A Different Virus - Laura's Story

Chapter 74

The snap of the spring still made me jump even though I expected it. Ninette pressed a gauze pad against the small wound and put a piece of medical tape across it. She glanced over at me and I stuck my tongue out at her. She chuckled at my reaction before turning to Don.

Don gulped with wide eyes as she turned to face him. I grinned as Diane chuckled, Don's friends had started shifting away from him just in case Ninette decided she wanted another sample for control purposes. Ninette grinned at him, "Relax, it isn't that bad. Just loud. I have a bandaid here, but I want to see if the Heartfire virus is taking hold in the muscle layers."

That seemed to convince him as he took a deep breath and nodded. Ninette took her sample from the same spot as she had with Diane. Don gingerly rubbed his arm where the bandaid was, "I thought you said it wasn't that bad."

Ninette didn't bother replying, she was already putting the samples into machines. Don started rubbing his arms as if they ached. Diane moved me off of her lap as she stood up. She walked over and knocked on Don's helmet, "Come on, I can see what you are doing and it looks like the beginning of a Heartfire flareup. Start jogging on the spot, by the way, it is going to get worse before it gets better. You may start regretting your decision over the next 48 hours. It should settle down by the third day if we can get it under control right away."

Don glanced at Ninette, "Won't that speed up the zombie virus?"

Ninette shrugged, "No idea. You are on untrod ground, but considering that muscle aches are more in line with the Heartfire virus than the zombie virus her advice may be the best."

Don sighed and stood up to start jogging on the spot. It didn't take long for his breathing to become heavy. He switched to doing push ups with a groan, "What else should I know about the Heartfire virus?"

Diane chuckled, "Exercise is going to be your new best friend. There are two main reasons that your muscles will ache or burn, 99% of the time it is due to the lack of exercise. 1% of the time it is from over-exertion when you are trying to push the limits of your body.

"Once the ache from lack of exercise sets in the only way to get the pain to go away is to start running, and to be honest, it hurts much worse when you start moving, but within minutes the actual pain will fade. It really isn't possible to get too much exercise. Oh, and say good bye to sleeping for more than six hours without waking up to go for a long hard run."

Don flopped on his stomach to stare at Diane in shock, "What?!"

I grinned at his reaction. Diane chuckled, "Believe it or not, after the first few minutes you won't even be tired when you wake up."

Don shook his head clearly not believing her as he started doing more push ups. Ninette took Don's temperature and a small blood sample as he panted. His temperature was higher than normal. Hours later he was exhausted, and went to an empty cell meant to hold a zombie to get some sleep.

It was just Diane, Ninette and me here now. I was tired, but trying to stay awake. Diane didn't look much better than I felt. She was clearly still tired. Ninette picked up a vial of glowing blood, "Any idea how this happened?"

Diane shrugged, "I was hoping that you could tell me. I got a splitting headache as the heat rose up in my blood. For some reason I was unable to control it and I have never had that problem before. It suddenly shifted and became cold. I had goosebumps everywhere. I felt like I was out of breath and at the end my head was feeling fuzzy as if I was about to black out. I felt the heat suddenly return and overtake the chill. The goosebumps disappeared and I managed to catch my breath, but I was pretty exhausted until after supper. Now I am just tired. I think I am going to skip my run until the Heartfire starts giving me those warnings."