Viral Outbreak

"Hey turn the volume up!"

"Yeah turn it up!"

"Why don't you two turn your volume down?"

The sharp response from my elder sister immediately shut the twins up, but knowing them, I knew their response only signaled a temporary retreat.

I had a term for when the twins were quiet:

I called it the 'planning phase.'

I eyed them for a moment, then decided that it'd be alright for now.

Though they were only eight, their penchant for revenge was not dictated by immediacy.

In fact I often found myself questioning what exactly it was that they were retaliating against, whenever they did finally strike.

My focus quickly readjusted to the little television set in front of us.

When our parents called in a panic, we had been out in the playground and nothing in the world seemed wrong. As soon as we got home and turned on the news however, we saw that things were going quite differently in other parts of the world.

"No reports yet on what's the cause of the disturbances, all we can advise at this time is to stay indoors, and keep safe."

I glanced over at my sister Erin, who was now furrowing her brow worriedly as she studied the flickering screen in front of us.

"What do you-?"

"Shh, just a minute Jase."

I alternated my gaze between her and the television screen for a few more minutes, then got up and took a look out the window.

As I drew the curtains back, I half expected to see some sort of indication of the disturbances that were now being reported across our little island home, but everything was as still and calm as it had been every other day of my life. I was about to slide one of the windows open when the words of the news reporter on the screen caught my attention-

"This is not, we repeat, not, a zombie outbreak of any kind."

I walked back over to the television, now transfixed on the pale old man in a white lab coat now being interviewed.

"Though we have not identified the cause, what we can say is that something it seems, is making people behave unnaturally, however its effects are no different from a minor hallucinogen. Affected persons may become violent, however the effects are reversible, so do your best not to harm them unless it is absolutely necessary."

"Is that going to happen here?"

"Yeah, is it? Is it?"

Casey and Colin were now tapping on the glass screen of the television set, where images were now being played of chaos in the city centers, with images of buildings on flame and broken glass littering the streets, and rioters out and about.

My sister Erin shuddered slightly at the thought, then quickly put it out of her mind as she stood up seemingly determined.

"Chances are, whatever's happening won't reach us all the way here in the country, but just to be safe, no one goes outside. Got it?"

She directed the last part of her sentence at the twins, who nodded with that same curiously foreboding quietness.

As they went off to play together (or plot murder, who knows), Erin and I began to discuss the possibility of barricading the house.

A quick count of the number of windows, doors and entryways made the task seem somewhat impossible.

"How about we take some supplies up to mom and dad's room. If we have to hide out that's the perfect place since it has a bathroom and everything, and we could push the dresser across the door easy."

Erin pondered my suggestion for a moment, then nodded.

We began carrying up some basic foodstuff that could last a few weeks if needed, as well some basic supplies, like candles and matches, in case anything would be needed.

As I made the final trip up the stairs to my parents' bedroom, I suddenly heard a loud scream coming from downstairs.

That was Erin's voice!

I immediately dropped the box in my hands and sped off down the stairs.

When I got down to the living room, the scene before me was one that I didn't quite know how to take in.

Casey, sitting on top of the living room table, had a rope fastened around Erin's neck. Erin, a panic in her eyes that revealed both fear and confusion, had from all appearances been pulled off of her feet, and was grasping at the rope which was being tightly pulled at her neck. While Casey's eight year old strength would hardly be enough to restrain Erin ordinarily, what made it possible was that Colin held his little league baseball bat in his hands, and was simultaneously letting all hell loose, and swatting away at Erin's midsection.

I took the entire situation in for one moment then sprang into action.

"Hey, knock it off you two."

I was about to reach for Colin's bat, when the little bastard snarled, then swung it at me.

It was not until that moment that I really understood the true gravity of the situation.

Was it whatever the hell they were talking about on the news?

I had little time to ponder the situation as Colin began to really go at me with the bat.

I yelped in pain as he struck a clean swing at my knee, which prompted me, almost reflexively to throw a kick at his head.

