“What you call a hybrid is a Type 3,” she said, pointing at the bottom of the board. She wrote the word “vaccine” next to Type 3.
Pointing to the middle of the board, where she had written Type 2, she said, “The Type 2 is the undead zombie.” She wrote the words “No vaccine” and “bite”.
“When we were still in contact with Site Alpha One, we had a joint project to produce a pure strain of the virus. This is not the serum that Vess injected into himself; it’s the result of that serum combining with the H1N1 flu virus that was already present in his body. We wanted to be able to produce the pure virus so that we could study it and look for a way to kill it.
“At the time, the question came up of how this pure strain would react with the faulty vaccine that causes hybrids. We decided that it would have the same effect as the virus that is transmitted by a bite and the victim would become a hybrid. But because of the absence of some impurities that are transmitted from the biter to the victim, we decided that the transformation into a Type 3 wouldn’t involve the usual four-day sickness.”
“So there’s nothing to worry about,” Sam said.
“We were wrong,” Doctor Colbert said. “After the two sites lost contact with each other, we did some further studies here at Alpha Two. We went beyond simple theory and performed a series of experiments in this lab to find out what would happen if a vaccinated person were injected with the pure strain of the virus.
“The experiments had no real-world application; we didn’t think anyone would actually ever be injected with the virus—why would they? But scientific curiosity drove us to seek answers anyway. The results were conclusive; the vaccine has no effect whatsoever on the pure virus.”
Next to “Type 1” on the board, she wrote the word “Pure”.
“So that is how we classify the infected. When the virus is transmitted by a bite or scratch to an unvaccinated person, that person dies, and a Type 2 is created. A zombie. Add the vaccine into the mix, and that creates a victim who remains alive, but becomes driven by a homicidal rage. That is a Type 3. A hybrid.”
She pointed at the top of the board. “But if someone is injected with the pure virus, they become a Type 1. At the moment, there is only one Type 1 in existence… Vess.”
“So if we don’t get the antivirus that this H1NZ1 is needed for, we’ll become like him?” Jax asked.
Doctor Colbert nodded.
“Okay,” I said, “But we’re going to be given the antivirus when we get back to Alpha One, so why panic?”
“Tell me exactly when you were injected with the pure virus. What time was it?” Colbert asked.
I shrugged. “I didn’t check my watch.”
“It was eight thirty,” Jax said. “There was a clock in the room, and I noticed it said eight thirty.”
On the whiteboard, Colbert wrote “Introduction of virus: 2030 hrs Sunday.” She drew a vertical line beneath the words and asked, “What time is your rendezvous with the people from Alpha One?”
I told her, and she wrote “1300 hrs. Tuesday” at the bottom of the vertical line.
She said, “That would be plenty of time if you had been bitten, or if our original theories about the pure virus were correct. You’d be able to return to Alpha One and receive the antivirus with time to spare. From the time you were injected, you would have ninety-six hours before becoming a Type 3.”
“You’re saying we don’t have that long,” I said.
Shaking her head, she drew a horizontal line halfway up the vertical line and wrote “2230 hrs. Monday” next to it.
“The people who injected you were working on outdated information regarding the pure strain of the virus. This is when you’ll turn,” she said. “Tomorrow night at ten thirty. You don’t have anywhere near the ninety-six hours that the people at Alpha One thought you’d have. The pure virus works much faster than that.”
She checked the clock on the wall. “You have twenty-four hours left.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“I DON’T FUCKING BELIEVE this,” Sam said, throwing his backpack to the floor. “I knew we’d get screwed over by those fuckers on Apocalypse Island.” He paced back and forth along the length of the lab, muttering to himself.
“They didn’t know anything about it,” I reminded him. “They thought that everything they told us about the virus was correct.”
“Just shut the fuck up, Alex.”
I decided to let him work out his anger issues by himself. I didn’t want another punch to the gut.
Jax was standing by the window, looking out at the rainy night. I went over to her. “Hey, are you okay?”
She nodded but didn’t say anything.
“We’ll get through this,” I said. I didn’t really believe those words, not at that moment. We were only twenty-four hours from becoming creatures like the thing in the vents.
Jax sighed. “I don’t think so. Not this time, Alex. I’m going to die not knowing if my boyfriend is still alive or not. I’ll never know what happened to him. And he’ll never know what happened to me.”
“Don’t think like that,” I said. “This isn’t over yet.” I was trying to reassure Jax but I was in exactly the same situation; if I didn’t get that antivirus, and turned in twenty-four hours, I would never know what had become of Joe and my parents. Lucy’s fate, on the other hand, was certain; she would turn. I guessed that the guards at Alpha One would kill her once she ceased being a human being. Hart’s wife, Kate, would suffer the same fate.
An idea came into my head. It was probably too late for me, but if I could get my backpack full of H1NZ1 to the rendezvous site, Hart would find it and take it back to Apocalypse Island. Lucy and Kate could be saved, even if we couldn’t.
Jax reached inside her T-shirt and pulled on the thin gold chain she wore around her neck. “Derek gave me this,” she said. “He asked me to marry him.” A diamond engagement ring hung from the chain, sparkling in the lab’s artificial light. “I never wore it because I couldn’t decide if I was going to say yes. I was an idiot. I should have said yes without even a second thought. I didn’t realize how precious our time together was. I didn’t know it was going to end so suddenly.” Her shoulders began to hitch. I put my arms around her and let her cry against my chest.
I liked Jax. At times, she seemed to be the most vulnerable person in the group, and that was endearing. Even though she could be damn tough sometimes, she wasn’t in the same league as Tanya. Jax showed her softer side sometimes, and the fact that she wasn’t afraid to show it made me like her even more.
It felt good to hold another person, even if it was someone I really didn’t know. In the midst of death, destruction, and a countdown to our own demise, there was comfort in the touch of another human being.
The moment was ruined when Sam kicked a steel worktable with the toe of his boot. The sound reverberated through the lab.
Jax pulled back from me with a little smile, and turned to face Sam. “What’s wrong with you?”
“This is some fucked-up shit, man. I don’t want to die here.”
Doctor Colbert spoke up. “I thought you people were fighters. I’d never seen a more motivated group of survivors. I was barely surviving here, thinking I was going to die, but you convinced me to try to live again. You showed me that the zombies have a weakness, and told me that there are still scientists at Alpha One working on a solution to the problem we face. You gave me hope. Now you’re giving up? You have twenty-four hours left; are you going to spend them doing nothing but waiting to die?”
“She’s right,” Jax said, wiping tears from her face. “I don’t want to sit here doing nothing while time ticks away. There must be something we can do, something we can try.”