“Where’s Rain?” she said to Joe.

  He looked back at the entrance. “With Aiden. He was having a quick look to see if there was any food in there. He won’t be…” Joe was looking past her.

  She turned around to face the wooded hill they had descended. At its peak a few hundred feet away, points of light swayed in the darkness.

  “Get in!” said Joe, running best he could towards the entrance of the resort.

  Maggie could still hear Rain’s barking. She knew the sound. She had heard it a lot over the past month. The dog was barking at the undead. As screams came from the pickup’s cabin for her to get inside, she ran in the opposite direction, following Joe across the lot to the side then front of the double doors of the entrance. Rain’s protests were louder, and as she pushed open the glass door, his sound was all she could hear across the foyer.

  “Rain!” she shouted, trying to make sense of the layout of the wide room in front of her in the darkness. She ran forward, stumbling over something heavy but soft on the floor but kept her balance enough to get to an even deeper recess of shadow. Perhaps a hallway. “Rain!” she repeated.

  Something clanged into the glass door behind her, making her whip around to see Mathew enter.

  He threw an arm out towards the hill across the road. “They’re almost on us! We have to go! Where’s Joe!?”

  She turned back to the hallway, realising the barking had stopped, then walked forward with her arms out in front of her, feeling for a wall. “Joe? Aiden?” she enquired, feeling her way along, her fingers sliding across the edges of framed photos then wall then perhaps the silky smoothness of a poster. She flicked her attention back to the foyer. Mathew was gone, but the points of light on the hill opposite had now come into view. She swore, turning back to the darkness and walked forward, bumping into a wall, knocking something to the floor where it sounded as if it cracked. “Joe! Rain! Where are you?”

  A noise made her spin around to her right. Her eyes had adjusted just enough for her to make out another corridor, with multiple doors, one of which was open. “Joe? Is there someone there?”

  A silhouette of a figure was standing in the doorway. Tall, slim with wild hair and for the slightest of moments her heart skipped a beat in the hope that there had been a terrible mistake. Sam never died. Was never eaten by the undead, because he was standing in front of her, waiting to tell her the good news.

  “Aiden? Is that—”

  The thing rushed towards her, a shadow which became a blur, causing her to back up, hitting the wall. She turned, desperate to run but instead her foot trod on the picture frame she had knocked to the floor, and slid, sending her tumbling, her hands just about stopping her chin from meeting the floor as she crashed into it.

  Her appendages burned, pain flowing across her limbs as she flipped onto her back, trying to see any movement amongst the dark. A wall, ceiling, door frames, each was hinted at by the scant light coming from the foyer, but where was the figure?

  Like a spider retracting its limbs, hands and legs wrapped around her, pulling her into an embrace, her scream being cut short as teeth sunk into her neck, and the blood burst from her veins. She struggled. She wasn’t ready to join her son, but the thing’s grip contained no mercy.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  JOE

  Ignoring the pain, Joe arrived back at the pickup with Aiden and dog in tow and looked across the vehicle’s roof to the rows of points of light on the other side of the road. He climbed in the driver’s seat catching Aiden lift the dog into the bed at the back, and turned the key. It was then he finally heard Liz’s shouts that Maggie was not with them.

  “What?” he said trying to make sense of the words from multiple people.

  “She went after you!” shouted Liz from the passenger’s seat, with Hope crouching low in the footwell beneath her.

  He threw his door open, ready to launch himself out of the pickup but his first step was met with a blue spark on the concrete as a bullet pinged off the ground. Cries rang out from the cabin as he pulled himself back in. “We’re leaving!” he shouted.

  Another ping, this one coming from the pickup’s fender had everyone ducking apart from Joe, who hit the gas, steering around a van parked directly in front and surged past the glass entrance of the hotel. Despite the panic around him, he threw a glance in the direction of the doors, hoping to see the middle-aged woman running out, but there was nothing but darkness.

  A bullet skimmed or hit the windscreen, he wasn’t sure as a vertical crack appeared across it, but he kept accelerating, speeding across the lot, and then swerved back onto the road, hoping the soldiers firing in their direction knew Hope was inside and were actively trying to avoid shooting them directly. He kept his foot on the pedal, the speed increasing as the pickup soared down the two-lane road.

  “Is anyone hurt!?” he shouted, while looking at the side mirror, seeing multiple human shaped shadows stagger onto the road, fifty-yards behind. Only whimpers and sobs came as an answer. He flicked his attention to his wide by his side. “Liz?”

  She shook her head then turned to the two adults and three children crammed in the back, placing her hand on Tia’s who was closest to her. “No… Everyone’s…” Her words dissolved into a silent sob before she was able to talk again. “Okay.”

  Joe placed his hand on his wife’s arm while his attention flicked to the dark road ahead then back to the rear mirror. “They might be tracking us from the sky, we need to get off this…” His heart skipped at seeing the double points of light on the road behind which then passed out of view as he steered around a long bend. “We’re being followed. I have to lose them.” He floored the gas, the engine straining in reply.

