Infection_Experiment 61

by Simon Smith-Wilson

  ***

  The sound of automatic fire could just about be heard through the torrential downpour of rain. Duncan peeked over the boot of the car, spotting muzzle flashes from a building window. A second gun, the sound of a high calibre rifle, rang out in reply. The infected in the surrounding buildings were working themselves up into a real frenzy at the new noises. Even the tired and malnourished infected were dragging their dying bodies up the road towards the gunfire. Duncan just hoped the rain concealed the sound from the nearby horde. That was the last thing any of them needed. The sound of gunfight rattled on for a moment, paused for a longer moment, and then Nightmare squeezed off another burst from the automatic submachine gun. It was now or never. Duncan knew the building the attacker was in, and he hoped to God that Nightmare was proving a big enough distraction to make the attacker forget all about him. Duncan broke from cover and sprinted up the sidewalk. It was hard going in the full body body-armour, especially now that his clothes were soaked with rain, making them feel at least ten times heavier. His eyes scanned the building's windows, as he charged through the pouring rain, cut across a t-junction, barely avoiding the outstretched arm of an infected trapped under a stationary car. Duncan reached the building, pressed his back up against the wall and took a moment to catch his breath. The sound of gunfire has ceased from above. Nightmare must have put an end to the attacker. Duncan caught sight of a group of infected running up the street to the right. There were only five of them, but that was more than enough to overwhelm him and beat him senseless. He thought about putting them down but didn’t want to give away his current position. Instead, he moved into the building through the broken front door. It was some kind of office building with a main foyer, a wooden desk and a couple of meetings rooms off to one side. The glass windows were smeared in bloody handprints. Several dead bodies of young women in work attire and smartly dressed men were here and there. Duncan followed the signs on the wall to the stairwell. He paused for a moment to see the five infected people charge by the front doors and continue on down the street, screaming hysterically. The stairwell was dark, so he flicked on the penlight torch attached to the barrel of his handgun. Dried blood was on the floors, but there were no bodies. Slowly, Duncan made his way up through the stairwell. He could hear the infected trapped on the first floor and continued up to the second. His heart was beating so hard that he was sure it was going to be bruised by the way it seemed to bounce off his rib cage. Sweat was dripping down his brow inside his black helmet and facemask. The fourth floor was his final destination. That was where he had seen the muzzle flash coming from. Once again, he paused and caught his breath. He shook out his legs, cursing himself for feeling scared. His legs had gone to jelly, and he couldn’t stop them from shaking nervously. It didn’t matter how tough he acted or how many battles he survived, he still felt like shitting himself on every mission.

  Duncan opened the door to the fourth floor.

  The place was silent, apart from the sound of the rain striking the windows and the muffled sound of the screaming infected two levels down. The glow of his torch shone into the gloom, revealing nothing apart from what you would expect from an office building. Duncan stepped out into the corridor. To the right was a large area with lots of cubicles, and to the left were signs towards the gents and ladies toilets and a stockroom. Duncan went left, taking his time, inching forward. He was in no hurry. The stockroom was a narrow room with stationary, paper and a copier machine. The next door along was to a small kitchen that was no bigger than a box room. The toilets were singular with a door leading into a men’s toilet and a ladies-come-disabled toilet. Duncan headed back the way he came, passing by the stairwell door and moved into the main office area. Flashes of blue crackled across the skyline, casting a blue glow in through the floor to ceiling high windows that ran the length of the room.

  Duncan moved cautiously.

  Where was Nightmare?

  And then he found him.

  Nightmare was lying on the floor between two cubicles.

  He had been decapitated and his helmet removed.

  The young man’s head was sitting on the black armoured torso of his body, looking straight at Duncan.

  ***

  Anna stroked her fingers through her husband’s hair, as he sprawled out on the couch with his head in her lap. Fernando, their four-year-old son, was sat on the floor drawing pictures. Gomez looked up at his wife. She could see the pain and turmoil through the windows of his soul. ‘I have a decision to make,’ he told her. ‘I don’t think I can do it. I cannot be the man that ordered the apocalypse. Billions of people will die if we launch our nuclear weapons.’ He fell back into silence for several minutes, returning to the war between his thoughts in the battlefield that was his mind. ‘The cure could be right on our doorstep. I need to buy more time. There has to be a way to fix what has happened. Bringing more death to this world is not the answer.’ The door to their private room within the underground bunker was thrown open so hard that it bounced off the wall. General Wise and four armed soldiers marched into the room. President Gomez jumped to his feet. ‘What is going on here?’ He knew what was happening just by the cold hard stare in the General’s eyes.

  ‘I am sorry, Mr President, but your hesitation will destroy our great nation.’

  ‘There might be a cure.’

  ‘We have run out of time,’ replied General Wise.

  ‘So, you're going to take over now?’ President Gomez sneered.

