The Zombie Virus (Book 1)

A PERMUTED PRESS book

Published at Smashwords

ISBN (Trade Paperback): 978-1-61868-422-6

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-421-9

The Zombie Virus copyright © 2014

by Paul Hetzer

All Rights Reserved.

Cover art by Hunter Walker

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

DEDICATION

To my son, thank you for gracing me with your presence and to my wife, thank you for the love and friendship that are the pillars of my life.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to all my friends out in the never-never land of the net that took the time to read my manuscript and return with constructive criticism. A special thank you to Angela Reese, Jennifer Amber and Kim Nelson for your tireless help with this novel.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Prologue – 200 Million Years Ago

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue

About the Author

PROLOGUE

200 Million Years Ago

The small, furry, shrew-like quadruped erupted from the dark hole in the moist, steamy earth on her short but powerful legs and paused briefly at her colony’s entrance. Her long, pointed snout thrust skyward and tested the air for any threats. She cocked her head and listened to the din of various jungle sounds emanating from the rich green foliage that surrounded her, acutely aware of the danger closing in behind. She detected no immediate threats ahead and used her five-toed feet to gain purchase and propel herself across the claylike soil into the warm sunshine and thick vegetation of this early Jurassic period of planet Earth. Her long, hairy tail helped balance her body as she scurried between large fronds and thick primitive trees. Behind her, from the blackness of the hole that led deep into the colony, poured a multitude of her brethren. Their small chirps and screeches carried to her ears as she ran in a building panic.

They quickly picked up her scent on the soil. She dashed along in the shadows of the mega-plants, her instinct driving her onward toward some perceived safety of the thicker brush. Fourteen of her fellow creatures gave chase. They scrambled over one another to get to her, nipping at each other with small, sharp teeth and their dark eyes wide with an insane rage.

The terrified creature, which far in the future would be termed an eozostrodon, headed for a fallen tree and backed into its rotted center until only the tip of her quivering pink snout was visible deep within the soft wood. The enraged mob of what had been her colony mates was scratching their way over the earth towards her fragile refuge. She tried to back further into the hole until the passage narrowed and she had reached the limit that her body could squeeze into the tight place.

They swarmed over the log, hissing and biting at the wood, her smell overwhelming their olfactory senses. A large male found the small entrance she had backed into and plowed into the hole, tearing chunks of spongy wood away with powerful sweeps of its forearms. Its hind legs scrabbled in the dirt for purchase and it pushed its snapping jaws closer towards her trembling head. Dust filled the hole between them as the male fought to get closer to her, its larger body plugging the passageway. It let out two powerful sneezes when mold, like finely falling snow, rained down around them and agitated its nasal passages – then continued hissing and snapping at her shadowed form. It worked its needlelike claws into the wood between them, pulling away brown chunks and inching forward a centimeter at a time until their snouts were nearly touching. She squealed in terror and helplessness then bared her teeth back at the attacking male. She would not be taken without a fight.

The male let out a loud pain-filled squawk and was yanked violently backward out of the hollowed log and disappeared from view. Through the billowing dust she saw a reptilian leg step away, and then more squawks as the rest of her colony mates succumbed to the same fate as the male. In front of the log, a turkey-sized theropod lifted its head with the male eozostrodon’s fir-covered rump tightly clenched between its jaws. It tossed its head and opened its elongated teeth lined mouth, throwing the furry animal further back into its gaping maw then biting down with bone-crushing force. The eozostrodon let out a final peep when the reptile tossed the mammal further back into its throat and swallowed the bleeding carcass whole. Around the small dinosaur raced three other of its clan, using their strong jaws and long, sharp, serrated teeth in an orgy of feeding to catch the scurrying eozostrodons. If the dinosaurs had had any reasoning skills they would have wondered why the small creatures were blindly running at them and attacking instead of fleeing in fear, but their small brains only noted the easy availability of prey that was filling their bellies. When all of the pursuing eozostrodons had been consumed, the four feather-bearing reptiles shot off into the thicker forest, their hunger satiated.

The female eozostrodon stayed quivering in the hollowed-out log for several moments until she sensed that all danger had passed. Then she tentatively pushed out toward the bright light of the day. The danger she didn’t detect was the microscopic particles of packaged organic molecules that had been released by the male’s sneeze which had then entered her nose and the moist membranes of her eyes. The virus methodically began taking over cells and pumping out copies of itself in an orgasm of self-replication.

