“What are we going to do?” I asked.
Lucy said, “If they haven’t come down here, there must be a good reason. Either they can’t come right now and will arrive later, or something has gone wrong and there’s nobody left at the facility. If we go walking up there and something bad happens, we’ll be trapped. I say we stay here.”
I nodded. “I agree. We should stay with the boats. Maybe we should also leave the dock and sail out to deeper water.”
“No arguments from me, man,” Sam said.
“Me either.” Tanya was already unhitching the rope that tethered the Escape to the dock.
I moved quickly and did the same for the Easy. Now that we had decided to leave the island, I wanted to do so as soon as possible. Something wasn’t right here, and we weren’t going to go blundering into whatever trouble had befallen Site Alpha One.
Climbing the ladder to the bridge, I shouted to Tanya, “Let’s take the boats out half a mile.”
She nodded and started up the Escape’s engines.
I did the same and guided the boat away from the dock and into the choppy, deeper water. When we were half a mile out, I dropped the anchor and climbed down to the aft deck before going inside and taking off the waterproof jacket. I hung it on a brass hook near the door and ran my fingers through my rain-soaked hair.
Lucy was sitting by the window, watching the island through the rain-streaked glass. “What do you think has happened?”
I shrugged and sat down next to her. “Maybe nothing. It could be that they’re just busy right now.”
“Too busy to see us, the people who are going to deliver their antivirus for them?”
She had a point. The scientists at Site Alpha One were dedicated to the task of making the antivirus. That task was pointless unless there was a way to deliver the antivirus to the survivors on the mainland. Because Marilyn MacDonald, the director of Apocalypse Island, wouldn’t let any of her own people do that job, it had fallen to us. We were an important part of their plan.
They wouldn’t ignore our arrival unless there was a good reason to do so.
I grabbed a pair of binoculars and watched the dock where we had stood moments ago. The rainclouds passed over the island, scudding toward the mainland on the breeze. The sun made a reappearance and shone on the dock, brightening everything with its warm light.
“Did you hear that?” Lucy asked. “It sounded like gunfire.”
I shook my head. Then I heard it too, a distant cracking sound.
We went out onto the aft deck and listened. Out here, the sounds were clearer. They were definitely gunshots. I could hear single shots and the rat-a-tat-tat of automatic weapons.
And below that, the rumble of vehicle engines.
Sam and Tanya had emerged from the Escape and were standing on the deck, looking toward the island.
“What’s happening, man?” Sam asked.
I shrugged, peering through the binoculars but unable to see anything because of the high cliffs.
The radio on the bridge crackled to life. “Alex, are you there?” It was Hart’s voice.
I handed Lucy the binoculars and climbed the ladder to the bridge, picking up the mic and saying, “Hart? Is that you? Over.”
“We’re on our way to the dock,” he said. “ETA two minutes. Over.”
“We’ll be there,” I said. “Over.”
“And, Alex,” he added, “you’ll need to get into the vehicles fast. We’ve got problems. Over and out.”
3
We moored the boats and grabbed our weapons before heading along the dock to the asphalt track. The sounds of vehicles and gunfire were louder now, closer to our position.
A Jeep came tearing down the track and skidded to a stop in front of us. Hart, sitting in the driver’s seat, shouted, “Get in!”
We scrambled inside. I was riding shotgun, and the others were in the back seat.
Hart revved the engine and spun the vehicle around, accelerating up the track and crunching through the gears.
“What’s happening?” I asked as we sped toward the trees. Up ahead, I could see three other Jeeps idling by the side of the track. Members of Hart’s security team were standing by the vehicles, firing into the woods.
“Things are getting worse on the island,” he said. “The zombies have been attacking the perimeter fence. Some of them got into the building. We cleared them out, but we’ve been fighting them ever since.”
We raced past the other Jeeps and Hart picked up the radio mic. “Blue Team, return to base when ready.” I heard shouts from behind us, then the other vehicles began following us back to the facility.
“This,” Hart said, gesturing at the woods around us, “is the same problem we’re going to have on the mainland. Even if we administer the antivirus to every single survivor so they can’t be turned, we still have to deal with the zombies and hybrids that are already around. Sure, they won’t add any more to their number by biting people and infecting them, but it’s going to take a long time to eradicate them.”
“The army should be able to wipe them out,” I said. “Eventually.”
