by Glynn James
A world fallen – under a plague of 7 billion walking dead
A tiny island nation – the last refuge of the living
One team – of the world’s most elite special operators
The dead, these heroes, humanity’s last hope, all have…
First published 2012 by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
London, UK
Copyright © Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
The right of Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authorr‘s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any other means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
About the Authors
GLYNN JAMES is an Amazon-bestselling author of dark fantasy novels, born in Wellingborough, England in 1972. He has an obsession with anything to do with zombies, Cthulhu mythos, post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction and films, all of which began when he started reading HP Lovecraft and Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend back when he was eight years old. He is the author of the bestselling DIARY OF THE DISPLACED series (DIARY OF THE DISPLACED, CHASING SPIRITS, THE BROKEN LANDS, AT LAST GOODBYE, WHISPERS OF THE DISPLACED, and THE LAST TO FALL).
MICHAEL STEPHEN FUCHS is the author of the D-BOYS series of high-concept, high-tech special-operations military adventure novels: D-BOYS, COUNTER-ASSAULT, and CLOSE QUARTERS BATTLE (coming in 2013). He’s also author of the acclaimed existential cyberthrillers THE MANUSCRIPT and PANDORA’S SISTERS, both published worldwide by Macmillan, in hardback, paperback and all e-book formats. He is represented by Robert Gottlieb, Chairman of Trident Media Group in New York. He lives in London and at www.michaelstephenfuchs.com, and blogs at www.michaelfuchs.org/razorsedge.
Notes from the Authors
Glynn
I’ve learned quite a lot in the process of writing these books. The first, of course, being how to work with another writer. I think Michael will agree that when we started we didn’t have much of a clue how this was going to happen or even if the two styles would gel. I think they have. At the start we toyed with various collaboration tools and ended up in Google Docs. The conversations we had about the plot, character development – every aspect of the process really – is almost as long as the book itself. The other part of working with another writer was learning about the shock of your plot and story being in someone else’s hands. Characters did things I hadn’t planned and the storyline twisted and wove in directions that I hadn’t even considered. Characters that I didn’t even create suddenly had a voice and were shouting. After the initial confusion I sat back and found myself seriously enjoying how the world I had started was unfolding in someone else’s mind (Michael’s). I really like the way it all went and continue to be in awe. I hope that everyone that reads this agrees.
Michael
What I said in the Notes in Book One! Plus this: thanks also to Glynn for the complete and total asskicking covers for this series – they put the best possible face on this awesome work. The man is not only an artist with words, but a proper artist as well.
ARISEN
BOOK TWO
MOGADISHU OF THE DEAD
GLYNN JAMES &
MICHAEL STEPHEN FUCHS
“All that is of the body is as coursing waters, all that is of the soul as dreams and vapours, life a warfare, a brief sojourning in an alien land; and after repute, oblivion.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death.”
– Miyamoto Musashi
EVER ON
Andrew Wesley, former corporal with the UK Security Services, and one-time officer in charge of the night watch at the Channel Tunnel entrance in Folkestone, but now of no fixed abode, stood staring out at the night sky. He was off at the very edge of the gently rolling flight deck of the USS John F. Kennedy, as it churned the North Atlantic, steaming back toward its place of origin – the New World.
Now a Dead World.
The boat, a floating city really, was an American supercarrier that at one time had been the base of operations for over 80 combat aircraft. Now it held fewer than two dozen. It had simply turned out that air superiority was of no critical importance in the ZA. Also, pilots had gotten a little thin on the ground, in the two years since the fall of human civilization.
The sun was just now rising, and Wesley squinted into it, thinking fitfully about the unnerving events of the last week. There had been the terrifying outbreak in Folkestone, the death of his two rookies, and then the harrowing firefight in the town as an entire battalion of regular infantry had rushed in to quell the rampaging masses of the dead. And after that, the disorientation and vertigo of getting helicoptered out to the JFK in the middle of an endless ocean. It had all happened so quickly, there was no time to process any of it.
Now, as he stared into the first light of another unsettling day, Wesley wondered what in hell they were getting themselves into. Word was that North America was completely dead, or rather undead, down to the last person. And here they were sailing straight for it, on what he could only think of as some mad and terribly ill-considered errand. Not that he had yet been given much information on which to form opinions.
A soft sound from behind startled him from his staring contest with the rising sun. It was Captain Martin, his fellow traveler on this perilous and incomprehensible journey.
“Hiding out?” Martin asked, though it was more statement than question. These two had only known each other a tiny stretch of time. And yet they seemed to know each other well, right from their first meeting – when Wesley had watched Martin emerge from an exploding hotel, just a few steps ahead of a herd of slavering corpses.
“Hiding out seemed much the best thing,” replied Wesley. “Keeps me out of everyone’s way.”
Martin laughed, a warm and genuine sound, which considering recent events was a rare and welcome thing.
