Chapter One
The Storm Rages On
Present Day
Eric Mann trampled the virgin snow underfoot. Carter moved to his right and a half-dozen other members of his Black Aquila team followed close by. The snow fell steadily and the wind whipped snowflakes into an intense flurry.
Eric’s hand shielded his eyes. Visibility was poor, as was progress. They headed toward a small farm on the outskirts of Aberdeen, responding to reports that an outbreak of the virus had taken hold. With Aberdeen still under quarantine and battles still being fought for control in the city, infection outside the city lines was dealt with swiftly and quietly. Eric’s eight-man team could call on military support, but all facets were stretched thin, needed in a thousand places. The waiting period would render the call for assistance redundant.
He gripped his tranquiliser rifle just a little harder as lights ahead blinked through the storm. Black Aquila learned a terrible lesson in Aberdeen, purchased with lives of their operatives, Eric’s men. Stun rods and taser weapons were not up to the task of subduing the infected. They could shrug off the 50,000 volts more often than not. Now, Eric and his team carried dart guns loaded with enough chemical toxins to subdue a charging rhino. Nobody in his team carried live weapons. Those were the prerogative of the armed forces.
A dull, amber light pierced the flurry of snow. Eric held his hand up to halt his team’s advance. He could just make out the outline of the two-storey farmhouse and outbuildings through the white. His team fanned out on both flanks.
Carter’s breath rasped in the cold. “We should have taken the vehicles further. Walking in these conditions is dangerous, Eric. The men are exhausted.”
“Better exhausted than dead.”
They’d left their transport half a mile back down the rough farm track. At times, the snow sucked at their knees. It was tough. But Eric couldn’t risk the vehicles being bogged down voiding any chance of retreat, and even more importantly he couldn’t risk the infected hearing their approach. The element of surprise was an integral weapon in their strategies, and sudden sounds aroused the infected from their habitual daze.
Eric gestured toward the farmhouse. “We’re going in.”
Everyone picked up the pace, legs lifting high and plunging back into the snow. Lactic acid burned in Eric’s legs. He pressed on. They all pressed on.
A low, stone wall circled the property. The flimsy perimeter hardly seemed capable of standing against the ferociousness of the weather. The storm was unlike anything Eric had ever experienced. He’d been in snow drifts before, but the snowfall was endless.
His men secured a perimeter, rifles raised, scanning for movement. Nothing natural would be out in a storm so bad. Any movement would indicate the presence of an infected.
If battling a more tactical enemy, Eric’s team would have stormed and cleared the building. The infected moving into confined spaces played to their strengths. Eric developed a new technique that worked more often than not.
The perimeter was secured. Eric gave the nod. As one, the team started shouting, yelling, creating a din that was sure to be heard over the storm. Eric sank down to his knees, bracing his rifle on the stone wall. He pulled off his gloves, preferring to take aim skin on trigger.
He’d been on six of these missions since the outbreak at the hospital. Ben Williamson, the CEO of Black Aquila, had promised Eric a period of leave. But his departure was always delayed. Another mission, another shortage of manpower. And he was still trudging through the snow, finger on the trigger, bringing down walking nightmares.
The door to the farmhouse opened, a halting action, a little at first then fully.
Their shouts halted.
A male in his fifties, snarling, clothes heavily bloodstained, stood in the doorway, peering out into the storm. It sniffed at the air like a dog. Eric and his men all wore winter camouflage, but it wouldn’t protect them for long. The senses of the infected were above average.
“Wait until it steps out into the garden. I don’t want anyone bringing him down and making a choke point.”
The order was passed down the line. The infected locked eyes onto Eric’s position. It rushed from the doorway, letting out a chilling screech. In a looping stride, it cut through the snow like a plough through frozen earth.
“Take the shot,” said Eric.
Carter rose from behind the low wall, took aim and fired. Eric heard the hiss of the dart leaving the barrel. Though he didn’t see the missile hit, the infected shrugged, its progress halted. It snatched at its chest before continuing the charge. Two more of Eric’s men fired. The infected sank to its knees. Those arms clawed at the air, searching for leverage to move forward, then collapsed face-first into the snow and lay still. One dart would have killed a normal person. Eric and his men discovered long ago that the sure killing of an infected was the only way to bring it down. A rigid way of thinking but a choice made easy when one had witnessed his own men ripped apart by the creatures.
More infected burst from the farmhouse. Three, four, five of them. Three women, an adolescent male, and an older man. They didn’t hesitate, charging directly at Eric’s position.
“Fire at will.”
Pops and hisses came as the men unleashed a torrent of toxic darts, and then came the sounds of reloading. Eric held off engaging, instead watching for any weakness in his strategy.
The infected made some distance before their strength gave way. They fell only a few feet from the wall. The men on Eric’s left readied to jump the wall, to secure the fallen.
Carter was about to go over when movement to the right drew both their attention. Another cluster of infected rushed from the outbuildings, seven or eight. They moved at speed, clearing the wall with unnatural agility. Rozek, the closest to the outbuildings, disappeared under an avalanche of bodies.
“Shift fire!” cried Eric.
He fired into the press of bodies. The screams of Rozek cut through the storm. Carter was by his side, also firing. Eric reloaded his single shot weapon. More of the team joined in firing. Rozek fell silent. Two of the infected rose to their feet, their bodies visibly punctured by darts. Carter raced forward, pulling his stun baton from his belt. He smashed the first infected in the face, sending it scrambling back. It tripped on the press of bodies. Eric rushed forward, and placed a foot onto the infected’s chest, pushing it down into the snow. He thrust the barrel of the rifle against the thing’s forehead and pulled the trigger. The compressed gas spat the dart with such force that it pierced the forehead and created a small crater in the skull. It thrashed in the snow before falling still.