He tumbled over a few times, then got up and once more headed straight for the bat which he dropped when my kick landed.

I tried to pick him up off the floor, but he bit my hand as it wrapped around his chest from behind, and I yelped once more as he slipped out of my grasp.

While I dealt with Colin, Erin had slipped out of Casey's stranglehold, and like me was trying to contain him. However Casey seemed equally as elusive as his twin brother.

I took one more look at the snarling twins, then grabbed Erin's hand and made a dash for the stairs.

After pulling her into our parents' bedroom, I pulled the door shut and locked it.

"We can't just leave them, Jase."

"We're doing more damage to them just by fighting them off."

"Still..."

"Relax, the house is locked up and secure, right? The worst they can do is trash the place."

As I said this I expected to hear the sound of things breaking outside, however I came to the sudden realization that the house had gone completely silent, save for the steady pants coming from Erin.

She put a hand to her neck, where I could see slight rope burns already showing on the pale skin there.

"They were really trying to kill me, weren't they? Do they hate me Jase? Am I too hard on them?"

"Calm down sis, they know you love them. I don't think that's them right now."

"Are they infected? Does that mean we're exposed too? Will that happen to us?"

"I dunno."

"What do I- do... what-?"

Erin, my older sister, had prior to that moment been a steady, infallible rock that we'd depended on all our lives, but in that moment she collapsed to her knees and began to weep.

Our parents were quite frequently away from home on what they firmly believed to be necessary business trips. While we understood that with the economic crisis things had become difficult to the point of desperation, it was difficult for us as children who cared a lot less about the pride that kept their parents constantly busy just to keep things intact, and more about the painful absence felt in their lives when they just wanted to have parents again.

Between me getting set to head out to college after the summer, and Erin working while taking care of everything at home, it seemed as if they had all but vanished from our lives.

That night, however, I realized for the first time in my life that Erin, like the rest of us, was just barely holding it together as best she could.

That strong person that I'd always seen was merely her being what we needed her to be.

I wrapped my hands about her as she wept, and her nails dug into my shoulder as she clutched onto me, letting out some of the sorrow that she'd swallowed over the years as she took care of us.

After a few minutes of pouring her frustration out, she composed herself and once again assumed the role of the dependable adult.

"We can't leave them out there. We need to check on them."

Despite my own reluctance to open that door, I nodded.

My trust in Erin was after all, absolute.

"What do we do?"

"We'll need to restrain them until we can figure out how to get help."

Erin scanned the room, then went to our parents' bed and retrieved a pillow. She quickly stuffed it with some clothes from their wardrobe, then motioned to me to do the same.

"What're we doing with these?"

She hit me with one of the pillows in response, and I was surprised to see that it actually packed a bit of a punch.

"We can probably knock them away with these if needed. Without hurting them. Right?"

I nodded, then steeled myself as she prepared to open the bedroom door.

She threw the door open, and I tensed as I half-expected the enraged twins to come in swinging at us.

Instead I was greeted by an empty, silent hallway.

Erin poked a head outside, then quickly stepped out and motioned for me to follow.

We crept silently down the stairs and towards the living room where our first struggle with the twins had ended not more than twenty minutes earlier.

Erin began to panic again after a quick scan of the rooms downstairs came up empty.

She paced as she ran her hands through her long, silky, black hair.

"Oh god, where are they?"

Tears began to well up in her eyes once again, then suddenly I realized that the television was still on.

Though the volume was muted, the same local news station was on and the words running across the bottom of the screen caught my attention.

"Cause of the outbreak now confirmed to be a pollen-like spore. Though invisible to the naked eye, as long as victims are in contact with spores, behavioral anomalies will persist."

I continued to study the writing on the screen, when suddenly my sister let out a panicked scream.

Glancing up, I immediately saw the reason for her sudden reaction.

In the doorway between the living room and the dining room stood Colin, wearing a hockey ski mask with the complete get up of a goalie's protective padding, and holding in his little hands the mini chainsaw that our father used to trim stray branches from the oaks and other trees around our house.

