Undead Rain (Book 3): Lightning (Fighting the Living Dead) (10 page)

I
told
them to take us over the building to where the fight was raging. The situation on the ground had gotten worse. Bodies of soldiers and zombies were strewn everywhere. It was obvious that some of the soldiers had been shot by their colleagues, their blood staining the grass around them.

The ones that had been bitten were staggering toward the gate and into the woods, muttering the words, “Leave me alone” as the virus combined with the vaccine in their blood and compelled them to seek a quiet place to turn into hybrids.

Still more zombies were coming out of the building. There was such chaos in the camp that the creatures were able to get outside through the doorway without even being shot at.

In the mass of olive-green uniforms and white lab coats, it was easy to spot Sam, Jax, Tanya, and Doctor Colbert. They were fleeing the fight, heading for the gate.

“See those people?” I said to the pilot, the Desert Eagle still pointed at his head. “We’re going to go down there and pick them up.”

He shook his head. “There’s nowhere to land down there.”

I pointed at a small area near the parking lot. If we got there quickly enough, we would be there before my friends made it out of the gate. “There,” I said. “Land there.”

“There are zombies everywhere,” the co-pilot protested.

“We only need a few seconds,” I said. “Now do it, or I will shoot both of you. Believe me, I’ve got nothing to lose.”

They must have detected the desperation in my voice, because they took the Chinook down to the exact spot I had indicated.

The helicopter’s side door was located just behind the cockpit, so I could open it while still keeping the pilot in my sights. I was never going to shoot him or the co-pilot, but they didn’t know that, and I probably seemed crazy to them, which was enough to make them comply.

I opened the door and shouted, “Sam! Tanya!”

They saw me and changed the trajectory of their run, heading for the helicopter at full speed.

A zombie that had been in the area when we landed came around the side of the Chinook, moaning at me, his arms outstretched. I used the Desert Eagle to dispatch him, aiming between his eyes and pulling the trigger. The gun recoiled in my hand like a striking snake. The zombie fell to the ground and lay there, unmoving.

The sound of the gun spooked the pilot. He began to lift us back into the air. I whirled on him, pointing the gun at his face. “Don’t you fucking take off until I tell you.”

He removed his hands from the controls as if they were suddenly hot. “Okay, just stay calm.”

I noticed two hybrids break from the pack of shambling zombies and begin to chase Doctor Colbert and Jax. Doctor Colbert was the slowest runner, and Jax was hanging back to encourage her to move faster.

The hybrids were both ex-security guards at the facility, dressed in dark uniform, but both without their caps. They had once been a dark-haired woman, and a bald man with a moustache and beard. Now, they were monsters. They fixed on Doctor Colbert like a pair of lions selecting the slowest gazelle from the pack.

I knew there was no point in shouting at Doctor Colbert to run faster; she already looked like she was about to collapse. She was sucking in air like crazy, her face red and sweaty. Her legs were weak and unable to keep the pace Jax had set.

Tanya reached the Chinook and ran in through the door, closely followed by Sam. “Watch the pilots,” I said. “Don’t let them take us up.”

I ran out of the chopper, the Desert Eagle in both hands like I had seen on cop shows. But I was no cop, and this wasn’t television. I didn’t dare fire while Jax and Doctor Colbert were in the way.

But if I didn’t shoot, the hybrids would definitely catch them. Even now, they were only ten feet behind their prey. “Get down!” I shouted.

Jax looked at me as if I had gone crazy. She knew they were being chased, so why would they stop?

“Trust me and get down,” I said, trying to hold the gun steady.

For a moment, I thought Jax was going to ignore me and keep on running, only to be brought down by the hybrids. But she must have decided to trust me because she grabbed Doctor Colbert and pulled her to the ground. Unable to slow their momentum, they crashed and rolled in the dirt.

I fired my first shot, hitting the bearded hybrid in the chest. Unlike zombies, hybrids were alive, so a shot that could kill a living person would kill a hybrid. The bullet stopped this one dead in its tracks.

Jerking the gun sights to aim at the other hybrid, I pulled the trigger just as the creature reached Doctor Colbert. Its head was flung back as the bullet tore into its skull.

Jax scrambled to her feet, pulling a huffing and puffing Doctor Colbert along by her arm. When they reached me, Jax whispered, “Thank you.”

We got on board the Chinook and I told the pilot to take off.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

I grinned. “Have you ever heard of a place called Apocalypse Island?”

