Dead Island (27 page)

As they headed for the laboratory, more of the infected suddenly appeared from a door in a corridor to their left. There were six of them this time, and the reflected light made them appear gimlet-eyed, which seemed to bestow them with an eerie, savage intelligence. At their head was a security guard, hunched over like an ape. His blood-streaked upper teeth were bared in a snarl, and the entire left side of his face was an oozing red mask, due to the fact that one of the infected had clearly taken hold of his top lip and wrenched upwards, ripping most of the flesh away. Without eyelids his left eye seemed to bulge and glare as it fixed upon them. Then, snarling and screeching, the six-strong group began to blunder and lope towards them.

Not exactly calmly, but certainly with an efficiency and precision acquired both through practice and necessity, Purna, Sam, Logan and Xian Mei stood their ground and opened fire. The air turned red as the heads of the infected were punctured, shattered, torn apart. The first two zombies – the security guard and a Kuruni tribesman – went down and the others scrambled over them and were themselves cut down in their turn. Again the whole thing was over in less than a minute, the corridor echoing with the din and stink of battle.

Ten down
, Sam thought, then something crashed into the back of him, knocking him to the ground.

He fell forward, landing on his gun. Although the thing at his back was a screeching, slashing dervish of activity, his first fearful thought was that the gun might go off with him lying on top of it. If that happened, then the cartridges would rip into his body like a series of minor explosions, causing untold – and almost certainly lethal – damage. Above him he was aware of shouting, running, of people crowding around him. The animal-like snarling was right by his ear, then something slashed across his cheek with a stinging shock.

Though he was pinned to the ground with a weight on his back, Sam did his best to shake his attacker from his body. He bucked and wriggled, pistoned back his elbow and felt it connect with something solid and fleshy.

All at once he was aware of the weight being lifted from him, of the spitting and snarling retreating from close by his ear to somewhere further away. Free to move, he rolled to one side, grabbed his gun and pulled it out from under his body. Then he rolled right over on to his back and sat up, pointing his gun at where he judged his attacker to be.

It was a young infected Kuruni woman, blood smeared around her mouth and clogging the nails of her hooked fingers. Xian Mei and Logan had pulled her off his back and were now wrestling with her, holding on to an arm each, trying to evade her snapping jaws. The tribeswoman was writhing and thrashing like an angry snake, and they were clearly finding it difficult to maintain a grip. Puffing out air to clear his head, Sam took aim and pulled the trigger.

The top of the woman’s head disintegrated, spattering all three of them with blood and brains. Instantly the zombie went limp, falling back against the wall and sliding to the floor as Logan and Xian Mei let go of her arms.

Grimacing with distaste, Logan brushed clots of blood and gobbets of brain from his face and clothes. ‘Way to go, buddy,’ he said.

‘Sorry,’ said Sam, using his sleeve to wipe blood off his forehead.

‘Are you OK?’ asked Xian Mei.

Sam fingered the slash on his face. He would have an impressive scar there once it healed. ‘I guess so. Bruised my ribs when I landed on my gun.’

Purna stepped forward, offered Sam a hand and hauled him to his feet. ‘Making a habit of the old hand-to-hand combat, aren’t you?’ she said with a grim smile.

Sam snorted a humourless laugh. ‘Guess I’m just the tastiest of us all.’

‘Yeah, you know what? I’m not even remotely jealous,’ said Logan.

Suddenly Xian Mei held up a hand. ‘Listen everyone.’

They all froze and raised their heads. Faintly they heard someone shouting for help.

‘That’s Yerema,’ said Sam.

‘She must have heard the gunfire,’ said Logan.

‘Guess we’d better go rescue her,’ said Sam, and raised his eyebrows at Purna. ‘That’s getting to be a habit too.’

‘It came from that direction,’ said Xian Mei, pointing.

‘The laboratory,’ Purna confirmed. ‘If Yerema’s still alive, then that’s probably where the rest of the infected will be. Remember everyone, there are potentially still around a dozen of them in here with us, so stay alert and be careful.’

Logan gave her a mock-salute, earning himself a disapproving glance, and they moved towards the laboratory.

