Influenza: Viral Virulence (4 page)

Then, a small strand of additional genetic information broke off from the vaccine itself. As it also was only visible under the lens of an electron microscope, hardly anyone knew that this tiny bit of DNA existed. The strand of information attached itself to the immune cells and turned the cells, like a light switch, to the off position. Without a functioning immune system, the influenza virus, along with any other pathogens, ran rampant.

Chapter 4

The bar was
a typical college destination, not designed for sitting and eating but for the mass consumption of alcohol, particularly the cheap beer that came in plastic cups. This beer was well within the budget of most college students. The establishment, with its drab wood paneling on the walls, housed a couple of pool tables in the back room. During weekend nights, the entire place was so jammed with college students that it was difficult to get from here to there without pushing through a multitude of people. You had to plan a trip to the bathroom long in advance of needing to actually go. Tonight it was packed tighter than Michael could ever remember.

Celebrating Brian’s birthday, they all took turns running to the bar to refill their pitcher. Some of their other friends had met them there, as well as some of their fraternity brothers. During Michael’s second year at school, he, Brian, Scott, and some friends they had made during their freshman year had decided to join a specialized pharmacy professional/social fraternity. It had several benefits. First, the fraternity was recognized across the country as an academic achievement. Second, they had the opportunity to review files of previous students’ tests and study notes, which were often repeated by the professors. And third, they got to have fraternity parties.

At one point in the evening while they were celebrating, Michael’s eyes caught a flash of golden blond hair on the other side of the bar. Squinting to get a better look, he recognized Lorie. He caught her eye, they waved to each other, and Michael turned back to whatever Scott and Brian were talking about, which, after consuming this much alcohol, could be anything.

After some time passed, he looked down at his plastic cup filled with golden brown liquid and knew that this was it. This was the last glass of beer. The nerves in his body, however deadened by the alcohol, were screaming to his brain, “Enough!” Even in his stuporous state, he knew that if he had any more, he would regret it. Sometimes the body just knows when to call it quits. His vision was a little fuzzy, and he was becoming unsteady on his feet.

“Hey, you!” a loud voice shouted in his face.

Looking up from his plastic glass of beer, Michael tried to focus his eyes on the huge, leering face in front of him. It wasn’t a face he recognized, so, Michael concluded that he must not be talking to him.

“Hey, you!” the hostile face yelled again. “I’m talking to you, or don’t you speak English?”

Michael stared back into that face and still didn’t recognize it. Who was he? This guy was big. He had short, curly hair sitting above a pimple-covered face, which was flushed red from either anger or too much alcohol. Michael didn’t know which, and in his present state of mind, he really didn’t care.

“What?” Michael asked innocently.

“I saw you hitting on my girlfriend, Weasel!”

“I wasn’t hitting on your girlfriend. I don’t even know who your girlfriend is, and I sure as hell don’t know who you are. And my name isn’t
Weasel
,” Michael protested. He noticed that this guy’s arms were about as big around as his own thighs. He also saw that the hulk’s fingers were tightened into fists. Not a good sign. Maybe he was in trouble.

He caught a whiff of the guy’s body odor. He presumed that the red face was due not to alcohol flush but to rage. Funny, his pimples were an even brighter red than his face, and they looked like polka dots. Michael bit his tongue to keep from laughing. If he smiled, he was sure to get a fist in the face. Well, he figured, he probably wouldn’t feel it with all the beer he had consumed.

Unbeknownst to Michael, Brian had celebrated his birthday a little over his limit and was currently puking in the restroom sink. Scott and a few of his other fraternity brothers were completely oblivious to the developing situation.

“I saw you staring at her all night. So, were you hitting on her? Or are you gay?” the unknown stranger ridiculed him. He raised his voice so all his friends could hear. “Is that it? Are you a gay weasel?”

“I’m not gay, and I wasn’t hitting on your girlfriend. I still don’t even know who you are!” Michael replied slowly, trying to choose his words carefully.

“Well, if you weren’t making a play for my girl, then you must be gay!” the big guy said, moving even closer to Michael, trying to intimidate him. The crowd suddenly grew quiet around them. Thankfully, the crazy guy’s friends were trying to talk him down and pull him back. But he easily shook his friends off and persisted, trying to torment Michael. “Weasel, just admit that you’re gay!” He lifted his massive hand and stuck a finger into Michael’s face.

“I’m not gay,” Michael repeated once again. Maybe he needed to record a sound bite and give it to him.

Scott suddenly appeared from out of nowhere and tried to intervene. He said something to the red-faced hulk in a vain attempt to make peace. Michael couldn’t make out what he was saying to him, but it didn’t work, because after only a few seconds, the big guy swatted Scott away easily with one hand. Scott went stumbling across the floor. That drew even more unwanted attention.

“Another weasel bites the dust,” the guy said, watching Scott stumble. Then he turned his attention back to Michael. “Just admit that you’re gay, Weasel! And then I won’t beat the snot out of you.”

Michael knew that this guy could easily squish him like a bug. He was probably 250 pounds of pure muscle and must have spent almost every free minute in the gym. He was trying to force Michael into humiliating himself in front of his friends. Michael recognized a bully when he saw one.

In a flash, he was suddenly propelled back into high school where he was intimidated by a bully. Being one of the smaller kids in high school, he had more than his fair share of being picked on by jerks just like this one. Those hateful faces appeared before him. He remembered all those days that he tried to make himself invisible, so they wouldn’t see him and make him a target.

Suddenly a red-hot anger started to burn and rise within him. He wouldn’t put up with this kind of treatment any longer, even if he got hurt. Sticks and stones might break bones, but names
will
surely hurt you. Bones would heal. Emotional damage took a lot longer.

All those thugs in high school who had harassed him and made his life miserable coalesced into the raging lunatic who was standing just inches from his face, ready to deck him. But Michael was smarter than this dumb football jock.

He looked over the behemoth’s shoulder and saw that the owner of the bar had noticed them and was making his way through the crowd to their location. He remembered that his name was Wayne, and it looked like he was carrying a wooden baseball bat. Wayne was a big guy who could easily smash a few heads with or without a bat. He didn’t put up with any garbage going on in his bar. Michael also saw that some of his own friends had gathered around him.

Lorie’s worried face suddenly appeared beside the bully. She looked at Michael and then at the big guy and asked, “What’s going on here, Ted?”

Finally, Michael made the connection. Lorie’s date, Theodore, was in fact Ted, who ended up being the nut job standing in front of him with a face that looked like it was going to explode at any minute.

Michael took his eyes off Lorie and looked back at Ted’s seething face, which was now within inches of his own. It was incredible how red someone could get. He looked rabid. In a few more seconds, he thought foam would start to drip out of the guy’s mouth.

Michael’s instincts told him that Ted would only accept one of two answers from him. The first, if he admitted he was flirting with Lorie, would be far from the truth. They had only waved at each other from across the bar, and that was it. The other answer he wanted to hear from Michael was also completely untrue, and he would be admitting to something that he was not. The first answer would probably end up with Michael being pummeled by Ted, but it would also degrade Lorie. Saying that he and Lorie were flirting while she was on a date would make her look like a tramp. He could take the beating, but he didn’t want Lorie dragged into this. Her reputation was more important to him than a few broken bones. The latter answer, saying that he was gay, would save both of them. But Michael wouldn’t only lose the respect of the people around him; he would also lose his own self-respect. It seemed to be a lose-lose situation. Unless…

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.