Death Plague Omnibus [Four Zombie Novels] (23 page)

Her fantasy evaporated when the man gently booted the soul of her torn trainer. She gave the handsome stranger the once over and decided that he wasn’t going to beat her up. The man crouched beside her and the smell of hot food made her eyes snap fully open. He placed a McDonald’s burger in her hand and sat down cross-legged on the pavement next to her. It wasn’t one of her mum’s pies, but she didn’t let that stop her from ripping open the packaging.

“I’m looking for a young girl.”

She almost choked on her first mouthful.

“Sorry, that came out all weird and creepy, didn’t it? Look I won’t lie to you, I’m no angel, and I’m involved with a lot of shady characters.”

Alison had finished the burger and proceeded to pick the cold cheese off the wrapper. She had been sleeping rough for the better part of a year now, and she knew a creepy weirdo when she saw one. Even so, she stayed where she was. He obviously wanted something from her. Besides, he might even buy Alison another burger.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking, but I ain’t no pervert. I just need a young lass to help me run a couple of errands.” The man brushed a non-existent speck of dust off his black jacket.

“Nice clothes,” she murmured. Now that she’d had a good look at him, it was obvious now that he was a dealer. She was unsure how to treat this piece of news. He’d have plenty of cash, no doubt about that, but did she really want to be associated with this piece of slime? Alison hated the druggies and especially hated their keepers. Alison’s stomach rumbled; it appeared that she didn’t have a choice.

“I think you’ve already guessed that I’m in the pharmaceutical business.”

Alison nodded. The man ran his fingers through her filthy hair; she tried not to shrink away.

“You are probably very pretty under all that grime and shit. I suppose I could just use you, but I think by now you’ve been around the block a few times already.” He smiled, showing off his gleaming white teeth. “No offence.”

She sighed. “None taken.” Although there was, and Alison gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to punch the arrogant bastard in the balls. “What do you want me to do?”

The task of finding the creep a girl young enough to fit his specifications only took Alison a few days. All she had to do was hang around the bus station after dark. Those girls running from their past stood out like a sore thumb. She found one, aged just fourteen on the second night.

Her name was Diane. Alison had no idea whether it was her real name, nor did she really care. By the time they’d reached the designated spot, Alison had had enough of her anyway. She hadn’t shut up about her old life, about how her mother was always going on at her to clean up her room and how nobody at school understood her. What little empathy Alison had disappeared within the first ten minutes of meeting her.

She’d explained to Diane that the man they were going to meet would find her somewhere to stay and a good job; the naïve little thing accepted all this with a casual shrug of her shoulders.

Alison remembered watching him take Diane back to his big, black car after he’d given Alison £300. Despite the fact that the girl really was a whiny little bitch, Alison’s conscience still informed her that she just sold that girl to Satan.

She never saw the girl after that, and despite vowing never again to help the handsome but creepy man, three weeks later she repeated her shameful actions. This time it was a terrified twelve year old girl whom she’d found hiding behind the bus station toilets.

He’d made contact again two nights ago. Alison’s mind changed when he gave her over £500 and promised another of the same after the delivery. It was only after he’d climbed back into his flash car when she’d broke down in tears, knowing that if she didn’t end this now, she may as well take her own life.

They’d agreed to meet here tonight, and she had watched him walk into the alley; gingerly stepping over discarded takeaway wrappers and dog shit, no doubt desperately trying not to get his ultra expensive shoes dirty. The smile on his face slipped off when he saw that Alison was alone.

She could still picture that horrible sneer, telling Alison that if she didn’t have the guts to bring him anymore fresh bait then he’d just have her instead. He then pulled down the zip on his trousers.

Glen’s leer turned into a snarl when she shook her head, but he told her that it wasn’t a fucking request but an order. When he lunged for her, trying to grab Alison’s hair, she just snapped. Alison growled and pushed him back.

