The Swiss Family RobinZOM (Book 5) by Perrin Briar Read Free Book Online Page B

reanimated?”
    “Reanimated how?” Fritz said.
    “What we know about this virus is it doesn’t need living hosts,” Bill said. “It only requires an energy source. So long as the host can spread the virus, it doesn’t care where that energy comes from. I said these Spinners evolved. I was wrong. They were created from zombies.”
    “Created?” Fritz said. “By who?”
    “Not by whom, by what,” Bill said, looking up at the sky. “Have any of you ever read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein?”
    “No,” Fritz said. “Is it by Stephen King?”
    “You should be ashamed of yourself,” Ernest said, shaking his head.
    “A bolt of lightning powered a dead body into becoming reanimated,” Bill said. “It came to life. The other day we had a huge thunder storm. There was lots of lightning. Do you remember? There would have been plenty of power. It could have struck here, giving the zombies all the power they needed.”
    “But that’s a work of fiction!” Fritz said. “How can it happen in real life?”
    “There are many things we don’t know about real life, least of all the virus,” Bill said. “We don’t know what happens when certain forces come in contact with it.”
    “But they’re dead!” Fritz said. “How can they come back?”
    “You mean, how can they come back again ?” Bill said. “They already came back once, remember. There’s no telling how many times they can come back should the right catalyst occur.”
    “You mentioned they were struck by lightning,” Liz said. “Wouldn’t there be evidence of that if it were true?”
    “There is evidence,” Bill said. “You just can’t see it very well from the ground. Get to a higher vantage point and you’ll see this area is dotted with lots of black circles, the places where lightning struck.”
    “But why would lightning strike here?” Ernest said. “It’s not the highest point on the island. There’s nothing here to attract it.”
    “You don’t know that,” Bill said. “There might be an ore deposit underneath us. It would draw lightning to it. Just our luck to have set up a cemetery over an ore mine! The power could have sent a pulse through the bodies, and the virus was ready for it. What we’re seeing in these things is the virus in its purest form bypassing human consciousness. A creature that exists only to propagate more of itself. If a single scratch can do that, being an unstoppable whirlwind of destruction is the best method.”
    “You sound like you admire them,” Fritz said.
    “I admire nature’s inexhaustible creativity,” Bill said. “And how can you not admire its survival instinct? It will not die until we toss it on the fire. It will not stop fighting until the host cannot fight anymore.”
    “Is it just me,” Fritz said, “or does it feel like this island doesn’t really want us here? It keeps throwing new things at us.”
    “The island doesn’t have a will,” Bill said. “It’s just the way things are in the world now.”
    “Then how do we kill these Spinners?” Fritz said. “If destroying their brains doesn’t stop them, what can we do?”
    “For all intents and purposes the virus does kill them,” Ernest said. “But when they come in contact with an electric current they get reinvigorated with life. There’s little we can do save burn.”
    “We can’t set the whole island on fire,” Fritz said.
    “We could build a barrier between us,” Liz said. “Blocking them off from our side of the island.”
    “There are two problems with that idea,” Bill said. “One, there’s no guarantee a barrier would be able to stop them indefinitely, and two, there are things we need on the other side of the island. What if one of us gets ill again and we need medicine? It’s all in the middle of the island.”
    “Then what do we do?” Fritz said.
    There was another pause of reflection.
    “We smash them into pulp,” Bill said.
    “We tried that,” Fritz said. “It didn’t work.”
    “Not