Shaun Harbinger: Lightning: Fighting the Living Dead

“Rooms five and six,” he said to two of the men. They took us through a set of heavy doors and down a set of concrete steps to a white-painted corridor with doors lining the walls on each side. I was taken through one of them and left alone in the room, the guard shutting and locking the door after I was inside.

The room was unfurnished except for a metal table that was bolted to the floor and two wooden chairs. A large mirror was built into one wall, probably made of one-way glass like they had in police interview rooms. A camera was set high in the corner of the room, its red light blinking as it watched me.

I couldn’t believe they were locking us up. Every second I was in this room was another second wasted in my attempt to save Lucy.

I slammed my palm on the table in frustration.

“Hey!” I shouted at the camera, “I need to speak to someone. You can’t just leave me in here.”

THEY COULD LEAVE me in here, of course; they had guns and I was trespassing on their secret island. I supposed it would be ironic if I managed to survive against zombies and hybrids only to end up being murdered by security guards working for the government.

I paced the room, feeling helpless. I should have known not to trust the authorities. Sam had been right when he’d said to trust no one. Now, everything was fucked up. Lucy was going to become a hybrid in a few days time and I would probably still be rotting in this room.

It was a long time later when the door finally opened and Hart walked into the room. He held a brown folder under his arm, which he placed on the table before sitting down in one of the chairs.

“Take a seat, Alex,” he said, motioning to the chair across the table from him.

I sat down and leaned across the table toward him. “Listen, my friend needs your help. If you want to lock me up, fine, but please help my friend. She doesn’t have much time.”

He looked at me coldly. “I’m going to ask you some questions, Alex. If you answer me truthfully, and I’m satisfied with your answers, then we can talk about helping your friend.” He flicked through a pile of papers in the folder and took a pen from his pocket.

“I haven’t got time for this bullshit,” I said, slamming my hand down on the table again.

“If you want to help Lucy, you’ll do exactly as I say.” He positioned his pen over a blank piece of paper.

I frowned. “How do you know her name?”

“Your other friends told me.” He consulted his notes. “Sam, Tanya, Jax, and Johnny. They’re all here. My men brought them from your boat. We’ve been watching you on our cameras since you got within five miles of the island. Lucy is here, too, in a locked room on our hospital wing.”

“You can help her,” I said. “You have some kind of antidote, don’t you? You can give it to her. Please, I…”

He held up a hand, silencing me. “Yes, there is an antidote, but it’s not as simple as you seem to think it is. You saw those zombies out in the woods. The virus has hit us hard here and this facility isn’t running at full strength. Now, do you want a chance to help Lucy or not?”

I nodded.

“Good. So tell me something; how have you survived for so long without being placed in a Survivors Camp, or being eaten by zombies? I know all about your Survivor Radio escapade; the others have told me about that. How did you stay alive before you met up with them?”

I told him about the hiking trip to Wales, about Mike and Elena, and our struggle to survive. I told him about my brother Joe and my parents being held somewhere in a Survivors Camp on the mainland. I recounted my journey to the coast with Lucy, Mike, and Elena. When I got to the part about Mike’s and Elena’s deaths, I had to pause several times to keep my emotions in check; the loss of my best friend still hurt.

Hart listened and took notes. He showed no sign of any emotion himself, or even any reaction to my story other than a nod here and there as I told my tale.

When I got to the part where I had met Tanya, Sam, and Jax, he closed the folder. “Yes, I know the rest. Your friends speak highly of your actions. You’re a survivor, Alex. You’re resourceful and smart. You should be proud of how far you’ve come in these troubling times.”

I said nothing. Flattery wasn’t going to get him anywhere. All I wanted was a cure for Lucy. He’d said that it existed, and that was all I could focus on. I had that thin thread of hope to hang on to again.

“I can help Lucy,” he said. “But I need something in return.”

I nodded. “Name it.”

“I need you to retrieve something for me from the mainland.”

I said nothing. Suddenly, his condition for helping Lucy sounded like a suicide mission.

“As I mentioned before,” he said, “we’ve been affected by the virus here. This facility is officially referred to as Site Alpha One, by the way—not ‘Apocalypse Island’ as the media liked to call us—and was once a successful scientific research site. I’m only the head of security, of course, so even I don’t know everything that goes on here, but the scientists who work here are all leaders in their fields. There are only a handful of those scientists left now.

“The virus that created the zombies began at Site Alpha Two, our sister site on the mainland. It spread from there to the general population and also to this island. We had staff moving back and forth between the sites, so it was inevitable the virus would find its way here.

“The interior of this building is clear now, but we have a few zombies and hybrids in the woods. The vaccine that was given to the army, the one that you and your friends have taken, was developed at Alpha Two. We were all injected with it, and then our hybrid problem began. Personnel started wandering off into the woods, wanting to be left alone. They were changing into hybrids, of course. That’s what the virus does to people who have been vaccinated.”

“I know,” I said.

He grinned, but it was humorless. “Yes, of course you do. So here’s the problem, Alex. The scientists here can manufacture an antivirus that halts the process of hybridization. Give it to someone who is turning into a hybrid, and it stops the process completely. It inhibits the reaction between the virus and the vaccine or it makes the vaccine stronger or something. I’m no scientist, so I can’t give you all the chemical data. Not that you’d understand it anyway.”

“You said there was a problem?” I said, wanting him to get to the point.

“Hmm, yes.” He nodded. “The problem is that there’s a chemical they need in order to manufacture the antivirus, called H1NZ1. It’s something they synthesized at Alpha Two. We had a supply here, but there was an incident in one of our labs and the supply was destroyed. This was before the building was clear of zombies. One of our scientists tried to protect himself from an attack and ended up setting fire to the lab he was in. Bloody idiot. The entire lab was burned out, and with it, all of our H1NZ1.

“So there’s no way we can make any of the antivirus that Lucy needs until we have more of that chemical.”

He sat back in his chair, waiting for my answer.

What choice did I have? If I didn’t do what he wanted, Lucy would turn. I would do anything to prevent that, even if it meant going to the mainland.

“I’ll get it for you,” I said.

AGHOST of a smile flickered across Hart’s lips. “I knew you’d agree, Alex.”

Something about the situation didn’t make sense; he had armed and trained employees, so why was he asking me to go and get the chemical they needed? “If you need this chemical so badly, why haven’t you sent your own people to get it?” I asked.