The moment her immune system detected the tiny invaders it started waging a small but deadly war. Her body temperature elevated in response, trying to destroy the intruders without damaging too much of her own tissue. Feeling the effects, she cautiously made her way back to the empty colony and crawled into the cool familiar tunnel that led down to her den where she collapsed from exhaustion.

Millions of the viral packages circulating within her blood were carried to her ovaries where a few were able to insert their strands of ancient code into her cells. Several generations of the RNA parasites had been produced in her body so far and one of the viral packages infecting her ovaries had had a slight transcription error, resulting in a small mutation for one of the many proteins that it coded for. The package entered the cell where, instead of producing a mini-factory when it incorporated itself into the existing DNA of the cell, the missing protein caused it to lie dormant. It became a permanent fixture in that cell’s DNA, a cell that was destined to become an egg.

She lay there ill for some time while the battle raged within her. Her immune system persevered. Her leukocytes began overwhelming and destroying the attacking particles. The infection had spread throughout her body, circulated in the blood and along her nerve pathways. Her body’s defenses quickly surrounded and destroyed any compromised cells, shutting off the reproductive mechanism of the invader one cell at a time.

CHAPTER 1

Present Day

I awoke with a start from a dark unremembered dream to the incessant electronic ringing of the bedroom phone. I groggily reached across my wife’s sleeping form and picked up the handset, turning it on with my thumb as I put it to my ear.

Hello? I answered in a sleep deadened voice, looking over at the lit numerals of the bedside clock. I was beginning to feel the first stabs of anger rise up within my chest that someone was calling this early in the morning, two hours before the alarm was scheduled to sound and start me on my way to work.

Steven, it’s Jennifer, how are you feeling?

Lieutenant Colonel Jennifer Hanson, who held PhDs in both epidemiology and medicine, was the director of the lab complex where I worked. A stern, handsome woman, she ran the labs with a smooth efficiency that reflected her years of service in the Army’s medical service. When I heard the urgency in her voice I sat up straighter in bed, instantly alert. Feeling? I’m fucking tired. It’s two-thirty in the morning. How am I supposed to be feeling? I snapped, wary but still annoyed at being woken so early.

Good. You need to get in here now. The shit is hitting the fan. Again the only emotion carrying through the line was a sense of urgency.

What?! Why? What’s going on? I asked, looking again at the clock. Fear tickled my stomach like a fluttering butterfly. As the reasoning centers of my mind started to process the situation I realized that the Colonel would never call any of her scientific staff at this hour at home unless something very serious was afoot. My next immediate thought was that the labs had been compromised and that something we didn’t ever want to get out had escaped.

Turn on the news, Steve. Something happened last night. A pandemic out of nowhere. I got the call from the CDC twenty minutes ago and I’m on my way to the lab right now. I’m calling in all available staff, although I’m not having much luck.

I could hear the exasperation in her voice, but no fear, which calmed me, just a bit.

Pandemic? I tasted the word in my mouth. It was the most terrifying word a microbiologist could utter, but the calm way she had stated it belayed my alarm.

You mean an epidemic? I asked, crawling across the prone form of my wife, who muttered an unflattering expletive and pulled the pillow over her head.

No, Steve. A full blown pandemic is what I’m hearing. Worldwide by all accounts. This time I heard a hint of fear in Jennifer’s voice and felt the butterfly again. I raced naked across the bedroom to the master bath, flicked on the lights, and sat down heavily on the edge of the tub to absorb her words.

I don’t understand it either, she continued. We just need everyone who is able to get in here so we can unravel this.

Okay, okay. I took a deep breath. I can be there in about forty-five minutes.

Good. I’m having everyone meet in the Level 1 conference room. She abruptly hung up the phone.

I sat and listened to the dial tone for a few seconds before turning off the phone.

Pandemic? That had to be a mistake. A pandemic did not happen overnight. That was impossible unless… then a horrible thought occurred to me: bioterrorism. Something we had been planning for but prayed we would never to have to experience. Still, a worldwide pandemic happening overnight is something outside the ability of most nations, maybe even the United States.

I relieved my bladder and threw on yesterday’s boxers that were laying on top of the hamper. Running out into the living room I grabbed up the remote and plopped down onto the couch, thumbed on the power to the television and switched to a national news channel.

