Shaun Harbinger: Wildfire: Destruction of the Dead

He led us to the elevator and we rode it up to level 3 where the lecture halls were located. Hart opened a double door and gestured us inside.

The lecture hall was the same one we had been in before, when we had been briefed about Site Alpha Two. Sam, Tanya and Lucy took seats in the front row. I sat in the row behind them. I had never been a front row type of person and didn’t feel like starting now.

Besides, the last time we were in here, I had sat in the front row next to Johnny and Jax. Now, Johnny was dead and Jax was a monster. I wasn’t sure if I believed in omens or not but I couldn’t bring myself to sit next to Lucy, Sam, or Tanya just in case something bad happened to them. Stupid, I know, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

Hart strode up the steps that led onto the stage and stood next to the large screen there. He looked toward the back of the hall and said, “Lights, please.” The lights went down and the screen flickered to life, displaying two simple words:

OPERATION: WILDFIRE

“Operation Wildfire,” Hart began, “has one main objective: to deliver the antivirus to as many survivors as possible on the mainland. The first phase of the operation will be to get the antivirus to military personnel.”

“Screw that, man,” Sam said.

“Yeah, screw that,” I agreed. “It’s the military that kept the first vaccine from the civilians. They don’t get to keep this one all for themselves as well.”

“It isn’t that simple,” said a female voice from the back of the hall. I turned to see Marilyn MacDonald walking down the aisle between the seats. She was dressed impeccably in a dark blue blouse and black trousers. Her blonde hair was piled neatly on top of her head, and her makeup was perfect. Looking at her, you wouldn’t know that there was a zombie apocalypse happening right now. She looked as if this was just another day at the office for her and not a last ditch attempt to save the country from zombies.

She stepped up onto the stage and addressed us. “When we sent the first vaccine, the faulty one, it was supposed to be distributed to everyone. The army took it upon themselves to vaccinate their own personnel.”

“All the more reason to give this vaccine to the people,” Tanya said.

MacDonald nodded. “In principle, I agree with you. But we have to think in practical terms. Every soldier has been vaccinated with the original, faulty, vaccine and that means they are all potential hybrids. Once a soldier has been vaccinated with the new antivirus, they can’t be turned anymore. So by injecting them first, we destroy the chance of them becoming hybrids.”

“And in the meantime, normal civilians can still be turned into zombies,” Tanya said. “That’s not right.”

“I know it’s not easy to hear in these terms,” MacDonald said, “but slow zombies are easier to deal with than the hybrids.”

Tanya shook her head. “So if a soldier becomes a hybrid that’s a big deal but if an innocent civilian becomes a zombie, that’s not so bad because they can be dealt with. Is that what you’re saying?”

MacDonald put her hands on her hips. “As I said, it’s not an easy choice but we have to perform this operation in a practical manner that will give the best chance of survival to everyone.”

“By saving the soldiers,” Tanya said, crossing her arms and sinking into her seat as if she were sulking.

“You know this makes the most sense,” MacDonald said. “Once we take the potential hybrids out of the equation, we will commence with phase two of the operation and vaccinate the civilian survivors in the camps.”

“If there are any left,” Tanya muttered.

MacDonald had either not heard Tanya or had chosen to ignore her. She pointed a remote at the screen and the operation name disappeared to be replaced with a map of Scotland and the north of England. There was a red dot near the Scottish coast labeled ‘Apollo’ and a blue dot farther south and inland, in England, labeled ‘Prometheus’.

MacDonald looked at Hart and said, “Ian, would you like to explain the details of the operation?”

He nodded and turned to us. “This marker here,” he said, pointing to the red dot on the screen, “is the closest survivor camp to this island. Camp Apollo. It is also the only camp north of Camp Prometheus here.” He pointed to the blue dot.

“The military has a transport infrastructure that crosses England and Wales, so if you can get the vaccine supplies to Camp Prometheus, they can do the rest, acting as a distribution hub for the army vehicles that travel those routes. That’s how we distributed the original vaccine.

“Camp Apollo, however, is isolated up here in Scotland so they will need a separate delivery. And since that camp is much closer than Prometheus, it will be your first destination. There’s a harbor close to the camp. It’s part of a small fishing village called Muldoon. You can anchor there and unload the supplies for Camp Apollo.”

Sam shifted in his seat. “How are we supposed to move the stuff from the harbor to the camp, man?”

“That’s where your own ingenuity comes into play,” MacDonald said. “This is why we need resourceful people such as yourselves to carry out this operation.”

“I have a question,” Lucy said. “Why don’t you just use your helicopters to fly the vaccine to the camps?”

I grinned. Lucy and I had once had a conversation about The Lord of the Rings and I had told her that it would have been simpler if the eagles had simply flown the ring to Mount Doom so that it could be destroyed. I wondered if she was recalling that conversation now.

“We’re grounded,” Hart said. “The chinooks are virtually out of fuel and we have no way of getting more at the moment. The only way we can get to the mainland is by boat, the same as you. We will set up an operation to go get more fuel eventually but that isn’t our priority at the moment.”

I wondered if the lack of fuel was real or if it was just an excuse because MacDonald didn’t want to risk her own people on this mission.

“So we’re supposed to find a vehicle at the village and drive the supplies to the camp,” I said. “At least Camp Apollo is near the coast. But Prometheus is inland. Are we supposed to drive all the way there too?”

Hart said, “You have a choice. You could drive south to Prometheus, or take your boats south along the coast and find a place to anchor. Then you’d need to find another vehicle to take you inland. It’s about fifty miles from the coast to Camp Prometheus.”

“How far is it if we drive from Camp Apollo?” Tanya asked.

Hart said, “From Camp Apollo, it’s one hundred and seventy miles south to Prometheus.”

“That’s suicide,” I said. “There’s no way we’d be able to drive that far without coming up against hordes of zombies. There must be towns and cities all along that route.”

“There are,” MacDonald said.

“So we take the boats,” I said. “It’s a no-brainer. We anchor somewhere along the coast, find a vehicle, and drive the fifty miles inland to Prometheus.”

“Plus the fifty miles to get back to the boats after we deliver the vaccine,” Tanya reminded me.

I nodded. The first part of the mission, getting to Camp Apollo, didn’t sound too bad. The only difficult part would be finding a vehicle to transport us and the vaccine to the camp. But the second part of the mission, a fifty-mile drive inland to Prometheus would be dangerous. And once we’d done the job, we would have to retrace our steps to get back to the safety of the water.

The operation wasn’t what I had expected. I had thought that we would be delivering the antivirus to many different camps and that I could find Joe and my parents that way. If we were only going to two camps, how was I supposed to find my family?