Nanobite

By Neil McGowan

Port Seton.
A quiet town on the east coast of Scotland, not far from Edinburgh
But something is very wrong. A cyclist has gone missing. A woman is followed home from work. A house fire claims three lives. Two teenagers are found dead, their bodies mysteriously drained of blood.
Liam Baxter and Karen Nicholls start to unravel a complex web of horror with a genetics and bioweapons research facility at the centre of it. An experiment involving genetically engineered nano-technology has gone drastically wrong, turning all those who come into contact with it into modern day vampires. They need to stop them before it's too late. But for some, it may already be too late...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Neil McGowan
• Release date: Jan 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311645777

Neil McGowan

Neil is the author of several books in the horror genre. His first novel The Surgeon was described as 'gritty, fast-paced and nicely inventive.' The collection of horror shorts Don't Drink the Water also received critical acclaim, and his latest novel Nanobite has been called 'fang-tastic'. Neil also writes fantasy fiction for children. He grew up in Yorkshire and spent almost two decades travelling the world as an engineer. He is married with two children and now lives in Scotland, a place that inspires a lot of his writing.

Book preview

Chapter One

The day things started to go wrong began much like any other day. Birds trilled a welcome to the new dawn; the rain held off, at least for the moment, and a weak sun rose over the distant peaks of the Pentlands. It slowly burned the chill out of the air, raising the temperature enough for the early morning fog to melt away.

Lewis MacLeod clipped into his pedals at a few minutes past nine that morning. He’d planned a training ride that would push him up some pretty steep hills. He needed a serious workout - he had a big race coming up in a few weeks and he was seriously behind on his training schedule. A few hours of powering up and down hills would hopefully stretch his legs and increase his power output.

Half an hour of steady riding brought him to the foot of the Pentlands. Warmed up, he attacked the first slope with gusto, standing on the pedals and driving them round. When he reached the top, he turned and freewheeled back down, before attacking it again.

The first three reps went fine, with Lewis improving his time on each consecutive attempt. It was on the fourth attempt that things went wrong.

With a soft twang, one of the spokes in his front wheel snapped. Other factors conspired to create a disastrous chain of events from what, most of the time, would only be a minor problem.

When it snapped, Lewis was pushing as much power through the bike frame as he could, his weight thrown forwards over the front wheel to provide extra grip and traction. The combination of extra weight and flex created stresses that the wheel wasn’t designed - or capable of - handling. Lewis felt the bike’s steering response change even as he heard the spoke snap. Before he had a chance to respond, the wheel collapsed, Lewis’s forward momentum causing the wheel to fold almost in half.

The bike’s forward speed was checked as the forks dug into the ground and then snapped. Lewis, however, followed the laws of physics. With nothing to stop him, he was wrenched from the bike and thrown violently forwards. He just had time to think, oh shit! This is going to hurt! as he described an almost perfect arc before he hit the floor hard.

His right hand hit first, the rough tarmac shredding his glove. The impact snapped his scaphoid, pain shooting up his arm. His hip hit next, the road surface abrading the flesh as he skidding along. He cried out in pain as he slid off the road. He could see the massive oak tree coming towards him, but was helpless to change course. Then he slammed into the trunk and everything went dark.

***

The next ripple in the normality of the day was less dramatic but far more important. In the days to come, if people had the time for humour, they would have found it funny that their situation had been partly brought about by their national drink.

At a remote windswept research facility in the Scottish Borders, a hung-over young security guard yawned and belched, grimacing at the stale taste of whisky and sour vomit. His head was pounding.

Why oh why did we think it would be a good idea to put away the best part of a bottle of Glenkinchie? he thought, expecting his head to explode at any moment. His girlfriend Shona had received the bottle from a grateful client, and despite his protestations that he had to work the next day, she had opened it and poured him a shot. He’d stopped protesting after the third drink, when her hand had unzipped his fly and gripped his cock. The long slurpy blowjob that followed blew his mind and drove all thoughts of work from his mind.

Thomas was regretting the night’s indulgence at six o’clock that morning, however. After throwing up twice, he’d managed to dry swallow a couple of paracetamol. He skipped breakfast, on the grounds that he’d probably bring it straight back up again. With a longing glance at Shona, who was still wrapped in the duvet and snoring gently, he’d sighed and left for work, hoping that he wouldn’t be stopped on the way as he was probably still way over the limit.

He drove carefully to work in a cold sweat. He had to pull over twice in order to throw up. He could smell the sour tang of alcohol oozing from his pores by the time he reached GeneTech. Swiping his ID card opened the automatic barrier and allowed him access to the facility.