“Any idea how long before we arrive?” asked Wesley.
“Dunno, I haven’t asked,” said Martin with a shrug. “No one’s talking about it, least of all the spec-ops boys.”
“Hmm. They do rather keep things to themselves. You know, I’ve never been to America.”
“Oh?”
“Nope. Never once. And to be honest I’m not sure I’m looking forward to it now.”
“I’ll second you on that,” Martin said, shrugging. “I have actually been a few times. Though I suppose it’s going to be rather less amusing this time around. Wouldn’t care to brave the queues at DisneyWorld in its probable current state.”
Wesley grinned at that, and the two lapsed into silence, both staring at the rising sun as it scattered dazzling flashes across the rough chop of the ocean’s surface. There wasn’t much beauty left in this world, but Wesley figured this qualified.
He also wondered what was happening back in Britain in the aftermath of the Folkestone incident. Shocked as he had been at the time, Wesley now figured: if it could happen there it could happen anywhere. And if Fortress Britain, the last signif
icant bastion of surviving humanity, was still so vulnerable… well, then what chance did any of them stand? Then again, the odds that any of them on this boat would ever see Britain again were not something Wesley would care to rate. And if the sublime sight of sunlight on the water were all that were left to him… well, he would enjoy it in this moment that he still had left.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, looking across at Martin.
If there was still beauty in this fallen world, and if there could still be friendship, then maybe that was enough.
QUARANTINE
Lt. Colonel Bryan, Royal Army Medical Corps, vascular surgeon of 22 years experience, and ranking medical officer with USOC (the Unified Special Operations Command) at Hereford, flipped the page of the heavy book in his lap. It was the complete plays of Shakespeare, which he figured was as good a way as any to get through the long hours of the ZA. Seemingly longer still were these shifts in the Quarantine Shack, which sat adjacent to the primary helipad. It had to be manned 24/7 by a medical officer. And Colonel Bryan, OC of the base hospital, insisted on taking his shifts just like everyone else.
Hereford, former barracks of the British SAS, was now the home of USOC – the last, best few hundred special operators left in this fallen world. It was from here that these real-life superheroes worked to save what was left of the world for the last fifty million or so living humans, in what had now become Fortress Britain. It was only the incredible timing of a terrible terrorist attack, two years earlier, and just a few days before the zombie virus reached a tipping point across the world, that caused Britain to cancel all flights and lock down its borders. And it was those precious few days of isolation that allowed them to hunker down against the advancing rampage of the dead. Now, Doc Bryan and the USOC commanders just had to keep Hereford from going the way of virtually all the other military bases around the world – being overrun from within by infected soldiers brought back inside the wire by their brothers in arms. The Quarantine Shack was a big part of this.
The facility consisted of one small building with two rooms. One of them was a waiting area for the attending doctor. The other was much larger, reinforced, lockable from the outside, and stocked with cots, food, water, limited medical supplies, and various items of minor comfort. Along one edge sat a cage with the sniffing dogs. An enclosed passage led directly from there to the base hospital, making the whole place basically a big conduit there from the helipad. A conduit that could be opened – or locked down and tightly controlled.
Bryan flipped another wispy page. Frankly, what he could only think of as the 16th-century slang of the Bard defeated him. The heavy annotations helped somewhat.
The phone on his desk rang.
“Bryan.”
“Incoming,” the voice on the other end announced. “It’s Echo team. They’re back from over the water, with one litter urgent casualty. ETA five mikes.”
“Nature of the injury?” Bryan thunked his book shut and pushed it across the desk.
“Unknown at this time. Stand by.”
Bryan hung up, dialed the hospital duty desk, and summoned two medical orderlies. They came trotting up within ten seconds, wide-eyed and expectant. Bryan nodded at them gravely, moved to the door that opened on the big room, worked the locks, then stepped inside. Turning again, he nodded to the orderlies through the thick plexiglas.
And they locked him in.
Less than a minute later, Bryan could hear the rotors and jet engines of the incoming helo. Other than pulling on some latex gloves and a face shield, there was really nothing to prepare on this end. Everything was all set up. It always was. He moved to the cages where the two dogs stood alert, sniffing, tails wagging.
“Hullo, lads,” Bryan said, palming a couple of treats from the table and feeding them through the bars. “How are we this fine apocalyptic day? Good boys, good boys.”
He heard the hurricane-like sounds of the bird flaring outside. A moment later, the outer door banged open, letting in the roiling wind and dust. A lolling and unconscious, or barely conscious, operator was supported from both sides by two others. One of them held an IV bag, the drip from which snaked around them into the casualty’s arm. All three were dressed in full battle rattle – bite suits, Kevlar, tactical load-bearing vests, mags, grenades, sidearms, and short swords.
As they lurched in, the wounded man’s feet drug on the floor behind them. He had a thick, blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his neck.
