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.”
Chapter Five
“ T ell 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