The Zombie Virus (Book 1) by Paul Hetzer Read Free Book Online Page B

post-Hosteller’s. That was something we
would never know. It didn’t matter. Somewhere in our past the virus
inserted itself into a cell that was predestined to become an egg
or sperm without turning it into a virus factory. This DNA with the
new strand of viral RNA incorporated into it was passed down into
the creatures’ offspring on and on until it ended up in present day
humans, where it had sat unnoticed, quietly waiting.
    Most fossil virus DNA that we carry will
never pose a problem. As generations pass it is corrupted by
mutations and will never again code for the original design.
Somehow this one remained in a large percentage of the population
unchanged, or what mutations occurred were not enough to destroy
its self-replicating ability. Something kept it in check in our
bodies, imprisoned by some organic Pandora’s Box whose key had been
lost in time.
    That was until now.
    The organic molecules that blanketed our
planet from Hosteller’s Comet had not graced our presence for at
least the past ninety thousand years. They must have held the key
to the box, an antigen that caused our cells to transcribe this
section of RNA and begin the replication process, which unleashed
on humanity this monster.
    A plague I call the Zombie Virus.
    The Zombie Virus didn’t create a human zombie
in the classical sense, even though the infected sure as hell acted
like those fokelorish creatures. More appropriately, it was the
virus that returned from the dead.
    It seemed to have started almost immediately
following the passage of Earth through Hosteller’s tail after an
incubation period that appeared to be a few hours at best. The
replication rate for this virus was phenomenal, unprecedented in
viral research, but then again so were many of the attributes for
the infection. On the positive side, some of the world’s population
must have had a genetically mutated version of the Zombie Virus
RNA, and it never replicated in our bodies or we had some other
natural immunity to this infection. Otherwise I wouldn’t be telling
you this story now.
    I was back in the labs very early the next
morning. I had to re-secure Sung’s bindings by wrapping surgical
tape around his wrists. His struggles had bent the metal hasps of
his straps and were working them loose. Sung was correct about one
thing, in their present state they were very strong. My guess was
that the adrenal gland was affected and pumping out bursts of
adrenaline at the slightest stimulus.
    I had the room’s lights set to dim every
night to simulate normal day-night cycles. The infected individuals
would fall into a restless sleep every evening after the lights
dimmed and not wake up until the lights came back up to full
brightness the next day. I knew, outside of the Facility, that this
observation would be worth as much if not more than my viral
research to our survival.
    By that evening I had isolated the small
bullet shaped particles of RNA, confirming the virus theory and the
family in which it belonged. It was surprisingly a lyssavirus,
closely related to that of the rabies lyssavirus which voraciously
attacks a victim’s central nervous system. These are one of the few
viruses that can cause illness in humans and are also good at
evading our immune system. Without a concerted immune response our
bodies have difficulty combating it. It would be another day before
I confirmed that its DNA sequence matched a section found in the
human genome.
    I named the awakened infected, “Loonies”, my
dry attempt at humor in this humorless time. When those infected
with the zombie virus awakened, they were no longer what they were.
They had lost what made them human.
    Later that evening I performed a crude
autopsy on the brain of the girl who bled to death.
    There was massive inflammation and tissue
death throughout the brain. It appeared that the virus traveled
along the nerve pathways to the central nervous system, where it
quickly replicated and spread throughout the brain.