That doesn’t look good, thought Bryan. He didn’t just mean the seriousness of the injury.
Before he could ask, one of the Echo men said, “It’s a ricochet, Doc. Just a ricochet.” They weren’t putting down their burden, but merely angled him toward the exit door.
“Let me examine him,” Bryan said. “Lie him down.”
The two looked agitated, but complied. “He’s bleeding out, Doc,” one said as he laid his brother operator down. As they put him on the gurney alongside the cage, the two dogs started going apeshit, barking and snarling.
“He’s half-covered in Zulu goo,” the other Echo guy said. It was true – there was a lot of gore on the man’s armor and particularly his boots. Some of it was black. If it was fresh, and it was, that would set off the dogs.
Gingerly but expertly, Bryan peeled back the bandage. It looked like his right common carotid had been severed. And from the man’s color, he’d already lost an enormous amount of blood. The shape of the wound was consistent with a gunshot. It certainly wasn’t a bite – though a scratch could conceivably produce something like this.
“See? Like we said. Stray round.”
Bryan looked up. “What was the path of the bullet?” On at least one other documented occasion, a round had passed through a Zulu and into a soldier – with enough organic matter on it to infect the man. It was damned rare – a little like the apocryphal Civil War nurse said to be impregnated by the musket ball that passed through a soldier’s teste – but it happened.
“It sparked off a car. We were all on the same side of the street.” Frequently, in CQB (close quarters battle), shooters were on all sides of a structure – and moving 100 miles an hour. In those cases, a round passing through a wall or an enemy could be a hazard, hitting a teammate on the other side. But not in this case? Bryan frowned. Could a round have gone through a Zulu, then ricocheted back? Because these guys rarely missed entirely. And could it still carry infectious material?
The casualty convulsed on the litter, spitting up blood and bile. Shock from extreme blood loss. He was in fact bleeding out.
One of the Echo men put pressure on the wound. The other put his hand on his sidearm. “Colonel,” the man said through gritted teeth. “Kindly open the door. This man’s coming in.”
Well, Bryan thought with resignation, at least he’s not holding the gun to my head… He would just have to take responsibility – not to mention personally sit with the patient every second until he died, or until he recovered.
He made a thumbs-up toward the plexiglas. The locks clanked, the door banged open, and the two orderlies raced in. They unlocked the wheels on the gurney and raced out and down the hall toward the base hospital. Bryan followed at a trot behind them.
And the dogs carried on barking until they were out of hearing.
STAND FAST
In the wake of the long and disturbing briefing on their upcoming mission to the middle of dead North America, the operators, officers and men both, had swung into action with mission prep work. There was a lot of it. Alpha team was going to parachute directly into Chicago and try to get out with a vaccine developed there by a biotech called NeuraDyne Neurosciences. They were going to HAHO jump out over Lake Michigan, fly in on the prevailing winds, land on top of the target building, and fight their way down to the labs. And that was the easy part.
Afterwards, they would have to exfil overland, through a city of three million dead people, to a tiny airfield on an island out in the lake, for air extraction.
In
all the intent activity, Homer, an Alpha operator and former Team Six SEAL, managed to buttonhole Commander Drake – ship’s XO and Alpha’s liaison and handler on the supercarrier. They now stood together in the shadows of one corner of the mess belowdecks. Homer needed a word in private – specifically, he needed to tell Drake about what he had discovered brewing down in the bowels of the ship. About the dangerous sermon he had overheard in the ship’s chapel.
“Yeah, we know about those dudes,” Drake said, as various operators and sailors cruised by in the adjacent passageway, or in one door and out the other. “We call them the Zealots. But you’ve got to understand – all three of our official chaplains quit those jobs, and took on other duties, after the fall. Well, two of them did. The third we think jumped ship. But, in any case, religion’s strictly a volunteer activity these days.”
Homer nodded. “I understand, Commander, but you need to be aware this man is preaching some fairly incendiary and seditious stuff. He’s saying the Zulus are God’s cleaners – and that we, the military, are the problem, messing up the End Days and holding up the Rapture.”
Drake seemed to take this on board. “Yeah, it’s not ideal, is it? But our verdict, when we last discussed it, was that it allowed the men to blow off steam. Nonetheless, I’ll make a note to revisit it – send someone down to listen in on Sunday. That square you away, Chief?”
Homer said, “There’s something else. I saw a lot of weapons and ordnance piled in a room near the chapel, and the chaplains’ quarters.”
Someone called Drake’s name from the far hatch. He swiveled and made a one-minute sign, then turned back to Homer. “This boat’s probably not as shipshape as what you might have been used to. We’ve got crap stored all over the place these days – hell, we’ve got a whole organic farm on the hangar deck…” He clapped Homer on the shoulder before heading off. “But I’ll make a note to look into that as well. Stand fast, Chief…”
