The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 4): The Dead

by Deville, Sean

  “Do you share these dreams?”

  “Yes,” Jessy answered.

  “We aren’t lying, Richard,” Reece insisted. “What would be the point. All we know is that we have to try and stay awake. We are only in danger when we are asleep.” Are we though, Reece considered? Could The Woman of Skulls drag them into the dream world despite their own resistance? The thought stayed in her mind, clutched from the ether.

  “This isn’t right,” Howell said. There was anger in his words, hidden below the surface but bubbling there. He was a man who had joined the military to help defend his country, to do what was right to keep the people he loved safe. That went for those he didn’t know as well. The experiments being waged on the innocent weighed heavily on him. And yet he had his orders from a commanding officer he respected. The obligation of duty was a powerful force.

  “You should go now,” Reece said. She could tell Howell was pushing what was acceptable. “I don’t see how you can help us, and I wouldn’t want to see you get into trouble.” Howell mulled that over.

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right,” he said, but he knew right there and then that he would help these people. Somehow.

  24.08.19

  Newark, USA

  Gabriel had been right, the helicopter had attracted the undead, thousands of them following in the wake of its journey. They filled the streets, streaming from all around, climbing over each other to try and get at the food that flew in the air above them. It was only natural that they should invade any building they came across, the bank an ideal candidate for potential food. It had taken mere minutes for the bank’s interior to be totally overrun, but by then everyone was safely on board the helicopter that even now was rising into the sky.

  “Thank you, Jesus,” Gianni kept saying, relief flooding through him. The man from Brooklyn sat fully strapped in, now firm in the belief that he would be finally safe from the zombie menace. He didn’t realise that the zombies were now the least of his concerns.

  Gabriel had needed to send a harness down on a winch to have any hope of getting the guy into the helicopter. There was no way Gianni would have been able to hold onto the cable, let alone climb. John and his Sergeant had followed after, no harness needed for them, speed more important than safety in this instance. There had been no real need to rush though, none of the massed undead had made it onto the roof, the ladder and the thick roof security door too much of a hurdle for any of them to navigate. It was frightening though to see how many of the undead there now were in the streets below. Standing room only, several zombies being pushed through shop front windows by the sheer mass of undead. Did that many people even live around here?

  Gabriel still couldn’t get over how quickly they moved. The undead of lore were supposed to be cumbersome, awkward, lumbering affairs. Not these. They seemed to have strength and agility superior to the average human. Suddenly Gabriel understood how they had been so effective against armed soldiers. They were durable, relentless, and hell-bent on ripping flesh from bones no matter the enemy they faced. And he had been a part of it. There was no guilt in Gabriel’s heart, but he did wish those at the head of Gaia had been a little bit more honest with him.

  Smoke rose from the streets below as the helicopter headed North. At one point, Gabriel got to witness a firefight as soldiers on the ground defended an entrenched position against what seemed like a wave of mindlessly attacking forms. Even though it looked like the soldiers were holding their own, the next road along showed a crowd of zombies three times what the soldiers were presently dealing with. The men he saw were clearly lost, and they didn’t even realise it.

  The helicopter had been forced to deviate then due to a seagull smashing itself into the pilot’s windscreen. The dead bird didn’t get through, but it represented the ongoing threat that they all faced. Another hit straight after, the windscreen in front of the pilot fracturing slightly.

  Only two birds attacked, so Gabriel was spared crashing to the ground.

  Unfortunately for Gabriel, he had made a mistake by getting in the helicopter. Sitting one seat along from John, he let himself get distracted by the outside world, something that was totally unlike a man who was normally acutely aware of the threats surrounding him. He was still weary from his previous ordeal, his eyes heavy, his mind dulled. Gabriel knew he could hold off the need for sleep, but his thoughts had wandered. Gazing out of the helicopter’s side window, he didn’t notice John extract the syringe from one of his many pouches. One of the problems with the respirator he now wore was that it limited his eyesight. He had no real peripheral vision, so he didn’t see the threat until it was too late. In his prime, he would have killed John before the needle got anywhere near him.

