A few months ago, the civil township of Wainley, North Carolina was officially
revoked. The areas had a dwindling population for decades, and with less than
a dozen people living there as of writing this, the town has been absorbed
into the neighboring area. For most people, this is a footnote. No
one really knew about Wainley. Hell, even the post office got confused at
times. But that town used to be something, and the people who came
from there are as real as it gets. I was one of those people,
and I want to tell the story of what happened. In the nineties,
Wainley was home to approximately three thousand, eight hundred people. The main
export was corrugated steel roofing sheds produced by the Wainley Metalwork, Roofing and Tiles.
There were two dairy farms, the Ansons and the Boughs. We also
had a small barley and wheat refinery, a high school, two large off
site admin offices, and one of those small scale business incubators. Apart from
that, there wasn't much to see in Wainley, just this flat chunk of
land amid a big pile of nothing. In those days, people were already
leaving town. Businesses were split between Rayetteville and Roseboro. A lot of people
figured that there was no point making big investment plans for a town that was
bleeding out hell. Even Wainley Metal Working considered relocating south to Wilmington, abandoning
their namesake. But despite all that sour gloom, there was an industry decisions
that caused the downfall of Wainley. I was thirteen years old in nineteen ninety
three. I grew up with my mom Rennielle Rennie for short, and my
dad Morgan. My little brother Amos had the room right across the hall.
He was just ten years old at the time. It was the last month
of middle school. The following autumn, I was supposed to study at Wainley
High but for all of primary school you had to take the bus out of
town. Took us about twenty five minutes one way, not too bad,
but it singled us out us Wainley kids reunit at that point, arriving and
leaving in Unison. It was a Friday afternoon in late May. I was
on the school bus on my way back home. There were these two kids
in front of me who couldn't stop talking about their latest Super Nintendo game staff
Fox. I think I zoned out their entire conversation, instead opting to stare
out the window. When we got to the Wainley Town sign, I noticed
something strange. There was a man from the Sheriff's office using a roller to
add something to the sign. All I saw was the word no. There
were several police cars blocking the road into town. I recognized the faces of
the officers, but I hadn't talked to them before. There weren't a lot
of criminals in Wainley, and my family were all in the straight and narrow.
Even my dad, who joked about being a bank robber, he wasn't.
He was a corporate lawyer. The bus stopped, and so did the
conversation. No more star fucks. The double doors at the front of the
bus whooshed open, and an older policeman stepped on board with his hands on
his walkie talkie. He looked at the driver and nodded, then turned to
us. They they're kids, he said, I'm Officer Gallan. We're not
going to keep you here too long. We just need to have a little
talk. If that's okay. Is that okay? Kids? There was a
muttering yes, coming from the Wainley Middle School children myself included. Officer Gallan
nodded, hiding a white smile under a wild mustache. All right, I'll
be back, sir. Would you accompany me out for a sec? The
driver stepped outside with Officer Gallon. Meanwhile, the rest of us kept looking
around trying to see what was wrong. Maybe there's an accident, said one
of the younger kids. Maybe someone got hurt. I think there's a fire,
said another. Mom says you can't barbecue because a fire hazard. Maybe
there's a murderer, said the star Fox kid, and they found like heads
and stuff. Gross, I added, you're gross. I looked back outside
as the other kids started to squabble. It went from fire to accident,
to murderers to space aliens, then right back to talking star Fox. Meanwhile,
I stared off in the distance, and that in turn gave me an
idea. I could see the back of the town sign from the rear view
window. I leaned back and looked out. The sign read You're now leaving
Wainley, but there was a large white text box added to it no milk.
Before I got the chance to tell the other kids, Officer Gellan came
back on board the driver got back in his seat. I had a very
productive talk with mister Harley here, and he tells me that I've stumbled upon
a particularly crafty and well behaved group of students. Is he right about that?
