The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 2): The Rise

by Deville, Sean

  From the corner of his eyes, he saw the soldiers jumping onto their trucks, the vehicles starting to pull away. One truck passed by the crowd, only for Rashid to see that it was being chased, the person pursuing running with a strange, jerking motion, her white t-shirt stained with the reddest of blood. More shots and the pursuer jerked as bullets ripped through its torso.

  There would be no more food deliveries. Not today, not ever.

  Somehow, Rashid found himself free of the crowd, those around him fleeing in all directions. Gunshots still sounded, but they seemed further off, almost not related to this bedlam. Then he saw it, the pile of food that had been unloaded, several people diving into it, filling their arms with whatever they could. He knew what he had to do, but was too hesitant to engage in the full force required, so instead of pushing, he wormed his way between the people, his hands latching onto a precious box of soup sachets. The box was ripped from his fingers by someone stronger and more desperate.

  At first, there was resistance, and then he felt those around him melt away, the pile suddenly his for the taking. Kneeling down, he flung the rucksack off his back and started to fill it with his future. Only Rashid really didn’t have a future because, oblivious to him, one of the creatures now stood behind him.

  He sensed it, he couldn’t explain how and his head turned to see the thing just standing there. It didn’t even seem to be looking at Rashid, its head cocked to the left slightly as if mesmerised by beautiful music. With his hand around a tin of beans, Rashid slowly stood, his bladder opening as fear totally engulfed him. The switch in his brain that told him how to react went to fright, and his body was half turned towards the zombie when his knees locked into place. His whole being just seemed to freeze.

  The zombie, still wearing the hijab of its former owner, took a shaky step forward, a whimper escaping Rashid’s lips. Rashid knew to be afraid because the zombie’s eyes were totally black, the nose missing from the centre of its face where it had been bitten clean off. The face looked like a skull, the muscles of the mouth retracted to reveal teeth coated in blood and gore.

  Predators sometimes hunt by motion, but not the undead. Without warning, it pounced on Rashid, his arm acting by some innate survival mechanism, smashing the can across the zombie’s face. It didn’t even seem to notice, a fragment of tooth flying off to the side. Powerful hands grabbed Rashid, the fingers digging into his shoulders. He was too fragile to resist, too weak to fight it off, too pathetic to even really try. All he could do was squirm, his arms pretty much held fast, the skeletal face coming closer.

  The stench from the creature was unbelievable, and Rashid felt himself retch, his whole world starting to swim. Before he could pass out the broken teeth descended on his vulnerable neck. The violence of the attack was almost as surprising as the fact he was being assaulted by a monster that had returned from the dead. As the assault quickly resulted in life-threatening injuries, Rashid’s mind was rapidly swallowed up by the virus that didn’t care how intelligent he was. All it needed was for him to walk, run and fight. Released so he could fall to the floor, Rashid lay upon the mound of food he had risked his life for. It would only take him minutes to die.

  There would be no more food distribution from this point.

  22.08.19

  Washington DC, USA

  Jessy Whitethorn, the newly made President’s Chief of Staff slept the sleep of ages. There were only a limited number of beds in the Whitehouse’s Emergency Operations bunker, so she took a small couch in one of the side rooms and made it her own. It was far from ideal because her six-foot frame stretched longer than the seating provided. It was better than nothing, and her body rested for the battle it was presently fighting.

  In reality, she hadn’t expected to fall asleep, but exhaustion had overpowered her and she had reluctantly succumbed, giving her nose a final blow before putting her tired head down onto the cushion. Whilst she slept, her nasal fluid had run almost freely, the mucous carrying the virus out of her body and onto the soft material that supported her head. Within, there was a secret in her body that the virus had so rarely encountered.

  Already, Jessy’s immune system was rallying to fight the invader, and unlike most people, her army of white blood cells would be victorious. Jessy was one of the rare ones immune to the virus, a freak genetic accident that left her a beacon of hope for the human race. That was a discovery for later though and for now, she dreamt a disturbing dream. Occasionally she moaned restlessly, her legs slightly twitching as the nightmare took on a life of its own. It was a dream she had never experienced before, and would wake her with a scream caught in her throat. The horsemen and the desert, the red sun high in the sky baking her damaged and flayed hide. And all around her, thousands walked, never stopping, the relentless march of those marked for damnation.

  The dream would be the least of her concerns over the coming days. Unfortunately, she had inadvertently infected nearly everyone in the Whitehouse bunker. With the President of the United States dead, the Vice President had been sworn in as acting President. The problem was, he wasn’t immune, which meant the virus was working its way through the American administration as if it was ticking off a list. With no Vice President yet appointed, the next in the chain of succession was the Speaker of the House of Representatives, a man who had met with the President two days before. All it took was the shake of a hand.

  The Speaker had then passed Lazarus to the President pro tempore of the Senate, so when the virus worked its wonders on him, the leadership would drop down a notch on the list. With the Secretary of State presently struggling to recover from an operation for his life and death struggle with bowel cancer, the next in line was the Secretary of the Treasury. A man good with numbers, but not someone you would want to run a country. He also wasn’t an American born citizen, so he was out of the running.

