The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 4): The Dead

by Deville, Sean

  “Shut your mouth and just end this.” Viktor had been shot before, and he had known that day would come again. It was perhaps inevitable for someone with his lifestyle. All his plans though were for nothing now. He had made one stupid mistake in underestimating this woman, and he was paying the ultimate price for it.

  “But I already shot you,” Susan informed him. She crouched down, the gun appearing to wave itself in the air as she spoke. “You should have been nicer to me,” she said. “You really don’t know how to show a lady a good time.”

  “You are not a lady, you are nothing but a whore,” Viktor managed. Despite the pain, he seemed to find humour in his own words. Whatever response he expected, he didn’t expect Susan to tut at him.

  “So rude,” she said. Aiming the gun as best she could, she fired off another shot, this time the bullet entering his right ankle, fresh agony exploding through Viktor. Blackness almost took him, but Viktor was not a man to faint. He would not show this mad woman any weakness.

  “I think that will do,” Susan said. She stood and stepped closer to him. Viktor would have tried to reach for her, but he was propping himself up with his good arm. Carefully she knelt down next to him, the tip of the revolver resting harshly in his groin. “You are still a man Viktor, don’t make me take that away as well.” When he didn’t make a move for her, Susan used her free hand to reach under Viktor’s jacket and pull out his gun. It was gold in colour, but then of course it was. A custom made Glock 19.

  Watching him closely, Susan stood up and stepped back. He said something in a language she couldn’t understand, but she assumed it was an insult. Susan shook her head. She fired the revolver again, this time into the same ankle as last time. She wanted him to last, none of her shots immediately fatal in nature. They just incapacitated him and caused an incredible and necessary amount of pain.

  With one bullet left, she threw the revolver out of the tent as hard as she could. The Glock felt heavier in her hands, but strangely natural. She wouldn’t be able to win any awards on a firing range with it, but up close and personal, it was more than she needed.

  “If I were you, I’d kill myself. You might bleed out before the undead gets through Clay’s defences, but I think a big man like you will last a long time yet.” The threat was clear and, satisfied that Viktor had been removed from the equation, Susan once again walked out of the tent. Viktor’s curses followed her out. With a desperate lunge, his damaged body just allowed him to grab the knife. He wouldn’t be able to use it against Susan, but maybe he would need to use it on himself.

  ***

  Brian was up on the watchtower again, his heart filled with desperation. There were thousands of them, swarming at all parts of the wall, not just the gate. So far, they had been able to keep the undead on the other side, but already, the fifty calibre that was being fired next to him had gone through a full box of ammunition. There were only two more boxes, one of them likely half expended by now.

  He saw it then, the futility of the situation. The walls weren’t high enough, the guns weren’t numerous enough, and the bullets weren’t plentiful enough. Even with the stockpiles Clay had been able to raid and acquire, it would never be sufficient to fight off this. Every bullet was now shot in the pure desperate belief that at some point the horde coming at them would end. It didn’t.

  The shots Susan fired went unnoticed in the noise of battle, but from the corner of his eye, Brian saw her leave the decontamination tent for the second time, his sight following Susan as she stalked naked towards the mansion. Even from this distance, he could see the golden pistol she carried. There was only one man he knew who carried a gun like that, and the fact that Susan now owned it told him more than enough. How the fuck had she been able to overpower a man as strong as Viktor?

  And then it happened, the moment that changed everything for him. Two undead had made it over an unguarded part of the wall, emerging from behind the decontamination tent. They ran at Susan who just stopped and looked at them. They edged closer, but they didn’t attack, finally stepping away, as if she could somehow repel them. Susan walked away as if nothing had happened, the undead now veering off towards the main gate, finally seen and shot by one of Clay’s men who was lucky enough to spot them.

  They hadn’t attacked Susan. Why?

