The Zombie Virus (Book 1) (7 page)

The infected, the Loonies, seemed to be
driven by some rabid animalistic urge that made them attack and
bite and sometimes feed on those that were not infected. My guess
was that the sugary smell that emanated from their bodies was one
of the means in which they differentiated each other from the
non-infected.

I was taking additional samples from the
Loonies every few hours, hoping that they would show a drop off of
the virus population over time. So far the levels were sustaining.
That second night as I was working in my lab, I heard a crash and a
chorus of growls and snarls coming over the monitor displaying the
isolation ward. I looked up to see that Sung had broken free from
his wrist straps and was hanging half off the bed, only held by his
ankles. He broke free of first one then the other binding and
rampaged around the ward, ignoring the other Loonies.

There would be no more sampling from my
patients.

After a few minutes the Loony that had been
Sung was at the airlock door. The airlock had a keypad lock with a
large handle that must be lifted once the correct combo was keyed
in to open the inner airlock door. He looked through the thick
glass window above the lock into the room beyond, contemplating how
to get out. He reached down to the thick sealed door’s handle and
yanked it toward him, then up and down. I held my breath for a
moment, and then realized his spastic attempts were nothing more
than muscle memory, he had no reasoning skills left to figure out
how to open even a simple door.

After a few seconds he gave up and moved on
around the room, occasionally tossing to the floor anything that
was in his way. I thought about emergency decontaminating the room.
The gaseous formaldehyde would kill the virus along with any other
living organisms in there. I decided against it. I could learn more
observing the three remaining living Loonies for as long as
possible.

The third day I discovered that rats were
susceptible to the virus. They also rapidly developed symptoms with
a very short incubation period, except in their case the disease
was terminal. I was able to use them in an experiment on
transmittance.

It looked like the virus didn’t survive for
long outside of the host and while present in the various human
body fluids, it quickly died off. It was not aerosol transmissible
after a short period. You couldn’t get it from breathing the same
air as a Loony unless that infected person sneezed or coughed. In
other words, a person had to be bitten or have a Loony’s fresh body
fluid enter a cut or mucus membrane area to become infected.

I also administered immunoglobulins, or what
most know as antibodies, that were specific for the rabies
lyssavirus to the rats. I then infected them with the Zombie Virus
hoping that it was similar enough to rabies that the antibodies
would bind to it and prevent it from infecting the host’s
cells.

For a virus to enter a cell, it requires
specific receptor proteins on the host cell that it can bind to
which allow it to be endocytosed into the cellular interior. Think
of it like a simple children’s picture puzzle: each puzzle piece is
cut to fit only with the piece it is to be mated to. The protein
sheath of a virus is basically the same way. It can only mate with
a specific host cell if the way that its protein is folded fits
perfectly with the folded protein of the receptor on the host
cell.

Once the virus binds to the host cell in what
would look like a pit on an electron micrograph, the viral package
is carried through the cell’s plasma membrane by a process called
endocytosis. This is basically a method in which cells absorb large
molecules by engulfing them in a membrane capsule and releasing
them into their interior.

Replication for viruses occur in the
cytoplasm of host cells which then act as a virus “factory”
transcribing the viruses’ RNA and building new viral packages. Then
at a certain critical population they lyse the cell and spread the
infection.

The afternoon of the fourth day the power
flickered briefly in the lab and I heard the deep rumble from
somewhere overhead as the Facility’s emergency generators kicked
on. This got the Sung Loony moving again, constantly pacing back
and forth in his soiled boxers like a caged beast.

Thirst and hunger had to be gnawing at their
bellies. The Hanson Loony was in terrible shape, her arm had gone
gangrenous from the lost blood flow and she could barely lift her
head. The third Loony still struggled occasionally, but seemed
resigned to its captivity.

The two bodies were showing signs of
decomposition. The odor in the lab had to be overpowering with the
smell of shit, piss, blood, rotting flesh and the sickly sweet
smell from the infected filling the air. I wondered if the room’s
filtration system was keeping up with each added odiferous
flavor.

Given several uninterrupted weeks, I was sure
I could develop specific antibodies for this virus from the test
animals and prevent systemic expression in its hosts. I was also
close to developing a method for the rapid diagnosis of the zombie
virus in rats prior to the onset of the prodromal phase. It would
be good to check people who were carriers and not symptomatic, or
those bitten who were asymptomatic.

When I reached a stopping point with some of
the infected cells I was culturing I took a break and left the lab
complex for my office so that I could call my wife. This was the
day I promised her that I would finish up here at the lab and make
my way home. I didn’t feel like I was at a point where I could just
stop my work. I was so close on several fronts. Whether I kept my
word and left or stayed and continued working on this disease
hinged on what was going on at the home front, and whether Holly
would understand the need to stay another day or two.

I picked up my phone to dial my home number.
There was no connection, the external line was dead. I would have
to try cell phone to cell and for that I had to go topside. It
would be the first time since this began. My watch told me it was
closing in on 1730 hours, still plenty of daylight left.

I picked up the phone again, pressed the
button for the direct line to the security kiosk far overhead and
heard the line connect. At least the internal lines were still
working. I gave the connection about thirty seconds waiting for
someone to pick up, no one did. I tried a few more of the ground
floor offices with no luck. The Facility seemed deserted.

I got up and headed for the elevators. I had
nothing to use for a weapon except a handheld fire extinguisher
that I planned on grabbing from outside the elevator on Level 1.
Located at the security kiosk was an array of monitors that were
connected to external cameras with which I could at least gain an
idea of what I would be up against outside.

