Read The Zombie Virus (Book 1) Online
Authors: Paul Hetzer
Tags: #virus, #pandemic, #survival, #zombie, #survivalist, #armageddon, #infected, #apocalypse, #undead, #outbreak
The Zombie Virus (Book 1)
A PERMUTED PRESS book Published at Smashwords
ISBN (Trade Paperback): 978-1-61868-422-6
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-421-9
The Zombie Virus
copyright © 2014
by Paul Hetzer
All Rights Reserved.
Cover art by Hunter Walker
This
book
is
a
work
of
fiction
.
People
,
places
,
events
,
and
situations
are
the
product
of
the
author’s
imagination
.
Any
resemblance
to
actual
persons
,
living
or
dead
,
or
historical
events
,
is
purely
coincidental
.
No
part
of
this
book
may
be
reproduced
,
stored
in
a
retrieval
system
,
or
transmitted
by
any
means
without
the
written
permission
of
the
author
and
publisher
.
To my son, thank you for gracing me with your
presence and to my wife, thank you for the love and friendship that
are the pillars of my life.
Thanks to all my friends out in the
never-never land of the net that took the time to read my
manuscript and return with constructive criticism. A special thank
you to Angela Reese, Jennifer Amber and Kim Nelson for your
tireless help with this novel.
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Prologue – 200 Million Years Ago
The small, furry, shrew-like quadruped erupted from
the dark hole in the moist, steamy earth on her short but powerful
legs and paused briefly at her colony’s entrance. Her long, pointed
snout thrust skyward and tested the air for any threats. She cocked
her head and listened to the din of various jungle sounds emanating
from the rich green foliage that surrounded her, acutely aware of
the danger closing in behind. She detected no immediate threats
ahead and used her five-toed feet to gain purchase and propel
herself across the claylike soil into the warm sunshine and thick
vegetation of this early Jurassic period of planet Earth. Her long,
hairy tail helped balance her body as she scurried between large
fronds and thick primitive trees. Behind her, from the blackness of
the hole that led deep into the colony, poured a multitude of her
brethren. Their small chirps and screeches carried to her ears as
she ran in a building panic.
They quickly picked up her scent on the soil.
She dashed along in the shadows of the mega-plants, her instinct
driving her onward toward some perceived safety of the thicker
brush. Fourteen of her fellow creatures gave chase. They scrambled
over one another to get to her, nipping at each other with small,
sharp teeth and their dark eyes wide with an insane rage.
The terrified creature, which far in the
future would be termed an eozostrodon, headed for a fallen tree and
backed into its rotted center until only the tip of her quivering
pink snout was visible deep within the soft wood. The enraged mob
of what had been her colony mates was scratching their way over the
earth towards her fragile refuge. She tried to back further into
the hole until the passage narrowed and she had reached the limit
that her body could squeeze into the tight place.
They swarmed over the log, hissing and biting
at the wood, her smell overwhelming their olfactory senses. A large
male found the small entrance she had backed into and plowed into
the hole, tearing chunks of spongy wood away with powerful sweeps
of its forearms. Its hind legs scrabbled in the dirt for purchase
and it pushed its snapping jaws closer towards her trembling head.
Dust filled the hole between them as the male fought to get closer
to her, its larger body plugging the passageway. It let out two
powerful sneezes when mold, like finely falling snow, rained down
around them and agitated its nasal passages – then continued
hissing and snapping at her shadowed form. It worked its needlelike
claws into the wood between them, pulling away brown chunks and
inching forward a centimeter at a time until their snouts were
nearly touching. She squealed in terror and helplessness then bared
her teeth back at the attacking male. She would not be taken
without a fight.
The male let out a loud pain-filled squawk
and was yanked violently backward out of the hollowed log and
disappeared from view. Through the billowing dust she saw a
reptilian leg step away, and then more squawks as the rest of her
colony mates succumbed to the same fate as the male. In front of
the log, a turkey-sized theropod lifted its head with the male
eozostrodon’s fir-covered rump tightly clenched between its jaws.
It tossed its head and opened its elongated teeth lined mouth,
throwing the furry animal further back into its gaping maw then
biting down with bone-crushing force. The eozostrodon let out a
final peep when the reptile tossed the mammal further back into its
throat and swallowed the bleeding carcass whole. Around the small
dinosaur raced three other of its clan, using their strong jaws and
long, sharp, serrated teeth in an orgy of feeding to catch the
scurrying eozostrodons. If the dinosaurs had had any reasoning
skills they would have wondered why the small creatures were
blindly running at them and attacking instead of fleeing in fear,
but their small brains only noted the easy availability of prey
that was filling their bellies. When all of the pursuing
eozostrodons had been consumed, the four feather-bearing reptiles
shot off into the thicker forest, their hunger satiated.
The female eozostrodon stayed quivering in
the hollowed-out log for several moments until she sensed that all
danger had passed. Then she tentatively pushed out toward the
bright light of the day. The danger she didn’t detect was the
microscopic particles of packaged organic molecules that had been
released by the male’s sneeze which had then entered her nose and
the moist membranes of her eyes. The virus methodically began
taking over cells and pumping out copies of itself in an orgasm of
self-replication.
The moment her immune system detected the
tiny invaders it started waging a small but deadly war. Her body
temperature elevated in response, trying to destroy the intruders
without damaging too much of her own tissue. Feeling the effects,
she cautiously made her way back to the empty colony and crawled
into the cool familiar tunnel that led down to her den where she
collapsed from exhaustion.
Millions of the viral packages circulating
within her blood were carried to her ovaries where a few were able
to insert their strands of ancient code into her cells. Several
generations of the RNA parasites had been produced in her body so
far and one of the viral packages infecting her ovaries had had a
slight transcription error, resulting in a small mutation for one
of the many proteins that it coded for. The package entered the
cell where, instead of producing a mini-factory when it
incorporated itself into the existing DNA of the cell, the missing
protein caused it to lie dormant. It became a permanent fixture in
that cell’s DNA, a cell that was destined to become an egg.
She lay there ill for some time while the
battle raged within her. Her immune system persevered. Her
leukocytes began overwhelming and destroying the attacking
particles. The infection had spread throughout her body, circulated
in the blood and along her nerve pathways. Her body’s defenses
quickly surrounded and destroyed any compromised cells, shutting
off the reproductive mechanism of the invader one cell at a
time.
Present Day
I awoke with a start from a dark unremembered
dream to the incessant electronic ringing of the bedroom phone. I
groggily reached across my wife’s sleeping form and picked up the
handset, turning it on with my thumb as I put it to my ear.