  Following on came probably the best candidate for what was needed. The Secretary of Defence was a five-star general who the troops respected and who the press adored. He was plain speaking and able to deal with the political whims of the idiots in the Senate and the House of Representatives. A combat veteran with a brilliant strategic brain, he was a man made for war, a man made for the kind of battles that were coming over the next few weeks and months. Just the man’s presence in the office he held had allegedly prevented two armed conflicts due to the absolute certainty that there was someone in charge of the world’s most powerful military who knew exactly what he was doing. Regrettably, he was also down here in the bunker, presently chatting to now President Ryan.

  So when the smoke cleared and the virus had demanded its toll, the ensuing candidate was the US Attorney General. And that was going to be a problem. Presently the Attorney General, Jacqueline Fairchild, had fled Washington for the relative safety of her weekend retreat. She was an extremely competent lawyer, a woman who knew the ins and outs of the American constitution almost as well as she knew the inside of the King James Bible. Whilst Jessy slept, Jacqueline sat in front of a roaring fire in Montauk west of the Hamptons, the lights dimmed low, her mind fully engrossed by the divine teachings in that holiest of books.

  Jacqueline knew what she witnessed in the world around her. It was written for anybody to see in the Lord’s message. She didn’t know that she was destined for the Office of President, so she sat, fearing that the End of Days had arrived but also excited that the time of truth was most likely upon them. She needed guidance though, and her memory didn’t fail her. She easily found the chapter that she knew had prophesied the recent events.

  Isaiah 26:19-20

  Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead. Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by

  She had left Washington, for had the Lord himself not commanded that she do so, which meant she had escaped the initi
al infection and would be safe to take command when the opportunity presented itself. When this knowledge was bestowed upon her, there was only one thing she could possibly say in response…

  Praise be!

  22.08.19

  New York, USA

  The assassins of Gaia did not want for luxury, some just chose to reject it. Whereas Azrael would sleep in a fetid pit hidden in his plush London townhouse, Gabriel chose the path of sterility and cleanliness. The rooms he slept in were immaculate, the sheets for his most recent bed freshly laundered each day and left outside his New York penthouse apartment. Whilst he was in residence, no other person was allowed access to his hallowed sanctum. He stayed here rarely, this just one of several other residences scattered across the Continental United States. As with the other apartments, Gabriel let no speck of dust gather on the many surfaces of the bedroom he slept in here, his ritual cleaning unhindered for the shelves and furniture were bare of everyday human trinkets.

  The assassins differed in other ways too. Azrael liked the barbarity of the life, of prolonging the pain of those he was sent to kill. The thrill of plunging the knife in and feeling the warm blood wash over his skin had, until his capture, been a large part of who he was. Gabriel too preferred the surgical precision of ending life by the blade and with as much bloodshed as possible. The difference was that Gabriel preferred to get the job done quickly, favouring efficiency over artistry. He too had a knife with the same engravings, also given to him by Mother. He was adeptly skilled in knowing how to slice and stab the life out of a fragile human form. This didn’t mean he got to use the knife very often.

  Many of Gabriel’s kills had to be attributed to accidents or natural causes, America’s law enforcement ever on the lookout for any hint of a serial killer. His planning was meticulous, his performance in the service of Gaia exemplary. Without question, he did what he was told to do. Why then had they abandoned him in a city where the dead were starting to rise? Sitting on his penthouse balcony, the usual thoughts that afflicted humanity absent due to his previously sterilised mind, Gabriel waited patiently for his next set of instructions. It made no sense to him that they would just leave him here, but without the instruction of Mother, there was nowhere for him to go. He wasn’t to know that the release of Lazarus had been accidental, well before The Three had planned, the virus still in the testing phase.

  Gabriel did not have the blessing of someone like Jessica to unlock what had been taken from him, his former life a phantom that he could sense but never touch. The forgotten memories of the life he had once led tantalised him, only to deny their knowledge, leaving a void that Gabriel tried to fill by being the best killer he could be.

  Thirty-seven people had so far died as a direct result of his actions, only three of those up close and personal. This was not to say he was not adept in hand to hand combat. There were few who would be able to match his skill, the three hours he spent training and maintaining his fitness everyday proof of his dedication. Thirty-seven people removed from the world because they threatened the balance of the sacred Earth. Nobody had really explained how those he killed actually threatened everything, Gabriel just accepting what he was told.

  He even allowed himself to indulge in the finer things, sensation a poor replacement for human experience. But it was all he had, and he knew the limits he was forced to put on such indulgence. Some people had control of their sins, others became consumed by the very things they craved. Gabriel, with no real limit to the money he could draw on, ate the finest foods, drank the finest wines and once a month engaged in the services of the most adept prostitutes. He did not indulge wilfully though.

  Limit your pleasures so that they do not become your hell.

  All this whilst living an invisible life, the everyday people he was forced to interact with barely remembering Gabriel even existed. Like Azrael, Gabriel was a ghost, rarely leaving the apartment except on Death’s orders. He would happily sit for hours meditating, his mind an endless void of blankness, so eager to be filled by the humanity around him, and yet denied by the reclusive code that Gaia insisted upon.

