Outbreak (Book 2): The Mutation by Scott Shoyer Read Free Book Online Page A

to go out with a final bang? He wasn’t sure what he would do if he were in the same situation.
    Walt had taken over as director of the Will to Heal center three years before the outbreak. The owners of the property had been looking for a new direction. They’d wanted to offer addicts something besides the standard Twelve-Step program; something that directly dealt with the source of the addiction. That’s where Walt had come in. Walt had never attained a degree higher than his GED and afterward had become a certified counselor. But Walt’s curiosity never died.
    After going through so many Twelve-Step programs only to relapse time and again, his voice of reason, Steven Spalatucci, told him to find his own way that worked for him.
    If the steps they’re giving you aren’t taking you where you need to go , he remembers Spalatucci telling him, then build or find your own damn staircase .
    That’s exactly what Walt did, and he found his staircase in biology and science. He spent endless hours educating himself on how the brain behaves and how different neurotransmitters may or may not play a role in addiction. He never officially became an addictionologist, but he was respected in various addiction research circles for the contributions he made.
    That’s how the owners of Will to Heal found Walt. They heard about his research into the roles that the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin play in addiction, and were impressed. His theories were mocked by some, but from others they were believed to be the future of finding an actual cure for addiction.
    *****
    Walt grabbed some food and sat down next to Cheryl. She was a pretty, twenty-five-year-old woman who had an inner strength that radiated out. Cheryl always wore her light brown hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She said she always wanted to be ready for anything at any time, and Walt knew she wasn’t joking.
    Over the last two years, Cheryl became a warrior—the fiercest fighter the center had. She’d helped Walt organize the ground patrols at night and had developed a training program for those who wanted to learn to fight.
    Cheryl had been one of the last patients to arrive at the center before the outbreak. She’d admitted herself due to a prescription pill addiction. Cheryl had aspired to be a champion in the world of MMA fighting, and had pushed her body to the breaking point almost every day. She’d trained to the point of wearing down her body and then turned to painkillers to help her start training the next morning.
    As with everyone else in the hallways of the Will to Heal center, what started off as a crutch quickly became a daily coping mechanism.
    Walt remembered the day Cheryl admitted herself into the thirty-day in-patient program. He’d asked her why she was there, and Cheryl had told him that she was stronger than her addiction, and that by admitting herself into the program, she was taking the first step to proving to herself that she was indeed stronger.
    “How did the rest of the night go? ” Walt asked Cheryl as he sat down.
    “You know I always love ending the night with a bonfire, ” Cheryl said as she smiled.
    Walt laughed. “Find any more of those things wandering around? ” he asked.
    “No, ” Cheryl said, “and that worries me.”
    “That worries me, too, ” Walt agreed. “They’ve always been so predictable. They always hunt in groups of six to eight, so why the lone wolf last night?”
    “Hell if I know, ” Cheryl said, shaking her head. “At least it was easy to kill.”
    Walt stared at his oatmeal as his mind drifted away. It just didn’t make any sense that suddenly the infected were changing their behaviors. Walt laughed because he was still in the habit of attributing human intelligence and behaviors to the infected.
    I may not know exactly what they are , he thought, but I know they aren’t human .
    Then Walt said: “Let’s make sure we double down on the patrols tonight. I’ve got an uneasy feeling,