Designated (Book 2): Designated Quarantined (20 page)

'Right, first off, sorry for looking like a drowned rat, but I have literally only just gotten here and can already tell your weather doesn't like me.'
 

A few half-hearted chuckles and scornful tittering filtered through the room. With unabashed, self-imposed superiority, they watched as he shrugged his jacket from his shoulders. The heavy, water-saturated leather dropped with a soft thump onto the back of a chair as Norman leant against the edge of the table and stared at the captive audience.
 

'Okay, who knows why I am actually here? Anyone?'
 

No one uttered a word as they sat mutely watching him, their eyes drilling into him as he stood there waiting.
 

'You're telling me that not a single one of you has any clue as to why I am here. Well, shit. Why don't you all just fuck off, find a gun, and put it to your heads, because you sure as hell won't survive what's coming if you ain't even bothered to figure out why they dragged me a few thousand miles from my bed to stand here and talk to you bunch of ungrateful dicks.'
 

They sat stunned for a few moments; then the slow murmur of malcontent blew through the room like a spring breeze as they all slowly began to find their voice.
 

Norman ground his teeth together as he watched their looks of consternation and mild anger flourish into being. Closing his eyes, he drew in a slow, beleaguered breath and stepped forwards a few paces.
 

'Look.' His voice echoed over them as he forced himself to rise above the tumult of babbling indecision. 'My country is all but extinct because we were too ill prepared for what awaited us on the other side of the wall. These Infected will show no more mercy for you than a Nazi would a Jew. I have watched men and women go to the aid of a crying child only to be torn apart by those they had sworn an oath to protect. If you listen, here, now, today, I will give you the information and skills that will teach you how to survive a world where our common values of family and duty hold as much credence as a paper raincoat.
 

'But by all means, continue to whine and snivel; then walk out that door. Just let me tell you that, if you do, it will be the last thing you ever think of doing. When you do walk out, you may as well go home and cut your own throat because it's a better choice than going out there.'
 

He jabbed a pointed finger towards the window as he stared at the audience before him. Their looks of rapt awe and fear made him want to smile as he remembered the last time anyone had looked at him like that—their faces locked into a glazed mask of childlike astonishment as they stared at the stocky American in front of them.
 

'We offered the same advice and help to the Chinese. And, well, you saw what happened to them.'
 

A look of arrogant scorn swam over the features of one man as he sat in the front row, his arms folded over his narrow chest, as his foot impatiently tapped at the open air as he rested his left leg on his knee.
 

'I don't see the need for such vehement discourse; this is all a bit of a muchness; thus far, we have had nothing much in the way of problems—a couple of localised problems and that one in Central Middlesex Hospital.
 

'There is little chance of us going the way of your own nation. Besides, I fail to see why you feel such a personal stake in this. They're not your families.'
 

Norman's hackles rose as he looked down at the hook-nosed man in front of him; the arrogant smirk that slipped over his face made Norman's teeth shiver with anger as he balled his fists, the bitten, chipped edges of his nails digging into his palms as he squeezed his hands as tight as he physically could.

'Okay, kid—and I use the term "kid" because you quite clearly are not a man—you want to know what my stake in this is? Well, let me tell you a little tale.'
 

Norman stepped forwards, dragging a chair with him and planted it no more than six feet from the man before sitting in it and leaning forwards so his elbows rested on his thighs.
 

'This was back in, 2006. I was out on a run. My team had been on call for about eight hours and I had another four before my shift ended. Anyway, my cell starts to ring. I glanced down at the display—now I ain't saying this to be overly dramatic, but my heart literally went cold in my chest as I looked at my wife's face flashing at me from the screen; so I press accept, my buddy was driving so I had no problem answering the call.
 

'Kay, my wife, is going frantic, literally screaming at me as I hear things crashing, and her breathing as she's begging me to come home. Now, there is fuck all I can do; I am on the other side of the county on call, and my wife is going hysterical on the end of the line.
 

'So after a few crazy seconds I ask her what's happening. She tells me that Julia, my fourteen-year-old daughter, has gone crazy. All these red lesions round her mouth and eyes and keeps pounding on the door trying to get at her. All this has happened after she went to help the mail carrier who collapsed on our front lawn after dropping off the mail.
 

'Seems she was putting him in the recovery position, and he got a bit grabby and scratched her or something; well, I didn't need to be a rocket scientist to work out what had happened to the light of my life and what was about to happen to the one woman whom made my life worth continuing.
 

'Anyway, I got home four hours later to find my wife in the bath tub, my daughter with her head buried in what was left of her mother's torso.
 

'Ever had to beat your own child to death with a MAG light, son?'
 

The man shook his head as Norman pushed himself to his feet and stepped back, his shoulders slumping slightly as he forced the memories back down into the pit of his mind.
 

'Well, let's hope you never have to.
 

'So, anyone else want to know what is at stake here, or have you all heard enough?'
 

No one said a word; Norman nodded and pulled a flash drive from his pocket as he stepped towards the laptop at the front of the room and plugged it in.

16
June 18th

London

The Russian Bar

Andrey stared at the shot glass in front of him; the small two-inch tall mini tumbler glimmered in the flickering lights. The thumping music made the clear, flavourless liquid dance in the glass as drunk girls in tight dresses gyrated for over-indulgent men, who plied them with alcohol and drugs in a bid to wet their over engorged selves on the tender flesh that the women seemed to hold in such low regard.
 

His shoulder jerked forwards as one ample-breasted girl stumbled, hair tumbling and face twisted into a shimmering mirror of ecstasy and avarice as she leant over his arm. She let her over-abundant cleavage spill forth as she cooed at his ear, her long slender fingers tracing his jawline as he pushed her away from him.
 

