Although he was not the nearest to the exit, Pethard was the first to get to it. He was about to stand up anyway and leave the two at the table when he saw his wife through the glass upper-half of the door. She seemed to fling herself at it with a look of terror on her face and then someone jumped on her from behind and dragged her down, out of sight.
Had Emma not taken those last five, critical steps towards Abbott she probably would have made it into the dining hall, but he just caught her as she grasped for the door with a scream. He grabbed her shirt, then threw one arm around her neck and clawed at her back as he sank his teeth into her and they both fell. The average human jaw exerts approximately one hundred and eighty pounds of pressure per square inch. The tender flesh on her lower neck provided absolutely no obstacle to his ripping incisors.
Cujo was on his feet, snarling and barking as he tugged at his lead. Pethard vaulted the table and got to the door a moment before Wood. Through an old design fault that had never been rectified it opened outwards. As he slammed into it, it knocked into his wife and Abbott who both lay right in front of it. Through the glass he caught a glimpse of Abbott biting into Emma as she frantically tried to defend herself. He heaved himself at the door again and this time sent Abbott sprawling and the door flew open. Emma was feebly trying to stand with blood spouting. The maniac launched himself at her again when Pethard jumped on him. He grabbed him around the throat. Like a champion wrestler Abbott’s slippery body writhed out of Pethard’s grasp in an instant and he turned his fury on his new attacker. He lunged forwards at Pethard, all teeth and growls, and pinned him effortlessly to the floor. He bit down but Wood landed a boot with full force on the side of his head. He knocked Abbott off his new victim and saved Pethard’s life. Wood rounded on him again but received a swipe that knocked him hard across the corridor.
Bannister and Millington had heard the commotion and ran towards the noise. They turned the corner in time to see Pethard hurl himself again at the madman. He plunged the fork that he still grasped, deep into the soft part of Abbott’s oesophagus, screaming like a lunatic himself. Frothy blood gushed forward and Abbott paused for a moment coughing and choking. Then without even bothering to remove the fork, he struck out sending Pethard crashing into the wall. He turned his attention back to Emma who had only managed to crawl a few feet away. Wood recovered first and jumped on him just as he reached the flailing woman. He pinned Abbott face down on the floor. Pethard was still screaming and returned to the fray. He clamped his hands around Abbott’s neck in a strangle hold, trying to choke the life out of him as Wood battled to stop him from rearing up and kicking them both off. Despite the blood flowing freely from Abbott’s wound he still had some strength in him. He was bucking and snarling like an enraged animal when Sergeant Vallage put an end to the fight with the aid of a heavy, wooden rolling pin. Despite his large, ungainly size he nimbly avoided the thrashing limbs and bodies with surprising agility. He dodged around to Abbott’s head and brought the kitchen implement down hard on his skull with a loud crack, just as Abbott himself had the day before with the candlestick. The first strike went unnoticed and hardly had an effect but after a couple more solid blows Abbott stopped struggling and pitched forwards as blood now seeped from wounds on his head. His shaved skull had dented and the skin now furrowed with creases resembling a partly deflated football.
Collins was screaming at the dining room door when Lewis arrived a moment later, followed by Denny. The scene that greeted Lewis was of absolute carnage and devastation. Blood was all over the walls, floor and ceiling. Corporal Pethard sat cradling Emma in his arms, sobbing and whispering to her while he rocked gently back and forward. His hand pressed her neck tightly but blood seeped out in spurts between his fingers. Her eyes were still open and stared up into his face although they did not appear to be focussing properly. Her hands flapped weakly by her sides while her mouth opened and closed uselessly. Bannister stood over Abbott guardedly in case it turned out that he was not dead after all and Millington crouched beside his friend, still topless and shining with sweat. Sergeant Vallage stood holding the bloody instrument of death and he looked grim and pale. The corridor seemed frozen in time. Anyone who has been in such situations of extreme stress will know the feeling of being outside of, and detached from, one’s body, watching the action as though it were a film. Stress affects people in different ways. Some become hyperactive and irrational, some remain calm and efficiently revert to training or gut instinct and some would rather curl up in a ball and wait for the situation to pass. Sergeant Wood had seen slaughter and bloodshed in the front line many times and knew how to deal with the trauma. By the time Lewis had taken stock, Wood had already quietly and competently started handling the situation.
When Emma was rushed to the medical centre she was still moving feebly, but by the time she had arrived she lay still. Abbott was also taken there but in his case it was clear that he was dead already. The stain of their mingled blood was now a gruesome welcome mat for anybody entering the dining hall. Pethard was utterly inconsolable. Wood helped him to the medical centre and gently cleaned the worst of the blood and gore from them both whilst Pethard sat numbly by Emma’s corpse.
Collins watched the various soldiers mostly moving with slow, methodical actions, like ants following a prescribed route. Conversation was kept to a muted minimum and eye-contact was avoided. It seemed to her that Denny was rushing around faster than anyone but achieving very little, whilst Wood and then Lewis dealt with the situation and organised everybody. Vallage exchanged the rolling pin for a mop and set about trying to clean up the mess with the aid of his kitchen hand Corporal Bell. Collins was still very shaken and emotional but she had calmed down a little and stood drinking a cup of sweet tea that Vallage had thrust into her hands without saying a word. As Wood led Pethard away, Bannister sidled over to her and gently placed a comforting arm around her shoulders. He seemed genuinely concerned.