  He would have said something to the ex-paratrooper who shared his lofty position, but the words would have been swallowed up by the noise. Instead, he shouldered his gun and climbed down the rickety ladder, abandoning his post. On the ground, the men were frantic now, several zombies almost making it over the gate. It would only take one to break through the defences, one to bite and claw and scratch to whittle down Clay’s troops. Thirty-odd men against several thousand weren’t the best odds, and it seemed that everybody was beginning to realise it. Brian could almost taste their dread.

  Susan was already at the front door by the time Brian made it down the ladder. He went after her, odd glances being thrown his way. Were they looking to him for guidance or did people somehow think he was running away, even now, even with what he had done to prove himself? And where would he be running to? There wasn’t some secret tunnel out of this place as far as he knew. It was the main gate or nothing.

  Let them think what they liked, it likely wouldn’t matter much longer. The men would all be forced to retreat to the mansion soon enough anyway, men already thinking about that in their minds. It would happen soon, probably when the mounted machine guns ran dry, those operating them the most likely to be the first to die.

  Bulldog came running out of the house carrying two crates of ammo, and Brian intercepted him.

  “Keep that inside,” Brian said. “Tell the men to be ready to evacuate the walls.” Bulldog looked at him with a face full of fear. The man was tough, but who could be expected to fight this kind of enemy and keep their sanity fully in check?

  “Where are you going?” Bulldog asked as Brian made to walk away.

  “To talk to Clay.”

  “Why isn’t the boss helping us defend the wall?” Bulldog asked.

  “Because Clay is a coward and a cunt, always has been. It’s time someone told him that to his face.” Talking to Bulldog had wasted precious time, and Brian detached himself from the man and went again in pursuit of Susan. By the time he was in through the main doors, Susan was out of sight. There was only one place she would have gone, and Brian followed.

  ***

  Clay watched the attack from his bedroom window. In his hand, the glass of whiskey shook, the rage at what was happening starting to overwhelm him. Why were these fuckers so useless? He had given them the best guns he had, and already the zombies were nearly making it into his compound. How difficult was it for them to just do their fucking jobs?

  He had called for Viktor over the private intercom they shared, but as yet, the fake butler hadn’t appeared. The way things were going, they might need to make a run for it, and he needed Viktor to get his armoured SUV out of the garage. It was loaded with supplies, ready to take him and two others away from this chaos. Desperation was beginning to take root in Clay. He thought he would survive this apocalypse, he really did, and now everything was turning to shit right before his eyes.

  From where he stood, he never saw Susan or Viktor, so he didn’t know the Ukrainian wasn’t going to be of any use to anyone now. Yes, Clay had access to the video feeds across the estate, but those fed into the monitors in his study which meant he was blissfully unaware of the threat that was hurtling naked towards him. Clay saw Brian though, caught him climbing down from the tower, saw him running towards the house. What the hell did he think he was doing?

  As Brian got closer to the front of the building, Clay would have thrown open a window to hurl abuse at him, but none of these particular windows opened. All Clay could do was watch as the goddamn coward deserted his position. There was the balcony of course, but that meant stepping into his bedroom’s side room. It also meant going outside where the danger lurked, and Clay w
asn’t prepared to risk that.

  Clay finished the glass and poured another from the whiskey bottle he clutched with a hand white of knuckle. If he gripped any harder, the bottle was likely to shatter.

  Behind him, the door to his bedroom opened.

  “Finally,” Clay said, thinking it was Viktor. “I want the SUV made ready.”

  “Why, planning on going somewhere, Clay?” Clay turned, Susan closing the door carefully behind her. What surprised him more than her being naked was the gun she held.

  “That’s Viktor’s gun,” he exclaimed.

  “I know,” said Susan. “I took it off him. Don’t worry, he won’t be needing it.” Clay turned fully, his full hands preventing him from reaching for the small pistol he always kept at the back of his trouser belt. To reach for it, he would need to drop what he was holding, and that would give Susan more than enough reason to shoot him.

  “Did you kill him?”

