Vampire's Day (Book 1): Epicenter Read Online Free PDF Page A

six…”
    On the count of “two” the fat man opened his eyes.
    “Ready!”
    After taking a few breaths, the wounded raised his head, trying to sit up. The same thing happened to the café seller in an apron and cap, lying a small distance away.
    “It is a pity that there is no audio.”
    The fat man rose to his feet with great difficulty, his left hand instinctively reaching for a deep wound on neck.
    “Parameters?”
    “Quickly accelerating. The body temperature is about forty degrees, breathing sixty per minute, pulse generally a hundred per minute.”
    The object of observation remains still.
    “See, here and here, you see his clothes? He quickly lost weight during the moments while he was “dead”.”
    “Yes, since the attack he has lost twenty-five to thirty pounds. The fat tissue just burned away. I am sure that the transformation will take longer for thin man.”
    “Five minutes.”
    Stupor left behind, the wounded man now stood to his full height, looking from side to side. The camera showed his eyes for a split second. Then he saw or heard something, hesitated a moment, and started running, slowly at first, then faster and faster.
    “He's ready. He is alive, the heart beats, the lungs pump air, but he's no longer human.”
    “Call and tell them that we have confirmation.”
    The data was being updated every second. The infection had escaped beyond the international airport and rapidly spread to the nearest urban areas. The first emergency calls featured fights and unmotivated aggression, quickly replaced by reports of rioting, looting, arson and shooting. The crossroads were taken first, then large public buildings like hospitals, which would take in the first victims, then urban transport, and finally police stations. Raised by the alarms, police, fire and medical crews reported attacks on people, committed without weapons, instead with bare hands and teeth. Radio, television and the net were filled with panic.
    “All of these videos, which appeared a few seconds after the alarm started - they are all fake. Islamic terrorists, explosions, shooting, dead bodies, burning aircraft - everything was shot and edited in advance to lay out exactly the right situation, intensifying the panic and confusion. Well, there was this girl with the camera – she had the first real footage. Why aren’t the phone and net disconnected yet?”
    “We are working on it, give us five more minutes!”
    New message.
    “There has been confirmation in Mexico, from the airport where Flight 263 took off. Now there are reports of riots in several other cities on the coast, but the data is contradictory. Some people are talking about cases of desertion with the army and police.”
    “Contact them immediately to warn them what they are dealing with.”
    “We didn’t plan to tell them about what is happening at this stage.”
    “Plans change. What is happening at the border?”
    “The checkpoints are closed and the staff alerted.”
    “Don’t allow anyone to pass. I repeat, no one, no matter what their documents show.”
    New data. The approximate loss of the city police is at twenty-nine percent, firefighters and doctors twenty-five.
    “There are cases of attacks on civilians by police and medics, now, and firefighters too. The number of emergency calls are increasing. Two crews reported that they exchanged gunfire with men in uniform. In less than an hour we lost a third of our personnel. Damn, how they do it? Such speed should be impossible in the case of infection!”
    “It's not infectious. This is war.”
    The door opened and a nervous girl looked in the room.
    “The weapons are here.”
    “All right, let the fighters take whatever they need from the arsenal. Reinforcements and…”
    “No, you don’t see! It is their weapon, the weapon of attackers, one of the patrols managed to take the trophy - unknown type air rifle!”
    “Get this rifle here!”
    The girl left the room, and Jones and Smith looked at each