Death Has No Mercy

PROLOGUE

He would have personally enjoyed brutally murdering every single one of them. Tommy gun would wipe them all out. Plough through them like a big tractor ploughing a small field. Stupid, immature thought really. None of it was their fault. It was the bloody trains and the bloody government. Every weekend they would close most of the tube lines and everyone would have to use the reduced service. You could taste the tension in the air. Everyone was irritable, hot, in a hurry and being crushed in this small, packed tube that led to one single jam packed platform. J J’s usual calm exterior had been temporarily wiped away by his current situation and the far right protesters outside the station. Strange expression, that, jam packed. Where did it come from?

Jack Jones, or JJ as he was known to everyone he had ever met worked every weekend and had two days off during the week. Everyone in his apartment block worked during the week and raved until they puked at the weekends. JJ liked the quiet life so he worked weekends.

What should have been a half hour journey had taken two and a half hours. Six changes so far. Imagine walking in a straight line from the front door in your house to the garden gate, that was his usual journey. Not today, today you would have to walk to the next county to get to your front gate.

That was how JJ was feeling about his journey. Everyone else was in a similar state of mind. The football supporters, chanting for their team and the constant foreign languages of all the tourists talking at once intensified everyone’s travel rage. All these bastards enjoying themselves when others had to work. Everyone pushing everyone else for the one solitary tube train that was crammed to bursting. JJ was late and he hated that. His boss hated it even more so. At least this was his last stop. Once the tube stopped he would fight his way off and through the crowds onto the street above. The tube began to slow down. Faces became a blur as the tube train sailed past the packed faces on the platform. Everyone lurched forward as the tube came to a shuddering halt, people crunching against one another. Finally J.J though, I can get off.

No one noticed the nervous looking man in the face mask carrying a rucksack.

The once brave soldier who had served in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. People had been wearing face masks since the flu virus scare a few months ago. A lot of people wore gloves as well, but not like the ones the man in the mask was wearing. Impenetrable gloves, much like the suit under his clothes that would protect his skin from the chemical weapon he was about to unleash. The weapon he and his fellow conspirators believed would wake the government and its people up to what was going on around them. They had tested the chemical weapons out on three stray dogs and one tramp who they had gassed in a confined space. The dogs died as if they had been put to sleep and the tramp just attacked the walls around him and beat his head against the door until he died. The virus had been tested, it was not airborne. It worked as a spray and had to be inhaled. They were all dedicated soldiers, not scientists.

The false layer of latex that covered his face to disguise his true identity and protect him from the gas made him look strange. But what stood out as strange in today’s society?

JJ literally fell through the open doors as everyone forced their way out. J.J did not even see the man in the mask in front of him preparing to throw the canisters on the tube as it departed. He was lost in his thoughts of pleasure seeking football supporters and pleasure seeking tourists clogging up the disgraceful service London tube offered its customers. Every weekend they did this and every Friday night he checked on the internet what route to take. Last night there had been no warnings.

The terrorist would never get the chance to sit back and admire the fruits of his labour. He was the first casualty of the infected. J.J’s big size eleven’s knocking the canisters from the masked mans hands, the canisters cracking as someone else trod on them, the deadly vapour now in the crowded tunnel.

The victims should have shown symptoms in ten minutes, not the ten seconds it took JJ to inhale the vapour and transform.

JJ did not hear the hissing as the gas was released, or notice the man kneeling down beside him mumbling something unintelligible. The man stood looking for a way out through the crowd, there was none. An endless sea of faces looked back at him.

JJ’s blood suddenly turned to fire as his skin absorbed the deadly gas. Pain rampaged through his body, frying his nerves and sending messages to his brain that ordered him to kill. Voices screamed into his ears and they would not silence until JJ became a slayer.

The man in the mask was the first person he saw. The man was staring at JJ. The terrorist’s look of fear hidden under his latex mask. He recognised the look on JJ’s face, the weeping eyes, expanded red blood vessels and the insane stare of a mind decayed. He tried to punch JJ, but all he managed to hit was a claw like hand that had no feeling. The infected were all around the terrorist now. JJ began to punch the terrorist as all those around him began to snarl and fight each other.

The terrorist screamed for mercy as his face was beaten to a pulp by his first ever victim. His months of planning and designing his chemical weapon a complete success.

The sound of an approaching tube train made JJ look up from the bloody pulp he was still beating. The demeaning screech it made as it neared him intensified his rage and the rage of all the other slayers. The breeze blew the gas back past JJ to the people in the tunnel approaching the platform. One end of the platform had become slayers. The people at the other end of the platform stood in fear.

It’s those bloody football hooligans. They’re ’aving a punch up and we can’t get out. We’d ’ave to go through ’em to get to the exits. Bloody tube is packed ’en all, Sid said.

Calm down mate. All we can do is stand here. We can’t get on the tube and we can’t get in amongst that lot. There’s cameras everywhere, the police will be along soon. They won’t attack us, we’re not wearing scarves or nothing, Roger replied.

