The gate and the low wall that marked the boundary of the property gave him a brief respite. Some of the zombies climbed, another simply tumbled over the wall. The gate itself lasted mere seconds before it was ripped from its housing by the enhanced strength of the undead attacking it.
Connery turned fully around to face his end, his back against the cold door. Any second he hoped that the door would open allowing him to fall back into safety, but such fantasy never happened. They were on him quickly, their fists punching into his face and gut. A hand grabbed him roughly by the neck, and Connery felt himself lifted off the floor, his feet drumming madly. He couldn’t breathe and the hand squeezed tighter, praying that he would black out in time because he had watched enough Hollywood movies to know what was coming. As if sensing his thoughts, the grip on his neck weakened slightly, just enough to stop peaceful oblivion from taking him.
A zombie punched him in the gut again, only this time the skin ripped, the decaying hand forcing its way into the abdominal cavity. Surprisingly the lack of pain lied to him about the damage being done, until the zombie gripped and pulled, yanking his guts out through the wound, another zombie gripping and pulling at the hole, tearing it wider. With the muscles of his abdomen decimated, his small intestine billowed out like a grotesque, slime-coated slinky.
A third zombie tried to scoop them up, forcing the tubing into its mouth. Around Connery’s neck, the hand suddenly released itself, and Connery crumpled to the floor, the zombies climbing on top of him, almost fighting each other to get their turn. He felt something bite hard into his thigh, and then the worst of it came. A slick hand pressed against his forehead, pinning his skull to the floor whilst another hand came at his left eye, ripping the organ from its socket with fingers that were caked with the blood of a thousand victims. Connery’s scream filled the air, the only human sound amongst the undead mob, and it sent them into a further frenzy. He was methodically and ruthlessly ripped apart. For whatever reason, this was one human that wouldn’t be joining the zombie ranks.
The undead feasted, and they got their fill even though not a single one of them was satiated by the meal they tried to devour. Glasgow became just another city lost to the horde.
23.08.19
Florida, USA
When Ryan’s phone had unleashed the Presidential alert telling him the world he knew was ending, he did the only thing that made sense to him. He phoned his wife and told her to get the fuck back home. This was while he was in the cab of his truck driving frantically to the school where his two young daughters were.
Ryan hadn’t been the only parent to drive up frantically outside those school gates, the pavement clogged with the vehicles of desperate people.
When the first of the parents had turned up demanding their children be released, the staff at the school had been more than happy to unload their charges. The more parents to arrive, the less the burden on the teachers became. By the time Ryan turned up, it had been decided that it was best to send all the children home and close the school for the next couple of days. This decision was based partly on common sense, but also on the instructions of the Florida Department of Education. Apparently, the schools were supposed to have been warned before the Presidential alert was sent out, but somebody somewhere didn’t get the message. The result was understandable chaos.
Most of the teachers stayed until the last child either left or was collected. Some didn’t, their desire for self-preservation put into overdrive by the risks Lazarus represented. Children were one of the prime ways pathogens such as Lazarus spread throughout the population. Just ask how contagious kids can be when the flu or norovirus is going around. Some would be critical of those teachers who abandoned their sacred duty, but most people would understand. Really, when it came down to it, even if it was your job to look after others, a significant number of people really only cared for their own offspring and themselves.
It took Ryan all of five minutes to park up, collect his girls, and leave the school for the last time. By the time he got home through the chaotic traffic, his wife was already there, and he watched with relief as his two treasures ran to the woman he had grown distant from over the last six months. They still lived together, but her work as a county prosecutor was driving a wedge between them. The arguments that had become more frequent had always been in hushed tones in an attempt to hide from the two nine-year-olds the gulf that was increasing every day.
Sometimes adults needed to realise that it was all but impossible to hide the truth.
With the tension that had existed between them, Ryan was surprised when his wife instantly agreed with his plan to escape the contagion. He had expected resistance, a desire on his wife’s part to shoot his notion down in flames. The opposite happened, and the hug she gave him had taken him totally by surprise. Even the worst of times could be filled with moments that make your heart sing. It was just a shame those moments were so fleeting.
The plan was simple. Drive to the harbour with all the food they could pack in the car and venture out into the Gulf of Mexico on Ryan’s fishing boat. It was a good plan, the best that most people could come up with, but life never was and never had been fair. Lazarus was not going to allow Ryan and his family the satisfaction of survival.
That had been two days ago, and already the boat felt more like a cage than a refuge. The kids were restless, despite their mother's soothing voice that tried to reassure them. The children knew that things were bad, despite their limited experience at the game of life. Just the drive to the marina had shown them enough insanity to give them a clue as to the truth about human nature, the smoke from the shore now speaking volumes about the violence that they had escaped.
Their supplies were sufficient for perhaps a week, and water wasn’t an issue due to the desalination system on board the boat. Technically the boat wasn’t solely Ryan’s, he half owned it with his brother. But his brother was in Vegas, and with the way the phones had been playing up, he hadn’t yet been able to have more than a five-minute conversation with him.
