The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 4): The Dead Read online

  THE DEAD

  Book 4 in the Lazarus Strain chronicles

  Sean Deville

  www.severedpress.com

  Copyright 2019 by Sean Deville

  The zombie apocalypse isn't the most jovial situation.

  - Danai Gurira

  MI13

  Colonel Nick Carter

  Jeff Brazier

  Natasha

  UK Civilians

  Andy Burns

  Reginald Clay

  Jessica Dunn

  Judy Dunn

  Tom Dunn

  Michelle Knight

  Brian Metcalf

  Susan Metcalf

  Mark Peterson

  Viktor

  UK Military

  Captain Beckington

  Captain Stephen “Mad Dog” Haggard

  Colonel Wilson Smith

  Corporal Christopher Whittaker

  Gaia

  Azrael

  Brother

  Father

  Gabriel

  Mother

  Uncle

  US Government/ Military

  David Campbell - DIA

  Major Carson USMC

  Jacqueline Fairchild - US President

  Captain John Fairclough

  Private Richard Howell

  Dr Jee Lee - US CDC

  Lorraine Winters - DIA

  US Civilians

  Clarice Reece

  Jessy Whitethorn

  Elizabeth Wood

  TOP SECRET

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  (This cover sheet is unclassified)

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  703-101

  NSN 75690-01-21207903

  For Internal use only

  NSN 75690-01-21207903

  DEFENCE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

  KNOWLEDGE | VIGILANCE | PATRIOTISM

  To: The Office of the President of the United States of America.

  Summary of interview with Maria Braun, aka “Mother”.

  It is the opinion of this investigator that Maria Braun has been truthful under investigation. She has not shown any indication of deceit and has freely provided answers to all the questions raised. The following report are the findings from her interrogation and our recommendations:

  Findings:

  H4N2G7 (codename Lazarus) was a deliberately constructed virus, created in secret by a clandestine international organisation known only as Gaia.

  Gaia had been activating and training assassins from the abandoned pool of agents indoctrinated into the old Soviet Illegals program. These individuals have been used to significantly deplete the world's scientists with a view to the future selective release of H4N2G7.

  The present release of H4N2G7 was accidental and unplanned.

  Despite Maria Braun’s previous association with the KGB, we do not feel the Russian state had any part in the construction of H4N2G7.

  Maria Braun is no longer the head of Gaia. The hierarchy of the organisation has reportedly retreated to a stronghold on Tristan da Cunha Island in the South-Atlantic.

  There is the strong possibility that a vaccine to H4N2G7 has been produced.

  Recommendations:

  Authorisation has already been given for the dispatch of a Delta Team to the island of Tristan da Cunha to obtain a sample of the vaccine, should such exist.

  Due to the present state of the country, summary execution of all adults found inside the Tristan da Cunha Island base has already been authorised by your office.

  We feel, given her ill health, immediate execution of Maria Braun also be authorised. We do not feel anything more can be learnt from her.

  Lorraine Winters, Deputy Director, Defence Intelligence Agency, Directorate of operations DCS

  24.09.18

  Leeds, UK

  Before Lazarus, Michelle Knight had lived a simple life working as a Barista. She had no real life skills, her university degree in history unable to help her acquire what her mother insultingly called “meaningful work”. There were some who considered Michelle reasonably attractive, but she had her own self-doubts about that, a lifetime of self-consciousness and eating disorders cutting into whatever happiness she could have hoped for. Some might even say she was an unremarkable person, just another one of millions who let life wash over them whilst they distracted themselves with TV and social media.

  At the age of twenty-nine, she was vaguely aware that life was running out for her. She had always wanted children but seemed to constantly be cursed when it came to men. The relationships she had always seemed to end horribly, in tears and with a storm of vile language on her part. Michelle had enough self-awareness to realise a lot of that was down to her and her own insecurities. That was why she was presently on antidepressants, magical pills that dulled her mind and took away the pain allowing her to float through the last few years. She wasn’t sure she was going to be able to live without them, but with the way things now were, there was a very real chance she would have that prospect thrust upon her.

  Michelle didn’t even own her apartment, instead renting a place near the city centre. It was nice, if small, two bedrooms that she shared with a friend who was the flat’s owner and an individual slightly OCD in her nature. That sometimes resulted in spiteful words between them, but they always made up over a bottle of wine and apologies. Unfortunately for Michelle, the flat mate wasn’t here now. When the first signs of Lazarus had arrived onto the TV screens, her friend had fled to stay with her parents who lived in the countryside north of the city. No goodbyes were given, just a note left on the kitchen table and no invitation for Michelle to come and join her. It would seem that events had revealed that their friendship was actually one of convenience rather than truth. Was it true perhaps that Michelle was only a friend so long as she was helping to pay the bills?

