Six Months Later
She didn’t screw us all. Sherry, Liv’s lab assistant, did not mess up Liv’s instructions. By the time we made it back to the lab, the results were in. I didn’t completely understand the science behind it, but the protein that Liv introduced to the virus’s DNA shut it down.
Liv had what she needed in the lab to give Chris and me the protein therapy too. I’m sure that’s not something that’s supposed to be disclosed as it didn’t exactly get FDA approval, but we were most likely going to die anyway.
Since I saved Liv, and humanity, the government made the murders I’d committed disappear. Evan’s father was already dead of infection, and his mother had absconded to who knows where.
Lyle’s family tried to get answers, but with the whole killer plague thing going on, no one paid them much mind. They were also put at the end of the list for treatment once it was rushed through the approval process, and they died too.
There were a lot of dead bodies. Liv kept the world from ending, but the fatalities were staggering none the less. It took up until the last week or so for things to get back to anything approaching normal.
Chris decided to stay with me. He didn’t want to go home, and after the stories he’d told me since that day, I can’t blame him. No one came looking for him, either. He said that was because it was one less person for his mother to have to care for, so why would she care?
I think it’s because they’re dead. Either way, he put on thirty pounds and his already outstanding performance at school improved so much that his guidance counselor said he has a shot at valedictorian in high school. It’s amazing to me how they can know that stuff when the kid is a freshman, but hey, I guess the competition is fierce.
Everything seemed like it would be okay, and then there was a knock at the door. Liv’s hair was cut to her shoulders to hide some of the damage the virus had done, but it had grown back enough that you couldn’t see the patchy missing spots on her head anymore. Chris and I were lucky. We’d just shaved our heads to hide the damage.
She was a bit pale, but still looked much healthier than the last time I’d seen her. I smiled despite myself. I didn’t think I’d ever see her again. It’s not like we ran in the same circles.
“Can I come in?” she asked in a hushed tone.
“Sure,” I said. “Chris is here. I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you. Trixie too.”
“I don’t think any of you are going to be happy to see me.”
“Come in. Come in,” I said and shut the door behind her.
I had not seen it coming. I’d genuinely begun to believe that everything would be alright. I hadn’t seen Kevin since the day we got Liv back to the lab. I’d almost convinced myself that he never existed. He’d been a fever dream, and I’d imagined Chris talking about him. Of course, I’d never had the courage to ask Chris. The truth was that I didn’t want to know. But there he was, standing behind Olivia in my family room. A twisted grin spread across his Kevin Spacey face.
“What do you mean there’s another virus?” Chris asked. He’d been in the kitchen and had overheard what Liv had been trying to tell me.
“The first virus was a key. It opens the door in our nervous systems for another virus. Only, it wasn’t complete when they released it. I don’t know if it was an accident or if they just needed me to finish the work.”
“Who is they?” I asked.
“Doesn’t matter. The new virus is here, and it’s using the first to infect hosts.”
“So, we’re going to die anyway?” Chris was near tears.
“That’s the thing,” Liv began. “The key virus needed a generation to mutate. So, those of us who got the first rounds of treatment are going to be fine.”
I tried to do the calculation in my head. Those who survived the initial disease were put into a lottery system. The government couldn’t treat everyone at once, so the protein therapy was done in waves. It was supposed to be random, but no one ever believed that.
Liv kept going. “So, the medical staff and the first round of the lottery are most likely fine. Everyone else was at least exposed to the mutated version of the virus. They have the key in them, and there is nothing I can do.”
“So, what happens if they get the second virus?” I asked. “That’s got to be about ninety percent of the surviving population.”
“You said your grandfather was a prepper.” Liv ignored my question. “Does he still have a place? I read about preppers after you left. They have a place where they bug out? Somewhere away from civilization where they keep their preps. Is your grandfather’s place still there? Do you know where it is?”
Oh shit, that’s why she’d come to me. That meant there was no hope, and Liv wanted me to take her to my grandfather’s place. I hadn’t spoken to him for years, but as far as I knew, he was still alive. Well, he’d been alive before the first sickness.
“Is that where we are?”
“My lab was the only place where I might have been able to find a cure or a treatment, but the other scientists decided to lock it down. There’s a bunker, and they decided to stay. I couldn’t imagine that. I didn’t want to die that way, so I escaped before the lockdown procedures finished. “
“But you could have found a cure,” Chris blurted out.
“I don’t think so,” Liv said gravely. “Not this time.”
I didn’t quite understand why we needed to run. If we were immune to the new virus, why couldn’t we just wait it out somewhere more local? And why had scientists who also must have been immune locked themselves in a bunker?
“Liv, I don’t understand,” I said. “We’re immune to the new virus, right? So why don’t we just wait it out? Why didn’t you stay with the other scientists?”
“Because, Will, they’re coming back.” Liv let out a strangled sob.
“Who, Liv? Who is coming back?” I asked in a state of utter confusion.
“The dead.”
Copyright© 2017 Sara Bourgeois
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.
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