Infection Ch. 01

Chapter One

Patient Zero

The whole thing was incredibly unlikely on a case by case basis. It is almost impossible for any given meteoroid to actually enter a planet's atmosphere. The vast majority of those will burn up in that atmosphere, never reaching the ground. So, the events that were precipitated by the Humbol meteor strike are totally far fetched. On the other hand, there are so many meteoroids in the galaxy that, from another perspective, the Humbol incident was inevitable. Regardless, the meteorite that struck near Humbol Arizona was unprecedented in its effects.

Jarod Michaels was a geek. The picture in the dictionary picture next to geek has his picture. Button down shirt, pocket protector, horn rimmed glasses, scientific calculator. Stereotypes are not something you should rely on, but there are enough people that fit any stereotype. Jarod was one such person. He had three computers, the laptop the only one he did not build himself. And he had no clue about women. I told you, he's a stereotype.

Jarod Michaels saw a bright streak flash across the sky, appearing to impact a mile or two north of town. Jarod had never found a meteorite before and was excited about the prospect of getting this one. He quickly put together a makeshift kit to recover it. Hopping into his VW, he drove out to where he thought the rock had landed. The hole was almost five feet deep, forming a trough eight feet long. Heat was still radiating from the impact site, heated by the meteorite that had been at several thousand degrees.

Jarod, having a very scientific mind, took pictures, measured the trough, took temperature readings and measured the angle that the rock had impacted the ground. It took an hour for the trough to cool enough for him to reach the meteorite. Like a scientist, he did not just hop down and pick it up, he used a long pair of tongs to grab it and put it in an aluminum box. The find was small, only seven inches across and weighed five pounds.

Jarod took the rock back to his house. It was still too warm to examine, so he logged his find on the national meteorite database via the internet, watched some CSI reruns on Spike TV and went to bed. In the morning, he went to work at the Blockbuster in Humbol. Entering the not yet open store at 10, he called out to the other employee there. "Hi Marie. How was your night?"

Marie Foster sighed, knowing she was about to engage in another exercise in futility. "Hi, Jarod. Last night was really lonely. I could have used some company."

"You should get a cat. I saw a sign at the Grange that they were giving away free kittens."

SLAM! Marie dropped the DVDs she was entering in as returned on the counter, her frustration showing. "Good grief! Do I have to ask him to fuck me in those exact words," she asked herself. "I've been trying to get him to notice me for months and he is so oblivious. I get more attention from my vibrator!"

Marie barely said a thing to Jarod for the rest of the shift. She had always thought that he was brilliant and funny and wanted to date him. She had been hinting for longer than she even knew, having been giving off signals unawares for twice as long as she had been dropping hints. The only person in town who did not know that Marie had the hots for Jarod was Jarod. The guys at Murphy's had a pool on how long it would take him to notice. The soonest date in the pool was 1 year, 3 months and 17 days from now. Most people considered that the equivalent of bidding $1 more than the highest bid on The Price is Right.

Once he got home, he began his investigation on the meteorite. Opening the box, he noticed that the rock was different. There was a green substance on the outside in one spot. Probing it with a exacto knife, he found that the substance was soft, almost plant like. He scraped some off and put it into a glass vial. He assumed that it was some fungal spores that had been picked up when it had plowed into the ground.

He took samples of the rock itself, from both the surface and from inside, using a coring drill. He had no doubt about what he would find. This was clearly a stony meteorite, no where near dense enough to be nickel iron. Needless to say, he was shocked when his drill broke through to a hollow center in the stone. Extracting the core, he saw more green on the inside edge. He scraped off the green and placed it in a second vial.

What Jarod could not see were the spores that he had released, both from the surface scraping and from the inside. The two spore bursts were from two halves of an alien bacterial fungi that had been drifting in space since the destruction of their home planet millions of years ago. Any one of them would have been harmless, but the two combined in his lungs to complete the reproductive cycle of the bacteria. The bacteria found itself in an alien environment, threatened by defenses that did not exist where it had evolved. If not for one thing, it would have died within hours and Jarod's meteorite would have simply been another curiosity sitting on some mantel somewhere.

