Chapter Two
I walked into the school, hit with the crisp, sterile air filled with aerosol freshener and anti-viral wash. I looked around to see the halls bustling with kids in masks. Freshman to Seniors, all walking around the halls together. And I, being a junior, was right in the middle of them. I joined into an ever-moving crowd and walked to my locker.
In a normal year, I would be fighting for air as I pushed my way to my locker. The crowds are usually thick in the Commons, which is exactly what my locker was planted next to. But, this year I could freely move about without hindrance or cramped shoulder-room. I somewhat missed the packed population of the school. It at least helped it feel a little more normal, and a little less like a zombie apocalypse. Even with 35% capacity, and 30% of the students staying home in fear of the virus, that left 35% of the students and faculty exposed to the virus. They had all lost their humanity in a slow burn, now in the inner-city, where they would stay until this blew over.
I sighed, grabbing my things for first period. Slamming the locker shut, my brain thought about my friends that were infected. Kyle. Matthew. Mr. Callum. Everyone else in this school. I was lucky enough not to get infected, sure. But, it was at the cost of my entire friend group. They were all locked and moved away as soon as they showed their symptoms of the infection. Every single one of them, carted to the prison they called a school.
My last good friend was Will Jakobs. He hadn’t been infected yet. I entered my first period class with a total of five people, all spread out for social distancing. I sat my stuff down, thinking about the good times I had had over the years with him. Will was rambunctious and wild, and he had one hell of a sense of humor. Every morning he always had the funniest things to lift my spirits from the veil of exhaustion that took hold of it. Man, he always-
Wait. Now that I thought about it, I didn’t see him this morning.
Did he-?
The bell rang.
I briskly walked to my next class, my mind not on school anymore but the possibility that my friend had been infected with the virus. I was terrified that the last person I wanted to get infected was now checked off the list, and I was left alone. My mind raced as I walked into first period and sat at my desk in the back corner, squeezed as far against the wall as possible for social distancing.
The morning announcements rolled on as the second bell rang, officially starting the day. Government. A boring topic, and an especially hypocritical one considering the events of the last few months. It seemed like the Constitution had kinda been thrown out the window in favor of national- and international- security. So there I sat, leaning against the wall bored out of my mind as I listened to an outdated lecture of the once-limited power of the president.
Second period was scantily better. Chemistry Honors was not the most fun. The teacher wasn’t very good either. Third, fourth, and fifth period all dragged on slower than jars of cold molasses. Lunch was my only solace. And even then, that was a break, at a desk, in a spaced out cafeteria to avoid unwanted infection. But, at least I didn’t have to do math. Or english. Or science.
My elective art class was my favorite period of the day. The teacher was kind and caring, actually putting the work into teaching her students. She was young, mid-thirties at the most. Her dark hair fell to her shoulders as she taught us how to draw objects in the fore, middle, and background. As I sketched away at a landscape on a piece of paper, she called out, “Alex, can I see you for a moment?”
My face got red as I slowly got up from my chair. My body started shaking as a million thoughts went through my head. When you were called up to the teacher’s desk, especially during this time, nothing good could come of it. It either ended up in you getting reprimanded or you getting sent away to the Auschwitz of the inner city as you spent the rest of your days turning into some miscellaneous animal.
Slowly, I shuffled to the desk, the room quiet. All eyes were on me, for my fate could possibly decide what could happen to the rest of the class. I finally got close enough to the teacher’s desk to hear her speak, and I stopped dead cold. I was afraid to go further, as if the words she were about to say was a punch I was hoping to outdistance.
“Alex,” she began, every nerve in my body firing off like a 21-gun salute. “Your portrait assignment turned out great, I have to say. I think you learned how to use charcoal fantastically.”
I exhaled.
“Thank you, Mrs. Newbauer. That’s a big compliment.”
“Oh, please. It’s nothing. You’re one of the only people who actually WANT to be here.”
