Going Viral

Ben Goodman was the origin point. “Ben! Are you still in bed? It’s ten to nine!” His mother hurried upstairs and opened his bedroom door to see her son still lying down. She was about to yell at him that he would be late for his physics test, but then she noticed his glazed over eyes and sweating forehead. Immediately, mother’s instinct took hold, and she ran back downstairs, returning with a cold facecloth for him.

“Thanks, mom,” Ben winced and tried to smile, only ending in a cough. “Sorry… I was up late, studying for that test… “

“Oh, I told you to get some rest. Now you see what happens when you don’t listen to me?” his mother retorted, stroking his hair. His forehead felt warm.

“Well-“ Ben went to explain, but was forced into a fit of coughing before continuing. “Ahem… well, I heard there was a bug going around at school anyways. Might’ve, caught that…”

“Uh huh… Well, you’re not going to school, that’s for sure. Not in this state, anyways. Just get some rest and I’ll let the school know.” She gave Ben a quick kiss on the forehead, then left the room to give him some peace and quiet.

Downstairs, Mrs. Goodman picked up the phone and called the school, eyeing a photo of her late husband. “Hello? Oh, good morning. This is Mary Goodman. I’m calling to let Mr. Keller know that Ben Goodman won’t be able to make it to his test today, and the same for his classes. He appears to have come down with a cold.”

“Alright, I’ll be sure to let him know. Thank you, Mrs. Goodman.” Cindy put the phone back on the receiver, wrote down a note, and made her way out of the office. Her heels clicking on the glassy floor, she knocked on the door of Mr. Keller’s room and entered, waving quickly to the kids before returning her focus to the teacher. “Morning, Dave.”

“Ah, Cindy. What’s up?” Dave asked, taking a pile of papers and stacking them together – likely the tests.

“Well, I just got a call from Mrs. Goodman, she says that Ben is sick today.”

A few students in the back of the room chuckled quietly, but Dave just sighed. “Of course today. Alright, thanks for letting me know.”

Cindy nodded, then exited the room as Dave began handing out the tests. When she got back to the office, she turned on the intercom and spoke. “Just a quick announcement: a student is absent today due to illness. It’s likely a flu bug, so please remember to wash your hands well and avoid activities that may spread the sickness through our school. Thank you.”

The following day, three more students from Ben’s physics class were missing from school. Their parents had also called in claiming their kids were sick with similar symptoms: fever, glazed eye look, and a slight cough. Another announcement was made: “Hello everyone. Just another reminder that there is a flu bug still going around, so be advised to wash your hands well and refrain from sharing food and drinks to lower the spread of germs. Thank you.” A few more were gone the day after that, and one person had actually thrown up in the bathroom and was let home early. By this time, Ben was back in school and right as rain, but multiple other kids were still out.

One girl was taken to the local clinic for a medical checkup, as cough syrup and rest had done little to nothing. The doctor examined her, and then examined her again. She checked her equipment, and tried a third time, then turned to the girl’s mother. “I can’t find anything wrong with her,” the doctor reported. “I mean, besides her symptoms, there’s no apparent cause for what made her ill.”

“Do you have idea at all what it could be?” the mother asked.

The doctor sighed, giving a slight shrug. “I suppose it could be the flu, but it’s a little early in the year for that. I’d just go home, rest up and come back if it gets worse.” The two thanked the doctor and headed home.

That afternoon, while lying in bed with a rising fever and a rough cough, the girl relayed a message to her group chat about her situation: “So apparently the doc doesnt know wtf is wrong me?? She said it was the flu but shes not sure”.

Student absences stockpiled. Not long after, a few of the teachers took sick leave. Siblings and parents of the high schoolers began to develop symptoms. Even Mrs. Goodman took ill. Ben was forced to stay home to take care of her, since she was the only one there to look after him.

“Sorry about all this,” she said when Ben had taken leave from school. He shook his head. “No, mom, don’t worry about it. I can’t lose you. If I lost you, I… I’d never be able to forgive myself…”

“Ben, it’s just a cold- AHAGH, ahagh, hagh… Mmm… nothing to be so over dramatic about.”

“Yeah… I guess you’re right. I just… don’t want to lose you too.”