“Are you okay?”
At first she did not seem to notice his arm, or the question, but then she jolted back to reality. “Yes, yes I’m okay I guess, thanks,” but she started to sob again. “Poor Emma and Reggie, that’s so terrible.” Her conversation was coming out in choked gasps.
“I know, it is dreadful. It’s a dreadful time we’re all going through. Those poor people.”
She carried on weeping. She had held it all in for so long but could now feel the emotions determinedly seeking an exit. “I mean we have all lost loved ones, we’ve all lost just about everything, our lives, our friends and family. Everyone has dealt with death and all the killings over the last couple of weeks but to lose someone you love like that, it’s just so awful.”
“I know, I know, it doesn’t bear thinking about, it’s so terrible. Now we’ve got to be there for each other.”
“When is this all going to stop? It’s so hard,” she sobbed.
He hugged her close, allowing her to weep for a while before speaking softly. “Yeah, it is, ’cos that’s all we’ve got now. We’re family now, there’s nothing else. We’ve all got to watch each other’s backs and be there for each other.”
She nodded. Suddenly she was aware of his proximity and the physical contact. Her sobs subsided a little as she composed herself.
Spurred on by this apparent sign he continued. “Look if you need to talk, if you need a shoulder to cry on, or a drink even, I’ve got some vodka in my room. I could pop by later and check on you, make sure you’re okay?”
She smiled weakly. She had stopped crying although her eyes were red and she straightened, blowing her nose and wiping her face as she did so. She just wanted to be alone now. “Hey that’s really kind, thanks, I appreciate it.”
“No probs, any time. Like I said, we’ve got to be there for each other. So if you need to talk again, just let me know.”
“Thanks, I mean it,” and she turned and slowly walked away leading Cujo.
“Nice work bro.” Millington had been standing nearby with his arm
s folded and an impassive look on his face.
“What do you mean?”
“Hitting on a girl when she’s just witnessed a brutal, bloody massacre. Get them when they’re vulnerable huh? You’re really something man.”
“Nah, I was just trying to be nice, that’s all. Can’t a fella help a lady without the sweaty finger of accusation pointing at him?”
Millington did not answer but dispassionately, coldly, stared at the bloody mess.
“So who d’ya reckon’s gonna be next?” Bannister asked as he too surveyed the carnage. Millington just shrugged and shook his head.
“Well, if they try to get you pal, they’ll have to do it over my dead body,” Bannister said. “Till death do us part, bro,” and he punched Millington on the arm.
Five people dead in two days – that was an unsustainable rate of depletion. It was not the first time Bannister had wondered who would be next. These days it was a common question in everyone’s thoughts. Till death do they part, indeed…
Neither Pethard nor Wood had been bitten, but as it was still not known if that was the only means by which the disease was passed on it was decided to quarantine them. Singleton and her senior doctor, Dr Handley, were worried that the condition might be transmitted through the mere exposure to blood. Both soldiers were locked in separate bedrooms upstairs in the main building for a nominal period of twenty-four hours. Bannister was placed on guard outside. As soon as she was able, Singleton went to check on Pethard. He was absolutely inconsolable, crying hysterically and not making any sense at all, so she sedated him and left him to sleep for a few hours.
“Sit outside their rooms please,” she told Bannister. “If they need anything then please get it; something to eat or drink but nothing alcoholic. Don’t let them out and don’t let anybody in, in case they have contracted this, ‘condition’. I’ll send someone to relieve you in a few hours and when Pethard wakes up please come and find me.”
“Yes ma’am,” he stood briefly to attention and then sagged down onto the chair. He had also been affected by the killing although he would never show it. They were all stretched a little thinly at the moment like rubber bands about to snap, on the verge of exhaustion, hysteria and full mental breakdown. Like many of the military personnel there he had seen war directly and its bloody consequences. He knew better than most how it is not just the body that gets broken in a conflict zone. He had witnessed friends reduced to emotional wrecks, hallucinating through tiredness and pressure and becoming totally irrational and dangerously unpredictable. RAF Headley Court was there to fix their bodies and it was very good at that, but it was not quite so easy to mend the spirits or the minds of those who had seen such brutality, and this really was the most brutal of all conflicts.
Denny, Singleton, Lewis, Straddling, Dr Handley and Flight Lieutenant Walkden all met a little later in one of the rooms set aside for meetings, functions and small medical conferences, in order to discuss their next actions. The room was carpeted in light RAF blue and had a wooden, oval table in the centre with a dozen chairs around it. In the corner there was a white board with pens and an overhead projector on a side table. Windows looked out onto the front lawn and trees beyond which swayed lazily in a breeze, indifferent to all the death and savagery. It was a pleasant day with a warm sun breaking through scattered clouds, quite at odds with the mayhem that had occurred. In normal circumstances they might all have been expecting tea and biscuits to be brought into them while they chatted about pleasantries before getting down to business. Today there were no refreshments and no amenable small-talk. They had all witnessed death but this had been the first killing actually on the base, their sanctuary from all the atrocities, their Shangri-La. It seemed that Paradise had been well and truly lost. All of them were stressed and completely fatigued, and the events of the day had left them stunned. The mood was understandably muted.