Finishing his collections, he got online and scheduled time at the environmental research lab where he did computer work in exchange for lab time after hours. He would be able to perform tests on the materials he found night after tomorrow night after work. He had a small asthma attack while he was doing that, and took a hit from his inhaler. Dinner and bed followed.

A war was going on in Jarod's body while he slept. It actually started when the spores first entered his body. His immune system recognized that the bacterial spores were an invader and moved quickly to knock them out. Trapped in an alien environment, the extra terrestrial bacteria was fighting a losing battle. Then, the one thing happened. Jarod's lungs were flooded with albuterol. The asthma medicine induced rapid growth in the bacteria, with the accompanying increase in random mutation. For a while, it was reproducing faster than his immune response could kill it. Like all mutational processes, the vast majority were unsuccessful, dying quickly. But chance produced a mutation that could survive in a human body, invisible to the defenses.

As the night progressed, the bacteria spread throughout the body. The period of rapid growth and mutation passed. There was an impasse in the war. The bacteria survived, but could not spread. Its attempts to form spore growths had been lost in the mutational process. It looked for ways to escape the body. Now don't misunderstand. It was not sentient, but unlike earth bacteria, it was capable of acting as a whole, towards a purpose. At first, it simply did what all life attempted, to spread out. It invaded the various areas of the body where fluids excreted in some way. Its big problem was that it could not survive outside of the body for more than a minute of so. To spread, it would have to find a way to be transmitted to another body directly.

Over the course of the night, Jarod was concerned that he was getting sick. He had to get up several times in the middle of the night for various bodily functions that seemed to go out of control. The bacteria tried to organize itself in his mouth, discovering that he had a tendency to sleep with his mouth open. The constant inhaling of air killed off every bacteria that was there. The same happened with his nose. They successfully settled into his sweat glands, but that would prove to be an unsuccessful means of spreading, since sweat was almost never transmitted directly from body to body, interiorly. The bladder and rectal areas were also busts, for while they were safe havens with exits, the efficiency of modern plumbing wrecking that avenue of spread.

But, the testicals, that was different. Protected from external contamination, once used as intended, the bacteria would be transmitted directly from one body to another. Of course, the bacteria could not know this, but it did not need to. The bacteria provoked excretory responses in Jarod all night. For him, this meant numerous trips to the can for little or no productive activity, and a raging hard on that caused him to masturbate more than once over the night. From that activity, the bacterial colony was able to identify the portions of Jarod's brain that controlled sexual function. The bacteria in those portions found that it could stimulate some of these areas to noticeable effect, while others seemed to be immune. For Jarod, this meant that the bacteria could arouse him and make him horny (not the same thing, by a long shot). This would make for an interesting time at work tomorrow.

Marie had a frustrated night herself. Not because of a bacteria infection from space, but from the unmet desire for a certain geek. She rolled in bed, unable to sleep. Her body was flushed and her mind stuck on Jarod Michaels. Her breasts were sensitive and her pussy was damp. She moaned in her sleep, dreaming of being taken by Jarod in the throes of passion. She woke in the morning with her hand between her legs, covering in her own juice, smelling of sex. She was most definitely not rested.

Marie and Jarod worked the same day shifts at Blockbuster for different reasons. Marie was a gamer. She spent Friday nights and Saturday afternoons with seven other people using dice, paper and small plastic figurines, pretending to be heroes in a fantasy world of dragons, giants and demons. Jarod liked his weekend nights because that was when all the really good shows were on. You know the ones, Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica, The Dresden Files, and the Farscape reruns. So five days a week, Marie would drop a hint that she was interested in Jarod and each day, it would sail over his head, unnoticed. Today would be different.

Jarod woke with his cock hard as a rock, painfully so. He took a cold shower to try to ease the problem. Having relieved himself more than once last night, he was incredibly sore and dreading another go at himself. He also found his mind stuck on an unfamiliar subject for long periods of time, sex. Not that he never thought of sex before, he was a guy after all. But for him, the near constant mania about sex was unusual. He went through his morning routine and arrived at Blockbuster at five after ten.

