“Yes. Easier to track and process them.”
“Hey man, I’ve got rights,” the prisoner insisted.
“Martial law has been implemented. The only right you have is to do what the fuck we tell you,” the first MP said, educating the prisoner who was really starting to wish he had stayed in bed that morning.
Reece and Rodriguez looked at each other. Reece saw the alarm in her partner’s eyes and knew that this time he might actually have a point.
21.09.18
Hounslow, UK
The first indication that Major Pickering’s scorched earth policy wasn’t going to work was when the still burning zombie came running at the soldier’s defensive line. The left side of it was on fire, the hair on its head long since charred away. The napalm fluid stuck to the zombie’s flesh, slowly consuming the outer layer of fat and muscle, but regardless, the zombie came at them. Tod had the honour of ending its miserable existence, his shot accurate enough to obliterate the brain stem. He got a pat on the back from Whittaker for that shot. The rest of his section who he had gathered and brought up to the roof just watched in amazement as the city around them burnt.
If it had just been the remnants of human zombies, they might have had a chance, but nature had other animals that the virus could play off. On his retreat back to the command base, Whittaker had seen something that hadn’t registered with him at the time. His eyes had witnessed it and had even passed it through to his brain, but his mind hadn’t recognised it as the threat it represented. When he saw the raven land on the building’s TV antennae, his neurons made the final connection and his blood turned to ice.
There was no way that bird should have landed like that with the amount of noise they were making. Plus, the way it flew, it was as if it had lost coordination.
“Sergeant,” Whittaker shouted, catching the man’s attention. The Sergeant came over, his face stern and unforgiving. Not for Whittaker in particular, just for anyone who failed to do their duty.
“What is it, Corporal?” the Sergeant asked, noticing that Whittaker wasn’t looking at him, but up above his head. As he approached, the Sergeant followed the Corporal’s gaze.
“When I came in earlier, it occurs to me now that I saw birds feeding on the bodies outside.” The raven sat there seemingly inspecting the array of humanity below it, its head lolling from side to side almost methodically. The bird moved strangely, almost robotically, and its left wing kept going into spasm.
“Shit,” the Sergeant said under his breath. A hacking cough suddenly ripped through him, the Sergeant’s body rocking with the force of it. Whittaker noted his superior’s skin was looking awfully pale.
“Tod,” Whittaker said urgently, “you think you can shoot that bird?”
“Fuck yes,” Tod said and didn’t wait for anything more to be said. An easy shot for any of the men. Lining up, he took the raven out, the bird rocketing off its perch as the bullet ripped through it. Seconds later it fell with a wet thud to the rooftop.
It was not hard to tell that the bird was one of the undead. There was a visible hole running right through the centre of its chest, and yet it still flopped about on the ground. It made no noise, another indication that this creature was no longer in the realm of the living. To date, nobody had witnessed a resurrected creature making any kind of deliberate sound, be that former man or beast. The Sergeant stepped over and crushed the bird’s head under his boot heel. That ended it for sure.
“You mean we have to deal with random wildlife now?” Tod said amazed.
“Sarge, what else feeds off the dead?” Whittaker asked.
“Any carrion consuming species. Hell, even dogs and cats if they are hungry enough. Corporal, get downstairs and make sure the Major understands this.” Whittaker nodded and headed off the roof, a light mist of rain starting to fall as he did. For the first time he’d managed to see the name of the Sergeant, the name patch uncovered.
Wallace. A man you wanted behind you in times like this. Just a shame he was in the latter stages of the viral infection.
The MP’s were still outside the office, and Whittaker told them he needed to see the Major. He briefly wondered if perhaps they would be better serving on the front line with the rest of the lads, but the twinge of resentment didn’t form any roots.
“Corporal Whittaker to see you sir,” one of the MP’s shouted through the open door.
“Send him in,” came the response. Whittaker walked in to find Pickering on the radio, a finger in the air telling the Corporal to keep quiet and not interrupt.
“General, I need more men,” Pickering demanded.
“That may be, but we presently have no means to reinforce you. Heavy armour is the only thing that can navigate the streets of London now and that’s all tied up.” The voice was coming over the radio, and Whittaker had a notion he didn’t want to hear any of this.
“What about helicopters? Surely some can be spared?”
“I would love to send you a whole air squadron of them Major, but we don’t have any to spare.”
“There’s nothing left for us to defend here,” the Major almost begged. “The infection has decimated the civilian population all around us, and the undead are massing. It’s only a matter of time before they attack in force. I’ve ordered aerial bombing of the surrounding streets, but I’m guessing the Americans can’t keep that up indefinitely.”
“Correct Major, they are stretched to the limit and are, as they like to say, getting out of Dodge. They have given the order to pull whatever personnel they can out of Europe. The best they can do from here on out is let us have access to their ordnance stockpiles.”
“Shit. Sorry, General.” It didn’t do to swear at Generals.
“Understandable Major.”
“Do I have your permission to try and make a break for it back to barracks? I’ve got some tracked vehicles that can gouge a path through any jammed traffic. If I leave soon, I reckon I can get my men out of here.”
“Then do it Major,” the General said. “I’ll try and arrange some more air support for you. We keep losing helicopters though.”
