Rise of the Necrotics (Books 1-4)

by Bates, Bradford

  It wouldn’t be long now until the men in black suits showed up and shut this hospital down. No one was going to be able to come in or out without being cleared first. It might have been selfish, and I could have just sent an infected man back into the city, but I couldn’t bear the thought of him being trapped in a room when he should have been out fighting to keep this city alive.

  “Doctor, what’s going on?” One of the male nurses pointed to the two men draping heavy plastic over the doors to the operating room.

  The idiots should have waited until I started surgery. With the patient on the table everyone would have been too busy to notice, but now I was forced into answering their questions if I wanted their help. Still, maybe I had one last card to play.

  “I’ll explain everything as soon as we save this man’s life,” I declared in a crisp matter of fact voice.

  “Not good enough,” one of the other nurses spouted as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Not when they’re out there, and we’re in here.”

  It had been worth a try, but now I had to tell them the truth. “We’re dealing with an unknown infection.” I moved towards the table and looked over the supplies and then at a heavily sedated Gordon as he twitched in a delirium of some kind. If he made it to the morning, he was going to hate me, but my job was to save his life, not to keep him pretty.

  The infection in his arm was spreading steadily forward with each beat of his heart. The gruesome black tendrils cascaded away from the bite like a spider web. The skin around his elbow looked relatively healthy, so we still had time. Now was the time for immediate triage, if we waited too long we risked losing the rest of his arm.

  “Prep his arm for amputation at the elbow. We’re only going to get one chance at this.”

  No one looked happy about being trapped in the surgical room with me, but at least they weren’t actively trying to escape. Not that they would have been able to. The men outside of this room weren’t interested in making friends. If they couldn’t stop you from leaving, they’d shoot you in the back as you ran away. The containment I’d let slide for Max was now our top priority.

  Gordon’s arm was draped, and the heavy overhead light was in place. I could almost see the tendrils reaching out to claim his upper arm before I could save it. Time wasn’t on our side so I went in hard and messy. I cut through the joint in his arm in one clean motion and then quickly severed the rest before returning my attention to the heavily bleeding stump.

  The male nurse who had crossed his arms looked shocked at what I’d done, but he managed to clamp off the major veins as I worked on closing a few of the smaller bleeders with the cauterizing pen.

  “Let’s ramp up his pain meds while I get the rest of this sealed off. Anyone that doesn’t have a job, get that arm into a bag and into the fridge.”

  “A little warning would have been nice,” the nurse muttered as he picked up Gordon’s arm and sealed it in a heavy plastic bag.

  Another man came behind him and started spraying something on the blood. Spraying disinfectant or even alcohol around a surgical suite wasn’t good for anyone, especially our patient, but I wasn’t going to stop them. If there was an unknown toxin in his blood, anything we could do to minimize our exposure while giving him the best chance to live I was willing to let happen.

  Gordon moaned on the table. I nodded to the anesthesiologist to hurry up and increase the dose.

  The man nodded, “I can go up a bit more, but after that we’re rolling the dice.”

  Gordon settled on the table, and I silently thanked God that at least one person in here grasped the enormity of the situation. The man hadn’t questioned my actions and had let me know exactly where Gordon stood in regards to the medications pumping through his system. I also got the impression he’d let me roll the dice without any hassle if we had to make a move.

  What I’d glimpsed of Gordon’s arm before the nurse bagged it didn’t fill me with a lot of hope, but maybe cauterizing the wound closed would give us the edge to beat this thing back. The only way we’d know for certain if I acted fast enough was if we saw the infection start to spread again. If that happened, we had to be ready to act immediately.

  It was too soon to tell, but I might have just saved his life. Not that I didn’t have help. Everyone here had risked their lives, albeit unknowingly, to help Gordon. He might not be grateful when he woke up, but if he pulled through, the Hilltop would make sure he had everything he needed. Nothing made early retirement better than a nice fat pension and a good woman by your side.

