UBER ZOMBIE [8]

'No!' Charon roared. 'What have you done?'

Enraged, he raised his gun and squeezed the trigger, again and again and again. White twitched and bucked, blood spurting from him as bullets ripped into his body. He crashed against his wife's gurney and slid to the floor. Coldly, Charon swung the gun round, aimed it at the Colonel's wife, and pulled the trigger. It clicked empty. Swearing, Charon rooted for extra ammunition in the pocket of his overalls.

Reduced for the moment to mere spectators, Purna, Sam, and the others watched from thirty meters away. Sam felt a savage satisfaction in seeing Charon's carefully laid plans going up in smoke, but he couldn't help wondering how the loss of the vaccine would affect not only his and his friends' long-term prospects but also those of the rest of the world, should the virus spread beyond the island. All at once Logan called, 'Hey, check out Mrs. White.'

'What's happening to her?' muttered Yerema.

'Must be the vaccine,' said Sam.

Still strapped to the gurney, the Colonel's wife was shaking violently, as if she was having some kind of seizure. The gurney itself was rattling, in danger of tipping over. And then Mrs. White began to change. Her body seemed to swell, to bulk out with strange misshapen growths. They erupted all over her, her clothes ripping as her limbs and torso expanded. It was almost like watching a violent chemical reaction, thought Sam, or maybe an accelerated film of chronic steroid abuse.