The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 2): The Rise

by Deville, Sean

  “Does this mean we’re engaged?”

  “I said shut your mouth,” Smith said coldly. He turned to Nick. “You can leave now, I’ve got this.”

  “I don’t think so,” Nick answered.

  “I said I’ve got this.”

  “Yeah, I heard what you said. But try not to forget I don’t take orders from you. I’ve agreed to let you use my prisoner for your little experiment, but please remember he is still under my jurisdiction. This is not a man I want out of my sight unless he’s locked up.” Smith seethed below his skin. Who the hell did these people think they were? That hadn’t been thoroughly explained to him, the existence of MI13 not in his need to know. Smith was thoroughly confused why these men, who clearly weren’t in the military, seemed to be running the show. Smith knew they had captured Azrael, but why were they also now in charge of protecting Jessica? Why were they being allowed to walk about as if they owned the bloody place?

  The needle was inserted into the vein, and Smith wasn’t gentle with it. Even so, he was surprised when Azrael didn’t even flinch. Instead, the test subject just looked at him with cold, calculating eyes. Smith was shocked when a subtle wave of fear rippled through his body. Perhaps being unprofessional in his manner with a man such as Azrael wasn’t wise, even with the restraints and the armed guards.

  “Sorry about that, if that hurt I mean,” Smith conceded. “I’m not myself today.” Azrael merely shrugged, the warmth of the liquid almost pleasant as it flowed up his arm.

  “No need to be. Your doctoring is like a soothing massage compared to what I’ve recently experienced.” Smith chose not to investigate that line of inquiry. Now they just had to wait and see if the antiserum did its thing. At this stage, Smith would merely be happy to know the antiserum didn’t kill the patient.

  Azrael felt the drug flowing further into his system, the warmth spreading past the arm as the liquid was carried by the bloodstream. There was a prickly sensation that accompanied it, but it was not unpleasant. Behind him, Smith had started talking into a microphone.

  “Subject 1 is now receiving the antiserum XV1. No sign of allergic reaction.”

  “When will I see Jessica again?” Azrael asked Nick.

  “When the good doctor here has decided his medicine either works or is a failure.”

  “How will he know if it works?”

  “Because once I’ve given you the full dose, I will be injecting the virus right into your system,” Smith said almost casually. “So you better hope I’m as good a scientist as I think I am.” The plan was simple. It had already been determined that the rate of contamination from the precursor virus was different than when passed on through bites, the theory being that the zombie’s saliva acted as some sort of catalyst. This had been confirmed by animal testing on the first of the zombies acquired from those captured at Wythenshawe Hospital. The sample that would be used on Azrael would be the virus mixed up with collected undead saliva, little concern being given for the presence of other blood borne pathogens. This was desperation, and Azrael was expendable.

  22.08.19

  Birmingham, UK

  Control the food supply and you control the population.

  One of the first things the military commanders did was shut down the country’s chain of supermarkets, most having the ability to shut up shop behind barriers of roller shutters and steel grills. Many of them had already been picked clean, their shelves stripped of all perishable goods, the canned produce strangely the last things to go. Even when their own survival depended on it, people were still stupid enough to choose bread and milk over something that could be stored for years. Humanity was no longer capable of survival without the luxuries of its technology.

  The challenge facing the UK was its “just in time” food distribution network. Already, the chain was breaking down as HGV drivers phoned in sick and the planes bringing in produce were grounded. The country’s main ports, now under control by the Royal Navy still accepted the goods that were steaming towards them, but already some container ships had turned around, preferring the safety of the open waters rather than risk their crews contracting contagion. Better to drift out at sea and watch what happened to the world.

  The Royal Navy itself had already put all its available ships to sea in the hope of salvaging what they could. It was inevitable that some infected individuals would find their way on board those ships, especially the supply ships that were essential to allow the fleet to stay out of port. Over the coming days, a fifth of the fleet would be lost to the undead.

  With the supermarkets closed, the army was initially put in charge of food distribution to a populace that was yet to experience the ravages of hunger. A city as large as Birmingham would have several dispersal points, food ferried to them from the central warehouses under armed convoy. This only took soldiers and officers away from the fight that was already erupting in parts of Birmingham. Thus, some military strategists were already considering the UK population to be an obstacle to containing the rapidly growing rates of infection. Behind closed doors, radical methods of population control were discussed in hushed tones. The undead recruited from the living. Reduce the population and you reduce the army the military would face in the coming conflict. Sacrifice the many to save the select few.

  Saner minds won out, the plans for nuclear decimation and nerve agents rejected by the Military’s high command. As noble and as humanitarian as such decisions were, they would be seen, in hindsight as the wrong decisions to make. Killing the bulk of the populations in the country’s major population centres would have been an horrific act to surpass any of the outrages of humanities past, but it would have saved the country. At that moment in time, the spread of the virus through the UK’s rural communities was almost non-existent. Had the voices of slaughter been listened to, a vestige of the UK could have likely been saved allowing the country to rise from the ashes. At least there would have been a chance. Nobody with the authority to make that decision could stomach being responsible for the slaughter that was necessary.

