After two weeks of failed lab experiments using anti-viral medication, Grewal turned back to what he did best and began messing with nature on a cellular level. He attacked the deadly zombie virus samples with Dengue fever, hoping that he could cause some kind of catastrophic body shutdown in the infected humans, but while on the cellular level it did indeed attack the virus, the delivery method still escaped them.
That’s when he circled back around to the only aggressive virus he knew well, and one that boasted a one hundred percent mortality rate if untreated. Trying to combine Dengue fever with rabies was impossible, given that the lyssavirus was just so incompatible with the haemorrhagic fever, and he was forced back to the metaphorical drawing board.
A wasted week of working alone followed in the gloom of their subterranean lab. In a rare moment of reflection, he realised he didn’t even know which state it was in. This period of solitary labour saw him combine the samples at his disposal and utilise the aggressive nature of rabies to deliver the haemorrhagic properties of Dengue fever.
Eventually, working through the samples of every infectious disease known to mankind, courtesy of the US Army MRIID and combined CDC freezers, he stumbled on a rare example of virus he’d never even considered using, until he saw the four letters stencilled on the glass vial. IHNV. Infectious haematopoietic necrosis virus; a form of flesh-eating infection seen in certain fish.
The destructive properties of the virus, those which effectively turned the insides of an infected host to gloop, fit his requirements perfectly.
Infected tissue, when treated with this serum, haemorrhaged and effectively died at the cellular level in every single test they conducted. When the plain suits who deflected attention whenever they were asked if they were CIA heard the explanation, it became clear to Grewal that they had very different expectations about the work.
“So you’ve developed a cure?” they had been asked. Grewal turned to Chambers, the two men locking eyes and hoping that the other would answer. Chambers stayed quiet so Grewal let out a sigh.
“There is no cure as such,” he explained. “Not unless you change the parameters of cure to include the destruction of an infected host.” He’d seen the annoyance on the man’s face and went on to explain further.
“The virus destroys the brain function, effectively killing the host anyway. Even if we could somehow find a way to purge it from their bodies, they’d be left a brain-dead vessel, capable of barely remaining alive at absolute best. More likely, from what we’ve been told, they’d have acquired injuries or simply rotted away so that there would be very little left, physically. So no, we can’t bring anyone back, but we do think we can kill them off a second, more permanent, time.”
That conversation led them to where they were, on a cold and windswept Scottish island with two former human beings in cages, minus chunks of their mottled flesh which were sitting in glass dishes, waiting to see if the theory worked in the real world, instead of just in a laboratory.
The following morning, after a short and uncomfortable sleep, Grewal returned to their lab wrapped in multiple layers of clothing in an attempt to keep the biting wind from seeking out any gap it could find to chill him to the bone. He poured coffee, shuddering at the sachets of foul-looking powder the Americans called ‘creamer’, and hugged the cup in both hands, before making his way towards the sample fridges and the start of their real work.
The discovery they made, the one that would change the fate of the world’s survivors, wasn’t due to any of the complex biological work, but due instead to the most random of occurrences.
Grewal walked past the position where he had suffered the conversation with Yates only hours before, glancing down at the soldier fiddling with the dials of a radio to fill the space with the hissing crackle of static.
“Cut it out, Mancini,” another uniformed man chided him. “You ain’t gonna find anyone playing songs anymore.”
“Oh, ye of little faith, Corporal,” the man evidently named Mancini retorted, just as the feedback from the speakers shrieked and hissed, before emitting a low hum that barely registered in the ears of the humans.
Grewal froze, glued to the spot as his chest heaved in animalistic terror at the sounds coming from his right. Mancini carried on spinning the dial and the two caged zombies stopped shrieking and launching themselves at the bars, to lapse back into their slower state of animation.
“Do that again, Private,” he said, with a finger pointed at Mancini.
“Specialist,” the man muttered back, turning the dial as instructed. When the sound dipped back into the low, barely audible hum again, the two corpses wailed and attacked the heavy mesh to get to them.