When he entered the store, he was distracted. His cock was rigid yet again, the cold shower having given him only an hour of relief. His thoughts were obsessing about sex. He registered, barely, that someone was talking to him.

"Hi Jarod," Marie called. "How was your night?"

Jarod looked up and... saw Marie in way he had never seen her before. The five foot eight brunette with wire rim glasses, small perk breasts and an unremarkable figure was the sexiest woman he had ever seen before. All he could do was look at her. At her face, her breasts, her hips, her mouth and hands. She was so incredibly hot. His mouth hung open and his cock, already rock hard crossed over to painfully hard.

Marie watched Jarod, not believing what she was seeing. He was looking at her, really looking at her. There was lust in his eyes, wonderful lust. It wasn't love, but she would take what she could get for now. It took her a moment to notice that he was not moving, almost enraptured. "Jarod, earth to Jarod."

"Uh, Marie, you look so... good."

"Thanks. You're not looking so bad yourself." She had not failed to note the prominent bulge in his pants.

"Thanks. Uh... would you like to... uh... have dinner..."

"Tonight? I'd love to. Right after work?" She was not about to let his being tongue tied be the reason to not have this date.

"Yeah. Tonight. Right."

"We'd better get to work. We don't want to have to stay late."

They worked through the day. Jarod had trouble keeping his mind on what he was doing. He just could not seem to keep his mind and eyes off of Marie. His cock stayed hard the entire day, and he was feeling intense desire to fuck Marie. It took all of his control to not jump her in the store itself. He just knew that dinner was going to be hell.

Marie could not help but notice the attention she was receiving. The usual depression and anger she went through the day with were gone today. She was floating on a cloud all day, anticipating her first date with Jarod. The customers were not blind to the events either. Most had known the pair for years and were amused that the geek and the gamer were finally paying mutual attention to one another. Before they knew it, the shift was over and they went out to Jarod's car.

"So, Jarod, where are you taking me to dinner?"

"Uh... how about... Franks Diner?"

"Okay, that sounds good."

At dinner, they seemed to not be able to have a conversation. Jarod was totally tongue tied, not able to get his thoughts past how much he wanted to fuck her. He would respond to her questions and comments, but would leave the conversation hanging. Marie, while she was keeping up the one sided banter, had her thoughts on what was to come. She knew the look that Jarod had in his eyes. That was a, "I need to fuck," look. Almost a virgin (that's how SHE thought of it), she was wondering about going to bed with him. She knew he wanted it, and she did too, sort of. But did she want it on the first date? Of course, there might not be another date. This did come out of the blue, after all. By the time dinner was finished, she had not made up her mind yet.

As he started the car and turned towards Blockbuster, he asked, "Would you... ah... like to come... uh... home with me... tonight?"

It almost felt like another person was answering with her voice. "Yes. I'd really like that."

"Cool." He turned back towards his house. "I'd really like... I mean, I want to... Would you like to... ah... uh... "

"Yes, I would." Marie thought his uncertainty was really quite noble and cute. She rested her hand on his leg as he drove. She could feel heat from his crotch, just inches from her hand, along with a trembling in his leg at her touch. His naked desire turned her on. Her own body warmed, flushing a little. Her nipples perked up, poking against her bra, feeling terribly confined. There was a stirring in her pussy, a beginning of a need for filling.

At the house, Jarod, having some basic knowledge of gentlemenship, opened the door for Marie and held her hand as they went to the door. Little pulses of sensation, similar to static, but better, flowed between them. Jarod's desire was building by leaps and bounds. He felt like ripping her clothes off and screwing her on the hood of his car. But he had one thing that all geeks have, an encyclopedic knowledge of the subject of sex. He knew in his head that women need foreplay and tenderness, because everything he read told him that (too bad it didn't tell him how). So he resisted his immediate urges, much the collective dismay of the bacteria, and made an attempt to make love to Marie instead of fucking her.