  “Let’s get this cleaned up and then I want his arm prepared for surgery at the shoulder. If this thing made the jump from his forearm, I want to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

  Two men and a woman started working on my orders while a pair of nurses just stood there looking at me. I walked over to them and tried to look reassuring as I stripped off my gloves and mask. “I promise I’ll get a phone in here so you can call whoever you want, but you can’t tell anyone what’s going on. I’ll be in your lab running some preliminary tests while I wait for the rest of my team to show up. If you see any of the infection spreading from his elbow, send someone to get me immediately.”

  They both looked a little dumbstruck, and I couldn’t blame them for that. You go to work, and you expect to have a few things out of the ordinary happen; maybe you even get pulled into something you aren’t qualified for, but a full hazmat lockdown, no one was prepared for that. I stepped out of the surgical room and followed tubing down the hallway until it ended in a showering station. I hated these things, the water was always ice cold. I stripped out of my clothes, showered, and then was sprayed with some kind of disinfectant before showering again.

  Once I’d gotten out of the shower I went into what looked like a tanning bed, it blasted me quickly, ashing away the top layer of my skin. The next stop was a vacuum chamber to make sure I was ash free, and finally another shower. The next little room blew me dry, and someone was waiting for me in the next one with a set of clothes.

  It always impressed me how fast a team could put one of these sterilization kits together, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed using them. This was the fourth or maybe the fifth time I had to do this in the field, and despite my flirty nature, I still had trouble getting used to it. I was the girl wearing a sarong around my bikini and would never think of showing off the girls in public. Picking this line of work meant I had to make sacrifices, and despite how much I hated this part of it, the job was worth it.

  After dressing, I went through one more door and back out into the lobby of our floor. The lobby had been turned into a makeshift operations center. I was surprised to see Dr. Felix sitting at one of the stations looking through a scope at a sample. Part of me was also jealous that he was getting the first look at something I wanted desperately to be a part of discovering. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the time to indulge my ego. The faster we could figure out what this infection was, the faster we could find ways to eradicate it.

  Dr. Felix looked up from his scope and spotted me walking over. He hurriedly stood up and extended his hand. “Thank God you’re here. I wasn’t sure if anyone would believe me, not after the piranha prank I pulled last year.”

  Flesh-eating piranhas in Minnesota, I thought it was hilarious. The best part had to be that he paid some guy to dump a bucket of bait in the river and then spoofed some news stories. I couldn’t tell if the lab was more pissed that super piranhas didn’t exist or that Ken had pulled one over on them. “Believe you about what?” I motioned for him to sit back down and show me what he was working on.

  “The sample I took from the black veining on Mr. Garfield’s arm,” he paused, clearly not sure if he wanted to continue, “it’s necrotic.”

  “What are you talking about? I saw it spreading myself, like it was alive. It has to be some kind of infection.”

  “Well, that’s just it. The cells don’t seem to be dying exactly, at least not all of them. It’s more like necrotic t
issue is repurposing them somehow.”

  “Come on Doctor, stop pulling my leg. Cells are either dead or alive, there isn’t an in-between.” Despite man’s many futile efforts, no one had found a way to stop the ravages of time from claiming us all. The search for immortality was a fool’s errand. It was better to relish the time that we had on this planet. The realization that life is fleeting is what sparks us toward greatness.

  “If you would have asked me this morning, I would have said the same thing. Now, I’m not so sure.” Doctor Felix pointed at the scope on his lab station.

  Looking through the glass turned everything I knew as a doctor on its head. The necrotic cells were multiplying. It shouldn’t have been possible, but it was happening. I grabbed the phone on the edge of Doctor Felix’s workstation and dialed Max. “We’ve got a really big fucking problem.”

