The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 2): The Rise

by Deville, Sean

  ***

  Charlie Section had managed to get back to the Hounslow Civic Centre, only to find mayhem at what was supposed to be the Army’s command centre in this military action. The defences were intact, but there were numerous bodies strewn about the streets and the car park surrounding the Army’s only remaining defensive position in this region. Not all those bodies belonged to the undead, more corpses than he could ever accept were seen to be wearing army fatigues. Several of the deceased soldiers sported obvious gunshot wounds to their heads.

  Corporal Whittaker was stunned to discover his was the only section to make it back alive from the reconnaissance patrol.

  “Alpha, Bravo and Delta sections were all overwhelmed,” said a stressed Sergeant who looked like he’d fought in a thousand wars. This was not a battle for the unblooded. Only veterans had a chance of defeating this enemy and even then...

  “They came at us out of nowhere,” Whittaker advised, the sound of helicopters overhead a reassurance to him. If it hadn’t been for the Apache attack helicopter that had covered their retreat, Whittaker had no doubt that his section would have been slaughtered too.

  “Save it for the Major,” the Sergeant said almost unsympathetically. “He wants your report and he wants it now.”

  “Yes Sarge,” the Corporal said. Before he could fulfil the Major’s wishes, however, the Sergeant grabbed his arm. It was a rare gesture of respect.

  “Good work out there Chris.” Whittaker nodded. This particular Sergeant was renowned for being a hard ass. Praise from him meant it was truly warranted, and a part of Whittaker was saved by the gesture.

  “The men did what they were trained to do. I want to put them all in for a commendation.”

  “Again, tell the Major,” the Sergeant sighed, “although I doubt commendations will amount to much soon.” Whittaker watched as the Sergeant walked off, an air of defeat seeming to descend over both of them. Briefly, the Sergeant stopped as a sneezing fit took him. If a man like that can be beaten by this… thought Whittaker. He’d seen things he had hoped to never witness, the enemy like no other he had ever encountered or even imagined.

  Were things really as bad as the Sergeant made out?

  Major Pickering was in one of the offices of the civic centre, with three other harassed looking officers. The two military police soldiers guarding the entrance let Whittaker through without a word. Neither MP showed any kind of emotion, nor did they meet the Corporal’s eye. How long would that kind of discipline last in the face of all this, the corporal suddenly thought?

  Whittaker stepped into the office and snapped to attention. The room was dimly lit by three high windows and a fluorescent light. The officers were stood around a central table with a map on it. All but the Major initially ignored him.

  “At ease soldier. Corporal, what happened out there?” Major Pickering demanded. The tone wasn’t accusatory, but it relayed the urgency of the situation.

  “Sir. Approximately two hundred of the enemy came at us out of the tube station, then from the surrounding streets. We weren’t warned to expect such vast numbers.”

  “None of us were which is why we are in the shit we are in. What was your impression of them?”

  “Sir?” Whittaker didn’t understand what the Major wanted.

  “Tell me about my enemy,” the Major insisted. “What am I up against?” The Major had witnessed them first hand when they had attacked this fortified position, but there had only been a few dozen then. The heaviest mass of zombies had yet to descend upon his position. It was the troops he had sent out on patrol who had borne the brunt of it, as well as the men guarding the road chokepoints. And that strategic miscalculation would be forever on him. Major Pickering had already lost too many men. He would shortly lose many more.

  “They are difficult to kill. Faster than I can run for the most part, and they seem to work together. They tried to outflank my position and if that Apache hadn’t been there…”

  “Corporal, having engaged them, do you think we can win this?” Whittaker looked at the Major and saw what he never hoped to see in the eyes of a commanding officer. Fear. This wasn’t good, and his eyes wandered across the faces of the other officers. The same emotion resided there.

  “Permission to speak plainly sir?”

  “Granted.”

  “The intel we were given was for shit. We were expecting a few scattered…” Whittaker paused. “Sir, are we officially calling these things zombies?” The Major looked at his other officers, then back at his Corporal.