“Losing them, how?” There was desperation in the Major’s voice.
“Bird strikes sir,” Whittaker interrupted before the General could answer. The General gave the same response as the agitated Corporal.
“Give us what you can General. I’ll aim to have us out of here in the next two hours. Pickering out.”
“Sorry for interrupting Major.”
“Nothing to apologise for Corporal. What do you think you know?”
“We just shot a bird on the roof, sir. Came in despite all the noise the snipers were making. Myself and Sergeant Wallace think it was undead sir. It never occurred to me at the time, but when I was coming back in from my patrol, I saw some ravens feeding off the bodies lying in the streets. Sir, if other animals can be infected by this virus, how the hell do we combat it?”
“I don’t know Corporal. I really don’t know.”
“There’s something else, sir.” Whittaker didn’t know if he should be saying anything because there was no real precedent for this sort of thing.
“Well, what is it?”
“Sergeant Wallace, sir. He doesn’t look well. It’s possible he might be infected.”
21.08.19
Manchester, UK
Susan lay on the bed of the room that was more luxurious than her mind had been able to comprehend. If it wasn’t coated in marble, it was chrome and glass, the en-suite bathroom like something out of a Las Vegas Presidential suite. Did people actually live like this? The bedroom was bigger than the ground floor of her own bloody house, and it was clear to her that it was rarely used.
The Queen size bed was a monster of unsurpassed luxury. She wasn’t certain, but the sheets felt like they had been freshly laundered, the clean smell of the fabric reassuring to her. It was a stark contrast to the medical shower she had been forced to take, her skin still itching in parts from its caustic effects. And then there ha
d been the needle that bitch had stuck in her arm, a bruise forming where she had been injected.
But this…she could get used to this. Even the service was second to none, a butler having taken her order for food which had been delivered thirty minutes ago, the culinary delights left outside her door for her to collect. The remnants of that meal rested on the table at the side of the bed. Who the hell had a butler these days? More than that, who had a butler that was bigger than Brian?
She remembered Clay well. He was an arrogant, overbearing self-important little man who used his wealth to get his way with people. She almost felt disappointed that Clay had a sense of style, the tacky crassness of people with new money would better fit his image. Susan remembered that he always dressed well, and had that confidence about him that so many women found attractive. She broke through it all though and saw him for the violent gangster he was. The fact that he employed men like Brian just reinforced that.
Brian. What was she going to do about that? She didn’t want him in her life, and yet she had rushed to him as soon as the reality of that life smacked her. Admittedly it had hit her hard, in the guise of potential gang rape, but she resented having to rely on him. Even more, she resented the coldness and distance she detected in him. It was obvious that he had been helping her these last few years more out of a sense of duty than from any feeling of compassion towards her. It was visible in his eyes. He clearly considered her an annoying chore that he felt forced to endure.
Since the death of her daughter and the suicide of her husband, it was true that she had fallen to pieces. Without Brian being there, it was likely that she would have ended up on the streets, alone and afraid. Part of her had wanted that, the self-destructive part that wanted to blame herself for everything that had happened.
Her precious daughter had died because Susan hadn’t been there to protect her.
Her beloved husband had chosen suicide because his wife wasn’t enough for him.
Foolish thoughts she now realised, but they had been so pervasive, so consuming. How could she function in society with that failure hanging over her? Twice she had even been on the brink of suicide herself, the pills in her hand, the whiskey ready to wash them down. It would have been so easy to drift away into oblivion and let the world continue without her. She wouldn’t have been missed, all those she had thought of as friends seeming to disappear like mist when she really needed them.
The only person who had been there for her was Brian. And she hated him for it.
Stepping off the bed, she walked over to the larger of the two chest of drawers and helped herself to the vodka that had been left there. She hadn’t asked for it, it had been present in the room as if the person who had prepared her sleeping quarters had known that it would be required. Had Brian advised them of that? Unlikely, he didn’t approve of her drinking even though he had been her primary source of the money she needed to ensure a steady supply for her habit. That was another rung in the ladder of her hate. Even in her self-destruction, Brian had tried to exert some control, not trusting her ability to supply the tools required to drink herself to death. And the fact that he had been right just ground that pain into her soul even more.
A man who didn’t care anything about her had kept her afloat and had ultimately saved her life. And all the time those who she thought had cared for her had abandoned Susan. Her friends, her husband. How could he do that? How could he have been such a coward? Why hadn’t he been strong, like Brian? Had it ultimately been a mistake to choose the brother over Brian? The end result had been nothing but pain and misery.
The vodka flowed into the glass, the sound exquisite to her ears. She poured two fingers worth, and then thought fuck it and poured another two. She was a hardened drinker, she didn’t need to concern herself with any form of dilution. There was ice in a bucket next to the assortment of drinks, but there would be none of that. Not tonight, not ever. This was her third drink since entering the bedroom and it wouldn’t be her last before sleep finally took her. The events of the past twenty-four hours required copious amounts of liquid anaesthetic.
