Shaun Harbinger - Wildfire - Destruction of the Dead

“He didn’t make it,” Tanya said.

“Fine,” the brigadier said coldly. “Now, I have something to show you.”

“Wait,” I said. “Before you show me anything, I want to see the results of the database search for my family.”

He sighed, obviously frustrated by my demand. But the truth was, I couldn’t wait any longer to find out if my family was still alive. I had to know now.

He took a slip of paper from his pocket. Before speaking to me, he addressed Lucy. “We searched for your parents on the Board. Unfortunately, their names aren’t in there. Of course, that only means that they haven’t come into a camp. It doesn’t mean that they aren’t alive.”

“Yes, it does,” Lucy said.

Price turned to me. “Your family is currently at this location.” He handed me the slip of paper. I read the words written on it: Camp Achilles. Brecon Beacons. Wales.

“You’re kidding,” I said. “The Brecon Beacons is where I was when this all started. And now you’re saying that Joe and my parents are at a camp there?”

He nodded. “They’ve been at that camp for the past two weeks. The camp they were at previously was attacked. It’s not really much of a coincidence; the camps are usually built at remote locations so the Brecon Beacons is perfect. Lovely views if you like mountains.”

I doubted Joe was enjoying the view from within a locked compound.

“Anyway, that’s done now,” the brigadier said, cutting in. “You delivered the vaccine and I told you where your family is. Now, come with me to the lab.” He began walking and we followed.

“I remember telling you,” he said, “that trained military personnel are the best type of people suited to these missions. Civilians, no matter how skilled, will never be able to match a trained soldier.”

“That is what you said, and we didn’t disagree,” I told him.

“No, you didn’t disagree, but I could tell that you lot thought you were superior to me and my men.”

I had no idea where he had gotten that impression. He must have an inferiority complex because we had never said that.

“I’ve proved you wrong,” he said. “Last night, my men achieved what you couldn’t.”

“It’s not a competition,” I said.

“Oh, but of course it is. Life is a competition, my boy. I let you carry out this mission partly because Marilyn MacDonald sent me glowing reports about your actions at Site Alpha Two. You faced a Type 1 and lived to tell the tale.”

I had no idea where he was going with this so I kept my mouth shut.

“Do you think your actions were so noteworthy?” he asked. “I mean, you didn’t capture Vess, did you?”

“No, we didn’t capture him,” I said. “We tried to kill him. We couldn’t.” I remembered Johnny shooting Vess but the creature being so fast that it dodged the bullet.

We reached a long hut that was the lab, according to the stenciled letters on the door.

The brigadier opened the door and ushered us inside. “It doesn’t matter how highly Marilyn MacDonald speaks of you. You faced a Type 1 but you couldn’t kill it or capture it. My men, on the other hand, managed to capture this last night.” He pointed along the length of the lab.

It was like the building we had seen at Camp Apollo. There were less stainless steel tables here, though, and none of them held corpses. Halfway along the room was a Plexiglas cell, exactly like the one at Apollo.

Except this one had an occupant.

I looked at the naked female form imprisoned in the Plexiglas cube. I could hardly believe who it was.

Jax.

Tanya rushed to the Plexiglas cell to see her friend. Jax stood motionless, showing no emotion in her yellow eyes when Tanya said her name. Jax looked strong and sleek, her darkly-veined skin taut over her muscles. She looked at Tanya with a blank stare.

“She doesn’t recognize me,” Tanya said.

“I think she does.” I walked up to the Plexiglas and looked in at Jax. She regarded me with the same emotionless stare. “She just doesn’t attach any emotion to us.” I was sure that she did know who we were. As I had told the brigadier before, Type 1s were intelligent.

“We set a trap last night,” he said, ‘and she walked right into it. We waited for her to come over the fence and trapped her in nets. It was a big operation because we had to cover every possible entry point. But we got her.”

“What are you going to do with her?” Tanya asked, with tears in her eyes. It was obvious that even though Jax had no feelings toward Tanya anymore, that situation wasn’t reciprocal.

I felt the same way as Tanya. Jax was a monster now, a creature capable of spreading the virus and also killing viciously, but she had once been our friend. I knew that she should die before she did any more damage to humanity, but I didn’t want her to suffer.

“Our scientists will study her,” the brigadier said. “As you said, the Type 1 creatures are strong and intelligent. They are infected with a pure strain of the virus. Just think of the uses we could put that to if we managed to recreate it in a lab.

“This country has suffered a tragedy with the outbreak of the zombies. But we can turn that tragedy to our advantage. We will have something that no other country has: a virus capable of inducing a killer instinct fed by fearlessness, and ferocity.”

“You want to weaponize it?” Lucy asked.

“We are going to explore the military applications,” he said.

“He wants to weaponize it,” Sam said.

The brigadier looked at him sharply. “You make it sound as if I’m working on my own initiative. We’ve been ordered to study the creature and those orders have come down from the highest ranking military officials in our government.”

Sam shook his head slowly in disbelief. “You really need to watch a movie or two, man. You’d realize that this isn’t going to end well for anybody.”

Something didn’t seem right. I had seen how Vess had managed to avoid capture at Alpha Two, how he had been impossible to kill. Why should Jax, who was the same type of creature—intelligent and cunning—allow herself to be captured by a bunch of soldiers with nets?

Was that it? Had she allowed herself to be captured?

I looked at her as she stood placidly in the Plexiglas prison and felt an icy finger creep up my spine. “She let you capture her,” I said.

“What?” The brigadier looked furious. His face flushed an angry purple. He had brought us in here to gloat about his achievement of catching Jax, but now I was telling him that his achievement meant nothing, that he had been fooled by the creature he’d thought he’d captured. “Don’t be absurd!”

“I told you the Type 1s are just as intelligent as they were before they were turned. Jax knew that we were part of the mission to develop the new vaccine because she was at Site Alpha Two with us when we went to get the H1NZ1.

“She probably watches the camp in the daytime from the woods by the fence. When she saw us arrive here yesterday, she must have guessed that we were bringing the vaccine. That’s why she allowed herself to be caught by your men.”

“What do you mean. Alex?” Lucy looked worried.

“These labs are under constant guard,” I said. “Jax let herself be caught because she wanted to get in here. She wants to destroy the vaccine.”

“Listen to yourself,” the brigadier said. “What you’re saying is crazy. She’s in the lab, but she’s in a cell. What good is that going to do her?”

I looked at the Plexiglas surrounding Jax. “Maybe she made a mistake,” I said, “and she didn’t know you were going to put her somewhere she couldn’t escape from. Or maybe she knows this cell can’t hold her.”