“Well, now you get to see just how good this antiserum really is.”
22.08.19
New York, USA
The darkness that surrounded him felt somehow comforting. Many people had a fear of the dark, but most of humanity didn’t have the training and the desire to inflict death that Gabriel possessed. It wasn’t that he was without fear, he just knew how to control it.
Not all the PATH line had been in darkness, emergency lighting present in many parts of it, but he had still needed to use the torch to fully illuminate his way. Now on the tracks, he kept well away from the electrified rail. The likelihood was that there was no current flowing through it, but why take the risk?
By his calculations, he was under the river now. And he wasn’t alone. Up ahead he occasionally got a glimpse of torches flashing. Hushed voices came to him, but he never heard what was being said. The people never got any closer, they were obviously just using the tunnels as he was. No danger there, not at present.
That all changed when the scream ripped through the air around him. The light ahead seemed to drop as if a torch had been flung to the ground. Gabriel didn’t pause, knowing there was only one direction he could go in. Another cry of pain came, louder than the first and male this time. Whoever was ahead of him was clearly being attacked, innocents caught up in a plan for the world they didn’t understand. No part of Gabriel yearned to come to their rescue. Live or die, he had little interest in the fate of others. Whatever was ahead of him would be dealt with the way Gabriel dealt with all things.
The guiding light was extinguished making Gabriel the only source of illumination. He had little concern that the batteries in his own torch would fail for they had been freshly placed a week ago. Gabriel was all about preparation and illuminating unexpected variables. Whilst there was a risk that all plans disintegrated as soon as the enemy was engaged, he did what he could to mitigate that well-known rule. Stepping carefully so as not to lose his footing, he heard the sound of footsteps charging towards him.
Night vision goggles wouldn’t be ideal down here because there wasn’t any ambient light. He had considered wearing thermal which he had packed away in his rucksack, but there was a problem with that. He was well aware that he might encounter the undead down in this underground refuge. Did the undead even give off heat though? Did their core body temperature drop to that of the surrounding air? He had chosen not to risk it, and now with enemies approaching, he knelt down in place and waited.
The light caught glimpses of them first, at least five figures running towards him. It quickly became clear that they weren’t human, their speed and movement too fast and erratic, limbs moving in a frenzy as they seemed to compete to get at him. Some were damaged, blood evident on much of the clothing they wore. The one leading the pack was even missing an arm, the injury that had most likely killed the human.
Gabriel fired, not wasting his bullets on body shots, aiming for the heads. Even with his skill, it was difficult, the ungodly motion of the undead making them challenging targets. Two fell, the projectiles doing enough damage in the right part of the brain to end them, but even with headshots, the other three kept coming. A frown appeared on Gabriel’s face, a rare show of emotion for a man who was as close to being as dead emotionally as the things he was now trying to kill.
Could you kill a zombie?
He changed tactics, the remaining three now dangerously close. Shooting out the knee caps was an even more difficult target, and he managed it twice, the zombies’ legs collapsing under them, the joint ruined. The final one his shot missed, but Gabriel managed to finish it off with a final shot to the head. The two that remained tried to crawl towards him, but they were now easier and slower targets. More ammunition used. At this rate, he would need to seek out supplies.
Gabriel should have moved on, but something inside him wanted to know more about what these things were. He shone his light on them in turn, noticing the clothes they wore and the people they had once been. One had clearly been homeless, the attire a clear give away. Two were dressed in expensive suits, perhaps bankers on Wall Street, their wealth unable to save them from the indiscriminate actions of Lazarus. Moving past the bodies, Gabriel noticed the last two had been women, one a police officer. Her sidearm was missing, but the belt still likely held the same ammunition that Gabriel required. Bending down, he began to search for what he needed in the various pouches. Two magazines were a welcome addition to the ammunition he had so far spent, and he added them to his own belt.
He spotted the movement too late. The officer’s body was badly wrecked, much of the scalp missing from the left side of its head. How it got down here, Gabriel would never know and not being familiar with the way Lazarus worked, there were some things even Gabriel could not predict. The ripped shirt over the lower abdomen gave him no hint at the creature that was living inside the zombie, feeding on its innards which the zombie no longer needed. This zombie had been slow to rise, the rat finding the freshly dead corpse and burrowing into it to feast.
The rat crept from the putrefying guts, slipping out from under the bullet proof vest and launched itself at Gabriel’s face. Even with his reflexes, he was only able to catch it with his free hand a fraction too late, the rat claw scratching his cheek. Although living off the guts, the rat itself had yet to succumb to Lazarus, the changes still occurring inside it. Why it had chosen to continually feast off a creature that still moved would never be explained, its attack more a sense of desperation than outright aggression.
Gabriel closed his fist around it, feeling it squirm and writhe, the blood and gore coating it making it slick. His cheek stung. Did that mean he was infected? Would such an injury be enough to be the end of him? With one hand on his gun, the only source of light, and the other holding the rat, he had only one real course of action. Gabriel flung the rat at the wall of the tunnel as hard as he could where it hit with bone crushing impact. As it fell to the floor of the tunnel, Gabriel ended it by blowing its head to smithereens.
