Everyone slipped inside and he closed the external door, then they jogged past closed doors, quickly finding stairs and ascended, all the time trying to hear over the constant wailing of the fire alarm, trying to be alert to any approaching danger. The clunk click of a door opening came from far above, making each of them pull themselves closer to the white walls.

  Lauren peeked upwards, seeing what looked like a group of nurses running down the stairs towards them. She waved at the closest exit, everybody agreeing. Aaron waved his ID card across the security measure, and pulled the door open, ushering everyone inside.

  “Are you here to evacuate us?” said a middle-aged woman dressed in a white nightgown, standing at the head of many others whom were inside a dimly lit, long corridor.

  “Is Michael safe?” said a different woman.

  Lauren moved to the front of the group, smiling, while Greg listened at the door to the stairwell, hearing the footsteps rush past. “Yes,” she said. “How many are you?”

  The older woman looked back towards the others as more came out of their rooms. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe thirty?”

  “That all of you?” said Greg, still listening at the door.

  “I don’t know what you mean?”

  Greg rolled his eyes, looking at Lauren then the others in his group. “I think it’s clear out there. We need to go.” He pulled open the door, the others beginning to follow, but Lauren remained caught in two minds.

  “Wait,” she said to Greg then looked back at the woman. “We have to evacuate from the island. We have a boat waiting.”

  Greg responded before the woman did, whom seemed a little scared of him. “That’s not our part of the mission!”

  Lauren walked to him, leaning in so to be able to whisper. “We lost contact with the other team. Maybe they’re caught. We have a chance to get these women out of here!”

  He shook his head. “Fine. You do that, but I’m going for the vaccine.” He looked at Aaron and Groves. “You two with me—” He switched attention to Heather. “You help Lauren.”

  Heather started to protest but Greg had already moved back out into the stairwell with the two others, then ascended quickly getting to the second floor, where he swiped the ID and pulled the door open, revealing a long corridor with various doors and a layer of smoke hugging the low ceiling.

  The three of them split up, trying each door, most revealing nothing but empty offices.

  “In here!” shouted Groves.

  Greg and Aaron joined her, all looking into a long room with large silver upright freezers, some of which were open, with empty shelves on display. The room’s florescent light spluttered into life, and the three of them moved inside, Greg closing the door behind.

  Groves moved from freezer to freezer, opening those that were closed but seeing the same vacant shelves. “They’ve already taken everything…”

  “The fire?” said Greg.

  She shook her head. “No, they wouldn’t have had time. This happened before.”

  “Fuck!” he shouted, running his hand over his beard.

  The sound of footsteps came from the corridor outside, making him move back to the door, placing his head against it to listen. The sounds came with voices, one of which he recognised. He flung open the door. “Jenn?”

  She stood with Grace, both holding Marge, who appeared pale, a gown over her, covered in blood.

  “What happened?” he said to the General.

  “They found us. Long story. We didn’t get to the women. Vaccine?”

  “It’s gone,” said Groves appearing behind him.

  “Then it’s time for us to leave.”

  “Lauren’s downstairs,” said Aaron. “She’s helping some of the women out of here… Where’s Barb?”

  “She didn’t make it,” said Clara.

  “Shit…”

  The group of eight quickly made their way back to the stairs, checking Lauren and the women were gone from their corridor and then kept on going to the ground floor.

  “Siren’s stopped,” said Aaron.

  “Not a good sign,” said Greg, pushing open the ground floor door they entered by…

  A wall of light opened up in front of him, along with shouts. He slammed the door closed as bullets peppered it, one tearing through the barrier and the top of his arm, another through his jacket, narrowly missing his stomach. Everyone else ducked and dived to the wall to avoid being hit. Frantically he waved for them to back up. “We need another way out of here!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CLARA

  “You’re surrounded!” shouted a male voice from outside. Clara, not the only one to recognise it as Micheal. “We only want the control! The rest of you will be free to leave!”

  Greg looked confused. “What the hell’s he going on about?”

  “He means me,” said Clara. “I’m the control in their experiment.” She moved from the wall, standing in the centre of the corridor.

  “He’s lying!” said Grace.

  “I know. But I might be able to buy you some time.”

  Baldwin stood in front of her, closer to the door. “Screw that!”

  “It’s not your decision to make!”

  Greg grimaced then looked at Clara. “You’re right. It’s your decision. But they want you alive. I mean, that’s the point, right?”

  Her eyes widened, realising what the old man was saying to her. He handed her his other rifle, the others not understanding. “It’s ready to fire?” she said to him.

  “It is.”

  “Okay.” She moved to the door. “I’m coming out!”

  Before anyone could question her, she pulled the door open, the light from the flashlights streaming into the corridor.

  “Ah, there she is!” said Micheal, a bandage over his eye. His fake grin dissolved into a sneer as she stepped outside, her hand on the rifle’s trigger, the barrel pointed upward at her chest. “What are you doing?!”

  “Let the others leave! Or I’m ending this!”

  Michael moved forward, leaving a row of soldiers with raised weapons behind. “Now, don’t do anything stupid! You don’t know how valuable you are! Not just to myself, but to humanity! There are millions that are depending on you!”

