The Vorare Virus

by Selena Spry

  A curious swarm of thoughts and emotions flooded his mind in those brief instants of ecstasy. Waves of intense pleasure, flashes of dates relating to Jen’s monthly menstrual cycle, questions as to whether she’d remembered to take her birth control pills, slight hopes that she’d forgotten.

  The thought of impregnating this magnificent creature both scared and excited him. While he knew that with the way their marital and financial situation stood right now, it probably wouldn’t be the best idea, he couldn’t help but secretly hope that he might slip one past the goalie. Nothing would make him prouder than to see his sweet Jen carrying his child. The thought brought forth those primal and territorial instincts that came right before, and during, release – a mixture of power, vulnerability, invincibility, and fear.

  Both finished, Jen leaned back, putting her hands on the shower floor behind her to support her position over Zach while she regained her composure. Zach watched with curiosity and pride as she finally stood, his semi-hard member sliding from inside her as she moved from overtop him.

  She stood over the shower drain maintaining a slightly bent position. Half dazed, half exhausted from the pleasure-enhanced workout, hands to her abdomen, tummy sucked in, head bent, she watched as a huge glob of Zach’s love cream plopped from inside her and into the drain hole. Seconds later, more dribble from inside, catching a portion of her inner thigh and sliding down until the shower rinsed it away. She looked at him, eyes wide. “Sheesh,” she said. “Guess I’ll need to wash again.”

  Zach smiled at her, “Sorry…but it’s your fault.”

  “My fault!?”

  “Yeah,” he grinned. “If you weren’t so fucking hot, my loads wouldn’t be so big,” he laughed.

  “Sorry for being so hot,” Jen smiled back at him.

  “I guess I’ll forgive you,” Zach struggled to his feet, smiling while giving Jen a kiss and a light smack on the tush. “Just don’t let it go to your head.”

  As they finished a final wash and rinse of themselves, and turned off the shower to dry, they heard a distant popping noise. Moments later, it sounded as though people were shouting outside, followed by more popping noises.

  Zach and Jen looked at one another and wrapped towels around themselves. They hurried out to the living room where a glass sliding door opened to a small balcony that overlooked their apartment complex parking lot.

  Through the glass of the balcony door, they were met with an array of red and blue flashing lights. Upon closer inspection, they could see numerous police cars, several ambulances, and a fire truck. A crowd of onlookers had gathered to gawk at the scene.

  “Wonder what’s going on?” Jen frowned as she peered around their half-naked reflections on the glass sliding door.

  “I don’t know,” Zach tried to see around one of the police cars as someone on a stretcher was loaded into an ambulance. “Must have been something big…maybe a shooting or something.”

  One of the police cars pulled away to make room for an incoming ambulance. As it left, it revealed a body-sized shape covered by a white sheet. The sheet was stained red around where the person’s head would have been.

  Several paramedics climbed from the ambulance to attend to the covered form. As they worked, a woman from the crowd of onlookers ambled slowly toward them. At first, Zach thought she was going to offer assistance, but as she neared, her movements grew somewhat erratic. Then she lunged at one of the paramedics, hitting him as he knelt beside the sheet-covered body and knocking him to the pavement and onto his back. Zach and Jen stared on in disbelief as the woman climbed atop him and started to tear at his clothing before trying to bite him.

  “What is she doing!?” Jen cried aloud.

  Zach just stared on in silence, already having seen this first hand. “It’s the virus,” he said quietly, stepping back from the window as several police officers stepped in to restrain the woman. He went to secure the dead-bolt lock on their apartment’s front door. “It’s getting worse. I think they’re…” his words were cut short by the sounds of several gunshots and an almost simultaneous yelp from Jen. He turned back around to see her, a hand to her mouth.

  “They shot her!” she cried. “They just shot her!”

  Chapter 10

  It had been almost two weeks since Rob and Wendy had last seen their neighbor Brian. In fact, his house had looked abandoned ever since the incident with Wendy. They wondered if he’d even returned home after Rob had hit him with the bat. In a way, they both hoped he was gone for good.

  Wendy’s first attempt to get Rob the sex story he’d been dreaming about for years had backfired miserably. And while she had the video footage of her luscious body pleasing another man, neither of them wanted to watch it. It was a day that both of them would prefer to forget for the time being.

  Plus, they had much bigger fish to fry – like trying to make ends meet and scrape together enough money for food, which was becoming harder and harder to get with the proliferation of the Vorare Virus.

  Neither of them had worked for over a week. Both the bar where Rob was employed and the restaurant where Wendy worked had shut down due to multiple Vorare Virus incidents. Many other businesses, especially in downtown Chicago (as well as in many other major cities around the country) had followed suit in hopes that the CDC would be able to catch up to this thing and get it under control.

  However, it seemed that the more time that passed, the worse things got. There was still no word on a vaccine, and attacks by the infected were increasing exponentially.

  Worse yet, fear among the uninfected portion of the population was leading to panic and the hording of supplies. Most store shelves were empty. And for those who could afford the purchase of supplies, it didn’t matter since looters were carrying away most of the remaining goods.

