The Dragon Plague

Chapter 7

Officer Erik Persson shut the door of the van used to transfer the infected.

He wished he was able to smoke a cigarette.

Obviously he wouldn't have dared to do so while he was on duty, in the street, in front of a crowd of onlookers that had assembled in front of the door of the medical centre. But damn, what wouldn't he give to be able to take just a couple of puffs.

His partner, Zoe Hernandez, was attempting to disperse the crowd, while other officers were climbing quickly into other cars.

Better not to stay too close by, in case the infected had had time to warn her friends.

Erik instinctively shuddered at the thought.

"Shall we?" Hernandez asked, climbing into the driver's seat of the van.

Their informant had spoken of an assistant and an older woman who could be located within the medical centre, but they hadn't found any trace of them.

The building had been searched from top to bottom, and now it was very unlikely that they would be found... apparently they had been able to escape somehow.

It was too late; they would have to bear the consequences of failing to capture them.

Erik, therefore, nodded and climbed into the seat next to Hernandez.

The engine roared and the vehicle headed to the police headquarters.

While the van rolled through the city streets, Erik began to feel the adrenaline drop.

Technically only authorized vehicles could circulate within Europa, but even so their pace slowed the traffic: there were police cars, of course, ambulances and the blue cars of the authorities. There were taxis for the richer, even though they were rare in that part of the city, the crossings for the trains and the tracks of the light rail. It would take a while to get the headquarters.

The operation would have been a success had it not been for the two missing women.

It had been fast, no doubt: the infected had tried to resist, but Hernandez had neutralised her with a couple of well-placed shots.

Erik knew he was supposed to scold her for her use of violence, but he was too aware of the panic that surged when one found themselves close to an approaching infected.

Zoe Hernandez had only recently joined the police, and Erik was initially dubious when she was appointed as his partner.

She was very young, and without almost any on-field experience. In the various assignments that they had tackled together, though, Zoe had fared rather well; Erik had to admit that, in particular, she had very good reflexes.

Once he could have said the same about himself, but that had been years ago: years that had made him slow and heavy, although he was as strong as ever.

His wife Thea liked to say to him that he could count his years on his waistline, like a tree.

Erik Persson was fifty, and he had been in the police for almost twenty-eight years: first in the normal city police, then, when the division had been created, he had been transferred to the medical police.

Once it was only the best that were assigned there, those considered smartest and most reliable, then the medical division grew further and further, to the point that they became the only true law enforcement in the city.

Erik sometimes wondered why they had chosen him at the time, as he wasn't a better or worse cop than most of his colleagues, and eventually he had come to the conclusion that it had been his hatred of the infected that had made him stand out.

When the medical police was created, his second kid, Peter, had just been born, two years after Maja, and the idea that his children should grow up and live in a world where such a monstrosity existed filled him with a terror that soon turned into anger and determination.

He had worked hard to give them a good future, a stable and peaceful life... those creatures couldn't just show up and destroy everything.

It wasn't fair.

As they turned into the junction of the ring highway the crackle of the radio pulled Erik away from his thoughts.

"Team B12, can you hear me?"

Hernandez pressed the button to enable the answer: "Affirmative."

"There seems to be a blockage in the ring highway, try to avoid using it."

"s**t," she murmured to herself, then pressed the radio button: "Too late, I'll get out at the next exit."

As soon as the line went dead, the van found some blocked cars assembled in front of them.

Some people had gone out of theirs cars to see what was blocking the traffic.

"What's going on?" Erik asked, while his colleague slowed the van to a halt.

"What's that noise?" she asked .

As a matter of fact, Erik could also hear a sort of loud buzzing approaching.

The very second that Hernandez braked, the van shook with a sudden impact.

"What was that?"

"On the roof," Erik said, drawing his gun from its holster.

He was vaguely aware of people around them who were racing back to their cars, apparently terrified.

He opened the door that connected the cockpit to the rear, where they had put the arrested woman.

She was still unconscious, but Erik saw that someone was trying to force the door.

As he and his partner came out of the van, they remained speechless for a few moments.

An old-fashioned helicopter, dating, he guessed, back to the twenty-first century, was flying above their vehicle: a man had jumped on the roof and was trying to open the rear door. The scales on his face left no doubt as to the identity of the helicopter passengers: they were infected.