I chuckled. “It’s a really fun class. I don’t get how you have so many people in here for the credit when you need to take two other art classes just for the credit to get here. Seems like too much work to be bored.”
Mrs. Newbauer smiled. “I don’t understand either. But, as long as I have students in seats, I'll teach art until kingdom come.”
“Won’t be long now…” I muttered.
She sighed. “If only you were wrong.” We both were quiet, saddened by the unfortunate truth of the situation the world was in. After three seconds too long, she snapped back into teacher mode. “You can go have a seat, Alex. I look forward to seeing your landscape concepts.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Newbauer.” I walked back to my seat and sketched away until the bell forced me into a quite relevant class for our current international predicament: Biology.
We were covering pathogens, go figure. My teacher was in the midst of a tangent about the possibility of virotherapy to cure certain cancers. Maybe even all of them given enough time and research. It was an interesting topic, one that actually kept my interest throughout the lecture. My phone in my pocket posed no temptation as he went on and on about the process and how it could be done. I was shaken from my state of intense listening when a voice called from behind me, “Could virotherapy cure the Infection?”
Mr. Brunswick sighed, taking his glasses from his eyes and cleaning them. I gulped. He usually got serious when he cleaned his glasses. This can’t be good. “UVID-20, or as most of you know it, the Infection, is something very new to the scientific community. They’ve been doing the best research they can to try and curb the infection rates that have been rapidly increasing. A disease that can alter the DNA of a person was unheard of until that one day in Malaysia.”
He turned to the white board behind him, grabbing a black marker and beginning to sketch an elementary diagram of what he would elaborate on.
“The UVID virus is tricky, in that it’s own genetic code is dependent upon the organism it takes as its host.” He scribbled a few arrows illustrating the virus moving toward DNA. “The virus attaches itself to an organism, say, a golden retriever.” He drew a few dark lines on the DNA sketch. “It copies the DNA of its host into its own strands, and then is simply benign in that host until it is transferred again to another animal. The process repeats itself again,” he drew another few arrows on the board. “And again,” he scribbled again. “And again, and again, and so on.”
He spun on his heels, marker still in hand. “So, the multiple, multiple copies of other animals' DNA inside of the virus make this thing very hard to pin down. Scientists have maybe precisely isolated a few cases over the course of the virus through intense study and practice, but it's nothing compared to the daily climbing numbers. The animal a person often transmutates into is one of dozens or even hundreds of strands inside of each virus. Some cases, about 5% have an error in the inputting of genetic code. Some die, but others mutate into a form of hybrid species. Some, you could say with the case of Mr. Callum, who just recently got infected with the virus, look especially interesting.
“Transmission of the virus is also a mystery at that point. We’ve had airbourne cases, where it’s purely spread in the atmosphere. People, however, seem to be somewhat unaffected by airborne transmission, as one is not near the infected long enough for the virus to infect the next potential host. But, environments suggest it can also travel through open sores and wounds into the bloodstream. This has a much more rapid response, the transformation catalyzing as soon as the virus is administered into the red blood cells.”
He walked away from the board to his desk in the middle of the room. “So, sadly,” he began, his voice melancholy, “I don’t think virotherapy can cure the virus. And, as of now, I don’t think anything could cure the virus.”
The class was deady silent for one second.
Two seconds.
Three seco-
The bell rang and every student in their seats jumped out of their socks.
The rest of my classes passed in blur, as I was stuck on what Mr. Brunswick had said. Was there really no hope to cure the people who had lost their humanity so tragically? The ones who had been outcast by society the longest, the one who had lost jobs because of it? Lost lives? I was so deep into thought, that I didn’t even realize I was standing in a near empty hall face-to-face with my locker. The combination lock stared back at me like a numbered, black eye. I raised a hand slowly and began to spin it around “like a record, baby”, and made the exchange of school supplies needed for homework and the leftovers I kept inside the container on the wall.
