Day Zero
Chapter 18

Day 70:

Then what the hell is causing this? Riley wracked his brain.

“What do we bloody know?” Benjamin inquired.

“We know that it has something to do with rabies” James said.

“It spreads through bites” Henry said.

“The victims are ‘dead’ once they are bitten” Helen chirped.

“It becomes a type of cannibalism” Riley said.

“It’s zombies” Abigail said just shy of shouting.

“It’s ain’t zombies” Mama Oilida stated.

“Not the real zombies, the Hollywood zombies!” Abigail exclaimed jumping to her feet.

“Abigail, are you still really going on this?” Hunter asked.

“You would think that after what Strader went through that she would be over this” James muttered.

“Hold on a sec…Keep going” Henry suggested obviously wanting to see where she was going.

Honestly, I want to as well. Riley thought to himself.

“We have established that this isn’t zombies in the traditional sense… but there are so many movies and books and other forms of media that make the idea of a zombie virus possible” Abigail explained as she grabbed one of the dry erase markers and began to write the titles of movies on the white board.

“Twenty eight Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, Zombie land, World War Z, Shaun of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead” Riley heard Benjamin reading aloud beside him.

Abigail had stepped back from the board and was looking at the list that she had created.

“Twenty eight weeks later and all the Resident Evil movies” Strader called out.

Abigail flashed the man a smile before writing those titles on the board as well.

“How does knowing that this is zombies help us as all?” Yumi inquired.

“Well, zombies are stereotypically some type of neurological disease… meaning we can eliminate things like TB or STDs or pulmonary diseases. We would need to know what types of things would cause neurological issues” she explained.

“Rabies is neurological. We have already established that this is neurological” Strader said.

“There are quite a few parallels that can be drawn between the rabies virus and the zombie virus. It would make sense that whatever this thing is actually interacts with the rabies virus. There is a woman, Dr. Samantha Price, who believes that it is plausible” Abigail explained.

“Well where is she?” James demanded

“She was one of the first people killed” Yumi explained.

“Slightly ironic really, one of the leading experts on zombies and she is killed in the first ten minutes of the movie” Benjamin said with a slight chuckle.

“It’s probably a safe bet to say that this thing originated from or had an interaction with the rabies virus” Riley said.

“So we still need to figure out what is interacting with rabies…haven’t we just gone full circle?” James demanded.

Riley resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He noticed that Abigail did not hide the motion “Yes. But now we can hopefully draw the conclusion that this zombie thing is neurological…and has interacted with something else that affects the nervous system”

Riley turned to look at Mama Oilida who was toying with the vial of white powder in her hands. Probably the puffer fish poison. “Poison…” Riley muttered to himself.

Abigail must have heard him because she paused and her gaze also wandered to the woman who had holding the vial of white powder. “The neurotoxin from an animal must have interacted with the rabies virus and created something that would cause this virus” Abigail said reading Riley’s mind.

“We have reason to believe that this whole bloody mess started in the Middle East right?” Riley inquired.

“That is what the medical community seems to believe” Yumi answered.

“So you are saying that a rabid hyena ate a poisonous scorpion and then bit a human?” James asked.

Abigail flashed the man a smile “That is exactly what I am saying.”

“So what are you suggesting, we fly to the Middle East and interview the zombies over there?” James demanded.

“After this morning there is no way in hell that we can get out of the country” Yumi said.

“What happened?”

“The civilians in Pakistan and Afghanastan have starting shooting down planes that fly over. The two countries have become no fly zones, any type of plane will be shot down, medical relief or no” Yumi explained.

“Where are we going to get these animals then?” Fabiana asked.

“We are going on a field trip to the zoo?” Strader answered.

“Well we will have to narrow down a few more things but essentially yes, we will be going to the zoo” Abigail answered.

“This would need to b-be a-an animal that is f-f-frequently around h-humans” Fabiana stuttered out.

“So nothing like a lion or a leopard then eh?” Benjamin asked with a chuckle.

“But rabid animals tend to lose their fear of humans, don’t they?” Dr. Kennedy inquired looking at Fabiana for confirmation.

The shy girl nodded. “Yes, b-but the odd of it being an animal that usually keeps its distance f-from h-h-humans coming close to them is pretty low. That and I am running out of rats”

“Damn it all” Benjamin said.

“We would also have to narrow down what type of neurotoxin it could have come in contact with…which will be the hard part” Dr. Kennedy stated.

Tell me about it. Riley thought to himself.

“We will just have to start with insects that these mammals could have come in contact with and then work from there” Abigail said.

“Abigail…there are still thousands if not millions of undiscovered insects worldwide” Fabiana said softly.

Abigail nodded.

“We will just have to hope that this is a species that has already been discovered” Hunter said voicing the hope that Riley assumed the rest of the group shared with him.