The Zombie Virus (Book 1) Read Free Page A

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 that Earth
was going to pass through the solar wind induced comet tail that
was streaming for 50 million kilometers away from this dirty ball
of ice.
    We would be in for a spectacular show, for
the Earth would pass through the ion tail with the comet a mere one
million kilometers away from the planet. Less than three times the
distance to the moon. There would be phenomenal meteor storms,
probably the likes of which have never been seen before by human
eyes. Most of the meteors would burn up far in the upper atmosphere
in brilliant displays of colors as water and organic molecules
trapped within the small porous bits of rock and metal boiled
off.
    Last night’s meteor storm was spectacular, a
show to remember, but I guess the doomers weren’t too far off, for
it seems it was the precursor to our troubles in some way. As we
all know though, correlation does not always equal causation.
     

CHAPTER 2

    I passed through security on the ground floor, Level
1 of the Facility, and found that only one of the two required
Marines was on duty. After being cleared by the guard, I made my
way down the hall toward the main conference room across from the
bank of elevators that led deep into the lab complex.
    The conference room was brightly lit and
empty of people. A flat screen television was mounted to the wall
in one corner and someone had turned it on to one of the major news
networks. The volume was low but still audible over the buzzing of
the florescent lights.
    I took a seat in one of the leather high back
chairs that surrounded the large oval conference table and sat my
briefcase before me. I stared up at the images displayed by the
news channel. The anchor, a young, neatly dressed man, stated that
the Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization were
collaborating on identifying the cause of the illness and were
recommending everyone stay at home until the epidemic was brought
under control. Very little word was coming from our own government.
Hospitals and clinics were being overwhelmed with the influx of
sick and with the loss of their own personnel.
    “Crazy, isn’t it?”
    I turned and stared up into the face of Dr.
Rafik, who had entered quietly behind me. His Indian accent lent a
heavy inflection to his words.
    “I never would have believed it possible that
something like this could happen,” he said.
    Dr. Anwar Rafik was a colleague of mine who
ran a Level 2 lab. He was the only other civilian doctor at the
Facility and had been doing some breakthrough work on Lyme disease.
We were friends, although not close.
    I stood to shake his hand but he backed away
a few feet and shook his head. “I’m sick, Dr. McQuinn.” He forced a
smile. “Whatever is out there has got me also.”
    I involuntarily backed away from him in a
rush of anger…and fear again. “What are you doing in here? You
could be infectious!”
    Before he could respond Lieutenant Colonel
Hanson strode into the room, pushing past Dr. Rafik, careful