I took once glance at the makeshift weapon in my hands and realized that I'd just brought a pillow to a chainsaw massacre.

I had just noticed the pair of night vision goggles strapped to his forehead, when the lights suddenly went out.

And I was just about to wonder where Casey was too.

These two and their penchant for planning.

When I joked that it'd be the death of us, I never imagined it quite like this.

My heart threatened to burst from my chest as I heard the terrifying sound of the saw's motor kick into life.

And had it not been for the quick thinking of my elder sister that might have been the way things would have ended for me.

My ever reliable elder sister, Erin, switched on the flashlight, and aimed it directly into the now night vision equipped eyes of our younger brother, temporarily blinding him.

As quick as flash she swung the pillow at the saw, then swung repeatedly, knocking Colin off of his feet, and sending the whirring saw flying across the room.

She tossed me her flashlight as she continued her onslaught on Colin, and I quickly retrieved the saw and switched it off.

I tried to refocus the light on my sister to help with her struggle, and almost jumped out of my skin when a similarly attired Casey appeared, holding a hockey stick in his hands, which he was preparing to strike at the back of Erin's skull.

Boy we really need to re-evaluate these two's hobbies, I thought.

Without thinking, I grabbed a nearby vase from the living room coffee table and hurled it as hard as I could at Casey's face.

Though the mask protected him from direct harm, the force of the impact knocked him off his feet, and kicking at Colin, I grabbed my sister by the hand and took off running once more heading this time, however, to the basement.

As I half-pulled my sister down the steps to the basement, the flashlight, which I had been trying to hold onto along with Colin's power saw, slipped from my hand and clattered down the stairs, casting light haphazardly through the narrow hall.

I quickly yanked the door open, then swung it shut, momentarily engulfing us once more in complete darkness. Without wasting any time, I quickly flipped the latches to lock ourselves safely inside.

I paused for a moment, panting as I struggled to catch my breath, then started searching for the pull switch for the battery powered emergency light that my dad had installed down here in case of a blackout.

After fumbling about in the dark for a few moments, I turned the light on and headed for the breakers which I assumed Casey had switched off in their plan to eliminate us. It was only after I had restored power, then switched from the emergency light to the regular basement lights, that I sat down on the basement workbench to gather myself properly.

It was only then that I realized that Erin was still clutching onto me for dear life.

As things settled down a bit, she let go of my arm and wrapped her arms around my neck, her chest still heaving as she panted from the overexertion of the past few minutes.

It was quiet again outside, and this time I knew for certain that the twin's had re-entered their planning phase.

At least we were now in the basement; the apparent source of their arsenal.

That and I still had in my hands the power saw which would have been the worst weapon to leave them with.

My sister still hung around my neck, panting into my shoulder.

"What do we do now, Erin?"

She didn't answer.

I began to contemplate whether or not we should go back out there for the twins.

To our advantage, now that we were in the basement we could arm ourselves better than last time, and we also had the lights on again.

I was still lost in these thoughts when my sister looked up into my face, and I noticed a strange look in her eyes.

"Erin..?"

I whispered her name uncertainly as she continued to pant lightly, staring at me with that strange look that I could not quite place.

Her hand moved towards my own, to the hand which still held the power saw.

Almost by reflex, I withdrew from her.

I began to feel really scared, in a way that I had not even felt when the lights went out and Colin had started the mechanical machine.

"Relax," she whispered, as she took the saw from my hand.

I tensed briefly, then breathed a sigh of relief as she placed it on the floor next to the workbench.

"Jeez sis, I thought for a second that you were- wha?"

My sentence was cut short as Erin pushed me onto my back, holding down my hands above my head, while climbing on top of me.

"Erin... a-are you alright?" I asked, the uncertainty clear in my wavering voice.

She responded by placing a finger against my lips in a silencing gesture, then ran the finger slowly down my chin and along my chest. She grabbed at the soft, cotton materiel at my chest, then lowered her head to my neck, where to my utter shock, she placed a long, deep kiss.