The hall was nearly empty. Usually I was the first ones out onto the bus lot to go home. Then, it seemed at least halfway normal. People bustling about, even if the number of people was considerably smaller than what an actual normal year would be like.
I busted through the door, fresh air hitting my nostrils like a tidal wave. I smiled under my mask a genuine smile that only happens very rarely in this day and age. I took a step, but a shadow crossed the corner of my eye. Before I had time to react, a piercingly strong grip grabbed both shoulders. The figure spun me around, and my brain told my vocal chords to scream. The message relayed itself down to my throat, but before I could get the sound off I was slammed into the brick exterior of the high school.
The person was strong. A black hoodie was adorned, sunglasses blocking the view of his eyes. He ripped the hoodie off to reveal a blonde, but browning mohawk. Ripping off the sunglasses, the person revealed the transforming face of Will Jakobs.
I stared in awe at the morphed face that stared me in the eyes. Pure desperation was etched into it as if he was a marble statue. Half his face was covered in a dark brown fur. Patches were popping up on the left side, his leftmost eye changing shape into something more animal-like. His hand under his jacket had morphed into a claw-like appendage of a rodent. His nails were long, now sharp claws, brown fur covering it just like his face.
“Will! What the-”
“Just shut up and listen to me, Alex,” Will forced out, cutting me off like a knife. “I can’t go there, man. I can’t. You see what happens in the city. You gotta help me.”
I stammered. “Dude, what can I do? You’re already halfway to becoming-”
“Don’t you say it! Just…” He perked up when security boots echoed out of the school. His grip tightened. “You gotta help me. Can I stay with you a couple days? Just until-”
“Will! This is crazy. Is it really that bad in the city?”
“YES!” He basically shouted. A muffled voice from a radio shouted some orders at the ever-approaching guards. His hands seem to go into maximum overdrive, squeezing my arms as if to get every morsel of tension out of his body. “Please just let me come home with you. For tonight. I swear, I’ll do anything. Just to give me a head start on these guys. Please!”
I opened my mouth, lips parting to give a weary ‘yes.’ But the shouting of guards cut me off as they rounded the corner.
The next few moments were difficult to comprehend. Will thrashed and bit and punched to try and fend off the half-dozen heavily armored guards that loomed over him like an impending thundercloud. In his eyes was pure terror. For a moment, it looked like he could escape. He threw a fist at one guard, and he fell like a sack of potatoes. He kicked another in the groin and pushed him aside. He took the gap between the soldiers and ran. For a moment, hope gleamed in him.
That dissipated when the wires from a taser gun made contact with the small of his back.
I slowly walked away from the horrors of the scene, unable to look back after Will had hit the dirt. He yelled, screamed for help, but to no avail. I thought I was home free, the buses waiting idly, when a cold, black-gloved hand reached over and grabbed my shoulder.
“Son,” he said. “We need to check and see any signs of possible infection. Please take off your coat, this’ll only take a second.”
I gulped. Slowly, I put down my bookbag and shed my winter coat. The short-sleeve t-shirt I wore hung loosely on my lanky frame as the guard checked for any signs of scrapes or open wounds of any kind. When none were found, he allowed me to put my coat and bookbag back on.
“Kid, this is very important so listen. If you end up becoming infected, or show any out of the ordinary symptoms rather than just a cold or flu, I want you to call this number. I’ll be sure the guys are delicate with relocation. Some people can just be… rough with the infected occasionally.”
My mind drifted to the young man this morning.
“But, other than that,” the soldier said. “Have a good day.”
I nodded. “You too, sir.” I then took off to my awaiting bus, the tension in my shoulders finally giving way as I got one step closer to home.
“Dinner’s ready!”
I opened the door to the hallway caked in a cold sweat. “Coming!” I croaked. Hunger and exhaustion swept me like the waves of a high tide. Just when I thought that would be it or the worst had past, another even bigger wave hit my shores. I walked into the bathroom before heading down to the kitchen.
