“That would have hurt; besides, my hand is tingling. I’m awake. Anyway, don’t be a big baby about it.” She shrugged.
“Hell, we’re damned well awake, that’s for sure,” he grumbled, rubbing his cheek.
“Oh, this is some straight up weird bullshit. It has to be a prank of some kind,” she said and he could hear the stress in her voice. He looked at her quickly, she’d lost the fear and her mouth had flattened out in recalcitrant defiance, her small chin jutting forward. He almost grinned. They both looked back when the man snarled again. This time louder and he shifted forward, more of his intestines spilling out onto the truck’s floor well, making a wet splat sound. The pungent scent of bowel permeated the air. The man tried to lunge forward but when his head came out of the truck cab, the bright sunlight hit his face and he screamed in pain, his arms going up to block the sunlight.
“Looks like he doesn’t like the sunshine. Guess with those blown pupils, that sun kinda burns the brain. Vampire or nightcrawler. Take your pick,” Zahara said, stepping closer. The man once more lunged toward her but jerked back when the sun hit his face, emitting another shriek. She lifted her weapon and shot him in the forehead. The man fell backwards and didn’t move.
“No intelligence it would seem. Apparently a nightcrawler or zombie then,” she said and looked up at Xander.
“Why nightcrawler?” he asked, curious.
“Vampires have some intelligence. At least on TV they do. He is either a zombie or had a really shitty HMO. That bastard was dead. Do you think that’s why there’s no traffic? Something’s happened?”
“What, like genetic tampering? I’d seen a few blurbs about switching certain genomes on or off to stop aging. I’m not sure if it was at Harvard or the University of Arizona, they were tinkering with mitochondrial DNA mutations. Maybe someone was trying to re-engineer the ends of the chromosomes, the telomeres? Those die, the cell dies and can’t repair itself.”
“Wow, Mr. Science.” She looked at him and he saw her mouth twitch with humor.
“Hey, it’s our job to stay informed, especially if something can be turned into a bioweapon,” he said, his eyes narrowing.
“You think maybe this is some kind of bioweapon gone wrong?” she asked, nibbling on her lower lip.
“Not sure, let me turn on my phone. Let’s get back in the truck, in case there are more zombies. Ones that aren’t too particular about the sun,” he said, still reeling by the turn of events. What in the hell? That wasn’t real, was it? Was this some kind of attack on the United States? Had someone’s lab experiment gotten loose? Getting into the Chevy, Xander looked around. He pulled out his phone and turned it on. It took a moment for the smart phone to fire up and then he looked on the search engines for news. He swiped and found numerous articles about a virus and pandemic. International flight cancelations, riots, hospital closings and then he saw a series of videos. He pulled up one of the videos and looked over at Zahara.
“Look.” He leaned toward Zahara and she leaned into him. They watched several amateur videos of zombies chasing people around a mall parking lots, in the streets. The videos were poor quality, shot at night. There were screams and unintelligible shouts. They watched as the zombies jumped people, tackling them to the ground. Many had the telltale lividity on their limbs, though in some cases, it was difficult to make out much detail.
“What in the hell is going on?” Zahara asked, looking up at him.
“Damned if I know. There are articles about a pandemic and flight cancelation. Hospital closures. Let me look around a little more. Here, it says something, some kind of virus. Look, this article says a Level 4 lab was discovered in Iran, all scientist within, dead or missing, that was nearly three weeks ago. Looks like there are several conformations, though that doesn’t mean much, you know how rampant fake news is. Looks like something got out of the lab,” he said, looking over at Zahara.
“You think that’s what the big boys at work wanted from you? You think they wanted you to head to Iran? Why wait, they’d been looking for you for over two weeks? Why in the hell wouldn’t they just send another operative?” she said, shaking her head. She was right, it didn’t make sense. If they needed an operative for Iran, there were other qualified agents that could do the job just as well. Or, they could have sent Zahara, instead of sending her to look for him. Wait, she’d mentioned she’d been on assignment in Vegas, but she didn’t say what.
“Look,” she said, pointing into the tree line. He felt goosebumps ripple across his arms, when he saw three zombies, hiding in the depths of the heavy forest, in the deep shadows. They looked as though they shifted from one foot to another, as though wanting to come forward, but unable. Had they been the ones to attack the truck? The blood at the truck suggested the man had been attacked near dawn, when the sun wasn’t high. What would happen on a cloudy day? At dawn and at dusk? How many of these things were there?
“This is some next level shit. You think Iran was playing with some kind of biological weapon and it got away from them?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t doubt it. Our country is also notorious for messing around with viruses, genetic engineering and all kinds of fun things. Playing God. I can accept that Iran might follow along with China and North Korea. You might be right about something getting out. I wonder how widespread this is? Especially, if they are shutting down international flights. Should we head directly to D.C.? Should I
