Mark Morris - Dead Island

‘Go on,’ muttered Purna.

‘We need to get to Sector Seven, which is here.’ His finger moved across to the larger circle on the right. ‘This is the tower you can see from Banoi, and it’s connected to the rest of the facility primarily by this long corridor here. However, although this is the most direct route, it will also be the most populated. What I propose, therefore, is that we move diagonally across the central Panopticon here, and down to the door leading into the high-security section through here.’ He pointed at the lower right-hand circle. ‘There is access through a corridor here into the lower left quadrant of the tower. Where we’re aiming for is here.’ He indicated a cross at the end of the long corridor, which extended almost halfway into the right-hand circle depicting the tower.

‘What’s that?’ asked Purna.

‘A lift,’ said Kevin. ‘It will take us up into the operating heart of the facility. And that’s where we need to be. That’s Sector Seven.’

Purna studied the diagram carefully. ‘Explain the layout of these circular areas to me,’ she said.

‘They’re very simple,’ said Kevin. ‘Cells on four levels around the outside and a large central area in the middle where inmates congregate during the day. Right in the middle of each central area, like the hub of a wheel, is a security tower, maybe ten metres high. The tower has a door at the bottom, opening on to steps which lead up to a panoramic viewing area.’

‘Are there individual windows?’ Purna asked.

Kevin nodded and narrowed his eyes, visualizing it. ‘Eight in all, I think.’

‘And can they be opened?’

‘I don’t know. I guess.’ He smirked again. ‘I’ve never been up there. I’m an observ ee not an observ er .’

‘I’m guessing these areas will be crawling with the infected?’ said Logan.

Kevin nodded almost gleefully. ‘Oh, absolutely swarming with them.’

‘What do you think our chances are of getting through?’ asked Xian Mei.

‘Honestly? I’d say the chances of us all making it through are slim. We’d have to run very fast and shoot very accurately. And even then some of us would probably be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.’

‘Yet you’re still prepared to come with us,’ said Purna suspiciously.

Kevin looked at her without blinking. ‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘’Cos he crazy,’ muttered the black man.

Kevin looked pained. ‘Thank you, Clarence, for that pithy character assassination.’ He turned the full force of his gaze on Purna. ‘Because I honestly think you’re our only chance of survival, minimal though that may be. And because I’d rather go down fighting than sit here and rot.’

Purna stared at him and Kevin stared back. It was as if they were trying to see into each other’s souls. Finally she said, ‘I’m not sure I believe you.’

‘But you’ll still allow me to tag along?’

She shrugged. ‘If you really want to. But you’re not getting a gun.’

He seemed to accept her pronouncement with equanimity. ‘In that case, may I ask one small favour?’

‘Depends what it is.’

‘If any of you see me getting into … difficulties with my fellow inmates out there, please put me out of my misery. Being eaten alive by those things , or even worse, turning into one of them —’ He shuddered. ‘Well, it would be so undignified.’

‘If those things get you,’ said Sam heavily, ‘it will be my personal pleasure to shoot you in the head.’

Kevin placed a hand on his chest. ‘Your kindness overwhelms me.’

Purna, meanwhile, had crossed to another table and was swinging her backpack from her shoulders. Placing it in front of her, she said, ‘I’ve got something in here which may even up the odds a little …’

Three minutes later they were good to go. After discussing and agreeing on their strategy, Purna had tried calling White again without success. Frustrated by her inability to get through, she had crossed to the nearest wall-mounted CCTV camera, stared up into it and carefully outlined the route they were planning to take.

‘I hope you can see and hear me,’ she said, ‘because if you can’t, we’re probably dead, which means your wife is too.’

It was as she was walking back across the room that they all heard the doors on the far side unlock with a series of chunks . Sam, Logan, Yerema and Jin were already kneeling by the door in readiness, and Xian Mei was standing behind them, her rifle trained on the door, pointing over their heads. Kevin was waiting with his hand on the handle and looked round almost casually as Purna approached.

‘I presume you heard that?’

Purna nodded. ‘Everyone ready?’

They all muttered in affirmation.

‘OK,’ she said, and jerked her head at Kevin.

He pushed down the handle and rammed his shoulder against the heavy metal door, leaning against it with all his wiry strength. Even so, it opened agonizingly slowly, the widening gap giving them a gradually expanding glimpse into a hellish world.

The circular cathedral-like room was packed with zombies. They milled like sheep, snarling and groaning, blundering into one another as they each moved in their own pointlessly meandering fashion. Occasionally one would stumble and fall, sometimes knocking down others, but there were no recriminations, no hostility. Indeed, the infected seemed barely aware of each other, barely even operational. It was only ever food, or the prospect of food, that coaxed any sort of reaction from them.

It wasn’t, therefore, the opening door that drew the creatures’ attention, but the glimpse or smell of living meat beyond it. As Sam crouched in front of the door, he became aware of bodies turning clumsily around, heads snapping in his direction. He could almost see the creatures’ primitive thought processes sparking into life, their blotchy discoloured faces twisting into the only expressions they were capable of — rage and hunger. As the infected moved en masse towards them, like water flowing towards a crack in a dam wall, Xian Mei started firing, carefully and precisely eradicating the closest and most immediate threats.

‘Now!’ shouted Purna, whereupon she, Sam, Logan, Jin and Yerema pulled the pins from the grenades they were clutching in their hands and hurled them, in five different directions, into the room beyond. Instantly Sam snatched up the second grenade from the floor by his feet and, peripherally aware that the others were doing the same, pulled the pin from it and hurled that one too.

As soon as all ten grenades had been thrown, he jumped up and helped Kevin wrestle the door closed, Xian Mei still firing through the gradually narrowing gap. By this time mottled grey-blue hands, the fingernails black and splintered, were curling round the edge of the door, trying to haul it open again or simply swipe at the tasty morsels on the other side. As Sam and Kevin struggled with the door, Yerema, Jin and Logan battered at the grasping fingers as best they could with the butts of their guns. Purna joined Xian Mei in firing through the gap, her face as calm and concentrated as ever, despite the proximity of the ravening dead.

Then the first of the grenades went off, and was followed in quick succession by several others. Kevin, Sam and the girls were thrown back as the blast slammed the door shut in a super-heated gust of air. They were picking themselves up, a little dazed, when Jin cried out in disgust. As the door had banged shut, a zombie hand had been severed at the wrist and was now lying on the floor, convulsively opening and closing like a beetle on its back. For a few seconds they all remained motionless, watching the thing’s death-throes. Despite everything they had been through, everything they had seen, the frantically wriggling fingers held a particular revulsion. At last the hand stopped moving, whereupon Purna stepped decisively forward and kicked it across the room, where it came to rest under a table like a dead crab.