Cobra Z (29 page)

As a couple, they were well off through their internet businesses, but not anywhere close to being rich, so they couldn’t buy a plot of land on an island somewhere to weather the eventual storm. However, they did the next best thing and moved as far away from humanity as was possible on the UK mainland, buying an old, run-down farm in the middle of Devon. They had moved here ten years ago, and had slowly made the farm self-sufficient. It had its own well, and a means of generating electricity through a combination of solar panels and wind turbines with an array of storage batteries. They had chickens, pigs and cattle, and a significant greenhouse that was growing a substantial crop. The farm, a thumb shape of sixty-three acres, even had its own natural defences, most of the property borders being bounded by a wide, rushing river. The only road that accessed the property could be easily blocked and easily hidden. With high hedges and thick layers of spiky plants, the rest of the farm’s boundary was virtually inaccessible. Barbed wire and panel fencing had plugged any gaps. For anyone who managed to breach the defences, the five goats were the only alarm the pair needed, and the three German shepherds and the safe full of shotguns would make them regret the day they chose this plot of land to invade.

There were three accommodation buildings on the farm, and it was one of these, derelict on purchase, that Gavin had decided to upgrade for the apocalypse. With the help of his partner and his two brothers, who admittedly both thought the whole thing ridiculous and yet were more than happy to help their younger brother fulfil his dream, the farm was upgraded. The derelict was transformed into a fortress, basically rebuilt from the basement up. Six shipping containers had been purchased and precariously navigated through the winding country roads, only to be buried around the new building in an L-shape. Joined together, connected to the basement and covered in six foot of earth, the shipping containers formed a bunker that could easily house the couple and all their provisions. This was their ark, where they and their families could survive whilst the world around them went to hell in a hand basket. They could sit back, protected and hidden from the world, and drink red wine and eat home grown beef whilst the rest of civilisation burned.

The only problem was that James was not here. It was the classic scenario they had been warned about when they had joined the survivalist internet forums. Building a bunker and a hideout were all well and good, but what if you weren’t there when the shit hit the fan? What if you were miles away or, worse still, trapped in another country? What if you were in the very city that was the epicentre of the problem, which is exactly where James was? Then there was the added complication that James wasn’t answering his phone. And that’s because James, intent on catching an early train back to Devon, had found himself in Waterloo Station just as the infection hit in earnest. As Gavin rang his lover again, hundreds of miles away a phone rang, ignored. It was ignored because the pocket of the person it was in no longer understood what a phone was. And even if he did remember what the phone was for, he wouldn’t have answered. He was too busy, knelt down in the dirt of the street, his entire focus spent eating a dead child’s liver.

11.00AM, 16
th
September 2015, Hayton Vale, Devon, UK

The Children of the Resurrection – that was the name Brother Abraham had created. Waking one morning in his thousand-acre Texas ranch, he had had what he described as a divine revelation, a message brought to him by the very lips of God. The world was diseased, and he with his wealth and his charisma, he would be the one to cure God’s children. For they had lost their way and had turned away from the Lord’s wisdom. They were but petulant children who needed to be brought back under the protection of their father’s wing. And thus, they were no longer deserving of his mercy, and all that left was for them to experience his fury. Abraham would be the Lord’s hammer; he would smite the wicked and rid the planet of the heathen and the unbeliever. The defiler would meet death, and then stand before the Lord awaiting judgement and eternal damnation.

Delusions such as this in someone working a nine-to-five job usually resulted in a trip to the psychiatrist and high doses of medication. But when you ran a multi-billion-dollar private pharmaceutical corporation, with offices in seventeen countries and what amounted to your own private army, the psychiatrists were something you didn’t really have to worry about. Because you owned the psychiatrists, and you could buy the politicians. And through them, you were immune from the laws that controlled the sheep.

