Blood Scourge: Project Deadrise

by Siara Brandt

  Let it be dead, he thought again fervently as he opened the door and got out of the vehicle. He remembered to reach under the seat for his bat. A wounded animal could be a dangerous one.

  The headlights were far reaching in the darkness. The road was straight here and it seemed to go on forever. The fog drifted in eerie slow motion. Dru stopped dead in his tracks, horrified. His gut clenched as his worst fear was realized.

  He hadn’t hit an animal. He had hit a person. A woman. She wasn’t moving. She was lying face down in the road. She was stretched out on her stomach, her arms reaching straight out in front of her. Her legs were crushed, mangled, one of them bent at an impossible angle. Had he done that when he had backed up?

  Oh, my God. Oh, Lord in Heaven. He had killed someone. His heart was pounding like a freight train. He was frozen there in the middle of nowhere, alone, surrounded only by fog and darkness, experiencing the most gut-wrenching, awful feeling he had ever felt in his life.

  What was he going to do? He was going to have to report it. He couldn’t leave her lying in the road. He was going to have to move the body. But then the terrible thought occurred to him that maybe she was just unconscious. Maybe she wasn’t dead after all.

  He was sickened by that thought. But maybe a little hopeful, too. Where had she come from? There were no houses around. At least none that he could see. What was she doing in the woods alone at this hour? She had to be someone’s wife, or daughter, or sister. Where were they? How would they react to seeing her like this?

  He didn’t know if she was young or old. She was a stark, white figure in the headlights, but there were dark patches of what looked like blood on her clothes. He had hit her hard. She was probably bleeding externally. And maybe internally, too.

  He took a step toward her.

  “Oh, shit.” With a strangled cry catching in his throat, he jumped back again. The woman had moved. He was horrified to think that the horribly-mangled body before him was still alive and suffering.

  One of her hands slid along the road. It dragged back, long nails clawing slowly at the gravel. She clawed so hard she made deep marks. It wasn’t exactly a chalkboard, but it made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

  Her hair was dark and wet from the damp air. It was hanging limply over her face and shoulders. The other hand moved. Her back was heaving up and down. He realized she was panting rapidly, as if she was trying to draw air into her lungs.

  “I- I didn’t see you,” Dru began frantically. “I’m going to get help.” He wanted to reassure her, but he felt nausea well up inside.

  Don’t think about that honey-glazed donut. Don’t.

  She suddenly raised her head up.

  He backed up. Dear Lord. What had he done? He stared at the vein-streaked pallor of the woman’s skin. And there was what must be dark blood oozing from her mouth and blackening her lips. She had to be all tore up inside. He wanted to help her. But he felt paralyzed with fear. He couldn’t make himself go near her.

  Bloody drool dripped from her mouth to the gravel, making a dark glistening stain there. He heard a low growl. It changed into a frightening wheeze that ended up as a prolonged rattle in her throat. Suddenly she retched and vomited a rush of black blood from her wide-stretched mouth.

  And then she pushed on her arms and lifted her upper body up. Her gaze seemed to fix on Dru as if focusing gradually. And then, using only her arms, she began to drag herself toward him, in spite of the mangled condition of her legs. Legs that didn’t seem to be working.

  He was in such a state of shock that he couldn’t even react. He looked up. His overcharged brain registered other sounds. Far away voices. Shouts.

  He looked back at the woman. Was someone looking for her? Through the clinging strands of her hair, her face looked white. Her eyes, even, seemed colorless.

  The voices were growing louder. He made out, “Help me!” again and again.

  A woman wearing pajamas came running right out of the woods. She looked desperate and out of breath. And more terrified than he had ever seen any human being in his life.

  “They’re coming,” she gasped as she ran straight for him.

  Before he could ask who was coming, she ran right past him, not even pausing to look at the woman lying in the road. He remained frozen himself, knowing something terrible out there was coming, but having no idea what it was.

  He saw black figures separate themselves from the darkness. They came on, emerging from the mist like vengeful spirits. They looked like the woman lying in the road. They looked like something that had come straight out of the depths of hell. They hissed and snarled like enraged demons.

  Now he was terrified. There wasn’t time to warn them to back off. Without thinking about it, he swung his bat. One of them fell back. But it started to get up again. He swung the bat again. Harder this time. Suddenly he was swinging the bat everywhere, knocking them out of his way. Holding them off whatever they were. And wherever they were.

  He heard a vicious snarling behind him and he spun around with the bat. He felt a hand clutch at his sleeve. He hit his attacker in the head. That one went down. And stayed down. Hit them in the head, he realized with the part of his brain that was still capable of rational thought. His instinct for survival was kicking in. An instinct that was adrenaline-driven, fear-driven.

  Blood sprayed. The bat was dripping with it. He got pulled halfway to his knees. He swung at the hands holding him, but there were too many.

  Through the open door of his SUV, he heard the radio. “This is not a test…”

  The woman in pajamas looked toward him, For a brief moment she looked sorry but she quickly looked away again. One of the attackers pounded at the window of the SUV. She struggled a few seconds. He heard the door slam. And then she drove off with a squeal of tires, thumping over the body in the road.