  She took another step forward. “The women are gone! You won’t hurt them anymore!”

  He waved his hand nonchalantly. “I don’t care about them!” He took a step closer to her. “I care about you, Clara… and anyway there’s always—”

  She did not fully know why she reacted the way she did. There were no thoughts involved. No, deliberating over whether it was smart or not, unlike what happened with her ex. She wasn’t even thinking about the others behind her. No. She was simply letting out a long held breath.

  The rear of Michael’s skull disintegrated from the bullet that had entered his forehead, spraying its contents across the soldiers behind that had already began to fire. Bullets sliced into her body, but she hardly felt their impact, such was the joy she felt in killing the monster.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  LAUREN

  Gunfire erupted from the grounds behind Lauren. The cracks and booms prompting her and the women in front of her to move even faster. She was at the back of the trail of women, who were now staggering through the woods in almost complete darkness. “Keep going! Quicker!”

  “What’s happening?” said one of the women, closest.

  “Are the dead here?” said another, flicking a branch from her face.

  “Just keep going! It’s not far!”

  Upfront, Heather, who was leading the column, emerged from the tree line to flatter ground, a stiff breeze and a view of the sea and dock they arrived at. Relieved at seeing the boat still there, she waved the women past her. “There! Towards the boat!”

  The women spilled out onto the grassy headland, stumbling over mounds of dirt and weeds, finding their way through the darkness onto the rocks and pebbles, then the wooden planks which extruded above the waves.

  Lauren joined Heather in following. “We get the women on the boat, then we go back.” Heather agreed and the two women quickly made their way across the creaking jetty to the side of the boat. “Kelly? Olive?” There was no reply, so she tried again with the same result. The two women looked at each other, the older of them then leaping across the gap to the outer deck, and abruptly froze on spotting a trail of blood leading through a hatch. Creeping forward while holding the guardrail, she pushed the door open, immediately raising her handgun at the figure lurched over on one of the side sofas.

  Kelly looked up at her, his face pale, his eyelids dropping across his eyes. For a moment she wondered if she was looking at an animated corpse.

  “Took your time!” he grumbled, then coughed producing a drop of blood.

  She rushed forward, kneeling in front of him. “What happened? Where are you hurt?”

  He turned a little, grimacing as he did and showed her a deep red patch of torch shirt. Within the low light she couldn’t make out more than he had been injured.

  “Olive happened. She stabbed me!”

  The hatch opened and Lauren spun around with her weapon, making Heather throw her hands up.

  “Hey it’s me!”

  “Did you see Olive?”

  “No, why?”

  Kelly coughed again. “No one’s seeing her. I shot her right in the chest. Blew her spine out. She fell—”

  A scream pierced the air, causing Lauren to join Heather outside just as a woman jumped from the jetty, almost landing on top of her, knocking her back against the bridge. Lauren pushed her to the side trying to see the source of the panic, as another leaped onto the deck, each of the women scrambling to get onboard. Lauren moved along the guardrail. “Be careful! Slow down!”

  “They’re in the sea!” shouted one of the women, pointing at the waves. “It got Jane!”

  Before Lauren could make sense of what she was being told, a woman jumped from the dock but the boat heaved, pulling against the mooring rope, causing the woman to miss the deck, her hands desperately trying to grip the hull before sliding beneath the water, her shout for help being swallowed by the ocean.

  Lauren threw her arms out in front of her, trying to stop any more attempts by the women to board, but there was another scream and the crush began again, some of the women toppling from the boards into the ocean. As Heather lunged over the side, trying to pull who she could from the waves, Lauren spotted a form in the darkness, that was half on the old jetty, trying to grab hold of who it could. It grasped a woman’s ankle, causing her to fall, the thing threatening to pull her into the sea.

  Lauren spun the deck light around to face the jetty, and gasped at seeing the face of the thing trying to claim another victim. Olive’s middle-aged face looked no older, no meaner than it did before, but was covered in strands of green algae, and there was a dark gap where the middle of her chest should have been. “Get down!” Lauren screamed at the woman who was fighting to stay on the sodden boards.

  With a sudden lunge the thing that used to be Olive enveloped the woman, bitting into her neck then both slid off the jetty into the ocean.

  Lauren let out a breath, then turned back to the deck. All the women were aboard.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  AARON

  Aaron ducked lower as bullets thumped into bricks on the other side of the wall, then looked back at Groves, the only person from the group that had managed to stay with him. He threw his rifle above the edge of the wall and fired a volley into the darkness of the woods, not knowing if he hit anything.

  “We have to find the others!” said Groves.

  “I know!”

  They were on the side of a road, a gated entrance behind them and a forest in front. He wasn’t sure but he thought the road led to the right end of the island, where the boat would be waiting.

  “Follow me!” Keeping as low as they could, they half crawled, half walked alongside the wall, wading through shrubs, bushes and the uneven ground of a ditch, until the surface began to rise. He stopped. They had to run across the road into the cover of trees, and hope within the darkness they wouldn’t be seen.

