The Beginning of the End by Lorana Hoopes (readict txt) 📕

“You’re going to get in trouble.” Suddenly, she felt sure that not only would he see them, but that he would be very angry if he caught them with their masks down.

“Sniffing.” She made a show of sniffing the air and shaking her head. “Take your mask down. I don’t smell anything.”

“I’m not taking it off. Are you crazy? Mr. Dagon is right outside, and I have no desire to be hauled to the principal like Connor yesterday.”

“Are you listening to yourself?” Katie asked. “You... hate... the... mask.” She punctuated each word as if it was a sentence on its own.

“It’s really not that bad.” Lily blinked. Had she just said that? The girl who ripped the mask off as soon as she stepped out of the school? Why did it all of a sudden not seem so bad?

“Come on.” Katie put her mask back in its place, threw her backpack back over her shoulder, and grabbed Lily’s arm. A minute later, she pushed open the bathroom door and shoved Lily into the handicapped stall, locking the door behind her.

“What are you doing?” Lily asked.

“You are changing masks. I don’t know what they did to that, but something is wrong with it.” She unzipped her backpack, dug around some more, and finally held out a spare mask.

“Really, I’m fine.” Lily took a step back, colliding with the cold metal of the stall. Her hand waved off the mask Katie held out, but in her head a tiny alarm bell began to blare. She said she was fine, and she felt fine, but if she was really fine then why was an alarm going off? What was her body trying to tell her?

Like a sneaky fox, Katie snatched the mask from Lily’s face. “You are not fine. You’re acting all agreeable to this nonsense, and it’s scaring me, so you will wear this.” She held out her spare mask.

For a moment, Lily wanted to protest. She opened her mouth to demand her mask back, but before she could say a word, she’d forgotten what she wanted to say. The words that had been there only a moment before now dissipated like fog in the morning. Lily blinked and shook her head a few times before focusing on her friend. “What was that for?”

“I think there’s something on this,” Katie said, folding the mask carefully and placing it in her purse.

“Katie, I think you’ve been watching too much TV. There’s nothing on the mask.”

“I don’t believe that. Tell me, do you smell the new cleaner now?”

Lily wrinkled her nose in disgust. “We’re in the bathroom. I’m not sucking in a lungful right now.”

“Well, I can tell you that you won’t. Something on this mask was affecting you, and I’m going to find out what. We’ll take it to Raven and Gabe this afternoon. Until then, wear mine. How did you forget yours anyway? I thought you kept it in your car.”

“I did until I read that article about bacterial pneumonia. Now I wash it every day, and I left it in the dryer.”

“Then keep a spare in your car. You cannot take a mask from here again.”

“You have seriously lost it,” Lily said, but she grabbed the mask Katie offered.

“That’s fine. You can think I’m crazy until I can prove it to you, but better safe than sorry.” She zipped up her purse and checked her watch. “We better get to class, but let’s keep an eye on anybody else wearing these masks. I want to see if everyone is affected like you were.”

Suddenly Katie’s words about Connor the previous day flooded Lily’s mind. “Hey, Katie, was Connor wearing one of these masks when you thought he was acting weird yesterday?”

Her lips twisted to the side as she thought. “I don’t remember, but it’s possible. It would certainly explain his behavior.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Lily still wasn’t sure anything was wrong with the mask, but with this year, she was keeping an open mind.

Candace stared at her phone unsure exactly what to say. She looked back at Anne who still shook uncontrollably in the bed. “Are you sure you want to do this, Anne?”

“I’m sure,” Anne said as a tear escaped the corner of her eye. “You were right, and I should have listened. If I had known this could happen, it might have changed my mind. There may not be hope for me, but perhaps we can save others from the same fate.”

Candace nodded and squeezed her friend’s arm. She hated that not only was Anne in this position, but that she seemed unable to help her. She would not give up though. Not until she found a cure.

After taking a deep breath, Candace hit the record button. “My name is Dr. Candace Markham. Many of you will not know me, but I’m an ER doctor in Washington state. I have been on the front lines of NCAV, but I have remained silent, and for that I am sorry. Some of you have spoken out about this virus and you have been demonized and canceled. I said nothing, but I am speaking now. NCAV is real, but it is not as dangerous as the media has led you to believe. Most patients recover, especially if they are given Ramidil, a treatment we used in the beginning until we were told to stop. I have continued to treat my patients with it as have other doctors, but I know many of you lost your jobs when you refused to comply.

“In addition, we were told to inflate the number of deaths. Any person who expired in this hospital was tested for NCAV and if they were positive, even though it was not their cause of death, they were listed as an NCAV death. I know for a fact that our numbers are inflated in the hundreds. I can only assume if my hospital is, then others across the country are as well which means the numbers could be inflated in the thousands. I