Sweet Viruses

Chapter 5

Gabe

    I shut the black jeep door and head back to the cabin in the dark, all alone. Suddenly Melody and her friends appear. We talk for a minute and then I offer to take her home. She accepts and we get in my truck. Soon we are singing together and she asks me to turn into a field. We soon are sitting together in the back of my truck. Melody then looks into my eyes and comes closer. She is about to kiss me when she looks up. "Wake up", she says gently. I get confused as she starts to yell at me, telling me to wake up. I close my eyes.
    I sit up in my bed staring at my mom yelling at me to wake up as she throws my shoes at me. "What time is it?", I ask shakily. "Four", she responds as she pulls the covers off of me. I stand up in my checkered pajama pants and gray t shirt. I slip on the tennis shoes and the hoodie she gave me. "So um, why am I up?", I ask as I follow her out of my bedroom. "Carrie's in the hospital. She's going into labor", she says as we continue down the hallway. I grumble to myself as I hit my head on the car roof while climbing in.
    We arrive at the hospital and finally make it to the waiting room in the baby section of the building. I plop down on one of the couches and dread the next few hours. I drift off to sleep as everyone gets settled in one of the couches.
    It's another three hours before I'm woken up. A few others have joined us in the small room and my sister, Sabrina, is shaking me awake. "They're ready", she says as we both stand up and follow our parents out of the waiting room. We are lead into a long hallway filled with different baby pictures. We turn into a room with a big curtain in the middle and an empty cradle by the door. We walk past the curtain and in the bed is my sister-in-law holding a tiny bundle of blankets. Her face is all red and she looks exhausted. Sabrina gets closer and gives her a gentle hug before picking up the little bundle. She gives a little "Aww" and sits down in the chair beside the bed. She carefully brushes the baby's cheek and gives it a kiss on the forehead. "His name is Brody Preston", Carrie says happily. "He's beautiful", Sabrina responds as she smiles at the sleeping baby. I try not to care as I watch her hold him. "Alright, hand him over to Gabe so we can get you two to school", my mom says after a few minutes. I stand up straight and my eyes get wide as she makes her way over to me. I look into the blankets and there is a baby boy sleeping peacefully. She hands him over carefully placing him in my arms. I awkwardly adjust to holding a baby and he starts to wake up. I begin to feel more and more uncomfortable as he opens his eyes. I look around and everyone is watching me struggle. I look back down and see that he is staring straight at me. Instead of freaking out I look into his deep blue eyes. Something happens and I just can't look away from his face. His gaze changes, but I continue to watch him. He slowly closes his eyes and falls back asleep. Suddenly my mother walks up to me and takes him from my arms. I almost want to stop her and bring him back to my arms so I can watch him sleep more. I don't understand what happened, but when I looked at him, everybody else seemed to melt away and I just wanted to watch him. Neither of us could speak, but I feel as though I had just had an entire conversation with someone. I didn't think it was possible, but I may love the little baby that I knew for a whole ten minutes.
    We get home at about seven thirty and quickly get ready for school. I feel a little mesmerized by what just happened, but mostly tired. I run downstairs and grab my keys. I get in my truck and head off to school. On the way there I turn on the radio and listen to some news. All anybody can talk about are the mutants. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about how they will be released soon. They already have an entire army of soldiers to fight the mutants with. The radio says that we have three weeks left until the mutants are released, but when Peace talked to me she told me that they will be released two or three weeks before. That means any day now. I pull into the parking lot and find Mash standing in the middle of my parking spot. He moves so I can park and I hop out to greet him. "I am so glad that you are here 'cause I need some coffee", I tell him. "Isaac proposed to Peace last night", he says immediately. "Wow, what'd she say?" I ask in shock. "Yes of course", he answers. "Um okay, well Carrie had her baby today. I'm an uncle", I say with a confused expression. I shake my head and we walk to the building. I look around and there's not a whole lot of cars around. We get inside and hardly anybody is there. The school almost looks abandoned. A girl standing in the corner walks up to Mash and I. "My friends were forced to leave because of your dad!", she spits at Mash. "Are you sure it wasn't you they ran from?" I ask her. She starts to pout then runs away, crying. Mash hangs his head a little bit and we continue to the teacher break room. There's only a few teachers sitting at the tables. We try to ignore their stares as we both get coffee and leave. As we walk out Melody runs into us. She stares at us with a terrified look. "I'm so sorry she mumbles" as she