Ryan’s brother used to be a marine, he could handle himself. He also wasn’t saddled with two kids and a wife that had slowly learnt to despise him.
The initial problem that followed was boredom. In their panic, they had concentrated on the essentials which hadn’t included anything except an iPad and the phones they had on them. So the kids were agitated, and now that the immediate emergency was over, the tension between him and his wife was resurfacing. It was obvious from the boat’s radio and what they could see from their offshore position that returning to land was a bad idea right now. How long would they be able to keep it together in the rather cramped conditions the boat presented though?
They also weren’t the only people to have made this choice. Other boats were dotted around them, the occasional ride past by the Coastguard reassuring many that some sort of order was still in effect. Nobody bothered them, which was a blessing, lulling them into the false belief that they had done enough to keep themselves safe.
It was his wife who spotted the bird first. A seagull, it landed on the stern of the boat, its movement strange. Looking at something he’d seen thousands of times before, Ryan knew there was something very wrong with the creature. It looked sick, but his brain didn’t connect it to what had been happening on land, so to blame him for what happened next would be a bit harsh. Having never seen a zombie in the flesh, it would be unfair of anyone to expect him to recognise a zombified bird. Still, his inner voice was shouting something at him, the bloody footprints that the bird was leaving on the pristine whiteness of his boat perhaps all the warning he really needed.
Ryan chose to try and shoo the bird away instead of locking himself and his family in the boat’s galley. When the bird came at him, and when it took his eye before flying off in its erratic fashion, he really wasn’t to know that the virus had been passed to him. When his wife tried to stem the bleeding by ripping open the med kit and holding the dressing against his face, Rya
n wasn’t to know that he passed the virus onto her. And with children who needed comfort to soothe them from the vision of their father being half blinded, the mother then passed the virus onto them.
Ryan wasn’t even the first to turn. The children were. And with his one remaining eye, he got to witness them tearing his wife apart while he sobbed helplessly, unable to hurt the darlings that had quickly turned into demons. Instead, he threw himself into the mercy of the ocean and let the cold water take him. It took three days for the current to send Ryan(Z) back to shore.
23.08.19
Preston, UK
The last of the defenders at Fulwood Barracks had been overwhelmed, the sound of gunfire now eerily absent. It had been hours since the attack on the barracks, and yet there were still dozens of zombies present in the parade grounds and in the surrounding buildings. They all pretty much ignored Smith without him even having to order them. For some reason, Smith now held no interest for their kind. All they cared about was feeding off the living and the propagation and enlargement of the ever-growing zombie battalions. Smith just didn’t factor into that.
When Smith had fled the firefight, he had retreated to the apparent safety of his room, staying there for several hours while his mind battled with what to do next. Through the turmoil of his own bubbling insanity and the constant interruptions by The Voice, Smith was finally able to settle on a course of action, although it was vague and likely to change. He didn’t realise it, but everything that made him the man he had become was slipping away.
In a brief moment of concern, Smith realised he couldn’t remember the face of his own mother.
Wandering back to the medical block, he stood witness to the carnage that had occurred there. For the most part, the undead had fared far worse than their human counterparts. The SAS soldiers guarding Jessica had been formidable foes, less than half a dozen of them lying dead around him. Still, the soldiers had lost the battle, the undead now able to feast on the bounty that was presented to them. Not all those who were killed came back from the dead. Whereas most zombies were forced by circumstance and the demands of the virus to take a bite of flesh here and a morsel there, a select few occasionally took the opportunity to gorge themselves on what was the sweetest of meat.
The undead lost in the battle could replace themselves easily from the surrounding general population within less than an hour. There was no need for a zombie boot camp, unlike the soldiers who required months of training to make them effective killing machines. With the only human defenders now defeated, the undead would ransack the neighbouring houses and take everyone they encountered. Doors and windows were merely an inconvenience. It was not surprising then that humanity was unlikely to win this war.
The enemy to man could create warriors easily and at a much faster pace.
The APC’s were long gone, carrying the immune and the bastards that had dared to defy Smith. The Voice inside Smith’s head had wanted Jessica dead and had planned for Renfield to kill her in some insane plan that, in hindsight, was doomed from the start. Colonel Carter had stopped that happening, and now even the maniac Renfield was dead. More importantly, with his demise, Renfield was no longer a threat to Smith and had taken Smith’s secret to the grave with him. Renfield had never been an ally, just an insane and unpredictable means to an end.
Why Renfield had opened fire like that, Smith would never understand. If he hadn’t, Smith would likely be on-board one of the APC’s now. Instead, he was alone, surrounded by the undead.
Because Renfield and the SAS soldiers had mostly died before the virus took hold, their bodies were prime pickings for the zombie legions. Meat was actually quite rare due to the way the virus worked, so when it was offered up, it was never ignored. What was left of the bodies now lay scattered outside the medical facility, limbs ripped from the torsos in the unstoppable feeding frenzy at the end of the short battle. The remnants of an arm lay at Smith’s feet, and he nudged it with the tip of his boot. Remnants was a more than adequate description because pretty much all that was left was bone and the tough cartilage that held the bones together.