They sat in sombre silence for a long while. Each was lost in thought before Denny got up and cleared his throat. Unusually for him his hair was dishevelled and he could hardly bring himself to raise his eyes off the table to look at them all.
“Look, I don’t really know what to say any more, this was a tragic loss. After our initial disastrous foray off base just over a week ago we have been a lot more careful with good results, until now. We need to discuss how we have let this happen. The fact that Sinna, Rohith and Campos were killed was terrible - really terrible. But to then exasperate the situation with the deaths of both Abbott and Mrs Pethard on base and then the possible contamination of two more men, this is just unacceptable. Clearly we let complacency in and have paid the price. What could we, no, what should we have done better? How did we fail them?”
No one said anything for a few seconds; they sat ruminating and staring sullenly at the table or out of the window, avoiding eye contact. Lewis surreptitiously scrutinized them all, trying to assess their states of mind and in particular that of Denny.
Finally he shifted in his seat and replied. “I guess when he returned to base there was no sign of blood and so there was no reason to suspect anything. Campos had been killed but there was no obvious indication of Abbott having been bitten as well.”
“That is assuming that he got the infection through a bite. Do we know if there’s a bite mark on his body?” Denny’s question was directed at Singleton.
“Yes, I think so. I examined his corpse and there are obviously a few wounds from his fight here. I did find one bite mark on him though. It’s on his arm and I assume that he was bitten when he and Private Campos were attacked by Campos’s father. It’s not a large bite and could have been hidden beneath his shirt sleeve but it did break the surface of the skin so that may well have been how he became ill.”
Handley nodded in agreement but Lewis was puzzled. “I wonder why he wouldn’t have said anything to anyone about being bitten. Everybody knows now that biting is a probable method of disease transmission. Why would he jeopardise the rest of us and not say anything, given what’s at stake?”
“Why indeed and we’ll never know,” said Denny. “Maybe he was in denial and didn’t want to face the fact that he was most likely sick or maybe he was just so exhausted and shocked after Campos’s death that he was not thinking clearly.”
“Or perhaps he was already beginning to suffer the effects of the contamination and was not thinking straight for that reason,” Dr Handley chipped in.
Lewis stared at him but said nothing. It was a terrifying thought to contemplate, that the illness could cause such a rapid change.
Handley looked around at everyone slowly before continuing. “Look, I know we were all following the news flashes during the initial few days when the state of emergency was declared. The best medical information then was saying that the first people to use the drug took possibly months before they started displaying any adverse symptoms. By the time they realized what it was doing to people and withdrew Mnemoloss, the last people to be taking it might have been displaying aggressive traits within as little as a few weeks. Then there was a sudden rash of outbreaks of violence, as though someone had opened the flood gates.
“The final few broadcasts that I saw before the TV channels went off air said that people who had been bitten by Mnemoloss patients were themselves displaying antisocial behaviour within a week and some considerably less than that, possibly even within a day or two. The evidence seemed to be inconclusive, often contradictory, and clearly no one had had a chance to run any proper studies, but it does indicate that secondary effects of the drug are not precisely the same as the primary effects. As I said, this was only journalistic speculation based on stories gathered from around the world. We don’t know how accurate these reports were and there are certainly other factors that would have had an influence, but that is the best information that we have got to go on - at the moment.”
“So although we don’t know for sure, we have to assume that it could take as little as one day from being bitten to becoming infected?” Lewis was a
ghast.
“Absolutely. As I understand it the drug was manufactured to aggressively target the damaged parts of the brain. I studied many areas of medicine including pathogens during my initial years as a trainee doctor, as all trainees do. I am a little rusty on that general field, but from what I heard on the news and read in various medical journals, Mnemoloss was designed so that it would go after the damaged parts of the brain as rapidly as possible, altering various basic qualities of that area. It was designed to be fast-acting and it would seem that it is doing exactly that.”
Singleton stepped in at this point. On medical matters she was the commanding officer and carried herself with obvious authority. She was a tall, slim woman with short, blonde hair cut to her chin in a somewhat severe style. She hardly ever wore makeup and Lewis found her demeanour to be somewhat standoffish. However she would not have been unattractive if she would only relax a little and Lewis was often frustrated by her seemingly unnecessarily hostility towards him.
“After finishing medical school I actually worked with neurological disorders for a while before joining the RAF. That was how I got into my current field. My training in such disorders and neurological functioning led to me studying the effects of aviation on the brain, hypoxia, spatial disorientation, and other things that affect pilots, which is partly what I have been doing at Headley Court for the last few years, along with the medical rehab. So this business with Mnemoloss probably meant more to me than anyone here as I had been involved with that kind of research.
The Blood of the Infected (Book 1): Once Bitten, Twice Die Page 13