“No.” He looked at me as if I had asked him to fly us to Middle Earth.

“It’s not on your maps,” Sam said. “I’ll give you the coordinates.” As he stepped past me to talk to the pilots, he put a hand on my shoulder. “Good work, man.”

I nodded and went back to the seating area where the others were recovering from their ordeal.

“I knew you’d come for us,” Tanya said. “Even though we only had a few hours left, I knew you’d try to rescue us.”

“It’s like Sam said in the lab,” Jax said, “You’re an optimist, Alex. You don’t give up.”

I didn’t mention the fact that I had been about to take my own life when I had seen an opportunity to get into the compound and seized it. Maybe I would never tell anyone that, not even Lucy.

I took a seat next to Jax and said, “Thanks for trusting me.”

She smiled. “Thanks for saving my life.”

Her face was drawn into a grimace of pain, the skin beneath her eyes dark and blotchy.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

She nodded and gave me a tight-lipped smile. “I will be. Once I get the antivirus. The stomach pain is still there, and I’ve been having… strange thoughts.”

“Strange thoughts?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We’re on our way back to the island. Everything will be fine.”

I smiled at her but I wasn’t going to relax until we’d all been injected with the antivirus. My optimism only went so far.

Only when the antivirus was pumping through our veins would this nightmare be over.

A
pocalypse Island looked
different from the air. I had gone up to the cockpit, impatient to get to the island, and unable to sit on the seats because I was full of adrenaline. Through the windshield, I saw the island, sitting solidly in a rough sea beneath the sun.

When we had approached it in the boats, it had seemed a dangerous place, surrounded by lethal spurs of rock that would tear up any boat that came too close. The cliffs had looked daunting and impenetrable.

From the air, Apocalypse Island looked neat and green, the woods covering almost the entire area except for the central grassland where Site Alpha One stood. From up here, you would never guess that zombies and hybrids lurked in those woods.

Sam pointed out the area where the two Chinooks sat by the hangar. One of those choppers was supposed to come and collect us from Site Alpha Two tomorrow. It would have been much too late by then.

“Take her down over there, man,” Sam told the pilot.

We descended gently, the rotors kicking up dust and flattening the surrounding grass as the pilot took us down. I opened the side door. Doctor Colbert and Jax climbed out, followed by Tanya and myself. I heard Sam say to the pilot, “Remember, man, this place doesn’t exist. You were never here,” before he climbed out to join us.

The Chinook took to the sky, turned toward the mainland, and flew out of sight. I wondered what the pilot and co-pilot were going to tell their superiors when they returned. I was sure they’d come up with a plausible story that didn’t involve being hijacked and forced to fly to a secret island.

The hangar door opened and Hart came walking out with a handful of his men. He didn’t seem surprised to see us at all. He had told me before we’d left here that he thought we were resourceful. Our presence here now simply proved him right.

“Alex,” he said, standing with his hands on his hips. “You’re early.”

“We have the H1NZ1,” I said, handing him the backpack. “The scientists need to work on the antivirus right now. We don’t have much time.”

Doctor Colbert stepped forward and explained that we only had a few hours left. She volunteered to help the scientists, some of whom she knew, to produce the antivirus.

“You’ll have to be isolated,” Hart told us. “It’s purely a precaution. Now that we know the real speed at which the pure virus works, we can’t take any chances. We’ll have the antivirus ready in an hour, so you won’t be waiting long.”

We were taken to the rooms downstairs and locked in. I paced around my room, but I didn’t feel anywhere near the level of anxiety I had felt the last time I was in here. Then, I had thought that I had nothing more than a slim chance of saving Lucy. Now, she was hours away from a cure.

I sat in one of the chairs and folded my arms, letting my chin rest on my chest as I closed my eyes. I was tired. Stress had built up inside me over the past couple of days and now that I had a chance to relax, my mind and body seized that opportunity by making me sleepy. My eyelids felt too heavy to keep open. My arms and legs felt as if they were made of lead and moving them was too much effort. The sound of my own heavy breathing and footsteps in the corridor outside the door were all I could hear, and those sounds seemed to fade into the distance as I fell asleep.

A
loud clanging
alarm woke me. I opened my eyes and pushed the chair back from the table. Through the panel of frosted glass in the door, I could see shadows of people running in the corridor, their boots drumming on the floor.

The door burst open suddenly, and three guards came in with rifles leveled at me.

Surprised, I raised my hands. “What’s going on?”

Hart entered the room, accompanied by the same scientist who had injected me with the pure virus.