On the wall opposite the bed, a large TV with the volume turned down dominated the room. Presently the news channel she had picked was playing a rerun of Bangkok footage. Was that how everywhere was going to look, weeks from now? Was that the fate of her city and her country? Susan didn’t know if she even cared. She had resigned herself to the fact that her life was pretty much over. Why should everyone else survive whilst she descended into a pit of despair?
21.08.19
Bangkok, Thailand
Strange how your dream holiday could turn into a nightmare.
When the violence had struck three days ago, Natalie Fields had fled to her hotel, thinking it was just a local political disturbance. It wouldn’t have been the first time politics had caused civil unrest in the Thai capital. Standing in the hotel foyer minutes after her return from the chaotic streets, she had watched in disbelief as a bellboy had locked the front doors and had point blank refused to let anyone in or out of that entrance. One of the other hotel staff had tried to get him to change his mind, but the man had screamed in unintelligible Thai and had clearly threatened violence. If Natalie had made her decision to seek refuge just five minutes later, she would have been out there on the street when the undead unleashed themselves.
All she could do was watch as the tsunami of death washed down the street. A small child had run up the steps at the front of the hotel and had tapped timidly on the glass of the locked door. The bell boy had looked down at the child, whose shoulder was smeared with blood. With a manic jabbering of words, he had yelled at the child, probably telling her to go away. Fear had obviously cancelled out any form of compassion. The child didn’t run because she never had a chance to. One of those with the black eyes had come up behind her and snatched her off her feet.
The small child’s body was flung back down the steps, where three other fiends attacked her mercilessly. Natalie hadn’t wanted to watch that, but how could she have turned her head away? The zombie directly outside had then attacked the reinforced glass but had been unable to break through despite the impressive red rendition of death it had left behind in its attempts. By the time its assault on the door was finished, the child was nowhere to be seen. There wasn’t even a bloody smear to see on the road, a crowd now existing where the slaughter and the defilement had occurred.
That had been the beginning of it all. Most of the time since then, she had stayed in her room, the lights occasionally flickering nervously. From her bedroom window, Natalie had watched the city burn on the horizon, explosions occasionally lighting up the night’s sky. Repeated attempts to use her cell phone came to nothing, the city’s cell network having been shut down, the landline in her room just as useless. So Natalie was unable to get in touch with her friend who she had lost on the Metro underground system. The flood of people when the panic had first hit had swept them along and they had become separated. Natalie still remembered the look of horror on her friend’s face as they had been parted. Guilt welled within her, but Natalie knew there was nothing she could have done to help. Not against the power of the panicking masses.
Natalie had been to her friend’s room down the corridor three times, each in the hope that somehow her companion had made it back to safety. Each time her knocks went unanswered, the corridor eerily silent around her. There was hope still that she would make it to safety, but that hope was slim to non-existent. Natalie was slowly resigning herself to the reality that she was alone in a country she didn’t really understand.
The morning after the slaughter of the child, Natalie had woken up still fully clothed. There was bottled water in the room’s fridge, and she showered and dressed, the clothes she had slept in sweat-stained and pungent. With some hesitation, she had ventured back out into the body of the hotel in search of some semblance of humanity. What staff she saw looked tired and restless, few of them giving her their usual wai greeting. None of them s
poke to her, some even scuttling away when she approached them.
On reaching the ground floor, she found the restaurant and the small shopping arcade all closed. With no other way to get food, Natalie resorted to taking what she could from a vending machine she found, some of her currency being swallowed up by the machine. There wasn’t much left in the machine, most of the food having already been taken by people who had perhaps woken up to the reality of the situation earlier than her. Holding the precious morsels in her shaking hands, Natalie suddenly became nervous that someone would come and try and take the food from her and she had rushed back to her room taking the stairs. For some reason, the elevator seemed like a bad option. What if the power went out? she kept asking herself. She had visions of herself dying of dehydration, trapped in a metal box suspended mid floor. She had claustrophobia at the best of times. That wasn’t a way she wanted to die.
As that day progressed she realised the daily replacement of her complimentary water supply wasn’t going to happen, and she had rung housekeeping, only for the internal line to ring out relentlessly. With the tap delivered water supply reportedly not fit for human consumption, she was forced to leave the sanctity of her room yet again. Taking a rucksack with her this time, she closed the door behind her as quietly as she could, paranoia telling her that it was not good to announce her movement around the hotel anymore. The place just seemed to have a sense of menace where once it had an air of luxury.
Downstairs there was a commotion. Two tourists were arguing with a hotel security guard. One of the men was big and had dreadlocks, which she thought peculiar for a Caucasian. The second was stockier and with an almost shaved head. They were yelling in German and the guard was shouting back in Thai, so Natalie couldn’t understand what the hell it was all about. It gave Natalie the distraction she required and she slipped her way through the lobby and into the hotel bar which seemed to be deserted. In her bag she carried the used water bottles that had not been disposed of, and checking around her, she slipped behind the bar and began to fill the bottles up from the beverage taps there. When nobody came to admonish her, she went one step further and half emptied one of the fridges, the rucksack feeling heavy but manageable. A bottle of gin was acquired for good measure. Adding some nuts she found there as well, Natalie slipped back into the main lounge of the bar.
The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 2): The Rise Page 12