  Concentrating back on the road in front, a sign flashed by, which he caught enough of to know they were heading towards a town. The trees falling back from the road confirmed it and farmhouses and barns appeared, nestled amongst the woods and occasional field.

  With each bend the lights from the vehicle behind appeared brighter, despite how fast Joe was driving.

  Suddenly, the trees receded even further as the road sloped down, splitting a large parking lot and modern buildings on both sides. A sign on a plinth mentioned a medical center, and without a second thought Joe took the first turning into the lot, weaving between a series of abandoned cars until stopping close to the entrance of the largest of the buildings.

  “Everyone out! We need to change vehicles!”

  He threw his door open, as Swanson and Aiden with the dog, jumped down from the bed, Joe then running around the other side to help Liz and the kids out. “Everyone go inside until I can find another—”

  The sound of an engine made itself known, the V8 roaring through the nearby hills and trees, which then lit up from the headlights.

  Everyone but Joe ran into the building, the entrance for the waiting area. He ducked behind his pickup just as a humvee appeared at the top of the road, instantly slowing as it traced the same route Joe had just driven in on.

  A strong cone of white light swept across the lot, sliding over the front of the building then where Joe had parked, the light being blocked by the entrance pillar to the facility. It kept on going across the other vehicles, the military vehicle’s engine growing ever so slightly quieter, until it faded completely.

  Joe peeked around the back of the pickup, watching the humvee’s rear lights blink out, eclipsed by trees as it kept on driving. He let out a breath, then still keeping low, jogged to the entrance and pushed it open.

  Mathew peered around the corner of a wall. “Are they gone?”

  Joe walked into the corridor where the others were huddled together. “I think so.” He looked across the forlorn faces.

  “Can we stay here?” said Tia, next to mother while holding Rain’s leash.

  “No. They’ll be back, with greater numbers. They will go through this whole place. They only drove past because they couldn’t risk losing us if we had kept going. At some point they’ll realise we didn’t.” He looked into the darkness of the hospital hallway, not being able to see further than a few yards, not knowing what else could be in there with them. But the dog seemed fairly at ease. That was something. He looked at Mathew and Aiden. “Both of you look for supplies. Especially water.” He then switched to Swanson. “Saul. We need to quickly find another vehicle.”

  The older man nodded, and they both moved back outside.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CLARA

  The sounds of spoken words thundered through Clara’s mind. Each one she fought to ignore until they overwhelmed her.

  “You said you would let us go!”

  Her eyes flicked open to the same plain white wall, with its divots and grooves she grew to hate. With terror gripping her thoughts, she swung her head to her right, towards a series of hospital beds and the six people she knew strapped into them, and screamed, but the sound never made it past what was covering her mouth.

  Some of the nurses from the last time she was there were standing either side of the man she desperately wanted to be dead.

  Michael was looking at her with his usual wide grin. He threw his arms wide. “Look what you have given me! So many pure lifeform test subjects!”

  Those in the beds, struggled against their restraints, but only the younger of them, Barb in the first bed near the entrance, had her mouth uncovered. “You can’t do this! You made a deal with my mom! Where’s my brother!”

  “Your mom yes, you, no.”

  Horror and grief flowed across Barb’s face. “No! She wouldn’t do that… she, wouldn’t!”

  As Barb continued her protest the man with the plastic face, walked along the beds until he was facing the last. Clara’s. Panic had gone from her, as had fear. She felt nothing as he stood in front of her, at the end of the bed.

  “Again, you will be our control, young lady. We will see if the vaccine is still working inside you. Hopefully—” He turned to the nurse and nodded. “— it will be.”

  The woman walked to the door to the long room and pulled it open.

  Barb screamed at the sight of the thing which was pushed, stumbling into the room, at the end of rods being held by two male nurses. Some of the side of the zombie’s face was missing, but Clara still recognised Josiah, Barb’s brother, from the clothes it wore.

  Barb’s screams dissolved into sobs and whimpers, as her dead brother’s hands grasped her ankles, his mouth snapping open and closed, moving closer until he bit down hard on her leg and she screamed again, in agony and grief. The others in the room, especially Jenn who was next in the line tried even more frantically to wiggle from their straps, but to no avail.

  Clara’s body remained still. She had been in the same position before, and she wondered if it was even the same bed. With a little pull, she stretched the strap, holding her left arm in place and due to the strain she had put it under the first time she was there, it gave a little, the bolt already being loose.

  At the other end of the room, the young woman’s screams became a gurgle as her sibling ripped a chunk of flesh from the side of her neck, taking some tendons with it. An artery burst and the blood showered her brother and the surroundings until the flow settled to a trickle and Barb’s head slumped to one side.

  The undead thing was pulled back from its meal and then shoved further along the room, to where under Michael’s direction it was held, its head flicking from one bed to another. “Bring it closer to the control.”

  The nurses pushed it again, making it stumble and fight against their prodding until it was at the end of Clara’s bed. Still she remained unmoving and silent, and looked directly at the blood-soaked face of the creature. Directly into its white eyes and felt no fear.

  It looked away from her, uninterested, instead pulling from its restraint towards Grace.

  “Yes!” said the old man. “The vaccine appears to still be working! You are a remarkable specimen!”

