“What Dr Handley says is quite correct but also what the news reports didn’t properly cover, largely because no one really knows, is what the condition itself is doing.”
“What do you mean? You mean what is actually happening inside people’s heads?” Denny, like the rest of them, had a lay-man’s knowledge of medicine and so was on uncertain ground now, and this lack of knowledge meant he was starting to sound irritable.
“Exactly. People who took the drugs reacted very differently to those who have contracted the condition in other ways such as by being bitten, which would imply that it has changed significantly even in recent months. Viruses, diseases and bugs can all mutate and possibly the fast-acting nature of the drug has been adopted by the condition and it has undergone aggressive mutation. We are possibly seeing the evidence of that change in the fact that Abbott became sick less than twenty-four hours after having been infected. Of course there are certainly individual factors at play as well. We won’t all respond the same to a drug just as we won’t all react in the same way to a disease, so perhaps Abbott was just more susceptible to it and hence became sick much faster than someone else might.”
Lewis was even more troubled now. “So isn’t it also possible that if we all might react differently to this condition, whatever it is, that actually Abbott reacted to it rather slowly and someone else may feel the effects a lot faster? As in, considerably less than twenty-four hours even?”
Everybody around the table stared hard at Singleton who looked pale when she answered. “Yes, that too is correct, although I truly hope to God that is not the case.”
There was silence as this thought was digested by them all until Denny gruffly spoke up. “Okay, so back to my earlier question then. What should we have done better?” He slapped the table as he spoke and this time his tone was a little too sharp, verging on petulant.
Lewis tried to calm the mood. “It seems to me we can’t really trust anybody to own up to the fact that they have been bitten when they return to base. So we have to assume that everyone has been bitten, until we can make sure they are clean. Whoever goes off base should be quarantined in a holding area on their return until they have been checked for bites.”
“Guilty until proven innocent?” Singleton asked scathingly.
“Absolutely. And why not?” he retorted. “If we all accept that it’s a necessary safeguard then no one should mind. If it prevents another situation like today then I think that’s a small price to pay. Don’t you?”
Denny held up his hand, his turn to try and ease the tension. “Yes I think you’re right, unless anyone has any better ideas?” He looked around the table but no one, not even Singleton, had an alternative. “But we’ll have to arrange procedures so that whoever goes off base gets checked the moment they return, I can’t have people cooped up in a cell for hours unnecessarily.”
Singleton was not satisfied. “What if it’s a woman returning to base and the guard is a man?”
“Well obviously I can see that in normal times that might be a sensitive issue but these are not normal times,” Denny answered brusquely. “We are talking about survival here. We’re all adults; I suggest that we just get on with it, until someone can come up with another solution.”
“Let me know when you’re going off base and I’ll take guard duty ready for your return,” Lewis smirked at Singleton, receiving a scowl from her and a rebuff from Denny.
“That’s enough. We’re all pretty strung out, try and remember that we’re on the same team here. Let’s move on. That covers measures on the station. What about off base?”
Straddling now spoke for the first time. He was reasonably gruff and blunt, and was never afraid to say his piece.
“I think we can agree that something went drastically wrong with their basic procedures in order for them to become separated and then get caught out by an unarmed man. Starting with their separation, why did that happen? What the hell were they playing at?”
Lewis turned to his sergeant with a sad, resigned expression. “The supermarket was very near Campos’s house.”
“So?” Straddling was not impressed by this argument. “That’s not good enough. We had decided upon procedures to be adopted when off station and separating from your team was not one of them. They should have stayed with Sinna and Rohith, and you shouldn’t be defending their actions.”
“Yes I know,” Lewis sighed, feeling weary at having to fight his corner on all sides, “and I agree with you. But I think we can all understand why they did it. That doesn’t make it right and they paid a heavy price for it but it’s been done so there’s no point in arguing about it further. Let’s just ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Okay?”
“What happened to Sinna and Rohith?” Handley asked. The room fell silent and all eyes fixed on Lewis.
He felt even more troubled now and brushed the hair out of his eyes. This had been bothering him since his return, and only the death of Abbott and Emma Pethard had distracted him from wondering about it. Slowly he recounted the experience. The hush remained for several seconds after he finished talking.
“I still don’t get it,” Straddling said finally. “As far as I’m aware the festering masses just wouldn’t remove the corpses from where they fell. And what about their clothes or their weapons? It doesn’t make sense to me.”
“You’re sure you searched everywhere?” Handley asked.
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Lewis replied. “There’s no doubt in my mind. I have lain awake half the night thinking about this but I just can’t see it any other way. Something killed them both and then removed the corpses, leaving hardly a scrap of evidence.”
“Maybe it was some other survivors?” Straddling pondered. “They could have been watching and waited until one Land Rover left and then ambushed the two of them.”
“It’s possible,” Lewis agreed. “To be honest that’s my best guess too. In the absence of any other information I can’t see any other likely answer.”
“Okay, we’re wasting time, move on,” Denny interrupted. “I want to discuss procedures off base. We’ve agreed that the four of them should never have split up. What else did they do wrong? What can we improve?”