  “I think zombie is as good a name as anything.”

  “Well sir, we were expecting to encounter small groupings. None of the men really believed what they had been told in the briefing, it just seemed so ridiculous. But they believe it now. I don’t think this is something we can win!”

  “Why don’t you think we can beat this, Corporal?” asked one of the captains present.

  “Because we don’t understand what’s happening. And there’s something else…”

  “Well, spit it out man,” the Major said curtly.

  “Whilst the bulk of the zombies came after us, groups of them broke off to attack the houses and buildings all around. We left hundreds of civilians defenceless back there. If you ask me, these things were actively working to increase their numbers.” The sound of a helicopter flying low overhead briefly drowned out any conversation, specifically the expletive that escaped Major Pickering’s mouth. When the noise passed, Whittaker was about to speak again, to tell the Major about the way the zombies moved, their raw power and feral nature. But a shot came from outside.

  “Incoming,” the roaring voice of the Sergeant could be heard through one of the room’s open windows. “Here they come again.”

  21.08.19

  Manchester, UK

  This was a level of wealth Susan had only ever dreamt of. Clay’s house was a multi-bedroom mansion on the outskirts of Manchester’s city centre. Surrounded by walls and thick reinforced iron gates, it was a stronghold that should be able to defend against the undead, even though it had been built to withstand the might of man.

  Brian had driven, their conversation stilted and forced, the roads they travelled on barren of commuters. When the car had pulled up outside the main gates, two men in surgical masks had kept him waiting so they could spray the car down with bleach, the smell penetrating through the car’s ventilation. That job done, the gates opened, gates that were specifically designed to survive forced entry. Twenty metres of gravel drive led to an ornate front porch, where more guards stood ready. These men were conspicuously armed with submachine guns. Despite the masks, Brian recognised them as people who were painfully loyal to Clay, more loyal perhaps than Brian himself was.

  As someone who helped to screen the men Clay chose for his organisation, Brian knew that none of the men he had seen so far had anything in the way of family to speak of. Each was a military veteran who Clay had rescued from the poverty of their life outside the army. Some of them Clay had even paid for intense counselling to help beat the PTSD that had put them on the streets.

  Clay looked after his own, but only to reduce the future chances of betrayal. That was how Clay created loyalty, by paying well, and by salvaging those the state had chosen to betray. Many of them might even lay down their lives for Clay, the man who was ultimately seen as their saviour. Brian stepped out of his vehicle.

  “Mr Metcalfe,” one of the guards said respectfully, “I need you and the lady to follow my directions please. Mr Clay’s orders.” As Susan also stepped out of the car, Brian looked to where the guard was pointing. A large sand coloured marquee style tent had been erected on the front lawn, something Brian had clocked as he had driven up. As if on cue, a woman in surgical scrubs, mask and gown stepped out of the tent and beckoned to the guard.

  “What the hell is this?” Brian demanded. He recognised the woman. Her name was Florence, a doctor that Clay had on speed dial for when those he employed were “damaged” in the
course of their employ. Florence was an accomplished surgeon from a very well to do family. She was also a functioning addict that had been unfortunate enough to be arrested trying to purchase the heroin she needed to feed her habit. Florence had chosen the wrong time to go out and see her dealer.

  Her misfortune had been tempered, in a sense, by the fact that the undercover officer who arrested her was in Clay’s back pocket. The story went that the officer, hoping to increase the money he received in his monthly brown envelope, had experienced a sudden wave of genius about how Florence could be used after she had so foolishly tried to appeal for leniency due to her being a doctor. With Clay’s blessing, he had made her a deal. It was either work for Clay or get arrested and lose her livelihood. The General Medical Council was not a fan of heroin smoking doctors.