  Thankfully, seeing such a problem on the horizon, Rob had gone to the store earlier in the week and loaded up on some extra food and bottled water. He’d also fueled up both of their vehicles even though they weren’t currently using them. Meanwhile, Wendy was harvesting what little produce she could from the small backyard vegetable garden she’d started earlier in the summer. With the summer heat coming on strong, and the local authorities warning of potential water shortages, she wanted to harvest as much as she could in the event she couldn’t water her plants as summer dragged on. It wasn’t much, but every tomato, cucumber, pepper, or squash was something they could add to their menu and didn’t have to try to find at a store. And with the way things were around Chicagoland lately, venturing outside the relative security of their home to go shopping wasn’t an idea that either of them relished.

  After suffering through several citywide rolling blackouts over the past few days – the most recent of which lasted almost an entire day – Wendy and Rob had taken to storing much of their non-perishable foodstuffs in the basement. Temperatures there were a good ten degrees lower than on the first and second floors of their home even when the air conditioning was on. But the blackouts had concerned Rob.

  “I’m really kicking myself now,” he muttered as he sat beside Wendy on the couch watching an afternoon courtroom drama. On the screen, the judge was berating a father for having let his 16-year-old daughter go out at night unsupervised with her boyfriend, an outing that had resulted in her accidentally driving the neighbor’s car they’d borrowed through a convenience store’s front window. “I should have bought one when I had a chance,” Rob said half to himself.

  “You had no idea that this was going to happen,” Wendy tried to placate his concerns.

  “Yeah, but I’ve been meaning to get at least a small generator for years. It’s just another expensive I’ve had trouble pulling the trigger on. It’s one of those buys that seems like such a waste of money until you don’t have it.”

  “Well, we don’t have it, and there’s no way we’re getting it now. They said that generators were one of the first things to sell out right after the first blackout. There’s absolutely no way you’re going to
get one now even if you wanted to go out there…and I don’t want you to.”

  Rob was silent for a minute. Then he said, “You know who does have one?”

  Wendy eyed him, frowning, and then shaking her head. “No…who?”

  “Brian,” Rob tilted his head in the direction of their neighbor’s home.

  “Oh come on,” Wendy half snorted. “We don’t want to have anything to do with that wacko.”

  “Maybe we don’t have to,” Rob rested one of Wendy’s bare feet in his lap, pulling each of her little toes to stretch it before beginning to massage her foot.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “We haven’t seen the guy in a while. Maybe he took off. I mean, if he has the Vorare Virus, he might already be dead. Who knows? And if that’s the case, he’d never miss the generator. First and last time I saw it was when I was helping him with those bags of mulch last fall. He had it stashed in the back of his garage. It’d be simple enough to sneak over there at night and take a quick peek. If it’s there…” Rob shrugged, leaving his sentence unfinished.

  Wendy just took a deep breath, content to push off making a decision until later. First, she wanted to see how her court program ended…that and let Rob finish his foot rub.

  Chapter 11

  Layoffs for the majority of the hotel staff had been doled out a week ago. Hotel occupancy just couldn’t support a full-time staff after the drop in numbers due to the Vorare Virus. But the hotel ownership and management had decided that it was better to keep the hotel running than shut it down completely. It would take a lot of time, money and effort to mothball the behemoth property, and should the Vorare Virus resolve itself, it could take a similar effort to get it up and running again, leaving it behind other downtown properties that had remained open and operating. Therefore, a skeleton crew in all departments of the hotel – front desk, maintenance, housekeeping, food and beverage, sales, and security had been maintained. Seniority, performance, and preference had been used to select the staff that remained since not all employees wanted to continue working during what was becoming a quite turbulent time.

  The remaining staff members were given the option of continuing to commute to work as they normally did or staying at the hotel. With public transportation spotty, and highways and city streets often clogged due to rolling blackouts and masses of people trying to flee the city, just getting to work could be a struggle.

  Jaren and Aileen were among those offered a position on the hotel’s skeleton crew. While both were glad to maintain their positions on staff, neither was sure whether they wanted to live at the hotel full time. Jaren was of the mindset that it would be more convenient in the short term, but if things in the city were to break down completely, it could become their own private prison. Aileen didn’t like the idea of being away from their home for an extended time, but the thought of having to deal with a multi-hour commute was a strong incentive to remain at the hotel. And if it was just for a couple of weeks, she thought it might actually be a nice change of pace – no cooking, no cleaning, just wake up and be at work!

  Then there were other considerations. All their meals were to be included at the hotel, free of charge. The hotel had a huge backup generator to continue utility services uninterrupted while much of the city suffered through periodic and lengthy power outages. And the hotel maintained its own private security force, whereas if Jaren and Aileen returned home, they’d be on their own when it came to safety and security. Most of the local emergency services were already stretched to the limit dealing with a litany of Vorare Virus-related issues on top of their standard calls.

  Finally, there was the fact that should they decide to stay, they’d receive a sizeable suite on the hotel’s 23rd floor, typically set aside solely for VIPs. This last amenity tilted the scales in favor of their remaining at the hotel. Most of the other staff members followed suit and stayed as well.

