Rain: Rise of the Living Dead (Undead Rain Book 1) by Shaun Harbinger

Author:Shaun Harbinger [Harbinger, Shaun]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harbinger of Horror
Published: 2014-02-10T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

We sat around the dining table with the lights on in the cabin. Darkness had fallen outside. Mike had piloted The Big Easy out a few miles from shore and for the first time in a long while, we felt safe. Elena and Lucy had arranged the food in the cupboards and made chicken curry and rice. Even though the curry came from a can, it filled the dining room with mouth-watering smells of savoury spices.

The clothing and supplies from the marine shop had been stowed in the storage rooms below. Mike and Elena had claimed the largest bedroom on the stern, leaving Lucy and me with the smaller helm bedroom. Lucy wasn’t complaining about the arrangement. I tried to keep my celebration hidden by fixing a nonchalant look on my face.

The curry was delicious and when we pushed the empty plates away, Lucy said, “Now tell us how you knew about the zombies and the rain.”

I had kept quiet on the subject, working it through in my own mind before I was ready to explain it to the others. “I saw a TV show about how a virus behaves. Once it infects a host, it makes the host do things that achieve the virus’s goal of spreading to other hosts. There was a virus that made ants climb up high plants so the virus spores would spread farther when released. There was a bird virus that started out in a fish but really wanted to be inside a bird. So it made the fish swim erratically in the shallows where it would attract a hungry bird. Once the bird ate the fish, the virus got into the bird where it wanted to be in the first place.”

“I don’t follow,” Mike said. “How does that apply to zombies and rain?”

“If a virus can make an insect or a fish act like that, it shows that the virus ‘thinks’ long-term. It makes the host act in ways that will ensure the virus’s future.”

Mike said, “A virus can’t think, man.”

“But it’s like thinking. The virus doesn’t just infect a host and that’s that. If it has bigger plans, it makes the host act according to those plans. So this virus - whatever it is and wherever it came from - wants to spread among humans. Remember that guy who had died of a heart attack in the car crash? There was no reason for the zombies to bite him because he couldn’t spread the virus. It needs the host to be mobile and able to bite or scratch uninfected humans so it can be spread.

“The humans it infects, it kills then rises from the dead. As we’ve seen… and smelled… the bodies rot. That means they will eventually rot away completely and be useless as hosts. The virus needs to slow that rotting process for as long as it can so the host has a longer ‘lifespan’ and can infect more victims.”

“That makes sense,” Lucy said. “Keep the host body as intact as possible.

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