The Blood of the Infected (Book 1): Once Bitten, Twice Die

by Antony Stanton

  Parsons was pinned face down on the pavement screaming with the three attackers all biting and scratching him. Ward leapt forward to try to aid him but with the writhing bodies it was difficult to get a clear shot. In a panic he repeatedly smashed the handle of the gun down on the head of the nearest assailant who was astride Parsons, clawing at his back.

  “Shoot him, shoot him,” screamed Straddling.

  On the third strike the blood started welling up at the man’s temple. He finally seemed to realize that he was being hit and turned with a toothy snarl to face Ward. The wound from Sharp’s bullet did not seem to have slowed him down at all. He started to rise and lunged forwards. Ward took his opportunity and fired down at him from point blank range. The shot skimmed the man’s cheek, entering his body just by the collarbone. It sent him tumbling onto his back but only for an instant. With a blood-stain spreading across his chest and merging with that on his stomach, he came at Ward again. Ward stepped backwards, away from him and closer to the doorway of the restaurant in order to get a clearer shot. Just as the man leapt he fired again. This time he blew the crown of the man’s head clean off like the top of a hard-boiled egg. He sprawled and crashed into Ward’s legs. Ward was sent stumbling further back and into the beckoning doorway. Straddling watched helplessly as the drama unfolded in a blur before him. The speed with which the situation had deteriorated had shocked him into inactivity. Seeing the developing menace he yelled out a warning but it was too late. More hands grasped Ward from within, pulling him off his feet. His scream was choked out of him as the hands and teeth fastened on his throat. He staggered back through the doorway into the same darkness that had swallowed Sharp.

  All of this happened in the briefest of moments. Straddling had barely had time to draw his pistol and get out of the vehicle. He heard from behind him the horn of the other Land Rover blaring out. The engine gunned as Abbott rammed it into gear and the vehicle jolted forwards. It clipped one of the attackers wearing a torn black jacket hard enough to send him reeling head-first into the wall by the entrance to the police station. He got back to his feet without respite and was about to jump on Parsons once more. There was blood gushing from Parsons’s shoulder and neck and still his initial attacker straddled him and bit down hungrily at his exposed flesh. Then suddenly there was a swift movement from the edge of the fracas. Black Jacket lurched at Parsons but was plucked in mid-air and abruptly changed direction as Millington burst onto the scene with a bellow. He snatched hold of Black Jacket, arrested his flight and yanked him back. In a tremendous display of brute force and adrenalin-fuelled strength he twirled the man around. He hurled him through the air and over the bonnet of Abbott’s Land Rover, where he fell between the two vehicles. Straddling leapt out of the way then turned and fired twice at his head. Black Jacket flinched but did not move again. Another attacker rushed forwards from within the darkened doorway of the restaurant. Millington whirled around and leapt, meeting the assailant head-on. He kicked out in mid-air, knocking the man decisively straight back where he had come from. Blood exploded over his ruptured face. Another man appeared at the window right beside Millington. Like a ballerina he pivoted in a flash and smashed an over-sized fist into the man’s face sending him flying backwards into the bowels of the restaurant.

  Lewis had been a step behind Millington. He tore out of the police station and without a second to consider his actions, grabbed the first assailant who was still on Parsons’s back and shoved him aside. As he flailed on the floor and started to rise, Lewis shot him three times, twice in the stomach and as that seemed to have no effect, again in the face.

  Lewis gesticulated quickly to Straddling and pointed at Parsons. Then he turned back to the open front door. The two sergeants hastily turned the vehicles around, ready for a swift escape. Straddling’s head was still ringing from the shooting and his pulse was racing in his chest, but he was thinking quickly and clearly.

  “Quick,” he barked at Abbott, “help me get Parsons in.”

