Shaun Harbinger - Wildfire - Destruction of the Dead

Suddenly, I wanted to get out of the lab as quickly as possible. “We need to leave,” I said to the others. To the brigadier, I said, “You need to make sure the vaccine is protected. If Jax can get out of here…”

I stopped when I heard shouts and gunshots outside.

The brigadier looked toward the door. “What the bloody hell is going on out there?” He pulled the door open and bellowed, “What’s happening? I want a situation report now, damn it!”

“We’re under attack,” someone shouted.

The brigadier stormed out of the lab but not before ordering us to go with him. We followed him outside, and I felt glad to be away from Jax. I glanced over at Lab 3 where the vaccine was stored. There was no one guarding that hut specifically.

Captain Price rushed over to us and spoke to the brigadier. “Sir, there’s a horde of hybrids in the northern quadrant. They’ve broken through the perimeter fence.”

“Have you mobilized the men?”

“Yes, Sir. All available personnel have been mobilized to the area and are dealing with the situation.”

“All right.” The brigadier seemed to calm down slightly after being given this information but I felt even more nervous. It was too much of a coincidence that the hybrids were attacking at the same time that Jax was in the lab. I didn’t like this at all. Everyone in the camp was focused on the hybrid attack. There was nobody in this area other than the guards on the fence and in the towers.

The brigadier beckoned over two of the soldiers who were patrolling the inner fence. “Coleman and Simpson,” he said, reading their name badges, “I want you to go into Lab 1 and guard the prisoner in there.”

They nodded and said, “Yes, Sir,” before marching over to the lab where Jax was being held.

“See?” the brigadier said, turning to face me. “Don’t ever say I never listen to you.”

“If she can get out of that plastic cage,” Tanya said, “two men won’t make a difference.”

“That cell is strong enough to hold an elephant,” he said. “Now, are you going to come and see how my soldiers deal with hybrids or will you just tell me the hybrids allowed themselves to be killed?” He chuckled to himself and marched toward the northern quadrant with Price.

“That guy is an asshole,” Sam said, watching the two officers disappear from sight.

“I think we should get our guns from the bus,” I said. “I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”

“I know what you mean,” Tanya said. “It feels like the hybrid attack is a distraction.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Let’s get the guns and come back here. If Jax is going to go for the vaccine, we have to stop her.”

“You really think she’s going to do that?” Lucy asked as we made our way to the bus.

“Even if she isn’t, there’s no harm in us guarding the vaccine. The soldiers in these towers are focused on guarding the labs against attacks from the outside, not from within the labs themselves.”

From the north, shots rang out and screams cut through the air. Things weren’t going as well as the brigadier had hoped. We ran for the bus. If the soldiers couldn’t keep the hybrids at bay, the creatures would be here soon. We needed the M16s. If we had to hold off a horde of hybrids with only the Walther PPKs, we didn’t stand a chance.

As we approached the bus, I halted and said, “Wait, something’s wrong.”

Everyone stopped and looked at me. “What is it?” Tanya asked.

I pointed to the guard towers by the gate. “Where are the guards?”

Everyone looked at the towers that flanked the main gate. They were empty.

“They’re probably helping to fight the hybrids,” Lucy suggested.

“All of them?” I couldn’t believe the brigadier would take the guards off the gate simply to add a few extra soldiers to his already-considerable number of men in the northern quadrant. “And the guards patrolling the fence, too?”

Then I saw dark, lifeless shapes lying on the ground beneath the towers and inside the fence.

We ran over to inspect the bodies.

They lay in the gravel as if they were rag dolls tossed to the ground by a bored child. Their faces still held expressions of shock and surprise.

Their spines were missing.

“What the hell?” Tanya asked. “Jax is in the lab. How did this happen?”

A figure stepped out from behind the bus and, when I saw who it was, my blood ran cold.

Vess.

Vess stood by the bus, watching us. He was naked and covered in blood. His yellow eyes looked at us with a hint of cruel amusement. We had failed to kill him at Site Alpha Two and now here he was to punish that failing. He stepped forward as if he had all the time in the world.

He probably did, but as soon as he reached us, our time would be over. He would kill us in the same savage manner he had killed the soldiers. I remembered when he’d torn out Johnny Drake’s spine and thrown the dead body aside. If we didn’t get out of here now, that same fate would befall us.

We drew our handguns and fired. Vess dodged back behind the bus with blinding speed before reappearing and running at us.

I fired two more shots, sure that I had hit him. The Walther’s slide slid back, telling me the gun was empty.

The others had expended their magazines too.

And Vess was still coming.

“Run!” I shouted.

Lucy and I fled back toward the labs. Sam and Tanya went the other way, toward the car parking area.

Vess followed Lucy and me.

“What are we going to do?” Lucy gasped as we ran for the inner fence.

“The soldiers in the towers, and on patrol,” I managed to say between heaving breaths. “They’ll shoot at him. Maybe he won’t be able to dodge the bullets. If they all fire at once.”

It was our only chance of survival. But even as I said it, I didn’t have much hope. There was no way Vess had dodged all our bullets a moment ago, yet he seemed unhurt by them. Was he bullet-proof?

No, that was ridiculous. I had to believe that the soldiers guarding the lab could kill him. Without that belief, I might as well stop running and let Vess catch up with me. If the soldiers couldn’t stop him, we were all dead.

“Alex!” Lucy said. It came out as a whimper. She pointed at the lab compound ahead.

The soldiers lay dead within the fence. The guard towers, where we had seen soldiers no more than five minutes ago, were empty.

The door to Lab 1 was open.

So was the door to Lab 2. Jax had gotten within the compound by letting the brigadier capture her, but she didn’t know exactly where the vaccine was being stored. She had gone to the wrong lab.

“Go to Lab 3,” I told Lucy. “We’ll try to barricade ourselves in.”

Vess was still chasing us but I had the sense that he was toying with us like a cat torturing a mouse. He could have caught us easily by now but he was biding his time. The bastard was probably enjoying this.

The gate to the lab compound was closed but it hadn’t been locked before and I prayed it wasn’t now.

We pushed it open and ran into the compound, heading for Lab 3.

“Is this a good idea?” Lucy asked as we reached the door. “We’re leading him straight to the vaccine.”

“We don’t have a choice.” I pushed open the door and we rushed inside. I slammed the door behind us. “Find something we can use to barricade it!”

“There’s nothing here!”

The lab was empty except for the boxes of vaccine stacked at the far end of the room. They were too light to be of any use.

The door burst open and Vess stepped into the lab. His mouth twisted into a sneer when he saw that we were trapped with nowhere to go. He took a few steps toward us. Lucy and I backed away.