'Stupid slut, fuck off; go fuck one of those drunken roid monkeys you love so much.'
 

She stumbled and tripped as she fell onto her overly plump rump, landing with an indignant squeal as Andrey lifted the glass to his lips and sent the liquid sailing down his gullet, to land in a blossoming ball of glowing fire in his stomach.
 

'Proshchay staryy drug
,' he muttered as he slammed the glass onto the marble counter with a heavy clack. Andrey pushed himself to his feet and left the pounding music and gyrating, lust-filled bodies behind him as he went in search of something to drown the memories that filled his world-weary mind.
 

****
 

The door
thunked
into place as Andrey flicked the white porcelain switch on the wall, waiting the fraction of a second it took for his lights to slowly blossom into being. A deep, agitated sigh rolled its way up from his stomach as he shrugged his suit jacket from his shoulders and set it onto the stand by his door as he walked into the empty shell of his home.
 

He traced his fingers over the cold melamine of the countertop. As he let his hand curl round the handle of his refrigerator, the door opened with a soft rush of air and the clink of glass on glass as bottles of milk waged war on the Heinz ketchup next to them.
 

Staring into the glaringly white box, he grumbled in irritation as his eyes fell on the half-block of cheese and two eggs that occupied the otherwise empty fridge. Slamming the door shut, he pulled the freezer section open and retrieved his bottle of Snow Leopard vodka he had hidden inside three empty cartons of Häagen-Dazs ice cream.
 

He plucked a tumbler from the draining board and walked, his gait sullen and empty, to his leather armchair and dropped into it, letting his weight bounce off the frame as he felt the leather cushions envelope him completely.
 

The cap twisted in his fingers as he pulled it from the bottle, the thin, steel cap landing with a dull
clink
as he let it drop to the glass side table next to his chair. With a non-existent level of care, he upended the bottle and let the crystal-clear liquid flow free, splashing into the bottom of his glass like water from a tap.
 

The transparent vessel sat in his hand as he stared into it, as if willing it to somehow show him a world where all those he held dear were still, by some twist of fate, alive—or at least what passed for life in whatever universe they were in. The vodka burned its way down his throat as he drank, his breath seizing in his lungs as he swallowed the rolling ball of alcohol.
 

With a grunt of depressed satisfaction, he slammed the tumbler back onto the table next to his chair as he sat in the vacant silence that surrounded him. Closing his eyes, he sank into the vacuous, whirling hollow of his mind.

October 2012
Moscow
Frunzenskaya Embankment 20-22
 

'Why me? Why put me in charge of them?'
 

The general stared at Andrey Gervasii as he sat behind his desk, the starched, green uniform hugging his age-worn frame.
 

'They trust you; that mission in Ulan-ude, that was a death sentence if ever there was one, but you came out of it. You can pay a soldier to carry a gun, you can pay him to charge a hill, you can pay them to lay down their life and take on anything in front of them. But you cannot pay him to believe. When you went up against the Infected in Novosibirsk, we had no reason to believe you would walk out of there alive, but you did; your men were right there beside you, and you walked them out.
 

'They didn't care that there was a possibility of none of them making it home. They stayed, standing shoulder to shoulder beside you. And why? Because they believed in you, believed that you would do all you could to lead them out alive, and you did.'
 

Andrey rocked back on his heels and stared at the man who sat in front of him, unable to think of a single word of reply as he let the words roll over him.
 

'That may be... but there is only so much fight in a person, and to be honest, sir, I can't do it anymore; there is only so much death you can take before...'
 

The general sighed as he stared at Andrey, a weight settling in his stomach as stared at his friend.
 

'…before your friend picks you up, cleans you off, hands you your gun, and tells you to kick their arse back to whatever pit they crawled out of. You are the best damned soldier I have ever met, Andrey, bar none.'
 

The general stood up and stepped around his desk as he set his hand on Gervasii's shoulder, his thickset digits tightening on Andrey's whip-thin frame.
 

'Andrey, we have stood side by side, faced it all, and won. There is a saying told to me by a friend. "May you be in heaven a half an hour before the Devil knows you're dead." If we go... no... when we go and we both end up there, find me and we can crack a bottle. We are in this together. Never forget that.'
 

Gervasii sighed again, his shoulders dropping as he dropped his gaze to the floor, unable to stare his lifelong friend in the face.
 

'I am sorry, Fadei. I can't do it anymore; that's all there is to it. I am sorry, but I'm done.'
 

Andrey stepped out from his lifelong friend's grip as he pulled the Directorate patch from his uniform and set it down on Fadei's desk. Turning, he strode from the door and onwards down the hall, his booted feet clicking on the floor as he slowly shrank into the distance.
 

Pushing his door shut, Fadei turned and made his way back to his desk, a lone tear running down his face as he picked up the badge and slid it into his desk drawer. The medical report stared back at him, his name printed across the top; its red Cyrillic lettering mocked him as he let his eyes travel down its faded, white countenance to the small band of numbers nestled next to the words that had so chilled him three months before. Estimated life expectancy.
 

****
 

Andrey's mind emptied back into his body as he opened his eyes to the dimly lit haze of night as it fell through his windows like a wall of water. Pushing himself to his feet, he stepped towards the window, a fresh glass of water-coloured vodka clutched in his hand as he leant against the frame and stared out into the traffic-choked street below.
 

'I am sorry, my brother; sorry you were alone when the reaper came to claim you. I hope you find solace in the embrace of the Lord. I know I cannot until I make amends to those whom I owe my life. Save a spot at the bar for me; I will be joining you soon.'
 

Leaning his head to the glass, he clutched the small gold cross in his hand and kissed his closed fist as he muttered one last goodbye.
 

'Skoroy brata
.'