  As they bundled the lifeless, bloody corpse into the back of Abbott’s vehicle they could hear terrible sounds coming from within the restaurant. There was crashing, snarling and screaming, although it was not clear if they were the screams of the diseased or the soldiers. Lewis, Millington and Hobbs shuffled into the gloomy doorway with weapons held out in front of themselves like protective amulets.

  The light was dim inside and there were overturned chairs and tables blocking their path. Lewis unclipped his torch which picked out a messy trail of blood leading into the restaurant. He strained to see further into the interior. There were thumps and growling sounds from somewhere indeterminately close. Then the entrance hall opened up into a larger dining area. Thin, cotton drapes were hanging from the ceiling, partially obscuring the main section of the room. Nevertheless Lewis was able to see through the gaps in the cloth. There was a shambles of broken crockery and furniture and a group of the infected all gathered around something in the half-light. They were on their hands and knees, fighting each other now to get access to their meal as they feasted like wolves around a kill. As Lewis played his torch beam over them, through the mess of writhing limbs he could make out the lifeless, desecrated body of at least one of his soldiers being literally torn to pieces. Someone shrieked, although Lewis did not know if it had been one of his troops or one of the infected, and the three soldiers started firing indiscriminately into the jumble of crazed lunatics.

  Straddling and Abbott had just finished manhandling the body of Parsons into the rear of Abbott’s Land Rover when they heard the shooting. They froze in situ, unsure whether to go in aid of their comrades or remain where they were in preparation for a swift departure. A second later and their question was answered for them. The three soldiers emerged from the restaurant’s depths at a desperate run.

  “Go, go, go!” Lewis screamed.

  Millington was a half-step behind and both leapt into the rear doors of Straddling’s vehicle. Neither saw Hobbs trip in the gloom and fall. Immediately the pack was upon him in a frenzy of shrieking, snapping teeth and claws. Hobbs cried out as mouths clamped upon his neck and hands tore his hair and ripped at his clothes and face.

  Another of the infected came stumbling into view up the road, then another, perhaps due to the commotion caused by the shooting. Lewis had not realized that Hobbs had fallen but Straddling had seen. He wound down his window and started firing at the throng. Abbott, from his vehicle, did likewise and their bullets found their mark. Straddling’s first clipped the shoulder of a woman in a blue dress, spinning her round. His second ripped half her face off and left her slumped across Hobbs’s body as he struggled and screamed. The woman was replaced by a young man with a deep wound down one side of his face. Straddling fired again, missing this time but the man screeched in rage and then charged at the Land Rover. Straddling steadied his aim and fired again and again, just as the man was about to lunge at him, blowing his head apart. There was another right behind him. Straddling’s pistol clicked uselessly as he aimed at the second attacker.

  Lewis also aimed and fired but nothing happened. “I’m out.”

  “Me too,” said Millington.

  Just then one of the infected jumped on the bonnet of Abbott’s car. He jerked. His foot slipped off the clutch and it lunged forwards sending the man tumbling. The vehicle stalled. For a tense moment he fumbled with the ignition. Just as the attacker regained his feet and ran at him, Abbott urged it into life, cursing. He shoved it into gear and floored the accelerator. The man roared in rage and leapt as the car shot forward but he was struck by the front crash bars and went under the wheels with a satisfying but sickening crunch.

  Lewis shoved his door open, forcefully smashing it into another attacker just as the man tried to break through the window and claw at his face. The man howled as he was knocked back but was on his feet again immediately. This gave Straddling the moment he needed however and he too hit the gas. As the man swiped again the wheels span for an agonising moment
before they bit down and the car raced after Abbott.

  “We can’t go, we can’t go. Hobbs is there,” Millington pleaded, looking helplessly back at his fallen comrade.

  For a second Straddling paused and his foot came up off the pedal, but Lewis shouted decisively.

  “He’s gone, we can’t help him. We’re out of bullets. We’ll die too if we don’t get the hell out of here. Go!”