Hart grimaced. “Sure, eventually. And in the meantime, those monsters will be killing every living person they come across. They won’t be able to turn us, so they’ll try to destroy us.”
“The virus is adapting its tactics,” Tanya said from the back seat.
“Yeah.” Hart nodded grimly. “Everyone on the island has been vaccinated now. It’s like the virus knows there’s no point trying to spread itself to the population here so it’s trying to kill us off instead. The same thing is going to happen on the mainland once we get the antivirus to the population there. It’s going to be bloody war.”
“As far as the virus is concerned, an unvaccinated person is a potential host,” I said. “It wants to infect them so they can then infect others. But people who can’t be infected are simply an enemy. So the virus will direct its hosts to kill them. It makes sense.”
“Yeah,” Hart said, “And then we have the hybrids that already want to kill everything. It’s a shit storm.”
The trees ended and the facility came into view. I could see places where the fence had been damaged. Bodies of zombies and humans littered the ground both inside and outside the fence.
“We don’t even have time to clean up the dead bodies,” Hart said as we passed through the gate and into the compound. His face was grim and I wondered how many of the dead he had known personally.
We parked by the main doors and got out of the Jeep. Hart swiped his access card through the digital lock and the glass doors slid open, allowing us into the foyer.
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
4
“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 fir
st 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?
“Each camp has a database that contains the name and location of every survivor in every camp,” Hart said. “It’s called the Survivor Board. When the camps started taking in survivors, they put their names and pictures on a board at the gates. I think it was to encourage other survivors to enter the camp, especially if their families or loved ones were inside.
“The information from the boards eventually became collated into a database and networked to each camp. Your brother’s whereabouts will be on that database. The same goes for the rest of you; if your loved ones have survived and made it to a camp, you’ll find out where they are from the Survivor Board.”
We’d heard of the database before but our chances of getting into a camp to consult it had been non-existent. Now, we would be authorized to go into a camp, deliver the antivirus, check the Survivor Board, and leave without being shot.
I was sure that I was going to find Joe and my parents. Since the outbreak began, I had never been closer to finding them than I was now.
MacDonald turned off the screen. “We have maps, weapons, and supplies in the hangar. When you’re ready, we can go down there and begin the operation.”
There was no point hanging around here any longer. We got up from our seats and left the lecture hall, led by MacDonald and Hart.
We were ready to begin Operation Wildfire.
5
The hangar housed the three chinooks that Hart had said were out of fuel. There was also a truck loaded with cardboard boxes, its loading doors open. The place smelled of oil, gasoline, and rubber. There were mechanics tinkering with the engines of a couple of Jeeps and a crew doing something inside one of the choppers. The han
gar was a busy place.
“Each box,” MacDonald said, indicating the boxes in the rear of the truck, “contains a thousand pre-loaded syringes. Each syringe is in a white plastic tube printed with instructions for self-administering the intramuscular injection. The tubes protect the syringes, so they can take rough handling if the situation calls for it.”
“How many boxes do we need to take to Camp Apollo?” I asked.
“Just one box. There are less than a thousand military personnel there.”
“How many survivors?” Lucy asked.
“Around four thousand.”
“So if we deliver five boxes,” Lucy said, “that will vaccinate everyone in the camp.”
“You will deliver one box to Camp Apollo,” MacDonald said. “The others go to Prometheus for distribution among the armed forces. Once they are delivered, you will return here for more batches of vaccine. Those will also be delivered to Prometheus. Are we clear on that?”
“It’s clear what you want us to do,” Lucy said.
MacDonald looked at each of us, obviously gauging whether or not we would follow her instructions. She knew that once we were away from the island, we were on our own. We could do whatever we wished with the vaccine.
But what choice did she have? She wasn’t willing to send her own people into danger, so we were her only hope of getting the vaccine to the mainland. If some of it went to the civilians and not the army, that was the price she was going to have to pay for our services.
She said, “Hart will give you the maps and supplies, as well as the identity cards that will ensure your safe passage in and out of the camps. Good luck.” She turned on her heels and left the hangar.
“I think we pissed her off, man,” Sam said, grinning.
Tanya gave Sam a high-five.
Hart sighed. “You really should consider running this operation the way Marilyn wants it to be run. Her reasons are sound.”
Wildfire- Destruction of the Dead Page 2