INT. MAIN LABORATORY - CONTINUOUS
Frank’s assault rifle sang a song of destruction.
Every shot found its mark. The head. Always the head. Forty years of muscle memory turned loose on creatures that shouldn’t exist. The infected fell in waves, creating barriers of their own bodies.
“MOVE!” Frank shouted, advancing into the chaos. “I’LL COVER YOU!”
John didn’t argue. He grabbed Lisa’s hand, pushed Michael and Sarah ahead of him, and ran. Elena clutched her sample case like a sacred artifact. Which, in a way, it was.
“Service tunnel!” John pointed. “Same way we came in!”
“Blocked!” Sarah had reached the door first. Through the window, they could see a mass of infected filling the tunnel. Driven back from the west wing distraction. Looking for new prey. “There’s too many!”
“Then we find another way.” John scanned the laboratory, his mind racing through schematics, emergency protocols, anything that could…
“There.” Diego appeared at his shoulder, bloodied but alive. He pointed to a ventilation shaft near the ceiling. “Air circulation system. It connects to the maintenance level above us. From there, we can reach the surface.”
“That shaft is two feet wide.”
“Two feet is enough.” Diego was already moving, climbing equipment to reach the grate. “I used it before, when I was hiding from security. It’s tight, but it works.”
Frank’s rifle clicked empty. He dropped the magazine, reached for another. His last.
“Whatever you’re doing, do it fast!” The infected were regrouping. More pouring in from the tunnel. “I can’t hold them much longer!”
Diego wrenched the grate free. “Sarah, you first. Then Michael, Elena, Lisa. John, you help your uncle.”
“What about you?”
Diego’s smile was peaceful. “I’ll be right behind you.”
He wouldn’t be. John knew it. Diego knew it too.
“Maria’s waiting for you,” John said quietly.
“I know.” Diego handed Sarah up into the shaft. “Now go. Make this count.”
INT. VENTILATION SHAFT - CONTINUOUS
Sarah crawled through the darkness, feeling the metal walls press in on all sides. Behind her, she could hear Michael’s panicked breathing, Elena’s muttered curses, her mother’s steady reassurance.
“Keep moving,” Lisa called. “Don’t stop. Don’t look back.”
“There’s a junction ahead!” Sarah’s voice echoed. “Which way?”
“Left!” Elena shouted. “Left takes us toward the surface!”
Sarah took the left branch. The shaft angled upward. Getting narrower. The air growing thicker with every foot they climbed.
Behind them, far below, the sounds of gunfire continued. Then stopped.
Then started again. But different. Closer.
“They’re in the shaft,” Michael said, his voice cracking. “They’re following us.”
“Keep climbing!” Lisa’s command was iron. “Don’t slow down!”
Sarah pushed harder, ignoring the scrapes on her palms, the claustrophobic pressure of the walls. The shaft opened ahead. A grate. Beyond it, light.
“I see the exit!” She kicked at the grate. Once. Twice. Three times. It gave way, clattering into a room beyond.
Sarah pulled herself through, turned to help Michael. Then Elena. Then Lisa.
“Where’s Dad?” Michael’s voice was high with fear. “Where’s…”
John’s hand appeared at the shaft opening. Lisa grabbed it, pulled, and her husband tumbled into the room. Bloodied. Exhausted. But alive.
“Frank?” Lisa asked.
John shook his head. “He stayed. To make sure we got out.”
One heartbeat of stillness. Then, from the shaft, the sound of climbing. Fast.
“We need to keep moving.” John pushed himself to his feet. “Where are we?”
Elena checked her tablet. “Maintenance level. Stairs to the surface should be…” She pointed. “There.”
They ran.
INT. MAINTENANCE LEVEL - STAIRWELL - CONTINUOUS
The stairs wound upward, emergency lighting painting everything in shades of red. John took them two at a time, pulling Michael along, refusing to let the exhaustion win.