  Another man came running at them, tearing out of a darkened house, intent on death and destruction and screaming mindlessly. He leapt on the bonnet and Straddling flinched but ignored him as he bounced harmlessly off. They continued racing after Abbott with Lewis still staring helplessly out of the rear window at his fallen comrade. It was a heart-breaking decision for him to have to make but he had no choice. If they had stayed they would all surely have died. The stench of rotting flesh remained in his nostrils, polluting the back of his throat like a disease, long after the police station had disappeared from view.

  CHAPTER 5

  After that disastrous initial foray and the deaths of the four soldiers, everyone had been extremely shaken up and nobody had been off station for several days. As supplies dwindled however it became clear that they would have to venture forth again and several successful missions were carried out without further loss of life - until Abbott, Campos, Sinna and Rohith had ventured forth on the latest sortie. At roughly the same time that they had been loading supplies in the supermarket, a gathering had been taking place in an upstairs room of a nearby presbytery.

  A gnarled figure slumped in an ornate, wooden seat that resembled a throne. The chair had come from China, from a minor royal court in the late Ming Dynasty. Its arms were covered in blood-red leather and its back was carved intricately into the pattern of a dragon entwined around itself as it appeared to bite its own tail. Its wings were small and its legs were spindly, and the carving lacked realism. This had not been an oversight in the eyes of the carpenter who created it however; the beast was not supposed to be swallowing itself, but instead spewing forth its own body from its mouth, signifying its metamorphosis into what it was to become - a serpent evolving into a dragon. The chair’s current occupant, Darius, was even older than it was.

  “We hunger, Darius.” The voice was dry like the withered bones of the dead, shadowy and ancient, without warmth or conscience. Darius said nothing but shifted slightly in the Chinese throne so the comment was repeated. “I said we hunger.”

  “I heard.” Darius now stirred and turned to glare at Farzin who was not cowed but continued speaking.

  “It has been such a long time that we go hungry, such a long time since proper sustenance. And now, when nourishment is at hand…” He trailed off leaving the sentence unfinished. Flavia stirred restlessly at his side and took a small step closer and Alec stood impassively as always right behind. Farzin returned Darius’s hard stare and his voice grew louder. “It is time we end our fast. It is time for us to feast. It is time to take our rightful place, seize the moment that has presented itself and create for ourselves a new life, a new existence. We must emerge now as the new ruling class.”

  He stood 6’ 6,” not overly tall by vampyric standards and reasonably slender, but wiry and lithe. If he were a human he would have been considered gangly but as a vampire he looked sleek and efficient, like a machine. His eyes were taciturn and watery blue, unnerving and unflinching in their gaze, and totally devoid of emotion or empathy. They did not allow the slightest glimpse into his being, just reflected coldly back at the observer. He always gave the impression that he was not focussing on the eyes of whoever he was speaking to, but a thousand yards beyond as he burrowed into their soul. He wore dark trousers tucked into black, knee-high, leather boots and a sash was tied at his waist as a belt below a dark brown jerkin. He applied a faint cologne that lingered briefly after he departed from a room, a clinical, crisp reminder of his presence that carried overtones of winter. Farzin’s sinewy arms ended in misleadingly delicate fingers with long, malicious nails and a deep red ring on his left index finger. His face was drawn and framed by his black, wispy hair, his lips were thin and pale as with most malnourished vampires and the whole effect was of one whose body is half empty of life – or perhaps half full of death.

  Darius leaned forwards; his broad shoulders puffed up and his powerful hands clawed at the arms of his chair, causing the tendons and muscles on his large forearms to flex. He was not used to being spoken to in such a confrontational manner and he struggled to keep his voice level.

  “These are indeed unusual days, unprecedented even. We are entering a time when our place in the world must change, which is why we must tread carefully. These events in human society are still unfolding and I will not risk playing our hand too soon.”