  Through the mist, Dru saw the red tail lights moving down the road. He was on his own. He would have to survive without help. While survival loomed uppermost in his mind at that moment. Katelyn and his unborn child flashed into his thoughts as he felt someone grab him hard from behind. The gray of dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky through the woods as he was dragged to the ground.

  Chapter 3

  Outside Cambria Research Facility

  The place was dark. There wasn’t a glimmer of light in any of the windows. Nothing was lit outside, either. Not that Greyson Kincade expected anything different, but it was pretty damned eerie for such a big place.

  The main building loomed four stories high. There were several wings that sprawled outward like the tentacles of a giant octopus. A long row of barracks faded into the shadows. Security had always been high here.

  His narrowed gaze ran along the perimeter, making mental calculations. The high fences had been designed to keep people out. Except right now his thoughts were on what the fences were keeping inside.

  There were no signs of life anywhere. And no signs of death, either, Grey thought grimly.

  The first team hadn’t succeeded. He was going to do everything possible to make sure that didn’t happen this time.

  There was about an hour or so of daylight remaining. Time to go in. Despite the advantage of night vision goggles, he didn’t want to be caught out here in the dark. Grey pointed two fingers and the man standing opposite him gave a single nod. The four men in camouflaged clothing started down the hill according to proper military procedures.

  They were special ops and if they hadn’t been so rigorously trained for survival in hostile territory, they wouldn’t have made it this far. It was hostile all right. All his years of experience and intensive training hadn’t prepared him for the things he’d encountered over the past few weeks.

  Society had collapsed overnight. And everything was still falling apart, so rapidly that things were deteriorating by the hour. All the old systems of security and order were crumbling to the point of full-blown chaos, and new, sometimes violent, groups were scrambling to fill the void. At
this point, the future of civilization was a grim prospect at best. In the inner cities particularly, the ones who were already organized, the ones holding the most weapons, the ruthless survivalists were the old gangs. Not anyone’s first choice for instilling law and order. The old saying was true. The guys with the guns rule. And the guys with the guns weren’t always the good guys.

  Survival was the most important and, in some cases, the only thing looming in everyone’s mind. Life had become a daily struggle for nothing more complicated than grim survival. Man had gone back to a primitive existence, a hunt for food, shelter and safety. It was a radical adjustment for a population used to computers, TV’s and modern luxuries. Where the biggest daily dilemma had been all about buying the latest smart phone or deciding what movie to watch or which restaurant to eat at that night.

  Cambria Research Facility had gone into lockdown mode. At least that was the last word that had come out. Then everything had gone silent about a week ago.

  There had been rumors that everything had started here, that a top secret government experiment had leaked out. Into the water supply from their best guess. At least that’s what they were told. But no one knew for sure. Whatever it was, it didn’t take long to go global. An accident or intentional sabotage, there was no way of knowing what had gone wrong. At this point what difference did it make? Mess with some of the experiments he’d heard rumors about and there were all kinds of things that could go wrong.

  The world had been an unstable place even before this. Heading for World War III by some predictions. Had the facility been working on the perfect bioweapon?

  Some officials were working on the assumption that a terrorist attack had been directed at America, and that it had quickly gone global. Hell, anyone with any brains at all could foresee that bringing America to its knees would bring down the rest of the world. But everything had hit so fast. Every country in the world seemed to be affected at the same time.

  Whatever had started it all, before countries could isolate themselves, it was too late. Communications were down everywhere. No cell phones, no TV, no radio and no internet. Everyone was groping in the dark. The world had suddenly been plunged back into the Middle Ages. Food production and distribution were at a virtual standstill. Any kind of food substance had already been snatched up by whoever could do the snatching. Governments and municipalities were practically nonexistent. People were beyond desperate for the basics of life. And it was only going to get worse. Much worse.

  It didn’t take long to get used to killing. There were plenty of staggers around to practice on. And if you had to kill one more time to keep your family alive, or if you had to fight over a supply of food that was the only thing standing between your family and starvation, you did what you had to do. In a lot of cases, you had to kill or be killed protecting what was yours.

  Grey reached the fence. They quickly cut their way through and got in without any problems. They were halfway there.

  Get Dr. Ellis Vaden out. Those were his orders. The doctor had been placed under military arrest some time ago. Grey didn’t know why. The only thing he knew was that the doctor might be the only one left alive who had been working on this thing. His orders were to find the doctor and get him back to the temporary headquarters that had been set up in Dayton. By force if necessary. If anyone had answers, it would likely be one of the scientists who had been working at the Research Facility. As far as anyone knew, the other scientists were all dead.

  He didn’t know how many people were dead worldwide, and how many were still alive. Though at times it was hard to categorize the two groups. It did seem that the healthy living were outnumbered. Badly. Success in this mission, he’d been told, was a matter of life and death. But hell, wasn’t everything these days?