“Well for starters,” Straddling answered, “we should reiterate the principles we agreed upon before, some of which were obviously not followed here. No one goes off base alone. No one leaves base on foot. We use a minimum of two vehicles if at all possible, with at least two people in each; more if going into enclosed situations. The vehicles do not separate. We all have a radio which is tested before leaving the station. Everybody has a Browning and a rifle where possible. Make sure that the guardroom knows your exact route and don’t deviate unless you absolutely have to. Check in with the guardroom every hour and let them know if you’re leaving your vehicle and when you return to it.
“Also, when you’re out of your vehicle your weapon is out of its holster and ready for use at all times, locked and loaded. We need to re-emphasise proper search techniques in buildings; arcs of fire, covering your buddy, doorways, corners of rooms, scanning techniques, stairways, the whole works. And if we do encounter any crazies then I would suggest going for a headshot. After all, a fork in the throat didn’t seem to make much of an impact on Abbott did it?
“Make no mistake people, we are at war!” He looked around the table at each of them with a deadly serious expression, daring anybody to contradict any of what he had said. “This is not like any enemy that any of us have ever faced before, but it is an enemy nonetheless, and the sooner we start treating them as such the better our prospects of survival. They are no longer human; they are nothing better than animals now and all they want to do is kill us. Here on this base we have a wealth of experience and tactics from many conflict zones around the world. We just need to adapt that to this new theatre of war. And fast.”
Lewis was quiet, watching Straddling and aware of the sense that he spoke. He did not have the easiest of relationships with his
senior sergeant. Sometimes, with his confrontational manner, it felt as though the older man resented the fact that Lewis was younger and yet still his commanding officer. Notwithstanding that, he was a valuable asset and Lewis was grateful of his experience. He just wished that he did not continually have to justify himself to Straddling. It was draining and unproductive. They should be acting as a cohesive unit, not pulling in different directions, especially at a time when solidarity was imperative for survival.
Denny turned to Lewis. “That all sounds sensible. Can you ensure everyone is made aware of exactly what is expected of them from now on? We have got to maintain our patrols in order to acquire essential supplies so let’s make them as safe as possible.
“On that note, we spoke last night about having more patrols. I agree with you Thomas, perhaps it is time we extended our interests and tried to find more survivors. I don’t mean that we should all go and look to see if any of our friends or family are still alive. After all, everybody has lost loved ones, but that may prove to be too much of a risk and right now there is more at stake than personal grieving. Our number one priority is to preserve the security of the base and not have anyone else die. But if we can find other survivors whilst out looking for supplies then that is a good thing. I think that our patrols could be extended to incorporate not only finding provisions but people as well. Any thoughts from any of you on where we might find survivors?”
“I guess,” Singleton said, “like this base, if anybody has managed to stay alive then they may well be in places that are easy to seal up and defend, which could mean hospitals. Especially on the upper floors, it would be quite easy to block off all entrances and control access.”
Lewis, as always, was quick to contradict her. “But that may well be balanced by the fact that anyone who became sick could quite possibly have been taken to hospital. They then go berserk and attack and contaminate others. Hospitals could easily have become breeding grounds for these zombies.”
They all winced at his choice of words but no one challenged his assertion.
Denny interceded. “Okay, what other options are there?”
“For people to have survived they would not only need to be in a location where they could stop any sick people from getting in but also where they were self-sufficient and didn’t need to venture out,” Walkden mumbled. “I mean, we’re armed and trained in warfare and yet we have sustained causalities when we’re out there, so your average Joe Public would not stand much chance at all. I am thinking places like supermarkets. They could be made reasonably impregnable and you’d have enough supplies so that you wouldn’t need to go out for weeks, even months.”
“Yes, a reasonable option,” Denny concluded. “Okay, let’s come up with more ideas on where to search and try to incorporate some possible locations in our patrols. Thomas, can you get some local maps and work on that? Dr Singleton has also expressed a desire to capture one of these diseased people and bring it back on base to study and potentially gain useful information on what we are up against.” He turned then to face Singleton. “I am not sure we’re quite ready for that yet but we’ll think about it further and try to formulate a strategy. If it becomes possible without exposing ourselves too much then we will do it, so let’s try to be ready with a plan, just in case.”
“But…” she started to remonstrate as he raised his hand to silence her and the look on his face cut her short.
“That’s the best I can do at the moment. It’s just too chancy and there have been too many deaths of late. Please, leave it there.”
As they all trooped out of the room Denny remained in his seat staring blankly into space. He turned just as Lewis was about to leave the room. “Shut the door behind you Thomas.” He looked exhausted and for the first time Lewis noticed the dark circles underneath his eyes.
“Certainly sir,” Lewis stared at him thoughtfully for a moment and then closed the door quietly behind him.
Denny sank forwards in his chair, elbows resting on the table and his head held in his hands. He remained like that for a while before slowly, gradually at first, his shoulders started to shake as the sobs finally broke free.