What awaited me in the mirror was not a sight I wanted to behold. Dark circles enwrapped my eyes. My face was beaded with sweat. My stomach gave a low growl in protest for not immediately going to the kitchen and grabbing SOMETHING to eat. Turning on the tap, I splashed cold water on my face. I straightened and turned the faucet. That seemed to do me good.
It was a lie, but it was enough to get me downstairs.
The heat of the kitchen hit me like a baseball bat to the forehead as I walked into the room. Gasping, I asked. “What’s with this heat?”
My mom looked at me, puzzled. “I mean, besides the stove, you asked me to turn the heat up yesterday. You said you were, and I quote, freezing worse than if you were at the North Pole.”
“Oh,” I said. Silently, I cursed myself. The house was like a sauna. But, the heat was pushed into the back of my mind as I saw the feast that lay before me. Food was spread across the bar. Burgers, toppings, fries, and everything I could ask for sitting in one gorgeous meal.
“What’s the occasion?” I asked.
My mom shrugged. “Just felt like cooking. Thought burgers and a little extra.”
“Oh, yes please.”
She smiled. “Thought you might enjoy it. Grab a plate and dig in.”
Eagerly, I followed the orders to a ‘T.’ Maybe even went a little overboard.
Okay, looking back it was a lot overboard. Two and a half burgers, three servings of fries, two bowls of baked beans, and some change later, I was just satisfied enough to stop eating. A ravenous quality had overtaken me that evening as I was presented with all that food. Bite after bite, one just seemed to fuel the other. My mom was shocked at the sheer capacity of my stomach.
The TV was on throughout the meal, my mom and I watching it with a rapture while we ate our dinner. Apparently, rioters had gathered at the school. Hundreds of infected were outside the school grounds with species ranging from aardvarks to zebras. I never really considered the amount of diversity the virus was causing. Maybe this was one, if not the only, upside to be turned into an animal.
Once the meal was over and my stomach adequately, but not completely, full, I said my goodnights.
“See you in the morning, Mom.”
“Actually, you won’t. I’m leaving for an early shift in the morning. You’ll have to make yourself breakfast in the morning.”
I whined. “But you’re so good at it!”
“You really need to start being more independent, you know. 18 is just around the corner.”
I rolled my eyes. “Goodnight, Mom.”
“Night, Alex.”
The stairs were somehow threatening tonight. Each step, tiredness swept over me. As I got higher and higher gravity seemed to pull harder and harder. Sweat beaded on my forehead again. But, finally, I managed to climb the summit and reach the top of the stairs. Before I went into my room, I stopped to hear what my mom was whispering to herself. I leaned around the corner and popped an ear out to catch the words that floated through the air.
“He never eats that much,” I peaked around the corner. She was still in the kitchen, a look of concern plastered on her face. “He’s a growing boy, though. Maybe he’s just catching up.”
I took that as my cue as nothing interesting was being monologued, and I entered my room. The feeling of light fullness gave way to another wave of exhaustion and nausea as I closed the door. My room began to spin, the grey-blue walls looking more like dark splotches in my vision. My knees buckled as I tried to stay standing so I could take off my jeans. But all I could do as I fell was rip off my shirt from my chest. As soon as my head hit the mattress, I was near asleep. With the last effort I could muster, I managed to crawl halfway under the covers and drift to sleep.
The shirt that now lay on the floor next to my snoring body and bed was crinkled. It lay in a heap like all the other dirty clothes I wore, as I was too lazy to take my clothes from my room to the laundry a few steps away. If one looked close enough at the fabric, one could make out a detail that wasn’t there at the daily inspection or even after the incident with Will. The soldier, and even I had both missed it on the sleeve, and we both were blissfully unaware of the consequences that were about to take place.
There were tiny specs of blood on the shirt, no bigger than pinpoints, that Will had broken through when he gripped me arm with his claw. Three tiny little flesh wounds.
The sight of my infection.
