Last Man Standing Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Taylor, Keith

  While there is no firm timetable for this (given variations in body mass, initial concentration of bangkokii, etc.) we have found that subjects in ideal lab conditions can progress to the fruiting stage in as little as four days after initial infection, though it should be noted that such conditions will rarely be present in the ‘wild’. Indeed, we estimate that the usual time from infection to fruiting under normal conditions will be approximately five to six weeks, depending on local conditions and the initial health of the subject.

  We have also discovered, based on both the recovered Thai data and our own experimental results, that bangkokii requires the presence of UV light to initiate the process of sporulation. Under normal conditions this will be achieved by the puncturing of decomposing soft tissues by the expanding stromae, leading to the unusually rapid development of perithecia quickly followed by the mechanically explosive dispersal of spores, but we have found that the effect can be hastened by manually puncturing the flesh and applying artificial UV light. To that end we have installed appropriate equipment in all harvesting chambers, and have accelerated our production by 17%.

  Dr. Marika Zlamaljelito

  ΅

  :::6:::

  I PASS THE paper to Vee, and wait as she and Warren struggle through the technical language.

  “Five to six weeks,” Warren whispers. “Jesus.”

  I light a cigarette as I wait, turning all this information over in my head. So. It takes five or six weeks (she couldn’t be more precise?) for the infection to burn through the body and reach the reproductive stage. I reach to my pocket out of habit to grab my iPhone and check the date – it’s weird that I’m still doing that – then remember there’s nothing there but my gun and cigarettes.

  “Anyone know the date?” I ask. Vee and Warren ignore me, but Lewis pushes back his sleeve and checks his watch.

  “May 14th, I think,” he replies with an almost guilty tone, as if this is all his fault.

  I nod and lapse into thought, trying to remember the old rhyme. Thirty days hath September, April, June and November...

  “OK, so the outbreak began on, what, April 7th? That makes it, umm...” I start counting the weeks off on my fingers, “14th, 21st, 28th, 5th, 12th... Five weeks and two days since the first people were infected? Oh fuck.”

  Almost without thinking I tug the collar of my jacket up over my mouth, suddenly imagining the air to be full of deadly spores. All around me I see dust motes dance in the dim light of the garage. I’ve never thought twice about them before, but now each speck catching the light seems like a potential threat.

  “Don’t worry,” says Lewis, smiling a little at my reaction. “We killed most of the first wave, remember? A handful made it out of New York and D.C. before the bombings, but it was a week or so before the outbreak really picked up steam again. By that point anyone with a scrap of common sense had run west as fast as they could move, and a lot of the infected were taken out by the military when it was still up and running.” He waves his hand up and down as he makes an estimate. “I’d say we have a million or so infected in the east right now. Maybe a quarter of them are due to start popping any minute, but the rest might have a couple weeks before they fruit. You’d be damned unlucky to inhale any spores just yet.”

  “Only a quarter, huh? A quarter of a million infected ready to burst? That doesn’t sound very comforting, Lewis. It sounds pretty fucking terrifying.”

  Lewis grins a little. “The east is a big place, Tom. Think about it. A quarter million is, what, one infected every couple of square miles? So long as we don’t run into any of the fuckers ready to fruit we should be OK, and in the meantime we should hightail it west as fast as we can move. Get out ahead of this shit and cook up a huge batch of vaccine.”

  Vee finally finishes reading the mycologist’s report, closes the notebook and tosses it back towards Lewis. “So,” she says, “what’s your plan, great savior? We need to get hold of this vaccine, right, and that creepy fucker with his little harem has it locked away? Are we to assume you have a grand plan to get it back from him?”

  The grin on Lewis’ face flickers a little under Vee’s harsh gaze, but I can see there’s a little mischief in his eyes. “Yeah, I have a plan, but I don’t think you’re gonna love it.” He reaches deep into his jacket pocket and fumbles around for a moment before pulling out a bundle of plastic cable ties.

  “You guys have seen Star Wars, right?”

  ΅

  :::7:::

  SERGEANT LAURENCE STANDS at the window of the fourth floor suite, looking out over the destroyed barricade below. His men are struggling to tow the wrecked school bus back across the opening. They’re making progress, but even from this distance he can tell by the way they move that their confidence is shot to hell.

  Just an hour ago the men in his community were certain they were safe behind the impregnable walls their Chief had built for them. They strutted around the compound like they owned the city, but now their eyes dart fearfully around as they fight to regain some semblance of security. A single fucking ambulance had been enough to shake everything he’d built to its foundations, and for the first time since he claimed the hotel Laurence feels like the tide has turned against him.

  From four floors up his men look like ants scurrying around aimlessly after losing their scent trail, suddenly confused and skittish where before they’d been certain of their direction. Laurence knows just how they feel. Worry and doubt gnaws at him, and a knot grows in the pit of his stomach.

  He turns around and grimaces at the sight of the room. They haven’t even seen what’s happened up here yet. The moment the first man steps into the suite and discovers the truth it could all be over. The barricades can be rebuilt and the dead and infected guards can be quickly replaced, but the women... the women were much more valuable.