  The tip of the needle slipped into his arm before Gabriel could react, easily penetrating the NBC suit. John moved quickly, the plunger already down before Gabriel had a chance to fight back. And fight back he did, releasing the seat harness so he could better defend himself and deal damage to those around him. His first act of self-defence was to rip the respirator off John’s head to the soldier’s horror. Still, John and the Sergeant came at him in the limited space offered by the helicopter’s passenger section, Gabriel raining blows down on the two of them.

  Despite Gabriel managing to break the Sergeant’s wrist, the chemical quickly took his consciousness from him. Slumping back into his seat, Gabriel fought to keep his eyes open, but whatever had been injected was too powerful, even for him. With John’s face now visible, Gabriel was able to see the regret in John’s face.

  “I’m sorry Gabriel,” John said, the Captain’s mind filled with the very real threat that the loss of his respirator might have exposed him to the residual Lazarus that would be all over his NBC suit. Gabriel just shook his head.

  “You just made the biggest mistake of your life,” Gabriel managed to utter before unconsciousness finally took him. With Gabriel now unable to resist, the Sergeant did the test for immunity on him, hampered as he was by the painful injury. It didn’t take long for the test to come back positive, just as John had expected.

  It looked like John would be bringing Major Carson back two more immune rather than one. But Gabriel was right, it would indeed be the biggest mistake John had ever made, a red smear on his cheek so far unnoticed against the dark colour of John’s skin and the poor lighting in the rear of the helicopter.

  They thought they had captured just another hapless sheep. Not so. Gabriel was actually a wolf wearing the disguise of the immune brought to him by the vaccine he had administered all those months ago. If you were willing to try and hold a wolf in captivity, you better be prepared for the wolf to fight back.

  25.08.19

  Pleasington, UK

  Nick had helped Azrael with equipment for his journey. One of the things Azrael had insisted on was a fully charged mobile phone.

  “Why?” Nick had asked. The phone would never be able to receive or send calls.

  “I need an alarm. I need something that will wake me up if I need to go to sleep,” something that the satellite phone didn’t provide. It was that alarm that brought Azrael back from the desert now, the blaring tone delivered by the headphones directly to his ears. It was enough to drag him from the wasteland, away from the dangers of those intent on slaughter. He had seen all he had needed to see.

  The rest he had achieved was barely sufficient. He couldn’t spend any longer there though, three hours a gamble he had allowed himself, one that could never now be repeated until his mission was complete. Either he succeeded in his task, or he would never be allowed to rest again, not if he wanted to live. It was obvious that falling asleep now risked the ultimate death. The horsemen and their mistress owned the desert and all those trapped in it, slaughtering any immune they could catch there.

  The trip to the dream world had been worth it for the knowledge he had achieved, but hearing the screams of those that were being killed had made Azrael’s blood run cold. He had killed so many himself, but never like that.
It was true, they did have a form of telepathy in that realm, and he had felt everything that had happened to Big T, Whittaker and the others.

  It had almost ripped his soul apart.

  Awake now, he mistakenly believed he only had to worry about the undead and the soldiers who called themselves the horsemen. Only! And then there was the other, the woman who had finally revealed herself. The fifth of them, the strongest, the leader of the Horsemen. Somehow Azrael was aware that he wouldn’t find her with Smith and the other killers, but as if informed by providence, Azrael thought he knew where she would be. Exactly where Nick had told Azrael to go after his mission to kill Smith.

  Azrael also felt he knew that, despite the evils done in the desert, his task here was to kill innocents. They had been warped by their exposure to the antiserum taken from Jessica’s blood, deformed into creatures driven by a determination that was not their own. Azrael had no hesitancy in this, he had killed the innocent and the unfortunate before. So many scientists had been ended by him, marked for death due to their intelligence and their perceived ability to counter the threat Gaia had wanted to release.