  “What, you think a fragile thing like me could kill a big strong man like Viktor?” She took a step into the bedroom, the gun aimed worryingly low. “No, I didn’t kill him, but he will be dead soon enough.” Outside, Clay wasn’t witness to the three zombies that made it over the wall and began running to the men down by the gate. Although two of the zombies were felled, the third flung itself into the decontamination tent to escape the onslaught. Viktor had never screamed under Susan’s torture, but he did as that single zombie tore pieces off him. Nobody was there to see Viktor finally die.

  Clay took a mouthful from his glass, only for Susan to shoot the bottle out of his hand.

  “Are you crazy, that’s seventy-year-old whiskey.” She was surprised by that response. His outrage was actually genuine. “What the fuck do you want, Susan?”

  “You have two more vials of that shit you pumped into me,” Susan said, the gun steady in her hand. She was surprised by how easy it was for her to shoot it. The sound was deafening, but she had no concern for her ears. “I want them.”

  “Fuck you,” Clay said.

  “You’ve already done that,” Susan reminded him, “and very unsatisfying it was too. To be honest, your cock is so small, I barely felt you inside me.” Clay’s face started to go red. She suspected all along that this was a sore point for him. It really was a suboptimal penis. “With your gut, when was the last time you even saw it?”

  “Shut your fucking mou…”

  “Or what?” Susan asked. “What, you’re going to rape me again? You think I give a fuck what you could do to this useless flesh? I want those vials, Clay.” He stood there, defiantly. Susan knew that they would be locked away somewhere, so she had to keep Clay alive and on his feet. “As small as it is, I will shoot your dick clean off if you don’t do what I ask.”

  “You are going to kill me anyway,” Clay insisted.

  “Actually no, I’m not. Quite the opposite in fact. I’m going to make you take one of those vials instead.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, I’m going to save you, Clay. I’m going to save you from yourself.”

  25.08.19

  Frederick, USA

  Gabriel woke up to find a ten-year-old girl staring at him.

  “Hello,” Lizzy said. She had a worried smile on her face, not really knowing whether to trust this newcomer. The child’s eyes looked like they had seen a thousand wars.

  “Hello,” Gabriel said in return. He sat up on the bed, ignoring the shooting pain in his skull. Pain had been with him a lot the last few days, why should he be surprised if it was still a seemingly permanent companion in his head.

  “I’m Reece,” the woman sharing the cell with the girl said.

  “Good to know,” Gabriel said. His artificially constructed mind rejected social norms now, preferring self-preservation. Standing, he examined his cell carefully, noting with particular interest the camera in the corner of his confinement. It was behind some sort of clear bubble, protection in case Gabriele chose to vent his ire on it. The cell door seemed sturdy enough. There was no way he could break out of here with physical force.

  “Why doesn’t he like us?” Lizzy asked Reece.

  “I think he’s just in shock, honey.” Reece was surprised by how easily Lizzy had bonded to her. More amazing were the unusual maternal feelings she was having. She liked the girl, liked being with her. Strangely, it felt somehow comforting to have someone to worry about.

  “How long have you been here?” Gabriel asked.

  “Couple of days,” Reece answered. “Difficult to tell, the lights never go out, you see.”

  “Are you here because you are immune?”

  “Yes,” Reece said.

  “I didn’t see you in the desert,” Lizzy said. Gabriel looked at her, not understanding what she was talking about.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t understand what you are saying.”

  “He talks posh,” Lizzy said, looking up at Reece. She smiled at the child.

  “Maybe he wants to impress the people who are listening.” It was a casual statement, but it was said with purpose, to tell Gabriel that people were eavesdropping. “Who’s your friend?” Reece asked, pointing at Gianni.

  “I have no friends,” was all Gabriel said. Instead of conversing further, he lay back down on his bunk and closed his eyes.

  “Guess he’s too tired to talk, Lizzy.” Lizzy stepped away from Reece and put her face right up to the cell wall. She looked at Gabriel for several long seconds, her palms flattened. Even the walls of the cell felt warm.

  “Leave him be, Lizzy,” Reece ordered, the girl reluctantly moving back to her own bed.

  “He seems sad,” Lizzy said.

  “I think he has every right to be, don’t you?”

