Contagious

Kara Black switched on the news and sipped some of her (black) coffee. She hoped there would be some good news today, instead of the usual depressing themes, such as “death, murder, suicide, more death, car accident, presidential blabber, blah, blah, BLAH.” Kara hated watching the news. But she hated even more being behind the times, so the TV stayed on. 

The news reporter’s face flashed onto the face with a grim look. Kara snorted. He always looked like this.

“Dire times, we see, very dangerous . . .” he murmured worriedly. Kara snorted again. This is how he began every time. Nothing like a little scary news to start your day off right, huh? Apparently, in these “dire times” things were “getting worse”–aka, no one was doing anything to help in the “dire times”. Of course, Kara was guilty of the same. What was she doing to stop all this? Nothing, absolutely nothing: but really, how much could a fifteen-year old like her actually do? Not much, that’s what. She couldn’t even drive, for goodness sake!

The reporter continued: “Hello, all, friends . . . this morning we bring to you some extremely terrible news. Extremely terrible. And urgent: very urgent.

“You see, a new disease has recently broken out in Chicago, Illinois. Since late last night, we’ve already seen 715 cases. 301 of the victims are already dead, and the disease seems to be spreading rapidly. This morning, it reached Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by flight, where 267 new cases were confirmed. 49 deaths are now recorded in this city.”

Kara was staring at the TV, gripping her mug tightly. Her eyes were wide, her heart hammering in her chest.

“Victims of the disease, referred to as Mortus Nil Tempus, or MLT, break out in sores approximately three or four hours after being infected. They then begin to have trouble breathing, and convulsions in the diaphragm and throat prevent the person from ingesting anything–or keeping anything down,” said the reporter gravely. “They then vomit repeatedly until their stomach is completely empty. After this, they are left completely weak, and have no control over any of their bodily functions. They will spasm violently until they . . .” He shuddered, then spoke quietly, in a tone Kara assumed to be soft, but instead came out harsh: “ . . . until they split straight down the middle, their chests ripped open, their stomachs spilling out.” He looked down, aghast. “Then they d-die.”

Kara switched the TV off, aghast. Now this really was terrible news.

Three-to-four-hours . . . it took three-to-four- HOURS for the sores to appear! So Kara could have this disease, right now . . . and not even know it!

That did it! Kara shuddered. No more news watching for her. Oh, and also: she was going to stay into her house. Maybe not forever, but just until they found a cure for Mortus Nil Tempus.