Likely his tactical glove was now a source of infection, moisture seeping through in parts. Gabriel stripped it off as carefully as he could and flung it down the tunnel in disgust. He should have been more worried about the scratch, but he knew that there was no point concerning himself with that. There were only two outcomes here. He would either catch the virus or he wouldn’t, and he knew exactly what he needed to do in case of the former.
His brain at that moment allowed him to remember something he had discussed with Mother. A year ago the package had arrived, the one containing the self-injection gun just as with Azrael. Like with Azrael, he used it on the instructions given, the remnants discarded in the trash. Until this moment he hadn’t thought anything more of it.
What had that injection been for?
22.08.19
Manchester, UK
Doctor Patel had ultimately succumbed to sleep, despite his best efforts to hold the sandman at bay. The sound of the alarm was enough to rouse him from the office desk he had collapsed his head onto, and with bleary eyes, he looked around the well-lit laboratory. What was it, a fire?
Dizziness hit him as he stood up, Lazarus now well advanced in his system. The latest batch of antiserum had been sent off to the barracks as per directions from the military. The courier had also been given a complete rundown of all the research done so far on a USB stick just as an added back up. The country’s infrastructure was starting to get a bit sketchy, so there was a worry that the reliability of the internet wouldn’t be there. Even the hardened military system was becoming vulnerable. Then there was the power supply of course. Already parts of it were failing and there were very few people willing to go to areas that might be swamped with zombies to fix what randomly occurred.
Patel looked out of his window expecting to see people gathering outside. Instead what he saw were people fleeing. Three soldiers came into view and started firing in what seemed like a random pattern. Patel soon saw what they were shooting at, several o
f the zombies collapsing. But not all of them. Some got through the onslaught, bringing the soldiers down.
How had this happened? How had so many zombies resurrected at the same time? Or was this an external invasion, the true nature of the outbreak finally reaching them? With the night fully fallen, much of what was happening was hidden by the darkness. The pyre of charred and ruined bodies still flickered, recent additions keeping it going, but with no fresh fuel, that would soon die out. What he was seeing was a catastrophe.
Patel had previously thought there weren’t enough soldiers on the hospital grounds, and he was being proven right. Just as he was considering his options, the lights flickered and died, only to be replaced by emergency lighting, the hospital generators clearly taking the strain from what was most likely a failed electrical grid.
He had to leave. He had to leave now, but he wasn’t going anywhere without his own copy of his research, most of which was stored on his laptop. There were still a few files to transfer from his main office computer, which was rebooting, still able to run off emergency power.
Patel also wasn’t foolish enough to leave without the last samples of XV1 which were locked in the laboratory fridge. He had been waiting to ensure its viability on Smith who seemed to be now beating the virus. With his own symptoms now developing, he didn’t think he had a choice but to take a dose himself. Having seen the violent reaction it caused in Smith though, he would need to wait until he was in a safe location before taking the hopefully lifesaving medication. Taking it here was no longer a possible option, not with zombies running amok.
Where would he go though? If he could find soldiers, then maybe that meant he could evacuate with them, but would they take him? Most of them wouldn’t know who he was. Perhaps the best option was to get Smith and if he could be roused, the pair of them could leave. At least then Patel was relatively certain he could flee to somewhere safe.
That was all assuming there were safe places left…
23.08.19
Leeds, UK
When he finally fell asleep that night, Andy dreamt of oceans. The scorched earth and the baked flesh, the thousands of relentlessly walking souls were all images that were yet to become etched on his psyche. They would come.
He was spared the full bliss of such nocturnal escape because he was ripped from sleep by the sound of violence in the real world. The noise had been loud and brutal, the source completely alien to Andy as his mind tried to reset itself from the fantasy it had been having to endure. Another crash came, obviously from one of the spare bedrooms, the blackness of the night almost total. Jumping from his bed, he heard the sound that sent ice into his veins, the orange flickering quickly illuminating what had just been done.
He didn’t have time to think, the spare bedroom was on fire. The smoke was already starting to gather in the upper landing, and he grabbed the fire extinguisher that he had left at the top of the stairs. Andy was fortunate, the room the Molotov had been thrown in was relatively empty. No furniture or beds in there, just a place to put crates of books which were fortunately slow to burn. Still, the flames were consuming the carpet, sticking to the fitted wardrobes, threatening to spread the way fire does. The extinguisher soon made light work of that, the broken window evidence of where the missiles had entered.
There was only one man who would have done this. Iain.
“YOU LIKE THAT CUNT?” he heard the insane neighbour shouting from outside. Instead of going to the window, Andy went back to his bedroom. He was already dressed, having chosen to sleep fully clothed, his reptilian brain warning him earlier that something bad was likely to happen due to his earlier altercation with the axe-wielding maniac.
