The Dying of the Light (Book 3): Beginning by Jason Kristopher

mostly empty, with only one guard and a technician on duty. Logan knew the Ops chief was probably in his office off to one side. As he was about to head that way, he heard a scuffle from behind and turned to find Dagger stabbing the guard over and over again with the tree branch.
    Covered in blood, Dagger turned to the technician, who had frozen in fear. The guard’s body slid down the wall as the tech bolted for the door, and Dagger cackled as he watched her leave.
    “Secure the door, Logan,” Dagger said with a grin, and some small part of Logan died as he saw the craziness in the man’s eyes. “I have something else to take care of.” Dagger moved toward the Ops chief’s office.
    “Yes, sir,” he said and rushed to close the door. He closed his eyes as he heard a short, sharp scream come from the side room. By the time he’d locked the Ops room door, Dagger had returned, covered nearly head to toe in blood, and Logan didn’t have to wonder whose it was.
    Dagger approached and slapped Logan on the back of the head, hard. “Patch me through to the whole bunker,” the man said as he watched the feeds from the many monitors. “I want everyone to see this.”
    Logan grimaced at the pain in his head and the anxious ache in his gut as he raced to one of the chairs in front of the controls and began typing in commands as fast as he could. Moments later, a feed came up on the big monitor showing Dagger. “You’re live, sir.”
    “Attention, Bunker Four,” Dagger said. “This is your new commander. Your old commander? Your commander.”
    Logan noticed Dagger had somehow got his ramblings and random giggles under control. Maybe that had all been an act.
    “I have taken control of Ops, and as most of you know, that means I control everything in this bunker. I have all the codes, and I can do anything I want to all of you.” Dagger danced around in a little circle. “You’re mine! But I’m not a greedy person, and I have no use for most of you, so I’ll let you go on about your lives as usual… with one condition.
    “Bring me the head of Alfredo Davies.” Dagger cackled.
    Logan shuddered at the madness evident in that noise. His frayed nerves had him on edge, and he thought he, too, might snap at any moment.
    “Or no, not just his head. I want the man mostly whole and intact and delivered to me by 1200 hours. Or I’ll release the aerosolized prion into one level of the bunker at a time until he is.” Dagger cackled again. “How many of you will be Driebachs by the time we’re done is up to you!”
    Logan’s heart sank. Dagger would’ve co-opted whomever had taken him on his walk, but those walks had been Logan’s idea. Logan had unleashed this monster on the world, all because he was too soft to watch him suffer. Rickman had been right. Everyone was better off with Dagger in a cage.
    But Logan had set him free.
    He put his head in his hands and wept.

     
    Bunker Seven
Governor’s Conference Room
     
    “So that’s it, gentlemen and ladies,” Jim Atkins said as he sat down in the chair next to his wife, across from Bunker Seven’s command staff. “To sum up, we’ve refined the treatment as much as we can, but there might still be some complications. We just don’t know what those will be and have no way of knowing. Thanks to some volunteers, we’ve begun trials and will keep everyone informed. It’s a two-phase treatment: one for our current people and another for those yet to come. We’ll need to give it at least four generations to make sure the modifications have taken hold completely. But we’re looking at the end of our biggest weakness against the walkers.” Jim took his wife’s hand and smiled at Mary, sitting on his other side.
    Major Bill Shaw, Bunker Seven’s military commander, his wife, Jennifer, and the bunker’s governor, Tom Ridgely, all sat stunned. Jim and the other scientists had expected that.
    The governor recovered first. “Did you get that, everyone?” he asked,