Read Online The Savage Dead by Joe McKinney - Free Book Online Page B

That’s what they do. They always have to have the newest thing, the latest thing. Bigger and better. And they always want more. More drugs, more food, more money. America is a mouth that can never be fed enough.” Ramon laughed at that. He pointed out the window. “Just like our friend out there. Pilar, you should see those things eat on a corpse. They’re like dogs. They’ll eat until their bellies burst open, and then they’ll keep on eating. They can never eat enough. Just like our friends north of the border.”
    She finally turned away from the horror show on the other side of the glass. Ramon was smiling at her, his hands in his pockets, black hair shiny in the low light from the lamp on his desk.
    “Since when are you a philosopher?” she said.
    “It’s not philosophy to give the people what they want, Pilar. That’s marketing.”
    “So, what is this thing you’re marketing? A virus of some sort?”
    “No, better. A flesh-eating bacteria.”
    “You’re joking?”
    “Ask him,” Ramon said, pointing at the window. “He can tell you I’m not. This bacterium is a mutated form of Clostridium perfringens , which is pretty common. It’s used as the main ingredient in self-rising breads, for example. In fact, I’m told it’s common enough as a cause of food poisoning that most people produce an antibody against it. But it can get really nasty if it gets ahold of you. Even the common variety can cause fatal infections, if left untreated. And it’s what causes gas gangrene in dead bodies. You can’t tell from here, but our friend in there is probably smelling pretty ripe right about now.”
    “Lovely.”
    “It gets better. Like I said, we’ve caused it to mutate. What we’ve got going on in there is strain of C. perfringens that’s been genetically crossbred with Lactobacillus rhamnosus. ”
    “ Lactobacillus ? That’s the stuff in yoghurt.”
    “That’s right. Very good.”
    “I’m surprised you’ve heard of it, though.”
    “I just read the pamphlets, Pilar.”
    “So how does it work?”
    “Well, apparently it has the ability to influence the neurotransmitters that regulate our physiological and psychological brain functions.”
    “And that causes this?”
    “We hadn’t planned on that. All I wanted was something that could piggyback off of a food supply and cause as brutal a death as possible. I wanted impact.”
    She looked once again at the zombie still beating on the glass. “Well, that’s certainly impact.”
    “It’s the monster America deserves.”
    “So tell me, what exactly are you planning on doing with this monstrosity you’ve made?”
    “Oh, Pilar, you’re disappointing me. You haven’t figured it out yet? You brought me the perfect opportunity when you got Senator Sutton’s schedule.”
    She frowned at him.
    “You wouldn’t seriously consider releasing this thing on a city, would you?”
    “No, of course not. We couldn’t control what would happen in a situation like that. If it wasn’t contained early enough, we might very well end with something right out of The Walking Dead .”
    “You watch that show?”
    “It’s become interesting to me lately.”
    She nodded.
    “Besides, releasing this on one of the senator’s scheduled events would probably miss her. There’s no way to ensure that she’d eat from whatever food we decided to piggyback the bacteria on, which is probably going to be cold cuts or bread, something like that.”
    “Then how . . . ?”
    “What we needed was an enclosed environment,” Ramon said. “We needed somewhere that was isolated and completely enclosed for several days at a time. That way, we could be certain we got to her.”
    She frowned at that. Where did he honestly expect to find circumstances like that?
    And then it hit her.
    “The cruise she’s taking. You’re going to release this on a cruise ship.”
    “Exactly.”
    It was brilliant. She could see that. She could picture it, a cruise ship gliding into the docks