I walked into the school, hit with the crisp, sterile air filled with aerosol freshener and anti-viral wash. I looked around to see the halls bustling with kids in masks. Freshman to Seniors, all walking around the halls together. And I, being a junior, was right in the middle of them. I joined into an ever-moving crowd and walked to my locker.
In a normal year, I would be fighting for air as I pushed my way to my locker. The crowds are usually thick in the Commons, which is exactly what my locker was planted next to. But, this year I could freely move about without hindrance or cramped shoulder-room. I somewhat missed the packed population of the school. It at least helped it feel a little more normal, and a little less like a zombie apocalypse. Even with 35% capacity, and 30% of the students staying home in fear of the virus, that left 35% of the students and faculty exposed to the virus. They had all lost their humanity in a slow burn, now in the inner-city, where they would stay until this blew over.
I sighed, grabbing my things for first period. Slamming the locker shut, my brain thought about my friends that were infected. Kyle. Matthew. Mr. Callum. Everyone else in this school. I was lucky enough not to get infected, sure. But, it was at the cost of my entire friend group. They were all locked and moved away as soon as they showed their symptoms of the infection. Every single one of them, carted to the prison they called a school.
My last good friend was Will Jakobs. He hadn’t been infected yet. I entered my first period class with a total of five people, all spread out for social distancing. I sat my stuff down, thinking about the good times I had had over the years with him. Will was rambunctious and wild, and he had one hell of a sense of humor. Every morning he always had the funniest things to lift my spirits from the veil of exhaustion that took hold of it. Man, he always-
Wait. Now that I thought about it, I didn’t see him this morning.
Did he-?
The bell rang.
I briskly walked to my next class, my mind not on school anymore but the possibility that my friend had been infected with the virus. I was terrified that the last person I wanted to get infected was now checked off the list, and I was left alone. My mind raced as I walked into first period and sat at my desk in the back corner, squeezed as far against the wall as possible for social distancing.
The morning announcements rolled on as the second bell rang, officially starting the day. Government. A boring topic, and an especially hypocritical one considering the events of the last few months. It seemed like the Constitution had kinda been thrown out the window in favor of national- and international- security. So there I sat, leaning against the wall bored out of my mind as I listened to an outdated lecture of the once-limited power of the president.
Second period was scantily better. Chemistry Honors was not the most fun. The teacher wasn’t very good either. Third, fourth, and fifth period all dragged on slower than jars of cold molasses. Lunch was my only solace. And even then, that was a break, at a desk, in a spaced out cafeteria to avoid unwanted infection. But, at least I didn’t have to do math. Or english. Or science.
My elective art class was my favorite period of the day. The teacher was kind and caring, actually putting the work into teaching her students. She was young, mid-thirties at the most. Her dark hair fell to her shoulders as she taught us how to draw objects in the fore, middle, and background. As I sketched away at a landscape on a piece of paper, she called out, “Alex, can I see you for a moment?”
My face got red as I slowly got up from my chair. My body started shaking as a million thoughts went through my head. When you were called up to the teacher’s desk, especially during this time, nothing good could come of it. It either ended up in you getting reprimanded or you getting sent away to the Auschwitz of the inner city as you spent the rest of your days turning into some miscellaneous animal.
Slowly, I shuffled to the desk, the room quiet. All eyes were on me, for my fate could possibly decide what could happen to the rest of the class. I finally got close enough to the teacher’s desk to hear her speak, and I stopped dead cold. I was afraid to go further, as if the words she were about to say was a punch I was hoping to outdistance.
“Alex,” she began, every nerve in my body firing off like a 21-gun salute. “Your portrait assignment turned out great, I have to say. I think you learned how to use charcoal fantastically.”
I exhaled.
“Thank you, Mrs. Newbauer. That’s a big compliment.”
“Oh, please. It’s nothing. You’re one of the only people who actually WANT to be here.”
