Influenza: Viral Virulence by Steven Ohliger Read Free Book Online

vehicle and drove off. By the time William pulled into his garage, Michelle had fallen back asleep. He was surprised his family was sleeping so soundly even though he had started to cough. He had tried to stifle his coughing to keep from waking them, but at times he couldn’t help it. Feeling very tired, he had an unusually difficult time rousing his wife and two children. They all dragged themselves into the house without bothering to unpack their belongings. Whether they got the luggage out of the SUV now or in the morning didn’t make much difference to William. At this time of night, all he was dreaming about was putting his head on the pillow of his own bed.
    The Harrington family went to sleep that night and never woke up.
    The three people who fueled up at the same pump as William all contracted the influenza virus from the pump handle. The driver of the fourth car was a meticulously clean person and had used liquid hand cleanser both before and after filling his gas tank. Fortunately for him, the cleanser killed the remnants of the virus that had hidden on the handle. What the cleanser couldn’t protect him from was the store clerk, who was coughing and sneezing as he paid cash for the gasoline.
    Little, innocent Michelle Harrington had not only unknowingly infected the gas station clerk, but she had also deposited the virus on both the store and bathroom door handles. Before the fluid protecting the virus dried and the virus itself became inactive, twenty-four more people who went inside the gas station were infected with influenza.

Chapter 5
    Michael slowly opened his eyelids. The Saturday morning sun was streaming in through his bedroom window. He turned his body away from the bright light and immediately winced as pain shot from his forehead. He touched his wound gingerly with his right hand, and it felt as if a baseball were trying to emerge from his skull. It was a large bump that would probably be there for days. Unless he could somehow fix his hair to cover it, people who didn’t know about last night’s events would ask what had happened, and those who knew would just smile at him. Well, at least the bleeding had stopped last night after he got back to his apartment.
    Because of the position of the sun shining in through his window, he had slept in more than he had planned to. Forcing himself to get up, and feeling the throbbing pain once again at the sudden movement, he made his way out of his bedroom to the bathroom. As he passed Brian’s closed bedroom door, he heard him groan from inside. Chuckling quietly to himself, Michael knew that someone had a far worse headache than he did.
    Once in the bathroom, Michael found some aspirin and washed two tablets down his parched throat with a large glass of water. After showering he felt a little better, and he ate breakfast, grabbed his backpack, and headed out the door to the campus library. He knew from experience that if he didn’t get out of the apartment soon, he would be distracted by his friends and would most likely be enticed to watch the college football games on television.
    He didn’t really follow college football like his two roommates did. He preferred to watch the professional football teams that usually played on Sunday afternoon. But today, he had to get his notes in order and at least get a good start on studying. He had already lost all of last night, and he couldn’t afford to do the same today.
    When he arrived at the library, it was almost eleven o’clock. If he looked to his left and across the Tundra, multiple three-story red-brick student dormitories rose like soldiers standing at attention. Off to his right and opposite the dormitories, three huge buildings stood guard. One was the College of Pharmacy, where Michael had been taking the majority of his classes. The other two buildings, the College of Science and the College of Law, were mirror images of each other.
    Michael opened the heavy glass door and went inside the empty