  It was still night time, the house he was in quiet. He had chosen it because of its proximity to the railroad tracks, a route that had so far helped rather than hindered him. Now he was on the final stretch, and in the far distance, he thought he could hear sporadic gunfire. Was that in his imagination, or was there still resistance left to hold back the zombie hordes? It didn’t matter, there was nobody who could help him with what he needed to do.

  He still had enough ammunition to get the job done, something that wouldn’t be an issue once he got to the Preston Barracks. There would undoubtedly be as many bullets as he could ever hope to fire just lying around in the discarded guns and the utility pockets of the corpses left by the zombies that had swarmed over that place.

  This final trek would be the most difficult, though. He still stank, an alien smell not even close to the one his body could create on its own. Thus there was no comfort to be found in it. He resisted the desire to wash because at the end of the day, it was a form of armour to him. Azrael had proven that without it, the undead could hunt him down, relentlessly, and in sufficient numbers that made any weapons he carried meaningless. With his hair and his clothes reeking of the destroyed corpses of zombies, he at least now had a chance to get past them.

  When he finally left the house, Azrael didn’t bother closing the door. He wouldn’t be returning here, the structure staying forever deserted. A family had lived here once, futile lives lived in the hope of some sort of happiness. If the occupants of the house weren’t already dead, it was only a matter of time before they joined the surging ranks of the undead. An army without generals or officers, but instead driven by one unifying, overwhelming aim.

  And what of Azrael’s future? Likely even if he were successful in his momentous journey, there would be nowhere for him to return to. He could kill Smith, he could kill all of them, but the virus would still prevail. Azrael may well yet win this skirmish, but humanity was unlikely to win the war. Still, looking up at the stars, he said the words that only someone intent on murder would ever utter.

  “My turn.” In the dreamland the Horsemen held the power. Here, in reality, Azrael was the one who needed to be feared.

  25.08.19

  Peak District, UK

  Everyone was awake now. Whittaker’s body had been mercifully covered and was already being buried, two of the SAS soldiers volunteering to dig the hole at the edge of one of the fields that had been left fallow. Nobody felt like they should say any words…too many people had died to make that ritual mean anything anymore. If there was a God, that omnipotent being no longer deserved the respect of those he ruled over.

  Jessica was scared. She felt wide awake, but then so had Whittaker. Nobody had an answer as to why he had suddenly fallen asleep like he had. Everyone seemed to agree he had been wired, the caffeine and amphetamines really seeming to do the trick. Jessica herself was having trouble keeping still, she was so on edge and jittery. How could anyone who felt like this succumb to the temptation of sleep?

  Was this good for her unborn child, though? Shit, she hadn’t even thought of that. It was something she had tried to put out of her mind, but the clock was now ticking. If they survived, the months would move quickly, taking her ever closer to the time when she would need to have a natural birth. That was a terrifying prospect for her. This was now a time without medical facilities and proper healthcare. True, they had a doctor on site, but he would be working with substandard facilities, and that didn’t take into account the whispers that suggested the SAS were planning to leave. Jessica also suspected that Beckington wouldn’t have even seen the delivery of a baby since leaving medical school, never mind overseeing a birth. There wouldn’t be much of a call for such a skill in an army doctor she figured.

  She really didn’t want to think about the dark ages she was faced with for herself and her unborn child. Staying here on the farm with Tom wasn’t all benefits.

  Azrael had called and spoken to Nick. Nick had then shared Azrael’s discovery with the other soldiers, that coating one’s body in zombie guts seemed to stop them from being able to detect you, not knowledge that was of particular use for those who weren’t immune to be fair. Nick wouldn’t want to try it, even in full NBC gear. Judy Dunn had commented that this was a bit “Walking Deadish”, but nobody present had ever watched the programme, so her comment fell on deaf ears. Azrael had also told them he was hopefully hours away from dealing with Smith. He had been about to warn everyone that the horsemen had begun their killing spree, but Nick told him everyone already knew. Nick had then relayed to him what had happened to Whittaker. That just meant that it was even more vital for Azrael to succeed in his mission.