Behind them, in the shaft they’d just left, the pursuing infected had found the exit.
“Keep going!” John shouted. “Don’t stop!”
“Door!” Sarah had reached the top. She slammed into it. Locked. “It won’t open!”
“Let me.” Elena pulled a security override card from her pocket. “Mark gave this to me before… before.” She swiped it. The door clicked.
They burst into fresh air.
EXT. RESORT - NORTH GROUNDS - NIGHT
The stars were out.
After hours of darkness and fluorescent horror, the Caribbean sky felt like a miracle. John took one breath. Two. Let the clean air fill his lungs.
Then he heard the howling.
The infected were everywhere. Not just the ones that had been following them. Hundreds more. The entire population of Eden Resort, transformed, hungry, hunting. And they had found prey.
“The boat,” John said. “Where’s the boat?”
“Half a mile east,” Elena said. “If Diego’s friend kept it ready…”
“He did.” John grabbed Michael’s hand. “Run.”
They ran through the resort they’d arrived at three days ago. Past the ruins of the welcome pavilion. Past the shattered remains of the infinity pool. Past bodies and barricades and the remnants of paradise.
The infected followed.
“There!” Lisa pointed. Through the trees, the gleam of water. The marina. The boat.
“Almost there!” John pushed harder, felt his lungs burning, his legs failing. “Almost…”
An infected lunged from behind a toppled palm tree, tackling Michael.
“MICHAEL!”
The boy went down, the infected on top of him, teeth snapping inches from his face. John dove, trying to pull the creature off, but there were more coming, too many, they weren’t going to make it.
Michael’s hand found debris. Metal. Heavy.
A fire extinguisher.
The same tool he’d used before. The same weapon that had saved his father’s life.
Michael swung.
The impact was tremendous. Twelve years of video games and horror movies channeled into a single, perfect strike. The infected’s skull caved. It collapsed.
Michael stood over the body, extinguisher raised, breathing hard. Behind him, more infected were closing in.
“I’m getting really tired,” Michael said, his voice shaking but fierce, “of these things trying to eat my family.”
He swung again.
EXT. MARINA - DOCK - CONTINUOUS
They reached the boat as the first wave of infected hit the dock.
Diego’s friend, whose name they’d never learned, had the engines running. He reached out to pull them aboard, one by one, as the infected surged closer.
“Where’s Diego?” he shouted.
“He didn’t make it!” John pushed Lisa and the kids onto the boat. “GO! GO NOW!”
The boat lurched away from the dock just as the infected reached it. Clawed hands scraped the hull. Teeth snapped at empty air. One managed to grab the railing. Elena brought a boat hook down on its fingers, and it fell into the churning wake.
Then they were clear.
The engine roared. The boat cut through the water. And Eden Resort receded into the darkness behind them.
INT. SPEEDBOAT - MOMENTS LATER
They huddled together in the boat’s cabin. Five survivors where there had been seven. John held Lisa. Sarah held Michael. Elena clutched her sample case like it was the only thing keeping her tethered to reality.
“Frank?” Michael asked quietly. “And Diego?”
“They stayed so we could get out.” John’s voice was thick. “They were heroes.”
“They were more than that.” Lisa’s eyes were wet. “They were family.”
The boat’s pilot, his name was Carlos they learned later, Diego’s roommate, kept the throttle open, putting as much distance between them and the island as possible.
“What happens now?” Sarah asked.
John looked at Elena. At the samples she carried. At the hope they represented.
“Now we make a cure,” he said. “And then we stop the bastards who did this.”
“How?”
John thought about Mark’s message. Six other facilities. Six more time bombs.
“One at a time,” he said. “We stop them one at a time.”
The boat sailed on through the night, carrying its cargo of survivors and samples and grief and hope. Behind them, Eden Resort burned.
Ahead of them, the mainland waited.
And somewhere, in six other locations around the world, the people responsible for all of this were about to learn that the Harrisons were coming for them.