Is that what you are? Of course we were in unison. We
agreed with Officer Gellen, well, in that case, you might be able
to help me out. See, we're looking for a special something that we
can't bring into town or people might get sick. And we wouldn't want anyone
to get sick, now, would we? Of course not? Then I
hope you won't mind some of my officers checking your backpacks to make sure nothing
bad snuck along, would you. Two officers stepped on board as Gellen hurried
outside to hold an approaching sedan. Someone was trying to get out of town
but was turned away one by one. The officer had a short talk with
us and went through our backpacks our lunch is. Specifically, when they got
to the star Fox Kid just ahead of me, I heard them asking him
a series of questions what he'd been eating, how long ago, if it
had gone to the bathroom since strange questions. Turns out he had chocolate milk
as part of his lunch. The officer who asked clicked his walkie talkie twice,
some sort of discreet signal. When they got to me, I handed
them my backpack. Have you had anything to drink today? He asked?
My mom made lemonade. I said that sounds great, which my mom made
me some, he smiled. Anything to eat, any cheese, any milk,
just fish sticks and rice? I said, and catch up doesn't sound
too bad. He rummaged through the backpack and seemed relieved not to find what
he was looking for. A right, looks like we're done. You have
a good weekend, now you too. Once they'd gone through every backpack,
they circled back to the star Fox kid. They asked him to come along
and said they had to ask a couple more questions. It was scary.
He started crying, and they tried to encourage him every step of the way.
They said they were going to call his parents and everything was going to
be fine. I wasn't so sure. Once the boss started rolling, I
looked back to see offers a gallon in the rear window and smiling anymore.
He had this grim look on his face, staring straight into the asphalt,
motionless. There was a long line of cars being turned away, some cars
I recognized friend and neighbors looking to make a quick exit. The boss had
to pull to the side at one point to let a fire truck pass.
I got the impression that something big had happened, but no one was telling
me what it was. The conversation had died down, and I had to
fill the silence with my worries. There was no chatter to distract me.
By the time we got to the bus stop, I saw all our parents
lined up, my mom and dad included. Amos was also there. He'd
taken an earlier boss and had been home since lunch. As I stepped off,
my dad swept me up in his ms. Mom was crying, What
did they do? Dad asked, did they take anything? What did they
ask you? Mom took me from him. Give it a rest, Morgan,
She spat, let's go home. Amos seemed disinterested, instead clutching a
teenage music Ninja Turtles comic that they bribed him with. There was a man
in camouflage within a sort rifle walking up and down the street, asking people
to disperse and return to their homes. Mom and Dad hurried back to the
car, sticking me and Amos in the back. He went straight to reading
his comic, but I kept looking out the window. As we got back
on the road heading home, I noticed several strange signs. The most prominent
one was on the window of a corner shop, no milk by order of
the National Guard. When we took the road by the Bow's dairy farm,
I heard popping noises. Before I got the chance to ask, my dad
intervened. They're celebrating. He said, it's just fireworks. We lived at
the end of a street next to a roundabout. We had three neighboring houses.
Two of them were elderly couples who rarely left their homes, and the
last was another family with a teenage boy. We'd hung out a bit before
he started high school, but we'd fallen out of touch in the last year
or so. Still, I had fun memories of watching movies on their big
screen TV and playing video games. I bet they had the new Star Fucks
game. As we turned the corner, the street was in chaos. The
Masons were out on the lawn arguing with two fire marshals. The other elderly
couple, the Stevenson's, were dragging bags to their car. The other family
were nowhere to be seen, and the suv wasn't in the driveway. The
front door was half open and the lock broken. There was a piece of
white paper with red techs nailed to the side of the door. Just go
to your rooms. Dad said, we'll talk over dinner. But what's going
on? I asked, We'll talk about it later, he insisted, For
now, I need you to stay in your rooms. Amos looked up from
his comic book. Can I play Nintendo as long as you want? Honey?