  He paused a moment as his brow furrowed in consternation. This clash had long been coming. He knew it was overdue and that he must handle Farzin carefully. For all of his apparent fragility, Farzin was a ruthless and effective killer whose wary economy of movement belied his speed. His two constant companions were entirely devoted and loyal, and doubtless would stand by him faithfully. Now was not the time to be causing a rift in the clan.

  “If I were I to solicit your opinion, what would you have me do?” Darius asked.

  Farzin did not hesitate but replied fervidly. “Civilization has crumbled and collapsed. Many humans have died or become sick. Those that remain are spread out, disorganized and often undefended. Slowly their numbers dwindle as yet more are killed or diseased. They can barely defend themselves against the tainted and they most certainly cannot stand against us. We are unopposed by humans. We are the dominant species. The only ones who can possibly offer any opposition to us now are others of our own kind.”

  “Yes, all this I know already. But what would you actually have me do? What course of action do you advocate?”

  “The humans are our future. Too long have we dined upon vermin, afraid to reveal ourselves to these inferior creatures. They cannot survive without our help and we need to keep them alive. We must forge a beautiful relationship of interdependence, of symbiosis. Just as they have done to other inferior species, we must corral the survivors as much for their own safety as for our benefit.” He hesitated, seemingly uncertain of how much of his plans to reveal, searching for the best way to persuade the older vampire.

  “You mean we should ‘farm’ the humans? Treat them as cattle, imprison them and feed off them at our leisure?” Darius’s voice was rising in tone and incredulity. He was half-out of the seat now, his bespoke, pitch black suit and black shirt pulled tight by his solid frame as he tensed his shoulders in agitation. His silvery hair fell over his craggy face and put his grey eyes in shadow. After such a long life he was not handsome but he was certainly charismatic, although when angry he was a truly terrifying apparition. The last few days and weeks seemed to have aged him more than the past few decades had, with the weight of leadership of the clan falling solely upon his shoulders like the Sword of Damocles. His lips drew back in a sneer revealing his long teeth, still pointed and sharp after so many years of hunting and killing.

  Farzin nodded passionately. “It is for their benefit as much as ours. They will not survive without our intervention. It may seem cruel at first and it is just the initial fear of the unknown against which they will struggle. But once it has the welcome feel of familiarity they will realize there is no alternative.

  “We should establish ourselves in some location, some haven which we can defend from the impure and protect our new charges. Then we venture forth and gather survivors unto ourselves and quickly we spread our dominion. We can provide them with safety, a structure and even a future. Without us they have none of that, just constant fear and a doomed struggle to survive. Now is the time to re-write civilisation according to our needs.”

  “And how do you propose we restrain them? Do we keep them isolated, chained, under lock and key, bound and blindfolded? Or do we put them in a field with bales of hay and a milking
machine?”

  “You mock me Darius, yet you would do well to listen. Things will change whether you like it or not and we should be the instigators of that change, not just follow in its wake and accept events as they unfold. It is in our interest to keep them safe from harm and in time we may even decide to ‘turn’ some, a specially selected and fortunate few, into vampire brethren, as our supremacy widens. It is now time to step out from the shadows as we deserve.” His eyes were shining with a clear zeal and he was becoming more animated as the resentment of the aeons bubbled up within him.

  Darius was enraged and shouting. “No! We must not be governed by a desire for revenge for our centuries of concealment. Now is the time to seek a measured reaction, not a settling of scores. They do indeed need us as protectors but when has a subjugated people ever accepted that their conquerors act in their best interests? Sooner or later they will rise up against us and we will forever be watching over our shoulders lest the time for revolt is nigh. Better to attain this position in a more civilized manner after approaching them with open discourse and agreement. Better to have their ultimate consent in this matter.”

  “Civilized? Consent? What are these words to them? They are not a civilized species. They are not interested in open discourse and they will not see the benefits that we will bring. We have waited an eternity for a chance like this. It is time to act now.” He thumped a fist angrily into his open palm as he spat the words out.