  At the Sergeant’s feet lies the broken body of one of his more reliable guards. He’d never bothered to remember the names of most of the grunts but this one had become a friend, as much as Laurence was capable of making real friends. Daniel Moore was his name. He’d been a good man. Always showed up for his shifts on time. Didn’t drink more than he should. Didn’t bother to use the women. He was just a slow, unimaginative, reliable old boy who happily toed the line so long as it meant his son was safe.

  Laurence hadn’t enjoyed killing him, but he’d been left with little choice when he discovered what he’d done. It’s just a shame Moore’s death had come too late. He’d already done his damage by the time Laurence had returned from shooting that fat fuck across the alleyway.

  He turns away from the window and feels his anger rising at the sight of the whores. Just an hour ago this had been his favorite suite in the hotel. It was the heart of his operation, and the source of his control over the men scurrying around in the street below. Eighteen women laying in their cots, each of them shackled to the rope that ran around the wall, each of them gagged so they couldn’t spit their hateful insults at the men as they took their rewards for service.

  It had been a nice little set up. The men had set up shower curtains between each cot for a little privacy, and every couple of days they’d been allowed to take a half hour or so out of the women in trade for their hard work. It kept them in line. In fact it was the only thing that had kept them in line. Without the promise of pussy Laurence had no leverage. No power.

  Now... Well, now it’s all over. Daniel had seen to that. He’d beaten seven of them to death before he’d decided he was hungry and dug into the girls with his chipped, blood stained dentures. The white shower curtains are spattered with so much blood the suite looks like the bathroom in the fucking Bates Motel.

  He didn’t get them all. Ten more of the women writhe in their cots as they struggle against the rope, hissing and groaning through their thick gags. Their eyes are locked on Laurence with just as much hatred as they’d showed him when he tied them up, but now the hatred isn’t personal. Now it’s just mindless loathing for anything that breathes.
Anything that thinks. Anything that isn’t infected.

  He wonders for a moment if the men might still be happy to use them. Two of the women are definitely lost causes, that’s for sure. Daniel tore at one of their bellies in his attack, and even the horniest fucker wouldn’t be able to keep his pecker up at the sight of exposed entrails. The other barely has a face left. Her gag was pulled away as Daniel ate her cheek, and two rows of pink, blood stained chiclet teeth are exposed on one side of her face. She snaps at him hungrily, but that’s nothing new. She’d snapped at him the day he’d tied her to the wall and told his men to have their fun.

  All may not be lost, though. Maybe one of the men would be willing to be a guinea pig, just to see if it’s possible to fuck the infected women without catching the infection himself. Hell, maybe they’d be happy to just rubber up and not worry about it. It could work, so long as he tied their arms down a little more securely. Laurence knows the men in the compound aren’t... sophisticated. They’ll do pretty much anything if it means they can get laid, and if they’d be happy to lower their standards he could keep them on board for at least a couple more weeks. Maybe even long enough to send out teams to bring some live women back to replace the dead.

  The sound of weeping softens his anger a little. Crouching beside her bed in the corner of the suite the single surviving girl looks up at him with a confused mix of fear, hatred and hope.

  Laurence had learned at a young age to identify the emotions that telegraphed across the faces of the people he met. It was a valuable skill for someone like him to develop. He’d always been well aware that the cold, unfeeling darkness that lurked in the depths of his heart meant that he wasn’t put together the same way as regular people, but right now he just can’t make out what the girl is feeling. He’d saved her from Daniel just as he was about to take a bite out of her thigh, for which she should be grateful, but he was also the man who’d chained her to the wall yesterday. Laurence can only really deal with one emotion at a time, and this girl seems to have four or five flitting across her face at the same moment. It’s confusing, and she’s making him feel distinctly uncomfortable.

  “Stop crying,” he orders with a stern voice. She ignores him and continues weeping while staring up at him, so he waves his gun in her direction and speaks louder. “I said stop crying.”

  That works. She ducks her head further beneath the cover of the bed, pulling her arms as far away from the rope as she can.

  Maybe this girl will be his savior, if the men won’t agree to use the infected. He stands over her and gives her an appraising look. She’s quite attractive now she’s been cleaned up a little. Long blond hair and a little pixie nose. Slim waist. Decent tits, if a little on the small side. He doesn’t know her name.

  When the girl stumbled across the community two days ago she’d been almost feral. Her hair had been little more than a mass of greasy knots, and her clothes were so dirty and ragged the men had almost shot her as she’d approached the blockade. Laurence didn’t particularly care – he didn’t really give the tiniest fuck about the lives of anyone in the community so long as he was comfortable – but the girl’s story had been horrific enough that he’d allowed her a day to rest up before he tied her up with the others and let her know that she’d only have one job for the rest of her life.

  If Laurence had been a different man he might have pitied her. He might have decided that she’d been through enough, and let her leave after a good meal, but he wasn’t a different man. He knew exactly what he was.

  Laurence was a man whose mother had never let him have another dog as a kid. Not after what happened to the first. He was a man who remembered the parents of the other kids giving him odd looks in the street, and wondering if it had anything to do with the glassy smile he always flashed them; the smile that he could never quite manage to carry all the way to his eyes. He was a man who’d joined the army because it had offered him the chance to do things that would have landed him in jail in the civilian world.