Two of them had managed to land on their vehicle: he estimated that another was piloting the helicopter, and there was at least one more of them there up there, shooting towards them.

Hernandez fired first, hitting one of the infected square in the chest.

He took the blow, leaning back, but in a few moments he was back on his feet.

Erik realized that the rebels, just like policemen, were wearing full body suits.

"Get back in the van!" Hernandez shouted.

"The road is blocked!" he protested.

"Not the other lane, though."

They hurried back into the van, and Hernandez switched the engine on.

Erik turned on the radio: "We've been attacked, asking for reinforcements. I repeat, send us reinforcements as soon as possible."

He could not interpret the crackling of the radio since he was thrown towards the back of the van as the vehicle performed a sharp U-turn.

Hernandez drove in the wrong way through the still cars, trying to find a crossing point to the opposite lane.

In the meantime, the infected on the roof of the van continued to attack the door, and Erik estimated that at this rate he would break in before long.

"I have to go back there," he declared.

"But... are you sure... the procedure...?" Hernandez objected, unsure.

"If we can't stop them, the procedure is good for nothing," he insisted.

When he noticed Zoe's anxious expression he added: "You just think about driving, get us out of this mess."

Hernandez nodded without taking her eyes off the road, while Erik unlocked the grate separating the cockpit from the rear of the van and got in the area where the inmates were usually locked. To be on the safe side, he dropped the helmet visor on his face, covering it completely.

The arrested woman was lying on the floor of the van, still unconscious, but definitely alive. Erik saw her chest rise and fall while breathing.

Someone was still battering the door, and Erik realized he had better reinforce it; but before he could do anything, the door burst open.

A man stood in front of him – no, not a man, an infected, Erik inwardly corrected himself. He was tall and thin, with black hair and almond-shaped eyes.

The lizard man pounced, but Erik dodged him by jumping to the side, taking advantage of the creature's momentary loss of balance to deliver a blow to his legs that made him stumble down to his knees.

Like many times before, he was grateful for the police protective suit, which not only shielded him from bullets, but also covered every bit of skin that could be exposed to infection.

The infected managed to get up and attacked again, knocking Erik down. Persson felt the van jolting, and metal fragments detached from the door. The vehicle increased its speed; Apparently, Hernandez had managed to cross the dividing line and slip into the opposite lane of the highway, down which they were now travelling at full speed.

The infected staggered for a moment, struggling to keep his balance. He did not have much time: Erik struck him from the ground with both feet, and managed to knock him out of the vehicle.

He heard a scream and a thud when the creature hit the asphalt, but after a blink they were too far to discern anything else.

One down, he thought.

The arrested woman next to him gave a groan but didn't seem to wake up.

It wasn't over, though: another creature entered the van. This time it was a woman, at least as far as Erik could tell, given that she was completely covered by the bullet-proof suit. She was still anchored to a rope that had been lowered from the helicopter.

The creature pulled out a knife: a cunning strategy, Erik had to acknowledge. If she opened a gash in his suit, he could be infected.

"Step aside, officer," she said in a resolute tone.

In response, Erik lunged at her, but she dodged, almost sending him out of the van.

Damn it, I'm getting slower and slower.

Meanwhile the creature had approached the arrested woman and was checking her neck, trying to feel a pulse.

Erik tried to stop her, but she dodged him with unnatural speed and plunged the knife into his arm, tearing a long gash in the protective suit.

He clutched his arm with a groan of pain.

"So... dear officer," she said, "if you get one step closer, you'll discover how it feels to be on the other side of the barricade."

"Maybe," Erik said, ignoring the pain and placing himself between the infected and the arrested woman, "but today this one remains here."

Something crackled in the lizard woman's helmet.

"No, they are almost..." she protested, obviously answering.

There was another croak from her transmitter, and then she walked over to door and yanked on the rope that was secured to her waist.

"It's not over, officer," she said maliciously, then was hauled by the rope back up towards the helicopter.

A moment later, the van entered a tunnel, rendering further assault from above impossible.

Hernandez made a sharp turn into a lay-by and stopped the van, skidding heavily aside.

Erik slid down to the ground next to the arrested woman, who remained unconscious.

With a slow, mechanical gesture he pulled out a smuggled pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

He had really deserved that cigarette.