I chuckled. “It’s a really fun class. I don’t get how you have so many people in here for the credit when you need to take two other art classes just for the credit to get here. Seems like too much work to be bored.”
Mrs. Newbauer smiled. “I don’t understand either. But, as long as I have students in seats, I'll teach art until kingdom come.”
“Won’t be long now…” I muttered.
She sighed. “If only you were wrong.” We both were quiet, saddened by the unfortunate truth of the situation the world was in. After three seconds too long, she snapped back into teacher mode. “You can go have a seat, Alex. I look forward to seeing your landscape concepts.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Newbauer.” I walked back to my seat and sketched away until the bell forced me into a quite relevant class for our current international predicament: Biology.
We were covering pathogens, go figure. My teacher was in the midst of a tangent about the possibility of virotherapy to cure certain cancers. Maybe even all of them given enough time and research. It was an interesting topic, one that actually kept my interest throughout the lecture. My phone in my pocket posed no temptation as he went on and on about the process and how it could be done. I was shaken from my state of intense listening when a voice called from behind me, “Could virotherapy cure the Infection?”
Mr. Brunswick sighed, taking his glasses from his eyes and cleaning them. I gulped. He usually got serious when he cleaned his glasses. This can’t be good. “UVID-20, or as most of you know it, the Infection, is something very new to the scientific community. They’ve been doing the best research they can to try and curb the infection rates that have been rapidly increasing. A disease that can alter the DNA of a person was unheard of until that one day in Malaysia.”
He turned to the white board behind him, grabbing a black marker and beginning to sketch an elementary diagram of what he would elaborate on.
“The UVID virus is tricky, in that it’s own genetic code is dependent upon the organism it takes as its host.” He scribbled a few arrows illustrating the virus moving toward DNA. “The virus attaches itself to an organism, say, a golden retriever.” He drew a few dark lines on the DNA sketch. “It copies the DNA of its host into its own strands, and then is simply benign in that host until it is transferred again to another animal. The process repeats itself again,” he drew another few arrows on the board. “And again,” he scribbled again. “And again, and again, and so on.”
He spun on his heels, marker still in hand. “So, the multiple, multiple copies of other animals' DNA inside of the virus make this thing very hard to pin down. Scientists have maybe precisely isolated a few cases over the course of the virus through intense study and practice, but it's nothing compared to the daily climbing numbers. The animal a person often transmutates into is one of dozens or even hundreds of strands inside of each virus. Some cases, about 5% have an error in the inputting of genetic code. Some die, but others mutate into a form of hybrid species. Some, you could say with the case of Mr. Callum, who just recently got infected with the virus, look especially interesting.
“Transmission of the virus is also a mystery at that point. We’ve had airbourne cases, where it’s purely spread in the atmosphere. People, however, seem to be somewhat unaffected by airborne transmission, as one is not near the infected long enough for the virus to infect the next potential host. But, environments suggest it can also travel through open sores and wounds into the bloodstream. This has a much more rapid response, the transformation catalyzing as soon as the virus is administered into the red blood cells.”
He walked away from the board to his desk in the middle of the room. “So, sadly,” he began, his voice melancholy, “I don’t think virotherapy can cure the virus. And, as of now, I don’t think anything could cure the virus.”
The class was deady silent for one second.
Two seconds.
Three seco-
The bell rang and every student in their seats jumped out of their socks.
The rest of my classes passed in blur, as I was stuck on what Mr. Brunswick had said. Was there really no hope to cure the people who had lost their humanity so tragically? The ones who had been outcast by society the longest, the one who had lost jobs because of it? Lost lives? I was so deep into thought, that I didn’t even realize I was standing in a near empty hall face-to-face with my locker. The combination lock stared back at me like a numbered, black eye. I raised a hand slowly and began to spin it around “like a record, baby”, and made the exchange of school supplies needed for homework and the leftovers I kept inside the container on the wall.