Some of the carrion he saw had been stripped to the skeleton.
With specific regards to the corpse of Renfield, two persistent zombies seemed relentless in their attempts to get the last of the flesh from within the dead man’s rib cage. One zombie even had its head wedged right where the lungs used to be. Smith watched their actions, fascinated by the craving that so effectively owned the undead. A third zombie was trying to shred the skin off the chest with its teeth, the clothing long having been ripped away. The death of Renfield was no great loss.
Stepping closer, it became apparent that one of the zombie’s attempts to eat the lung tissue it clutched in its claw-like hands was futile, the mouth already full of matter that could never be swallowed.
And still it fed. Still, it tried to force the tissue into the blocked cavity.
“This is no good,” The Voice suddenly said to him. At first, Smith didn’t answer, but he felt The Voice pressing into his conscious thoughts. It demanded his attention.
“I said, this is no good.”
“Yes, I heard you.”
“What are we going to do about this?”
“We?” Smith was incredulous. “There is no ‘we’. You are just a figment of my imagination.” Perhaps even a side effect of the cure Smith had developed. In truth, the trauma the virus and his cure had waged on Smith’s mind had created a split personality, as well as eradicating any remnants of empathy or guilt from Smith’s brain.
“No,” The Voice insisted, “I am so much more than that. More than you could possibly understand.”
“I’m stood here talking to my own imagination.” Smith was reassured that he could find the humour in it.
“You still haven’t answered me.”
“What exactly is it you want me to say?” Smith said the words out loud. As before, to speak to himself in his own mind would somehow blur the reality and the boundaries of where he finished and where The Voice started. Smith was by far the stronger of the two, but how long could that continue? Would there come a time when The Voice simply drifted away? Or, frighteningly, would it be Smith who disappeared, only to be replaced by the psychotic alter ego? Smith had freely given The Voice control of his body once before…he wouldn’t be doing that again.
“We can’t let Jessica live. And Whittaker. None of the immune can be allowed to persist. They are a threat. If we can’t kill them in this world, we must do so in the other place.” The other place? What did that even mean?
“They aren’t a threat to me. I owe Jessica my life. Without her blood, I…we would have been one of these things.” Smith pointed to the nearest zombie, who seemed to sense the gesture. It turned its head towards Smith, foul juice drooling from its bloodied maw. Smith stepped away, no longer wanting to look at the desecration of the corpses around him. “And what other place?”
“You will see. It is where I go when you deny me what is mine by right.”
“The only place you need to go is to hell, and you can fuck off while you are doing so,” Smith said the words as menacingly as he could, but The Voice just seemed to laugh in response.
To his left, the relatively untouched body of a dead soldier sat up. Clearly, the undead knew who carried the virus and who didn’t. Did they always leave their own kind alone? Smith believed they did, at least most of the time.
“I have a good idea,” The Voice said. It sounded pleased.
“What good idea?”
“The quarantine barracks. That’s where we should go next.” The zombie soldier stood up, the bite mark on its neck undoubtedly what had killed it. Why did resurrection occur over such a wide timescale? Smith asked himself. Some came back in minutes. For others, it took hours. Wavering for a second, the zombie wandered off in search of sustenance, almost falling as it tripped over the legs of one of its kind that lay destroyed on the ground.
“Never mind all that,” The Voice
demanded. “We need to go to the Quarantine barracks.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Smith asked, although he was already coming around to the wisdom of the action. For some reason he couldn’t yet explain, it felt like the right thing to do.
“Would you rather be alone for the rest of your days with only me to talk to?”
Smith wasn’t listening. He had suddenly become fascinated by one of the broken zombies on the ground. It flapped helplessly, and Smith wandered over to have a closer look. He might as well, it was the direction he intended to head in anyway.
***
Stephanie(Z) lay on its back, the left leg that had allowed it to walk no longer attached to its body. The other leg left the hip at an odd angle, a result of the grenade blast that had destroyed its status as a bipedal entity. The severed leg lay just over a metre away, twitching uselessly.
It found it difficult to turn over, the grenade having also crushed some of the spinal vertebrae as well as obliterating most of its left hand. None of this mattered to Stephanie(Z) mind you. Its primary concern was the delectable flesh that lay within crawling distance, saliva pouring from its mouth at the prospect of satisfying the yearning that twisted its innards with a sensation that might once have been described as pain.
Something walked close to it. Not one of its kind, but also not the prey it hunted. Stephanie(Z) felt itself lifted and turned over. As this was done, it got to smell Smith and found him totally unappealing. When he had first recovered from taking XZ1, Smith had still been considered a tasty morsel by the undead, but the changes in his body that were still ongoing meant that was no longer the case. Smith could walk through a horde of thousands and emerge completely unscathed.
The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 3): The Fall Page 3