  This meant Michelle was living alone just at the moment she really needed people looking out for her. On the morning of the twenty-second, she had dragged herself from her bed and made herself go to her place of work, the roads eerily quiet due to the after-effects of the curfew. She didn’t want to leave her flat, not with the news that had flooded the airwaves the previous evening, but she felt she had some sort of obligation to at least turn up to work. It was a pointless trip, of course, the coffee shop shut tight, the corporate owners deciding there was no longer any reason for them to sell overpriced coffee to millennials and people with more money than sense. She had stood outside the shop for twenty minutes, her phone useless due to the lack of any signal. It was probably then that the situation really hit her, and wandering home, Michelle had stopped off at a cashpoint machine and extracted what little money she had in her account. She found herself in a city that was close to all-out panic.

  A hundred and twenty pounds wasn’t going to get her very far, and popping into the nearest mini supermarket, she joined the throng there that seemed intent on stripping the shelves of anything edible. Still numb from what was happening, she had almost robotically filled a trolley with food along with several bottles of wine which were, of course, essential. When she had finally made it through to the checkout, Michelle fou
nd she had purchased enough to fill two carrier bags. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she didn’t mutter something obscene in her mind about the fact plastic bags now had to be purchased, a crime that to her had once been comparable to murder. Paying for her purchases, two-thirds of her money disappeared from her hands, and suddenly frightened of losing the bounty she had acquired, Michelle had scurried from the supermarket so as to get home as fast as she could.

  The bags had been heavy, and passing through a pedestrian subway, she had nearly been the victim of the crime spree that had exploded in the initial days of the crisis. In hindsight, taking the subway had been foolish, for it was an ideal place for the criminally minded to lurk. With both her hands laden, the three youths had approached Michelle from out of the gloom, strangely silent, menace filling their eyes. She could have run, but that would have meant dropping what were then her most precious possessions.

  “Hey, don’t even think about it,” a voice had called out. Fortune had smiled on her, the two armed soldiers appearing at the end of the subway. The three boys still thought about it, but the guns the soldiers carried and the rumours that had been spreading about people being shot had filled them with enough fear to cause them to flee. Michelle had waited for the soldiers as they had marched towards her, suddenly thankful for their presence, conveniently forgetting the anti-military rhetoric she had engaged in as a university student.

  “You shouldn’t be down here alone like this, love,” one of the soldiers had chastised her. Michelle had let the words wash over her and had meekly let them escort her out of the subway tunnel, the youths long since gone. She would have liked the soldiers to have walked her home, one of them actually quite dashing in his uniform, but she had been too shy to ask. Michelle had made the last part of her journey home alone.

  Things had deteriorated yesterday. Lying in her bed, she had been surprised when the fists had knocked violently against her apartment door. She would have ignored it, but the fist was persistent, threats associated with it. Wrapping herself in a dressing gown, she had reluctantly answered the door to find three soldiers in respirators looking at her.

  The men had terrified her.

  “Michelle Knight?” one of the soldiers had asked, reading her name off a list.

  “Yes?”

  “Under the powers granted to me by the interim authority, under the sovereignty of His Majesty Charles the Third, you are obliged to undergo mandatory blood tests. Failure to submit will result in your immediate detention.” She looked at them gobsmacked.

  “What?”

  “Give me your hand, pet,” the second soldier had said in a more reassuring and gentle tone. She had complied, dazed by what was happening, the sharpness of the pinprick waking her up some. “There you go, wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “Our records show someone else resides here,” the first soldier had stated.

  “She’s gone,” Michelle said as the third soldier barged past her. “She’s gone to live with her parents.” She would have objected to the stranger as he started looking around the apartment, but the men had guns, and she didn’t feel particularly brave. If she had to choose between zombies and overbearing soldiers, she would take the soldiers any day of the week.

  The third soldier had returned with the news that there was nobody else present and that one of the two bedrooms had been cleared out. Michelle let him pass back out into the hallway, and the three men then just stood there looking at her.

  “Can I go back to bed now?” she had asked.

  “Not yet,” the second soldier had said. He had held the blood tester up, waving it in the air slightly. Eventually, she heard the words that she would only understand later on. “She’s clear.”

  The first soldier had asked for her wrist, and the orange Tyvek wristband was placed there.

  “Whatever you do, don’t take that off,” the second soldier had said, shoving a pamphlet into her hand. Then the three of them had moved off to the next apartment.

