The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 5): The Last

by Deville, Sean

  Eric managed to get the mattress out of the bedroom and into the hallway, but not without first getting out of breath. As if timed to perfection the first hit beat against the outside of his door at the very instant he rammed the mattress up to it.

  Three shots from the apartment downstairs punctuated the air. The neighbour who he never talked to, the one who would occasionally have a blazing row with some mystery woman Eric never got to see. At least when his fiancée had broken up with him, it had been more sorrow than anger. Maybe he should have told his former lover exactly what he thought of her. No, he would have always regretted that because then he might have lost his temper. That was something that rarely occurred because when it did, bad things happened.

  If he had given the psychiatrist he was seeing the full history, Eric’s anger might have been seen as an issue in his condition.

  “You are holding your emotions in” the psychiatrist might have said.

  “You should learn to express your true feelings.”

  “You should turn yourself in to the police and confess the murder you committed when you were nineteen.” Eric had no idea why that memory snuck up on him, now of all times. Murder was perhaps an exaggeration, but whatever you called it, Eric had still killed a man. One punch was all it had taken, the drunken fool who’d attacked him randomly in the street falling and cracking their head on the sidewalk. Eric had known instantly that the man was dead, and being young, had fled the scene, no witnesses present in what was a deserted part of a town far away.

  Every day for six months after that, Eric had dreaded the fact that the police could have come for him. A simple phone call or a knock on the door had filled him with terror and made his stomach muscles and his pelvis clench up, which was likely the very beginning of the condition he now suffered with. Could it be that his pelvic woes were his mind’s way of paying him back for the loss of life he had caused? One punch...Eric doubted a zombie could be dealt with so easily.

  The door shook violently as if to show there was more than one zombie on the other side of it. Eric wedged more furniture behind the mattress so that there was no way it could move. With a door that opened inward, the only way they could get in was to destroy the door in its entirety. He’d seen the state approved broadcasts which had given a tame, sedated view of the emergency hitting the country, but from the forums he had trawled prior to the Internet’s failure, he thought he had learnt the true strength and power of the undead. Really though, he didn’t have a clue, but he was about to witness an admirable display of their capabilities.

  The door to his apartment didn’t stand a chance, even if the bones and the decaying flesh attacking it was to be sacrificed and pummelled. There were always more zombies to replace these, an almost endless supply.

  There was another shot from downstairs, followed by a scream. When he had moved in, Eric hadn’t quite appreciated how thin the floors were, the soundproofing sacrificed in the name of the builder’s profit. Fortunately, until now, the neighbour below had never given him much cause to complain, the noise they made now barely discernible from the cacophony at his front door. If Eric had been a fan of guns, he might have found himself in a better position. Unfortunately, as lethal as a well-aimed bullet could be to a zombie, there were usually more of the undead than there were bullets in the guns of those civilians who wielded them. Even the well-trained military had seen how easily heavily defended positions could be washed over by the relentless necrotic waves.

  Those who found themselves armed and trapped as Eric now was were usually advised to use the gun on themselves, to spare them the horrible fate that a two-inch thickness of wood wouldn’t keep out for long. It was the right thing to do, saving yourself a traumatic death as well as starving the undead armies of the recruits they craved.

  The frame holding the door began to break loose, another example of the less than ideal construction that signified this building. It was at this moment that Eric realised all the things he had been consciously and subconsciously worrying about really had no meaning. This was how he died, and there was nothing he could do to stop that fact becoming eventuality. A strange calmness seemed to descend upon him, the like of which he could never remember experiencing, the agony in his pelvis disappearing. Stepping into his bedroom, he once again looked out of the open window, the once pristine lawn below now hidden by the mass of walking undead down there drawn by the sound of gunfire. If he had been higher up, and if it had been concrete down there, he knew he would have thrown himself to his death. But jumping from this height was useless, he would be buffered by the bodies below and would merely gift himself to their teeth.

  He thus did the only thing he could, he hid in a walk-in closet with the hope that somehow the undead wouldn’t be able to find him. Eric was soon to learn that hiding wasn’t an effective tactic and by the time the zombies found him, there was nobody alive to hear his anxious and desperate shouts of pain and terror. The zombies heard him though, the noise sending them into a killing frenzy that nearly spared Eric the fate of resurrection... nearly.

  When Eric(Z) resurrected, it found it was unable to walk, the legs too damaged. The arms too. All it could thus do was roll about on the bedroom floor where it had been dragged by the undead, there to suffer from the hunger that could never be satiated.

  26.08.19

  Site R, USA

  President Jacqueline Fairchild whispered the words in the privacy of her small bedroom. The faithful were all around her, she was sure, but this was a prayer that required privacy. It was for her God, and her God alone.

  “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever. The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?” Her eyes opened, and a smile spread across her face. “I will,” she said to the room, pushing herself painfully off her knees.