  He peeked around the edge of the wall, trying to make out any shifting areas of shadow within the country lane, but there weren’t any that his eyes could pick out. “You ready? We need to run across to the other side, get inside those woods.”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  Levering himself free of the reeds, he pushed his legs to propel his body across the concrete, whipping his attention back along the winding road for any sign of bodies or eruptions of light from being fired upon, and made it to the tree line without seeing either.

  Groves almost ran into the back of him as she stumbled onto the dirt, out of breath. “I… need to… stop. I’m not twenty—”

  His hand over her mouth stopped anymore words from escaping into the cool night air. He was sure he heard a twig snap, deeper in the woods. An animal? The enemy? Or the undead? Either way, he wasn’t moving until he knew which. He let go of the older woman, and tugged on her jacket to pull her down into the undergrowth. Where they waited…

  He could almost feel the ground shudder, but another crack of a branch confirmed they were not alone. Whoever or whatever they were, they were close, maybe ten or so feet away. He knew he could take them. Shoot them before they even knew he was there, but then that would alert anyone else nearby, so better to let them… The shadowy form of a person stumbling between the even darker shapes of trunks made him spring up. Because he was sure he recognised it. “General?”

  The form stopped, swung around, then ran at him with such speed he was barely able to raise his rifle before it slammed into him, knocking him out of the trees and onto the more solid ground of the road. Its head lunged at his. Its mouth snapping open and closed inches from his face, only his weapon proving enough of a barrier to stop him from being eaten. As he struggled, his mind pieced together what was on top of him. It was Jenn. Her brown-grey hair fallen across her face, which contained missing parts. Not from the undead, but from bullets. His grief lent weight to the things efforts to end him, and he felt his arms weakening, her teeth close enough—

  There was a crack sound and the creature fell to the side, revealing another woman with a rock in her hand. His mind started to recover situational awareness, the shock of who the undead thing used to be, fading a little. It was not the time for grief he tried telling himself, and pivoted, shifting to his knees and smashed the butt of his rifle across the zombie’s skull, splitting it open. But that was still not enough to fully put it down.

  Groves drove the rock into its head again and again, until he slumped to the ground, quivering but no more a threat.

  He fell back on his rear.

  “We have to go,” said Groves.

  “It’s…”

  “I know. But we—”

  A blue spark on the concrete was quickly followed by the clatter of gunfire. Aaron scrambled across the ground, bullets skipping off the road around him, and fell into the arms of the branches and bushes.

  Without fully knowing where he was heading, with Groves ahead of him, they ran, stumbling and jumping where enough of a shadow made itself evident on the ground below, while trying to avoid slamming into the tall trees which were in every direction. As he ran, his mind couldn’t stop unhelpfully putting the undead face of the General in front of him, almost blocking his limited view of the forest.

  Suddenly and without warning the wall of trees ended and he and Grove’s emerged onto grassland, and a vista which stretched across the horizon. Lights twinkled on the boat, which seemed teeming with people.

  A boom rattled his skull, as the heat of a bullet passed close enough to scratch a line across his face. Instinctively he turned and fire, his own volley piercing the darkness of the woods, and illuminating a group of soldiers approaching, one of which was hit, instantly dropping out of sight.

  Groves had already gone on ahead, and he was not far behind, every step feeling heavier than the last, due to not knowing where the others were.

  As he ran onto the jetty, the boat was already pulling away and people were screaming for him to jump. Bullets flew in both directions, to and from the boat’s bow.

  He leaped, catching the side of the deck and pulled himself aboard, spotting Baldwin and Lauren firing from the deck at the figures running out from the woods.

  He moved inside the main cabin, shocked at how packed it was but relieved at who was inside. He moved past sobbing women of various ages to Grace who was wrapping a bandage around Clara’s arm. She was lying on one of the sofas, blood smeared across her face and fingers. On another sofa, Marge was equally covered in gauze, and appeared to be sleeping.

  Grace saw who was standing above her and let out a sigh. “Thank God you made it. Where’s Jenn?”

  Heather came down the stairs with the same enquiry written across her face. He looked at both in silence.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  JOE

  The V8’s engine hummed as Joe drove the old pickup along the country road. The early morning light seeping into the cabin. To his right, Liz with Tia on her lap and Hope in the footwell below, appeared to be sleeping, whereas in the seats behind him, the other two kids, were equally breathing deep, with Rain below and Mathew, Ember, and Amaya by their side. Swanson and Aiden were in the bed at the back, both wrapped in blankets they found at the medical centre, to keep warm.

  Despite the fact that they were being hunted, he was still having issues keeping his eyes open, and with each passing moment his mind wanted to wander off into the past and show him horror. He shook his head, blinking, trying to bring his brain back to life, but he knew continuing to drive wasn’t an option. He figured they were a good few hundred miles from the camp. Possibly into another state, although he couldn’t tell from the landscape outside.

  He tried not to think about the others. Those that had gone to the island. He wanted to believe that somehow they had realised it was a trap, and had turned away. Escaped from the same people chasing himself, but in his gut knew it was not likely to be true.