Pandora: A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse Read Online Free PDF

suddenly put his feet on the floor and stood up. The picture wobbled, and the camera turned toward the floor. As the screen turned black, a shot sounded. The filming apparently stopped, and the view went back to the news anchor, who was visibly shaken.
    Pausing and looking at the camera with frightened eyes, he said, “This news footage from our correspondent Glenn Burridge in Paris is reported to have been taken after the victim was attacked and killed. He was pronounced dead by a physician among Glenn’s group and was then taken to a nearby building, where he was placed, as you just saw. The footage was shot about fifteen minutes after the man was attacked.” He paused again, looked up from the teleprompter he was reading from, and continued. “He was dead. He was dead then reanimated: getting up and walking. This has been happening to all previous survivors of the Pandora virus. All of these individuals seem to relapse a few weeksafter they appear to have recovered. Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization are calling this new mutation of the original virus the Pandora 2 Mutation. They also have said that anyone who is bitten by these people then dies as a result of the wounds also will be infected with the same virus. This phenomenon is happening worldwide.”
    Sean pointed the remote at the screen and clicked the television off. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Do you know what they’re saying?”
    Jack grabbed the remote. “Wait. Turn that back on again.”
    He must have inadvertently clicked on a different channel because a picture appeared with two men sitting opposite each other. Both individuals—one a slight, bespectacled man on the left and the other a stocky, completely bald man on the right—looked angry. The thinner one was speaking now, chopping his hand in the air as he made his point.
    “Look, Dr. De la Rosa, this is a self-perpetuating viral apocalypse. You know it, and I know it.”
    “I know no such thing!” insisted the stocky doctor. “We have procedures in place to—”
    “Oh, come on!” interrupted the other man, moving to the edge of his seat and raising his voice further. “This is a debacle. How can you say this virus can be contained when you won’t even admit what we’re dealing with here?”
    Dr. De la Rosa sighed loudly, putting his hand up and turning his head. “Oh, no, Mr. Knox,” he said disgustedly. “We will not get into that discussion again.” He spat out the word
Mister
as if it were an insult.
    Leaning back as if slapped, Vernon Knox, author of the best-selling novel
The Coming Plagues
, turned bright red from anger. “No, you won’t,” he shouted, “because you’re too stupid to realize what we have here! You can’t even say the word.
Zombies
! They’re zombies, and if we can’t figure out that obvious fact now, we’re going to become zombies too.”
    “I’m a doctor,” sneered the self-righteous man, “and you’re just a hack writer of fear-mongering science fiction.”
    At that, Jack turned off the television again. The three of them sat there, looking at one another in stunned silence.
    “Fucking zombies?” Sean asked. “These are zombies? No fucking way.”
    They sat there together, alternately muttering words like
zombie
and
shit
to themselves, when Mike paused and said, “Does this mean Brian is a zombie too?”
    The others turned and peered at him, aghast, the reality of the moment suddenly hitting them all in a very personal manner. Sean stood up from the sofa and, appearing a bit lost for a second, walked over to the table near the window and next to the wide-screen TV. He reached for his cell phone and said, “I’d better call my parents. I have to see if they’re okay.”
    Sean’s parents lived very near in another town. He picked up his cell and said, “Excuse me,” then headed into the kitchen.
    Mike glanced at Jack. He knew Jack had lost his mother when he was in high school and