Mom smiled, and tonight there's no bedtime. Amos looked up at me
like we were going to Disneyland. It took him a moment to realize that
he was the only one smiling, and he didn't understand why. To be
fair, neither did I. We hurried inside. Amos and I ran upstairs
and got to our rooms. Amos had been allowed to keep the Super Nintendo
in his room while I had a VCR. It was fair enough. He
could play games and I could watch movies. But I wasn't in a mood
to watch anything. I had this sinking feeling that something was terribly wrong,
and I kept looking out of the window, hoping to see something. The
Stevensons were arguing next to their car, and the Masons were being ushered back
into their house. I could see smokestacks rising from the dairy farms, and
flashing lights from fire trucks going back and forth down every now and then.
If I listened closely, I could hear popping noises. It didn't sound like
fireworks, it sounded like gunshots. I'd only been in my room for a
couple of minutes before I heard a careful tapping at the door. Amos stepped
in with this haunted look on his face, his eyes wide and unblinking.
Can you help me with my science project? He asked. It's acting funny.
Amos had been working on a science project for school. It wasn't a
big deal. He'd taken different kinds of milk and placed them in cups to
see which ones went bad first. He usually checked it before he went to
bed, making notes about changes over time. Can you please look, he
asked. It's really weird, all right. For something to make Amos say
please, it had to be something out of the ordinary. I walked across
the hall to his room, catching a whiff of an argument downstairs. Mom
had raised a voice. There was a certain pitch to it when she was
worried about something, and she wasn't holding back this time made me feel sorry
for Dad half the time. It wasn't even him she was angry at.
I followed Amos, passed the poor screen for Contra three and up to the
window. Yeah, the cups resting on a small metal tray with plastic wrapping.
He stopped just ahead of it. I heard this noise, and he
pointed at the cups, clutching his notebook. I haven't opened it, Mom
says it smells too much. As I approached, I saw the cups rattle,
not much, but enough to make a noise. I could see the
plastic wrap shaking. Looking into the cups, it took me a while to
understand what I was looking at. At first I thought it was maggot,
but it wasn't. It looked like something had coalesced at the bottom of each
cup, and there were these tiny white strands shooting out of it, prodding
the plastic for weaknesses. It sort of looked like an egg in a way,
with these inches long, strands that moved independently of one another, all
of it in milky white. It keeps moving, he said. Look.
He stepped up to it and put his finger on top of the plastic.
The strands in the cup immediately reacted, shooting straight up. It looked almost
electric in a way. Why does it do that? He asked, don't
touch it? I said, we gotta put it away. Should we tell
Mom? I could hear them arguing downstairs and shook my head. We should
throw it away, I said, let's flush it. Amos protested all the
way to the bathroom, but didn't want to make a fuss. I told
him I'd take the blame and he could go back to playing contra. That
seemed to do the trick. I placed the tray on the floor next of
the toilet. I put on Mom's plastic cleaning clothes just in case. As
I took off the plastic wrap, those little white strands shot out of the
cup, aiming straight at my face. They were a lot longer than I'd
suspected, just inches away from my face. I panicked and dropped the entire
cups down the toilet with a squeal. Looking down, they squirmed and twisted
back and forth, these white strands whipping around like worms in agony. It
was so much longer than I'd anticipated, and I could feel them prodding against
the plastic gloves. They were looking for the warmth of my skin. The
tips were much sharper than anticipated, and almost poked a hole in my gloves.
I flushed. After waiting a few seconds, I could see some strands
moving at the bottom of the bowl. I flushed again, and again and
again. Finally there was nothing left. I dumped half a bottle of toilet
cleaner in, flushed again, and waited. And as they sat there for
ten minutes, just watching the water, there was this tingle in my spine,
like I'd escaped some great danger, the same kind of rush you'd get
if you'd nearly stepped on a snake or seen a bear. I went back
to my room and brought out a notebook. No Milk, I wrote at
the top. I tried to name all the places in town where there might
be a lot of milk or milk based products. The dairy farms were obvious,
but there were also the high school cafeteria, the corner shop with a
soft serve ice cream, and the convenience store. Since this was a town
with several dairy farms, milk and cheese were sort of everywhere. I listed
at least two dozen locations where there might be a lot of dairy products.
