Influenza: Viral Virulence

by Ohliger, Steven

  Ignoring the stench of body odor, he leaned closer to that seething face and then said in a steady, loud voice, “I’m not gay, Ted. But I don’t mind gay people. And since you seem to be so interested in the subject, maybe you’d like to confess something to your friends. Do you have some hidden desire?” He smiled triumphantly at Ted.

  In an instant, Ted’s enormous fist flew out like a rocket with the intent of breaking Michael’s nose, or at least putting out an eye. Anticipating this, Michael had only enough time to drop his chin so the punch, instead of hitting him square in the face, caught him on the center of his forehead. As Michael had learned in anatomy class, the middle of the forehead was where the skull bone was the thickest. The momentum of the blow made him tumble backward into the wall. Michael didn’t know which had hurt worse, the fist connecting with his forehead, or the back of his head connecting with the paneled wall.

  For the first time in his life, he was dazed. For a few minutes, he didn’t know where he was or what he was doing. As the seconds passed by and the cobwebs started to clear out of his brain, he realized he was being led out the back door by a couple of his friends. He felt warmth on his forehead and winced when he touched it. His fingers came away bloody.

  Just before leaving, he glanced back over his shoulder. The Ted behemoth creature was being dragged out the front door by his own disapproving fraternity brothers, who were berating him for being so stupid. Ted was still screaming and trying to break free. As he struggled to escape his friends, Theodore screamed over and over again, “I’ll get you, Weasel!”

  Wayne, bat in hand, calmly followed Ted and his gang of friends out.

  Michael’s own friends brought him out into the cool night air behind the bar. “Are you okay?” they asked him repeatedly, looking up at his forehead.

  Michael insisted that he was doing fine and that the alcohol helped deaden any pain he felt. Of course, he might feel differently the next morning. They were soon joined by a few more people who had followed them out the back door. Lorie was one of them.

  “Oh, my…” she stammered after seeing Michael’s bloody forehead. “How bad are you hurt?” she asked, genuinely concerned and horrified at the events that had just taken place.

  “I’m sorry I ruined your date,” Michael replied. “I didn’t know it was him.”

  “Oh, be quiet. He’s a jerk, and if he even thinks I’m going to look at him again, he’s an idiot.”

  Michael smiled at her, but she looked more than a little worried about his head. “Let’s take you back to your apartment and get that cleaned up. It looks pretty bad. Then we’ll know if you need stitches.”

  “No,” Michael managed to say, still feeling a little unsteady on his feet. “I’ll be all right. And if you came over now, you’d have to walk back to your place in the middle of the night alone. My roommates are in no condition to drive, or even walk, at this moment. Are any of your friends here? I can have one of my fraternity brothers take you home.”

  “Actually, I came with some of my friends. I’ve learned from experience that it’s always best to meet someone with a group of friends for the first date. That way, if things go badly…”

  “So, this wasn’t the future Mr. Lorie?” Michael asked.

  “Are you joking? This was about the worst—well, maybe one of the top five worst—dates I’ve ever had.”

  A few more people spilled out the back door and, to everyone’s delight, notified them that Wayne had permanently banned Ted from the bar. Apparently, he had quite the reputation around campus for being a hothead with a huge anger-management issue. Behind his back, some people had nicknamed him “Crazy Ted.” Someone else said his temperament was due to “roid rage.” Judging by Ted’s acne and body-odor problem, it seemed that Ted was shooting up too many illegal, muscle-enhancing drugs.

  Soon, a Phi Delta appeared out the back door and approached Michael. He apologized to Michael on behalf of the entire fraternity and told them that what had happened was inexcusable. He seemed sincere and upset, and he promised that Ted would be dealt with. After a few more humble apologies, he left.

  “What did you say to him right before he threw the punch?” Scott asked Michael after he left.

  Michael just gave him a knowing smirk.

  “You provoked him on purpose?” Scott said, amazed.

  “Yep.”

  Michael found out later that Scott had been the one responsible for gathering reinforcements after Crazy Ted had pushed him away.

  Scott made sure that Michael got back to the apartment safely. They also had to carry Brian back with them. Brian had had too much, and after barfing in the bathroom sink, he had managed to pass out in one of the toilet stalls. Too bad no one got a picture of that. They would never have let Brian forget that night for the rest of the year. Even without a picture, they still had ample ammunition.

  A much happier Victoria sat in her prized first-class seat after switching planes in Japan. She was amazed that she had had the strength and perseverance to endure the regular coach seating on the other flight. Never again, she vowed to herself. Although she was immensely relieved to finally be where she belonged, she wasn’t feeling too well. Of course, after sitting near all those dirty commoners, she wouldn’t put it past them to have given her a cold.

  Her first bit of coughing and congestion started when she was in the VIP lounge in the Tokyo airport waiting to board her connecting flight. She had been watching the breaking news about an explosion in a lab in Malaysia. The newscaster was speaking in Japanese, but at least the station had enough common sense to include English subtitles. They were saying it wasn’t terrorism but some sort of accident with chemicals that had not been stored correctly.

