The Virus Within: The Road Ahead (Book 1 - SERIES COMPLETED!)

Chapter 88

Nina sighed as she sat down with her breakfast. "The feral Nightstalker is dead."

I glanced at Daniel with narrowed eyes, but he shook his head. "I'm innocent."

"How did it die?" Jess asked, echoing my thoughts.

"We wanted to make sure the cure worked in case the controlex caused complications. The good news is that the cure still works like it should, and the human body is unaffected. We were able to cure her and turn her back into a Nightstalker flawlessly, but when we tested the cure again and tried to change her into a Runner, that's when we ran into problems."

"What kind of problems?" I asked, quite focused on this conversation since this could potentially affect me as well.

"It worked in the blood samples, so I had to dig deeper. It turns out that the original infecting virus leaves some sort of a marker in the bone marrow, and if a zombie is cured, the marker remains. If you try to re-infect them and turn them into a different zombie rank, that marker prevents the change. When we tried to change her human body into a Runner, her body went into the typical turning seizures but she never recovered. She wasn't breathing, and her heart wasn't beating."

With a puzzled expression, Nicky said, "Trinity was like that when she got injured, but she recovered. Are you sure she's truly dead?"

Jess blinked at Nicky, then glanced at me with wide eyes. I kept a steady expression, wishing Nicky would have kept her mouth shut. I hadn't gotten around to telling Jess the full extent of what had happened at the truck stop.

"We tried turning a few Runners into Nightstalkers in the past and saw the same thing," Nina replied unhappily. "They are well and truly dead. No drug works on them, and the first signs of decomposition start within hours. It wasn't until now that we realized why."

I tapped the table with a fingernail as I thought, trying to ignore my sister's penetrating gaze. "So, you can control a human's first change, but they can't change their rank after they turn?"

Nina nodded. "Pretty much. We would be able to turn you back into a Nightstalker, but you wouldn't be able to turn into a Runner or a Terror. I did a bit more testing, and those markers also mean you wouldn't even need any intervention if you became human and got infected. Even if a normal zombie bit you, those existing markers would control the change, and you'd end up as a Nightstalker."

"Very interesting," I replied somewhat dryly. "As I mentioned before, perhaps we had better focus on a vaccine instead of how people may, or may not, yoyo between being humans or zombies?"

"It's fascinating research and you know it," Nina replied with a grin.

I snorted. "I also recall the pain that came with those seizures. Only the truly insane would consider doing it more than once."

Daniel winced at his own memory, and Nina also made a face.

"Point taken," she said. "I've seen it several times, and I'm not looking forward to the next wave. We were really careful last time, but we don't know how many we might lose this-" Nina broke off as her mouth formed a little 'o' of complete surprise.

It looked like our scientist had finally tripped over her epiphany.

The others all looked at Nina in concern, although she just stared at me.

"Wait!" Nina exclaimed, leaning over the table toward me. "That guy yesterday – you said you smelled it, right?" She sat upright as another thought hit her. "Daniel smelled it too! This means that if anyone here had been infected, you two would have detected it by now!"

The poor woman looked like someone had hit her upside the head with a baseball bat, simply too stunned by the discovery for excitement and reality to truly set in. There had likely been many nights of restless sleep as she dreaded losing more friends and acquaintances during the upcoming wave – and she had just discovered that no one here was even infected.