The Zombie Virus (Book 1) by Paul Hetzer Page B

extinguisher I
tried to quietly make my way to the desk where the Marine security
detachment usually sat near the entrance.
    We had a staff of ten Marines who rotated
duty with two on at any one time. They were always armed when on
duty and treated this facility as they would one containing a
nuclear arsenal.
    I peered cautiously around the corner of the
hallway – there was no one at the kiosk. On Tuesday morning when I
came in, Corporal Ronny Vickers had been on duty. I hadn’t seen any
of the other members of the security team. Later, when LTC Hanson
had come up to retrieve the infected personnel, she should have
insisted that Ronny come down to the isolation ward to be
evaluated. Now he was an unknown factor.
    I hoped that he had left to be with his
family when things started to obviously fall apart. Since the first
day I had never been back to this level and our security personnel
did not have the clearance to any of the sublevels without an
escort, so our paths never crossed again.
    I carefully made my way over to the kiosk,
casting a wary eye around me as I moved. There were no windows to
the outside on this level, only a steel pneumatic door that took a
security code to open. The overhead fluorescent lights lit the room
brightly and everything seemed normal. Except for the absent guard
you would never know there was anything wrong in the world.
    That was until I got to the kiosk and saw the
dried pink tinged smears around the security desk.
    My blood turned cold and I glanced around
nervously. Nothing else seemed out of place. There were two
hallways off the atrium that the security kiosk was centered in –
one went to the elevator bank and the other to the administrative
offices. I knew the hallway with the elevator banks was clear. That
left one other.
    I walked cautiously to the entrance that led
down the other hallway, holding the extinguisher in front of me
like a club and peered around the corner, looking directly into the
bloodshot eyes of the Loony that had been Corporal Ronnie Vickers.
He stood about ten feet down the brilliantly lit hallway leaning
against the wall with his shoulders slumped and arms at his side.
He must have been dehydrated, for only frothy foam was visible
about his mouth.
    As soon as we made eye contact he snarled and
lunged toward me with a surprising burst of speed. The growling
creature reached for me and I instinctively swung the extinguisher
in a wide arc into the side of his skull. It hit with a thunk,
sending the Loony crashing to the white linoleum floor. He
immediately jumped back to his feet with a vicious snarl although
not before I was able to scramble backwards out of his reach.
    He came at me again but I was ready for him
this time and slammed the metal cylinder into his forehead. The man
stumbled backwards, blood pouring out of the gash I had opened up
on his broad forehead, staining the front of his uniform a bright
crimson. He caught his balance and came at me again, his mouth
snapping. I swung the cylinder as hard as I could into the side of
his skull and felt the bone cave in. He dropped hard to the floor
letting out a screech of pain.
    The creature continued snapping at me with
its teeth, snarling weakly as it tried to pull itself along the
floor and reached for me. Blood poured heavily from its ruptured
head. When its grasping hand closed around my ankle I raised the
cylinder and brought it down with crushing force, caving in the
skull, splattering blood and gray brain matter about the floor. The
Loony stopped moving.
    I dropped the cylinder and rushed to the
men’s room where I vigorously washed the virus laden blood
splatters from my arms and face. I then vomited into the sink. I
had never had to take a human life before. That was not who I was,
I was not a battlefield soldier. I was a scientist.
    I splashed cold water over my face and tried
to calm my breathing. I stared at the face looking back at me in
the mirror. I was as haggard and tired looking as I felt.