It was the only story being aired. During the night, after the celestial fireworks show had finished, people started falling ill. It was first reported in the countries on the day side of the planet, while here in the U.S. we slept away obliviously while a portion of our population sickened. People in massive numbers were experiencing flu-like symptoms and flooding hospitals and clinics.

Speculation was running rampant. Most were blaming Hosteller’s Comet, claiming that some virus was released by the meteor storms that showered the planet last night. I knew this was farfetched. The temperatures involved from friction of the particles hitting our atmosphere would destroy any virus or bacterium that wasn’t imbedded deeply in a large chunk of space rock. Even if some foreign organism was in the rock, it was improbable that it could be released in quantities that could cause a pandemic, especially as quick as this one seemed to be hitting.

I spent a few minutes garnering as much information from the news as I could get before going back into the bedroom and checking on Holly. I knelt next to the bed and gently shook her awake. She pushed the pillow off of her face and stared at me with an icy glare.

This had better be good, she cooed coolly, obviously as agitated as I had been at being woken up so early. Holly was a pediatrician at the county hospital and was just coming off of a three day shift. This would have been her first full night of sleep.

How do you feel? I asked, aware that it was the same question that I had woken to just a short while earlier.

Steven, I’m very tired. Go whack off in the bathroom or wait till this evening. You’re not getting any from me this early in the morning! she snarled pulling the covers up over her head.

I grabbed the sheet and pulled it back down. No, Holly. It’s not that! I have to go in to work. Something bad is happening. I put my hand to her forehead, relieved at the feel of her cool skin. She swatted my hand away and sat up, her auburn hair falling down like a waterfall across her pale breasts.

How do you feel? I asked again. I feel fine. Why? What’s going on? her green eyes were now wide with concern.

Get dressed, I told her, I need to check on Jeremy.

Steve, you’re scaring me. What’s going on? She swung her long legs out of the bed while never taking her eyes off of mine.

Just get dressed and meet me down in the living room.

I trotted out of the bedroom still in my boxers and went to my son’s room. I quietly opened the door and slipped inside the dark room. I could hear his steady breathing coming from his bed. I knelt down beside his shadowed form and felt his forehead for fever and breathed a sigh of relief when I didn’t detect any. I silently slipped back out of the room and closed the door. I rushed back to our bedroom and gathered my clothes together for the day.

Holly came out of the bathroom in a silk robe. Do you want to tell me what’s going on yet? she opened a dresser door and pulled out a pair of cotton panties.

People are falling ill. Hanson is calling us all into the Facility.

What people? What kind of illness?

I don’t know, Holly. There are reports of people all over the globe falling sick with flu-like symptoms.

A look of realization spread across her face. The comet! she exclaimed.

I don’t think so. I can’t envision any disease spreading through a vector like that, I stated calmly, sitting down on the edge of the bed to pull on my shoes.

Some type of toxin maybe? she asked, getting dressed at a pace as fast as me.

I shrugged. I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of that, but I guess it is a possibility. That’s why they want us at the Facility. I stood, went to her, and hugged her close to me. She hugged me back and I took comfort for a few moments in the warmth of her body, then held her at arm’s length.

Jeremy seems to be okay, but keep close tabs on him. I bent forward and kissed her, relishing the soft fullness of her lips. Stay inside today and don’t go out for anything until we know what’s going on. I’ll keep you updated from the lab. I tried a lame attempt at a smile, It’ll probably end up being nothing, I said, hoping that it was true, but fearful it wasn’t. She nodded knowingly, not hiding the fear that caused tears to well up in her eyes.

Will you be home tonight? she asked, already knowing my answer.

I don’t know, Holly, as soon as I know anything I’ll call you, okay?

She nodded again and looked away. Be careful, Steven, she whispered.

I always am. It will probably turn out to be nothing. I tried to be reassuring, even though the butterflies were swarming in my stomach.

My name is Steven McQuinn. I live with my wife, Holly, and our ten year old son, Jeremy, on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It’s a beautiful area to raise a family, with gleaming waterways teeming with aquatic life and surrounded by abundant farmland and forests. The area we live in is about an hour south of Washington, D.C. and hosts a mostly professional suburban population spread out over a myriad of peninsulas and bays.

