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The Weekend

"Are you hungry, Ted?" Monica jocularly asks.

"Um... um," he says, as he manages to get some air in between his gorging. "Sorry. Yeah, I am hungry. I don't know why, but I feel like I haven't eaten in days."

"Well, after we finally had a good night's sleep, I think we're all hungry, Ted." I wait for Ted to respond, but he obviously wants to eat more than talk.

"Monica, by the way, you were right," I say.

"About what?" she asks.

"About that name I was trying to remember. I wasn't thinking about it and it came to me in a flash."

"What is it, John? What's the name?"

"What name?" Ted asks.

I look at Monica, and she says, "Ted, I was trying to find some correlation between Dr. Bennett and Dr. Dorsey's findings written in their journals. Since there doesn't seem to be any, I suggested to John that I believe that his father may have another journal hidden somewhere. What do you think?"

Ted shovels more food into his mouth and literally swallows it without chewing. He holds his finger up for us to wait for his answer. After he finishes, he says, "I have to agree with you on this one, Monica. There has to be more information out there than what we've already found. If there is, where do you think the journal could be, John?" he asks, as he suddenly directs his question to me, as if I'm keeping a secret or something.

"I have no idea, Ted. You ask as if I should know, or something."

"I just meant that you managed to locate your dad's files, and it would just seem logical that you may know if he kept other files somewhere else. That's all, man."

Feeling like the two of them are ganging up on me for some unknown reason, I reply to Ted, "Well, Ted, if I knew where my dad kept other files, if indeed he did have other files, they would be here, in front of us, for all of us to research. Otherwise, I haven't a damn clue where the old man could've hidden anything, anywhere. His life was pretty dull. So, I know that's not the answer either one of you wants to hear, but that's all I have."

Ted nods his head and says, "Okay," and continues to consume his food.

Monica takes a Sweet 'n' Low from the container on the table. She rips it open, but it falls from her grip and lands underneath the table. Simultaneously, Ted and Monica both dive under the table to retrieve the packet. Monica says, "Got it," and is the first to resurface. Ted lingers under the table for a few seconds longer and then commences whetting his appetite. I look at them both and can't help wonder if the two of them are up to something; but what? I pretend I didn't notice what occurred and continue to eat my victuals.

After twenty minutes of silence and eating, Ted leans back against his chair, rubs his stomach, and then belches out, "That was goo... ooo... ooo... d! Sorry, Monica. But it was good."

"No worries, Ted. This is the most any of us has eaten in a long time. I'm glad we all have healthy appetites. Speaking of..." Monica's sentence is interrupted by a scream at the other end of the cafeteria. All three of us leap from our chairs and rush over to see what's happening. When we arrive, Monica yells, "Shit!" and begins to tell everyone to get out of the cafeteria. Chairs begin to get tossed over as people dart for the exits. In less than a minute, the cafeteria is evacuated, leaving me, Ted, and Monica with the poor son of a bitch lying on the floor dying from the plague. Ted rushes into the kitchen and rushes back carrying big plastic garbage bags and begins to lay them on the soon-to-be deceased, dissolved corpse of a fellow scientist, Dr. Gary Larrison, Doctor of Neurology.

"How did he get infected?" Ted yells.

"I don't know, Ted. Like poor Boyle, I don't know how he got infected. That doesn't matter. What does matter is that it's in the CDC and now we're all potentially infected," I reply.