  He didn’t know the other three soldiers personally. They were all that could be scraped up for this mission. He just hoped they were experienced enough to guard his back and not panic if things got bad. You weren’t dealing with regular enemy combatants. You had to expect the unexpected.

  He adjusted his night vision goggles and pulled open the heavy door leading into the facility. The stairwell was empty. Which was not surprising because there were heavy steel doors at either end. Both doors were closed.

  His combat boots crunched on a few shards of glass as he went down the steps. He didn’t know where that had come from. He didn’t see any source of broken glass. He glanced upward, searching the dark landings. Nothing moved. But you could smell death. It lay heavy on the air like it was trapped here. Not surprising. You could smell death just about everywhere you went.

  He realized that whatever trouble the first team had encountered still lay ahead of them. He had memorized the layout of the place, so there was no question about where to go. He opened the door at the other side of the stairwell and checked the long corridor that stretched out before him. Nothing there. No movement. No survivors. No staggers. No lights.

  He turned down a hallway to the left. There were side rooms to the left and to the right. They made sure to secure every door as they cleared a path through the facility. They didn’t want any surprises coming up behind them.

  So far so good. A few staggers but nothing they couldn’t handle. Luckily the holding cells were on the first floor, not far from the side entrance. He realized they hadn’t seen any more bodies wearing military clothing. There had been a few in the first hallway, but there had been a heavy military presence at the facility. He expected soldiers, but none of the men they encountered belonged to the previous team. They must have gotten deeper into the facility before they ran into trouble.

  He admitted to himself that the first hostiles they had encountered had spooked him. Maybe being confined made them more feral. Maybe they were simply hungrier because they had been locked up with no food source for so long. And then maybe it was just the confining uncertainty of the pitch black surroundings that was getting to him. He’d never had a problem with claustrophobia before, but it sure seemed to be responsible for the cold sweat breaking out on his skin. Maybe it was the stale air. Maybe it was the low echo of unidentified noises from the depths of the place that reminded him of the cavernous quality of sounds he likened to those of museums he had visited in the past. Whatever it was, he did his best to shake it off.

  In an office, they ran into three more staggers. They took them out easily and made sure they weren’t going to reanimate. These things didn’t always follow the rules. When nothing moved, they stepped carefully over the bodies. The floor was slick with blood. Thick blood. It reached from wall to wall in some places. They couldn’t completely avoid it, so they left footprints wherever they walked.

  He stepped over the feet of a soldier who was wearing combat boots the same as he was, and realized it had been a member of the first team sent in to find Dr. Vaden.

  In the next hallway there were no survivors, dead or alive. By the number of corpses with holes in their foreheads, he knew the other team had made it this far. So what had stopped them? he wondered.

  The next hallway was a different situation entirely. There were six staggers. He had to do the mental calculation fast. That was one kill per team member and then two extras.

  Like startled deer in headlights, they turned their heads and stared. Frozen for a moment while whatever senses they possessed that were still in working order, they were registering the idea of fresh meat, Grey guessed.

  In the greenish light they were like ghouls out of a horror movie. Pale skin a greyish cast, black veins dissecting their faces. Colorless eyes with a white film over them. And they stank. Lord, they stank. Like a corpse would smell if left unburied. Like rotting meat.

  Their snarls and growls made them seem like demons. Maybe that’s what they were, he thought vaguely as he went down a short flight of steps, the thought suddenly occurring to him. Maybe these people were all possessed.

  When none of the staggers remained standing, Grey pushed open another door and they were facing a row of
cells. He switched on his flash light and moved it over a dark figure lying on the floor of the second cell. He saw it move.

  He hissed out an oath and checked the area carefully before he stepped up to the bars. “Dray, are you all right?”

  The man lying inside the cell first answered him with a weak lift of his hand. “I’m alive, Grey, if that’s what you mean. Here’s the key.” The key slid along the cell floor and landed on the concrete just outside the steel bars.

  The key scraped in the lock and the heavy cell door creaked open. As he dropped to his knees, Grey heard, “That’s Dalton over there.”

  Grey turned his face to look toward a body hunched over in the third cell. “He turned,” Dray said. “I had to- put him to rest.”

  “And that’s all that’s left of Vance.” There was a dark, misshapen mass of blood and guts outside one of the cells. “He got jumped by a bunch of them and his gun went off wild. I got shot in the back when a bullet ricocheted. I’m paralyzed. I can’t move my legs.”

  “You’ve been in here all this time?”

  “Yeah. I’ve felt like a diver in a shark cage. How are things out there?”

  “Worse,” Grey answered grimly, honestly.

  There were some thumps at the far end of the row of cells. Every weapon immediately swung in that direction.

  “The door has held so far,” Dray told them as he got up on one elbow. “But I wouldn’t count on it holding forever.

  “I could hear screams for the first day,” Dray went on. “I haven’t heard anything except that damned thumping for- however long it’s been.”

  “Three days, Dray.”

  “I thought it was something like that. What time of day is it? Is the sun up?”

  Light depravation could do that to a man, make him yearn for the sunlight.

  “Have you had anything to eat or drink?” Grey asked his friend.