  Chapter Eight

  Max Meridious

  No one ever told you as a child to look forward to the one day you starred in your very own horror movie. It just wasn’t a thing people said. Our situation was even worse. This wasn’t Sunday night on cable TV, this was real life. There was a heavy sensation in my gut, and I knew things were going to spiral out of control, all we could do now was try and contain it to the best of our ability.

  I’d been working with the Hilltop for over five years, and I’d only seen this much blood on the job one other time. In that particular case, we raided a lab where they were dissecting live patients to see how their new medication worked in real time. The worst part of that little adventure was that we couldn’t save anyone. All we got to do was make sure the assholes in charge couldn’t hurt anyone else again.

  Tonight felt worse. This was one of our men lying there with his guts strewn across the entryway. It reminded me of the time I saw a cat catch a mouse and then it ripped into its stomach for the good stuff. Things like that just didn’t happen to people, unless they liked to dance with grizzly bears.

  On top of everything else, I still had to go down the stairs. Nothing said don’t go down the stairs like a trail of blood clearly left by a body or two being dragged into the darkness. And what in the hell happened to all of the lights? When I closed the hidden opening, all of the lights had been on. Still, it wasn’t like I had a choice, Garfield was counting on me. The bastard would have done it for me, so I had to man up.

  I looked over my shoulder at Sharon. She was on edge but looked in control. I gave her a subtle nod and turned back toward the darkened doorway. Bringing my flashlight up, I started to move forward. “Stay frosty.”

  Sharon grunted in acknowledgment, and then I saw her light moving around the kitchen as she checked our six. When she didn’t start shooting, I knew we were clear, and I started inching forward again.

  It turned out that some of the lights were still on in the basement at the lab stations, but most of the main overhead lights were off. A few of the fluorescent lights hummed and flickered on and off but didn’t deliver any meaningful light to the room.

  “Woosah,” I mumbled as I tried to slow the beating of my heart. At this rate, a mouse would knock something over, and I’d go into cardiac arrest. The tension was making me jumpy, and I didn’t like the feeling, but it wouldn’t go away until I was sitting back at base with Call of Duty pulled up and a cold beer in my hand.

  Looking around the room, I started to wonder if there was a power problem or if someone had deliberately broken most of the lights. Quickly hitting the button on the side of my glasses cut away most of the gloom. I should have thought of that earlier, but I was all out of sorts. Finding our secured crime scene empty except for bodies and blood wasn’t filling me with an overwhelming sense of confidence about how the rest of this night was going to turn out.

  I made it to the bottom of the stairs and silently wished that I was back in the darkness. No one needed to see what I was looking at now. Even as I watched what was happening, it was hard for my brain to comprehend the reality of the situation. Some things were just so far out of bounds you couldn’t believe it was real, even while watching it. Sometimes seeing it wasn’t believing.

  Sharon made a retching sound from just behind me, and I knew that she’d seen it too. At least I wasn’t going crazy. I would have turned to check on her, but I was more concerned about the chewing sounds coming from the woman in front of me as she buried her head into our guard’s belly. Her head came around as Sharon retched again. Her head tracked the noise and then snapped to the side like a bird or a lizard.

  My gun came up as the woman moaned and rose to her feet. I knew from past experience these freaks couldn’t be talked down, so if she got too close I was going to shoot her. The woman wiped a bloody forearm across her mouth as she took the first lurching step in our direction. It looked as if her leg almost gave out but she righted the ship just in time to drag her other leg forward. The same wobbly step followed by the scrape of her back foot being pulled forward was slightly terrifying. It reminded me of the execution tread in old slasher movies. You ever notice how the killer never runs or seems out of sorts, he just keeps methodically moving as if his victim's death was inevitable.

  That was how it felt as she shambled toward us. That somehow despite us being faster and armed, that she would end up feasting on our organs. The simple fact was she was the only thing alive in here and had taken out at least two armed men despite her slow appearance. Bitch probably felt pretty good about her odds, but that was going to change.