CHAPTER 8
From upstairs in the presbytery Sebastian had a perfect vantage point as he stared over the town’s skyline. He opened the window, perched on the sill and looked out into the dusk. The Roman Catholic church had seemed to be an ideal place for the clan to seek refuge; the presbytery attached to the main building of the church was warm and comfortable. It was slightly displaced from the road so they could see anyone approaching, and it was easy to barricade and defend. They had bolted the presbytery doors on the ground floor, preferring instead to enter and exit through an upper floor window in order to keep the newly infected out, and so far it had worked well.
When Sebastian thought of the ‘infected’ he was aware that the term could easily be applied to themselves. Their blood was no longer as it had once been, untainted by outside influence. In many ways they had more in common with the newly infected than they did with the humans. Now all was peaceful in the streets as he contemplated the occurrences of the previous few weeks. He and the other clan members had watched with growing unease as the disaster affecting society had unfolded, and whilst none of them had suffered any actual harm, their lives were inexorably bound to the humans with whom they had long and secretly shared the planet. They felt uncertainty as to what the future held and appreciated that their existence, just as that of humanity, would never be the same again and now swung in the balance. Their actions over the next few days and weeks were pivotal and clearly there was serious disagreement within the clan as to the correct way to proceed, disagreements that threatened the unity that had bound them together for longer than he cared to contemplate; perhaps too long.
Ever since becoming vampyric many years before his existence had been one of concealment and adventure which he had not always welcomed, and he missed many facets of his life as a human. As a general rule they avoided excessive contact with people and tended to live relatively isolated from society, generally in remote and heavily superstitious areas. They remained on the fringes, mixing occasionally with the undercurrent of humankind where one tended to be mindful of one’s own business and ask no questions of others. They only rarely frequented shady, drug-fuelled haunts, and in such settings, mixing with people whose grasp on reality was often fairly tenuous, they could generally pass themselves off as nothing more than unusual looking; exotically gothic at best and freakish at worst.
As society slowly began to dissolve they had lurked in the shadows and witnessed the horror develop. The state of emergency turned into civil unrest with people rioting and looting, initially through greed and later through necessity. Panic and violence spread as fast as the mania induced by Mnemoloss and acts of aggression were perpetrated not only by those who were diseased but also by those defending themselves against would-be attackers. The clan had watched with growing revulsion, or fascination, as the secondary effects of the drug turned more and more people into mindless, wrathful lunatics who respected neither fear nor pain, and fed their insatiable hunger upon the flesh of dogs, rats, humans, or whatever else they could scavenge and kill, the fresher the better.
As he sat motionless and invisible, the street was devoid of all but the occasional dog which now roamed with impunity, apparently enjoying the new-found freedom with no one but infected humans to spoil their fun; infected humans and the occasional hungry vampire, of course. Looking out at the skyline, tendrils of smoke rose slowly like talons tearing at the sky, fires blazing with no one to extinguish them. Litter blew in the wind and cars had been abandoned on the pavement, in people’s gardens, or in the middle of the street. The drivers having found they could proceed no further either due to people or objects barring their path, had left them where they were, sometimes managing to continue their journey on foot, sometimes being dragged out by screaming crowds of rioters - or otherwise.
Sebastian watched as a
woman shuffled along the road wearing a pair of torn jeans, a red sweat-shirt and a single shoe. Her trousers were muddy and stained with vomit and her hair was dishevelled. She made a moaning sound as she staggered and she pawed the air seemingly at imaginary flies circling her head. A dog that was sat in a doorway looked up as she neared and got warily to its feet. Its tongue lolled out, it held its head low and wagged its tail in hope, a gesture of supplication. It was quite clear to Sebastian that dogs, although entirely capable of surviving without humanity, most definitely benefitted from their proximity. Not unlike his own kind. As the woman saw it she bellowed and lurched towards it with sudden rage. The dog turned and fled for its life.
Sebastian eased himself off the window sill and dropped to the roof of the shed below. Without pause he leapt through the air and hit the ground soundlessly. He moved quickly through the graveyard to the street slipping from one shaded area to the next. He too needed sustenance, although that would not come from humans tonight. He did sometimes feast on human blood, and while all vampires found it preferable over blood from other animals in terms of taste and nutrition, he personally felt a moral twinge every time. On the occasions when he set aside his ethics, he justified it with the argument that it did not have to mean actually killing the person or their becoming a vampire; not in every case at least.
Towards the end of the street a fox scurried by. It was unaware that it was being watched or of its imminent demise. That will do, makes a change from rat or dog, Sebastian thought. The fox disappeared into a side alley and he stealthily followed it. At the entrance to the alley was the corpse of an adult male lying on its front. There was blood splattered all over the torso, it was only half clothed and its body had started to decay, but for some reason animals had avoided it and there were no signs that the body had been eaten at all. It gave off a foul stench and Sebastian moved past it quickly, trying not to breathe in the funk.
The Blood of the Infected (Book 1): Once Bitten, Twice Die Page 14