  “I was sad when I was brought here,” Lizzy confirmed.

  “Are you sad now?” Reece asked.

  “A little bit. But I’m better being with you.”

  Their conversation stalled then because Schmidt walked in. Some people bring a darkness with them when they enter a room, either by draining the life out of those present or by instilling fear. Schmidt seemed capable of both miraculous feats.

  The Professor moved with a confidence that told everyone she was in command here. She held the lives of everyone confined in the palm of her hand, and she wasn’t afraid to remind people of that fact by her words and mere presence. Schmidt stopped outside Gabriel’s cell, the three other awake residents listening.

  “I know you are awake,” Schmidt said louder than she needed to.

  “How perceptive of you,” Gabriel said. He kept his eyes closed for several seconds before slowly coming once again to a sitting position. He gave Schmidt the once over. “I assume you are the reason I have been brought here?”

  “I need to know some details about you,” Schmidt said. She was holding an Apple tablet, her finger poised to rectify the glaring gaps in the data they had about this man. Gabriel’s biometric details had been put into the overwhelmed US intelligence system, but no real information had yet to be returned on him. Schmidt presently had no idea who he really was, or of the vaccine he had self-administered.

  Gingerly, Gabriel stood.

  “What you need and what you are going to get are two very different things.”

  “You really don’t want to push me here Gabriel, if that is even your name,” Schmidt said. “I have the power to make your stay here extremely unpleasant.”

  “It already is.” He stepped closer to the door of his cell. His eyes took in everything about Schmidt. The way she stood, the slight tilt in her hip, the bags under her eyes.

  “What is your name?” Schmidt demanded.

  “You already know,” Gabriel replied.

  “No, your full name.”

  “Gabriel. That is all I am known by.” Schmidt let out a little sigh of exasperation.

  “You aren’t in any of our databases. What is your date of birth?”

  “October the eleventh, two thousand and thirteen.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You nee
d to take this seriously,” Schmidt insisted.

  “I am. That was the day of my rebirth.”

  “What are you, some crazed born again Christian?”

  “No,” was all Gabriel would offer. “What is it you do here anyway? Why am I here?”

  “I’m the one asking the questions.”

  “If I’m to be incarcerated, surely I should know why?”

  “It’s because you are immune to the zombie virus,” Reece said, butting in, which got a glower from Schmidt.

  “Thank you,” Gabriel responded. “Good to know.”

  “When were you born?” Schmidt asked again. There was an edge in Schmidt’s voice now. Gabriel shook his head and sat down on the bed. He was done with this woman. “Don’t you ignore me,” Schmidt demanded, her head raised.

  “I’m not ignoring you. I just find you tiresome. Now please go away so I can get some sleep.” Gabriel lay back down on his bunk, fury erupting in Schmidt’s face.

  “You think you can disrespect me?” Schmidt said coldly. “I promise you that you will learn quickly that such disobedience will not be tolerated.” She pushed herself close to the Perspex. “I’m going to enjoy learning what makes you tick, boy. By the time I’m done, you will beg me to put you out of your misery.” With that, Schmidt turned on her heel and stormed out.

  “She’s so ugly when she’s mad,” Lizzy whispered. Nobody present could disagree with that. This was a new side to Schmidt that Reece wasn’t surprised by. Schmidt was dangerous, and now she was really starting to let just how dangerous show.

  Gabriel saw it too, and he decided, then and there, that he was not willing to tolerate this place any longer. You did not threaten a man like Gabriel, not if you wanted a long and fruitful life. Despite his incarceration, all he needed was for his captors to make one mistake. If they did that, and they would, then Gabriel would show them first hand just who he was.

  For whatever reason, he had been dumped into the heart of a facility that was researching the virus. If he allowed them, the scientists here could potentially discover the secrets of the vaccine he had self-injected. Could he allow that? Could he allow his own body to betray what Father had brought to the world? Despite Mother’s rejection of the Lazarus plan, Gabriel felt something stirring inside him. Maybe he did still have a purpose to play out here after all.