Read The Dying of the Light (Book 1): End Online

Authors: Jason Kristopher

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The Dying of the Light (Book 1): End (7 page)

BOOK: The Dying of the Light (Book 1): End
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“When the town first fell off the grid and someone from outside finally noticed, several state troopers were sent in to investigate. We found their bodies and vehicles near the town hall. They had no idea what they were walking into, and were clearly outmatched and overwhelmed. When they didn’t report back, their commander talked to the Governor, who dispatched the Colorado Army National Guard’s 157
th
Infantry out of Denver.

 

“You have all been chosen because you are the best at what you do. So were these guys.” The colonel stepped to one side as he started another video. This one was from a helmet camera. I noticed that some of the soldiers —
operators, not soldiers
— began taking notes and talking in quiet whispers, critiquing the performance and methods of the unit on the screen. I was impressed that they would be able to focus after what they had just seen, and resolved to train myself to be just as good.

 

“We believe that the initial infection was spread by a bitten hunter returning to town,” Maxwell continued. I turned back to the screen, as hard as it was. I had a general idea of what had happened to start the whole thing, but I hadn’t been filled in on any detail. At the time, I hadn’t cared to learn and wanted merely to put it behind me. Now, things were different. “After it was all over, we had search teams scouring the mountains for weeks as far out as 20 miles, but we only found three of the bastards outside the city; they’d probably gone after animals or fleeing people. Where we realized the real magnitude of what we were up against, and just how unprepared we were, was when we discovered this video, taken sometime after the National Guard arrived in the town, likely during the second day.”

 

On the screen, a small squad of soldiers walked through the afternoon light and moved into a small cafe. I realized I was looking at the same squad I’d seen from the roof across the street, and knew what was coming next. As usual, blood and broken bodies were everywhere, and the soldiers were taking their time carefully clearing the way as they moved forward. I saw a flyer posted on the glass by the entrance announcing Friday’s high-school football game against neighboring Ranger Canyon; a game that would never be played.
Go Ravens
, I sighed.

 

Suddenly everyone jumped as a zombie came moaning through the kitchen door.

 

“Halt! Freeze or we will open fire,” yelled one of the soldiers. When the moaning just continued, the unit suited actions to words and fired. I shook my head as I watched the well-trained but ignorant men aim for and hit the zombie’s chests and legs, which didn’t even slow them down. More moans were heard from around a corner and two more walkers shambled towards the team. The sound of breaking glass from the front of the restaurant caused the camera to swing around, showing another walker moving in.

 

The squad fell apart and was overcome within moments, one of them running screaming out into the street, clutching an arm that had been bitten and mangled beyond repair. The camera fell to the ground as the soldier’s helmet came off, sparing us the view — though not the sounds — of his squad being torn apart by the walkers left inside.

 

What the camera’s unfeeling lens didn’t spare us was the view out the front of the restaurant, and we watched as the wounded soldier called for help on his radio, not realizing he was also calling every remaining walker in the area straight towards him. I turned away. I knew what was coming.

 

There was the sound of a suppressed pistol shot, then another, and two loud thuds followed by the panicking soldier’s voice. “Oh, thank God. You’re not one of them, are you? Help me, I’ve been bitten…”

 

Another voice answered. “I know. I’m sorry.” Another shot and a final thud. The video went silent as Maxwell paused it once more. I knew what I would see when I turned back, and there it was: 12 pairs of eyes, all staring straight at me, most in anger, none in fear. Only Maxwell’s showed any sign of compassion as he looked at me.

 

It was my voice on the video; my apology to the soldier. My likeness on the screen holding a pistol in its hand, staring down at the body of the soldier I’d just killed.

 

I looked down for a moment then raised my eyes once more and met their glares with neither confidence nor pride, but acceptance. “I did what I had to do. I’d seen it before. He was bitten, and he was going to turn.
There is no cure.
It’s as simple as that.” I looked at the colonel.

