Read Online Influenza: Viral Virulence by Steven Ohliger - Free Book Online Page A

even remembered having tornado drills in the middle of school.
    But preparing for an end-of-the-world scenario was a bit too obsessive for Michael. He really resented how much time, energy, and money his parents had invested in prepping that he felt could have been better utilized elsewhere. It was embarrassing when he lived at home and his parents had dragged him to prepping conventions. Although the meetings were boring and he would rather have hung out with his friends, he had learned some skills as he was growing up. Not that he’d ever have a chance to use them. Even though his parents were extreme, he still loved them. They were his parents. He just wished they would tone down their fanaticism a bit.
    That was how he had felt… until his conversation with his father. A little sliver of doubt had just been inserted into his beliefs.
    Brian walked into the room. “Did you order the pizza yet?” he asked.
    “No, not yet,” Michael replied. He was lost in thought. “Hey, Brian, if I could borrow your car, I’ll make a quick grocery run. We’re running a little low on food, and I can pick up that self-rising crust pizza that’s just as good as the restaurant. It costs less too.”
    “Yeah, fine. But I thought we were okay on food…”
    “We’re okay on potato chips and soda…but when it comes to real food, we don’t have much. I just need to pick up a few things,” Michael said.
    Brian dug into his jeans pocket and pulled out the keys. Tossing them to Michael, he asked if he needed some money.
    Michael caught the keys, shook his head no, and left the apartment. Going out the back door, he crossed the lawn to Brian’s car. Michael’s head was still spinning from the comments his father had made. He had told him to pick up camping supplies. That meant Michael needed to make sure he had enough food and water for one to two weeks. Hopefully, his father was just overly worried, and this was all merely a preventative measure. They could use a little bit more food anyway; and with him and his two friends in the apartment, any extra food would definitely not go to waste.
    Getting into the car, Michael drove down the gravel alleyway that went behind the row of apartment buildings and out onto the paved street. He traveled the few minutes to the town’s one and only grocery store. At this time of night, the parking lot and the store were fairly deserted. Michael went into the store, got a shopping cart, and then used the antiseptic towels provided at the entrance to wipe down the cart’s handlebar. It was a good habit he had picked up. Most people didn’t know how effective shopping carts were at spreading germs.
    He pushed his cart up and down the aisles, picking out things here and there. Barely seeing the items on the shelves, Michael was still thinking about the flu virus. Everything seemed so surreal, almost like a dream. He picked out cans of vegetables and meat. He also got a big value pack of hot dogs and another box of burgers. From there, he went into the picnic section and got a couple of bags of charcoal along with a few boxes of stick matches.
    He looked around at the few customers shopping in the store. They were all going about their normal lives, oblivious to any pending threat bearing down on them, reading box labels, checking prices, and deciding which brand of pasta sauce to get. They seemed to be acting so…normal. Were they normal, and was Michael panicking? Why had the conversation with his father unnerved him so much? Maybe it was the tone of underlying urgency in his father’s voice. That was what had scared Michael.
    He hoped beyond all hope that everything was normal and would continue to be normal.
    Michael went through the checkout and loaded up the car with the groceries. Then he brought the cart back into the store. He wasn’t finished yet.
    He went directly to the cleaning aisle. He got a couple of gallons of generic bleach and a few packs of rubber cleaning gloves. He was looking