  Now Jessica sat with her brother. They didn’t speak, he just held her in his arms to try and give her some kind of comfort. She had hardly known Whittaker, and yet, by sharing the desert together, they had become incredibly close. All the immune were joined by the phantom thread that weaved through the dream world. They were kin, even though they barely knew each other’s faces.

  There was further grim news. Natasha was still able to maintain contact with multiple agencies, those that were still functioning. MI5 and MI6 had gone dark, as had GCHQ headquarters which had surprised everyone. She was still in communication with Moros, who was able to relay communiqués from multiple American agencies that it was able to intercept. The Americans clearly weren’t aware MI13 had this capability, and this was where she learnt that Mother had been captured and extradited to the US.

  Let them have the bitch, thought Nick. They were welcome to her.

  Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Brussels…all had fallen. The cities were dark, no communication with any of them. China was battling an undead army nearly two million strong, huge clouds of radiation seeming to follow the undead wherever they went. The Middle East was presently on fire and Russia had shut all its borders. Nobody knew what was happening there. Oh, and nobody could raise anyone in Tokyo, Delhi, Melbourne or Seoul either. The world’s civilisations were failing rapidly.

  ***

  What was left of the team that had embarked on Operation Pharmacy met together. Jeff and Nick spoke with Natasha to try and formulate some sort of plan going forward.

  “I say we stay here,” Jeff insisted. “This place can keep us going. It’s out of the way, and we haven’t had a hint of the undead since coming here.”

  “I agree with Jeff,” Natasha stated. She had hardly been outside since arriving here. The farm building she had set up in with the help of Tom held everything she needed to keep watch on the world. “Anything else would be an unnecessary risk.”

  “You should know that Haggard is considering leaving with his men,” Nick informed them. Haggard was still a soldier, and soldiers had an annoying tendency to follow the orders of superiors.

  “And go where?” Jeff asked, genuinely astonished. There was no hope of defe
nding the farm without the SAS.

  “Leeds. You’ve been in communication with them, Natasha?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “They might have the virus under control. So long as the bulk of the undead doesn’t go after them, they seem to think they may be able to salvage something.”

  “They must be mad,” Jeff insisted.

  “That’s been the problem all along hasn’t it,” Nick sighed. “Fighting an enemy we couldn’t understand while all the time it was eating away at us from within.”

  “We never really stood a chance, did we?” It was more a statement by Jeff than a question.

  “No, but we are safe here,” Nick agreed “at least for now.” Safe for now was all they could really hope for. The memory of Preston was still clear in his mind, though. If a big enough horde wandered across the farm, then that would likely change, and rapidly. “Natasha, do me a favour. Try and find out what you can about who’s running Leeds. I’m hoping you can give me something that will persuade Haggard to stay with us. At least for the time being.”

  “I can do that,” Natasha advised. It would be good to have something to work on, some definitive goal to keep her occupied. She still felt guilty, had been from the very start of this mission. Natasha might have been one of the best agents MI13 had ever had, but she was also corrupted by a secret she would never share.

  When she had been assigned to Operation Pharmacy, the hunt for Azrael, she’d had two bosses. MI13 and Gaia. The first she remained loyal to, the second she had reluctantly helped protect as best she could, even though she hadn’t believed in the truth they promised. Blackmail, you see, was a powerful motivator. Years ago, when MI6 had blamed her for something that wasn’t her fault, she had been an easy target for Gaia to recruit and manipulate. Disillusioned, feeling betrayed and abandoned, she had given Gaia the information they had asked of her. When she suddenly found herself moved to the even more secretive MI13, she’d become trapped by how truly useful she had become. She was still amazed that Gaia had known of the existence of MI13.