The hall was nearly empty. Usually I was the first ones out onto the bus lot to go home. Then, it seemed at least halfway normal. People bustling about, even if the number of people was considerably smaller than what an actual normal year would be like.
I busted through the door, fresh air hitting my nostrils like a tidal wave. I smiled under my mask a genuine smile that only happens very rarely in this day and age. I took a step, but a shadow crossed the corner of my eye. Before I had time to react, a piercingly strong grip grabbed both shoulders. The figure spun me around, and my brain told my vocal chords to scream. The message relayed itself down to my throat, but before I could get the sound off I was slammed into the brick exterior of the high school.
The person was strong. A black hoodie was adorned, sunglasses blocking the view of his eyes. He ripped the hoodie off to reveal a blonde, but browning mohawk. Ripping off the sunglasses, the person revealed the transforming face of Will Jakobs.
I stared in awe at the morphed face that stared me in the eyes. Pure desperation was etched into it as if he was a marble statue. Half his face was covered in a dark brown fur. Patches were popping up on the left side, his leftmost eye changing shape into something more animal-like. His hand under his jacket had morphed into a claw-like appendage of a rodent. His nails were long, now sharp claws, brown fur covering it just like his face.
“Will! What the-”
“Just shut up and listen to me, Alex,” Will forced out, cutting me off like a knife. “I can’t go there, man. I can’t. You see what happens in the city. You gotta help me.”
I stammered. “Dude, what can I do? You’re already halfway to becoming-”
“Don’t you say it! Just…” He perked up when security boots echoed out of the school. His grip tightened. “You gotta help me. Can I stay with you a couple days? Just until-”
“Will! This is crazy. Is it really that bad in the city?”
“YES!” He basically shouted. A muffled voice from a radio shouted some orders at the ever-approaching guards. His hands seem to go into maximum overdrive, squeezing my arms as if to get every morsel of tension out of his body. “Please just let me come home with you. For tonight. I swear, I’ll do anything. Just to give me a head start on these guys. Please!”
I opened my mouth, lips parting to give a weary ‘yes.’ But the shouting of guards cut me off as they rounded the corner.
The next few moments were difficult to comprehend. Will thrashed and bit and punched to try and fend off the half-dozen heavily armored guards that loomed over him like an impending thundercloud. In his eyes was pure terror. For a moment, it looked like he could escape. He threw a fist at one guard, and he fell like a sack of potatoes. He kicked another in the groin and pushed him aside. He took the gap between the soldiers and ran. For a moment, hope gleamed in him.
That dissipated when the wires from a taser gun made contact with the small of his back.
I slowly walked away from the horrors of the scene, unable to look back after Will had hit the dirt. He yelled, screamed for help, but to no avail. I thought I was home free, the buses waiting idly, when a cold, black-gloved hand reached over and grabbed my shoulder.
“Son,” he said. “We need to check and see any signs of possible infection. Please take off your coat, this’ll only take a second.”
I gulped. Slowly, I put down my bookbag and shed my winter coat. The short-sleeve t-shirt I wore hung loosely on my lanky frame as the guard checked for any signs of scrapes or open wounds of any kind. When none were found, he allowed me to put my coat and bookbag back on.
“Kid, this is very important so listen. If you end up becoming infected, or show any out of the ordinary symptoms rather than just a cold or flu, I want you to call this number. I’ll be sure the guys are delicate with relocation. Some people can just be… rough with the infected occasionally.”
My mind drifted to the young man this morning.
“But, other than that,” the soldier said. “Have a good day.”
I nodded. “You too, sir.” I then took off to my awaiting bus, the tension in my shoulders finally giving way as I got one step closer to home.
“Dinner’s ready!”
I opened the door to the hallway caked in a cold sweat. “Coming!” I croaked. Hunger and exhaustion swept me like the waves of a high tide. Just when I thought that would be it or the worst had past, another even bigger wave hit my shores. I walked into the bathroom before heading down to the kitchen.