A quick check of the day’s duty roster gave him cause to relax. He’d been rostered for a roaming patrol. He should be walking the external perimeter of the facility, checking that all the doors to the various labs were closed and locked. The facility itself was almost empty at the moment, although it would begin to fill up soon as people started arriving for work.He was pretty sure that he could make a quick round of the building, cursorily checking a few doors at random and then get his head down in the security office for an hour. Who knew, a nap might lessen the sick feeling in his stomach. Dry swallowing more tablets, he took a slow walk around the offices, not bothering to check any doors after the first couple, before signing off the security checks in his usual scrawl.

He didn’t check the door to lab 3C; he was aware that it was unlocked until it was much too late.

***

Inside lab 3C, someone waited, listening as the guard made his rounds. The figure was poised to kill him if he entered the lab, although it was reluctant to do so. Not because it had any sense of morals; the figure was hoping to leave very soon and the longer it went undetected the better. Killing the guard would have narrowed the window for escape quite considerably.

After the hallway outside had been silent for a good thirty minutes, the shadowy figure opened the door slowly. A short, stealthy walk led past the security office, where Thomas was slumped back in a chair with his feet on the desk, snoring. Unaware of how close to death he had been, he continued slumbering, barely grunting as the console in front of him flashed red for a moment, announcing in vain that one of the exterior doors had been opened. The event was duly logged in the server records, but as no-one expected it to happen, it wasn’t discovered until it was much too late.

***

Lewis came round slowly. His first confused thoughts were of the bike - oh shit, I’d just put a new tyre on that wheel - before he began to realise his predicament.

No-one knew where he was. He lived alone, and as it was a Saturday he wouldn’t be missed from work for at least a couple of days. His wrist and arm felt swollen and numb, and his leg was burning with pain. Fumbling with his left hand - his good right hand hurt too much - he managed to undo the straps of his helmet and pull it off. The helmet broke in two as he removed it, a crumpled dent where he’d hit the tree causing the carbon shell to fracture and then snap. He grimaced. That would explain the sickening headache he had. Probably some degree of concussion. He tried to focus on his right hand, noticing with dismay that it was swollen and bent out of shape. An experimental wiggle of his fingers left him gasping in agony.

In an attempt to sit up more, he used his legs to push him upright, hoping to use the tree trunk as a support. Big mistake. His leg exploded with agony, as the two jagged edges of the fracture ground together. He was convinced that roughly a million fire ants were all biting away at the flayed flesh of his hip.

Groaning, he slumped back. Think! he told himself, trying to ignore the waves of nausea that rolled over him. He shifted his position experimentally, using only his good left leg. Another sickening wave of pain shot through his body, although not as excruciatingly as before. Panting, sweating from the effort of moving a mere three feet, he rested for a moment, closing his eyes.

When he opened them again, the sun was noticeably higher in the sky; he realised that he’d blacked out for some unspecified length of time. Checking his watch, he saw that it was a quarter of ten - he’d been unconscious for nearly an hour. Not good, he told himself. Definitely a concussion, broken wrist, broken leg. I need help, the sooner the better.

The digital display of his watch gave him an idea. His iPhone! It was fully charged when he’d set out and stashed in a well-padded case that was strapped securely to the bike. Of course, he’d have to get to the bike first, and then hope that he had a signal. He knew from experience that the reception round here was sporadic and inconsistent on a good day. He’d queried it with his provider, and been told that it was due to weather conditions, the terrain, blah blah blah; anything really, except the provider’s fault. Lewis had smiled and nodded at the time, unaware that in the future his life may depend on getting a signal.

Scanning the scrubby ground around him, he failed to spot the bike. He realised that the road itself was above the level of the surrounding woodlands. Built that way to allow rain to run off it and prevent it from flooding, the metalled surface was a good eighteen inches higher than its surroundings. Lewis guessed that if the bike had gone off the other side then it would be invisible to him from his current vantage point. He would have to make his way to the road and try to spot it from there. After all, he reasoned, it couldn’t have gone far. All he had to do was retrace the path of his crash - easy enough, seeing as he’d left a dirty great furrow in the mud - until he gained the road, and then look for the bike again.

Gritting his teeth against the pain he knew was coming, he carefully maneuvered himself onto his good side. Pain once again racked his body; but he ignored it as much as he could and slowly began to move towards the road, digging his good foot into the soft earth and using his left hand to inch himself along. Sweat was pouring off him and he was shivering uncontrollably by the time he’d crawled the five metres or so to the road. Gasping, his vision dimmed and he blacked out again.

This time, he was only out for five minutes. Trying to keep his battered body as still as possible, he turned his head to the right and frowned. No sign of the bike. He kept looking for a good minute before mentally slapping himself. Of course there was no bike. He’d been travelling in the opposite direction; he needed to look to his left.