There had already been several candidates when his agents had discovered Professor Jones. Abraham had been searching for someone to help fulfil God’s plan, and God had delivered just when the first doubts had begun to sneak into Abraham’s mind. Abraham had repented that sin, and knew that God forgave him. He still held the scars from his self-flagellation. After all, Abraham was only human.

The problems Professor Jones faced were twofold. How to create the virus, and how to disperse the virus. It had to reach maximum infection quickly enough that it couldn’t be contained, but to a degree where it wouldn’t make it out of the UK. Brother Abraham wanted an example, a testament to the power of the Lord Our God. He wanted a Sodom and Gomorrah, a warning to the world. Only then would the power of God be borne witness. The world would awaken to news that the doors of hell had been nudged open a fraction and that there was still time for them to repent. Only if the world did not awaken to the truth was the plague to be unleashed across the globe.

So it couldn’t be airborne, which wasn’t a problem because what Jones had in mind was too weak for that anyway. And the initial spread had to allow for those infected to become unknown and unwitting carriers first. Abraham also wanted it to be biblical. From his speeches, Jones had learnt exactly what Abraham had meant by that. He wanted the virus to cause the chosen country to rip itself apart, to create a media spectacle that would be talked about for generations. So a mere deadly flu really wasn’t enough. Abraham wanted people driven insane, to tear out the throat of the very country that they called home. And so Jones worked, and it was by what he called blind luck (but what Abraham called divine intervention) that he discovered and created a virus that drove the human mind violently mad, and through that violence, precipitate its spread.

But there was another aspect to the virus that caused Abraham to rejoice in the obvious implications of its divine creation. Those infected developed a kind of hive mind form of communication. They could work together, could coordinate and engage in rudimentary strategy. As the number of infected grew, they even seemed to engage in some form of telepathy, some form of single consciousness. There was no Queen at the heart of the hive, of course; they themselves became the Queen. On reading the data on this Jones had given him, Abraham had wept with joy. He had called this telepathy the voice of God.

The choice of the coffee shops was perfect for spreading the infection. At major transport hubs, with roughly one to two hours for the ingested pathogen to take effect, most of those infected had spread themselves to other parts of the cities targeted. The two-hour time span also gave the disseminators of the virus the opportunity to use the city’s transport network should London traffic become impassable, which was a not uncommon event in England’s capital city. Whilst ultimately the plan was for the agents of destruction to escape the devastation by car to a private heliport and then by helicopter to Northern France, they were, however, more than prepared to go down with the doomed ship if that was what the Lord demanded. Likewise, those of the Lord’s faith in the other cities had private planes booked to take them to safety.

Some of those who drank the tainted milk were in offices. Some were in cars. Some were on trains. Some were simply on the streets when the first symptoms hit. And wherever they fell, the infection spread, those attacked and bitten either dying from their wounds and resurrecting or turning within minutes to join the army of the infected and the undead. That was the design of the virus. Spread on by bites and bodily fluids, the initial infection was designed to allow the spread of those contaminated across the city. But the subsequent infections developed quickly, not allowing the emergency services time to quarantine and respond. Whilst it was theoretically possible to cordon off and quarantine a city of 10 million people, such operations took time, and such operations required a central brain to organise and plan and adapt. When the brain found itself under attack, any kind of quarantine would be ineffective and haphazard.

Jones sat in the living room of the farm, the BBC news playing on the TV in the corner. Beneath him lay the high-tech research facility where he had developed the virus that was known only as “The Horseman”. He drank and savoured a cup of hot coffee as the nation’s media exploded with terror on the large screen that was the focus of the room. How long before the coffee ran out? He knew his job was done, and he was now alone in the building, the others having left days before. There was no longer a need for guards and scientists. And yet he had stayed, despite the protests of those he worked with.