  Thank goodness it wasn’t another idiot terrorist, Victoria thought grimly. Then she erupted into a spastic coughing attack. She quickly put a handkerchief over her mouth to stifle the noise and looked around to see if anybody had noticed her embarrassing outbreak. Thankfully, no one paid her much attention.

  What the television news did not say and the authorities did not know was that the explosion had originated in Dr. Curtis Freeman’s office, and the charred remains of the doctor concealed a bullet lodged in his brain.

  Victoria later boarded her plane without any further coughing outbreaks, but halfway into the flight, she started feeling very hot and dizzy. Her thoughts were becoming jumbled. She just wanted to get home and crawl into her oversized, plush bed. She tried to lie back and relax in her seat. She felt as if an elephant was sitting on her chest. It was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe. This cannot be the flu, she thought, because she had received the influenza vaccine prior to leaving the United States.

  The virus had reproduced itself to the extent that the body’s defensive mechanisms could no longer ignore the threat. Finding its way into the oxygen-rich lung tissue, the virus multiplied exponentially until the body’s killer cells, macrophages, started to attack the infected cells. The macrophages were the only part of the immune system that wasn’t inactivated by the hidden genetic code in the vaccine.

  Unfortunately, it was too late. If the body had recognized the virus during the beginning stage of infection, then it more than likely would have rid the body of the virus in seven to ten days. But because the virus had gotten a head start due to the influenza vaccine, by the time the body did mount a defense, it was a losing battle.

  The macrophage response produced by Victoria’s body attacked the virus where it was most prolific—in the lungs. As a result, not only was the lung tissue damaged by the virus, but the body’s defensive response caused inflammation, mucus secretions, and elevated temperatures. She was literally drowning in her own fluids. The damaged lung cells could not effectively exchange the incoming oxygen and get rid of the carbon-dioxide buildup inside the body. Hence, Victoria’s oxygen levels started to decline, leading to hypoxia in the brain. The symptoms of hypoxia were confusion, dizziness, and shortness of breath.

  Worse, Victoria’s
damaged lungs and congested nasal passageways tried to expel the mucus by triggering the coughing and sneezing reflex. This only aided the virus’s agenda to spread out and infect others.

  By the time Victoria collapsed in the Los Angeles airport restroom, she had personally infected twenty-four people on the flight from Tokyo to Los Angeles, including the airline staff and everyone in first class, and fifty-one people in the Los Angeles airport while waiting in customs and walking to baggage claim. During her wait for the baggage to come around on the carousel, she managed to infect another twelve people, including the Harringtons, who were just returning home from a relaxing and fun family vacation.

  When Victoria finally drew her last labored, raspy breath on the restroom floor near the baggage-claim area, she inadvertently infected the two women who tried to help her and also the airport’s emergency first responders who came to assist.

  Victoria, just one person, infected over ninety people before expiring unceremoniously on a dirty restroom floor. How many more unsuspecting victims did those ninety influenza-infected people unknowingly infect? Victoria was only one out of seventy-four people on the first leg of the trip from the Philippines to Tokyo who had contracted the influenza virus. Another seventy-three victims were now unknowingly infecting others. The infection rate was growing exponentially.

  William Harrington and his wife, Stacy, kept one eye out for their luggage and the other eye on their two children. Their son, William Junior, was eight years old, and his sister, Michelle, was fast approaching her twelfth birthday. They were all exhausted from the long flight, but it had been well worth it. William had taken some much needed time off from work to spend quality time with his family. He loved them all so much that he’d do anything, including putting himself in harm’s way, to keep them safe.

  It was William who first noticed Victoria at the baggage pickup. She was well dressed, and he could tell by looking at her clothes and jewelry that she was a person of wealth. However, she looked very pale; her face was so white that it had the appearance of a ghost. When she started violently coughing, he nudged his family to move farther away.

  Collecting their multiple bags, the Roberts family piled into their SUV and started driving toward home in Porterville, California. By the time he pulled off the freeway to top off the gas tank, William wasn’t feeling very well. Dizzy and groggy, he attributed it to the long flight. His wife and children had fallen asleep; but after the nonstop vacation fun and the long last day of travel, he didn’t think much of it.

  While filling up at the gas station, William noticed he was sweating profusely. It was warm out this evening, he rationalized. As his hand grabbed the pump handle, he noticed that even his palms were slick with sweat. Michelle stirred from within the depths of the backseat and announced she had to use the restroom. As she went inside the convenience station, William noted that her eyes appeared a little swollen and she was sniffling.

  She reemerged from the station as he put the gas handle back in the cradle. They both climbed back into the vehicle and drove off. By the time William pulled into his garage, Michelle had fallen back asleep. He was surprised his family was sleeping so soundly even though he had started to cough. He had tried to stifle his coughing to keep from waking them, but at times he couldn’t help it. Feeling very tired, he had an unusually difficult time rousing his wife and two children. They all dragged themselves into the house without bothering to unpack their belongings. Whether they got the luggage out of the SUV now or in the morning didn’t make much difference to William. At this time of night, all he was dreaming about was putting his head on the pillow of his own bed.

  The Harrington family went to sleep that night and never woke up.