A faint sound, almost like a kitten purring contentedly, emanated from her lips as she lifted her head from my neck to stare deeply into my eyes, her lone wandering finger returning to circle the warm, damp spot where her lips had been pressed.

As she leaned in to press another sensual kiss lower on my neck, my body responded almost by reflex, thrusting to meet her in anticipation. She purred softly once more, grinding her hips on me in response, then running her tongue along the length from my chest up my neck to my chin.

"Erin!"

My face flushed as I tried to get ahold of the situation.

I struggled against her hold on my arms, and she pouted in response, making a sound like a puppy being kicked.

I froze. When Erin did that it was usually enough for me to lay down my life.

But as I looked deeply into her eyes, I saw something that was not entirely her.

It was that same, subtle, semi-vacant look I'd seen in Casey's eyes when I first saw him wrapping that rope around her neck. It was the kind of thing that you would not notice unless you'd watched that person all your life, and knew what every subtle flicker in their gaze meant.

Erin took my pause as consent to continue, and began moving in towards my face when I broke free of her hold and pushed her off of me.

"Erin, this isn't you! Snap out of it."

"What do you mean? Of course it's me. Doesn't my baby brother know his own sister?"

She got off the ground and had begun walking with a deliberate, seductive gait, towards me.

I backed away from her until I found myself against one of the basement pillars, then she put a hand on my chest and pressed herself against me once more.

"Mmm, since when did my baby brother get such a nice, firm chest?"

"Erin stop!"

I turned our bodies away from the wall and began to back away again, but she continued to give chase, undeterred by my resistance.

There was no doubt, my sister was infected by whatever it was they were talking about on TV, but unlike Casey and Colin, she wasn't trying to kill me.

Wait, what was it again? A spore?

As I tried to escape my sister's advances I struggled to remember what I'd seen flashing across the screen before Colin had shown up in a full Halloween murder suit.

Cause of the outbreak now confirmed to be a pollen-like spore.

"Stop running, silly! I'm not gonna hurt you. Unless of course, you ask me to!"

Though invisible to the naked eye, as long as victims are in contact with spores, behavioral anomalies will persist.

I backed up into a shelf, and tumbled over a stack of boxes when suddenly I remembered:

While the spores cannot stick to human skin or hair, they can easily latch onto any fibers; clothes, mats, rugs, any kind of fabric can act as a vehicle for the spores. Exposed persons will soon recover when contact with the spores have been broken.

"Our clothes!" I suddenly exclaimed as I sat up on the floor, "We have to get out of these clothes!"

"Now you've got the idea," Erin winked, as she crawled over to me on her hands and knees.

She climbed onto me once again then lifted her hands over her head.

"Could you help me with that, Jason?" she asked, suggestively.

I gulped nervously.

I'd never thought about my sister in a sexual way before.

Erin was the closest person in the world to me; we could stay up and chat all night, we played together, laughed together, cried together. We shared everything with each other.

Despite that, I'd never seen my sister act like this, and I had to admit that the charismatic charm she had suddenly turned on was more than just a little captivating.

I exhaled deeply as I lifted the cotton t-shirt over her head.

As I leaned in to get the t-shirt all the way over her raised hands, the milky sweet scent of my sister's body wash wafted up towards me. The pores along my neck fluttered pleasurably as I inhaled her scent deeply, and she pulled my head in towards her the soft supple flesh of her breast.

Keep it together, I thought, as I reached behind her back for the clasps of her bra. As the clasp came undone, the white cotton bra gave way to reveal the two fleshy mounds that it held.

It wasn't the first time I'd seen my sister's breasts, but the present situation made me much more aware of just how beautiful my sister was.

I knew she was beautiful, I always did.

But right now she was more than that.

She was a sexy, flawless, perfect goddess, and it was an immense struggle to resist the urge to suckle at the two soft round globes that stood, ever so invitingly, upon her delicate chest.