Chapter 12

They started testing everything now they knew what they were looking for it made it easy to go looking for it. They gathered samples of the food and water most of which had been found in different water samples including the lake and the drinking water supplies. The microbe was found in the bloodstream of every animal that they had found and tested. It was even absorbed into the fruit and vegetables it seemed like it was in everything.

That is the time that the first of the people started showing up in different areas the first was a woman Vera Fisher Salt Lake her family had a family reunion where they took time fishing and camping together. Their yearly camping trip was to the strawberry reservoir they had tried a new spot this year in the Renegade Campgrounds. She Had a great time with her kids and the grandkids even though she had not been in the best health the whole time. She managed to go on a few boat rides and even went swimming once, but for her, it was mostly watching the youngsters play that made her happy.

Two months later Vera simply passed in her sleep as her heart gave up. There was no pain, she simply drifted away never to reawaken at least her consciousness never did. Her body was found the next morning when her friend came looking for her for their morning coffee.

Moments later the body of Sam Parkinson was found in the park he was homeless most of his adult life. He had tried the monetary thing in his youth and nothing quite fit with him working seemed too hard and not to his taste. He knew he could beg and for the most part, was left alone. He had the unlucky experience of running into the fishers as one of them had dropped his spare change into the cup. Sam had the cup to collect change and sometimes bills, but also used to drink whatever booze he could get, and water when he couldn't. The cop that covered the parks had to wake him at times when he had gotten too drunk the night before, but this time he had passed.

Dave Jackson was a sales agent for A. John's Pharmaceutical company. He had the unlucky task to visit all the doctors that are in the aerie of Salt Lake to Fillmore it was his last stop after a very long day. He was a very tired man with no real hopes or dreams and ending on the road most of the time was a comfort since his wife managed to make his life miserable when he was home.

It was a pleasure when he found it was too late to make the journey back home and have to spend the night in the Fillmore Hotel. It was an older building, but it had a shower and a comfortable bed to give him an uninterrupted night's sleep. Drinking the water and making his coffee was how he managed to take it in. However, that did not kill him just made him a carrier of it spreading it out everywhere he stopped without even knowing anything.

The worst of the ones that were guilty of taking it everywhere were the scientists themselves all the specialists that had flown in and then when back home for a visit with their families had taken it back with them. Unseen and unknown in the water they drank and the food that they were eating anyone that it entered within hours became a host enough to spreads it to others it would take time for it to grow and spread threw out their bodies enough for them to take over and move the body when the brain dies.

Vera was the second one to start moving, but she was not even noticed at first her body was in a cold drawer in the morgue waiting to be autopsied to find the cause of death. The cold had slowed her movements and even slowed down the process of her awakening. The fact is even when they came back and opened the drawer, they handled her, and they had not noticed her moving. It was not till they were slicing her open that they noticed that her eyes and mouth were moving and the hand reaching up for them.

The lab assistant jumped back and then fell on his ass when he slipped on the floor as he tried to scramble away. He managed to fall two times and shit his pants from the sheer terror he felt. He was always on the skittish side. When he saw the woman move after she had been split open her intestines coiled as she attempted to sit up.

The mortician had been lucky that she was moving so slowly he had just not been paying any attention to what she was doing or the fact that she was moving. The mortician didn't notice anything until the tech hit the floor. He looked up from cutting on her with a puzzled look on his face. "What are you doing?" He asked.

Rob was completely speechless, trapped in the terror of the moment. All he could do was point at Vera as she latched onto the mortician's arm. Feeling the sudden grasp on his arm made him jump startled trying to pull his arm free. Vera had never been very strong but at this point, she had a death grip on his arm in fact as he tried to pull his arm free, he pulled her off the table.

Vera slid off the table and knocked the mortician to the floor. She dug her fingers into him so hard that her fingernails penetrated his skin. He screamed every time that she took hold. Vera pulled herself up his body only releasing her grip to reach up and get a better hold. Leaving holes in the area where her fingers had been. They all started bleeding leaving him unable to get away.