  The story was an elaboration. Florence had no idea that she had been set up for exactly this from the very start. Clay had been looking for someone of just her skill for several years and had been tipped off by someone working at the local hospital who was also in his employ. A rumour that turned out to be true. Although he objected to the use of drugs, Clay had sweetened the pot by being a safe source for her addiction. He also paid her a significant sum which was spirited away in an account in the Cayman Islands. Really, there was no way she could refuse

  “The doc can explain everything,” the guard said. Florence beckoned to Brian and he sauntered over, Susan close behind, not wanting to be alone around rough looking men with guns.

  “I don’t want to be here,” Susan suddenly whined.

  “And where will you go?” Brian asked her. Susan was about to protest further, but she really didn’t have an answer to that. Where would she go? Brian turned his attention to Florence.

  “What’s all this Florence?” Brian asked. He didn’t like the doctor, found her to be a tad snobbish as if she was somehow better than those around her. More than once Brian had needed to remind her that she was here because of her own frailty. If she hadn’t been sucking that shit up into her lungs, Clay wouldn’t have had any hold over her.

  “What has Clay told you about what’s happening?” Her upper-class accent was out of place for the people she served. Nobody was ever openly critical of her, Clay laying down the law that she was here to save lives and keep people out of going to prison. You couldn’t turn up on the official medical radar with knife and gunshot wounds without the police getting involved, not these days. Clay had thus demanded that, as long as Florence did what he demanded, the foot soldiers were all to treat her with respect. He even had a miniature medical facility set up that she could use should the need arise. Not here mind, Clay liked to keep such things off site.

  “Nothing really. And its Mister Clay to you.”

  “I want to leave, I want to leave now,” Susan persisted. She grabbed Brian’s arm lightly, then thought better of it.

  “You know where the way out is. But if you go you are going alone.” Brian didn’t for one second think he was being too harsh.

  “Trust me my dear,” the doctor said turning to her, “this is the safest place for you. I’m sure Brian will protect you from these scary men.” Brian scowled at the mocking doctor.

  “They don’t scare me,” Susan lied.

  “Well, they should. They scare me.”

  “Florence?” Brian insisted.

  “Mr Clay,” Florence said emphasising the title, “received word from one of his confidential sources this morning. There is a virus, loose in the country. It’s very deadly and very contagious, which is why Mr Clay has everyone he trusts now behind his spiked top walls.” Susan seemed to cringe at the word virus.

  The Clay estate covered about three acres and comprised of several buildings. There was the main house and a guest cottage. The old stables had been converted into accommodation, housing many of those who guarded Clay day and night. The select few would be invited into the main house. The walls were indeed topped with evil looking spikes, and there were no trees on the external that could offer any means of scaling the wall which was significantly higher than the usual six feet seen around most British properties. Even if someone could get over, the ground a metre inside the perimeter was lined with further spikes to penetrate any boot that should be foolish to land upon them.

  “Is that why you are all dressed up?” Brian quizzed.

  “Yes. And now I need you to follow me into the tent. We have certain procedures that now need to be followed.”

  “Procedures,” Susan sounded alarmed.

  “We need to ensure that you aren’t infected. And if you still want to leave I’m sure that can be arranged. Not sure being on the other side of that wall would be wise over the following days, however.”

  “No, I’m good,” Susan said, defeated, her eyes drifting between the doctor and a man she knew she shouldn’t really resent. And yet she did, even though he just seemed to keep saving her. Perhaps that was why. Perhaps the knowledge that she owed him more than she could ever repay was the thing eating her up inside.

  There was something else, something that she didn’t even realise herself except in the fevered imaginations of her sleeping mind. Brian had dealt with the maniac who had killed her beloved daughter, but not once had he come to Susan and ask how SHE wanted the man punished. Brian had reaped out his own form of vengeance, but Susan would have taken so much more from the man.

  Brian had denied her that.

  21.08.19

  Birmingham, UK

  People had once called her Helga. Now they would just call her what she had become, a monster. The body that defied everything that medical science understood to be true, walked, even though all the organs within it had shut down. Skin swelling slightly under the soiled clothing, the normal decomposition of the corpse was not occurring.