  The pamphlet had told her what the different colours meant.

  Purple - Military, police and Elected Civilian authorities

  Green - Civilians with essential skills

  Orange - Civilians lacking essential skills

  Red - Infected individuals requiring quarantine and treatment

  Another day arrived. Living on the first floor, the sounds from the street outside came to her now, the band around her wrist an irritation and a reminder of her own failings in life. Whereas before the noises of the city had been merely a nuisance, now they threatened her very demise. It was eerily quieter, though. There were no drunks shouting obscenities, and no sounds of traffic. That in itself was strangely disturbing, the absence of normal just reflecting the danger they all faced. Occasionally she would hear an engine, and looking out between her blinds, she would see that it was invariably some sort of military vehicle. With no job and no friends that she could reach, all she could do was sit in her flat and try and distract her mind.

  Michelle had been out earlier in the day, but there had been little in the way of activity. Most of the people out there not in uniform were probably like her, trying to find some respite from the isolation they found themselves in. It had been a long time since she had lived on her own, and with no access to any means of electronic communication, she felt cut off and alone. This did not do her already fragile mental health any good whatsoever.

  The other distressing discovery that had shocked her was the supply of antidepressants she had on hand. Michelle had a week at most having been lax in refilling her prescription. While her doctor had been surprisingly open, the harassed receptionist there had informed Michelle that it would be at least two weeks before the doctor could see her again.

  “Can I at least refill my prescription?” Michelle had asked.

  “Really?” the receptionist had admonished. “Can’t you see how busy we are.” The waiting room had been full, and Michelle had reluctantly made an appointment several weeks out. Stepping away, she had lingered, wondering if there was any way of persuading the dragon to change her mind.

  “I need to see the doctor,” the person who had been in the queue behind her said.

  “Certainly,” the receptionist had stated with a completely different manner. “If you have a seat in the waiting room upstairs, the doctor will see you this morning.” What? Michelle had turned around, her own fear of confrontation being momentarily squashed. That was when she had seen the green wristband the honoured guest was wearing, and a glance at the receptionist had shown her another green wristband. That had been a further glance into the hierarchy that was rapidly being developed in Leeds.

  Michelle fondled her own Tyvek, thankful that she wasn’t a red. She had no idea what was in store for her. Nobody did.

  The apartment block Michelle lived in was seven floors in total with an underground carpark that Michelle never got to use due to the lack of any car. It was a luxury she couldn’t afford, and that included the driving lessons and test she had neglected to take. Why bother when you could just call an Uber?

  Sat in her flat, the power mercifully still on, she tried to concentrate on the words that shaped together in the novel that had sat unread on her Kindle for the last six months. Unfortunately, her mind wouldn’t let her settle on the story, it kept wandering, diverted from mind-numbing fiction to any and all noises that seemed to creep to her out of the night. One noise, in particular, she found specifically annoying, the sound of drilling and metal poles clanging. The way her windows opened didn’t allow her the ability to see what was causing the cacophony. She had tried, several times, standing up and stepping away from the electronic book that really wasn’t engaging her.

  Fresh construction sounds came to her now. Michelle stood, curiosity demanding she discover what this activity was.

  Kindle discarded, Michelle navigated the short hallway of her flat and carefully opened the door that led to the outside corridor. She tied her dressing gown around her,
the koala slippers suddenly ridiculous on her feet. Slipping into the corridor, she locked the door to her flat behind her, clutching the keys protectively. She didn’t know any of her neighbours, so she certainly wasn’t going to trust any of them by leaving easy access to her food and the bottled water she had.

  There was the noise of banging, most likely hammers being used. It was louder out here, the lift shaft that was close to her flat carrying the sounds of the people working. What the hell were they doing? She would have taken the lift, but she didn’t trust it, images of the power suddenly failing filling her anxiety-ridden mind. The stairs beckoned, the light poor, the main lights switched off to preserve precious electricity most likely. There was enough for her to see where she was going, emergency lighting and the occasional scattered window leading her to the unknown.

  The door to the staircase creaked, announcing her presence. It had been like that for months, and she had no idea why somebody didn’t just oil the hinges. It never once occurred to her to apply that oil herself.

  On the fourth floor, she found evidence of activity; wood and tools left propped up against the wall in the stairwell. She could hear voices now, several people busy with whatever they were doing. The door opened easily for her, staying silent to aid her clandestine mission.

  Nobody was in the corridor, so she sneaked along the wall, more building materials evident. One of the apartments was open, the sounds clearly coming from there. There was some strange compulsion that pulled her to that open door as if it was a mystery that she just had to solve. What were they doing in there?