was as if the place had been wiped from his memory. Gavin probably wouldn’t have made it, of course. Even though the infected ignored him, the growing numbers of undead would not. Already, the zombies were growing in number as infected died from the injuries inflicted on them by the desperate survivors. Once the last human was converted, there was only one way for things to go. The infected would die off and the undead would rise in numbers. The problem with trying to eat human flesh was that although those consuming it were enhanced, the infected still basically had human physiology. They still needed to drink, and they still needed to eat, and cannibalism of raw human flesh was not what their digestive tracts were designed to eat. Eventually, the infected would starve, either from running out of food or from basic malnutrition. With starvation would come death. And then the undead would rise, and the country would belong to the army of the risen.

  Gavin cared nothing about any of that of course. Despite the fact that he had done nothing but lie on a hospital bed for several days, exhaustion was overtaking him. He needed to find somewhere safe so that he could rest. Sleep was all he cared about right now. Tomorrow though? Well, tomorrow things would be different.

  19.24PM GMT, 20th September 2015, Walker Lake, Texas

  Yesterday, she had done the thing that needed to be done. On the advice of doctors, she had consented to having Mitch’s life support turned off, and she had stood there with his hand in hers as the machines were switched off. He had taken a few breaths on his own, and then the rising and falling of his chest had just stopped. She had willed him to carry on, to prove the doctors that there was still life in there, but her wish was not to be fulfilled. After a minute, his heart stopped beeping, the flatline on the monitor the only indication to her. The doctors had the common decency to turn the sound on the machine off because they knew how distressing that monotone sound could be to some relatives.

  She had sat with him for about thirty minutes, and then had stood up, her eyes dry and her heart in pieces. Letting the hospital do what needed to be done, she had spent the next hour filling out paperwork and being comforted by his work buddies. Mitch was well liked, which made it even harder for her to understand why he had done this. The local FBI had arranged a room in a local hotel for her, and she had driven there, still in shock. When she woke up the next morning, for a good while, she couldn’t even remember how she got to the hotel or her room.

  She didn’t eat breakfast, because she had things to do. Mitch had two properties. A rental in Dallas, and the cabin their father had given to them both. It was a glorified hunting lodge, which was why Fiona had barely ever set foot in the place. Her brother hardly got to go there either, and although he’d made great plans to get it rented out, he’d never gotten ‘round to it. Because when he did get to go out there, it was often at short notice, and that didn’t work if you had holiday tenants.

  That’s where she was now. It was peaceful here, being on the lake. There were few neighbours anywhere near, and it was as if civilisation didn’t even exist. Fiona needed to be alone, to settle her mind and deal with her grief. She would phone her boss later, but not from here because there was no signal on her mobile and the cabin didn’t have a phone. She had stopped at a gas station about ten miles away and had stocked up on provisions. Her phone worked there, and at some point, she would drive back and make the call. The contents of that conversation would be based on what she decided on over the next few hours. That was the other reason she needed solitude. Fiona needed to decide if the agency was still to be the focus of her life. She strongly suspected that she was going to hand in her badge and her gun. None of this was what she had signed up for.

  She didn’t carry the virus, much of Texas being free of it. And not having a phone that worked, she was going to be left totally unaware of what was about to hit the USA. When she eventually got to see the devastation that was about to befall her country, a thought would briefly slip into her mind that perhaps her brother had been the lucky one. No sane mind was supposed to experience what was coming.

  19.45PM, 20th September 2015, Somewhere in Cornwall

  The British Challenger 2 battle tank was arguably the most heavily protected tank in the world, and this particular tank had initially fared well against the infected onslaught. Upon its retreat from Defensive Position 5, it had mowed down hundreds of infected under its sixty-two-ton weight, its machine guns ripping heads and torsos apart. Its only weakness was now displayed quite vividly. It was out of ammunition and it was of diesel. Basically, it was now nothing more than a box to die in.

  Captain Gallagher sat knowing that he was as good as dead. He had always wanted to be a tank commander, as far back as he could remember. It was the film Kelly’s Heroes that had done it for him; there was just something about it that had resonated with him. He’d certainly lasted longer than most of the infantry out on the ground, the infected swarming over them like flies on shit. And now all he had were his memories and the negative waves that floated through his thoughts.