From the astonished look etched on his hard face, he wasn’t used to his property answering him back. He made a grab for her but his fingers only snatched empty air. Alison had already wiggled her way through a window too large for him to follow.

Alison watched the car’s headlights disappear, knowing that she’d just made a huge mistake. She still could have used him and bedded down for the night. Nobody’s going to be looking for her until tomorrow, anyway. It’s not like she could get out of town at this time in the morning. A few rough grunts and a bit of mess would have more than compensated for a good night’s sleep in a comfortable bed.

“Oh, bloody hell. What did I go do that for?”

Maybe she could get a room at a bed and breakfast? It’s not like she couldn’t afford one. Alison glanced around, making sure that she was still alone, then pulled out a large wad of notes from her back pocket. She had no idea how much was here, but she knew that it was more than enough to allow her to make a new life somewhere else, somewhere clean and quiet and away from all this urban sickness. She quickly stuffed the money back, knowing that there was more than enough there to get her killed if somebody else saw it.

The downpour had now turned into a light shower and the traffic had increased, it was time for her to depart before anyone else saw her.

“But I don’t know where to go.”

Alison hurried across the road, heading for nowhere in particular; it was best to just keep moving. It was best to get as far away from that dead man as possible.

She passed a baker’s shop and her stomach growled when the enticing scent of baking bread reached her nostrils. When was the last time she had anything substantial to eat? It wasn’t open yet anyway, so she passed the shop, telling herself that it was still too close to the body.

Alison then saw a sign to the railway station. A grin slowly formed. “Oh, God ain’t you a dizzy mare. There’s everything you need in there. One of the station kiosks is bound to be open.”

She ducked into a shop’s alcove as a patrol car drove past; Alison didn’t think they saw her. After getting some food down her, she decided to board the next train out of this shithole—she decided it was time to go back home and confront her demons.

Chapter Three

He thrust his hand up to block his nostrils when a scruffy young girl, stuffing her face with a chocolate muffin passed his seat. Dean Kasnovski could almost taste the stench rolling off that girl. This was just unbelievable, who the bloody hell had let that dirty tramp on the train? Chances were that the conductor didn’t even know she was on. More than likely, she sneaked on at the last stop and had been hiding in the toilets.

The middle-aged woman on the opposite seat casually slid her hand over her green hand-bag and placed it between her legs. The scruffy girl abruptly stopped in mid-pace and turned to look at Dean; he wasn’t quick enough to remove his hand.

“What’s wrong with your face, mate?” she snapped. “Don’t you like my perfume or something?” Her voice increased in volume with each sentence. She leaned closer and grinned at him. She then wiped her chin, noticing the chocolate crumbs she licked them off.

“Are you trying to suggest that I fucking smell bad?”

Oh, this was so not good. Dean’s eyes flicked past the loud girl and to his horror, the other passengers were staring at him instead of the foul smelling girl.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I’ve got an itchy nose.”

He turned and stared out of the window. The last thing he needed right now was a load of unwanted attention. Dean watched the girl give him the single digit via her reflection. He breathed a sigh of relief when she must have realised that he wasn’t going to rise to her aggravation. She muttered something under her breath. He didn’t catch the words, but he guessed that they weren’t going to be flattering. She passed into the next carriage. A few moments later, her body odour followed her.

Dean closed his eyes. He pushed the obnoxious girl’s antics to the back of his mind and attempted to calm down.

For the moment, Dean was safe. Even if they discovered that he was missing, they’d be too tied up in dealing with the accident to be concerned about one missing researcher. His eyes snapped open, and Dean bolted upright. Oh, bloody hell! What if they did find him missing and assumed that he was infected just like all his other colleagues?

He stole a glance at the grey haired woman opposite him. She had wrapped her thin fingers into the threads of her multicoloured bag. She probably figured that the girl would have spun around and make off with all her possessions once she had finished chewing Dean out. Her eyes were shut tight; she must have decided that now the immediate threat was over it was safe to have a little snooze. Dean placed his hand on top of the headrest and stood up. He saw nobody else, so he sat back down and sighed.

