THE VIRUS Chapter 1- Introduction

                                       Damien

Everyone thought it was just a simple sickness.  It’s just a simple virus, everyone said, it’ll pass.  Well, it didn’t pass.  Everyone who was infected just got sicker and sicker, and weirder things just kept happening.
“Several people infected with ‘The Virus’ are also showing symptoms of skin deterioration and mental disability—is this a new disease outbreak?” screamed every television channel, every newspaper, every human on the planet, so it seemed.  Every single person of the world was left wondering how long they had left before everything they knew just came to an end.
Well, as it turned out, it wouldn’t be very long at all.

                                      Melanie

“You’ve got a fever. I think you’ve got the virus,” said my little sister to my mom.  She sounded like the 6 year old she was—young, wishful, and clueless.  My mother looked at us both as though she were about to say her goodbyes.  I was on the verge of tears.
“No matter what happens,” my mom said, “I will always, always love you both.”
“Mommy?” my little sister questioned.  My heart felt like it was getting ripped out of my chest, like I knew what she was about to say.
“Pack only the things that you need and what’re close to you,” my mom said, “Because some time tonight, I want you two to leave for your Aunt Mary’s house.”
“I’m not going to Texas.  That’s almost 1100 miles from here.  You’ll get better,” I stated.  Deep down, I knew it was just wishful thinking.  My mother wouldn’t get better.  She’d only get worse.  Everyone only got worse.
“I want you two to be safe,” my mom replied.  I knew she wasn’t up for an argument.  She was too sick, and my little sister was too young to understand what the virus even was.  No one truly understood, really.  We older folks just knew that you got sick, you got violent, you got crazy, and you died.
“I can’t just leave you here like this,” I stated, my voice low.  My mom lay on the couch, several layers of blankets covering her.
“You’ll do as I say,” she answered.  There was no room for objection.  With this household, it was listen or get your ass handed to you. “When I wake up tomorrow morning, you two better be gone. Here’s my debit card and my pin number.  Take all of the money out of the account and use it to take care of yourself and your sister.  If I’m okay in a few weeks, I’ll call you.”
Tears were welling up in my eyes.  I knew she just couldn’t get better.
“I love you mom,” I stated.  I would’ve hugged her goodbye, but she wouldn’t let me.  She didn’t want to risk getting my sister or I infected with the virus.
“Let’s go, Sadie,” I stated, taking my sister’s hand, “We gotta pack up to go to Aunt Mary’s.”
“What about mommy?” asked Sadie.  I just wanted to hug her and tell her that everything would be ok and that our mom would be coming with us, but I just couldn’t.
“Mommy’s-” I started, “—Mommy’s not coming with us, Sadie-Bug.”
Sadie immediately tried to turn back and go to mom, but I held her back and hugged her tight.  She began to cry and wail, like a child who’d just been beaten with a wooden paddle.
“You can’t,” I stated, tears running down my cheeks, “You’ll get sick.”
“Mommy!!” Sadie yelled at the top of her lungs, “Mommy, tell Melanie you’ll be ok!!”
“Sadie-Bug,” Stated my mother, her eyes tired and hopeless, “everything will be ok.  But I don’t want you to hug me; I don’t want you getting sick.  I love you, but you have to go to Aunt Mary’s with Melanie.”
Sadie didn’t scream anymore.  She didn’t know that everything wouldn’t be alright, that mom wouldn’t be here to take care of us anymore.  Our dad had left when I was barely 11, when Sadie was just born, so we would be completely on our own.
“I love you, mommy,” Sadie stated with a sniffle.
“We have to go pack, Sadie,” I stated, pulling her towards our rooms.

                                         Evan

It wasn’t long before I realized that my brother wasn’t far away from death.  He had patches on his body, everywhere, where there was barely any skin left.  He couldn’t talk, and he kept trying to attack me like some wild animal.  There had to be a point where I drew the line.  It had to be either me or him.
“I’m sorry,” I stated, over and over again, “I’m so, so sorry.  Please understand.”
I took the shot.
He fell to the ground.
He bled, and bled, but he lay on the ground completely lifeless.
I would’ve dropped the gun because I was shaking so bad, but I knew I’d probably need it again soon.  I walked over to the kitchen sink, set the gun on the counter, and washed myself off.  I had my brother’s splattered blood all over myself, and I wasn’t gonna’ risk getting this virus.  I had to do something about it, not get killed by it.
My family and I could’ve taken my brother to the hospital, but it would’ve been no use.  They would’ve told us what they told everyone—
“There’s nothing we can do,” they’d say, “But from here on out, no one can see him or touch him for risk of being infected.  He has about two months to live.”
What the doctors probably didn’t know or, just left out per say, was that for the majority of this sickness, the victim would be violent and crazy, and would look and act like a zombie out of a horror movie.  My brother would scream and yell—not words, just noises, for the last six weeks that he’d been alive.  He kept trying to attack us and bite and scratch us, and we didn’t know what to do.  He wouldn’t eat, so that added on to his horrific appearance, but no one had the heart to do what had to be done—so my parents just left.  They didn’t even take me with them, probably because they thought I’d end up infected, too, since I spent so much of my time with my brother Donnie.
But I wasn’t infected, that much I knew, and I knew that if I didn’t put my brother out of his misery, he’d be the one to put me into mine.
So, I took the shot.  
It was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my lifetime, and one of the least righteous.  I never joked about taking a life.  It was never a laughing matter, to me, even if it was an animal.  This time was no different.

                                        Shauna

I crossed my arms and leaned back against the wall.
“You mean to tell me that we’re dealing with zombies?” I asked one of my father’s old friends.  Ed was both a scientist and a doctor, and he was the only person I knew that could study this up and coming disease.
“No, no, not quite,” he stated.
“Then what the hell are they, Ed?” I questioned.
“They’re humans, just like us, it’s just that this disease is attacking their brain cells and their skin.  I’m not sure why.  I just know that somehow, no one’s immune system is strong enough to fight it off.  The cells are somehow spreading through cuts and bites.  They travel through the bloodstream, somehow going unnoticed, and then they’re attacking the skin, the brain, and skin nerve-endings, eating away at them until there’s nothing left,” Said Ed with a breath pause, “They attack the brain just after it starts attacking the skin and the immune system, so speech abilities are lost about two weeks after the virus has entered the body.  They also stop eating normal food, so they start to lose weight, and, for some reason, these people become violent and destructive, and start attacking objects and attacking people and try to eat people or other strange things.  And at about the 7th or 8th week of infection, they lose their eye-sight and the disease cells attack their spinal cord, causing them to become paralyzed and die.”
“So, they’re zombies,” I stated, “except with an expiration date.”
Ed sighed.
“Didn’t your father ever tell you how poor of a listener you were?”
“All the time,” I answered, “Before he became infected.  Then he kept telling me to come to you for help.”
“I’m sorry, Shauna,” Ed replied, “about your father, and not knowing what to do.  I could try to come up with a cure for this, but it’ll take a lot of time—time that we might not have.  It could take years, even.”
“The world might be resting on it.”