picks up her things. We bend down and help her. I hand her things to her and our hands touch. I can't help but smile as her face turns bright red. She runs off and Mash looks at me. "What was that?" he asks. "Nothing", I mumble. "No that was definitely something. What happened that night after the party? You told me that you took her home, but that wasn't all was it?", he starts to get angry. "Dude I swear, nothing happened", I tell him while backing up to give him room. He slowly moves toward me. "Tell me the truth. Did you really betray your best friend by making a move on the girl I've liked for the past four years?" he gets angrier. "So we sat in the bed of my truck for a while, but I promise, nothing more happened", I try to plead with him. "Let me guess, she stopped it?". "No, I promise, nothing happened!", I start to angry at Mash for accusing me. His face turns red and he punches me. This makes me so angry that I punch him back. We begin to go into a full out fight and kids gather around to watch. They start chanting "Fight, fight, fight" as we continue to wrestle. Some teachers come out and pull us apart. I wipe my lip and angrily stare at Mash. The kids skatter like they weren't a part of this. The teachers escort us to different classes.
Most of the classes were just study halls because the teachers had fled from the state or even the country. I can only think of how mad I am at Mash until second period when I see him in class. I take my seat by him and we sit silently for a while. Then he turns to me. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said you did that. I know you're better than that. You're a better friend than me, I just accuse you of stealing a girl that isn't even mine", he says to me. "It's okay, you're not a bad friend. I shouldn't have even tried to be the hero, you're the one that likes her", I answer. From that point on wasn't so bad. We had a study hall that hour so most of the class just roamed around the school. Several people came to tell Mash how much they hate him and his father. It seemed like forever of waiting before it was finally lunch. We all gather in the cafeteria and there were no lunch ladies so the teachers had just ordered a lot of pizza. Mash and I play with our cold pizza. "It's the best lunch they've ever served!" I say as I poke my piece with a fork. Mash and I laugh and joke around some more. Suddenly I smell the sweetest perfume. We both turn around and there is Melody. She looks at our bruised faces sadly. "I heard that I did this", she says as she stares. "Can we talk?" she asks us, turning her head toward the doors. We both stand up silently and follow her outside. She sits down on the grass and we follow her to the ground. We sit there awkwardly for a few moments before she opens her mouth to speak. Just as she does a scream comes from the side of the building. We all jump up and run to see what is happening. There we find a ginormous polar bear like creature. It is about to attack the girl that told us her friends left this morning. Just before the bear sinks its teeth into her neck she looks directly at Melody and mouths the word run. I snap out of my fear and grab Melody's arm. Mash and I pull her into the building as quickly as we can. We block the door by throwing chairs and desks in front of it. There is a roar and a thump from the outside of the door. Melody squeals and we all run. We make it to the computer room where everyone who heard the message is hiding. All of the sudden Melody passes out and Mash catches her. Andria and Caitlynn rush to her side and take her from Mash into the crowd. I can't see her anymore when all of the electronics in the room go crazy. They flash and beep loudly at us. Then a reporter shows up on the screen. He starts to go off about how the mutants have been released early. I didn't hear much of the beginning because I was still searching for Melody. The computers got my attention when the reporter said the words "secret weapons". I looked to hear him describing a secret weapon that the mutants discovered they had. What happened was they would breath out a gas from their noses that would paralyze a person within ten feet. They would then bite their arms, but not kill them.  This is called "the mark". The person then goes into a state of extreme pain for approximately an hour. Then they mutate into another beast that looks like the victim. A disgusting video is shown of this process happening to a few men and women with lab coats on. Just then a close up video of it happening is shown and the man is Mash's father. The screens all go black and all power ever known to man cuts out. While the video is still playing Mash runs up to the front of the crowd when his father's face appears. "No!", he screams as he falls on his knees. Everyone turns to look at him and he continues to scream as he watches his father turn into the very monster he's terrified of. Peace appears out of what seems to be nowhere and hugs Mash. She tries to calm him down as he crumples into her arms. She holds him while he cries and everyone tries to be respectul and not watch, but I can't peel my eyes away. My best friend's earth just shattered, he became an orphan and was forced to watch his own father not die, but turn into a monster.