  Routinely in death, there would be a four-stage process to the body’s breakdown, but that would make the vessel useless to the virus due to the eventual liquefaction of the muscles and the joints. Although Lazarus was not a conscious entity, it was still designed to propagate itself. This meant preventing, as much as possible, the degradation of the vehicles it moved about in. Bodies, such as the one that had once been known by the name Helga.

  Helga had once been the name of an attractive woman, despite the ravages of her hard life. Now it was a sexless being intent on only one thing…the consumption of warm human protein. And in that hunt to consume, it would spread the virus to every living thing it touched.

  The night before, Helga(Z) had been born and had attacked a bunch of rioters who failed to see the truth behind the threat she represented. It had come out of the altercation damaged but intact, some of those Helga(Z) had bitten with it now. Its right arm hung uselessly, the bone there shattered. The feet and legs still worked, and it walked down the centre of the deserted street, the scent of humanity occasionally hitting it. Deserted except for others of its kind, the surrounding city breathing with an anxious anticipation. The ones Helga(Z) had created and converted flocked around it, the group moving with an eerie fluidity. When together, they seemed to almost move as one unit, the fall of their feet almost synchronised.

  Two dozen zombies shared the street with Helga(Z) and it sensed more were coming, converging together. The army was building, the great battalions of the dead rising up from where their human precursors had died. All day Helga(Z) had been relentless in its destruction of humanity, nearly dozens of hapless people suffering the ravages of its teeth. At some point during the day it had lost a finger on its good hand, but there was no memory or thought process within the skull to register that this was a problem. Bit by bit the body degraded, but still it walked on. Even now, it chewed on the tough flesh it had ripped away several minutes ago, the ability to force the food any further down its gullet long since passed. It would carry on chewing until a fresh food source came to hand, the hunger within it never satiated.

  Being home to an international airport, Birmingham was one of the worst cities affected by the virus in t
he early days. At that moment in time, there were just over three hundred zombies either walking the streets or trapped in buildings, clawing to get out. One hospital had even been stormed by armed troops to rid it of the scourge of the undead that had sprung up there. An easy number to deal with perhaps, but not when one realised there were over twenty thousand people infected, some unknowingly. As the minutes ticked by, each one of them got that little bit closer to joining the risen, time bombs waiting to bring forth the end of the world.

  As a group, Helga(Z) and its followers turned the corner, only to be faced by the futile resistance of mankind. About twenty soldiers had blockaded the road, a strategic choke point where they could wait for the undead to come to them as well as control the flow of people throughout the city. The soldiers looked on horrified as the undead turned together and ran with a speed that would give many of the young soldier’s nightmares. Even the hardened veterans would find difficulty dealing with the things they would see that day…not that many of them would live long enough to suffer psychologically though.

  Helga(Z) didn’t feel the bullets as they ploughed into it, merely sensing that its progress was being hampered. It tried to put on an extra burst of speed, but a bullet blew out its left knee sending it sprawling to the moist asphalt, the light drizzle having started about an hour ago. Helga(Z) proceeded to crawl, its brothers and sisters falling all around. A bullet struck the side of its skull, taking off a large chunk of scalp, the missile actually ricocheting off.

  One of its fellow zombies fell on top of it, but still Helga(Z) pulled itself along the ground as best it could. Using one arm and one leg, it tried its best to get at the dangerous humans, the desire for the taste of them greater than the risk their guns represented. Chips of the road’s surface were propelled into its face, the bits getting into its still chewing mouth. It crunched down on the small stone-like masses, breaking several teeth in the process, the red liquefying flesh in its mouth dribbling down a grazed and bloodied chin. Then a well-aimed shot hit it in the centre of its forehead, wiping out the viral part of the brain that allowed the virus to work its magic. Helga(Z) returned to join the truly dead.