Lucy had been accidentally created by some stupid, science-y type morons who might have had PhDs in being bloody clever, but they had never apparently watched any horror film ever. They also didn’t stop to think that just because you can do something doesn’t necessarily mean you should. So they’d happily wandered off down the road paved with good intentions and grant cheques, sciencing as hard as they could. They’d isolated a gene known as K307B they thought acted as a blood coagulant stimulator, and spliced it into a strand of vampire DNA they’d acquired as a result of Flynn and the boys’ expedition to Turkey. Then, ignoring every red flag, every internal ‘WOOP!WOOP!’ warning siren and that glimmer of common sense that kept pounding on the door of their consciousness shouting: “This is a really, really bad idea!”, they injected a willing volunteer with it.
It didn’t end well.
Within minutes the serum containing the mashed-up gene, which was meant to be a breakthrough cure for haemophilia, had sloshed its way up through the circulatory system and into the brain of the volunteer, simultaneously turning on every primeval ‘kill’ command at once. It also gave Lucy an unquenchable thirst for blood that would never, ever be sated.
Nobody knew where Lucy had gone once she’d torn the throat out of the nearest scientist and then jumped out of the window, landing feet first like a cat forty feet below. She’d let out a scream that announced her existence to the world, then vanished into the night.
The hell had begun.
The PowerPoint picture showing a screaming, slathering Lucy up close in the camera lens just before she jumped was one of the most disturbing images Flynn had ever seen. In the blurry, freeze-frame shot he had seen the bloodlust and madness in her eyes. And behind that madness the terror too, as the woman felt her last shred of humanity being obliterated. Colby felt sorry for the lass. Nobody should have to endure that.
“We didn’t think this would happen,” was the only excuse the one surviving scientist could come up with at the emergency COBRA meeting two days later. He’d wrung his hands, nervously cleaned his glasses and muttered some hollow apologies about what was a ‘salutary experience’. Sorry about that. They had people out looking. They never found her.
Lucy’s lineage had spawned a whole new generation. The gene had carried on mutating away merrily, turning those with the tainted blood not just into vampires, but into raving lunatics as well. Lunatics with super-human strength, speed, agility and an insatiable desire to feed constantly. The ‘off switch’ in their brain hadn’t just malfunctioned — it had disintegrated completely. So they’d gorge themselves, unable to stop until they slumped unconscious onto a heap of desecrated corpses and shredded body parts.
The next part of the presentation had made Flynn and the lads want to throw up. Lucy had started breeding. The first time was a vile, disturbingly bloody echo of a normal pregnancy — a process that turned her into a cross between an insectoid egg-laying machine and a very angry woman with appallingly bad parenting skills. Initially, Lucy was so confused that she ate the first batch of Younglings she produced, reabsorbing their toxins back into her own body. Slowly, she developed less cannibalistic tendencies as the tiny part of her brain that still worked reminded her that, in order to reproduce successfully, it might be advantageous to avoid snacking on your offspring. She let batch two live and develop into fully-grown Taints — the first generation of their kind.
The Old World vampires of the ‘Five Families’ had been furious. For centuries a relative peace had existed between the two species, again, largely unknown to the general populous. Now, thanks to mankind buggering about with genetics and generally screwing up in epic style, all bets were off. The Old World vamps had upped sticks and sodded off back to Europe, leaving the military and the Taints to battle it out on the blood-soaked, nighttime streets of London
And then, of course, just to add a little extra spice to the dish, there was Vlad.
Supposedly turned into pink mist when Gary Parks blew ten colours of crap out of both him and Tokat Castle a year earlier, the granddaddy of all vampires had in fact managed to avoid being obliterated by being remarkably quick on his feet for an old fella. That news came as a shock to Flynn and the lads. Yes, Yolanda had explained, he’d been seriously injured, but not, as they’d first thought, killed. After spending several weeks recuperating in the labyrinth of Tokat Castle, he had eventually managed to chew his way through enough local villagers to replenish his severely injured body with new cells, and then proceeded to snack his way across Europe. The Unit had tracked him. It wasn’t hard — they’d just followed the screams and the trail of dismembered body parts. Eventually he landed in Dover. The carnage he left behind in the Channel Tunnel took a week to clean up.
Now, after a meeting of minds and — somehow — bodies between Lucy and Vlad (which was a sex tape nobody wanted to see, and thankfully there was no PowerPoint slide to reinforce that particularly disturbing mental image), the second-generation Taints had a much more elaborate set of skills. Not only were they demented killing machines thanks to mummy, but daddy had also given them the ability to use tactics. Up until that point Taints were pretty moronic. They had one thing and one thing only on their minds, and that was the dinner gong. Once Vlad’s genes had blended with Lucy’s, the second generation Taints were intelligent enough to use some pretty advanced military tactics too.
Any questions?
Flynn and the lads had sat in silence, before Micky slowly raised a hand and asked, “Um, how do we kill ‘em?”
All of that was academic, though.
Right here, right now, in the winding, crumbling corridors of the kill house, if Colby really was facing a warm body, a real-life ‘Binky’ instead of Micky’s VR version, then he was in trouble. A shit-load of trouble…
He glanced around. The blood trailed off into a side room, like a grotesquely sticky trail of breadcrumbs. Colby had that twisted, knotted sensation in the pit of his stomach. Warner and Moore weren’t armed up for warm bodies. The M4 shotgun capsules they carried were full of coloured water, not the organophosphur compound that would send a Taint into a heel-drumming, party-popping frenzied death throw. This was meant to be a relatively safe environment, so live ammo wasn’t issued to the candidates.
Colby, however, never went anywhere without a full clip and one in the pipe. And the Blackhawk. Obviously.
Like Dorothy following the yellow brick road but minus the ruby slippers, he padded silently alongside the body-width smear of blood that led into a side room, his heart sinking further with every cat-like, crossover step. He kept the snout of the Glock up, ready and waiting to spit out a swarm of adapted hollowpoints packed full of organophosphur at the first bastard that moved. If it was human, it would cop a bullet wound accompanied by a pungent garlicky odour, which would probably disinfect the wound on contact. If it was a Taint, though, there’d be the whole blowing up shit with a side order of heel drumming and screaming, even if he only winged the bastard.
A mess on the floor made Colby stop in his tracks. “Damn…” He crouched and saw straight away that the mess was what was left of one of the newbies. Which one wasn’t clear on first inspection. There was very little that was still recognisable as human. It looked like an explosion in a butcher’s shop. Trails of intestines were laid out like strings of sausages, while all that remained of the man’s liver was a few tattered shreds clinging to a flack jacket that had been sliced into ribbons. Colby scanned the room for movement and pressed the squawk button on his radio. “Man down. Kill house is hot. Repeat, kill house is hot.”