“He looks okay, sir,” one of the guards said.

“Yes, I can see that,” Hart replied tersely. He looked angry and drained.

“What’s happening?” I asked him. Outside the door, guards were still running along the corridor, weapons in their hands.

“Sit down,” he said, “We need to inject you immediately.”

The scientist came forward with a syringe of clear liquid. I sat in the chair while he injected me. The needle stung as it pierced the skin of my shoulder at the same spot where they had injected me with the virus.

“You’re now fully vaccinated,” Hart said, waving the others out of the room. “That antivirus will combine with the vaccine in your blood and halt the transformation you would have gone through. You can’t be turned now, no matter what happens. If you ever get bitten, you need not fear about turning into a monster.”

“What about Lucy?” I asked.

“She’ll be fine. We’ve administered the antivirus. It’s just a matter of time before she regains consciousness and awareness. It’s the same for Kate, my wife. I owe you a great deal of thanks, Alex.”

“What’s happening out there?” I asked, pointing to the corridor beyond the door.

He paused for a beat before telling me, “I’m afraid we didn’t get the antivirus to one of your friends in time. For some reason, she reacted to the pure strain of the virus faster than the rest of you.”

“Jax,” I said.

“Yes,” Hart said.

“What happened?”

“She’s killed three of my men,” he said. “Ripped out their spines. And she’s escaped the facility. We have teams out in the woods hunting her down.”

I couldn’t believe it. My brain could hardly comprehend that Jax was a monster like Vess. This had to be a mistake. Surely Jax must be sitting in a room just like this one farther along the corridor. Something else had killed those men. Not Jax.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Hart said, probably guessing my thoughts from the look of disbelief that must be on my face. “I’ll leave you alone for a while so you can come to terms with it.”

“No,” I said. I couldn’t bear to be left alone any longer. “I want to see Lucy. Right now.”

I
spent
the next four hours sitting at Lucy’s bedside in the hospital room, watching her gradually awaken. The first thing that changed was her position. She had been curled up in the fetal position when I’d first entered the room, but she gradually straightened her body beneath the covers. Her breathing, which had been ragged, slowed to a normal pace. By the third hour, she looked as if she was simply lying there taking a nap. There were no outward signs of the battle raging inside her body between the virus and the antivirus.

While I waited for Lucy to wake up, I thought about Jax. In the short time I had known her, she had been a good friend. We had talked about the world before the apocalypse, and she had told me about her fears for her boyfriend’s safety. She had shown me the engagement ring he had given her, and told me that she regretted not accepting his proposal. Her experience had highlighted a simple truth for me: time is precious.

Now, Jax’s time was done. She had become a monster, and all of the thoughts, hopes, and dreams that made Jax the person she was were gone. If Hart’s men found her in the woods and killed her, they would be doing her a favor; Jax had never wanted to be a monster. The old Jax, the woman I had spent time with, would be appalled if she knew she would murder at least three innocent people someday, ripping out their spines as Vess had done to Johnny.

I wondered how Sam and Tanya were taking the news of Jax’s transformation into a monster and escape into the woods. They had known her for a long time. I guessed it was hitting them hard.

Lucy opened her eyes and blinked at the overhead lights. She turned her head slowly to face me. “Alex?”

I grinned at her and nodded, unable to speak because I knew that if I did, I would start to cry. While sitting here waiting, I had feared that when Lucy finally opened her eyes, they would be yellow zombie eyes, staring at me with malevolence. I had been afraid that the antivirus might not work. But her eyes were the same clear blue they had always been. I let out a sigh of relief.

“You saved me,” she whispered.

I spread my hands. “I can’t deny it.”

She laughed and tried to sit up. But the effort was too much for her, so she sank back down onto the pillows.

“Take it easy,” I said. “The doctors say it will take a few days to recover fully. You’ve been through a lot.”

“Not really. I’ve just been sleeping.” She looked closely at my face. “But you’ve been through a lot. I can tell by looking at you.”

“Do I really look that bad?”

She shook her head. “It’s not that. You look…stronger somehow. But as if you had to go through a lot to gain that strength.”

I shrugged. Nobody could be a survivor in a zombie apocalypse and not be changed in some way.

Lucy looked around the room. “Alex, where are we?”

“Apocalypse Island,” I said.

She frowned with confusion. “Where?”

I laughed. “I’ll tell you all about it later. In fact, I’ll write it all down in a journal like I did before.”