  It had hurt him to retreat like that, but when the walls fell in multiple sites, he knew that movement was his only option. They had driven to the next defensive position, only to find it completely overrun, the last of the defenders fighting for a lost cause. By the time they had reached the next one, the fuel gauge was already warning of impending doom. Finally, in the middle of a field, the vapours hadn’t been enough and the tank had stalled, the engine falling silent. And that had been the end of that.

  As much as his crew respected him, they hadn’t stuck around. They told him he should have come with them, and perhaps they had been right. But what was the point? Where were they going to go? The battle was lost, any chance of salvaging the situation gone. They were all fucked, and Gallagher had no intention of being out in the open where some blood-crazed creature could eat his face. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

  Alone with only his thoughts, he sat back and poured himself another shot of 18-year-old Scotch. He’d brought it with him in the foolish hope it could have marked a celebration, and he’d kept its presence a secret from his crew, hoping to surprise them one day. Now they were gone, and there was nothing to celebrate. There would be nothing but misery and regret now. It was such a shame to waste such a fine beverage on a last ditch attempt or drunken oblivion.

  He wondered where his men were, whether they had found some sort of sanctuary. They could have been in here with him, sharing this fine drink, enjoying the olfactory delights that were the result of him having to shit into his own helmet. Gallagher would have opened the hatch and thrown the deposit outside, but there were infected crawling all over the turret. Every couple of seconds, they would slam down on the reinforced metal, just to let him know they were still here. There was no escape for him, not in this reality. He was out of water, out of food, and it was only a matter of time before the tank battery gave out. Would he outlive the lights, or would he die in darkness? Perhaps in such a situation, it was better to be alone.

  He didn’t want to die, and he had done all he could to try and survive these bastards. But this was it, the end. All he had was his Scotch and his flaws. To think he had survived Afghanistan and Iraq. He had been hit by countless rocket-propelled grenades, even had his tank incapacitated by IED. But he’d come through it all unscathed, praise and medals the order of the day. And what had been the point? What had been the point in any of it? That was the thing with war: if you were on the losing side,
your whole reason for existing was snuffed out.

  There was a loud clang from the side of the tank as if something had been thrown against it. Keep trying fuckers, you ain’t getting in, and I ain’t letting you in. Gallagher drank his Scotch slowly, revelling in what was now the only pleasure available to him, the pleasant burn in his stomach ecstasy, the fuzz forming over his thinking blissful anaesthetic. He had two-thirds of a bottle left, and if he was lucky, he would succumb to alcohol poisoning and slip into a coma. Anything was better than being eaten alive by creatures that a week ago would have probably gazed upon him with a mixture of respect and awe.

  23.59PM, 20th September 2015, Earth

  San Francisco, New York, Las Angeles, Paris, Brussels, Rome, Milan, Atlanta, Melbourne, Sydney, Berlin, Cape Town, New Delhi, Mexico city, Toronto, Buenos Aires, Brasilia, Washington DC, Beijing, Tokyo, Christchurch, Doha, Cairo, Baghdad, Tehran, Jerusalem…all saw the virus erupt within their streets in a matter of several hours. The virus plotted and it planned coordinating its onslaught upon the world. Thinking it was safe, thinking the outbreak was isolated, thinking that somehow they had time, humanity never stood a chance.

  The Overmind; that was what it called itself. From the first points of infection via the various hotels’ sprinkler systems, the new, improved virus spread out across the globe. Although it had not taken any overt control, it manipulated and cajoled its hosts by more covert means. And as it infected more bodies, as more minds were joined to its telepathic link, it developed sentience. With those minds came all the knowledge they contained, their thoughts, their memories, their lessons, their tragedies. It learnt language and the rudiments of psychology and science. The infected created by the London virus worked in unison, but were controlled more and more by urges, not by anything but the most rudimentary intelligence. They fed and they spread, and worked together to defeat humanity’s defences. And whilst some of them used tools, that was merely the last vestige of their degenerating memory. As the days progressed, they became more feral, more animalistic.