As they approached the door they could see it was open. Purna put a finger to her lips and crept forward, the others a step or two behind. Yerema was still calling for help, though now that they were right outside the lab they could tell she was still a couple of rooms away. Sam guessed she must be in the cell area and that she had probably locked herself into one of the cages. He wondered if she was the only survivor, and what had happened to West.

As soon as they entered the laboratory his question was answered. West had been torn apart; there were gnawed pieces of him scattered all over the room. His legs, still clad in designer jeans and Timberland boots, were up against the far wall. There was one of his chewed arms, a still-ticking watch around its wrist, on the counter, and a torso, partly clad in a red and black checked shirt like a huge fleshy cushion, in the middle of the floor, trailing guts like stuffing. His head was resting against one of the now-empty animal cages, his surprisingly unmarked face turned towards them. His mouth was open in a frozen scream, his pale blue eyes glaring at them accusingly.

You caused this
, he seemed to be saying.
You brought them here. I’m dead because of you
.

The floor was awash with West’s blood and the white walls were covered with it. Some of the equipment had been swept to the floor and smashed, and all the animal cages were open and their occupants gone – eaten by zombies, Sam wondered, or fled back into the jungle?

The door on the far side of the laboratory was also open and, as Sam had expected, it was from beyond here that Yerema’s voice was coming. There were other sounds in there with Yerema too – grunts and snarls and dull metallic thumps.

‘Yerema!’ Sam shouted.

There was a high-pitched gasp. ‘Sam? Is that you?’

‘Yeah. Listen, you OK in there?’

As he had expected, she shouted, ‘I’m locked in one of the cages. The infected are throwing themselves against the bars, trying to get in.’

‘How many of them are down there with you?’ Purna shouted.

‘I don’t know. About … twelve?’

Purna nodded; it was what she had expected. ‘Are there any close to the door?’

‘No. They’re all trying to get at me.’

Turning to the others, Purna said, ‘I’m going in there to draw them out. I want you three to get them in a cross-fire as they emerge – but just do me one favour, OK?’

‘What’s that?’ asked Xian Mei.

Purna smiled faintly. ‘Try not to be too trigger-happy. Give me time to get clear before you start firing.’

They took up their positions, Logan to the left of the door, Sam in the middle and Xian Mei to the right. Unhesitatingly Purna passed through the open doorway into the cell area, and they heard her descending the steps and striding determinedly along the corridor towards the second door at the far end, her footsteps fading as she got further away. For a minute or so there was silence, then they heard her shouting defiantly, ‘Hey, you lot! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?’

The snarls and grunts of the infected changed pitch, suddenly becoming more urgent, more eager. Then they heard Purna’s rapidly approaching footsteps, in the wake of which came the bestial clamour of pursuit. The footsteps grew louder, reaching a crescendo as Purna clattered up the steps. She burst through the doorway, almost slipping in West’s blood before regaining her balance.

‘They’re right … behind me …’ she gasped.

She had barely made it out of the line of fire before the infected were spilling into the room. As soon as they appeared, Logan, Sam and Xian Mei started firing, cutting down men, women and children alike. Blood, flesh and bone flew everywhere. In less than a minute the doorway was clogged with bodies. Yet still the infected came, uncaringly clambering over their fallen comrades, stamping on their faces and slipping in their blood, in their desperate desire for warm, living meat.

As the firing continued and the last of the infected collapsed on top of the tangle of once-human bodies, so the wave of blood leaking and spurting from dozens of wounds and ruptures fanned out across the floor. Grimly Logan, Sam and Xian Mei continued to stand their ground as the blood tide lapped against their boots, oozing around them like something alive.

Finally, however, it was over, and the guns fell silent. Sam, enervated, felt his arms droop to his sides, that sense of numbness, of unreality, of faint self-loathing creeping over him again. He shuddered, shaking it off, and stepped backwards out of the blood, the soles of his boots making a sticky squelching sound as he did so. From what seemed like the bowels of the earth, Yerema’s voice called out, ‘What’s happening up there?’

Sam tried to reply, but for a second his voice wouldn’t come. It was Purna who answered, ‘We’re all OK.’

‘What about the infected?’ asked Yerema.

