RAGE (Descendants Saga (Crisis Sequence One)) (2 page)

IF YOU MISSED DESCENDANTS SAGA

*REMEMBER*

CRISIS SEQUENCE NOVELS ARE ROOTED

IN

DS #7: VENDETTA

NOW FREE ON AMAZON KINDLE

(
Try the whole series, DS #1: FALLEN)

ALSO FREE ON KINDLE

Prologue:

A Watcher in the Night

Snow falls tonight, a dazzling downfall of flakes both large and wet. The view from the nursery window gives the appearance of goose down pillows emptied of their contents, flung over the side of the hospital building to settle in piles on the street below. The air is crisp but not bitterly cold. Just right for piling up men made of snow.

Inside the nursery, five infants lay snuggly wrapped inside their individual
bassinets. Ten others sit empty, though it is still considered a moderately busy weekend by the staff. Of these five children, four are girls and one is a boy. It is the boy who is of interest tonight.

He
is considered to be only slightly underweight at six pounds and seven ounces, being born two weeks shy of full term. However, his voracious appetite leaves the staff confident he will make up for this in no time at all. The boy is a handsome child, at least as handsome as a newborn can be, having just been subjected to the pressures of labor. Still, his mother is a pretty woman. He has her blonde hair and features, so guesses are he will grow up to be the kind of boy to make young girls swoon.

The time
is well past midnight, headed for what most would consider the wee hours of the morning. The staff nurse on duty is at her station desk, whiling away the quiet time playing Candy Crush on her cell phone. No one came in tonight in labor, and the triage rooms, where expectant mothers are monitored, sit empty.

The
mothers of the four girls in the nursery are asleep for the night, their husbands doing their best to get any rest possible, lying upon the convertible chairs provided. The mothers need the rest. They will be thrown headlong into a routine of almost constantly caring for the needs of their little girls. The fathers need their rest, too. They are about to share those same routines, whether they like it or not.

However, the mother of the boy
is a different case. She does not lie well in one of the beds upon the maternity floor. She does not have a husband, or a boyfriend who has accompanied her to the hospital. She came alone.

Even now, when matters take a turn for the worse, she ha
s no one to call—no one to come and wait in the waiting room to receive news from the physicians providing her care—no one to take her home, should the situation improve, and none to make arrangements when they do not.

The boy’s mother
gave birth to him tonight, and everything seemed fine, for a little while. Several hours later, when her fever begins to rise dangerously, the doctors become concerned. Her labor was natural, no complications. However, she is experiencing terrible abdominal pain, and her obstetrician wonders if she might be suffering from some internal hemorrhaging.

She
is put to sleep with anesthetics in a surgery suite on the second floor below. An exploratory laparoscopy provides no clues to her condition, or the reason for her pain. She is not hemorrhaging. However, when the Anesthesia providers attempt to wake her, she falls into a series of seizures. Her condition becomes much worse.

The woman g
ave birth and was fine. She held her baby and looked into his face. His eyes beheld her one time. She even gave him a name. However, he will never behold her again. The boy is alone in the world now, except for the watcher in the night.

Being the late hour it
is, or the early hour depending upon one’s perspective, not much stirs on the third floor maternity ward at St. Mary’s Hospital in London. Cameras move in place, covering nearly every conceivable angle. A security guard is on duty. His patrol consists of hourly walks along the floor. However, if there happens to be any trouble, he can be called from the security office to the scene at a moment’s notice. The cameras are always watching.

A
single man enters into this situation. He came from outside the hospital, but the falling snow did not touch his clothing. His attire consists of a black suit. Over this, he wears a long black overcoat. A dark bowler tops the graying hair peeking beneath the brim. He carries an ebony cane with a silver lion’s head knob.

The man dresse
s stylishly, at least as far as he is concerned. Inside a hospital maternity ward, his attire seems impractical. He does not belong here. Not in this place, not even in this time.

Nevertheless, he
is here, and he does not wish to be seen. The security guard wandering the floor is easily avoided. The nurse at the maternity ward station less so. He passes quietly from shadow to shadow, melding with them.

Here his dark garb help
s somewhat. As he approaches the nurse station, he notices the woman sitting there. The colored light from her handheld device plays across the lenses of her glasses. The man smiles, concentrating upon her. In a moment, he moves on.

He passe
s by her in plain view. She does not notice anyone there beside her. Her gaze is fixed and, though her mind does register his presence unconsciously, she does not know it with her waking mind. He is invisible to her now, exactly as he intends.