More and more people started coming into the clinic, but none of the doctors could tell what was actually causing it. They had assumed it was the flu, but vaccinations didn’t seem to working. People that had been injected only a week ago were now coming through the doors sick as a dog. Multiple people were carrying buckets, into which they were vomiting rather violently in front of other clinic goers. They were quickly separated from the other patients. The media had caught on to the story as well, and it was reported on the news that night: “MYSTERY ILLNESS SPREADS”.

It was around this time that the first person collapsed. An elderly woman was taken to the hospital after having fallen in her apartment. Her other symptoms matched that of the mystery illness, and so a new possible symptom was added to the list: leg paralysis. A few days later, another one fell. Then two more. As the clinics were filled day in and day out, more people were collapsing in the streets. The hospital began to fill up. Some staff found themselves gaining a cough and headaches, and soon they too were stuck in bed.

When the clinic took too long, people turned to the hospital for examinations. Generally, a place like a hospital was more or less equipped to deal with lots of business happening at once. But soon, the floods of people coming in began to cause problems. Line ups blocked hallways and slowed staff. Occupied bathrooms led to many spills in the halls, straining the energy of the janitors as much as the doctors. But just like the clinic, the professionals had no clue what was causing the strange illness. They would give out shots and prescriptions for antibiotics, but nothing worked.

Local pharmacies eventually ran out of symptom relieving medicines. People began to get angry, and then they got sick, which only fed the anger more. The news reported minor riots and breaking of windows downtown: “CITIZENS RAVAGE UNSTOCKED PHARMACIES”. The hospital had run out of room, and many were turned away by their own families out of their own self interest, so they had taken up residence in abandoned apartment buildings. Unfortunately, medical staff in the area had their hands full with the hospital and the clinic, so the ill were simply left in that building, alone and without aid, to suffer.

Doctors began to get extremely worried about the crisis on hand. Finding a chance to break and get together, three doctors had a meeting to discuss the situation. “Look, we’re already running low on manpower. Staff are getting infected left and right by this, ‘ghost’ illness,” the first said.

“’Ghost illness’? What kind of ridiculous name is that?” the second asked. “It’s what the patients have been calling it. The news too. I don’t suppose you happen to have a better name? A real, scientific nomenclature for whatever the fuck is affecting these people?” the first replied, aggression rising in his voice.

“The name isn’t the problem. The problem is the disease. Nothing is working. We need a new strategy before the CDC has to get involved,” the third doctor stated. “Otherwise, we’re gonna have a Black Death on our hands pretty soon.”

The first doc went to respond, but the three of them had to shuffle up against the wall. A patient was being rolled down the hallway, and as she passed, they got a clear look at her nearly lifeless eyes. The first doctor turned again to the third. “Don’t joke about that. We’re almost all out of conventional treatments. So maybe, you two wanna pull your heads out of asses and think of something?”

The second took a step forward fuming, but the third held him back. “There’s always an option. When you have an illness you can’t understand… make a cure that doesn’t exist.”

They began prescribing out little blue capsules to all of the infected, and instructed them to take two a day. What the patients were unaware of was that the pills were merely placebos. When all had failed, the only option was to try and trick their bodies into thinking they were getting better.

No results were expected on the first day. On day four, doctors checked on all placebo prescribed patients and found no improvement. A few of them had even begun to swell at various parts of their bodies. Inflammation was added to the list of symptoms. Ten days passed, and none of the patients showed signs of improvement. The news continued on and on every day, keeping people up to date on new developments on the illness. “NEW GHOST ILLNESS TREATMENT A FAILURE” was the headline of the day after hearing about the failure of the placebos. Word spread online about the illness. A cloud of unease hung over the populace. There were even some reports coming in of it having spread to other cities.

Only three days later, a patient in the hospital died. A cover up was impossible, as a family member had been visiting during the time of the patient’s passing. It was all over the news that night, more than usual: “FIRST DEATH FROM GHOST ILLNESS”. The doctors tried to explain that there was no certainty it was caused by the illness, but it was too late. The people’s opinion had already been made: this disease was lethal.