Eric turned to see Carter and two others from the team beating the last infected with stun rods and rifle butts.
In that moment, the infected were not the unfortunate majority of a community succumbed to the awful virus. They were the killers of one of them, killers of a brother-in-arms. And they were treated harshly, anger pushing behind every thrust, every whack.
“That’s enough. Hey! I said that’s enough.”
Carter spat into the snow, his eyes wide, his lungs working hard.
“Carter, get the farmhouse cleared and then the outbuildings. And be careful. There could be more in there.”
Carter reloaded and took the team inside.
Eric studied the slain. A young woman. He wondered what she had been before the virus overcame her system. Did she have a career? What were her hopes? Her dreams? What was her name? Did she have two great children, and a husband away on duty? A line of fir shrubs along the garden path at home she love to tend? He was thinking of his wife, of course. Dangerous, for those questions made the creature almost deserving of compassion.
It didn’t matter now. The creature and her herd had killed Rozek and had paid the price. There was nobody to answer to, the city was enveloped in chaos. When Eric reported back, he would simply hand over the bodies of the dead infected, and those they successfully subdued. It was as easy as that. And that bothered him.
Chunks of Rozek’s neck and chest had been bitten free.
Eric looked away. The sight would bother him at night as they always did. And so would his actions. Could he have done more? Why were so many people dying with his involvement? Was he failing to do what he was employed to do? His conscious could be a mean bastard at times.
“Cottage is clear, Eric. Infected brought down are secured.”
Eric turned to Carter. “Bag up the dead. I want a quick sweep for intel in the house and on their bodies. We need ID, anything to put a name to … them.”
Eric and Carter shared a moment of silent communication. Carter’s eyes went to Rozek. He turned back to the farmhouse to search for ID.
Men dragged up transportation sleds. Eric wiped the snow from his face.
Will I get to go home now?
He looked at Rozek.
He needed to go home to see his wife and kids again.
***
Gemma cried. Hot stinging tears raced down her cheeks. She had not cried like that since she was little, when she lost her eighty-year-old grandfather to a painful battle with brain cancer. The single piece of paper she held in her hands shook as did her body. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and looked at the list again. Hundreds of names in two columns and there, highlighted, the name she prayed would not turn up on any list.
Stacey, her friend and dearest companion throughout the chaos of the city’s lockdown, was dead. Dead! Gemma could hardly believe it to be true. She so wanted to see Stacey walk into her hotel room, that warm smile on her pretty face, make-up done to perfection. Dead!
They had separated when Gemma resolved to return to the city, camera in hand, chasing a news story. Stacey refused to go. Gemma could not blame her. Leave a warm house with doors that locked? She could barely understand her own decision. Horror lay out there. But horror lay everywhere.
How did Stacey die? In pain like Gemma’s grandfather? Terrified? Calling out for Gemma? More tears came to her eyes.
Gemma would give a king’s ransom to speak to a friendly face, someone she knew before the world stopped making sense, someone with compassion, someone who hadn’t witnessed what they were all witnessing. Out there, in the hallways and the foyer of the hotel wandered stone-faced soldiers, exhausted and spent, and time-conscious scientists trying over and again for an unobtainable solution, and angry faces with creased shirts and loose ties throwing orders with little confidence. Phone lines and the internet were still down. She could not even call her parents to let them know she was alive. The panic and fear they must be suffering. The not knowing.
She threw herself onto the hotel bed. It wasn’t yet late, but she decided to turn in. Tears did that to people, brought on the need for sleep. Outside the snow fell, worse than she had ever seen in Aberdeen. She kicked off her boots and wriggled out of her jeans before cocooning herself under the covers. She pulled off her jumper and unclipped her bra, then pulled the covers tight to her chin.
Ben Williamson signed her up with Black Aquila, and put her up in the hotel, protected, dry, warm and fed. Comfort received at the cost of not releasing images to the public, images her camera captured in Aberdeen, and a promise to conduct a little work, dig deeper into the crisis, gather information, investigate. Snoop really. As a reporter all that should have been second nature, but she had worked at a small-time local paper, not a national release.
She reached over and clicked off the lights, plunging the room into darkness. The wind cut into the building, howling, seeking entry to her room. Snow rapped at the window. Engines outside came and went. It was rarely quiet.
Gemma’s eyes closed and she almost drifted to sleep. A knock came at the door. She sat bolt upright, disorientated for the moment and breathing frantically. For one terrible second, she thought herself back in the city, back in the clutches of the infected and being chased by that animal in a uniform.
The knock came again.
“Just a second,” she called out. She grabbed an ill-fitting t-shirt that hung to her knees. All her clothes were at her flat, and she was left to wear donations. Correct sizing was a luxury she was yet to receive. She answered the door.
The light from the hallway, though not terribly bright still hurt her eyes. She looked away with a squint and a frown.
“Sorry to disturb you, Gemma.”
Williamson? Ben Williamson had refused her request for meetings, citing he was too busy. Understandable, but that didn’t help Gemma progress her task. Williamson’s bulky frame filled the doorway. He checked his gold Rolex.
“It’s not late. It’s okay.” Gemma stifled a yawn. “Come in.”
Gemma tugged at her T-shirt, clicked on the lights, then snatched her dressing gown from the bathroom door.
“Please,” she said, gesturing to the only chair in the room tucked beneath a desk, and she took a seat on the edge of the bed.
“I know you’ve been trying to see me for the last few days. I regret it’s taken this long to find time in my schedule. Things have been moving rapidly.”
“I understand. Sort of.”