The Pandemic Sequence (Book 1): The Tilian Virus

• Title Page
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Chapter Twenty-One
  
• Chapter Twenty-Two
  

A PERMUTED PRESS book

Published at Smashwords

ISBN (trade paperback): 978-1-61868-090-7

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-091-4

The Tilian Virus
copyright © 2013

by Tom Calen

All Rights Reserved.

Cover art by Roy Migabon.

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

The achingly soulful voice of Jeff Buckley roused him from sleep. Eyes barely open, the faint light of the dawn illuminated the small room enough for him locate the half-empty pack of Marlboro Lights on the nightstand. A grunt and the flick of a lighter later, Mike Allard sat up in bed. The snooze button was not an option this morning as he had scheduled a parent conference at seven. With one hand towards the ashtray and the other petting his equally tired gray terrier, the second-year teacher listened as “I Want Someone Badly,” drew to a close.

After the final note, Mike stubbed out the cigarette and tossed the covers aside to shuffle towards the bathroom for the morning ritual of a hot shower and shave. As the water quickly turned cold, he shut it off and toweled dry. Frequent trips to the gym had kept the twenty-three year old in better shape than most of the guys with whom he had graduated college. Leaning closer to the fogged mirror, Mike checked the barely-there brown stubble and opted to leave the scruff for the day. The high school had a “casual” policy allowing the staff to wear jeans, so in a way, he felt the scruff went not only with his attire but also his mood.

Gazelle, now fully awake, stood at the back door waiting for her morning walk. He could not help but laugh when the dog danced in a chaotic circle once he attached her collar. The morning was crisp as the two stepped out into the backyard, the leash extending to its full sixteen feet. Gazelle dashed to her area and did her business and within minutes, Mike had given the dog a treat, locked up the house, and revved the engine in his truck.

Tennessee spring was beginning and the temperature was forgiving if one did not have time to warm up his vehicle. The drive to work was a short one through a few back country roads. He parked, taking one last drag on another cigarette, popped two pieces of gum into his mouth and headed into the building.

The rural high school looked rather uninviting to most outsiders. With its gray pod structures, the facility bore more of a resemblance to a nuclear fallout shelter than an institution of education. And a rather rundown shelter, at that. The roofs had several areas of rust, which provided the only splash of color. The growth of any flowers and grass still lagged behind the calendar. Mike hustled past the gray columns with their chipping paint and entered the main office.

“Morning, Mike, you’re here early,” greeted the school’s aging receptionist. Much like the school, Mrs. Holigan had seen better days. But, also like the high school, she was an institution not only in the building, but in the small farming community as well.

“Yeah, parent conference this morning.”

“The conference room should be unlocked. Are y’all going to want some bottles of water?”

Mrs. Holigan, whose children and grandchildren had long since graduated from John Moore High School, had essentially adopted not only the students, but also the staff as her own. As Mike was about to reply that he would grab them, Mrs. Holigan answered the ringing phone.

“Good morning, John Moore High School. How can I help you?”

Mike went to the rear of the office to check his mailbox and pour himself a cup of the receptionist’s famous coffee. Most faculty members went through several cups of it by the time the dismissal bell sounded at 3:00 PM. Not wanting to take away from the flavor, Mike skipped the milk and sugar and returned to the front desk where Mrs. Holigan was wrapping up the call.

“Okay, darling, you tell him to feel better and don’t worry about a thing. You just take care of that boy. Something sure is going around. I had to use up my entire substitute list to cover teachers today. If you need us to send work home, let us know. Okay. Take care now. God bless.”

Mike smiled behind his coffee mug. In an overly politically correct field like education, a school official ending a call with a blessing would have been frowned upon. But with Mrs. Holigan it came out as natural as one says “hello” and “goodbye” and everyone ignored her little rule breaking.

As she hung up the phone, she turned to him saying, “Well, darling, looks like you got in early for nothing. That was Maybelline Turner, Stacy’s momma, and she says that Stacy came down with an awful high fever last night and they won’t be able to make it in for your meeting.”

Actually, it was not
his
meeting at all. Stacy’s mother had asked for the meeting to discuss one of her daughter’s test grades. Normally, Mike would have been able to take care of that over the phone, but Maybelline Turner was one of those “helicopter” parents – a bit too involved in her child’s education. A week did not go by that there was not an email or voicemail from her. Still, in an age of declining parental involvement, Mike Allard indulged her.

With an unspoken expletive for the unnecessary early arrival, he thanked Mrs. Holigan for the message and headed to his classroom in the history pod.

The interior of the school was only a slight improvement from its exterior. Most of the lockers bore the dents and scratches that came from decades of overuse. The ceiling tiles were stained with water from the leaking roofs. At the beginning of each school year, many teachers pooled money together to buy paint for the walls of their respective pods. It was perhaps the only improvement the school had seen in over thirty years. Many petitioned the school board to improve or even repair the school. Yet, whenever the time came to pass a tax increase to cover the costs, the initiative always received a resounding defeat.

Mike’s room, Room 15A (though there was no 15B) was one of five classrooms in the pod. He flipped on the lights, walked over to his desk and sat down. The room was not large, but likewise did not feel cramped. With the pod structure, classrooms were shaped like a Trivial Pursuit wedge, with one end significantly wider than its opposite side. Thanks to the night custodians, the thirty-five desks were arranged in seven neat rows. Mike kept his desk off to one side, as he preferred to lecture from a podium and stool.

With an hour to kill before first period European History, Mike decided to get ahead on lesson plans and catch up on grading. He enjoyed teaching. He enjoyed working with students and sharing his expertise in history. However, he hated grading papers, exams, and quizzes, etc. To that end, he planned as few of them each semester as his principal would allow. The old guard of teachers frowned upon his grading methods. But he was fresh out of college and only in his second year of teaching. He preferred to employ new tactics, which to him seemed to capture the interests of his students more than the dusty methods of previous years.

The hour slipped by quickly and he could hear the steady increase of teen voices roaming the halls, lockers opening and closing, cell phones ringing, and the other usual sounds of the school coming to life.