No, Grewal though, not us; the radio.
“Take it back again and leave it there.” The soldier did as he was told, his wide eyes fixed firmly on the two occupied cages. When the hiss and whistle of static gave way to the low frequency sound once more, the dead went into a state of savage behaviour, trying to force their faces through the wide mesh to reach for the source of their excitement.
“Oh, Jesus,” one of the American lab assistants cried, seeing what the smaller of their two test subjects was doing. All eyes turned to it, many turning away in repulsion as it—she—forced her face through the small gap in the mesh to strip the mottled skin away, like a potato being peeled, to expose a bright slash of white cheek bone beneath. Someone vomited noisily, the meagre breakfast of toast and coffee splattering onto the concrete floor of the shed. From behind them, a wavering voice wailed, “Oh, dear God!” before a single, booming noise made them all flinch in fright and sudden deafness.
The half-peeled face snapped back, the contents of the skull fountaining outwards where the back of the head had been ejected in bloody chunks of bone and scalp. The half-headless body slumped slowly, mouth closing as it sank down to its knees to rest against the mesh.
“Shut that shit off, Mancini,” Yates barked, weapon trained on the head of the second zombie, in case that one tried to pour itself out of the cage like the other. The radio clicked off and everyone relaxed.
“Sergeant,” Grewal began, seeing the solider whirl on him and holster the heavy pistol.
“Staff Sergeant,” Yates snapped. “You don’t hear me going around calling you the wrong thing, Doc.” Grewal opened his mouth to correct him but thought better of it.
“You didn’t have to kill the subj—” he began.
“You do science,” Yates interrupted him, “I’ll do security. You rile ‘em up again and run the risk of one breaking out, you’ll see me do that again. And now I’ve got to explain to a bunch of Navy SEALs that they have to risk their lives, again, to fetch you another lab rat…”
Grewal ignored his words, turning to look at the shocked young man still sitting by the radio he’d been playing with in the vain hope of finding some entertainment.
“Specialist,” Grewal said, the word unfamiliar to him as something he would call another person, “could you take that very far away from here and find out exactly what frequency that was?” Mancini looked up to Yates, who nodded. “And someone find Agent Fisher urgently.”
ELEVEN
“Major?” Mac said gently, still managing to sound almost angry at everything as he spoke. If not angry, then very disappointed at the least. Downes opened one eye, then the other, groaning and moving to sit up, like he had the mother of all hangovers. His body ached all over, worse than after any PT session he’d ever experienced, but nobody told him to stay flat on his back or rushed to help him up; perhaps because they knew he’d just shrug them off anyway.
“How long?” he croaked.
“About eighteen hours,” Mac answered, sounding jealous.
“Jesus,” Downes swore as he rubbed the heels of both hands into his sunken and dark eye sockets. “What’s the gen?”
The ‘gen’, according to Mac at least, was that they’d been better off down south, but he didn’t want to give that opinion to his major just yet.
“Best you get your strength up and meet the Colonel yourself,” he answered cryptically, the absence of facts speaking volumes. With more groaning, swearing and a liberal amount of blasphemy, Downes stood unsteadily and took a moment to acclimatise to being upright. Blinking open his eyes again to aid his balance, his vision cleared to take in the form of the tank captain, smiling and offering him a bone china cup on a saucer.
“Always trust an officer of Her Majesty’s armed forces to bring the good china on a campaign,” he joked weakly, with slowly formed words. A crooked smile joined his jest, which Palmer acknowledged with one of his own.
“Quite right, Major,” he said. “Although I’m ashamed to admit that all the good brandy and cigars have perished; casualties of war, I’m afraid. And I’ve misplaced my backgammon board.” Downes accepted the tea, taking in a long gulp of it, despite the heat, and letting the sugary goodness coat his throat as the strong aroma filled his sinuses and worked to wake his brain up the rest of the way. With an almost ungentlemanly aaah, he replaced the delicate cup on the matching saucer and regarded the young officer.