Both men stood amongst the other petrified passengers.

The football supporters stood in the middle of the platform thinking it was two rival gangs having a fight.

Bloody gangs must be fighting over their turf, a Chelsea supporter said.

He did not notice the slayer behind him. He was wearing a hood so his enraged face was covered. He had inhaled the gas just as the tube train pulled in and blew the gas back down the tunnel. The voice of the football supporter sounded like hot pins stabbing his ears. The slayer jumped on the fat sports fan and bit savagely into his neck. The football supporter screamed, enraging the slayer even more, the screams inflaming his eardrums. Slayers were now attacking everyone around them.

Good service to Hammersmith. Circle and district lines closed. Change at Earls Court for Stanmore via Wembley Park. Please let passengers off the train before boarding, mind the gap.

To the ears of a slayer the sudden noise was like a red flag to a bull. The pain in their heads intensified, the pain in their veins increased as their rage increased. The dead terrorists remains would never be identified, nor would the bloody mess of many of his victims.

The doors opened and the passengers stepped off the tube onto the platform. The teenager listening to her iPod was brutally punched in the face by a tourist on his way to the Tower of London. Slayers fought their way onto the tube and attacked whoever was in front of them.

A banker texting his wife on his £400 mobile phone had his eyes gouged out by a teenage girl with nail extensions. His screams of agony fuelling her rage. Frightened passengers began to scream at the carnage around them, making the slayers attack them, trying to silence the insane roar behind their eyes.

Windows were smashed as both victims and slayers fought for movement and escape.

The driver watched in panic from his cab as he saw the madness unfolding on the tube he had driven for twenty years become like a scene out of a horror film. All he could do was sit there, he could not drive away because the tube would not move until the doors were shut.

Control, this is driver ten, I have a situation down here. It’s a bloody riot down here.

We know number ten. Police are on their way and riot police we hope as well. The station has been shut down so no more passengers can get in. I’m afraid you’ll have to sit tight. Keep your doors locked, we’ll keep you posted .

Thanks control, you’ve certainly set my mind at rest.

James threw down his radio and looked into his cameras at the horror unfolding. He could clearly see an old woman in one of the cars attacking a fat man. What the hell was going on? She was fighting like a thing possessed. Her wrinkled old face a mask of sheer panic. Why was she panicking like that? The fat man was trying to fight her off, but he was failing. How could that be possible?

JJ heard a scream behind him that sounded like a clap of thunder had exploded next to his ear and turned to face his tormentor. A fat man wearing a blue and white scarf. Someone was attacking the man, making him scream. JJ attacked the slayer and shoved him through the window of the tube train to a chorus of screams. He turned and charged into a group of people as he saw an opening behind them. He had to get out of this place, it was killing him. People were killing people, he had fought for his life several times already. Everywhere around him was carnage, but the corridor marked exit offered him salvation. He remembered it led out of this hellhole.

Why wouldn’t all these idiots move out of the way and why were they making so much noise. Screaming and shouting like spoilt children. Bloody idiots.

Let me past, you bastards, JJ screamed.

He clutched his ears in agony, he felt as if he had been hit in the temple with a sledgehammer.

A petrified man was looking at him, JJ hated him on sight. He had to die, why is he standing there, staring at me like that? Who does he think he is? He’s no one, that’s who he is. An insignificant obstacle.

JJ rammed into the shocked man as hard as he could, slamming his way out through the tunnel towards a sign that said Old Street exit.

JJ kicked, punched and gouged his way through the screaming tunnel as his savage desire led him through and out.

Once out of the tunnel JJ was in a wide corridor with an escalator at one end. The floor was littered with bodies. Pools of blood covered the polished white floor.

He looked down at his shoes and could see blood on his red running shoes. The blood was a different shade of red. His body still felt as if it were on fire and his head throbbed. The platform was still a choir of screams and shouting. Something was slamming into the tube train. He had seen a lot of bodies hurled into it during the madness of the last few minutes. He looked back into the tunnel, all he could see was a mass of bodies tangled up in each other. Crazy bastards, what the hell was wrong with them?

That lunatic with the mask had attacked him earlier and now everyone was at it. It was the bloody train company. They had caused all of this, it was train rage. Like cabin fever, except in an underground train station.

JJ suddenly had an idea how to end all this madness.

Kill all the train staff. The bastards would be easy to identify. They all wore uniforms and some of them wore those really annoying caps. Some of them even wore those glow in the dark orange and yellow things. Yes, JJ thought, slay all of the train staff. If he did that he would have to kill all of the transport police as well. His blood still felt as if it were boiling in his veins and his head was a mass of pain. The thoughts of murder seemed to calm him.

Kill the bastards responsible, JJ screamed.

The raging mass of bodies in the tunnel he had just fought his way through stopped and looked at him.

The fucking train company’s done all this. Let’s get ’em.