I briefly thought about wearing the spacesuit
to the surface in case there were any Loonies up there, such as the
guard who was on duty when I came in. After four days I expected he
would be long gone. Mobility was quite restricted with the suit on.
If I had to make a quick escape, I felt I would be safer in my
street clothes than the bulky suit. I also knew it would feel good
to be out of the spacesuit for an extended period. It had begun to
feel like my own personal prison from which I would never
escape.

The elevators were still operating and I took
one up to the ground floor. It dumped me out down the hall and out
of sight of the security kiosk. After grabbing the extinguisher I
tried to quietly make my way to the desk where the Marine security
detachment usually sat near the entrance.

We had a staff of ten Marines who rotated
duty with two on at any one time. They were always armed when on
duty and treated this facility as they would one containing a
nuclear arsenal.

I peered cautiously around the corner of the
hallway – there was no one at the kiosk. On Tuesday morning when I
came in, Corporal Ronny Vickers had been on duty. I hadn’t seen any
of the other members of the security team. Later, when LTC Hanson
had come up to retrieve the infected personnel, she should have
insisted that Ronny come down to the isolation ward to be
evaluated. Now he was an unknown factor.

I hoped that he had left to be with his
family when things started to obviously fall apart. Since the first
day I had never been back to this level and our security personnel
did not have the clearance to any of the sublevels without an
escort, so our paths never crossed again.

I carefully made my way over to the kiosk,
casting a wary eye around me as I moved. There were no windows to
the outside on this level, only a steel pneumatic door that took a
security code to open. The overhead fluorescent lights lit the room
brightly and everything seemed normal. Except for the absent guard
you would never know there was anything wrong in the world.

That was until I got to the kiosk and saw the
dried pink tinged smears around the security desk.

My blood turned cold and I glanced around
nervously. Nothing else seemed out of place. There were two
hallways off the atrium that the security kiosk was centered in –
one went to the elevator bank and the other to the administrative
offices. I knew the hallway with the elevator banks was clear. That
left one other.

I walked cautiously to the entrance that led
down the other hallway, holding the extinguisher in front of me
like a club and peered around the corner, looking directly into the
bloodshot eyes of the Loony that had been Corporal Ronnie Vickers.
He stood about ten feet down the brilliantly lit hallway leaning
against the wall with his shoulders slumped and arms at his side.
He must have been dehydrated, for only frothy foam was visible
about his mouth.

As soon as we made eye contact he snarled and
lunged toward me with a surprising burst of speed. The growling
creature reached for me and I instinctively swung the extinguisher
in a wide arc into the side of his skull. It hit with a thunk,
sending the Loony crashing to the white linoleum floor. He
immediately jumped back to his feet with a vicious snarl although
not before I was able to scramble backwards out of his reach.

He came at me again but I was ready for him
this time and slammed the metal cylinder into his forehead. The man
stumbled backwards, blood pouring out of the gash I had opened up
on his broad forehead, staining the front of his uniform a bright
crimson. He caught his balance and came at me again, his mouth
snapping. I swung the cylinder as hard as I could into the side of
his skull and felt the bone cave in. He dropped hard to the floor
letting out a screech of pain.

The creature continued snapping at me with
its teeth, snarling weakly as it tried to pull itself along the
floor and reached for me. Blood poured heavily from its ruptured
head. When its grasping hand closed around my ankle I raised the
cylinder and brought it down with crushing force, caving in the
skull, splattering blood and gray brain matter about the floor. The
Loony stopped moving.

I dropped the cylinder and rushed to the
men’s room where I vigorously washed the virus laden blood
splatters from my arms and face. I then vomited into the sink. I
had never had to take a human life before. That was not who I was,
I was not a battlefield soldier. I was a scientist.

I splashed cold water over my face and tried
to calm my breathing. I stared at the face looking back at me in
the mirror. I was as haggard and tired looking as I felt. I
realized that once I left the Facility I wouldn’t be wearing the
hat of the scientist any longer. Out in that new terrifying world I
was going to have to be husband and father, protector and provider.
I wasn’t sure I could do that. I knew I wouldn’t be able to avoid
taking more lives like I had just done, not without endangering my
family. Could I man up and do that or, like now, was I going to be
incapacitated with the shock and horror of my actions?

I tried to console myself that that dead man
out in the hallway was no longer human, that the Loonies were
nothing more than rabid dogs that should be put down with extreme
prejudice. If not, they would continue to kill and infect those of
us who were survivors of this plague. I prayed that I could
continue to do this for the sake of Holly and Jeremy.

I took a deep breath and went back out to the
body of the Marine security guard. I removed his holster and gun, a
9mm Beretta M9. The magazine carried fifteen rounds plus the one in
the chamber. I grabbed the two magazine holders off of his belt
that held another fifteen round magazine each. Forty-six rounds,
not a lot for what I expected to face.

I found a pocket knife clipped to his BDUs
and recognized it as a Gerber ‘Answer’ assisted opening knife. I
pocketed it, hoping to never again be close enough to one of the
infected to have to use it. I checked around the security kiosk for
more ammo but there was nothing. Usually one of the guards carried
a rifle, although if Ronny had one it was not where I could find
it.

I was armed now, which raised my chances
appreciably. I sat down at the kiosk and carefully scanned the
security monitors overlooking the perimeter of the Facility,
including the parking lot.

The lot was mostly empty except for maybe a
dozen cars scattered here and there. My car sat off in a corner by
itself. I couldn’t see any sign of life in the lot. Then I caught
movement out on the road. Three Loonies were aimlessly walking in
the street, going nowhere. They acted like they were unaware of
each other.

I could hear the generator rumbling nearby.
It reminded me that my time at this place was limited. Once the
generators quit a battery bank would supply enough power to do a
lock and sterilize. Anyone or anything caught below in the labs
would be terminated. It was time to leave the Facility.