I had left the Army as a Major a little over a year before, chasing the almighty dollar and the better research opportunities available to a scientist like myself in the civilian marketplace. Ironically, however, I didn’t escape too far from my former colleagues. I was offered a position to head my own lab at an Army facility that conducted Bio-Safety Level 4 (BSL-4) research and development at a site secreted away in the heart of a naval base in the southern part of Maryland, sandwiched between the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay.

My lab was part of a multiplex of laboratories which were a satellite arm of Ft. Dietrich’s U.S. Army’s Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and employed a mix of civilian and Army personnel. I had been stationed at Ft. Dietrich up until my commission ended and it was a natural progression for me to slip into the civilian research world while still having the familiar funding and resources of the military at my disposal.

This collection of labs which we all referred to as The Facility, was a buried complex of state-of-the-art infectious disease laboratories. They were rated from Bio-Safety Level 2, which dealt with bacteria and viruses that pose a moderate potential hazard to humans – like the viruses that cause dengue fever or influenza A – through Level 4 where the really nasty stuff is studied. At any one point in time there are about ninety souls who work in and around the Facility.

I’m a virologist with a Ph.D. in microbiology working under AMRIIDs’ Special Pathogens Branch where I specialize in filoviruses. These are one of those wicked groups of viruses that cause Viral Hemorrhagic Fever, such as Ebola and Marburg. These are nasty single strand ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses which devastate the human body by destroying the vascular system and the body’s ability to repair itself. They are highly infectious. We were trying to find ways to combat this family of viruses. So far without much success.

The work could be tedious and hazardous, but also exhilarating and exciting. It mostly involved endless hours in the lab, although occasionally my team and I had to travel to exotic locales when outbreaks occurred. Okay, I’m lying – they were mostly shitholes in the armpits of the world.

On that morning as I drove in to work with my hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles showed white, I didn’t know it yet, but this was the day the world as I knew it was ending.

Let me digress a bit…

It had been a hot and muggy July so far and the news had been dominated by the upcoming passage of Hosteller’s Comet. The comet had become visible in our night sky weeks ago as a faint star-like object that seemed to stay just out of focus. As the weeks passed, it grew in size and prominence in our light-polluted heaven and now was even shining through the azure blue of our daytime sky like a long, diffuse cloud.

The economy, the unrest in the world, all else took a back seat to this spectacular event that we were witnessing. It wasn’t a huge comet as comets are measured, however, it was going to pass close, really close. Of course, all the doomers were out predicting the end of the world. I reckon many of them were Larry Niven fans.

I never bought into any of the doomsday scenarios that seemed to pop up at least once a decade, even after the discovery of this icy ball that was hurtling toward us at close to a million kilometers per hour.

We were what some people called preppers, although for other reasons. After an ice storm knocked out power for a week I was determined to not have my family go through all the hassle again of empty grocery store shelves, long gas lines, and waiting for water and food handouts at the local fire department. We started amassing three weeks’ worth of food and supplies. That soon turned into about six months’ worth as my policy of first in-first out and double replacement began netting results. My wife always thought I was on the edge of insanity with my disaster preparations, however, she tolerated it like a loving wife will for most of a husband’s quirks.

Holly really started buying into the preparedness genre after the comet dominated the news and our sky, you know, just in case.

We were also a family of gun enthusiasts. For a long time we had collected weapons and become proficient in their use and maintenance. We attended several defensive and tactical courses for both handguns and carbines and shot in the monthly pistol and rifle matches at our range over the years before Hosteller’s Comet made its appearance. Our gun enthusiasm could be interpreted by some from the anti-gun camp as fanaticism and our collections as arsenals, then again their unfounded fears of inanimate objects seemed to border more on the edge of a mental illness to me than me and my family punching holes in paper once a week – not that any of that would matter if that conglomeration of ice and rock were to hit us.

Unlike the Niven novel, Lucifer’s Hammer, NASA knew exactly what the orbit of this new comet was and exactly where it would pass in relationship to the Earth. They had determined that the orbital period of this long-period comet was about 92,000 years. They weren’t sure if this was its first pass, having relatively recently been ejected from the Oort cloud at the outer reaches of our solar system, or if it had been in orbit for millennia, having made possibly multiple passes since the birth of this planet.

Several new spacecraft were being launched into Earth’s orbit to capture as much comet debris as possible, along with instruments designed to take a variety of other readings and measurements, because the evidence was indicating