  Very few people in this apartment building had ever met him, his spacious apartment never victim to the parties it was so ideal for. He had no friends, the women he used, with Gaia’s reluctant permission, often refusing to see him again despite the high fees they charged. Whilst he never hurt or abused them, there was a blackness in his heart that they all saw, his emotionless form threateningly robotic in its actions. Perhaps they witnessed in him their future selves, their identities damaged by the oldest profession they chose to join. Some women revelled in trying to fix a broken mind, but those who had true life experience would look into the deep fetid pits of Gabriel’s eyes with growing alarm. Rarely did they wish to repeat the experience. None of the women ever spoke of Gabriel, even to warn others of their kind.

  Down below, the sounds of the city were alien, the cacophony of carnage and gunshots replacing the early morning hum of traffic. Two blocks over, an apartment building was on fire, thirty floors of steel and concrete burning with a ferocity made worse by the death that was likely occurring inside. It wasn’t the only one, several spirals of smoke visible across the city’s skyline. And that is what confused him. If the city was dying, as it so clearly was, why had he not been warned? For the first time a new emotion began to grow inside of him, one he didn’t know how to process.

  Betrayal.

  He felt betrayed by the people he had dedicated his very essence to. The chord on the landline was pulled taught as he tried his best to keep the phone by him at all times. Presently, it rested on the table by his side. Unlike the phone Azrael kept in his pit, this one was as clean as the day it was made, treated with reverence to reflect the power the messenger who used it possessed.

  Gabriel was actually surprised when the phone finally rang, the first shrill tone almost hidden by the explosion that rocked a building not one hundred metres away. Gabriel lifted the handset, the sweat on his palm an affront to its purity.

  “Gabriel.” The word sent a flutter through his heart. Here was her voice, his saviour, the woman who had dragged him screaming into the light. Mother, the one who had trained him, had given him his mission.

  “Mother, I prayed you would call.”

  “And your prayers were answered.” She sounded amused, but also tired. The sound of the line felt different as if missing something, and Gabriel quickly realised there were none of the mechanical sounds of the great machines and the clanking chains that always came with a phone call of this kind. It felt wrong, to just talk like this, not understanding that those sounds had been hypnotic triggers to reinforce an assassin’s commitment and dedication to the voice on the other side of the phone. There was no need for such now.

  “I feel lost. I did the tasks as ordered, but am I to stay here?”

  “Tell me what you were asked to do?” Mother enquired. Gabriel frowned, for how could she not know? The courier had dropped off the package with the instructions that surely came from her. Still, Gabriel told her of the errands he had done. Breaking into people’s homes and contaminating the toothbrushes with the amber liquid in the vials in the dead of night.

  “I see,” Mother said.

  “Was it not you that gave the order?”

  “No,” Mother said. She was tired and now so very alone. She could have gone and joined the other heads of Gaia, but what was the point with her sickness and her utter aversion to what the other three Gaia leaders had done. “That was done without my knowledge. Do you know what it was you were being asked to do?”

  “I assumed at first poison, but now I think a biological agent,” Gabriel answered.

  “Yes, it was what the media call Lazarus. I suspect you guessed as much.”

  “The timing did seem too coincidental,” Gabriel admitted. “So I am the cause of the chaos in New York?”

  “Only partly. The original release of the virus was a mistake. If I had known you would be used to exa
cerbate that mistake I would have acted.” Mother clearly had not been aware of the delivery he received on the seventeenth of August and chose not to share with him how she subsequently found out about his mission.

  “I see,” was all Gabriel could say in answer to that. He had known there were other people at the head of the organisation he served, but he had always assumed that Mother was the ultimate leader. Had she also been misled?

  “Have you ever received any other packages that didn’t fit with your mission?” Gabriel thought about the question, searching his memory banks. There had indeed been a time.

  “Once. Again it was a package, its contents similar to the last one. Only I was asked to inject myself. Was that something you were aware of?”

  “No,” said Mother sadly.

  “Then perhaps we have both been betrayed.”

  “So it seems. You were always one of my favourites, Gabriel,” Mother said softly. She held great affection for the men and women she trained, despite the horrors she made them do. Mother had never had children, the indoctrination by Mother Russia taking most of her nurturing years before she stumbled upon the truth. And then the cause of Gaia took its feverish hold. Children would have not just been a distraction…they would have been a mistake, a curse upon an already crumbling world. Thus, she saw the assassins she made as her offspring, for did she not strip them of their fake identities and bring them afresh into the world?

  “You humble me, Mother.” A rare flowering of affection formed in his heart at the words.

  “I am ringing to say goodbye.” The words did not shock Gabriel, they were almost expected.

  “What do I do now Mother?”

  “I don’t know Gabriel. The world I free you to is not what I wanted. I always sought an orderly demise of the human population, not this necrotic chaos. I have one final instruction for you before I release you from your oath.” He had made a promise to Mother, to serve her until his death.