  Some countries, like Russia, did take such actions. CIA intelligence reported the mass roundups of anyone who had travelled to the country by air and land in a designated timescale. The forced isolation and detentions also included all people those individuals had day to day interactions with, whole apartment blocks being emptied by soldiers in protective clothing. Once emptied, the buildings were sterilised by fire. At night the flames could be seen scattered across Moscow.

  Across Russia, thirty-seven thousand people found themselves locked behind wire fences in what many deemed a return to the old days of Stalin and the Gulags. There was little in the way of revolt in the population, the hard-line seen for what it was…a necessary measure for the protection of the people. Those that did complain just found themselves locked behind the wire with infected individuals. This further silenced any potential dissenting voices. Later the Russian State would take further action, offering financial reward for every dead bird and rat that was brought in for incineration. Russia, North Korea and the Island states of the Pacific were thus able to weather the initial storm well.

  The UK, as a liberal democracy, didn’t stand a chance.

  Somehow, Rashid had missed the fact that the world around him was falling apart. Working hard on his dissertation, he had shut himself away so as to concentrate on the most important thing in his life. So invested was he in his project, that he had rarely even left the house over the past few weeks. For a month straight, he had been trying to get fifteen thousand words to make some sort of sense, and on the morning of the twenty-second, he reckoned he was about there.

  Yesterday had needed his entire focus, so even his phone had been switched off, and the landline unplugged. Living alone as he did, he would abide no interruptions for what was then the culmination of his life’s ambition. Today, he gave himself the liberty of switching his phone back on, and the world told him that his PhD was now meaningless.

  Frantic phone calls. Tex
t messages. A mad search of the online news channels. How had he missed this? How had the zombie apocalypse arrived without him even realising? He had sat in his living room, stunned, unable to comprehend what this all meant. His mother and father insisted he come back home to Pakistan, but it quickly became evident that there were now no flights that anyone could take. Separated from family, and with little in the way of friends to count on, Rashid knew he could only fend for himself. As a Muslim, he had for a while now ignored the callings of his faith, so he didn’t even feel that he had the community of the local mosque to call on.

  The first act of business was food. He had some, but most of the cupboards in his student flat were bare. The flat was self-contained, two bedrooms with its own kitchen and living room. His family were not poor, and they had been more than happy to fund his living costs whilst in the foreign land. To have a son obtain a doctorate was the prize that his family sought, and Rashid had come so close. Staring at the file on his computer, he cursed the life he had wasted on getting to this point. So many sacrifices, so many opportunities lost just to excel in his chosen field.

  And now it was all for nothing. Rashid suddenly felt like a fool, a fool with no skills to survive in the world that no longer needed him. The closest thing to survival gear was a rucksack, so at least he had something to easily carry supplies in should he be able to acquire any.

  The streets outside were almost empty, and he walked to the supermarket that was ideally situated for him, a faint breeze caressing the worries as they percolated around inside his head. Ten minutes later, he stood in amazement at the empty car park and the shuttered windows of the building he had visited dozens of times. Walking up to the main entrance, he found a laminated sheet of A4 duct taped to the protective grills. The store was closed, most likely abandoned, the message giving directions to the nearest food distribution site all written down. Someone had even hand drawn a map. Rashid took a picture of it with his phone and saw that, unlike earlier, he now no longer had any kind of reception.

  Rashid looked at the drawing, saw the childlike desperation in it. How much food was left in this building? Was he so close to everything he needed only to be denied? The store was big, and he wandered the length of one side, looking to see if there was any way in. Some of the windows weren’t protected, their vulnerability showing that all the lights inside were off. Nobody home.

  For a moment he contemplated forcing entry, but he knew he couldn’t do that. Even with the evidence in front of him that this was likely the end of all things, his own conscience couldn’t allow him to commit such a violent act. It was theft, and theft was an evil deed. If he had been hungry, his belly empty for a week or more, things might have been different, survival instincts kicking in to take over the human code of ethics he presently lived by. But he wasn’t even close to hunger yet, and although he saw the wisdom in taking what had likely been left to rot, Rashid just wouldn’t allow himself to go down that path.

  It was then that he heard the truck.

  Stood outside the huge building, it finally dawned on him how isolated he was. There were no houses that overlooked where he stood, and what would have been a common day occurrence suddenly sparked a threat warning through his neurons. Who was in the truck? What were they doing here? Caution caused Rashid to back away from the building, and to start making his way towards the car park’s pedestrian exit.

  The truck came into the car park and headed straight for him. It was a white pickup with an open back. There were two people in the truck’s cabin and one riding shotgun. Literally. As the truck got closer, Rashid noticed that the man in the back was actually holding a double-barrelled shotgun. He picked up the pace, but so did the truck, stopping in front of him menacingly. Everything inside Rashid was screaming danger. Here he was, a Pakistani national alone in a car park with three armed white dudes. What on earth could go wrong?

