Lost Immunity by Daniel Kalla (free reads TXT) 📕

Jack shakes his head. “We did a puzzle. Water Lilies by Claude Monet. He died when he was eighty-six years old. In France.”

“That’s not what I mean, Jack. What happened with you and Francis?”

“I needed that piece,” Jack says. “It fit in my corner. Francis didn’t have any lily pads in his.”

“And so you punched him?”

“I needed that piece.”

“Then you use your words and ask him for it, Jack. Now Francis has a black eye.” And I’m not even sure the Institute will take you back. “You didn’t want to hurt Francis, did you?”

Jack looks away, neither embarrassed nor engaged. “I wanted the piece.”

“There are other ways, Jack. You just can’t hit like that. Francis won’t want to play with you anymore.”

“Ms. Appleby says tomorrow we will do a Rembrandt puzzle. He lived in Holland.” Jack scrunches up his nose. “He died at sixty-three,” he adds with obvious disgust at the odd number.

Max’s brief disappointment in his son dissipates as he’s reminded again that Jack has no insight. He might as well reprimand the clouds for causing a storm. His tone softens. “OK, buddy, just no more hitting.”

Jack nods blankly.

“Let’s go get lunch.”

Max hears the front door alarm chime and turns to see his ex-wife, Sarah, rushing in. “The Institute just called me,” she says. “What’s going on?”

“I spoke to them when I picked him up,” Max says. “I think it’s all sorted out now.”

“You think?”

“Not now, Sarah,” Max says evenly to avoid any escalation.

Their fights used to be epic. They almost all centered around how to best manage Jack’s autism. Max still doesn’t fully understand how their relationship fell apart. He used to love Sarah so much. And seven years after their divorce, he still misses her. His current girlfriend, Yolanda, is kind, devoted, and much more tolerant than Sarah ever was, but she will never capture his heart the way his ex-wife did.

Sarah hugs Jack and kisses the top of his head. He is motionless in her arms but, Max notes with a tinge of jealousy, he doesn’t recoil from her.

“Hey, buddy, go watch another episode of your show while I make you lunch, OK?” Max tells him.

Jack turns for the other room. “No crusts,” he says again as he walks out.

“What if they kick him out, Max?” Sarah asks as soon as their son is gone.

“They won’t,” Max replies, bending the truth. “I spoke to his teacher. They might need another aide for the class. That’s all.”

Her shoulders slump with obvious relief. “The Institute has been a godsend. I don’t know what we would do…”

“It’s going to be OK, Sarah.”

“God, I hope so. Jack doesn’t even need ‘OK.’ He just needs status quo for a while.”

Sarah follows Max over to the counter and watches him prepare Jack’s lunch. “Did you hear about the meningitis thing?” she asks.

Max shakes his head as he melts the butter in the frying pan.

“A bunch of kids at a local summer camp got sick from meningitis,” Sarah says. “Five of them died. It’s all over the news.”

“Seriously? How?”

“They don’t know, but they’re advising anyone with a fever and a headache to get checked out right away.”

“Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that Jack got sent home today.”

“Let’s not overreact.”

“Speaking of health threats, can you believe what’s going on with this HPV vaccine?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The government, Sarah,” he says. “I went to that public-health forum three days ago. They’re making the vaccine mandatory for all school-age kids. So frustrating. I couldn’t help but get into it with the chief public-health doctor.”

She brings her fingers to her temples and begins to massage them. “This again?”

“What do you mean this?” he snaps. “They only announced the insane measure last week.”

“Vaccines! And your quixotic quest to stop them.”

“Enough with the melodrama, OK? I’m just doing my bit. I’m not alone, either. There are lots of good people who share our view.”

“I don’t know that it’s my view. And even if you’re right about the MMR shot being the cause of Jack’s—”

“You know I am!”

“What good will it do, Max? You could ban every vaccine in the world, and it still won’t help Jack one iota.”

Max only stares at his ex-wife, suddenly remembering why he was happy the day she walked out. After all they had been through with Max, how could she be so selfish? She never did really care about helping other families avoid the kind of pain that they have to live with every day.

But I sure as hell intend to.

CHAPTER 13

It feels more like Groundhog Day than déjà vu to Lisa. Once again, she finds herself garbed from head to toe in infection-control gear while standing inside an isolation room at Harborview’s ICU and staring down at another meningitis victim, who barely clings to life with the aid of a ventilator and an arsenal of antibiotics and other ultrapotent medications—anything and everything to improve his slim chances of survival.

But there’s one key difference between Zeke Dolan and the other nineteen patients from this outbreak. And it’s the primary reason for Lisa’s visit. Unlike the other victims, Zeke has never stepped foot on the grounds of Camp Green.

As predictable as the spread beyond the members of the Bible camp was—community spread, as it’s known in epidemiological circles—the confirmation of it slammed Lisa like a gut punch. She wasn’t alone, either. The noisy Outbreak Control Team briefing for day five of the outbreak fell silent when, an hour earlier, Tyra announced the first such case. Lisa abruptly ended the meeting and headed straight for Harborview in search of answers she knows she’s unlikely to find.

Zeke is twenty-eight years old but, with his smooth face and small frame, he could pass for another teenage victim. Despite all the medical interventions, his vital signs are poor, and his skin is mottled with the pinpoint red spots and larger blood blisters that are telltale signs of the petechial purpura rash. Blood trickles from his nostrils and oozes around the