  ‘Someone has too.’ General Wise freed his sidearm from its holster, raised the weapon and fired twice in the centre mass of President Gomez. The last thing he heard was Anna’s heartfelt cry, but she was quickly silenced by the next squeeze of the General’s weapon. All eyes fell on the four-year-old boy sobbing on the floor. ‘Leave me,’ ordered the General. The young soldiers in the room looked at one another. No one knew what to do. ‘I will not stand for insubordination.’ One by one the soldiers drifted out of the room. Not a single one of them could even make eye contact with the kid. ‘You can blame your father,’ said General Wise, as he blew the top of the child’s head off. The cold hearted General let out a sigh of annoyance as if murdering three people was a tedious job that had to be done. He holstered his sidearm and headed for the door. It was time to regroup everyone in the war room. He had a country to protect.

  ***

  ‘Shit. Shit. Shit,’ Duncan muttered over and over. He headed back through the office towards the stairwell. They were being hunted. He had to find Experiment Sixty-One and get to the evacuation point. He had to get out of here. Duncan opened the door to the stairwell and ducked. Years of mixed martial arts training kicked in automatically, as a red axe embedded itself into the stairwell door. A man in black police riot gear stepped out of the gloom, kneeing Duncan in the face. The force of the blow sent him spiralling backwards, sending a deep crack across the visor of his helmet. Automatically he threw up a hand, as the attacker slashed a machete down towards him. It sliced through his arm just above the forearm guard. Duncan screamed out as intense pain roared through his body. He reacted on pure instinct, throwing himself at the attacker and head butting him with his helmet. The man stumbled backwards, but it appeared that his own helmet took the brunt of the blow. Duncan took a moment to look down at his arm. Blood was dripping down onto the floor, but to his relief, his arm hadn’t been severed in two. The attacker came forward again, slashing the blade of his machete through the air. Duncan skipped back, ducking and twisting, doing everything within his power to stay out of the path of the blade. Only now did he realise he had dropped his gun. He reached down and pulled the combat knife from his left boot. The person charged him, rugby tackling him around the mid-section and threw them both into the nearest cubicle.

  ‘Die you fucking bastard. I won’t be infected. I won’t be infected. All others must die!’ roared the man in the riot gear, as he got on top of Duncan. The unknown man stabbed the machete down but the point of the blade was stopped by
the military body armour. Duncan replied by driving his combat knife into the man’s thigh. The man screamed in pain but that didn’t stop him from stabbing his machete down towards Duncan’s broken visor. The marine twisted his head to one side, allowing his helmet to take the force of the strike. Duncan twisted his combat blade, forcing it in deeper to the flesh.

  The man rolled off of him, struggling to get to his feet.

  Duncan was up first, ran forward and toe punted the man square in the ribs.

  The attacker caught his leg, striking Duncan in the kneecap.

  ‘Fuck!’ Duncan cried out as blistering pain roared up his leg.

  Duncan reached down for the shotgun strapped to the man’s back. The attacker rolled away, but a moment too late. Duncan had the shotgun by the base, yanking it free from its holster. The attacker knelt on one leg, pulling a handgun from a thigh holster. He raised the gun, as Duncan slid his hand along the shotgun towards the trigger. They both fired at the same time. Duncan was struck square in the chest. The body armour stopped the killer blow, but he could feel something break within his body, as he collapsed back onto the broken cubicle. The shotgun had done what a shotgun was meant to do. The man’s throat had been blown to smithereens. His head dropped back as if it were a lid to a treasure chest. Only the skin on the back of his neck kept the head connected to his body. Duncan groaned painfully, as he looked up at the ceiling of the office. Why had this man attacked him? He did not know. At this moment he did not care. His arm was badly wounded. His knee felt like it was dislocated. And he was fairly sure that fucker had just broken his sternum bone. No part of him wanted to move, but he had to. He was all that was left. He had to find Experiment Sixty-One.

  ***

  General Wise sat in the President’s chair in the war room. The room was divided. Half of the room backed his move against President Gomez, and the rest were against it. One or two people had been forcefully removed from the room and would not be heard of again. The rest remained silent, but the look in their eyes said everything. He would deal with them in time. They would not do anything with the armed soldiers stood against the wall. The men in the bunker were loyal to General Wise. These people would learn to accept that he was now in charge or they would be executed. No more half measures.

  ‘Sir, all missiles have locked onto their targets,’ said a young woman to the front of the room.

  General Wise nodded, his eyes studying the map on the television screen that took up the far wall. Red dots were appearing all over China and Russia. China had already launched missiles into Russia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe in an attempt to contain the infection. The U.S.A was their next. Once he gave the orders, then the United States of America were players in World War Three.

  A young man rushed into the room and whispered into the General’s ear. He kept his voice low so that nobody else could hear. ‘Sir, we have made contact with the surviving member of the extraction team. They are closing in on Experiment Sixty-One and are requesting extraction.’ General Wise could feel something pull down on the pit of his stomach. The extraction team was still alive? They were close to reaching the target? Did that mean President Gomez was right to wait? Could all this war and death be averted if they found a cure? ‘What would you like me to do, General?’

  ‘Ignore it.’

  ‘General?’ The young man looked confused.