  With what little humanity he possessed he’d managed to muster a passing scrap of pity for the girl, but it had only lasted a day. He needed women. It was the only way he could maintain control, and if that meant putting her to work 24 hours a day he’d let the men fuck her until she was dead.

  He looks back towards the girl crouching in the shadow of the bed and smiles that same glassy smile. She doesn’t know it yet but she might just be his savior. She’ll work harder than any of the other girls ever did. He’ll let the men take their turns with the infected, if they’ll have them, but this one will be saved only for the most loyal. Only for those men who manage to keep the others in line. She’ll be their special treat, and she’ll keep the community on an even keel until they can restock the cots with more live women.

  It’ll work. He’s sure of it. He’s been through tougher scrapes than this.

  A yell from down below drags his gaze away from the girl. Some kind of commotion in the street below. He strides back to the window and blocks out the groans of the infected as he looks down at his battered but intact barricades.

  In the street beyond a small group walks in single file towards the gap in the blockade. It takes Laurence a few seconds to pick out his own man, the young black guy he picked up on the highway. The rest of them...

  Ah. His grin widens as he recognizes them.

  The guard points a rifle at the backs of the three prisoners, their hands bound in front of them. One of them is the young guy he vaguely remembers but can’t quite place. The other walks with a stiff limp, slowing with each few steps until the guard prods him in the back with the rifle.

  The third is the woman who’d been brought in this morning.

  Maybe things aren’t quite as bad as they seem.

  ΅

  :::8:::

  “JESUS, WILL YOU cool it with the gun?” Warren mutters angrily under his breath.

  Lewis prods him in the back once more, pushing him forward with the barrel until he stumbles painfully on his injured leg. “Sorry, Chewbacca” he whispers, “I have to make it look convincing. Just a little further and I’ll stop.”

  Warren balls his hands into fists as I turn back to face him, and I shoot him a silent look that begs him to just play along for a little longer. I get the feeling his injury has taken its toll on his patience.

  “Prisoners coming in!” Lewis yells towards the barricade. “Stand aside!”

  Through the gap opened by the ambulance a few faces appear, all of them angry.

  “Where’s Dwight?” one of them calls out, idly laying his hand on the stock of the rifle resting against his leg.

  Lewis pauses for a moment before answering, and I hold my breath. “Infected got him. I had to take care of it.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. I don’t know these men, but by their expressions I don’t think we’d have survived if they thought we’d killed their friend ourselves. They seem angry but satisfied with the answer, and nobody moves for their gun as we enter the compound. I sense at least a few of their eyes falling on Vee walking ahead of me, and I get the impression they might be a little too interested in her to care too much about why Lewis is returning alone.

  “Where’s the Chief?” Lewis asks, shoving Warren roughly forward to make sure we don’t end up stuck down here.

  A few of the men shrug, and as Lewis pushes us towards the front door of the hotel a shrill whistle makes us look up. A face appears from a window a few floors up, and as soon as I recognize Laurence I look down at the ground. I’ve no idea if he recognizes me, but I’d prefer not to let him take a close look until we’re in the same room.

  “406,” Laurence calls down to Lewis. “Bring ‘em on up.”

  Lewis pushes us through the front door without another word, and thankfully we find the lobby empty of men. Living men, anyway. Over by the concierge desk seven or eight bodies have been dumped in a pile. The mottled white marble floor is slippery with blood, and for a moment I can’t help but feel a pang of gui
lt that we’re responsible for putting those bodies there. It was my idea to break the barricade, and it’s my fault their blood was spilled. We don’t know anything about these people. They’re led by a murderous asshole, but they might be decent enough.

  My guilt quickly evaporates when Lewis whispers to us, “406 is where he keeps the girls.”

  Ah, yes. Decent people don’t have their own little rape room in their home. Fuck ‘em.

  Now we’re out of sight of the men Lewis quickly hustles us up the staircase to the second floor, and as soon as we reach the hallway he loosens the cable ties around our wrists, pulls our pistols from the waistband of his pants and hands them back to us, though he keeps hold of Warren’s rifle. “OK,” he says, “just follow my lead. Remember, we need him alive. No shooting until we get the keys to the Stryker. Vee, you–”

  He falls silent at the sound of footsteps on the stairs above, and Vee and I quickly tuck our guns in our waistbands moments before a man appears in the hallway, carrying over his shoulder the body of a young man, leaving a trail of blood on the carpet in his wake.

  “Are these the guys?” he growls, lowering the body carefully to the ground.

  Lewis nods. “Taking them up to meet the Chief.” He tries to usher us back towards the staircase, but the man steps in front of Vee as she tries to pass.

  “Not so fast there,” he says, holding a meaty hand against Vee’s chest. He looks to have maybe four inches on her, and he comes up close to her face as he speaks. “See this guy here?”

  Vee doesn’t look at the body on the floor but instead locks eyes with the man, who stares right back at her.

  “I said did you see this guy? Look at him. Look at him.” Vee finally breaks his gaze and her eyes flit momentarily to the corpse. “His name was Billy.”