Free dEaDINBURGH: Origins (Din Eidyn Corpus Book 3) by Mark Wilson Page A

a second passes and I follow James into the Kirk.
     
    As soon as we enter Spike hands the infant to a man with a toddler who looks more able with children than we are. None of us have kids and plan to keep it that way. We slip into automatic pilot once again and begin fortifying the main chapel doors. The gates can wait until the building is secure.
    James takes three people and the man in black, who is clearly ex-military, to the rear of the church to secure any exits whilst Spike and I organise the people inside and begin issuing orders. A small group stare at Spike, trying to shake themselves from an already bizarre situation; he slaps one of them hard, drilling the man to his knees.
    “Take photographs later. Move your arses,” Spike yells.
      The rest get over their confused fascination quickly.
    As Spike starts directing his new friends in dragging the heavy wooden pews to the main and side doors, I risk a step outside to determine whether getting that main gate closed is an option or not. With the perimeter surrounded by tall iron fences, the closed gates will seal the Kirk in and will be an invaluable barrier. From what we’ve seen so far, the infected don’t appear to have much in the way of physical coordination outside of running, biting and grabbing. Climbing fences seems like it would be beyond them, but really, who knows?
    After a second or two of holding my ear to the wooden door, I decide that either the courtyard is empty or the wood’s too thick to hear through and begin to unfasten the heavy latch on the door. Immediately I feel the weight of more than one person pushing the door inwards and roar for help. Three terrified-looking men and two women rush towards the large door and jam their shoulders up against it. Together we close the gap over, but not before a hand with torn and bloodied fingers slips through. The hand is crushed between the door and its frame without hesitation and severed fingers flop to the red carpet inside the church.
    One of the women, a dark-haired girl, slips around me and pulls the heavy latch back into place. I feel fluid warmth spill onto my ankles and panic inwardly that I’ve somehow been bitten. I look down and see one of the men who helped push the door closed on his knees, retching his dinner out onto the white marble floor, luxurious rug and the boots of one Captain Cameron Shephard.
    I pat him hard a couple of times on the back as he empties his stomach.
    He spits a last blob of congealed matter out with force and looks up at me.
    “Fuck. Sorry, mate.” His voice is acid-hoarse.
    I give him a final pat, on the shoulder this time.
    “No bother, son. Right, up ye get.”
    I direct the group to merge with Spike’s team and we secure all three of the front doors with a solid lattice of wood from complete and broken pews. The pews are heavy, so with the combined weight and the solid doors there’s little chance of unarmed people, no matter how great in number, coming through.
    Walking to the rear of the Kirk, I call out for James.
    “How’s thing’s, Jimmy?”
    Some grunting sounds emerge from the shadows, but they sound like human exertion, not the primal sounds growing in volume from the front entrance.
    “Jimmy.” I shout this time.
    “Aye,” he roars back at me. “Secure.”
     
    Seated on a white wooden pew, near the altar, I take a moment to process the last half an hour of my life.
    Bites. A pathogen. Insanely quick transmission and incubation time. Violence, madness. I mentally go through the list of obvious causes. The list is short and I keep coming back to bioweapon . Letting out a long sigh filled with questions and doubts, I take in a lungful of purpose and confidence just as James reappears with the priest-soldier by his side.
    He lays a hand on my shoulder.
    “You doing aright, pal?” His voice is rough. He’s definitely a soldier of some description: his posture, facial expressions and bearing tell me this. Sitting back a little more