Nine sheet covered bodies lay in the street, cordoned off from the rest of the city by angry looking biohazard tape. Meerchum eyed the other medical personnel that buzzed around in their half-panicked, half-excited states with open disapproval. People were constantly either getting into or out of the W.H.O. hazmat suits and the only thing on anyone’s lips was the mutant virus.

Cromson stepped into the clear tent, one hand deep inside a box of cracker jacks.

Meerchum wrinkled her nose. Didn’t the man have any sense of decorum?

She watched as he looked around until he pinpointed her and then started moving in her direction, pausing every couple of steps to shove a handful of the sweetened popcorn into his mouth.

When he reached her, he asked, “What do you got for me?”

“We won’t know until the tests finish running. We think that initial vector-”

“You mean the kid.”

“Yeah. We think the kid contracted a mutated form of the Bubonic Plague from a box of cracker jacks.”

Cromson’s eyes bulged.

“Just kidding.”