  Hesitation around these things was death. If I hadn’t pulled the trigger after Garfield had gotten bitten, I’d be in the hospital right now. It was like these people played on our instincts to help the injured and then viciously took us down. It was a damn fine strategy.

  There was some kind of wet scraping sound coming from the left. It almost sounded like someone dragging a half dried mop against the floor and then repeating the same action over and over again. The woman looked toward the sound and then dismissed it quickly before continuing her slow shuffle toward us. If the woman wasn’t worried about it, we probably should be. I motioned for Sharon to watch that direction as the woman moaned again. Whatever was happening to the back of the basement could wait until the immediate threat was dealt with.

  “We need the sample, but I’m not putting either of us at risk to get it.” I turned away from the woman as she drew inexorably closer and focused on Sharon. “If you don’t have the stomach to color outside of the lines, now’s the time to go back upstairs.”

  Sharon brushed past me, walking toward the woman. I called out for her to be careful, but she ignored me. Sharon hit the woman in the face dropping her to the floor in a single blow. She looked back at me. “Don’t be such a drama queen.”

  Maybe my imagination was running away with me. Following the bloody trails leading into an underground bio lab must have that kind of effect on me. Looking at the situation from a bird's-eye view, what Sharon had done was much more practical than what I had been thinking about, but after what happened to Garfield I was willing to shoot first and worry about the fallout later.

  Sharon was still looking at me when the woman started to reach for her leg. I rushed down the stairs screaming for Sharon to back up. It was like everything was happening in slow motion. Sharon screamed as the woman’s hand closed around her ankle. The lady on the floor pulled Sharon to the ground with strength she shouldn’t possess and reared her head back to take a bite.

  Her teeth came down before I could stop them, but they only sunk into the toe of Sharon’s boot. I reached Sharon as her attacker tried to pull her closer for a not so delicate nibble. The heel of my boot slammed into the woman’s forehead sending her crashing onto her back and away from Sharon. Sharon tried to stand up but slipped and fell to the floor. I couldn’t help her until the threat was neutralized. So I ignored the sound she made hitting the ground hard and advanced on the woman who tried to eat Sharon’s toes.

  The woman didn’t stay down for long. She was lurching back to her feet when her mi
lky white eyes locked onto me. As I drew closer, her arms reached out, and she started moaning again. Her mouth opened and snapped closed almost how a fish looked as it gasped for air, but this fish had more sinister intentions. Those teeth were ready to tear flesh away from the bone, and one fuck up would have me on the operating table next to my partner. If Hilltop had a problem with what I was about to do next, they could fire me.

  The woman lurched forward, her hands grasping at the air, waiting to drag me down like a siren seducing a sailor. Her fingertips brushed the toes of my boot, and I shot her in the head. The sound was louder than I expected in the basement, but ringing ears were a small price to pay for peace of mind. I looked back at the woman to make sure she wasn’t still moving before turning back toward Sharon.

  “Jesus, Max. You could have just restrained her,” Sharon said from behind me.

  “You mean like that guy tried to do.” I pointed at what used to be one of the guards we left behind. His ribs had been cracked outwards as someone scooped his insides on the ground around him.

  Sharon was about to retort when the wet slapping noise sounded from behind her. She spun around aiming her gun into the darkness. The woman was all kinds of jumpy. I was going to give her a pass, though, because a woman just tried to eat her foot. That didn’t mean I wanted her leading the charge.

  “Mind if I go first?”

  Sharon motioned me forward. “This is the first time a man ever said that to me, and I didn’t want to hit him in the face.”

  “Well, I’m glad I could help you work through some shit.” I stepped in front of her, keeping my gun pointed low. There wasn’t a ton of space down here, making the noise easy enough to track. As we drew closer to the last row of cubes, I still had no idea what the sound actually was, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I knew it wasn’t a mop being used because we would have seen someone standing, but I couldn’t get that sound out of my head. A wet plop followed by a dragging noise.