The Flu 1/2 by Jacqueline Druga Read Free Book Online Page B

are absolutely correct. I don’t have that right; I never had that right. Nor will I. I’m finished here, Dylan. I’m not gonna play this stupid tug-of-war emotional game with you. I’m not. I thought we had a chance, a real chance this time. I was wrong.” Mick started to leave again.
    “Mick...don’t do this. Come on.” Dylan followed him.
    “Are you done with Sam?” Mick asked.
    “Yes. Yes, I am.” Dylan nodded emphatically.
    Mick slowly and heavily raised his arm and pointed at the house. . “Then you go back in there, tell him ‘sorry’, stay the night at your Dad’s, his cousin Tony’s, anywhere but here. Hell, I’ll even fork over a hotel room for him, but you go and tell him he has to leave right now.”
    Dylan took in the deeply serious look on Mick’s face. “Mick... I... I can’t do that.”
    “Then I... I can’t do this, Dylan. I can’t. I’m sorry.” After one more look at Dylan, Mick turned and walked away. He hoped, he really hoped as he made it from her house out to the sidewalk, that at any second Dylan would call out to him. Chase him. She didn’t. The only thing Mick received as an answer to where her priorities lay was when he heard the slam of Dylan’s door, looked back, and she was gone.

CHAPTER FIVE
     
     
    Winston Research Station
    16 Miles South Deadhorse, Alaska
    August 26 th
     
    A pupil that didn’t respond, an iris no longer blue but gray, lifeless and dull. The light shining into the woman’s wide open eye told more than her dead, discolored face. With a heavy sigh of desperation and sadness, Paul Lafayette, in protective garb, moved the flashlight around the dark room in the research station.
    Paul knew that he needn’t search for an answer as to what had happened to the sixteen people sprawled about the room. Remnants of their attempts at nourishment encircled their corpses. Particles of food were spread unfinished on paper plates about the room.
    The only answers Paul needed were specifics. He hoped that the scientists had attempted to record what was happening to them, at least early on, and that one of them had documentation somewhere. He knew that, sick or not, he would have tried to leave a report.
    But the emergency team that Paul arrived with was a skeleton crew. There were only four of them to sift through every detail in the station, seal it off, and collect samples. It would take days, maybe even weeks if the four of them were left to do it alone.
    Paul was grateful that wasn’t the case. A second crew arrived within five hours of Paul’s dawn call, and things were quickly underway.
    Having seen enough, Paul gave a nod to the photographer in the recreation room and walked out. He paused to watch another worker prepare to seal the room, while yet another worker collected air samples.
    He picked up the small silver box on the floor, a box filled with tissue samples he himself took when they first arrived at the isolated location, and then Paul left the building.
     
    The silver vehicle that Paul entered looked like a heavy duty mobile home. After disinfecting and removing his biohazard suit, he left the samples in the lab portion of the module and sought out the small desk where the paper portion of the investigation would occur.
    If Paul’s messy hair was any indication of his mental state, then his mind was haywire. He plopped down into the desk chair, took a moment to relax and stared at the phone with trepidation.
    He had to do it. Henry was waiting on the call. Paul dialed the direct line, the link to the main research center, and it was answered immediately.
    “Paul, give me some good news,” was Henry’s greeting instead of ‘hello.’
    “I wish.” Paul’s words were saddened.
    “All of them?” Henry asked.
    “All of them.”
    “When you called this morning, you said there were deaths.”
    Paul let out a slight chuckle in spite of his distress. “It was as I thought.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “I’m going on a guess from what I