Pulling herself up as her head made it to his belly before getting stuck. He managed to stop her as his foot slid into her open chest and managed to lodge itself on her pelvis. It was cold, wet, and full of slime, and it oozed around all the way to his knee. Vera dug her fingers into his arms tearing into his flesh as he screamed. Leaving long tears in his arms as her fingers dug in deeper.

As the tech watched what was happening to the mortician and how she had started tearing at his arms the tech screamed like a little girl as he went running out of the room. The mortician was screaming at the top of his lungs, and it echoed throughout the room. While he was trying to get free as her fingers dug into the muscles the blood started pouring out of the open wounds. He was crying out for her to stop and for some help to get her off of him he was in so much pain that he could not even think.

He was in a complete panic trapped under her with her tearing at his body. He was trying anything to get away from her, but she was just too strong. The only thing that was saving him was the fact that his leg was trapped in her belly. Then he felt it, and it was horrifying. With a hard pull, she started to rip she pulled harder and harder making his foot twist and slide off her pelvis bone and slowly was being pushed out of her.

At first, there was just her blood and guts being pushed out between her legs then it looked like she was giving birth. It started with the tip of his shoe he had tried to flatten his foot, but his ankle buckled and with a hard pull from her his foot popped out and he slid up all the way to his knee.

The mortician gasped in horror and disgust as he found himself crotch-deep in an old lady. That was until she grabbed his head and snapped his neck just before sinking her teeth threw his skull. That was the last thing he saw was an old woman's mouth opening before everything went dark.

The tech had not just run away he went out and got help as he called for help 4 orderlies came running as well as the three policemen that were there. They burst through the door, and they could not believe what they had seen, the horror of it made them all take a step back. Vera, with her guts spilling out on the floor, had ripped off his head and broken it open as she looked up at them with her grey eyes and mouth full of brains. The Mortician's leg was poking through her was enough to make half of them lose their lunch on the floor.

Vera only looked at them for a moment then went back to slowly munching on his brains. They watched as she swallowed, and it made its way to her stomach and then popped out onto the floor.

On seeing that the tech decided he had seen enough and carefully avoided the puke on the floor and went out the door and wasted no time running down the hall all he wanted was to get out of there.

The first orderly said, "Oh hell No! Fuck this I'm out of here." Two of the others didn't say a word, they just followed him out of the room.

The last orderly just stood there frozen in fear unable to move an inch. His eyes were wide as he watched the gruesome horror of it all bite after bite as the brain she had chewed and swallowed sliding out making a pile on the floor.

The first cop looked at the other two unsure of just what to do at this point. The second pulled out his gun and yelled, "Freeze! " The third just looked at him like really did you just say that?

Sam had the luck to have a hidden spot in the park that the police never bothered to check but then again neither did anyone else. He had seen someone else go in there once before and ever since then he had claimed it as his own. At this point, all he wanted was to get drunk and have a place to flop down while doing it. But on this particular day, his drinking was more than his liver could handle.

Sam had been warned by doctors for years that his liver was failing but his life had ended 30 years ago when he lost everything and turned to alcohol to solve his problems and take away his pain. His wife didn't stay long once he lost his job and started drinking. He was a mean drunk anyway. As Sam slept in his little hidey-hole, he was happy he had begged enough money to get a second bottle of booze so he crawled in early and started drinking getting drunker than he had in years he was finally feeling no pain or anything else.

That is why when the snake slithered up his body as he slept, he never felt a thing. He would have been just fine if he had managed to stay still, but with him being this drunk he flopped in his sleep and pinned the snake it bit him pumping enough poison into him to kill 20 men.

