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

pain was brought on by the virus in her system, I wasn’t sure she had even the twenty-four hours Doctor Colbert had promised us.
    As Johnny got close to Vess, he bent over to look at the creature’s face.
    Vess shot his arm up and grabbed Johnny around the throat, lifting him into the air. He got to his feet, still holding Johnny up above his head. I ran for the access door, pulling my Desert Eagle from its holster. My other hand dug the door card out of my pocket.
    Despite her pain, Jax had managed to get her gun into her hands. She lifted it and aimed at Vess, who moved a struggling Johnny into her line of fire. Jax hesitated.
    Vess thrust his hand into the back of Johnny’s neck before pulling down viciously. Johnny’s eyes went wide, his mouth falling open as Vess tore his spine from his body. Tossing Johnny’s dead body aside, Vess advanced on Jax.
    Obviously realizing that shooting at Vess was pointless after he had dodged Johnny’s bullet at close range, Jax scrambled to her feet and ran, almost slipping over on the wet floor as she turned a corner at the end of the corridor. Vess followed.
    “No!” I shouted as I reached the door. My hand was shaking so much that my first attempt to swipe my card through the lock failed. I tried again, looking at Johnny’s lifeless body through the glass. The water around him was stained red. The look of shock and agony on his face remained even in death.
    The door opened.
    I ran through, past Johnny to the end of the corridor. Jax had turned right, so I did the same, expecting to come upon her body around the corner. She wasn’t fast enough to outrun Vess. Unless she had found a locked room to hole up in, she must be dead.
    She was there, but she was alive. Kneeling in the water, tears streaming from her face, she held the gun in her hand up in the air in front of her, but her hand was shaking so badly that the muzzle of the Desert Eagle swung wildly left and right.
    Vess was gone, his exit route marked by a broken air vent in the wall.
    Why had he left Jax alive?
    I went to her, putting my arm around her and helping her to stand. Her entire body was trembling like a leaf held to a branch by such a fragile connection that the slightest breeze would blow it away.
    She leaned against me as if she had lost the strength to stand.
    “We need to get out of here,” I told Sam.
    He nodded, eyeing the broken air vent warily. We took Jax between us, moving back along the corridor as fast as we could. Doctor Colbert led the way, her own body trembling almost as much as Jax’s. I imagined that she must have seen some grisly sights since the outbreak, but seeing a living man’s spine being ripped out wasn’t one of them. I tried not to think about it but the image of Johnny’s face kept flashing into my mind.
    We reached the emergency stairs and began to descend. Jax found her strength by the time we reached the second floor. She murmured, “I’m okay,” and supported herself on the metal railing as we went down to the first floor.
    The door opened onto a first-floor corridor that led to an access door. We went through it and into the reception area, which was still deserted.
    As we went through the main doors and out into the rainy night, I breathed the cool, fresh air thankfully. I had wondered, before entering the building, if I would ever leave. I had made it out alive, but we had lost Johnny Drake.
    His voice had lifted my spirits so many times in the past, and now I would never hear it again.

Chapter Fifteen
    T he rain was still coming down in force, blown into our faces by a cold wind that whistled along the edge of the building. The stars and moon were blotted out by storm clouds. As we crossed the parking lot, a flash of lightning illuminated the distant hills. A couple of seconds later, thunder rolled over the compound.
    Tanya opened the door to the guard station as we approached. The pool of light coming from within the little building looked warm and welcoming.