  The General looked the young man square in the eyes, ‘Ignore it.’ He got to his feet, shoving the young soldier towards the doorway. Both hands were placed upon the wooden table in the centre of the war room. ‘Launch the missiles.’ It was done. The order had been given. It was too late for peace. There was only one way to save the United States of America, and that was to destroy the enemy first.

  ***

  Trained eyes spotted the tripwire as he approached the building. It took some doing, with muffled cursing, to raise his injured knee over the obvious booby-trap. The front door of the building opened with a quiet click. Silence greeted him. The interior of the home was dark, but he could see the glow of candle light coming from a door down the hallway. Duncan exhaled, causing his broken sternum to cut through him like a stab in the chest. His hands were shaking, his torso screamed in pain, his knee throbbed and all he wanted was to get home. The barrel of his handgun led the way. If anyone or anything jumped out at him, then he would not hesitate. He didn’t have anything left to give. He was tired, hurt, cold and wet. His team was dead. If anyone did anything it was shoot first, ask questions later. Duncan glanced down at the GPS map. The target was mere feet away. Duncan paused, braced himself and then stepped into the room. A young woman was sat on the floor covered in blood. A dead man’s head rested on her lap. The man had clear signs of being infected from the blood dripping from his eye sockets. A gruesome wound had opened up his throat. The woman was sat wide eyed in silence. Slowly, she looked up at Duncan.

  ‘I didn’t mean to kill him.’

  Duncan glanced around the room, but there was nobody else present.

  He glanced at the GPS. The target was right in front of him.

  This woman was Experiment Sixty-One.

  ‘You need to come with me,’ said Duncan.

  ‘I had to do it. He was going to kill me.’

  Duncan didn’t have time for this. He limped into the room, hooked Jasmine under the elbow and hefted her onto her feet. He growled through clenched teeth, as his sternum reminded him it needed medical assistance. Jasmine didn’t resist. Duncan reviewed the GPS screen attached to his forearm. The evacuation point was fifteen minutes from here. It would take him almost double that time in his current condition, and that is with the hope they don’t run into heavy infected resistance. The two of them exited the house, avoiding the traps, and set off down the road. The infected roamed the streets, but the heavy rain concealed the duo’s footsteps. Forty-five minutes of stopping, starting, waiting and hiding and finally they made it. The rain eased up, high winds broke apart the overcast sky. Twinkling stars made an appearance above the hostile world.

  ‘Where are they?’ growled Duncan, searching the sky for the helicopter.

  Jasmine sat on a park bench, head in hands.

  Time began to drift by. Duncan radioed headquarters, but no reply came back. Ten minutes drifted into twenty minutes, which drifted into thirty minutes. They took cover from passing infected and returned to the open whenever they could. Duncan knew the truth, but couldn’t accept it. They had abandoned him. The mission was over, and he had failed. No one was coming to get them. And that was when he saw it. Jasmine raised her head and looked up at the horizon.

  ‘No...’ Duncan couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  Hundreds of vapour trailers filled the sky, as nuclear missiles were launched into the air. Duncan could feel his heart fall into the pit of his stomach. In every direction, missiles were taking to the sky. Nuclear Armageddon had just begun. Duncan turned his eyes to the woman beside him. He was looking at the cure. He was looking at a woman that had been infected but had returned to normality. Why hadn’t they waited? Why hadn’t they sent in a rescue team? Why...?

  Books by Simon Smith-Wilson

  ***

  (City of Sin Series)

  Five Days Notice

  Hand of God

  Last Tomorrow

  All those Yesterdays

  Blood for Blood

  Dark Fantasy

  (Prisoner 3-57 Series)

  Prisoner 3-57: Ghost

  Prisoner 3-57: Nuke Town

  Prisoner 3-57: Phantom Soldier

  Prisoner 3-57: Trilogy

  (Zombies Series)

  Zombies

  Zombies: Black Rock

  Zombies: Death Squad

  Zombies: Hell Dimension

  (Generation Series)

  Personal Apocalypse

  The Curse of Meredith Holmes

  Erasing Creation

  (Heroes of Magic Series)

  The Legend of the Hermit Master

 
The Last Magic Dog

  Liquid Crystal

  Star Slayer

  (Beast Trainer Series)

  Beast Trainer: King’s City

  Beast Trainer: Tower of Time

  (Infection Series)

  Infection

  Infection: P.O.T.U.S

  Infection: Experiment 61

  (Novels)

  Sinister Shadows

  Tokyo Terror

  Adultery & Murder

  I Believe

  The Arrangement

  Killers

  Bridge to the Moon

  Attack of the Sprouts

  Winter is Coming

  (Short Stories)

  Princess Amber and the Unicorn Valley

  The Owl

  Before the Dawn

  Angels of Abortion

  Story of God

  Gift from God

  The Longest Wait

  Wanderers of the North

  Dark Fantasy

  ***

  Prophecy is in motion. A woman marked by destiny travels the wasteland, searching for the girl that will father her God. Rebecca blows away all evil without mercy, whilst gathering followers for her new and mysterious religion. Rumours of her magical exploits reach far and wide, shaking up the powerful families that control this dying world. Day by day her forces grow larger, increasing her threat to the stability of power.