Even if they did think the worst, they were hardly likely to look outside the city, never mind think that he’d boarded a fucking train. A freezing chill shot along the length of his spine at the thought of just how close he’d been to joining the fate of his other colleagues in his laboratory.

It all started with him noticing that Gertrude’s cage hadn’t been shut correctly. This oversight had happened a few times in the last several weeks, it had never been that much of a big deal. For a laboratory rat, she was rather placid and quite friendly. Dean had forgotten which of his colleagues had come up with Gertrude, not that it mattered, the name just stuck.

Dean dragged a hand across his face, a little startled to find tears had collected in the creases.

“It’s all my fault,” he whispered. “I should have noticed it earlier.”

The new batch had completed preliminary tests a couple of days ago. This time, they really believed the enzyme molecules would stay bonded. After three years and countless failures, now his team thought they’d cracked it.

Their group leader and head researcher, Graham, had even ordered in a dozen bottles of champagne for when the final test results showed the team what everybody already knew. Confidence was that high.

For the last few years, he’d been part of a select group involved in trying to crack the human longevity problem. Although government backed, only a few officials knew of their existence. The group’s research and experiments in banned genetic science would have caused an uproar if any of it became known. Although he knew for a fact that the U.S. and a few of the more advanced European countries were involved in the same field, their governments would have immediately labelled the U.K. as a pariah state if their work got out into the open.

Dean also knew that no other country had achieved positive results. They were on the verge of cracking the code, only the live animal testing remained.

They’d chosen several rats, including Gertrude, because of their advanced age; they only had months at the most to live. A few weeks to study the side effects sounded ideal. Graham believed that the rodents would now live for at least another eighty years. Of course, the team had no plans to wait for that long. Human testing was due to begin in under two years’ time.

Gertrude was the first rat to start showing signs of abnormal behaviour. Dean watched Graham rush over to the cage whilst the rat was squealing in agony and attempting to gnaw her way through the bars. As soon as the man got closer to the cage, the rat threw herself at the door. Before anyone knew what was happening, Graham lay on the floor, his agonizing screams muffled by the rat’s body stretched across his face.

The bio-containment procedures activated automatically. The room sealed, but nobody thought to check on the other infected animals. Dean watched in horror as Gertrude chewed through the man’s cheek. He almost passed out when Graham then got off the floor, pulled the rat off him and threw it across the room. He then shambled towards the glass partition.

Alarm after alarm went off throughout the complex; he took one last look at Graham’s mutilated face before running towards the exit. Watching his normally placid colleagues behaving like a herd of stampeding cattle brought out his own helpless panic, exacerbated when a young girl fell to the floor screaming and shrieking as another white rat scurried over her body and bit into the poor girl’s neck. Dean pushed past several people, not caring about anything else but getting out of there. He looked towards the main exit, he saw the steel shutters getting ready to drop down and ran faster then he’d ever run in his life to reach that door before the shutter dropped.

Dean jumped at the sound of the uniformed guard requesting to see the woman’s ticket; he fumbled through his trouser pockets while watching the old woman return from wherever the sandman had taken her. He could guarantee that it would be certainly a lot better place than where he’d come from.

The inspector exchanged pleasantries with the woman while punching her ticket. The woman may have been old enough to be the inspector’s mother, but it didn’t stop her from flirting with him. Dean felt a strange pang of jealousy; she hadn’t even looked at him. He pushed the odd thought to the back of his mind as the inspector punched his own ticket before exiting the carriage. He wondered if he was emitting some sort of pheromone that caused women to either ignore him or try to pick a fight. Speaking of which, he vaguely wondered how long it would be before that inspector came back this way with that homeless girl trapped in a headlock. He shook his head, she’d be too streetwise to get caught; she was probably already hiding in the toilets, waiting for him to go past.