The Hyde Virus Part I
By
David Schlosser Jr.
02/09/2014
Test tubes, titrating instrumentation, and bunsen burners were scattered around the chemistry lab of the school. It was dark in the room except for a light provided by a flashlight that flickered back and forth in the room. A student covered in dark clothing from head to foot had petri dishes laid out on a counter looking at some specimens of virus' that the student swiped from the infectious diseases lab where the person worked.
The student worked for the state facility as an office assistant and overheard the scientists talking about how two of the deadly virus' when combined could turn into a super virus with catastrophic effects. The student didn't hear what it would possibly do, but it was good enough. After holding the job for a while, the assistant was trusted enough to come into the office and was able to do overtime during certain shifts.
Times were checked when the chemists entered and left the secured areas of the compound. One night when the last of the people were leaving the building, the assistant shoved a small piece of wood between one of the doors to catch to keep it open. The tired chemist didn't notice that the beep from the security door didn't sound and went on his way out of the building.
Rubbing hands together the receptionist crept up to the door watching the security cameras. Once the camera moved, the assistant slid through the door. A quick search was done and the virus' mentioned were quickly grabbed, and the person bolted out the security door and to a beat up old station wagon in the parking lot.
Now, at the school, the student's insane plot will come to fruition. Mocked by the other students and put down for years will finally have a revenge that has been so savagely planned. The virus' just need to be added together carefully, so as not to be exposed to the deadly contagions. And then the matter of placing the vial in a spot where multiple deaths can occur.
Intent on the work, the student fails to notice a school security walking up to the lab door. The door opens and a security guard asks, "Who's there?"
The student turns and panics. A female voice answers, "I'm just hear searching for my phone. I dropped it in here earlier and couldn't find the lights."
The security guard hits the light inside the door and the whole room illuminates with a bright glow. The guard sees that the person is wearing all black with sunglasses on. He pulls out a baton and yells, "Don't move! I don't know what's going on here, but you're obviously not looking for a phone. What are you doing with the equipment?"
The student grabs for the petri dishes on the counter when the guard lunges for her.
She screams out, "No," as the dishes are knocked from her hands. They shatter on the floor, both virus' mixing in a small puddle on the floor with gooey shards of glass. The backsplash of some of the liquid douses both the guard and the student.
The guard pulls at the girl's hood and glasses to see who she is and she kicks him in the groin. He rolls over into the liquid mess and she pushes up off the floor screaming and trying to wipe off her face. She is doomed and she knows it. She may still have her victory, but she knows she will not survive the contagions she has just unleashed.
She quickly runs from the school and squeals the tires of her station wagon out of the parking lot. Arriving at home, she jumps in the shower washing her face and body in hopes that maybe she can escape her horrible fate. She wonders just how long it will take for the two virus' to take affect and how long she may have before whatever new found affects will start to occur in her.
"What did you do, Grace?" She asks herself. "Maybe since only a little bit got on me that it may not affect me. Oh, I hope so. God, I hope I'm not going to die."
She repeats over and over, "God, please don't let me die," as she continually washes her face over and over. After a while, Grace finally shuts off the shower head and cowers in the bathtub repeating those same words over and over again.
"Why did I do it, God? Why am I so hated by everyone? Why couldn't I just have a normal life? Oh, God why did I do it?" She asks hoping for an answer. Silence and a small dripping of water from the faucet are her only answers. Grace pounds her hands against the tub and grabs her face in anguish. She feels a looming darkness on her soul now. She has committed one of the vilest sins against man. "Has God abandoned me?" she thinks.
She rises out of the tub and walks to the sink. She looks in the mirror at her face rubbed raw by her constant washing. Two red rings have formed under her eyes, and she wonders if it's from her crying or from the steam from the shower. She bursts into tears at her image and a surge of anger comes through her. She takes a hairbrush and smashes it into the mirror sending glass spraying all over the floor. Grace sinks to the floor, glass cutting her knees as she drops. She cries for a long time in a mad hysteria, but she pulls herself together enough to know she needs to escape.
"I can't stay here. The police will be searching for me. Someone will put two and two together with the virus' stolen and me being a worker at one building and a student of the other."
Lindsay throws together some supplies, her cell phone, an ipad, and she runs to her car. "Maybe my parents will allow me to come back home," she thinks. "Either way I can't stay in Chicago anymore. It's better than staying here, and maybe I can figure something out on the drive home."
Grace looks back at her dismal apartment building that she has lived in for the last two years, and is glad she won't be seeing the hell she has lived in for the last couple years. She hops into the station wagon and gets on the highway heading for Springfield, Illinois.