Lucy nodded, her blue eyes wandering around the room.

“So I just have one question,” I said.

She nodded. “I know what it is. Why did I leave you at the marina?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“After you went ashore, I refueled the boat and waited on the jetty. It was so foggy I couldn’t see anything but I could hear sounds all around the marina, splashes and voices. I had no idea how long you were going to be but I felt nervous and vulnerable standing there on the jetty in the fog.

“You said you were going to get a rowboat, so I untied
The Big Easy
and took her out into deeper water. I didn’t want anyone running out of that fog and boarding her and since you were getting a rowboat anyway, it wouldn’t be a problem for you to row a few more feet to reach the
Easy
. I was no more than twenty feet from the end of the jetty.”

“That sounds sensible,” I said. I had told Lucy at the time that I was going to find a rowboat but when I was trying to get a boat into the water, feral survivors had attacked me and that was when I discovered that Lucy was gone.

Lucy nodded. “I stood on the deck watching the marina for any movement but the fog was too thick so I listened for the sound of oars in the water. I didn’t think you’d be gone for so long.”

“I had some trouble,” I said. “I heard voices and had to hide in the marine shop for a while.”

“When you didn’t come back, I started to get even more worried. I wondered what I was going to do if you never came back. How long could I wait here? Once the fog lifted,
The Big Easy
would be visible to the soldiers in the area. I would have to go out deeper and use the binoculars to watch the marina.” She looked into my eyes. “I was never going to abandon you, Alex.”

“I know that.” I took her hand in mine. “I was worried that you’d been captured by the army or attacked by pirates. I had no idea how to find you.”

“I decided to move out into deeper water so I started the engine and sailed out to a spot where I could drop anchor and wait. But then I heard another boat approaching. I panicked. I had to get out of there. Before I could get moving, an army boat came out of the fog and drew up alongside the
Easy
. It was a small boat, probably quite fast, and it was painted army green. There were eight soldiers onboard and they were all pointing their guns at me.

“I didn’t have time to think what to do. Three of the soldiers came onboard and ordered me off the bridge. I was led at gunpoint to the aft deck and told to stay there. One of the soldiers, a woman named Meyers, sat with me while the other two took control of the
Easy
and followed the army boat along the coast.

“I asked Meyers what was going on and she told me they were going to send me to a Survivors Camp where I’d be safe. I just kept wondering what was going to happen when you returned to find that I was gone. I started to formulate a plan of escape. I even considered jumping overboard but we were in very deep water by now and even if I made it to shore, my chances of getting back to Swansea without any weapons were slim. So I decided to sit tight until a better opportunity presented itself.

“We must have been sailing for about an hour when they cut the engine, dropped anchor, and transferred me to the smaller green boat. The fog had lifted now and I could see a marina that looked like it had been taken over by the army. All the boats moored there were painted in military green. The civilian boats that must have previously used the marina had been anchored in deeper water, where the
Easy
was now anchored.

“They took me ashore and made me wait in a tent while they tried to find out when the next camp truck was passing this way. It sounded like they had trucks travelling around each military camp tasked with picking up survivors to take to the Survivors Camps. Someone said that there was a truck delivering “the vaccine” to the nearest Survivors Camp, so I could ride along. They bundled me into the back of an army truck, one of the ones with a canvas top. There were stacks of cardboard boxes in there, which I assumed held the vaccine the soldiers had been talking about.

“Meyer got into the back with me and sat by the tailgate, watching the landscape roll by as we drove along a country road. I asked her what the soldiers had meant when they’d said the truck was delivering a vaccine. Was there now a vaccine against being bitten? She said there was, and it was being delivered to all the soldiers.

“I told her that I thought that was unfair. Why not give the vaccine to everyone? She just shrugged and continued looking out at the fields and trees. Meyer’s lack of concern for civilians made me angry, and my anger spurred me into trying to escape. I could easily jump over the tailgate onto the road. If I ran fast enough, I should be able to reach the woods before they managed to shoot me.

“But before I left the truck, I wanted to get some of the vaccine from the boxes. I thought about just grabbing a box and running with it but they were too big for that so I tore a hole in a box and took a handful of syringes out. They were full of an amber liquid and the needles had plastic caps over them for safety.

“Meyer saw me and came over, demanding that I put the syringes back. She raised her gun and I swatted it out of the way. She fired but the bullets went up through the canvas roof. I ran for the tailgate and swung myself over it.

