Mark Morris - Dead Island

They disembarked, each of them carrying a weapon and a backpack of provisions. She, Sam, Logan and Xian Mei still had the assault rifles they had liberated from the police station and in whose use they had become reasonably proficient over the past couple of days. The younger girls, Jin and Yerema, each carried Smith and Wesson semi-automatic pistols. Since her terrible ordeal in the police station, Jin had abandoned her pacifist principles and seemed to have accepted that the only way she would survive was to arm herself and be prepared to fight. Although Purna was glad the girl’s attitude had changed, she wouldn’t have wished the cause of it on her worst enemy, and even now she kept going over and over the episode in her mind, wishing she had made better decisions.

Once they were ashore, Mowen raised a hand in farewell. ‘I go now.’

Logan stepped forward and shook the trader’s hand. ‘Take it easy, man,’ he said. ‘Thanks for everything.’

Mowen nodded, implacable as ever, his eyes still hidden behind his shades. ‘Good luck,’ he said.

‘You too,’ said Sam, also shaking Mowen’s hand, while Xian Mei, Jin and Yerema smiled and nodded in agreement. Purna, however, simply gave a single curt nod, acknowledging Mowen’s help, but knowing that the relationship between themselves and the trader was fragile and temporary at best. It was based — on Mowen’s part — not on mutual respect and a genuine willingness to help, but purely on monetary gain.

They watched Mowen’s boat chug slowly away, then they turned back to the matter at hand. Purna led the way, as she so often did, as they trudged towards the gently sloping cliff face and began to climb.

It was neither a long nor particularly arduous journey to the summit, but the heat of the sun and the weight of their backpacks were more than enough to sap their strength. By the time they reached the plateau they were each panting and sweating and grateful for a drink. As they sipped water and looked through the buzzing electric fence at the drearily ominous prison building across the two-hundred-metre square expanse of a flat and dusty exercise yard, those infected who had been milling outside began — based on their physical ability — to shamble or run or crawl towards them.

‘Here we go again,’ Sam said almost wearily and unshouldered his rifle. At the same moment the low humming of the electric fence ceased.

‘White’s turned it off. That gives us an hour,’ said Purna.

‘How did he know we were here?’ asked Jin.

Purna pointed silently up at one of many CCTV cameras mounted high enough on the prison walls that they couldn’t be damaged or disabled. A second later the first of the infected threw himself against the security fence with a metallic crash.

He was a big shaven-headed man with a rearing cobra tattoo on the side of his neck. Like most of the zombies here, he was wearing orange prison overalls. To everyone’s surprise it was Yerema who raised her pistol and shot the man in the head. He fell like a sack of cement, face turning slack and almost baby-like as the savagery abruptly went out of him.

‘You done that before?’ Purna asked, regarding the girl shrewdly.

Yerema shook her head, trying not to look shocked at her own actions. ‘No, but I knew that to survive I was going to have to kill. And I also knew that the more I put it off the harder it would be.’

Purna nodded in grim approval and tried not to flash a knowing look at Jin.

‘If it helps, try not to think of it as killing,’ said Sam. ‘Try to think of it as switching off a dangerous machine. Whoever that guy was, he died a while ago. All you’ve done is stopped the virus from using his body.’

Yerema nodded her thanks as more of the infected hurled themselves against the security fence. They rammed their faces between the bars, growling and snapping like vicious but frustrated guard dogs.

No one needed to be told that the creatures would have to be dealt with before the six of them could even think of climbing the fence into the prison. Like kids at a shooting gallery, they silently arranged themselves into a line, raised their guns and began to pick off the infected one by one.

There were around sixty of them, maybe more, but it was over in a matter of minutes. As soon as the last of the infected had fallen, Purna, Sam and the rest lowered their weapons and moved further along the fence, stopping at a spot far enough away from the carnage that they wouldn’t be trying to avoid landing in the spreading pool of blood when they climbed over.

Purna went first, scaling the fence with ease, then Sam and Logan gave the other three girls a leg up before tackling the barrier themselves. Both men gritted their teeth as the effort of climbing stretched and tensed the muscles in their arms and legs, making their various bites — Logan’s in his shoulder, Sam’s in his calf — throb with pain. However, each spurred on by the other’s determination, they eventually made it over.

As soon as they began to hurry across the open ground towards the prison building, a chorus of different sounds erupted into life. For one crazy moment Sam thought they had set off some kind of alarm, then he realized the noise was coming from them , and was the combined ringtones of their cell phones.

‘What the fuck?’ said Logan, looking down at his pocket as if a scorpion had just crawled out of it.

Purna, however, already had her cell phone in her hand. ‘Yep?’ she snapped without breaking stride.

The others could hear nothing but the crackle of white noise and the hint of a tinny voice.

‘OK, thanks,’ Purna said before breaking the connection and slipping the phone back into her pocket.

‘White?’ guessed Sam.

Purna nodded.

‘What did he say?’ Xian Mei asked.

‘He said to move to our left and that the first door we come to should be entrance number 4. Once we’re there he’ll unlock it for us.’

Sam glanced up and around. ‘I don’t like the thought of being watched,’ he said. ‘It gives me the creeps.’

‘If it makes our task easier then personally I’m all for it,’ said Purna.

They moved quickly across to the building and followed the line of the wall until they came to an alcove that resembled a short, high-sided alleyway. At the end of the alleyway was a grey metal door with a black number 4 stencilled on it, mounted above which was a security camera in a protective cage. As soon as they came within sight of the camera, a series of hefty chunking sounds suggested that several heavy-duty locks were being disengaged. With barely a glance at the overhead camera, Purna moved to the door, shoved down the handle and pushed.

It groaned open slowly and heavily like the door of a bank vault. Beyond was a short featureless corridor, the floor made of some black vinyl-like substance, the bare stone walls painted an institutional cream. At the end of this corridor was another metal door with another security camera mounted above it. Again there was a series of heavy chunking sounds.

‘Open sesame,’ murmured Sam.

‘Anyone else get the feeling this is almost too easy?’ asked Logan.

Purna shot him a stern look. ‘Don’t get complacent. White said the place was swarming with the infected.’

‘I’m suspicious, not complacent,’ said Logan.

‘The man’s only helping us because he’s desperate for the vaccine,’ said Xian Mei.

At the back of the group, Yerema called, ‘Shall we close the outside door or leave it open?’

Purna considered a moment, then said, ‘Leave it open. It makes us more vulnerable to attack, but on balance I’d rather have an escape route.’

Cautiously she opened the second door. Beyond was a large dining room, containing ugly, functional rows of tables and chairs that had been bolted to the floor. Along the left-hand wall was a line of stainless-steel serving units, which at meal times no doubt contained tin trays of gristly meat, overcooked vegetables and sloppy mashed potatoes — or whatever the Banoi prison equivalent was.