The evacuated victims who had escaped on the helicopters on the day the zombies broke out had been taken to an old underground bunker preserved from World War II, made by the government of Middlestown at the time to protect against explosives dropped from flying planes on the attack.
In recent times, the bunker had come to be used as a storage facility for imports, and that was where the people of Middlestown found refuge.
It had been made large enough to contain and keep two thousand people safe, the town's population during World War II, but the emergency had now forced three thousand out of Middlestown's five thousand people population within — a thousand more than the expected number, most of the remaining two thousand lost to the zombies and a few managing to escape despite the overwhelming numbers of zombies that swept through the city, two of them Kevin Santorini and Maxwell Johnson.
Although equipped with electricity and a number of new technologies, it was far from having the same comforts as home. Yet, the people within improvised ways to become more comfortable, living like refugees underground.
Even then, the bunker was being extended, as fears of a different disease from the one happening outside were advocated by Medical Personnel within the bunker. It was not healthy to have so many people concentrated in one place, they had said, and staying overcrowded within could kill them with the same efficacy as the zombies outside.
But that had been only a part of the problem.
On the second day in the bunker, a girl had been clutching to her mother, her face terror stricken and pale in shock. Her father and little brother had broken off with them amidst all the chaos, and her mother, who could bring herself to do nothing but hold her daughter close and cry, was doing exactly that.
For various reasons including the girl's shock, her mother's occupation with her own problems, and her father and brother's absence, no one knew the secret the girl hid, until a scream at midnight echoed in the bunker.
It was the girl's mother, carrying her daughter in her arms as tears streamed down both faces, the girl's legs with that sickly grey hue and rotting smell that the zombies had.
To all who saw it, it was immediately clear.
The girl was infected with the Q-21 Zombie Virus.
Why it had not spread through her with the speed it did through the others, typically turning the victim into a zombie within seconds, no one could so quickly explain.
What they knew was that something had to be done.
Varying opinions came on what to do with the girl. Some were of the opinion that she had to be killed, a brutal way of eliminating the problem once and for all, but her mother still held on to the last living member of her family in tears, refusing to let go.
Others thought she had to be quarantined, a more humane option, and it was exactly what was done, evacuating a restricted space within the bunker and locking the girl in. Her mother went in as well, the poor woman's grief blinding her to the consequences of her actions, especially if her daughter got worse.
Moved to tears by the emotional scene, Doctor Robertson had volunteered. He had been a high ranking researcher at the Institute of Health Research in Middlestown, and asked for any willing scientist who would join him in finding a vaccine within five hours.
It seemed a feat to all who listened. Five hours to find a vaccine…
What they did not know, and what he did not reveal was that he had been involved with the Q-21 Zombie virus from the moment it had been created by accident, while the intention had still been making it into a bioweapon, before it very mysteriously got to the Allfather's hands.
All he would have to do was find his unfinished papers and continue where he stopped.
Despite how unbelievable it sounded, he soon had a team, while to the extras he could not take, he gave the job of checking every single person within the bunker for unnoticed zombie bites, as resistance to the virus was higher in some than others, which was identified as the reason why the girl took so long to show symptoms.
All bitten victims were to be locked in the space with the girl, so they would receive the vaccine when he and his team returned.
Military personnel and pilots had taken two helicopters with the team, and true to their word, within five hours, returned with the vaccine.
What they did not know was that their solution had escalated into a bigger problem. The mouse they had used for the experiment, despite its initial healing, only mutated into something far worse a few hours later and killed the two military and one medical personnel left behind in the Institute building, eating its way through steel to go into the already desolate world.
Without knowing, the happy doctor and his team returned with their vaccines, going back to the underground bunker amidst celebratory cheers.
A total of twenty-four people had sustained bites before the evacuation, and they were joined to the girl and her mother. Doctor Robertson and his team returned with their vaccines, administering them to the quarantined patients in their restricted area, and many of them instantly admitted to feeling better as soon as they received the vaccine.
The majority of the remaining three thousand survivors at long last, found a cause to smile since the ugly and still largely unexplainable incident that led to their city being overrun by zombies and forcing them underground. It was a ray of hope for them, light at the end of the tunnel that everything was going to be alright.
Doctor Robertson and his team became heroes, receiving pats on the back from some and offering their assurance to the crying relatives of the quarantined patients who came to them, asking if their friends and family were going to be okay.
Deep seated in his chest was a positive feeling, and he savoured it, hoping they would find a solution that would bring them back to their normal lives. They would never recover those they had lost, but they could always build again, and he thought his vaccine was the first step in that direction.
For the most part, he forgot the three he left behind in the institute building, too occupied with the people that came to speak to him, until the wife of one of the men came to ask about her husband. He assured the woman that they were fine, and even pulled out his phone to reach out to one of them.
Thrice, he called each man, and all went unanswered.
With his heart racing in his chest, that was when it struck him that something, somewhere, had gone horribly wrong.
"Mrs Carlton," he started, reaching out to touch the woman's shoulder. "There must be a small issue I know will soon be resolved. Please stay calm."
She nodded, wiping a teardrop, and it was only when she turned to go that he showed his own fear. They had been equipped with handy, well working communication devices, with three of them left together. There had to be at least one available to answer him, if all was right with them.
He took out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat that cascaded his face when one more person came to talk to him.
With a fake smile, he answered, hoping all was fine.