Last but not least, I struggled my pack on, took one last look at the other men in the tent, and hobbled outside. A t-shirt, BDU pants, boots, then my sidearm. I pinched the bridge of my nose, willing the pain to stop, and then got dressed. When I stood up, my head began to pound even harder. The tablets would take down the fever, keep my lungs from filling up, help the cough, and manage some of the pain. The cocktail of tablets were all anyone had to fight HEX, the common name of the H5N1-X virus: a lab-made super-flu unleashed on the world as a weapon of war. My hands were shaking with fever as I pulled up my ration of medications and fumbled them out into my palm, clenching my teeth while I tried not to drop them everywhere. But as Baldrick from Black Adder would say: “I have a cunning plan.”Īssuming I could find the strength to get my ass out of bed. If I did nothing, if I followed orders and stayed in bed to die, that was all I had to look forward to. I’d watched people cough until the veins in their eyes ruptured and they began to cry blood. Day Three was the worst day, because you were still aware of everything that was happening to your body. The first day hits you like a train, and five days later, you’re toast. When I rolled up a sleeve and looked down at the inside of my arm, the smooth tan skin I was used to seeing was mottled with a spreading red rash.

I was twenty-seven, fit despite my chronic gaming habit, used to bouncing around the world with a pack and rifle. My conscript’s uniform only had three badges on it: my platoon, my rank – Private – and my name badge, which was just my surname, ‘Park’. My tent bunked eleven other soldiers, all infected, all of us in the prime of our lives. My joints felt like angry dwarves had been pounding them with hammers while I slept… and it was only my second day of being sick. The smell made my throat burn raw, and I shook with unfamiliar weakness. Still wheezing, I fumbled across for the box of bleach wipes next to my Army cot and used them to clean up my face and hands. Everyone here was already sicker than me, moaning and rattling in their sleep. There were no nurses in our quarantine tent. I was now at Stage Two of the HEX virus – in three days’ time, I’d be dead. Not just terror of the present: terror of the future that awaited me. My lungs were burning by the time I pitched back onto my pillows, exhausted and shaking with lingering terror. Strangling, eyes throbbing from the pressure in my head, I coughed and heaved and flailed around, unable to see anything but dancing black and white spots. The coughing fit kicked me upright before I was even awake. Pre-order Dragon Seed here: Amazon (All Stores) Dragon Seed is being released on the 28th February – that means it’s preview time!

Blood hound by james osiris baldwin