The Green Flu

Chapter 14 - Devon

I looked at Swindle in disbelief. He thought that I was immune to the sickness that is turning people, good, healthy people like Anthony, into monsters.

"Could be, of course." Swindle said, quickly. "There is no guarantee that you won't ever turn. I believe-"

"Whoa, back it up." I interrupted, raising a hand to my head. "Is it even possible to be immune? I mean, you created this "disease" to infect everyone, right? Why make it so certain people won't be affected?" Swindle seemed to consider the question before answering.

"We didn't make it so that anyone could be immune." He recalled. "But when it was exposed to the public before being truly ready, it is possible that we hadn't finished designing exactly what the Flu targets in people. So when it started infecting people, it's unclear what it was truly infecting. Therefore, making it possible that it could be targeting something that you don't have."

That was a bit more complicated than I expected him to say. But I think I got what he meant. They hadn't planned to make the Flu have any immunity to it, but it could happen.

"That's just a hypothesis though." Swindle stated. "Don't take my word for fact. I could be wrong. " He shut his eyes and thought for a moment.

"I always did expect all the best results from my experiments." Then he smiled sadly, like he was remembering the good old days. Unfortunately, now that the Green Flu had broken out and infected everyone, there may not be any more good old days to be made.

"Hey, doc." I said, getting Swindle's attention. "So what's the deal? Am I infected or immune?"

I wanted to know for sure whether or not I'm going to survive these scratches. And I wanted to know if I would turn into one of those creatures. I could only imagine what it would be like to become something different, something so destructive and unnatural. Poor Anthony, and the many, many others, have gone through that...it must have been horrible.

"Well..." Swindle started, then he paced around for a little bit. "See, its very hard to determine how long the infection takes to take over, to control the host."

Swindle quit his pacing and marched over to the table with purpose. He picked up a clipboard overflowing with papers and started going through them.

"These are my notes." He informed me. Swindle flipped through a bunch, then looked at me and shrugged.

"The first person to get infected turned in about 45 minutes. But Jess turned after 50 minutes, then Dan turned in over an hour..." Swindle looked back down at the notes and continued listing people who have turned. After a minute or two, Swindle stopped and thought for a moment.

"The Flu was supposed to be fast acting, within 2 hours at the most. But for the majority of the victims here, it was less than an hour." He looked up at me and I could almost see the gears in his mind turning. "How long ago did you get scratched?"

"Uh... Jeez, what time is it?" I asked, remembering how different everything was before I got scratched. I knew it couldn't have been more than a couple of hours, but it seemed like a lifetime ago.

"It's 7:06," Swindle said, glancing at his watch.

"Then about..." I thought for a minute. "About two hours ago."

All Swindle did was nod.

"Well." He said, putting the clipboard back. "We can't know for sure if you're immune or not unless we do some tests. But, with my staff all dead or infected and with the halls quite dangerous to travel through, we cannot preform those tests."

That's when it hit me. This is real. This is happening. I knew that, but I hadn't truly understood what that meant until now. This infection, these creatures. They aren't just going to go away. It was going on for 2 or 3 days before now and nobody had known.

Swindle had said it himself, there is no cure. This isn't going to just go away. I could never have my old life back, the one where I eat oatmeal for breakfast everyday and go to the bar with Daniel. Heck, Daniel probably isn't even alive anymore! This is happening!

"...can you hear me? Hey, buddy!" Suddenly Swindle was shouting at me. He looked startled and had his hand on his coat pocket, the one with the gun. As soon as I turned my head towards him, Swindle sighed, clearly relieved.

"Man, for a second there I thought you were about to turn." He suddenly looked worried. "You don't feel any worse, do you?"

"I..." I gave my head a shake. "I feel fine, don't worry." It was true. I didn't feel any worse, not medically. I was still trying to get over the shock and realization of recent events.

"You know," Swindle said, with a chuckle. "When you started zoning out, I was trying to get your attention. I was about to shout your name," He grinned. "But I never learned it. What is your name ?"

The foggy daze I was in cleared up as I realized that he had asked me a question. It took me a moment to remember what the question was.

"My name is Devon." I told him, sure that I could trust him. Swindle may be a crazy man with crazy visions of what the company that he loves should be like, but I trust that he's smart enough to not do anything that could get us killed. If he had a death wish, he wouldn't have hid here for two or three days. And if he wanted me dead, I would've been by now.

"My name is Devon."