  The undead thing stumbled forward, grabbing hold of the side of Grace’s bed, which rattled as it pulled itself closer to the side of her body.

  “She’s a doctor!” shouted Clara, her words just about being recognisable.

  Michael looked slightly bemused at the outburst, but looked back to the women in front of him, whose eyes were large and wide with terror. He waved a hand, letting out a sigh. “Fine. Fine. She could prove useful. We are certainly short of doctors. I want to leave the Brits until last anyway. Try the next woman. She’s definitely an American.”

  Marge’s eyes grew even larger, being to the right of Grace.

  “You don’t have to do this!” shouted Clara, knowing her words were meaningless, but she had other reasons for her protest. The nurses prompted the zombie closer to the middle-aged woman’s bed, where it lunged and scratched a chunk from Marge’s upper arm, causing her to groan into her mouth covering, and struggle against her straps.

  Clara kept pulling with the left side of her body, her tendons and muscles stretching beyond their limit. She wasn’t watching Marge squirm and grimace as the dead being began bitting into her chest, for Clara’s eyes were only for the man orchestrating this carnage. His excitement of what was happening to the women in the room, to her friends, provided all the strength she needed.

  The bolt for the strap holding her left arm gave way. None of the nurses even noticed, so engrossed were they with what was happening to Marge, and Clara slowly pulled her hand free. Then just as she tugged the clasp away from her right side, the air filled with the sound of a siren.

  Micheal looked to the nurses. “See what the hell that—”

  It wasn’t much of a weapon, but the three inches of steel bolt was more than enough to push into his left eye. He screamed in agony, whirling around with a fist and completely missing Clara who had grabbed dead Josiah’s harness, pulling it towards her then pushing him towards Michael and the nurses who were trying to get to her. The creature lurched at those in front of him, pushing them back, towards the entrance as the siren continued to wail. With two flicks Grace’s straps were undone. The doctor sprung up, immediately helping Baldwin while Clara kept pushing the zombie forwards, causing the others to shuffle backwards, towards the door.

  “Leave the room!” screamed Michael, while holding his eye. “Trap them in here with it!”

  As Grace saw to Marge, Clara unstrapped Jenn and Baldwin pushed Josiah harder, forcing the undead thing into one of the nurses where it immediately bit into her arm, causing her to scream and fight to fend it off. Baldwin lunged at Michael but he pulled back, just in time to slip out of the room with the other nurses, whom slammed the door closed before she could get to it.

  “It’s locked!” shouted Baldwin.

  Clara whirled around from Jenn, running to the zombie. “Help me with this thing!” She pulled on its harness, ripping it from the nurse who was on her back on the ground, still screaming in pain then kept on pulling, managing with Baldwin to push it onto the beds, where with Jenn they threw the straps over it, quickly securing them.

  Clara ran back to the nurse who was crawling towards the door, and claimed her ID which hung around the woman’s neck, then held it up. “We get out with this!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  GREG

  The flames were growing. That was good, thought Greg. A tried and tested method of evacuating a building when you wanted to explore it. You just had to avoid being killed by the smoke or fire, trying to get out.

  After leaving the burning piles of laundry in the room on the east wing of the building, he had exited the rear and ran back into the trees and bushes to avoid being spotted by the soldiers, then joined the others as they moved towards the guarded section of the complex of buildings.

  “I’m only seeing two soldiers at the entrance,” said Lauren, crouched with the others, behind a humvee as the fire alarm continued to blare.

  “Barb said the research lab is on the second floor,” said Groves. “And this is the only way in to that part.”

  Greg shook his head. “Was hoping the fire would dislodge them. But they’re not going anywhere.”

  “We can just shoot them,” said Aaron.

  Greg frowned, glancing at him. “We can do a lot of things. Shooting them is at the bottom of that list. Aaron, follow my lead.” He stood, making his position obvious then emerged from the shadows, walking towards the guards who immediately raised their rifles, making him raise his hands. “Hey, you’re needed to help with the fire,” he shouted.

  “Don’t come any closer!” said one of the guards as the Australian kept approaching.

  “Forbes told us to relieve you.”

  The soldier began lowering his weapon. “Forbes? He’s away on another mission.”

  Greg stood closer to the man. “Look, buddy, I just got off the radio with him, and—” He grabbed the barrel of the rifle, then the trigger, placing his finger in it, stopping the soldier from firing and flicked the butt upwards into the man’s chin, while Aaron leaped on the other guard, having a harder time of wrestling the weapon away but eventually both succeeded in doing so. The guards sat on the ground looking up at their attackers.

  Greg waved his weapon at them. “IDs.” The soldiers handed them over. “Well, go on then! Go help with the fire!”

  The two men scrambled to their feet, and ran, quickly moving out of sight.

  “You think it was wise letting them go?,” said Aaron while checking his newly acquired rifle’s magazine.

  Greg turned, waving Lauren and the others to join him then slid the plastic ID across a small back box near at the side of the door. “Their COs got other things on their mind.” He pushed the door open, the sound of the siren seeping out into the night. Ahead was a well-lit corridor with plain modern walls.