Afternoon (The Daylight Cycle Book 3) by Kody Boye

Author:Kody Boye [Boye, Kody]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Zombies
Published: 2017-04-11T06:00:00+00:00

They stood on the second floor on the western side of the university and waited while the armed men prepared to open the doors below.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Jamie said, crossing his arms over his chest as they looked on at the outside world.

“If my hypothesis is correct,” the doctor said, “then the infected shouldn’t even bother him.”

“What did you say you injected into him?” Jamie asked again, as if wanting the doctor to reassert Erik’s earlier statement in her own professional narrative.

“I injected the blood of what we call a plant walker into his system. It acts as a deterrent to the virus because it keeps it from attacking healthy immune system cells. Think of antiretrovirals and HIV—they coat the protector cells and keep the virus from lowering your CD4 counts.”

“Which means it keeps you from being infected,” Rose said.

“In theory,” she said. “Erik is the first patient I’ve had the chance to test this on.”

That’s reassuring, Dakota thought, but only nodded as Steve shuffled beside him.

“What if he gets attacked?” Jamie asked.

“That’s highly unlikely,” the doctor replied. “Given that he’s already begun to take on physical characteristics of the creatures, there’s a chance they won’t even respond to him once he steps outside.”

Whether they would or not would be determined soon, as in the distance a lone corpse wandered, shambling to and fro through the snow.

Below them, the double doors opened and out stepped Erik—calm, complacent, and seemingly unafraid of the world around him. He stared headlong as the corpse and started forward before the men behind him could even close the doors.

“Hey!” Erik cried. “Hey!”

The corpse startled, jerking its head in response to the noise, but looked right through Erik—almost as if he wasn’t there.

“The CIFR-infected did not respond to the CIFR-Modified patient’s stimuli,” the doctor said, her assistant dictating as she spoke. “Audible presences are noted, but seemingly ignored, and visual contact is obtained but not processed as a food source.”

“Could he have not been close enough?” the assistant, Lydia, asked.

“Possibly, but we have proven time and again that CIFR patients respond to non-infected immediately, regardless of proximity or perceived threat.”

“Which means he’s one of them,” Steve said. “Or at least being viewed as one of them.”

Doctor Hernandez reached down to lift the walkie-talkie from her waist. “Come in, Mr. Roberts. Over.”

“Roberts. Over.”

“Can you give me a visual confirmation on the state of the corpse? Over.”

“She’s decayed almost beyond comprehension. I can see her teeth through holes in her mouth and her eyes are almost completely destroyed. Over.”

“But she does acknowledge your presence? Visually? Audibly? Over.”

“Yes. Over.”

“Can you attempt to move closer? Over.”

Erik did as asked, lowering the walkie-talkie at his side and taking several tentative steps toward the creature, who turned and began to amble away. When he came within three feet of them, he lifted the walkie-talkie, said, “I’m going to try something,” then lifted a leg and gave her a hard kick.

The creature stumbled to the ground, but made no move to turn and retaliate against Erik.

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