The chemical weapon was nearly working the way it had been designed. The only fault being its speed. Something the dead designer regretted in his last painful moments. The rage felt by the victims was becoming focused as the virus now controlling them took hold. The dead designer had called his invention self-destruct.

JJ’s brain was beginning to expand, cutting off nerves, feelings and life expectancy.

Fellow slayers were walking towards him, JJ was glad. It made him feel powerful, like a leader. He did not trust any of them, they were all savage killers.

JJ ran for the escalators and galloped up them. Death, murder and insanity were following and he did not want to be caught by any of them.

Once at the top of the escalator JJ followed the signs that said exit. The noise behind him kept forcing him forward. He rounded a corner and there they were, transport police and tube staff.

Stop right there, sir. No one is to leave the building until we find out what has been going on. All of the other exits have been sealed. Riot police are on route. You are safe now, sir. Staff will attend to whatever injuries you have.

The speaker was a tall, thin blonde haired transport police woman. Her face dropped when she saw the mob behind JJ. Many of them were covered in blood, theirs and their victims. The area behind the ticket barriers was full, people still trying to force their way up the escalators, fighting and killing each other as they tried to escape the tunnels.

The transport police drew their truncheons and stood in a line, advancing towards the ticket barrier.

Stay where you are. No one is to leave the station. You are all under arrest for, the W.P.C never got a chance to finish her sentence.

JJ jumped up onto one of the ticket barrier divisions and turned to face the mass of slayers fighting behind him.

Kill ’em all, they’re the ones responsible.

JJ stood where he was, all the hordes of slayers rushed the ticket barriers. They slammed into their obstacles like mad bulls. Slayers of all ages, sexes, sexualities and races were crushed against the plastic barriers. JJ watched the insanity unfold around him from his vantage point, king slayer on his throne.

The weight of dead, dying and injured bodies soon broke down the barriers and the dead and dying were crushed to a pulp as the bloodthirsty slayers went through the police like a petrol bomb through a window.

JJ seized his chance and jumped down from the ticket barrier, pressing himself against the wall and sliding past the heaving mass. Someone was blocking his way and got his neck snapped for his troubles, someone else got head butted in the face. JJ felt as if he were a weapon that could slay anything in his path. The slayers slaughtered the police and tube staff and were turning on each other. They had no direction. JJ had found his, the stairs that led to the road. He ran up them and several other slayers followed. A barrier had been put at the top of the stairs and uniformed police were guarding it. JJ stopped and let the lunatics behind him go first. He smiled to himself, not noticing the blood trickling from his ears.

The slayers crashed through the barrier and fought like wild dogs with the police.

JJ ran up the remaining stairs and dodged past the brawl in front of him. Two uniformed police tried to restrain him, the nearest got a kick in the bollocks and the other one got shoved into a wall and elbowed in the face.

Bastards, JJ yelled as he ran down the road.

His workplace, the call centre was about ten minutes away. A police van full of riot police zoomed past. The scream of the sirens increasing his rage.

As he was running JJ noticed the pain had gone, the only thing he could feel was rage and power. He felt like the winner in the marathon as he ran down the street. The blood trickling from his ears began to run out of his ears as his brain matter expanded.

The building was a glory to behold. He had reached his workplace through all of the turmoil and insanity. He was in charge and if his boss so much as looked at him a way he did not like, he would die a violent and painful death.

JJ barged through the door, totally unaware that people were staring at him in horror as blood poured out of his ears.

Jones, what the hell is wrong with you?

JJ looked up and saw his boss staring down at him. Rage overcame the original slayer and he charged up the stairs and slammed into his boss, knocking him to the ground and landing on top of him.

Blood was now freely flowing from JJ’s ears.

The rest of the building watched in horror as the normally quiet, hardworking JJ slammed his forehead down into their arrogant boss’s face.

The blow was so severe that JJ’s already expanded brain ruptured. Blood poured out of his ears, nose and mouth as the chemical that had infected him earlier finally claimed his life.

Blood flowed into the unconscious face of JJ’s boss.

The virus had been spread by infected blood and saliva. In less than ten seconds JJ’s boss would become the first victim to be contaminated by a carrier. The spread of infection from infected to infected had begun. Its symptoms differing greatly to the initial gas exposure.

CHAPTER 1

JJ’s boss was Glenn Duffy and ten seconds after the now deceased Jack Jones killed him he rose as another slayer. What he saw when he opened his eyes infuriated him. The dead body of a once reliable employee who had attacked him like a man possessed. The screaming coming from below was enough to make his head explode.

He threw the dead body off of his expensive, blood stained suit and began to scream at the noise coming from below.

Shut up you bastards or I’ll give you something to moan about. His own words echoed round his brain like thunder, enraging him even more than he had ever thought possible.

Glenn leapt to his feet and ran down the stairs in an effort to confront the skull crushing bellows of his always disobedient staff. None of them had ever respected him because he was a short, fat, balding man. Some of them had called him an arrogant fat bastard behind his back and he knew that. For years he had tolerated their abuse of his position, but no more. It was all going to