UBER ZOMBIE [7]

'Colonel, I mean it!' Charon snapped. Almost casually, White glanced around, raised his gun, and fired. The bullet went high, but they all threw themselves to the ground, Charon included. By the time they lifted their heads, White had re-holstered his gun and was pulling the stopper from the vial.

'Colonel, don't!' Charon cried, an edge of panic in his voice. With his weapon held high, he began to run across the thirty meters of open space between them.

White was tipping the contents of the vial towards his wife's mouth when Charon fired. Fearful that shooting White would cause him to drop the vial and spill its contents, Charon aimed his bullet deliberately over the Colonel's head. He hoped the threat alone would be enough to make him freeze, perhaps even to bring him to his senses.

'The next bullet won't miss!' Charon promised, his voice raw. 'Give me back the vial now or I'll kill you and your wife.'

But White wasn't listening. Driven by an obsessive desire to save the woman he loved, the Colonel was now lost in his own world, deaf both to threats and reason. Charon could only watch, appalled, as White poured the entire contents of the vial into his wife's snarling, snapping mouth.