Midnight came around when Sam started to move very slowly at first but once he got to his feet he had loosened up and was moving at his normal pace, at least for when he was drunk. The snake had bitten him on his arm which had turned completely black and was already starting to rot. The black was slowly moving with his heart no longer beating. The poison was no longer traveling through him, but it was still breaking down the skin and muscle making it start to sluff off of his bones.

He made it out of the hole and started wandering around the park drawn to anything that it saw moving. The first thing it saw was a dog running loose and he started staggering toward it. The dog had not even noticed it, it was too busy playing and it quickly got out of sight. Leaving Sam to wander moaning he was moving slowly, and the park was empty as he wandered aimlessly chasing after whatever movement he happened to see. Even the trees caught his attention as the wind blew the leaves.

It was 4 am before the first of the joggers made their way to the park. Sam first saw the jogger and clumsily stumbled toward it. Sam moved slowly and awkwardly, and the jogger never even noticed him as he ran past and out of sight. But that drew Sam in closer, stumbling and falling a few times as it picked itself up and just kept going toward the movement.

By the time Sam made it to the jogging path the sun had started to rise. He tripped on the border of the trail as two joggers came up to him, they both bent down and tried to give him a hand and they took his arms.

He looked up at them with a growl. She instantly let go of him as his fingers sank deep into the slime that used to be his arm but was now a black ooze. As she withdrew her hand the slime poured out of his arm in a stream to the ground emptying his arm as the poison had broken down the muscles and turned the skin into a black slimed covered bag.

Sam was putting out the effort to try and use it, but the muscles were gone so it was only able to move the area up toward her and it hit her lifelessly and then kind of flopped back down.

Her husband had not noticed anything at first until the zombie turned to look at him. Half of his face was starting to turn black and slide out of place. He hesitated at seeing the gruesome appearance. It was not long but long enough for the zombie to start moving toward him. The jogger reacted in time letting him go and dropping him to the ground just missing getting bitten. It had made a swipe with the hand that no longer worked it was no longer able to grab ahold of him with it but only left a few scratches.

The wife saw it going after her husband and swung the hand weight that she always carried as they jogged. The weight hit the back of the head solidly causing the scull to explode force spraying her with the rotting brains and the other juices. She let out a screen as it went into her eyes and mouth. With the taste and the smell, it didn't take long for her to empty her stomach on the side of the path.

Dr. Rengi had not slept for 2 days as he sat with his wife as they were waiting for his son to leave the operating room. The boy had steadily gotten worse. There had been no reason that he was getting worse. It hit him one day when he was out playing. The boy just started feeling poorly and within a week he was unable to get out of bed on his own. It was a long flight from the lab all the way back to Dhantoli. Dr Rengi had made sure that he had made the trip once a month for a few days he was not about to miss out on seeing his son grow and mature. It had been written in every contract that he made allowing for the time off when he was away from home and them paying for the trip each way. He had been called back early when the boy was sick enough to be put in the hospital.

If the Dr had only known that on his first trip back when he hugged his son, the first time he had passed a small mite that had jumped from his pant leg to the boy and was never even noticed the little brown spot that was the size of the point of a pin as it ran around and made its way to his ankle where it bit. The bight was itchy but didn't bother him that much. Weeks later the first of the signs presented itself with a slight fever and then it started making him tire more easily feeling more tired for the next 2 months it when unnoticed until he collapsed.

Once the parasite was in open waters there was no stopping it and the massive growth that is experienced every 7 minutes doubled in volume by the time, they had discovered it half of the population of the world had already been infected.

The General realized when he heard what was involved that there was no way to stop it since it was in the water and the food supply. Even if you would try to purify the water you would eat the food and would have no way to stop it. There was only one hope to find some kind of anti-virus, at least they have the thing identified they would have to find a way to see who has it and a way to get it out of everything that it was now in.

The general had a tuff choice to make either to bury the evidence of what it was and where it came from or contact the CDC and hope that they could do something there they could not. The general sat with his hands crossed and looked down at them unsure what he was going to do just knowing that his world was over, and life would never be the same.

The end