He would sit here and watch the corrupt decadent system die. Even when the terrestrial network went down, he could watch CNN, ABC and a host of other foreign news channels thanks to the large satellite disk on the roof. With five months of fuel for the generators, and its own water well, the converted farm made the ideal stronghold to ride out oblivion. But he knew he would never leave this place. Instead, he would sit as the world reacted with horror, grief, and blame. And there would be lots of blame, especially when Abraham gave the world God’s message. Then he would wait, wait for the inevitable day when the infected came knocking on his door. And he would let them knock, the blast-proof structure he was in immune to their fists and their mass. He would sit, he would smile and when the time was right, he would take the vial he had kept especially for the end. He would inject himself and open the door to his new creations. He would lie down and become their next banquet of human meat. This very morning, he had turned off the defences that made this place such a death trap to the unwary.

Or perhaps the government men would come first. That was possible, and not without a certain degree of drama. Yes, he could see it now, soldiers storming the building, the futile attempt to find the cure. Futile indeed for there was no cure. As soon as an unauthorised person breached the laboratory’s outer perimeter, the self-sustained Solid State Drives holding all the research data would self-destruct. There would be nothing left, nothing but what lived in his mind, and he would see to it that nobody would delve into that tortured abyss. Jones already had that scenario planned out in his mind.

“We are going to have to interrupt this broadcast as there is breaking news from Whitehall. We are going live to a press briefing about the growing crisis across the country,” said the visibly distressed news reader. James picked up the remote and turned up the volume. He wanted to hear this. The scene on the TV changed, and a man in full military dress, adorned with ribbons, was seen standing behind a microphone festooned speaker’s podium.

“We are about to hear an urgent news briefing from Sir Nicholas Martin, the Chief of the Defence Staff,” a voice said off camera. There was a loud murmur and the flashes of cameras as the man stood rigid before the world.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the press. The prime minister has asked me to update you on what is presently happening across the country. I’m not one to mince words, so here it is in a nutshell. The country has been the victim of a bio-weapons attack. We do not as yet know the full extent of the attack, but emergency measures are being implemented, and the country is now under martial law, effective immediately. All civilians not engaged in essential work are advised to head home and await further instructions. Please ring 111 for up-to-date information in your area. That is all.” With that, the general, to the great annoyance of the media hounds baying at him, turned and left the podium without another word. Jones turned the volume back down and smiled. That was one way to make people panic. That was just going to send a large number of them into a whirlwind of destruction. Excellent.

11.01AM GMT, 16
th
September 2015, Resurrection Ranch, Texas

Abraham sat alone in his vast living room. There were four huge TV sets before him arranged in a square, and he watched their images whilst listening to the sound from a single set. He had planned this all out, just as he planned out everything. He would watch the BBC until the inevitable failure of their broadcasts, and then he would turn his full attention to the American networks. They had not yet picked up the true nature of the story yet. Even now, one of the American news channels thought the latest celebrity scandal was more important than the fact that London was burning.

But that was not the focus of the BBC news. The image of the British Chief of Defence Staff disappeared from his screens, and the talking heads started. Abraham wanted to be here when the story became biblical. He wanted to watch the world learn the true nature of how the world now was in the comfort and safety of his home. Although his part in the coming slaughter was unknown, his signature on this grand plan would be revealed eventually. He planned to reveal the secret on his death – the righteous should know the extent that man had to go to in order to appease an ever more impatient and disappointed God.

And there was always a chance that he would be uncovered sooner rather than later. If that was God’s will, so be it. And he had planned for this eventuality. The ranch was a fortress, its perimeter a multi-million-dollar barrier of death. Claymores, mines and a host of other life-ending devices ringed his home, the structure of which could withstand a sustained assault. If they came for him, they would pay dearly. And he was not alone. Dozens of his most devoted followers were here, all trained to be his own private army. When you were worth billions, you could pretty much buy anything, and it was well known that one of his holdings was one of America’s largest private military contractors. What wasn’t so widely known was that most of the mercenaries who worked for said contractor would die for Abraham. Trained to the highest standards, fuelled by a religious zeal and armed with the latest and the best in military equipment, it would take a sustained assault by a sizeable force to breach his compound. Hell, he even had an air defence system. He did own several military contractors after all.