What awaited me in the mirror was not a sight I wanted to behold. Dark circles enwrapped my eyes. My face was beaded with sweat. My stomach gave a low growl in protest for not immediately going to the kitchen and grabbing SOMETHING to eat. Turning on the tap, I splashed cold water on my face. I straightened and turned the faucet. That seemed to do me good.
It was a lie, but it was enough to get me downstairs.
The heat of the kitchen hit me like a baseball bat to the forehead as I walked into the room. Gasping, I asked. “What’s with this heat?”
My mom looked at me, puzzled. “I mean, besides the stove, you asked me to turn the heat up yesterday. You said you were, and I quote, freezing worse than if you were at the North Pole.”
“Oh,” I said. Silently, I cursed myself. The house was like a sauna. But, the heat was pushed into the back of my mind as I saw the feast that lay before me. Food was spread across the bar. Burgers, toppings, fries, and everything I could ask for sitting in one gorgeous meal.
“What’s the occasion?” I asked.
My mom shrugged. “Just felt like cooking. Thought burgers and a little extra.”
“Oh, yes please.”
She smiled. “Thought you might enjoy it. Grab a plate and dig in.”
Eagerly, I followed the orders to a ‘T.’ Maybe even went a little overboard.
Okay, looking back it was a lot overboard. Two and a half burgers, three servings of fries, two bowls of baked beans, and some change later, I was just satisfied enough to stop eating. A ravenous quality had overtaken me that evening as I was presented with all that food. Bite after bite, one just seemed to fuel the other. My mom was shocked at the sheer capacity of my stomach.
The TV was on throughout the meal, my mom and I watching it with a rapture while we ate our dinner. Apparently, rioters had gathered at the school. Hundreds of infected were outside the school grounds with species ranging from aardvarks to zebras. I never really considered the amount of diversity the virus was causing. Maybe this was one, if not the only, upside to be turned into an animal.
Once the meal was over and my stomach adequately, but not completely, full, I said my goodnights.
“See you in the morning, Mom.”
“Actually, you won’t. I’m leaving for an early shift in the morning. You’ll have to make yourself breakfast in the morning.”
I whined. “But you’re so good at it!”
“You really need to start being more independent, you know. 18 is just around the corner.”
I rolled my eyes. “Goodnight, Mom.”
“Night, Alex.”
The stairs were somehow threatening tonight. Each step, tiredness swept over me. As I got higher and higher gravity seemed to pull harder and harder. Sweat beaded on my forehead again. But, finally, I managed to climb the summit and reach the top of the stairs. Before I went into my room, I stopped to hear what my mom was whispering to herself. I leaned around the corner and popped an ear out to catch the words that floated through the air.
“He never eats that much,” I peaked around the corner. She was still in the kitchen, a look of concern plastered on her face. “He’s a growing boy, though. Maybe he’s just catching up.”
I took that as my cue as nothing interesting was being monologued, and I entered my room. The feeling of light fullness gave way to another wave of exhaustion and nausea as I closed the door. My room began to spin, the grey-blue walls looking more like dark splotches in my vision. My knees buckled as I tried to stay standing so I could take off my jeans. But all I could do as I fell was rip off my shirt from my chest. As soon as my head hit the mattress, I was near asleep. With the last effort I could muster, I managed to crawl halfway under the covers and drift to sleep.
The shirt that now lay on the floor next to my snoring body and bed was crinkled. It lay in a heap like all the other dirty clothes I wore, as I was too lazy to take my clothes from my room to the laundry a few steps away. If one looked close enough at the fabric, one could make out a detail that wasn’t there at the daily inspection or even after the incident with Will. The soldier, and even I had both missed it on the sleeve, and we both were blissfully unaware of the consequences that were about to take place.
There were tiny specs of blood on the shirt, no bigger than pinpoints, that Will had broken through when he gripped me arm with his claw. Three tiny little flesh wounds.
The sight of my infection.
Category Story / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Gender Male
Size 183 x 107px
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