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

the teenagers as well as some of the others did, but she could tell they were shaken up.

“In a minute,” Katie said, her eyes darting around the room. “Is Gabe here? We have something we need him to examine.”

Raven nodded and hollered for Gabe. He entered a moment later.

“Hey, Lily, Katie. What can I do for you?”

Katie dug in her bag and pulled out a surgical mask. “Can you see if there’s anything on this? Lily forgot her mask this morning and this is what they gave her, but she said it made her dizzy.”

“Dizzy, hmm?” Gabe asked as he reached for the mask. “Did you have any other issues?”

“It smelled funny,” Lily said, “and Katie said I acted weird.”

“She did,” Katie interrupted. “She said the mask wasn’t so bad, and she hates masks.”

“Okay, well let me run some tests on it. I’ll be back in a bit.” Gabe took the mask and disappeared down the hallway.

“Now, do you guys want to tell me what else happened?” Raven asked, pointing to the couch and inviting them to sit down.

Lily and Katie exchanged a glance before Lily began, “We’ve had a few new teachers join our school. They tell us they’re subs for teachers who got NVAC, but…”

“But they’re strange,” Katie said, interrupting. “This one teacher, Mr. Dagon is the worst. He keeps having us research how effective vaccines are, and today -”

“Wait,” Raven said, holding up a hand and interrupting Katie. “Did you say Dagon?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Dagon was mentioned in the Bible. He was the father of Baal.”

“Whoa, that’s creepy,” Lily said. “So, he was like an idol in the Bible.”

Raven nodded. “Sorry to interrupt you, but I think you need to be very careful around this man.”

The girls exchanged another uncomfortable glance. “Well, that brings us to today’s event. As we were leaving school, we heard what sounded like someone throwing up in the staff lounge. We weren’t sure if we should check it out, but I had a bad feeling. Before we could decide, Mr. Dagon opened the door. He seemed shocked to see us but told us it was him throwing up, except he didn’t look sick. Then I heard a voice in my head that said leave, so we got out of there.”

Raven bit the inside of her lip. She didn’t want to tell the girls to leave school - theirs was one of the few actually open - but she was concerned for their safety. “Is there any way you both can avoid him?”

“He’s our first period teacher, at least until our regular teacher returns,” Katie said with a shake of her head, “so, I don’t see how.”

“Well, then how about staying together. Can you make sure you are never alone?”

The girls looked at each other again. “Yeah,” Lily finally said, “we have several of our classes together anyway, and the ones we don’t, we have other friends in. We can make sure we go nowhere alone.”

“Good, do that. Hopefully, it will turn out to be nothing, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

“You said you got this from your school?” Gabe asked, re-entering the room.

“Yeah, why?” Lily asked.

“I found traces of Methylene Chloride on it. It was small but enough to be the cause of your dizziness and confusion. I can’t believe they would give you a mask like this.”

“The question is… did they know?” Raven asked. She looked at the girls and then at Gabe. “Either someone at the school did this on purpose or the manufacturer of the masks did.”

The insinuation of those words fell heavy on the group. What evil were they dealing with?

19

“Dr. Markham, I need to have a word with you.”

Candace looked up to see Dr. Aikens standing in the doorway of the breakroom. She knew from the stern expression on his face and the fact that he’d used her title instead of her first name that he did not have good news, but she’d been expecting his visit. She’d known when she made the video a few days ago that retribution would come for her. She just hadn’t known when.

“Yes, sir.” She was determined to stand strong. She’d done nothing wrong. The government and the media had perpetrated this awful event on the people and she’d been complicit for too long. She would not apologize for speaking up now.

She followed him to his office and waited as he shut the door and crossed to his desk.

“Sit down,” he said, pointing to the chair.

Candace sat and folded her hands in her lap.

“You have created quite the problem for us, Dr. Markham,” Dr. Aikens said, steepling his hands together underneath his jowly chin.

Candace said nothing as she waited for him to continue.

“I’m sure you understand what I am referring to,” Dr. Aikens continued. When Candace merely lifted an eyebrow, he continued, “Your video has gotten quite a few views and now people are looking into this hospital.”

“Perhaps they should be,” Candace said, “What we’ve been doing is wrong.”

Anger flashed in Dr. Aikens’s eyes. “We have done nothing illegal. We’ve simply benefitted from the government’s incentives.”

“At the expense of fear and panic of the public. People are suffering mentally from the isolation. Did you know that suicide and homicide numbers are through the roof? People are dying from things other than NVAC because they’re too scared to come in and get checked out. And don’t you care why the government offered those incentives? Don’t you wonder why they wanted the numbers to seem much higher than they are?”

“That is not our concern,” Dr. Aikens said with a shrug.

“Perhaps it should be.” Candace leaned forward and placed her hands on the edge of Dr. Aikens’s desk. “We’ve been told to inflate the numbers and we did. Now we are being told to push this vaccine and we are, but have you looked into this vaccine? Have you gone down and checked in on Anne who shakes so uncontrollably that she can barely function now after taking this vaccine? Or how