The Zombie Virus (Book 1) Read Free

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