Under a Graveyard Sky-eARC by John Ringo Page A

fighting his first zombie. Not.
    First incredibly strong, wiry, excessively underage, fast, naked, female , zombie.
    Then he heard the screams behind him.
    Looking over his shoulder he saw a woman running out of a home down the street. She was clothed but the clothing was ripped. Pursuing her was a naked man covered in blood. And she was, naturally, running towards the policeman for help. With the subject in hot pursuit.
    “Screw this,” Young said, holding the bag barely closed with one hand and drawing his Glock. He placed it against the girl’s quadricep and pulled the trigger. The girl shrieked and fell to the ground, grabbing at her leg.
    “What are you doing ?” her father shrieked.
    “Trying to save your life, her life and mine,” Young said, spinning around. “Come on!” he said, waving at the woman to pass him. “Come on!”
    Don’t let them bite you…
    “Don’t,” the woman said waving her hands. She was dressed in jeans and a nice blouse as if she had been headed out to the store when her world came apart. The blouse was now rent and bloody and she had a large bite mark at the juncture of her shoulder and neck. “Please don’t! I don’t know what’s wrong with my…”
    “ I do,” Young lied, targeting the oncoming man’s chest. He was big enough and violent enough it might be ruled a good shoot. If what appeared to be happening was, well, what was happening, probably would be ruled a good shoot. Virginia wasn’t, quite, San Fransisco. In Frisco he’d assuredly be fried.
    “HALT OR I WILL FIRE IN DEFENSE OF SELF AND OTHERS!” It was usually a phrase used by civilians. Cops were supposed to use anything but firearms to resolve the situation. You only drew a gun if there was another gun. Maybe a knife. But the guy was big and the girl was going to be up and hopping any second now and he had no backup. Young was out of options. “HALT! HALT! HALT! ”
    He waited until the charging man was under five meters, then, following training, double tapped: One upper chest, then, following the natural climb of the recoil, one to the head.
    The man plowed the ground at Young’s feet as his wife started to scream. Louder.
    It was Young’s first official shoot but he’d previously seen what a bullet did to a human skull. Best not to dwell on it.
    “Officer-involved shooting,” Young said into his radio as he walked to his car. There was a first-aid kit in the trunk. Not that he thought it was going to do anyone much good. He’d had a bit of trouble getting his pistol back in the holster but his voice was clear. Even if he was falling back on older training. “One Kilo India Alpha, two Whiskey India Alpha…”
    He paused as he was reciting the litany of disaster, bent over and more or less casually threw up…
    “No bites,” Young said, spitting. “So far…”
    * * *
    “And this is our culprit,” Dr. Titus Wong said, sliding a cursor across the screen to point to a very obvious red nodule on the spinal material. “In a different configuration.”
    Dr. Curry was eating popcorn as he watched the video conference. Arranged by the WHO for “interested parties only” the more or less continuous, and continuously encrypted, conference was collating the ongoing study of the Pacific Flu. Curry’s new employers had ensured he was included in “interested parties.” With the news out, carefully avoiding the word “zombie,” the news media was going nuts. As was every epidemiology group in the world. This was the first real “wildfire” they’ve ever contained and it was turning out to be a doozy.
    “This is a SEM view,” Wong said. Wong was the Los Angeles Medical Examiner’s Office specialist in infectious diseases. A certified ME, an MD with a pathology specialty and an additional specialty in infectious diseases he was still considered a bit of a plodder by most of the people viewing the slides. On the other hand, he was at the epicenter, which, for once, was not in some remote,