Dead Island

Though Sam’s ears were still throbbing, he nodded and looked around. ‘Everyone ready?’

There were further nods and mutters of confirmation.

‘Come on,’ said Purna.

She opened the door with a shove, took one look around and started running. Sam, a step behind her, did the same, feeling not unlike a soldier crossing a battlefield. The circular room — Panopticon, Kevin had called it — was a wreck, the floor scattered with twisted metal and shattered glass. Even more of a wreck were its occupants, the majority blown to pieces. There were body parts everywhere, and the floor was so awash with blood that it resembled a red lake choked with flesh and debris.

Despite this, some of the infected were still active. A good proportion of these, however, were so badly injured they could do little more than drag themselves around on shattered limbs. One man, his arms nothing but stumps from which spikes of splintered bone stuck out like vestigial wings, ran at Sam, gnashing his teeth. Sam swivelled and shot him in the head, barely breaking his stride. He jumped over the grasping hand of a man whose innards were oozing from a gaping hole in his midriff. Nearby a head, attached to little more than a spinal column and half a torso, was growling and grinding its teeth.

It had earlier been agreed that if a good proportion of the infected survived the blast, the seven of them would make for the observation tower in the centre of the room and re-enact ‘Operation Fish in a Barrel’, picking off the zombies from above. However the grenades — two dozen of which had been liberated, along with their guns, from the police armoury on Banoi — had done considerably more damage than Sam suspected even Purna had hoped. As a result of this the Australian girl turned briefly and shouted, ‘Keep going!’ She gestured towards the door diagonally across from the one through which they had entered.

As soon as she reached the door, just a little ahead of the others, she tried the handle. Satisfied the door would open, she yelled, ‘Xian Mei, cover us! The rest of you — grenades!’

None of them needed any further explanation. As Xian Mei turned and began firing at the few zombies still able-bodied enough to lurch towards them (a quick glance confirmed to Sam that none of the remaining creatures were actually running), he, Logan, Jin and Yerema were fumbling in their pockets. Sam helped Purna shove the door open, and then as the infected on the other side began to register their presence, the five of them pulled the pins on their second batch of grenades and hurled them into what Kevin had earlier told them was the high-security wing. Purna began firing at the creatures closest to the door while Sam and the others grabbed their remaining grenades and repeated the process. Then Purna and Sam swapped places, Sam keeping the infected back while Purna threw her last grenade.

Once again it was the first, almost simultaneous round of blasts that slammed the door closed. This time Sam and the others were already moving back in readiness, but that didn’t prevent them from being liberally spattered with zombie blood when one of the infected, who had been squeezing himself through the narrow gap between door and frame, was all but sliced in half lengthways when the first grenade went off. Choking and spluttering, Sam was at least secretly gratified to see that Kevin too had had a liberal dousing. The skinny guy was looking down at his gore-streaked overalls with the appalled expression of a kid at a party whose best friend had just vomited all over his favourite T-shirt. Still wiping the stinking, dripping fluid from his face, Sam said, ‘Welcome to the club, buddy.’

For a split-second, which coincided with the second batch of grenades going off in the next room, Kevin looked at him with an expression of pure venom. And then his face abruptly and creepily slipped back into its familiar, slightly secretive smile, and he said, ‘I’ll look forward to receiving my membership badge.’

With Xian Mei and Logan still picking off zombies behind them, Purna and Sam reopened the door to check what damage the second batch of grenades had wrought. As before the results were both impressive and appalling. Though some of the infected had survived, most had been torn to pieces, and the room now looked like the aftermath of a train wreck. To add to this impression the central observation tower had collapsed, which meant that as well as severed limbs and mangled bodies, the floor was strewn with an obstacle course of tangled metal and broken glass.

Purna began to cross the room, picking her way through and over the wreckage, heading for the door Kevin had indicated on his diagram, which stood between two rows of cells on the far wall. As she advanced she gunned down approaching zombies with ruthless efficiency, and Sam, a few steps behind her, did the same. Just behind Sam came Jin and Yerema, firing their pistols when they needed to, and just behind them, keeping his head low, was Kevin.

At the back of the group Logan and Xian Mei wrestled the door closed to shut out the straggle of approaching zombies left in the previous room. Turning, they found themselves cut off from the rest of the group, as at least two dozen of the infected closed in from all sides. Some of the creatures had been injured in the blast, but most were still able-bodied enough to remain dangerous.

‘Er … guys,’ Logan shouted as he and Xian Mei, standing back to back, began firing at the fastest of the approaching zombies. Suddenly something dropped from above, and although it only caught them a glancing blow, it was enough to knock Xian Mei off her feet and send her gun flying out of her hand. Logan barely had time to register that what had hit them was one of the infected, which had apparently been so desperate to attack that it had taken the most direct route from an upper balcony, before the rest of the zombies converged on them.

‘Guys!’ he yelled again, firing desperately into the mass of clawing hands and viciously snarling faces. Somewhere close to him he heard Xian Mei screaming in terror and pain, and then, wrenched and buffeted from all sides, he went down. He began to struggle frantically, punching and kicking, as faces lunged in at him. He felt a sharp pain in his leg, and then another in his upper arm.

No! he thought. I won’t fucking die like this!

Then there were gunshots, running feet, a confusion of noise, and suddenly he was showered with blood and brains as the hideous, rage-filled faces above him were blasted apart one by one. A couple of seconds later those faces were replaced by one he recognized. It was Sam, his wide eyes alive with anxiety and concern.

‘Hey, man, you OK?’ he asked.

‘Apart from nearly becoming a Happy Meal, I’m great,’ replied Logan. He tried to rise and felt pain shoot through his left arm and right leg. ‘Ow! Fuck! That hurts!’

‘You’re bitten, man,’ said Sam. ‘Can you stand?’

Logan gritted his teeth. ‘Yes, I can stand. If I can’t I’m fucking dead, right?’

With Sam’s and — surprisingly — Kevin’s help, Logan rose to his feet. Vaguely, through the swimming pain in his head, he was still aware of gunshots being fired, of zombies dropping like cattle in an abattoir.

‘How’s Xian Mei?’ he gasped.

‘She’ll be fine. Come on.’

‘Where we going?’

‘No questions. Just come on.’

Staggering, limping, supported on one side by Kevin and on the other by Sam, who was firing from the hip, blowing advancing zombies aside as they went, they made it to the door at the far side of the room.

When they were through, Sam quickly but gently lowered Logan to the ground. Logan sat with his back against the wall, wondering where his gun had gone, willing his head to stop spinning. Everything was still a blur, however, a mush of noise and activity. He was aware of people running towards him, of more shots being fired, and then what sounded like whimpers of pain. He tried to focus, to concentrate, but the sounds ran together, became distorted, and he felt as if he was sinking into a deep well. He tried to claw his way back towards the light, but thick velvety blackness swamped him, rolling over him in waves. Finally, unable to find the strength to fight it any longer, he passed out …

… and woke what seemed like seconds later, gasping in shock. ‘How you doing?’ asked a voice.

Sam. It was Sam. Logan blinked at him.

‘Where am I?’

‘In prison,’ Sam said, and with that it all came flooding back.

Logan rubbed a hand over his face and groaned. ‘Figures. My mom always said I’d end up in jail. How’s Xian Mei?’

‘Worse than you,’ said Sam, ‘but she’ll be OK.’

‘What’d they do to her?’

‘They tore a lot of the skin off her arm. Purna bandaged her up pretty good. Here.’

Sam offered Logan a bottle of water. He took it gratefully, chugging it down. The water helped revive him and