  “You’re trespassing,” the man in the back said. He was lanky with a buzz cut head.

  “I’m sorry, I’m just leaving.” The driver’s window wound down. The driver had a cigarette planted firmly in his mouth, a look of complete disgust etched across his face.

  “This isn’t the place for you shit head,” the driver reiterated.

  “You’re right, I realise that now. I will get out of your way so you can go about your business.”

  “Make sure you do,” Buzz-cut said, aiming the shotgun at Rashid. “This store is under our protection.”

  “I understand,” Rashid said, starting to move again. “You have my word, I won’t come back.” The driver revved the engine.

  “Better hadn’t,” the driver ordered. “Your type aren’t welcome here.” Three sets of eyes watched Rashid as he navigated past the truck. He didn’t run, but walked briskly towards the way out, the back of his neck itching where he kept expecting the shotgun blast to hit. Nobody fired, and upon reaching the exit, he turned to see what he had just escaped from. The truck had moved, and two of the men were now attacking one of the rear doors of the supermarket with crowbars. Even if the building was alarmed, Rashid didn’t think anyone would bother responding. It would appear that in this land now, might was right.

  That had actually been a first. From all his time in the UK, that had actually been the only time he had feared for his safety. He didn’t even think there was any racism involved. If he had been a blue-eyed, blonde haired Caucasian, the result would probably have been the same. He was the unknown infringing on someone else’s claimed domain.

  His options were limited now. The food distribution point wasn’t far, just another fifteen-minute walk away, so he made his way there. A car would have been better and safer, but that was a luxury he didn’t possess. Hell, he didn’t even own a driving licence. Whilst he knew how to drive due to the teachings of an older brother, there was no way he could legally do so in this country. Walking was fine for now, so long as it got him what he wanted.

  He saw about a dozen people on his journey, most of them possessing a harassed wariness in their eyes. Some openly carried melee weapons, and Rashid wondered if that was for protection from the undead or to fend off the brutality of humanity that was starting to come to the surface. Perhaps some of those weapons were meant for evil intent, so Rashid kept his distance from everyone he encountered. He also passed by a smaller chain food store, but the front of that had been shattered, another gang piling up food outside. Rashid kept on without drawing attention to himself. Where the hell was law enforcement?

  Whilst he had expected people to be at the distribution centre, he hadn’t expected so many so soon. People were lined up through a snaking series of metal barriers, intimidating looking soldiers wandering around the peripheries to ensure some sort of order. At the front of the line, five army trucks lay parked, their backs opened. About a dozen soldiers were unloading the truck and handing out bags of food. Joining the back of the queue, Rashid engaged in that very British pursuit. Waiting.

  There were murmurings amongst the crowd.

  “I bet the army don’t have to wait for food.”

  “This isn’t right, why should I wait?”

  “They aren’t giving much out.”

  “Why are there so many foreigners here?”

  Rashid ignored the people around him, trying to blend in as he moved steadily down the procession of people, wary of being so close to people due to the risks of the virus. Occasionally there would be a commotion at the front of the line, but it always calmed down when guns were raised and threats voiced. This could so very easily turn nasty, the barriers trapping several hundred people into a pre-determined path.

  What if he got to the end and they had run out of food? Would the trucks be here tomorrow? And the next day?

  Halfway there now, the empty rucksack on his back a surprising irritant to him. It occurred to him that his feet were aching, walking not something he had particularly engaged in for several months. The university campus was an easy bus ride from where he lived, so the use of his legs
was pretty limited. Rashid wasn’t one to waste his time with something ridiculous like exercise.

  He was regretting that sedentary lifestyle now, knowing the trip back was mainly uphill and so potentially arduous. People like him were designed to live in a world of convenience and comfort. He’d never really witnessed hardship, his life one of privilege and excess. It had made him soft and weak of mind and body. His intellect was all but useless when it came to surviving in the world he presently saw around him. His PhD wasn’t even in anything useful like engineering or chemistry. It was in fucking theology for pity’s sake.

  How was he going to fight off a zombie horde by reciting the finer points of Martin Luther’s treaties?

  The thoughts that had wrapped him up dissolved into the sound of the gunshots that suddenly echoed across the crowd. Stuck in the middle of the human mass, it was difficult to see what was happening. The people around him surged, panic spreading from around them, the volume of their voices converting into screams and roars.

  “Contact, we have contact,” a voice shouted, cutting through the cacophony. More shots were fired, and Rashid was swept along, his slender frame no match for the fury of the mob. Someone fell behind him, but Rashid did not turn to help, feet stamping down on the felled victim. That was a fate that could so very easily happen to him, hands grasping at his shoulders, people trying to forge their way past. Some tried to climb over the barriers, but that just added to the madness. Rashid was propelled around one corner, then another, his legs moving to try and keep pace with the rush of bodies that was now unstoppable.