Purna hesitated, as if searching for some way of describing what had happened without making it sound as ugly and brutal as it had been. Finally, however, she simply said, ‘They’re dead. We got them all.’

‘So I’m the last then,’ said Yerema, a hint of disbelief creeping into her voice. ‘The last of the Kuruni.’

For the next few minutes the four of them occupied themselves with the grim task of dragging aside the sprawled and mangled bodies blocking the doorway. No one spoke, and by the time they were done their hands were gloved in red and their clothes were once again stained and stinking with zombie blood.

Though Yerema was grateful to be rescued and hugged each of them in turn, she was not jubilant, recognizing that theirs was a hollow victory.

‘So what happened?’ asked Purna.

Yerema shook her head. ‘It was one of the guards. A Kuruni child was sick, having seizures, so he opened the cage. Either he hadn’t been fully informed about the virus or he simply didn’t appreciate how dangerous it was. Anyway, he was attacked and the infected got free. I guess the other guards must have been reluctant to use their guns at first – they probably thought the infected would respond to threats. By the time they realized their mistake, it would have been too late.’

‘But you were smart enough to lock yourself in one of the cages,’ said Xian Mei.

To their surprise Yerema shook her head. ‘I didn’t lock
myself
in,’ she said. ‘Dr West locked me in earlier.’

‘West?’ exclaimed Logan. ‘Why?’

‘He wanted to use me as a guinea pig, give me a shot of the vaccine he had developed to see how it affected the dormant virus in my system. But I didn’t want him to. I thought it was too dangerous. He’d admitted earlier that if he didn’t get it right the vaccine could have the opposite effect and kick-start the virus into fighting back. He tried to inject me by force, but I knocked the hypodermic out of his hand and stamped on it. So he dragged me down to the cells and locked me in, telling me that once he’d prepared another hypodermic he’d be back. But a few minutes later the guard arrived to feed the prisoners and made the mistake of opening the cage, and that’s when everything started to go wrong. The infected got out and killed everyone and then they came back for me. I didn’t know what had happened to West until now. Despite everything, I was kind of hoping he’d managed to get away.’

‘So he
did
develop a working vaccine before he died?’ said Purna.

‘That’s what he told me. But I don’t know how safe or effective it was. I know he hadn’t properly tested it.’

‘Even so, it’s the best we’ve got,’ said Purna, looking around the laboratory. There was plenty of equipment still intact on the work surfaces, but nothing that jumped out at her, nothing obvious.

‘So where is it?’ she asked.

Yerema shook her head. ‘I’ve no idea.’

‘We’ve got to find it,’ said Purna firmly. ‘We can’t leave until we do.’

‘GO TO
THE
left.’

Xian Mei relayed the instruction to Mowen as the hand-held mine detector, not much bigger than a TV remote control, began to beep insistently. The detector consisted of a mostly black display screen, which depicted Mowen’s boat as a slowly moving white dot. Whenever they got close to one of the hidden underwater mines surrounding the prison island, a flashing red dot would appear, accompanied by a high-pitched beep. The closer they were to the mine, the more frantic both the flashing and the beeping would become. Mowen had told them that he sometimes ran errands for the prison governor and had been given the device to enable him to move safely through the waters between Banoi and the smaller island a couple of miles offshore. He didn’t elaborate on the nature of the errands, and no one asked.

Because they had to be almost on top of a mine before the detector picked up its signal, progress through the water was slow. For a while it seemed that the black island jutting from the sea, dominated by its forbidding grey tower like the domain of an evil sorcerer in a fairy story, wasn’t getting any closer. Not that Sam, for one, minded at all. Despite their destination, he was just glad to be heading away from Banoi and to be breathing fresh air untainted by the stench of corruption. It was a glorious day, the eggshell-blue of the sky reflected in the deeper blue of the calm and glittering ocean. Odd to think that, like Banoi itself, the sea’s beauty concealed such deadly danger lurking beneath its surface.

Inevitably, however, they
did
eventually draw closer to the island, the jagged black rocks that fringed the shoreline like the beckoning claws of some vast leviathan. The island itself, which rose to a plateau on which the prison was built, appeared to swell from the ocean. As Mowen slowly and skilfully steered his boat through the rocks towards a small inlet, Purna dialled Ryder White’s number.