 

The accusing, angry looks changed to reluctant understanding as they looked back at the screen, and at Maxwell, who resumed playback. I watched myself look around carefully for more walkers, then take a knee next to the now-peaceful soldier. On the screen, I bowed my head. I’m not a particularly religious man, but sometimes, what’s right is right, regardless.

 

May the road rise up to meet you;
may the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face
and may the rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
may God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

 

I murmured these words along with the video, then watched as I strode into the restaurant, pistol at the ready, and moved out of the camera’s view. Several more of the shots, and the view swung around to show me in extreme close-up as I looked straight into the camera. I had no idea when it had happened that I might be watching the video later. In fact, I had been almost certain that I was going to be dead in hours, if not minutes. Watching myself in that video, I experienced a very strong sense of déjà vu.

 

“What I did, I did because there was no other choice. I hope that you can understand that.” The video went dark, and the colonel turned the projector off, the briefing room’s overhead lighting coming back on automatically.

 

“Those guardsmen had no idea what they were walking into. No one had briefed them on walkers, or how to take them down. No one knew that that was what they would be facing. When their squads didn’t return, the Guard cordoned off the town and called the Army, which is where AEGIS comes in.

 

“When we arrived, we found more than six hundred active walkers in a small town that had once held well over twice that number of uninfected people. Walkers ranging in estimated age from four to eighty-five. Most of those who weren’t killed or turned by the others died through accidental trauma or self-inflicted wounds when they realized there was nowhere for them to go.

 

“We lost nearly two full teams of operators cleaning up the town, many of whom were bitten, subsequently turned, and then attacked their own squads and fellows. Our operators for that mission were briefed with everything we could tell them; they knew to go for head-shots and to stay quiet. And they still died. Even with some knowledge of what’s going on, things can get hairy. You’ve all seen it.

 


What Blake did
was necessary
. He survived, despite every conceivable likelihood that he would end up as one of them. We
know
that bitten people turn into zombies. There is no cure, and there is no stopping or delaying it; there is merely an excruciating death and the knowledge that you will turn on your friends, your family and your neighbors.

 

“What you’ve all got on the desk in front of you is the sum total of what we know right now about the walkers. How to kill them, how to destroy the corpses, what to do and what not to do.” He picked up one of the thick binders.

 

“This has been compiled over the last 130 years, and is invaluable. Mr. Blake has
volunteered
to teach us what he knows to add to this, and how to deal with these things on a more personal level. We’ve never before had the chance to learn from a civilian survivor. He offers us a unique perspective and
you will all pay attention to what he teaches you
.

 

“Now, I’ve got someone I’d like you to meet. AEGIS isn’t just about killing zombies; an equally important part of our mission is to find out how to stop them from being created in the first place, as well as give us new tech to fight them and/or protect us better. We have a group of scientists working hard on that, and I’d like you to meet their head researcher, Dr. Mary Adamsdóttir.”

 

We took our cue from Maxwell and took our feet as he stood and extended a hand towards the tall and skinny woman that stood up and moved to the lectern.

 

“Thank you, colonel,” she said, taking up the remote and plunging us into darkness again. “Please, take your seats. This, ladies and gentlemen, is our enemy.”

 

A complicated medical drawing of some sort appeared on the screen, and I knew I wasn’t the only one left wondering what I was looking at.

 

“On the left, you see a normal protein. On the right, a ‘misfolded’ protein, called a prion,” she said. “It can’t be seen with a microscope. It’s not a virus, but it does lead to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Crutzfeld-Jakob Disease…”

 

“Bovine spongi-what?” asked a soldier in the back.

 

Dr. Adamsdóttir turned and looked out at the soldiers. “Bovine spongiform encephalopathy.” Seeing the blank stares on all of the faces looking at her, she chuckled and took off her glasses. “Sorry. I sometimes forget that not everyone I talk to is a geneticist or biological environmentalist, or… never mind. To answer your question, BSE. More commonly known as ‘Mad Cow’ disease.”