Damage control having failed, panic spread like a wildfire among the afflicted. Many of those confined to their rooms tried to escape. Most grabbed wheelchairs, but the desperate crawled, taking the risk of being trampled by the frenzied mobs. The PA system was drowned out by the screams of the populace, as they rushed out the front entrance and attempted to find their ways home.

Many members of the hospital staff abandoned their posts during the mass escape. The few that remained could hear the echoes of screams, and when they realized it wasn’t just in their head, they rushed to the room they sourced from. Sitting in the bed was a young woman moving her hands around in the air, her voice growing raspy and grated from the strain on her throat. When asked what was wrong, she jumped for a moment, then answered quietly, “I… I can’t see… I can’t see… “

Soon after, more people started to die. Since they weren’t nearly as busy with actually treating all the patients, doctors would perform an autopsy on the corpses of the afflicted, making sure to take all the extra precautions. Each one revealed the cause of death to simply be from heart attacks. Doctors were completely and utterly baffled at what was happening. Some minds were broken. One couldn’t take the pressure anymore. His body was found in the river.

The call to the CDC was made. But it was too late. Headlines of “GHOST ILLNESS CLAIMS 500 LIVES” scrolled across LED screens as people took to the streets in panic. Some tried to escape from the city; others were rioting in anger of the government’s lack of response. A building burned to the ground, and charred corpses fell from the windows. People afflicted by the illness continued to die of heart attacks.

The illness entered its fourth week. As the populace roamed the streets, Ben headed into a part of town enforced by what little remained of the local police. Beads of sweat slid down his face as he gazed upon the ill. Just find the pharmacy, and get back home… Mom needs you… they gotta have it… otherwise, she’ll… Mom will…

The thud of a collapsing body beside him threw Ben out of his thoughts. His heart beat harder, repeating the sound of the body’s fall over and over in his chest. His nerves already having been on end, he dropped to his hands and knees, crying out onto the pavement. “It was me! I did this! Someone, anyone! Please… forgive me!” A few gave the boy some looks, but most continued on in a daze, their eyes glazed and dead.

Continuing to blubber, Ben looked up to the sky, his voice hardly a whisper now. “I… I never wanted this… we… we never planned for this to… oh God… we were just skipping… I-I-I faked first, a-and then my friends pretended to, catch it… this wasn’t… this isn’t… what I wanted…”

Government vehicles eventually arrived, and crisis teams were let out on the streets. They wandered the silent city, armored in full hazmat wear and armed with boxes of influenza vaccines. Soldiers also traveled with the workers, toting rifles in their arms and radios on their backs. A loud speaker announcement was broadcast on repeat: “Any remaining survivors of the ghost illness, please make yourselves known. We are here to help you. Come out slowly and make your known. We are armed, so don’t make any sudden movements or attempt an attack. I repeat, please make yourselves known…”

Bodies riddled the avenues, skin melting off the corpses like cheese on a greasy pizza slice. One worker picked up a newspaper that had been blowing in the wind and read the headline: “GHOST ILLNESS – THE END?” fluttered in the wind. The hospital was a disaster zone – pills and plasma covered the floors alike. Patients rested eternally in their beds, and white lab coats had become stained yellow and brown. In one back room, a pile of burnt corpses were found.

The team continued moving through the city, until they heard a shout. “H-hey! Over here!” The convoy of vehicles came to a stop. A small group of survivors came out around the corner of a building, cautiously stepping forward. Workers hurried over to the survivors, evaluating whether they were clean of the disease. “These guys are clean,” a worker stated to one soldier, who nodded to another. The survivors were led towards the convoy.

“Um… where are you taking us?” One of the civilians asked.

“There’s a safety centre a few miles back. We’ll back taking you back there,” a worker responded.

“Oh… but what about this place?”

“Clean up will have to wait; there’s reports of the illness in four more cities.”

After escorting the survivors away, a group of soldiers got off the trucks and began searching the city next. In one of the suburban districts, Ben Goodman’s house was eventually discovered. He was found hanging in his room. A chair lay kicked out below his shirtless corpse, which showed bruises covering his torso. The knot had been tied wrong as well – he choked to death. His mother’s corpse was lying in bed in another room. The cause of death had been a heart attack.