Inside the door, Jarod kissed Marie, a peck more than a kiss. Marie reached around him, pulling him closer and kissed him back, a real kiss this time. Her tongue slipped out of her mouth and had to lightly pry its way into his. She could feel his cock, hard inside his pants. His arms went around her, holding her loosely, not certain of just what to do. He felt an incredible need to fuck her, a need that as growing in strength. His cock was literally beginning to hurt in its erection. He groaned in pain.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm... it's so... it hurts."

"You have been hard for quite some time. Let's get to the bed."

"You sure? Are you ready?"

"As much as I need to be. Just don't roll over and go to sleep, okay," she said with a smile.

"Deal."

They rushed to Jarod's room, oblivious to the models, books and science fiction knickknacks adorning his walls. Standing next to his bed, they each removed their own clothes. Jarod thought that Marie was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The large nipples on her small breasts were incredibly erotic and very erect. The small tuff of brunette hair around her pussy framed it perfectly. There was a hint of moisture glinting on the lips. He could smell the faint aroma of something he had never encountered before. It was intoxicating, whatever it was.

Marie was breathing hard, hardly able to believe that she was here, naked, with the man she had desired for long. She knew he was no hunk, but he had the qualities she wanted. He was smart, funny, kept himself clean and was kind to everyone he met. That he had a cock that was larger than average was simply a bonus. She knew he would, once he had experienced it, want to learn to be the best at sex. That was just the way he was.

She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down on top of her as she fell back on the bed. His cock was hard and hot against her belly, a little bit of fluid leaking out of the tip. She rolled them on to their sides and, with a shifting of her hips, brought his tip against her entrance. Instinct took over and he thrust into her, crying out, a shocked look of ecstasy on his face. It was matched by the expression on hers as she was filled for only the second in her life.

They moved against each other with all the skill of a one year old walking. Jarod was so desperate that he came in about a minute, crying out with relief, shooting a massive amount semen into her, along with an equally massive amount of bacteria. His cock began to soften.

"I'm sorry, Marie. I just couldn't hold off."

"That's okay. We have the rest of the night. We're both new at this."

"What do you want me to do? How can I make you feel good?"

"Lick my breasts."

Jarod licked at her breasts, leaving copious quantities of saliva on them. He assumed from her moans that he was doing something right. Hearing her pleasure made him feel good. He experimented a little, licking and kissing at her cleavage and neck as well as her breasts. Her hands grasped his head, gently hinting at where his mouth felt the best. She was feeling more aroused, flushing even more, her nipples now so erect that they were sore. The tingling in them was spreading towards her pussy, causing it to lubricate even more than it was. Her clit started to poke out from under its hood, the familiar ache starting in it (even an almost virgin knows how to masturbate).

She took one of his hands and guided it down to her pussy, showing his finger where her clit was, whispering, "clit," as she gasped at the touch. He started moving his own hand against it, slipping against her pussy lips in the process. She cried out, arching against his hand. He instinctively pressed back against her mound as he continued to rub it and kiss her breasts. She cried out, "Don't stop. A little more, please."

He kept at it, the increased pressure he was using causing his fingers to slip into and out of her pussy lips on each trip. Marie was feeling shocks of pleasure jolting through her pussy and clit, radiating out through her body like ripples in a pond. It only took another three minutes before Marie tensed up, arching her back and screaming as her orgasm exploded in her. Jarod kept rubbing her pussy and clit, forcing her climax to last even longer. As she came down, she cried in pain, grabbing his hand and pulling it away from her clit.

"Too sensitive afterwards. Hurts too much for a while," she whispered.

"Sorry."

"You didn't know. That was really good. Can I sleep here tonight?"

"You can sleep here any time you want. More later, maybe?"

"I'd like that."

They lay together, unaware that the bacterial infection had now spread to a second victim, spreading through her body, already adapted to survival in the human body. Marie would not feel the effects of the infection for several more hours. By the time that happened, Jarod was hard again and feeling that incredibly strong need to fuck her again.

As he began to feel erect again, he reached over and kissed her. She kissed back, opening up to extend her tongue. This time, no force was needed, his mouth opening to accept her willingly. She rubbed her hands across his back while one of his hands held her close and the other slipped between them and caressed her breasts. Both began to breathe heavily again.