He turned his head and spotted the wreck of his bike almost immediately. He smiled, felt for a second like punching the air in joy. Then his smile faded. The bike was a good fifteen metres away, in the gully that bordered that side of the road. Three times as far as he’d already had to crawl, and that had already sapped his strength. Cursing, he began to ease himself along the road as gently as possible. The going was a little easier, as he wasn’t constantly bumping into tree roots bisecting his path.

It still took him almost fifteen minutes to reach a point parallel to the bike. Another two minutes of agonising shuffling brought him to the edge of the road and into a position from which he was able to reach the pack velcroed to the frame. His fingers were trembling so badly that it took three attempts to unstrap it; then, for a moment he thought he would drop it into the grass. He shouted, Fuck! and jerked the precious pack towards him, heedless of the pain that exploded in his lower body. He sobbed with relief when it dropped to the road in front of him.

He used his teeth to unzip it and pulled out his phone. Putting it to one side, he pulled out a packet of painkillers and anti-inflammatories. The pain was very bad now, and his whole body was shaking as he popped the tablets out of their little plastic blisters. For a moment, he considered trying to reach the water bottle that was still gripped in its cage. Then he shook his head and dry swallowed them - obtaining the water bottle could wait for now. He turned his attention to the phone, checking it for any obvious damage. It appeared to be fine, and came to life when he hit the button. Plenty of battery power, but only a single bar of reception. It would have to be enough, he told himself.

He was about to dial when he heard something. Raising his head, he saw a figure coming towards him. Lewis began to smile. Thank God you’re here, he said in greeting as the figure came closer. I’ve had a bit of a prang - now there was an understatement - and I could use a little help. He held out his phone. Here, can you call for an ambulance?

The figure still hadn’t spoken. It came closer, and Lewis began to feel the first prickle of fear. He tried again. Hello? Can you hear me?

The man - Lewis could see that it was a male - walked closer until he was stopped next to Lewis. He knelt down, and Lewis’s first thought was, God, what’s wrong with his eyes? They were sunken and so bloodshot that they appeared to glow almost red.

The man reached out and traced his fingers through the blood that was still oozing from his torn hip. Lewis moaned in pain, then screamed as the man jabbed his finger directly into the open wound.

Aah, motherfucker! What the fuck you doing, that hurts. His voice trailed off as he watched the stranger raise the finger to his lips and lick the red stickiness from it.

The man paused for a second, as though he were savouring a fine wine. Then he nodded and said, Acceptable. His voice was slightly high-pitched and effeminate, not what Lewis had expected. There was a deadness to it that chilled Lewis. His next word - the last that Lewis would ever hear -unleashed the fear that he was struggling to keep under control. Lewis began to struggle, mindless of the pain.

The man said simply, Food.

As he leaned over, Lewis heard a faint mechanical whirring and began to scream as two metallic fangs began to extend. The stranger took his time, savouring Lewis’s terror, allowing Lewis to see the intricate markings on the fangs.

Then his head lunged forward and he tore Lewis’s throat open, glutting himself on the blood that pumped from the wound. Lewis’s leg drummed spasmodically on the ground, the pain in his hip as nothing to the monstrous agony in his neck. He could feel the fangs inside him, draining his lifeblood.

His blood pressure dropped enough to send his heart into arrhythmic spasms. He convulsed, still all too aware of the invasive fangs. In the last few moments of his life, he could feel a numbing coldness spreading from the wound. Then his heart gave up its unequal struggle to keep him alive and simply stopped. Lewis died.

Chapter Two

FOUR DAYS EARLIER...

Sir James Campbell drummed his fingers impatiently on the mahogany topped desk. The panoramic picture window that dominated one wall of his office here at GeneTech was ignored in favour of the phone sitting mutely in front of him. The view over the Pentlands, breath-taking in its beauty, may as well not exist for all the interest Sir James paid to it.

His office was neat, spartan almost. No pictures adorned the wall; no bookshelves filled with the latest texts on genetic and nanoscopic technologies were on display. His desk was bare apart from the single telephone. A plain door in one wall led into a private area containing a shower and a wardrobe. Sir James had managed to cram a small cot in there as well; now, as often as not, he took what little sleep he could get at work, rather than face the journey to his Edinburgh home.

Sir James was sixty three and the sole director of GeneTech. He’d built the company up from nothing by always being one step ahead of current trends. When he’d started, genetic modification was a pipe-dream for most other labs - the costs involved were astronomical. Sir James had managed to persuade the then-government to put up a substantial chunk of the necessary funding by promising rapid development of new medicines to target cancers and other genetic diseases.

