Shaun Harbinger: Lightning: Fighting the Living Dead

The smile disappeared from his face and he leaned forward, lowering his voice. “I’m not in charge here, Alex. The director of this facility has decided that obtaining the H1NZ1 isn’t a priority for us. She’s more focused on other things like clearing the island, and rebuilding our labs. There’s a lot of damage to clean up from when we had zombies in here. We were fighting them in the building and a lot of the labs were destroyed in the process.

“So until this site is fully functional, the director isn’t interested in anything else. She told me only this afternoon that it’s too early for us to even think of salvaging materials from Site Alpha Two.”

“Salvaging?” I asked. “You make it sound like Alpha Two is in ruins.”

He shook his head. “No, not in ruins. Well, not physically anyway. We flew over there in our helicopters last week to take a look. The fences were still intact, the building still standing. But what it’s like inside is anyone’s guess. They had a zombie problem, same as us.

“After the zombie outbreak, both this site and Alpha Two were working on a vaccine against the zombies. We had scientists working in labs while my teams were fighting zombies in the corridors right outside the doors. The same kind of thing was happening at Alpha Two. It wasn’t an ideal situation. Using video links and email, the scientists from here and Alpha Two worked together to develop the vaccine that was passed out to the soldiers on the mainland, the vaccine that we now know is faulty and creates hybrids.

“Everyone here and at Alpha Two was also vaccinated, so the zombie problem at both sites eventually became a zombie and hybrid problem. The scientists continued working together to try and find a solution to the whole mess but then Alpha Two went offline. We lost all contact with them. After that, the scientists here came up with an antivirus that halts the process of hybridization but a key ingredient is H1NZ1. And all the H1NZ1 is at Alpha Two. So until we get our hands on it, there won’t be any antivirus.”

I looked at him closely, wondering if there was something he wasn’t telling me. “If this H1 thing is so important, then I don’t understand why you don’t just go and get it yourself. You said you flew over the site in your helicopter. Why didn’t you land and have a look around?”

“Like I told you, it wasn’t a priority.” He looked down at his notes but I could tell he wasn’t really reading them; he was just trying to avoid looking me in the eye.

“No, there’s more to it than that. Are you scared of something in that building?”

He sighed, but said nothing.

“If I’m going to go in there and get this chemical, I need to know what I’m going to be facing,” I said.

He nodded. “Yes, I suppose you do. As I said, there was a zombie and hybrid problem both here and at Alpha Two. But Alpha Two had an additional problem. There was a monster at their site that was more dangerous than any normal hybrid. It was faster, even more savage in its attacks, and it possessed an intelligence and cunning that the zombies and hybrids don’t have. We think it’s because of this creature that Alpha Two went offline. And it’s because of this creature that we don’t think there’s anyone left alive at that site.”

I frowned, confused. How could there something worse than the hybrids? “I don’t understand,” I said. “How can there be a creature like that?”

“We aren’t exactly sure. The people at Alpha Two weren’t forthcoming with that information.”

“Do you think it’s something they created in their labs?” I asked him. “Some sort of experiment gone wrong?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head grimly. “We think it’s patient zero.”

“TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED,” I said.

Hart shrugged. “We aren’t exactly sure. We do know that the zombie outbreak began on the mainland in a town where some of Alpha Two’s scientists lived among the general population. There was a cover up, and after a while the government thought everything was under control. But strange things began happening at Alpha Two. Personnel went missing. We heard rumors of a creature that was fast and deadly. This was before the vaccine had been developed. So there were no such things as hybrids then.

“The scientists were cagey about it but we surmised that the creature at their site was patient zero. It was the only thing that made sense. Again, I don’t know all the scientific terms but apparently, patient zero could be very different from the zombies it created. The point is,” he said, “Something deadly is still inside the building at Site Alpha Two. That’s on top of all the hybrids and zombies that will be in there. Getting the H1NZ1 isn’t going to be easy.”

I nodded. Now it made sense why Hart and his team didn’t go into the building after their flyover last week. “You said you were talking to the director this afternoon about salvaging the chemical. If you weren’t going to risk going in there last week, why were you asking the director about it again today?”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly between his lips before he answered. “Getting that chemical became a lot more important to me today than it was last week.” He trailed off, seemingly lost in his thoughts.

“Why?” I prompted.

“My wife Kate is a lab technician here. That’s how we met twelve years ago. She’s all I have in this world, and I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to her. Today, at lunchtime, Kate and a few other people from the lab went beyond the fence to visit the beach by the dock. That probably sounds crazy to you, knowing what’s out there on the island, but when you’re cooped up in this compound day after day, you need a change of scenery or you’ll go crazy. They took a Jeep and they had an armed guard with them.”

He paused as if he didn’t want to say next part. “They were attacked by a hybrid. Four people, including the guard, were killed. Kate was the only survivor. She drove the Jeep back here and demanded that she be put into quarantine immediately. She’d been bitten. She had the presence of mind to race back here before the virus sent her wandering away to find a quiet place to turn into a hybrid. So she’s in our hospital right now, four days away from becoming a monster.”

Now it all made sense. Hart needed the H1NZ1 bringing here just as much as I did. Without it, his wife would turn into a hybrid, the same as Lucy.

“So why don’t you go and get it?” I asked. “You have trained people with weapons. If anyone has a chance to get the chemical from Alpha Two, it must be you and your team.”

“Yes,” he said, “but I can’t go. The director won’t bend her orders for me. She told me that if I left the island to get the H1, I wouldn’t be allowed back. There are a lot of people here who would step into my position as soon as I left and enforce the director’s orders. So even if I got the chemical, it wouldn’t do Kate any good.”

“But your director is okay with sending me,” I said.

“You and your friends,” he replied. “You aren’t employees here, so as far as the director is concerned, if you get the H1 and bring it back here, then that’s a bonus that she hasn’t had to risk her own staff for. If you get killed and don’t return, she won’t have lost any of the island’s resources. She has nothing to lose.”

“So we’re expendable,” I said.

“To her you are,” Hart said. “To me, you’re the only people who can save my wife. That’s why I’m going to give you all the weapons and equipment you need to succeed at this mission. You’re my only hope, Alex.”

I thought about it for a moment. “I’ll do whatever it takes to save Lucy. But my friends don’t even know her; I can’t see them agreeing to go on this mission. Why would they?”