The Virus Within: The Unranked (Book 4)

Ch. 8: Something In The Wind

"Bear spray, soapy water in the eyes, potato gun, the possibilities are endless," Nicky replied with a dismissive shrug. "You just need something that makes them lose their grip and fall off as you drive away."

The two men exchanged a look.

"It sounds like you've done this before," Fred said.

"Not quite, but good judgement comes from experience, and experience just so happens to come from poor judgement or lots of testing under the influence of caffeine."

"I wish someone would have suggested using controlex like this sooner," Wyatt said wistfully, rubbing his stubbly beard.

"A few places have been doing it for years," Daniel said, "but those places don't have radio towers, so you might not have heard about it."

"We'll send out a broadcast after trying it," Wyatt said firmly. "We can't be the only place who'd be interested in this."

"Just keep in mind the zombies will still hunt your livestock, and they'll be harder to lure away since they aren't interested in you," Daniel told him.

Nina added, "Regular zombies and Runners will pursue humans if there aren't any animals nearby."

"Perhaps, but I'd prefer it if they chased animals instead of hunting us," Fred said. "It wouldn't be hard to jab the regular zombies through the fence. We might even be able to hit the Runners before they start climbing, so we might not even need a cage."

They kept discussing the various ways of inoculating the local zombie population without putting their people at risk.

When we reached the gate, I told Daniel, "I'll start the truck if you want to carry Nina's equipment into the lab."

"I'll help start the fire!" Nicky exclaimed as a guard opened the gate for us. "I also need to reclaim my water gun in case of a zombie invasion."

She scampered ahead of the group, leaving our two guides to glance at each other in bewilderment. I hated to break it to them, but there was no way they could have prepared for someone like Nicky.

~

I stood in the back of the truck as Daniel drove down the road.

"As boring as this is, it beats sitting inside the Stronghold," I said.

"The sooner we find the zombie, the sooner we can head back to Ironwind," Daniel replied.

"I know. I don't smell anything unusual yet, and we both know you'll see it before I will."

"We're getting close to where they said they found it."

I checked the air while he scanned the horizon. Between the two of us, not much could evade our senses, so we simply had to find the right area.

My head came up. "Do you smell that?"

"Yes..." he said, bringing the truck to a stop.

I jumped out and sniffed around a bush where the scent was stronger. "We found the trail. It's not a Runner, but it's not exactly the same as the one in the shed. It's close though."

"And it's not like the one at Ironwind," Daniel said, walking along the path and looking ahead. "Let's see if we can find it."

"How old is that trail?" he asked as I jumped into the back.

"About four days old. Let's hope it wandered around in circles or we could be out here for a while."

"I have a feeling we're going to burn a lot of wood trying to find this thing..."