Undead Rain (Book 3): Lightning (Fighting the Living Dead) Read Online Free Page B

in there last week, why were you asking the director about it again today?”
    He took a deep breath and let it out slowly between his lips before he answered. “Getting that chemical became a lot more important to me today than it was last week.” He trailed off, seemingly lost in his thoughts.
    “Why?” I prompted.
    “My wife Kate is a lab technician here. That’s how we met twelve years ago. She’s all I have in this world, and I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to her. Today, at lunchtime, Kate and a few other people from the lab went beyond the fence to visit the beach by the dock. That probably sounds crazy to you, knowing what’s out there on the island, but when you’re cooped up in this compound day after day, you need a change of scenery or you’ll go crazy. They took a Jeep and they had an armed guard with them.”
    He paused as if he didn’t want to say next part. “They were attacked by a hybrid. Four people, including the guard, were killed. Kate was the only survivor. She drove the Jeep back here and demanded that she be put into quarantine immediately. She’d been bitten. She had the presence of mind to race back here before the virus sent her wandering away to find a quiet place to turn into a hybrid. So she’s in our hospital right now, four days away from becoming a monster.”
    Now it all made sense. Hart needed the H1NZ1 bringing here just as much as I did. Without it, his wife would turn into a hybrid, the same as Lucy.
    “So why don’t you go and get it?” I asked. “You have trained people with weapons. If anyone has a chance to get the chemical from Alpha Two, it must be you and your team.”
    “Yes,” he said, “but I can’t go. The director won’t bend her orders for me. She told me that if I left the island to get the H1, I wouldn’t be allowed back. There are a lot of people here who would step into my position as soon as I left and enforce the director’s orders. So even if I got the chemical, it wouldn’t do Kate any good.”
    “But your director is okay with sending me,” I said.
    “You and your friends,” he replied. “You aren’t employees here, so as far as the director is concerned, if you get the H1 and bring it back here, then that’s a bonus that she hasn’t had to risk her own staff for. If you get killed and don’t return, she won’t have lost any of the island’s resources. She has nothing to lose.”
    “So we’re expendable,” I said.
    “To her you are,” Hart said. “To me, you’re the only people who can save my wife. That’s why I’m going to give you all the weapons and equipment you need to succeed at this mission. You’re my only hope, Alex.”
    I thought about it for a moment. “I’ll do whatever it takes to save Lucy. But my friends don’t even know her; I can’t see them agreeing to go on this mission. Why would they?”
    “Here’s the situation, Alex. I can’t send you alone to Site Alpha Two; you wouldn’t stand a chance on your own. And as you say, if I let your friends go with you, I can’t guarantee that they’ll come back with the H1. If the mission got too tough, they might just abandon it. That would leave you and me in the shit where Kate and Lucy are concerned. I can’t take that chance.”
    “So what are you going to do to make sure they return?” I asked, thinking I already knew the answer. He was going to keep one of us here, so that the others had to come back to collect them. Hart had probably guessed that we were a tight knit group and wouldn’t abandon each other. “If you keep someone here,” I said, “you’ll reduce the number of people going on the mission by one, and also reduce our chance of success.”
    “No, nothing like that,” he said. “I’m not going to keep any of you hostage. You’ll all be going to Site Alpha Two. And I can guarantee that you will do everything you can to get the chemical and return.” He stood up, went to the door, and knocked once.
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