 

The comprehension was instant. “Thanks, doc,” said the soldier, and Mary turned back to the screen.

 

“BSE — Mad Cow — and CJD are just two variants of the several diseases that we’ve linked to these prions. You all know how easy it is to catch ‘Mad Cow’ — all you have to do is eat the infected beef.”

 

“I thought zombies — sorry,
walkers
— were caused by a virus or something,” I said, looking on with interest. “If prions are spread by eating infected meat, wouldn’t someone have to eat a walker to become one themselves?”

 

“Normally, yes, but this infection is like nothing we’ve ever seen before.” She hit a button on the remote, and the screen displayed a new slide — this one of the rapid deterioration of cells. “This shows the speed at which this prion causes reanimation. You can see clearly here with the marked samples that normal function ceases around eight to twelve hours after infection, with complete reanimation occurring in roughly double that, 16 to 24.”

 

The lights came back up, and she began pacing the stage. “There are many, many things we don’t know about this prion. Hell, prions weren’t even theorized until the early 80’s. At that point, we were still trying to isolate the virus that caused the spread, never realizing it wasn’t a virus at all.”

 

“So where does it come from?” asked another soldier.

 

The doctor threw up her hands and shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. We’ve been working on it for nearly 25 years, and have only recently figured out the specifics of
what
it does. We still don’t know where it comes from. We may never know where it originated, but in the end, it really makes no difference. It’s here now, and isn’t going anywhere.

 

“The process goes like this: A victim is bitten and the prions enter the bloodstream. From there the prion attaches itself to a certain molecule in the bloodstream, eventually making its way to the pre-frontal cortex where it replicates itself in extraordinary numbers, using just about every bit of bio-mass it can find there. This leads to a very painful death, of a sort. The prion changes the chemistry of the brain to such a large degree that regular body functions — breathing, for example — cease completely. The victim then expires, re-animating approximately eight to twelve hours after death. The reanimation occurs due to the new electrical signals being sent by the brain after death.”

 

“But if the brain’s dead, doctor…”

 

“We don’t know. It’s as simple as that. Using a captured specimen, we’ve documented electrical signals coming from the brain to the rest of the body, which explains how they can walk and move around, even that moan that they have. Whether this is a result of the mass of proteins in the pre-frontal lobe simply sparking random electrical current, or something more sophisticated, there’s no way of telling, yet. At least, if there’s a pattern indicating a more advanced cause, we haven’t found it.”

 

“So do they eat?”

 

“Yes and no. They have no need for sustenance, being dead. We have theorized at this point that the reason they attack humans is simply to spread the prions to another victim. There’s a flaw in the code somewhere though, because they don’t stop biting, which is why they ‘eat’ normal uninfected organisms.”

 

“But that would indicate… holy shit,” I said, sitting back in my chair. “Holy shit.”

 

“Exactly, Mr. Blake.”

 

“Clue in the rest of us, will ya, doc?” asked someone in the crowd.

 

“What Mr. Blake is referring to is that if the prions — collectively or individually — are forcing the victims to seek out new hosts, it indicates a level of sophistication that is very, very rare and has only been found in a few parasites and viruses. There’s a fungus in South America that does something similar with ants, but those are
ants
. This, though…” She shuddered. “It means that the damn things are very, very dangerous, colonel.”

 

“Holy shit,” someone else said.

 

“Exactly.”

 

I saw the mood in the room growing dark, and realized that this battle might be over before it was begun if these folks thought they had nothing to hope for.

 

“That’s why shooting them in the head always works. And why their blood is so infectious,” I said. “So, we keep our distance with our rifles, and break out the flame-throwers for cleanup. These bastards won’t know what hit them. I’m assuming fire will destroy these prions as well as anything else?”

BOOK: The Dying of the Light (Book 1): End
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