  She never used a cushion to kneel on, the harshness of the floor part of her penance. There were some who believed hers was a loving God, but she knew the truth of that. Mankind was not put on this Earth to enjoy the seeds of life planted by the Almighty. We were all here to be tested, to filter out those who would be found wanting because only those who could pass that test would be deemed worthy to sit at his right hand and serve the Lord in the afterlife.

  The rest could, quite literally, go to hell.

  There was no hesitation in Fairchild’s mind that this was all the work of the Almighty. It was the flood all over, a global Sodom and Gomorrah, a purge to allow things to start again. Terrorists might have created the vaccine, but who was it that had been whispering in their ears? HE had looked down upon his planet and had likely sighed with despair at the debauched and the hedonistic maniacs running rampant across its surface. So much despair, and yet so riddled with sin and fornication. Did any of them deserve redemption? Fairchild liked to think she would be one of the chosen few.

  This was the end times. The evil, the weak-willed and the wicked would be purged for the great battle yet to come. Soon Jesus would descend from the heavens and with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet call of God, call up the righteous to the heavens, be they alive or dead. Fairchild hoped she would be among that multitude. The arrogant and the insane often felt themselves better than others, a condition she didn’t realise she was afflicted with.

  She just had to wait for the signs, for his word to guide her. Even those who died would be reborn in his name if they were true and virtuous. Whatever was left could belong to the Little Whore.

  Stepping from her room, she patted one of the sentry Marines on the
elbow as a way to say thank you for his service. They stood outside her room, chosen specifically for their belief in the Almighty. They would eagerly sacrifice their lives for her and for her cause. Ahead of her stood General Franklin, the new Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, his head slightly bowed as the pious were wont to stand. He had been waiting patiently, as any true believer would. At least she hoped he was a true believer. You never could tell these days, the wicked were always so good at hiding in plain sight. She knew the Lord would root them out when he weighed up their sins.

  “You look like you have bad news, General.”

  “Yes, Madame President. The compound above us has been cleared of the undead, but we lost many good men as a result.” The general walked in step with Fairchild, matching her pace, even though his stride could easily outpace hers.

  “I doubt that is the major cause for that concerned look?”

  “No ma’am,” admitted the general. “We can’t hold Washington.” Fairchild didn’t seem to react for several seconds.

  “No matter,” she finally said, although the news was regrettable to her. The temptation was strong to nuke the whole city and burn the scourge from it, but she would resist that temptation for now. There had to be something left to portray the great achievements of mankind.

  Fairchild might have believed the second coming was close at hand, but that didn’t mean she was willing to sit idly by and just give her country to the forces of Satan. If he wanted it, he was going to have to earn it. Did Saint Peter not beseech the faithful to resist the Devil at every opportunity. Well, she was determined to do her part. She’d waited nearly sixty years for her reward in the afterlife, she could wait a few more days, even years if it came to that. In fact, it was vital for her to stay alive until the end.

  This was also part of the test. The faithful would battle Satan to the last, even with the knowledge that they would be gifted with salvation. And the undead were clearly the emissaries of the Fallen One. For now, she was safe down here, and she had one ultimate card left to play. It was what God would have wanted.

  “We’ve had further communications from Fort Detrick about the vaccine. They are beginning trials to check its safety and effectiveness. The samples sent to us have arrived and are under armed guard.”

  “Good,” Fairchild said. She wanted to be alive when Jesus returned. Even though she knew her death wouldn’t prevent her ascent into heaven, she wanted to see his arrival with her own eyes, to hear the trumpets blowing in the heavens. What true Christian wouldn’t? What authentic, devoted believer would turn down the chance to witness the visage and the return to Earth of their Lord and saviour? She also wanted to be here to help fulfil the prophecy which she had years ago accepted as truth.

  “I’m worried that Detrick will be overrun though,” the general added.

  “I trust you have made contingency plans?”

  “Yes,” the general admitted. “All essential staff can be evacuated by the underground monorail.” The general was referring to the transport system that linked up the government and military installations below ground. Site R could be reached by that mono rail, although the tunnel was heavily guarded. If need be, Site R itself could be evacuated in a similar fashion, taking the President and anyone who mattered to another location.

  The trillions of dollars reportedly missing from the Pentagon’s budget over the years hadn’t been lost at all. It had all been spent on projects that average Joe Six-pack had no right to know about.

  “Whatever the Lord wills will come to pass,” Fairchild said sagely. There was no stopping this, not now that the four apocalyptic Horsemen had already been unleashed. Were the undead not bent on conquest? Was mankind not fighting for its very existence? Was pestilence not endemic now across the planet? Was she, one of the Kings of the Earth, not hiding out in a freaking mountain? It was as if the book of Revelation had been written for this very moment. But of course it had, it was prophesied after all.

