Undead Rain (Book 3): Lightning (Fighting the Living Dead) by Shaun Harbinger

become such an optimist?” he threw back at me. “When we met you, you were whining about everything. Now you’re all ‘fuck yeah, let’s do it.’ You’ve changed, man.”
    I wasn’t sure he meant it as a compliment, but I took it as one. I remembered complaining about everything all the time. I wasn’t sure what had changed inside me, but now I hardly saw any point in griping about the little things that annoyed me. The things I used to complain about paled in comparison to the big problems I had to deal with now. Maybe, like Jax, I had realized that life was precious.
    I didn’t want to waste any of that precious time, even if I only had twenty-four hours of it left. Especially if I only had twenty-four hours of it left.
    Maybe I could at least get the H1NZ1 to the helipad where Hart would be landing in a couple of days’ time. Doctor Colbert could tell him what had happened, and fly to Apocalypse Island with the chemical to do some good. Maybe she would be a part of the team that would finally figure out how to deal with the zombies for good.
    Jax leaned against the lab table as if she had suddenly lost all her strength. I put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
    She clutched her right arm, pain etched across her ashen face as she shook her head. “No,” she said through gritted teeth. She doubled over, falling to the floor, moaning in agony.
    “What’s wrong with her?” I asked Doctor Colbert desperately.
    She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s reacting badly to the virus.”
    “I’m okay,” Jax said. “Help me up.”
    She took my hand and I helped her get to her feet. She leaned on the table, breathing deeply. Beads of sweat had broken out across her forehead.
    I put an arm around her, but she shook it off. “I’m fine,” she said.
    I didn’t know what was happening to her, but I decided that we should get out of here as soon as possible and regroup with Tanya and Johnny in the security-guard station.
    I went to the door and looked out at the corridor. It seemed deserted. I pressed the button on the walkie-talkie.
    “How does the fourth floor look from the cameras?” If this floor was clear, all we had to do was ride the elevator down to the reception area and get the hell out of the building.
    There was no answer other than static.
    I tried again. “Tanya? Johnny?”
    Nothing.
    Then Tanya’s voice came over the airwaves, sounding worried. “Alex, there’s something…we don’t know what it is…but it just ran past one of the cameras on your floor.”
    “What? Where?” I looked out at the corridor again. “I can’t see anything.”
    “It was by the elevators,” Tanya said. “I’m panning the camera around but I can’t see it anywhere. It moved too fast.”
    I turned to the others. “What do you think? Should we wait, or go now?”
    “Let’s go,” Sam said, “I’m sick of this place. There’s too much science everywhere.” He looked at Colbert. “No offense, lady.”
    Jax nodded. “I want to get out of here, too.”
    Doctor Colbert said, “I’ll go along with whatever you decide.”
    “Okay, let’s do it.” I opened the lab door and we went out into the corridor. The sprinklers had stopped, but the walls were dripping with water, and there was at least an inch of it covering the floor. I went ahead, moving as quickly as I could while still being alert and wary. I wanted to get out of here as much as everyone else, but I didn’t want to go rushing into trouble.
    We got halfway along the corridor, the elevators in sight ahead, when a crashing sound made me turn around. The grille of the air vent in the corridor had hit the wall and fallen to the floor. A shape leaped out of the hole and landed in the corridor.
    It was obviously Doctor Marcus Vess. His face was lined with dark veins, his eyes yellow, but I recognized him from the videos. He was naked, his entire body’s vascularity prominent and dark beneath his skin. He was covered with blood, some of