“I trust you handled everything in your stride while I was incapacitated?” he asked with an apologetic edge to his words.
“Not much to handle, truth be told. The Royal Marines’ medic declared you unfit on account of exposure.” He held up a hand to ward off the protests and explain more. “A combination of the cold water, a lack of rations and exhaustion. In his words,” he pulled an amused face and attempted to affect the accent of the Midlander.
“There weren’t enough heat left in the coals to revive the fire!”
Downes smiled at the terrible impression but recognised it for what it was; an attempt to alleviate the stress and embarrassment with a little weak humour, much as he had done when he first woke. He gulped the remainder of the tea, his thirst intensifying, as if the small cup he’d just finished had awoken his senses. He turned wordlessly to Mac, wearing a look one could only call ‘hopeful’, and the dour Scot took the cup and left the room, muttering to himself.
“Something of a character, your Mister Kelly…” Palmer said when the two officers were alone. Downes’ expression darkened at the second intimation that things weren’t as rosy as they should be.
“Tell me,” he said.
Palmer shifted in his seat, his exquisite manners fighting against his tiredness and natural urge to be blunt. Eventually, after a stern and quizzical look from the SAS major, tiredness won through.
“I never expected a military dictatorship to be this…”
“This what?”
“Well, it’s not quite as enjoyable as one would imagine.”
Downes hmmm’d in response but was saved from making any immediate reply as the door banged open and Mac reappeared arse-first to spin in the doorway, revealing a tray with a pot of tea, more cups and the most welcome sight of thickly sliced bread bearing the unmistakable smell of fried sausages. Mac put the tray down with as much care as he would a sack of potatoes and shoved a plate towards the major.
“Had them put a snotty egg in yours,” he said. “Just how you like it.”
Downes, had he been able to, would’ve thanked his NCO profusely. He said nothing, instead nodded in wide-eyed thanks as he’d just crammed the biggest bite of the greasy sandwich as possible into his mouth quicker than he could reload his MP5.
Palmer, less driven by crippling hunger, reached for the tea pot.
“Shall I be mother?” he asked, the words an automatic reaction to the task. With obvious care, he poured the aromatic, dark liquid into three cups and offered one to Mac, who grunted in thanks and sloshed in an unmeasured amount of milk, before heaping sugar into it and banging the teaspoon around like he was ringing a dinner gong.
Palmer, ignoring the lack of manners as an irrelevance, deftly scooped sugar onto his own spoon and cascaded it into the liquid, then added milk with such precision that he didn’t spill a drop. He finished his ritual by swirling the liquid and gently running the edge of the spoon on the lip of the cup, to then place it down without a sound. He offered that cup to Downes and repeated the ritual as the man chewed desperately, before swallowing large mouthfuls of bread, pork and egg.
When Downes had finished, gently thumping one fist into his chest as though he could force down the food, he nodded his thanks and took a long gulp of tea, only to pull a face and squeeze his eyes shut, forcing that swallow down. He opened his eyes to regard the tray and saw Mac snatch up his own sandwich in case it was picked off by enemy fire. Palmer gently pushed his own towards him.
“This would be my second of the day,” he admitted, “and I also ate yesterday. I insist, Sir.”
Downes offered no resistance and gladly ate a second sandwich as the three sat in silence, waiting for him to regain his strength. Palmer made him another cup from the pot and waited patiently.
“So,” Downes said as he leaned back and hid an uncomfortable burp behind his hand, “Kelly has adopted the strong-arm approach to matters?”
Mac and Palmer exchanged a look before the captain picked up his cup and lifted one leg over the other as he sat back.
“Perhaps I should start from the beginning?”
Downes’ collapse caused more than a little hysteria among the civilians of their convoy to have witnessed it. Their medic, a man inclined towards sounding at the same time both bored and annoyed, if only because of his accent, had rushed in to take over and deal with the major. This was a condition his training and experience made him far more comfortable to treat than the uncertain arena of infected human bites.