Sir James had made his pitch with calmness and certainty, backed up with detailed reports and projections. It had worked, and when he left the meeting GeneTech - which was currently operating from a disused school science lab on a shoestring budget - had an operating capital of over thirty million pounds, an enormous sum for the early seventies.

Sir James - then just plain old James, of course - was jubilant. Oh, he was passionate about his work, all right. He truly believed that he could deliver on the promises he’d made; and his first move was to employ the most brilliant scientists in the country by the simple expedient of offering them a salary and research facility that was far higher and better equipped than anything they were currently used to.

Sir James had spent almost all of his budget on staff and facilities. If his gamble didn’t pay off, there would be no funding next year.

It had. Within eight months, GeneTech was developing a new type of treatment for Cystic Fibrosis, using a crude but effective retrovirus to deliver genetically modified stem cells that repaired some of the damage done to a sufferer’s lungs. It wasn’t a cure, not as yet; but with time, GeneTech were hopeful that refinements in the field of DNA manipulation would lead to a way of repairing the damaged gene responsible for the condition.

On the strength of that success, Sir James had had no problems renewing his funding. A means of reducing organ transplant rejection via genetic modification was the next big breakthrough. By now, less than three years after he’d founded it, GeneTech was worth over a hundred million US dollars. Sir James had become a multi-millionaire at the age of twenty six. Two years later, he’d married his long-time girlfriend. Siobhan Walker became Siobhan Campbell, and Sir James was sure that he was the happiest man alive. He had it all - health, wealth, fame, a beautiful bride. What more could a person want, he wondered.

It transpired that Siobhan wanted - not more, exactly, but something else. Specifically, a family. Sir James was happiest when his wife was happy, so they began trying for a baby.

It wasn’t to be. After almost a year of trying and an exhaustive battery of tests the result came back that they both dreaded. Siobhan was infertile. The news was a devastating blow to both of them.

Sir James - he had received his knighthood by then - had thrown himself into work, turning the considerable might of GeneTech’s resources at the problem of human infertility. He built upon the work already being pioneered on IVF treatments, hoping to find a treatment to help his wife.

Siobhan had withdrawn into a deep depression. Coming from a large family herself - she had three sisters and two brothers, all of whom had families of their own - the thought that she was unable to have children was almost too much for her to bear. Obsessed with his work, convinced that he was close to a breakthrough, he failed to realise that Siobhan was becoming more and more distant. Signs of her impending mental breakdown went unrecognised as he was barely at home, preferring the busy environment of the lab to the solitude of his house, where Siobhan floated around restlessly from room to room in her gradual descent into insanity.

Until the night he came home, jubilant. His team had managed to isolate the gene that controlled fertility; another few months and they would have a viable treatment for infertility. Of course, Sir James was fully aware that it would be years before the clinical trials were completed and his wonder drug could be used. He also knew that he had no intention of waiting; he intended to give Siobhan the ability to have children back.

He found her in the bedroom, hanging from the light fitting. For a moment, while his mind was trying to grasp her death, he saw her - really saw her - for the first time in months. God, she was thin; when did she lose all that weight? he wondered. The sight of her hanging there - her tongue purple and swollen and protruding, her face flushed - was etched indelibly on his mind. She’d soiled herself in death, and the stench of shit permeated the room.

He’d crossed the room in a single stride, crying her name. Wrapping his arms around her, heedless of the mess, he’d lifted her gently. The noose - she’d fashioned it from the belt of one of his robes - had come free from the light with absurd ease. Laying her gently on the bed, he began to weep. Cradling her in his arms, he sobbed her name, kissing her cold face as though he could breathe life and warmth back into it.

The cook had found him like that nearly two hours later, still holding her tight and rubbing her hands ceaselessly. Sir James had been crooning her name, over and over. The cook took one look and went back downstairs, ashamed of intruding on his employer’s grief. With a shaking hand, he’d telephoned for Sir James’s private physician.

Doctor Alan MacArthur had arrived twenty minutes later and listened to the cook’s story. With a heavy heart, he’d made his way upstairs slowly, feeling every one of his sixty years. He entered the room gently, hating what he had to do. Sir James appeared not to notice him; he was busy telling Siobhan that it was all better now, he’d found a way of helping her.

Alan took a seat on the bed nest to them. James? he said gently. Sir James ignored him. Alan tried again. James? You need to let me help you now, and help Siobhan.

Sir James looked up and his eyes lost their faraway look. They were red-rimmed and swollen, to be sure, but they focused on Alan at last.

She’s dead, Alan.

Alan sighed and nodded. "Aye, that she is James. You need to let me take care of her now. Perhaps it would be best if you went