The man observe
s the children set out in their bassinettes through clear Plexiglass windows. He pauses at the door and opens it. Walking into the nursery, he stands in near darkness. Dimmed lights illuminate the room. They will sleep regardless, but it is a nice thought.

Enough space
is left between the bassinettes, allowing the nurse on duty to walk around and care for the children. The man notes the cards inserted into a clear plastic sleeve at the head of each bassinette to indicate the name and gender of each child. He expects to find color appropriate blankets wrapped around the babies, but these shades are ambiguous instead.

He passe
s over an Ashley and two Brittanys, a Sophia—he smiles here—and then a Beth. The boy is located at the end. He is alone. The man knows this already. He knows what happened to the boy’s mother. He did not cause her death, but he knows, nonetheless.

The man look
s back to the nurse at the desk. She does not move. All is well for his purpose here. He does not
want
to kill anyone. He does not want to, but sometimes these things become necessary.

From beneath his long coat, the man remove
s a knife. It is silver—real silver—possessing a silver hilt wrapped in fine dark green cord. He looks at the boy sleeping in the bassinette, considering what he must do.

“
This is necessary,” he tells himself.

His eyes flick from the small sleeping face to the name card above his head. The blue colored card
, with the happy teddy bear, has his name printed in dark ink. His mother lasted long enough to impart him this one gift.

Jonathan Parks
.

The man look
s back to the sleeping child. Jonathan—it is a good name. He imagines this boy growing up. Jonathan playing with a stuffed animal. Jonathan crawling across the floor. Jonathan taking his first steps, falling in love for the first time.

The man
comes to steal it away. However, looking at the child now, he knows he will not be able to do it. This is a human being. He is a person and precious.

D
oesn’t he deserve a chance? Perhaps, with his mother gone, he will make the right decisions. Maybe he won’t become what the man fears he will. Maybe.

Perhaps, he
isn’t even the son of the man he knew. He has no proof. The evidence is circumstantial at best. He may have come to kill a perfectly normal child who will never be a threat.

The man
contemplates this for a moment. It is possible. Then he sighs. He can’t leave in good conscience either.

Looking down at little Jonathan, he kn
ows there is only one way to be sure. He reaches into the child’s blanket, undoing it a little, just enough to remove one of the tiny hands tucked against his chest. He bends close and opens the boy’s fingers to reveal the soft flesh of his palm.

With his silver dagger, the man prick
s the skin and draws a line several centimeters across. His knife is razor sharp. The child sleeps heavily and does not feel the burning pain of the cut. Bright red blood wells in the small wound.

The man wait
s for a moment. The blood remains. He waits a full twenty seconds longer. The bloody line of his incision remains. He sighs again, feeling a weight lifting from his mind. Jonathan is normal after all.

Then blood drip
s away from the child’s palm. Pressure pushes blood out of the slight wound. The incision closes upon itself like a coat zipped up tight. The man’s eyes widen. He uses the edge of the blanket to wipe the boy’s palm clean. There is no mark upon his skin—not even a scar.

Death on Two Legs

In the absence of law and order, anarchy reigns....We didn’t know what we had until it was gone—Jonathan Parks

It’s very hard to breathe when someone is trying to kill you. I mean you want to breathe, but you’re afraid the slightest noise will give you away. They’ll turn around and find you in your lousy hiding place and tear your throat out. I’ll admit my circumstances would have seemed unusual six months ago. Not anymore.

One of the guards who
escort me into the infirmary walks out the door to see what all of the commotion is about. A siren tone sounds in the corridor outside, dulled now by the closed door.

He attempt
s to draw his sidearm, when he sees a monster in the hall. This predator hits him fast, like getting wrapped up by a tackler and taken to the ground. His Glock comes free, skittering to the floor out of range.

The guard’s
falling body knocks the door open. It slowly closes again. I watch this happening.

A
thing
tears at his throat. Blood spreads out on the floor, but this guard still fights for his life. Only when this thing crashes his head against the tiled floor a few times does he stop struggling. I hear the dull crack, like dropping a bowling ball on concrete.

The second guard, who remain
s to watch me while the other goes out, draws his sidearm and goes for the open door. I’m not sure if he wants to attack the monster, or just shut the door before it can get into the infirmary with us. He doesn’t make it.

When it s
ees him coming, this thing leaps off of the body of the first guard and charges through the infirmary door. The man draws up short, managing to crack off several shots from his pistol into the monster’s chest before it plows into him.