“Commanding officers report to quarantine exit. I repeat, commanding officers to quarantine exit,” the speaker announced insistently. The younger Palmer appeared, his boiler suit somehow fitting him, whereas everyone else’s only seemed to fit where they touched. He ignored the obvious look of hostility from the rough SAS soldier and smiled at his older brother in the hope that he could convey his support without words.
“Leave the talking to me,” Palmer Senior said with a quiet forcefulness. “I rather suspect we aren’t as welcome as one would hope.”
The two officers and the NCO met up with Lloyd and the German, Wolff, as the hastily built shelter was unlocked and the five men slipped out amid the shouted questions and protests of the civilians. Three uniformed men, all wearing respirators and carrying automatic rifles, led the way up the slope away from the ferry dock. They were ushered into the rear of a military Land Rover, climbing up to sit under the canvas back that kept the persistent drizzle from their cold bodies. The ride was blessedly short, given that they bounced around on the cold, hard metal interior over the bumpy roads, all the while feeling the chill of the brisk Atlantic wind as it found every gap in the flapping canvas cover.
With a metallic squeal of protesting brakes, the vehicle pulled to a stop and the sound of the driver banging his flat hand on his own door prompted them to shuffle awkwardly to the back and climb down. A two-storey stone cottage was before them, with a single soldier standing sentry at the door, so low that they were forced to duck under the lintel to escape the rain.
The cottage, a modest dwelling which had evidently been repurposed very recently, opened up into what would have been the sitting room and which now played host to the dining table, covered in paperwork. The five newcomers stepped inside, filling all the available space in seconds to somehow reduce the air in the room.
A whistling sound came from the next room, prompting Palmer to step towards the threshold of the doorway and clear his throat politely.
“With you in a minute,” came a strong reply. Palmer stepped back delicately, as though chastened by a teacher at the expensive boarding school of his youth, to wait as the sounds of china clanking together drifted out to them. Moments later, a man of remarkably average height and build walked in bearing a tray loaded with mugs piled on top of one another precariously and a large pot venting steam from the spout. He cleared a section of paperwork
from the table by shoving it along and slid the tray onto the wood. Letting out a breath which spoke of relief at his success in not dropping the precious cargo onto the floor, he turned to regard them before snapping his fingers in front of his face.
“Biscuits,” he said, turning his face towards the kitchen and bellowing the word for the attention of someone they had yet to see. A man wearing the uniform of the Grenadier Guards, adorned with a captain’s insignia, stepped into the room with a handful of the small, wrapped parcels they recognised from their ration packs. The biscuits were added to the tray and the two men turned in the small room to regard their visitors.
“Kelly,” the first man said by way of introduction before gesturing at the younger man. “Barton.”
Barton nodded his greeting and ducked out of the room again, evidently not needed for whatever conversation was about to take place.
“Colonel,” Palmer Senior began, one flat hand on his chest as he prepared to launch into a short speech of gratitude for their hospitality.
“And you are?” Kelly asked in a brief bark.
“Palmer, Sir. Household Cavalry.” Kelly nodded once and turned to the next man in line. Wolff’s heels snapped together and he opened his mouth to speak, but Kelly lifted a hand dismissively.
“I can guess who you are, Captain Wolff. You?”
“Lloyd, Sir. Royal Marines.” Kelly’s eyebrow twitched upwards as if to explain that he could damn well tell the difference between the uniforms of the British army and the royal marines, and then his gaze came to rest on the second to last man.
“Lieutenant Palmer,” Palmer Junior crooned, dropping the double-barrel as his brother had, so as not to confuse matters unnecessarily, “Yeomanry.”
Kelly looked at the last man, meeting Mac’s eyes and exchanging a nod with the man who came from the same place he did.
Toy Soldiers (Book 5): Adaptation Page 8
