DEAD IN BED By Bailey Simms: The Complete Second Book

PART 11, SECTION 6

Chris nodded hesitantly. "I really, really hope so," he replied. "I still haven't seen the TGVx strain completely wipe out an entire TGV colony in anyone yet. Less than one percent of the pathogen population lives in the blood stream. Some of the rest of it is concentrated in the genitals where the eggs are laid, but the vast majority—billions of parasites—inhabit the amygdalae. That part of the brain controls our basic instincts and desires, especially sexual desires. We don't really know how the parasites do this, but after infesting this part of the brain, they form a dense cluster that mimics synaptic brain connections. So when the TGVx parasites we introduced make their way through the blood stream and reach the amygdalae, they have a lot of work to do before they've attacked, killed, and replaced all of the billions of TGV parasites that live there."

My dad nodded. "But you think they'll do that eventually?"

"I don't see why they won't, given enough time. Years, maybe decades. But, so far, whenever I've tested anyone after receiving a TGVx infusion, the good parasite count has gone up a little, and the bad parasite count has gone down a little." Chris thought about this for a moment, then laughed appreciatively. "You guys have been real superstars, giving so much of your blood to the cause."

I couldn't help but think about all my recent pheromone-driven sexual escapades over the last few months. Had I given more than just my blood?

"So ... TGVx is sexually transmitted too, right?"

"Oh yeah, absolutely." Chris nodded emphatically. "In that respect it's just like your garden variety TGV. If you had unprotected sex—well, good unprotected sex," Chris laughed, "because you'd have to get your rocks off, of course—then, yeah, you'd pass on the disease that way too."

Right away I thought about Bryce and the night I'd blacked out in the motel. Bryce had told me later that we'd had "amazing" sex that night. Well, apparently it wasn't that amazing because I obviously didn't come. If I had, I would have passed on my TGVx to him, and he likely wouldn't have devolved into the stuttering sex-fiend he'd become in the last hours of his existence.

I took a quick mental inventory of everyone I'd had sexual contact with since the outbreak. First there was Bryce, now expired. Then there was Jason, who'd used a condom when he'd raped me, and who was also now expired. That left Shawn. We hadn't had sex at all in the last months of our marriage, and last night he'd used protection, which is why today Chris had given him an infusion of my blood to treat the TGV he'd already gotten from Lindsay. As for my dad, I was absolutely certain he hadn't slept with anyone but my mom. But apparently this wasn't happening very frequently, because we knew now that she'd contracted TGV from Mr. Hershel.

That meant that me and my dad really must have been the only two people in the world who had pure TGVx honey-blood running through our veins.

Chris said, "Sounds kinda weird to say this, but I wish we had more people like you infected with TGVx. The two of you can only give a limited amount of blood. If there were more of you, we could maybe treat other positives elsewhere, not just the ones holed up here in the dwellings."

I could see my dad taking all of this information in. He hadn't ever been a quick thinker, necessarily, but he was a thorough thinker when he had time to mull something over.

"So you're saying that my own—what did you call them? Amygdalae?—have been consumed by the parasites I'm carrying?"

"Yessiree," Chris answered. "And because you're carrying the TGVx strain, lucky for you, the parasites you're hosting don't bloat up and consume any of the brain matter outside the limbic system. That's why you're still talking to me and not up there in the tower with those other poor stage threes. In yours and Ashley's case, trillions of the tiny TGVx parasites have reconstituted your amygdalae. That's a lot. Any time you have a basic urge to fight, or flee, or fu— er, have sex, or eat, or whatever. That's not your own brain talking to you any more, that's your trillions of parasites telling you what to do."

"My Lord," my dad said, his eyes wide with awe. "You'd need quite a few pints of blood to reach those numbers, wouldn't you?"

"Well, yeah." Chris made a mental calculation. "You'd need, well, let's just say many, many pints of blood. Millions. Way more than both of you could ever donate in a lifetime. Your blood's mostly honey, like I said. It carries relatively few of the parasites." He tapped his temple. "The vast majority are all between your ears, where we can't reach them."

"My Lord," my dad said again. "But if you had access to all those trillions of parasites, theoretically, you could treat a hell of lot of people?"

"With that many?" Chris threw his arms up. "You could treat pretty much every last positive there is. I don't care how many there are out there in the world now."

By now the teens had left the fireside, each couple hand in hand, to fall into the shadows of their rooms.

I watched them go.

"Looks like we're going to have another one of those nights."

Chris waved his hand. "Let 'em have fun," he said. "Positives can't get pregnant anyway. And they've already got the mother of all STDs, right? So let 'em have it at."

I knew Chris was right about this. Just like the librarian had been right about all of us being lucky to be here. Joy was a scarce commodity these days. Might as well not waste it.

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