Andy put on his shoes which would be needed to avoid the newly lain carpet of broken glass. He also grabbed the shotgun which he now kept as close by as possible. Was this it, was it time to deal with this once and for all?
Returning to the scorched bedroom, Andy was surprised to see his building’s rear security light wasn’t on. Iain again? Most likely he’d climbed over the fence and snipped the power wire. There was the sound outside of someone climbing back over the border fence, only this time there was a wrenching sound. Hesitant as he was to look due to the fear of another missile, Andy peered cautiously outside, the half-moon giving just enough light to show what had happened. The wooden frame of the fence between gardens had collapsed under Iain’s weight. Clearly, it was not designed to accept the insult of having such a brute of a man climb over it more than once. Andy could see Iain picking himself up off the floor, and so he lined the shotgun up and fired just as Iain jumped from view.
Andy couldn’t tell if his aim had been true, but he heard Iain curse loudly. At the very least, some of the buckshot most likely hit him. Not likely a fatal wound, but hopefully enough to teach him to stop fucking about. Or conversely to enrage him even more. Andy remembered the man who had come round when he had first started getting quotes to have security shutters put on the property.
“Are you sure you don’t want the upper windows protecting as well? It’s the only way to be totally secure.” At the time, Andy had considered the man to be just a salesman trying to earn a bigger commission. Now he saw the wisdom in the words said. Upstairs shutters would have prevented all this. Fortunately, Andy had plenty of ply board in the garage and the tools to fix this up, but now he was going to have to do it to all the windows. Iain was highlighting the weaknesses in his fortress.
“Iain, so help me, the next time I see you I’m going to fucking shoot your balls off,” Andy shouted out of the window. As if to answer, a trio of gunshots echoed off in the distance. No other response came. Even with the windows boarded up, Andy realised he would never be safe until Iain was out of the picture. Sooner or later things were going to come to a head.
He was surprised he was having these thoughts if he was honest. Mere days ago this matter would have been dealt with by a phone call to the police. They would have come round, assessed the situation and likely carted Iain off to a cell for the night. Criminal damage with life-threatening arson weren’t trifling occurrences. But it occurred to Andy that the days of police assistance were over. Even so, he grabbed his phone from the bedroom and tried 999, just to see. Again, he got the useless recorded message. It seemed the only law that existed now was the law of retribution.
There was no civilisation anymore. If Andy was to deal with this, he had to take charge of the situation himself. What friends he had were on the other side of the city, or in different cities entirely. They likely had their own concerns to deal with, and even if they could come rushing round to his aid, there was always the fear that they would bring the virus with them. He was alone in a world that was now intent on killing him. Crazy that the biggest problem he was presently facing was down to the living.
He knew he was able to kill Iain, but the remnant of a civilised mind still lurked within, the guilt at breaking the laws that nobody was presently enforcing. Such thinking caused inaction, thousands dying over the coming days because they weren’t able to switch off the instructions that society insisted people follow.
Andy wasn’t going to let his life fail like that. When morning came he would use the safety of daylight to deal with Iain. He would either kill him or leave him so damaged that he would no longer be a threat. One way or another, this was going to end.
23.08.19
Manchester, UK
Smith had managed to stem the bleeding from the severed stumps on his hands using the medical supplies in his isolation room. There was pain, the initial sharpness turning into a dull throb which had become a constant reminder of his run-in with the undead. The injury made his head swim, his middle-aged body unused to having such damage inflicted.
Smith caught his haggard reflection in the isolation room’s window. He had declined hospital attire, insisting instead to remain dressed as an officer of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. His shirt was stained and tattered, his tie lost somewhere in the room. The trousers were ca
ked in vomit down one leg, and he had no doubt that the smell from him was less than palatable. This was not how an officer was supposed to look. The military tunic however was relatively pristine, hanging from a coat hanger by the now open door. Smith put it on, telling himself that it would offer some measure of protection against further bites. Deep down though, he wore it because it represented the identity of who he believed he really was. If he encountered other soldiers, he would need the instant authority the uniform represented. If he encountered further zombies, it was unlikely the fabric would give him any kind of protection.
The compelling temptation had been to shut the door and cower away from the now obvious dangers of the world. As tempting as it was, that would mean surrendering to fear which he would never do. Instead, Smith took the only real path available to him, opting to leave the isolation room to seek anyone who could get him the hell out of here. Escape held with it the chance of safety.
At the end of the day there was no denying that he was a soldier with a job to do, his task undoubtedly more important than most of the people in this hospital. He wasn’t even going to deny that his recent research had been driven by a significant amount of self-preservation. That still didn’t change the fact that there were billions of people out there who needed a cure to a disease which threatened to wipe the human race from existence. When it came down to it, he was also a doctor, admittedly one with an ego the size of a small planet. Smith was here to save lives, and if he could get some notoriety out of sparing mankind on top of that, then he would graciously accept such.
The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 2): The Rise Page 35