“When I hit the road, the air was knocked out of my lungs and I dropped all but one of the syringes. I was okay apart from a few scratches but I didn’t have time to pick up the syringes of vaccine I’d dropped.

“The driver must have heard the shots because the truck came to a stop. I ran for the woods. They fired a few shots at me but I made it into the trees without being hit. They didn’t follow me.

“I found a heavy branch that I could use as a weapon if I ran into any zombies in the woods. I put the syringe into my pocket and followed the direction of the road back to the army marina. I needed to get back onboard
The Big Easy
and sail back to Swansea to find you.

“When I got to the marina, there was a heated discussion going in one of the tents. Apparently, the vaccine was faulty. It stopped someone from becoming a zombie but only for four days. After that, they became something much worse. After hearing that, I decided not to vaccinate myself as I had planned to do when I got back to the
Easy
. If it was faulty, what was the point?

“So I moved along the coast, sticking to the trees, until I found a small rowboat. I waited until nightfall and then I rowed out to where they had anchored the
Easy
. I got the engines started and sailed out of there unchallenged. It seemed the army were using all their resources to guard the marina from inland attacks by zombies and they weren’t watching the water at all.

“I got back to Swansea but there was no sign of you. I spent a couple of days watching the marina through the binoculars, making sure I was in deep enough water that I could make a run for it if I saw any army boats. I put the vaccine syringe on a shelf in the storeroom, thinking we’d never need it since it was faulty, but hanging onto it anyway, just in case.

“I sailed north along the coast, scanning the beaches with the binoculars in the hopes of finding you. Eventually, I didn’t know what else to do so I did nothing. I just waited on the waves, hoping that somehow you’d find me.

“Then, one evening, I was listening to the radio and I heard someone talking about the zombies only being here in Britain. They said survivors should sail to mainland Europe. And then I heard your voice. I could hardly believe it. I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. You told me to meet you at the lighthouse in three days’ time so I sailed south of that area. I didn’t want to wait for you there…I still hate that place.”

I squeezed her hand. “Me too,” I said.

“What happened next was a really stupid move on my part,” she said. “I waited for two days just south of the lighthouse near a village. I watched the village through the binoculars and the place seemed deserted. No people, no zombies…nothing. I assumed the army had cleared the place and taken all the villagers to a Survivors Camp. Every time I looked through the binoculars over those two days, there was no sign of life, and no sign of danger. Something there kept drawing my attention, though; a village store. It was sitting on the main street within easy reach of the little village harbor.

“And I got a crazy thought in my head. I was so looking forward to being reunited with you that I became fixated on the idea of getting a nice bottle of red wine from that store so that we could celebrate. That thought grew in my head until I couldn’t get rid of it. And it looked like there would be no risk in going to the village store.

“So, on the day we were supposed to meet, I decided to swim ashore and get a bottle of wine. I know it sounds crazy, but the next thing I knew, I was taking the
Easy
in to the little harbor. When she was moored, I took a baseball bat just in case and walked up the steep road that led to the main street.

“The shop was unlocked, so I went inside. There was a foul smell in there but I wasn’t sure if it was meat products that had gone bad or the smell of a zombie. I went quickly to the wine and selected a bottle. Why I didn’t take an armful I don’t know, but my mind had become fixated on the idea of one bottle of red wine so that was all I took.

“When I turned to go back to the door, I was attacked. I don’t know how it had moved so quietly but there was a zombie right in front of me. I think it had been the shopkeeper. He lunged as I was fumbling with my bat. I managed to shove the bat between his legs, tripping him, but as he went down he bit my right thigh. I’d never felt any pain like it. I cried out and brought the bat down on his skull. Without even making sure he was destroyed, I staggered out onto the road and down to the harbor, still clutching the bottle of wine.

“I got to the
Easy
and untied her but the pain in my right thigh was spreading through my entire leg. I remembered how fast we had seen some people turn and I panicked. I didn’t want to be a zombie. I started the engine, got the
Easy
on course for the lighthouse and tied the wheel with a piece of cord. I couldn’t be sure she was going to reach you but it was the only chance I had.

“I wrote you a note, telling you the time I’d been bitten. That way, you’d know when I was going to turn, assuming you knew about the faulty vaccine and the four days it took to turn. I went down to the storeroom and injected myself. I only wrote you that note so that you’d know when to kill me. I didn’t think you’d use the information to save me.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “Thank you, Alex.”

I put my arms around her and she cried against my shoulder.

I held her tight and felt hot, stinging tears running down my cheeks.