I kn
ow enough to turn around and hit the lights fast—all five switches on the wall. The infirmary’s fluorescent overhead lighting goes out. I drop behind the bed, still wearing only a hospital Johnny gown. Another examination day. I was made to leave my clothes in a locker in an adjoining room.

The guard
’s scream dies in the darkness, as the breath is driven from his body. I hear several scuffling noises and the pained strangled cry from the guard. The predator scrambles, thrashing him until he lies still.

The door close
s slowly on a hydraulic arm. This isn’t a restricted room, so there is no automatic click from a lock. If I want to shut it in here, I must get past it and then manage to push the door closed against the hydraulic arm before turning the latch.

Sound
s easy, but it isn’t.

These things
are fast.

Things? Monsters? Okay, technically not monsters in the classic sense. They
are human, sure. People? Hard to say. In my opinion? Not anymore.

I
’ve seen plenty of movies. It’s not like I never watched gruesome things before. Zombie movies aren’t exactly my thing, but I have seen enough to be reasonably well-versed. Zombies are a cool fad right now. Lots of television shows and internet stuff about them. People on reality television prepare for a zombie apocalypse.

However,
the word
zombie
doesn’t really fit here. Zombies are supposed to be dead things walking around eating brains. Honestly, that never made sense to me. How can something with no blood flow and no heartbeat actually function? The human body is too complex. Muscles are required to move the skeleton. And muscles require blood flow, oxygen, and a thousand other processes that only happen when someone is alive.

These
aren’t zombies in the classic sense. They aren’t dead, not at all. These things are very much alive, and they will kill anything that moves. They don’t mind if you shoot them. They don’t care if they are stabbed or beaten. The only thing that stops them is what stops any human being. Catastrophic system failure.

It
is unclear what happened to cause Tom Kennedy and the others to change. The doctors thought enough to test me after MI6 agents took me into custody, knowing I had contact with Tom. I was recruited for something else, something special, but I’m kept for my own protection. Funny way to put it.

Their doctors down here in the Tombs
have poked and prodded me ever since. That’s almost two weeks ago. They wore special suits when they took me from one safe area to a contaminated area. I got the feeling then that protective custody might mean protecting others from me. Maybe, they are just concerned some of Tom’s blood got on me during our fight. It did.

In the movies, zombies
are the result of all sorts of stuff. Aliens sometimes raise the dead, or inhabit people’s bodies. Viruses of unknown origin somehow kill people and keep them going to feed upon the living. All of this medical stuff at MI6 makes me believe it is something like that, only the people don’t die first. They just turn rabid.

Some
times the movies don’t explain the cause at all. You just have to accept what is happening. However, this is real, and I am involved. This is my life, and I want to know what is going on. I just have to stay alive long enough to find out.

T
he infirmary door closes. A slim rectangular pane of safety glass over the handle allows light through. The second guard is dead. I see his expressionless face, with its blank eyes staring into eternity, and one hand lying on the floor in the bar of light coming through the door from the hall.

Crouch
ing over him, squat upon his body, is the creature that killed him. Light crimson spatters remain around the guards chin, but I can’t see the extent of the wounds the monster inflicted. From the blood pooling below his head, the wounds must be very bad.

I hear the crazed
thing yell in triumph; only the sound comes out as a terrible broken glass, laryngitis. I remember the noises and sights of the biohazard corridor where I was kept briefly. This reminds me of my terror in that cell.

I remain crouched behind the bed where I
sat prior to the guard rushing into the hallway to get killed. It is the kind of bed you find in most doctors’ offices with the paper roll that’s meant to be sanitary but just ends up being a nuisance. I am not huge for my age—average really—but fifteen is big enough. You can’t hide just anywhere.

As far as I kn
ow, these things don’t have any better sight in the dark than normal people. I can’t see it very well because of the shaft of light cutting across the dark room. The brightness blinds my eyes to anything beyond. I hope the same holds true for this thing.

The infirmary
isn’t a completely silent place. Machinery hums and beeps. Air whooshes through vents.

The crazed thing must not notice me during its flight from the hall to the room. They d
on’t act smart, just vicious. Sounds attract them, but movement is the worst. Drives them crazy.

I
consider some sort of distraction, maybe tossing something toward the back of the room. Then I hear something fall to the floor across the room. It isn’t heavy, whatever it is, but the creature notices it.

Its attention drawn,
the man beast starts toward the noise, skittering on hands and feet across the tiles in the dark. This leads it further away from me, which is what I want. A little further away and I might have enough time to make a run for that door.

The fact I
can’t see exactly what it looks like is a little unnerving. I don’t know if it is a man or a woman. I don’t know how fierce the appearance of this predator hunting me in the dark. This uncertainty threatens to keep me huddling in my corner.