  The three people who fueled up at the same pump as William all contracted the influenza virus from the pump handle. The driver of the fourth car was a meticulously clean person and had used liquid hand cleanser both before and after filling his gas tank. Fortunately for him, the cleanser killed the remnants of the virus that had hidden on the handle. What the cleanser couldn’t protect him from was the store clerk, who was coughing and sneezing as he paid cash for the gasoline.

  Little, innocent Michelle Harrington had not only unknowingly infected the gas station clerk, but she had also deposited the virus on both the store and bathroom door handles. Before the fluid protecting the virus dried and the virus itself became inactive, twenty-four more people who went inside the gas station were infected with influenza.

  Chapter 5

  Michael slowly opened his eyelids. The Saturday morning sun was streaming in through his bedroom window. He turned his body away from the bright light and immediately winced as pain shot from his forehead. He touched his wound gingerly with his right hand, and it felt as if a baseball were trying to emerge from his skull. It was a large bump that would probably be there for days. Unless he could somehow fix his hair to cover it, people who didn’t know about last night’s events would ask what had happened, and those who knew would just smile at him. Well, at least the bleeding had stopped last night after he got back to his apartment.

  Because of the position of the sun shining in through his window, he had slept in more than he had planned to. Forcing himself to get up, and feeling the throbbing pain once again at the sudden movement, he made his way out of his bedroom to the bathroom. As he passed Brian’s closed bedroom door, he heard him groan from inside. Chuckling quietly to himself, Michael knew that someone had a far worse headache than he did.

  Once in the bathroom, Michael found some aspirin and washed two tablets down his parched throat with a large glass of water. After showering he felt a little better, and he ate breakfast, grabbed his backpack, and headed out the door to the campus library. He knew from experience that if he didn’t get out of the apartment soon, he would be distracted by his friends and would most likely be enticed to watch the college football games on television.

  He didn’t really follow college football like his two roommates did. He preferred to watch the professional football teams that usually played on Sunday afternoon. But today, he had to get his notes in order and at least get a good start on studying. He had already lost all of last night, and he couldn’t afford to do the same today.

  When he arrived at the library, it was almost eleven o’clock. If he looked to his left and across the Tundra, multiple three-story red-brick student dormitories rose like soldiers standing at attention. Off to his right and opposite the dormitories, three huge buildings stood guard. One was the College of Pharmacy, where Michael had been taking the majority of his classes. The other two buildings, the College of Science and the College of Law, were mirror images of each other.

  Michael opened the heavy glass door and went inside the empty library. It was a modern structure with plenty of partitioned study desks spread throughout both the first and second floors. Of course, the library contained a massive amount of books, but its main function was to serve as a place to get away from the noisy student rooms in order to study for tests in solitude. For the most part, the books remained untouched in their proper places on the shelves.

  Students didn’t usually prepare for tests this early in the academic year. Of course, one week before midterms or finals, you wouldn’t be able to find a spare seat in the building. But today, Michael had the choice of any desk, and he chose one next to the floor-to-ceiling window. At least he’d be able to enjoy the outdoor weather while he was studying.

  He soon discovered that his selection of a study desk supposedly free of distractions was a big mistake. Multiple times he caught himself staring out the window, daydreaming. More than a few students were emerging from their dorm rooms and lying on the expansive lawn, soaking up the last rays of summer. Some brought radios, drinks, and books to enjoy the day. Others tossed a football or baseball back and forth. In the distance toward the sport fields, Michael could see an unofficial soccer game starting up. He found himself wishing he was with them instead of being confined inside this empty buil
ding. He never imagined that most of the students he saw out there would be dead within a couple of weeks.

  After several hours of staring out the window and not getting much accomplished, he gave up and moved to a desk farther away from the enticing distractions. He settled down and started once again to try to read through his notes. Then he caught himself beginning to nod off. Great, he thought. Where can I go so that I will actually concentrate?

  Knowing he desperately needed to change his location if he wanted to make any progress toward forcing his study notes into his brain, he packed up his books and notes once again and left the library. After the glass door swung shut behind him, he turned down the sidewalk heading back to his apartment. He had just walked a few feet along the concrete…

  “Hi!” a very familiar voice called.

  He turned and was surprised to see Lorie. She was sitting on a large beach towel that had a bright island scene printed on it. He would never have recognized her with those dark sunglasses she was wearing. She was also dressed in short shorts and a form fitting, white top. It was not her typical attire when she attended classes.

  She waved him over, and as he got closer she looked up at him and said, “You look better than you did last night.”

  “I suppose that not having blood dripping from your face will tend to make an improvement.”

  “Kidding aside, how are you really doing? Does it still hurt?” she asked, a little concerned. She removed her sunglasses and peered up at his forehead, examining the knot that must have been growing from it like a tumor.

  “I’m okay, really. I took some aspirin this morning for the pain, and eventually the swelling will go away. At least, I hope it will. I’ll just look like an ogre until this lump disappears.”

  “Oh,” she said, smiling mischievously at him. “You looked like an ogre even before you got the lump. The swelling just adds to the effect.” She winked at him playfully. “Come and sit for a while,” she said, moving over and patting the empty half of the beach towel with her hand.