  Her thoughts though kept coming back to the breaking of the sixth seal. She knew her part in that, for why else would she be here?

  “I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to Earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place”.

  There were still thousands of nuclear weapons left in the military’s arsenal. Fairchild reckoned if they were all fired at once, it might very well just look like the stars were descending from the heavens. And wouldn’t that be a sight to behold? She would fight on to the last, until her battalions and her squadrons were no more. And then she would unleash the death that she so craved.

  ***

  Whilst it was safe deep below the surface of the Earth, William Lewis found the surroundings oppressive, confining. It was his job to go where the President went, to protect her from harm, although he wasn’t sure it was a job he was fully committed to. It helped if you had a level of respect for the person as well as the office they represented, and he really didn’t like this President. As a member of her Secret Service detail, he didn’t get any say in who he protected, but it was his opinion that she was the wrong person, in the wrong place at completely the wrong time.

  It wasn’t so much that she was inept or incompetent. She listened to the advice of her advisors and acted swiftly when decisions were needed. President Fairchild seemed to keep a calm level head, perpetually unflustered even when the worst of news was relayed to her. To many that would have been a good thing, the ability to control your outer face, to instil confidence in those who were led by you. To William, it just reinforced something he strongly suspected about this woman.

  She didn’t care. She didn’t care about the millions of people above ground fighting for their lives. Her exterior, to him, was a façade hiding complete indifference to the plight of the nation’s population. And his doubts had all finally gelled in his mind when he had seen his President’s eyes the moment Fairchild had ordered the first nuke to fly. There hadn’t been an ounce of regret there, nor was there any kind of excitement. She might have just as easily been ordering a Latte. Such a person could be described by only one word.

  Dangerous.

  Then there was all the praying, which he found objectionable. In his experience, nothing good ever came from that kind of devotion. He had no problem with Christians in general, which was a good thing working for the US government. There was just a certain number of them who had a tendency to take things too far, as with any other religion on the planet. They all knew of their new President’s puritanical reputation, her reliance on scripture and her devotion to her faith. Could such a person, who most likely had a strong belief in the End Times, be trusted to take the country through its worst ever struggle?

  William didn’t think so. For the first time in his career, he was having thoughts that nobody who worked for the Secret Service should ever have. Although he hid it well, there was no way he was prepared to give his life for this woman. Even worse than that, he felt the strong desire to stop her from doing anything to further endanger what was left of the United States. If he had known what she was planning, he would have killed her there on the spot without hesitation. That would most likely result in his own death, but what really did he have to live for? Most of his friends and family were either dead or missing. It almost seemed that he was put here for one last final mission.

  William would watch her closely. If he felt she was getting out of hand, he knew there would be only one course of action he could take. He would have one chance at it, and he knew that by this action, he would be signing his own execution.

  That was a price he would pay willingly.

  26.08.19

  Reykjavik, Iceland

  There were very few countries that had been spared the ravages of Lazarus, and Iceland was one of them. Isola
ted away in the North Atlantic, it had been spared direct contamination by the precursor virus which meant it had not suffered a zombie infestation like most of the Western World, nor were any of its population sick from the virus. Along with a host of remote Pacific Islands, Iceland was deemed free of the virus to the great relief of the three hundred thousand people who lived there.

  A lot of that was down to the quick and decisive action of the Althing, the nation’s parliament, shutting down both commercial air and sea traffic to the island, effectively quarantining the country off from the world. Whilst not having a particularly impressive military, it was a NATO member, and so it quickly came to an understanding with the United States and other alliance members. It was now a rallying point for many of the world’s elite who had fled in the early days of the crisis, as well as a host of naval ships that were anchored off its shores. Two US carrier groups had already arrived with another three on route. The majority of the sailors were forced to stay on ship, no access to the Icelandic mainland being given. Only when it was proven that the new arrivals were free of the virus would landfall be permitted, and even then, it would initially be restricted.

  In an ideal world, Iceland would have preferred to keep its borders shut to the outside world completely. Despite its self-imposed quarantine, it realised the importance it was to play in the preservation of the human race and acted for the benefit of all mankind. Humanity needed a safe harbour, and anyone who could pass its containment procedures would eventually be allowed entry to the country. There were three other considerations that were taken into account.

  Firstly, as an island nation, it did have a certain degree of dependence from the outside world for its own survival. Food, raw materials and pharmaceuticals were all examples of things the country was not self-sufficient in. For several days now, the US government had been airlifting huge shipments of resources to the island, a meticulous process to ensure the preservation of life whilst preventing the virus from getting a foothold in the human stronghold. Everything unloaded was treated with a combination of sprayed bleach and high intensity UV light, as well as strict contamination control procedures for dealing with the planes and their personnel. All of this was overseen by the National Police who tried to ignore the fact they were outnumbered by the growing presence of the various military forces from other nations.