However,
I know inaction is as good as a death sentence. Eventually, it will find me. What else does it have to do? They don’t have the wit to problem solve, just kill. And its hunger drives it to find something in this closed space it can feed upon.

There
is one fresh kill in here with me, but that won’t last. What little I know about them tells me they have to keep feeding. I recall something one of the lab assistants, Holly, said to me when I came to do tests for them.

She mentioned these
creatures burn up an insane amount of calories. They must feed, or the pain overwhelms them. They kill to stay alive and keep their terrible pain at bay.

I
am shaken out of my own dilemma when the reason for the noise on the other side of the room decides to flee. A woman’s voice screams in the dark. I don’t think the creature is close enough to pounce. Still, whoever is hiding there thinks so, and they aren’t going to die quietly.

Then I remember Holly. The young lab assistant who
is nice to me when I come in here to have blood drawn. I thought she left the clinic a moment ago. Evidently, she came back inside just before I switched out the lights and leapt to the floor behind the bed.

There
is a door at that end. I did not consider it because of the distance, but Holly is closer. She screams her head off now, trying to make a run for it. The creature runs after her in the dark. If it had any trouble seeing her, the screams take care of the problem.

In my mind a new dilemma emerge
s. A woman is in danger. Sure, but she is one of them. She works for MI6, the same people who are basically holding me prisoner. I don’t owe her anything.

However,
this isn’t just a nameless face. I’ve come to know her a little. Holly is the only one who is truly kind to me. She talks to me like I am a person, not just some science experiment as the scientists do. She calls me Jonathan, not Patient Zero.

Yet, an opportunity
presents itself. She is distracting the creature. It seeks after her now. She is leading it further away from me and my escape route here at the front of the infirmary. While it goes for Holly, I can get to my feet and dash for the door on my end. Once I lock the door from the outside, I will be safe.

My conscience battl
es with my natural instinct to survive. Conscience even tries to play both sides a little. If I go now, then the creature will probably become confused between the two of us. Holly will gain enough time to make it to the side door, and I will get out the front. We will both be safe.

Conscience and instinct both like this plan a lot.

Still, I know that isn’t how this is going to play out. Holly won’t make it. These things are too fast, and she is screaming too loud. It’s in frenzy. She is about to die, and I am about to do nothing and allow it.

I
saw the fire extinguisher earlier when I was sitting on the bed waiting for Dr. Schuler to come speak with me. I have been here about a dozen times, since my first day.

I
did not think of the extinguisher as a weapon before. It’s fastened to the wall by a metal clip. It’s the only thing I can think of, and there is no time for real strategy.

I leap to my feet and reach to the wall. It c
omes away in my hand easily. I can’t see the particulars, but fortunately a fire extinguisher is pretty basic. Pull the pin and squeeze the trigger.

Holly
is still screaming, but she hasn’t reached the door. I see her in the light of the exit sign over her head. Unfortunately, the creature is almost upon her. All this happens in a matter of seconds. Holly will die in less time.

“Hey!”
I shout with the fire extinguisher in my hands, running over to the light coming through front door.

I
am keenly aware of the dead guard at my feet. My bare feet feel the wetness seeping around his body on the floor. I just can’t focus on that now.

My shadow appear
s on the ground with white light from the hall outside framing my form. I continue to shout. Holly stops, her attention drawn to me. The creature turns to me also. It stands close enough to Holly to be seen in the dim red glow of the exit sign above the door.

I
am the one making all of the noise, so it is drawn to me. I imagine how obvious a target I must be now. My silhouette framed by the hall light must look pretty tempting. It charges across the infirmary toward me.

I fumble with the pin set through the extinguisher’s trigger. I g
et my finger in the ring and yank it free. A moment of fumbling with the tank releases a short burst of powdery spray toward the floor as I try to get the hose without dropping it.

The creature r
uns straight for me. There is nothing strategic about its tactics at all. Basic raging attack. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, coming like a mad dog.

The nozzle finally decide
s to comply. I raise it and squeeze the trigger. A wash of powder jets out into the creature’s face. At the last second, I realize it is still charging blindly at me, its hands outstretched.

It r
uns through the cloud and leaps at me, its face covered in white like a man just hit with a pie. I have no time to react. However, I am not exactly defenseless. As a younger boy, I took a couple of years of instruction in Israeli self defense. Krav Maga. Not tournament stuff, but real world applications. How to drop somebody fast and diffuse the situation.