  From their lofty perch atop the prestigious landmark property, the world’s problems looked miniscule. Every so often, as Jaren and Aileen peered out one of the suite windows, they would see little clusters of ant-sized people clustered around flashing red and blue lights on the street below.

  “Uh oh…another Vorare Virus incident,” one of them would point out to the other.

  At first, it had been interesting, a terrible thing to be viewed with a swirling sense of morbid curiosity. But after almost two weeks, it had just become an unfortunate part of life…one that continued with increasing regularity.

  Over time, Jaren and Aileen both realized that the virus wasn’t getting better; in fact, it was getting worse. And neither of them knew what that meant for the future. While their living situation inside the hotel remained stable for the time being, Jaren had already noted that supply levels were beginning to diminish. Delivery trucks weren’t making their scheduled stops as frequently. Some of their vendors had shut down completely. Others couldn’t even be reached by phone or email due to lack of staffing or a backlog of customer service issues with which they were already dealing.

  Due to his position at the hotel, Jaren had access to areas within the hotel that most other staff didn’t. This meant that he could keep a watchful eye on the kitchen pantries and refrigerators scattered throughout the hotel and its various food and beverage outlets. He knew the foods and stock levels that should be inside those areas, and as shelves became increasingly bare, he wrestled with the idea of telling Aileen.

  There was still food remaining, and saying something would only worry her. It wouldn’t change the situation, and Aileen seemed to be enjoying the ‘suite-life’ (as they had termed it) together in their new hotel home. Things wouldn’t be any better at home. So why ruin it?

  Therefore, Jaren kept his mouth shut, content to hope and pray that something happened or someone came up with a fix for the virus that was now spreading like wildfire.

  * * *

  Things looked like a war zone in what had not so long ago been a happy little hamlet nestled in the quiet western suburbs of Chicago. For Zach and Jen, the relatively secluded nature of the location had made it feel like they didn’t even live near the city…at least, not until recently.

  Now, things had changed and changed dramatically.

  Sirens blared constantly. At night, even with their blinds closed, red and blue lights tore their way into the privacy of their apartment. Screams, shouts, and gunfire constantly awakened them.

  The CDC and WHO were working in tandem, struggling to find a vaccine, treatment or cure for the Vorare Virus. Meanwhile, the virus continued to spread. Attacks by the infected were becoming increasingly prevalent across the Chicagoland area, and the more people that were infected, the more attacks occurred. The whole thing was snowballing, and not just in the Windy City, but nationwide and around the globe in what was now being deemed a worldwide pandemic.

  Compounding the issue of trying to combat the virus was that if people hid the fact that they had been bitten, it was often hard to tell when they were in the initial stages of infection since symptoms weren’t immediately obvious. An infected individual could often go days or even a week without showing signs of being a carrier before the virus began slowly overwhelming the body. Until then, the person might carry on much the same as usual. There was no coughing, sneezing, runny nose, vomiting, or diarrhea. Instead, brain functions of an infected individual gradually ground to a halt. Unfortunately, in today’s society, this was often a difficult sign to detect. The most obvious indicators of an infected person were stuttering, slurred or slowed speech, difficulty driving, disorientation, or forgetting simple things like names, phone numbers, and addresses.

  There were other unusual aspects of the virus’s slow debilitation of its host. There was a notable decrease in the host’s pain receptors – a sort of deadening of the nerves. And the infected individual also exhibited a stronger sexual vitality and stamina, which was most prevalent as the virus metastasized before finally overwhelming the body’s ability to mount a defense again
st it. The contaminated individual could then remain in this ultra-energetic, zombie-like state for weeks before the virus finally overwhelmed them completely and they succumbed to the disease. In many reported cases, the infected were also noted to have become much leaner and more muscular as the body burned fat to maintain a higher than normal metabolism. For this reason, some had nicknamed it the ‘Adonis’ virus because of its tendency to enhance the physical attributes of the host as it slowly worked to kill them.

  But being better looking or losing a little weight did nothing to placate the concerns of people – infected or not – looking for help as the civilized world began to break down around them.

  For Zach and Jenny, as many of their friends, neighbors, and co-workers fell victim to the virus, they had a tough decision to make. Eventually, they decided to abandon the city in an effort to reach Zach’s aunt who lived in northern Wisconsin where they hoped things were calmer.

  It was a decision they now found themselves regretting.

  Their escape had become a debacle. Their mistake had been in driving closer to downtown on the Eisenhower Expressway in an effort to link up with the Kennedy Expressway that would take them north. In this move, they’d become mired in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Eventually, Zach – trying to free them from the stagnating traffic flow – had exited the highway to cut through the city streets. This had only compounded their issue. And now they found themselves jammed among hundreds of other vehicles in downtown Chicago gridlock.

  And they were going nowhere fast.

  Worse yet, down the street ahead of them, they could see National Guard troops moving toward them, pulling occupants from inside their vehicles and loading them onto two-and-a-half ton army trucks that lined the sidewalks.

  “Why do you think they’re doing that?” Jen pointed to the troops yanking people roughly from the vehicles ahead of them.