There was a loud banging on the front door downstairs. Amos and I rushed
out out of our rooms to see what was going on. From upstairs,
I saw Dad open the door to a man in military uniform. Mom looked
up the stairs. Get back in your rooms, she said, we'll tell
you when you can come out, right, Mom, what's going on?
Just play your games? She said, wait there, but Mom, I
rooms, she yelled. Now she wasn't messing around. Amos and I looked
at one another and silently decided to stick together on this one. There was
a discussion between my parents and the man at the door. Amos and I
retreated back to my room. He kept reading, but he kept getting distracted.
You think it's bad, he asked, putting down his comic book.
Amos had always been a bit of a pain, lots of pranks and scares,
but this time was different. We weren't playing around. It was like
a silent agreement. Yeah, I said, I think so. Why what's
so bad? I think there's something wrong with the milk, But you've flushed
it right, Not just that milk, I said, all of it,
all milk in town. It's it's all gone bad, worse, I said,
like real bad. What happened next was quick. I heard someone coming
up the stairs, and in the next moment, my parents opened the door
to my room. They asked us to remain calm. They asked us to
be quiet. They asked us to come along, stay close, and don't
ask any questions. On our way out, I saw the man in uniform
stepping into our upstairs bathroom. Seconds later, he sprinted back out, yelling
into his walkie talkie. Mom and Dad hurried us downstairs. Three other men
rushed past us up the stairs, dragging dirt, and went through the living
room carpet on their way up, all in uniform, all armed with the
salt rifles. They left the front door open, and I could see at
least six more people waiting outside. We got in our car, taking nothing
with us except Amos's comic book. A man tapped the driver's seat window with
his rifle, and my dad took off down the road. We can't get
out of town, mom said, keeping a voice low more and they're testing
women at the checkpoints. Maybe it's for the better, Dad said, Who
knows how this can affect you. You might need a vaccine. You've seen
what they did with the dairy cows. They take them out back and then
we're not cattle ranny l They're not putting people down, they're not putting people
rannie out to pasture. Then where the hell are the god damn? Abanathi's
mom rode back. Then being dragged off was just for fun, for show.
We're not having this discussion, Dad said, not in front of the
kids. I'm almost in the second trimester, she whispered. And God knows
what they'll do if Mark quieted down, holding her hand to her mouth,
Dad looked at her with a mix of pity and frustration. I feel strange,
Morgan, she continued. And it's not like last time. There's this
big four way in dissection in the middle of the downtown area. When we
got to that point, the lights had turned red. There were these military
trucks going by, one by one, at least a dozen covered in blue
plastic tarps. Long after the lights turned green, the trucks were still going
by. As the second to last truck was going by, there was this
loud metal bang, and the entire trucks started leaning. For a moment,
we all thought it was going to tip over. Two of the wheels were
off the ground. It tipped back down and the driver leaned on the horn.
From seemingly every corner of the street, armed men started shouting at us
to move. I could see something moving under the top, something sharp,
poking and prodding against the plastic. I'd seen it before. Dad stepped on
the gas. Going the other way, I saw the high school gymnasium in
the distance, lined with vehicles all along the street. They told us to
stay here. Dad said, let's just hunger down and wait. We'll be
trapped. We can leave at any time. We can't go by foot.
I don't like the look of those rifles, you know they wouldn't. They
exchanged the glance and the conversation stopped. Amos and I just kept our heads
down. There were still popping sounds outside. They were closer now. Dad
found a spot further down the street and we made our way to the gymnasium.
There were at least one hundred people gathered outside. I picked up a
few things from various discussions going around. For example, the armed men were
from the National Guard. Most of them had showed up early that morning,
probably minutes after I had left for school. There was a lot of talk
from a lot of people. A soldier explaining something about lactic acid bacteria to
one of us science teachers. An old man complaining about how they took his
freezer, a kid being scolded for not telling his mom he had a milkshake
with his lunch. A farm hand looking distraught, saying something about the new
cowfeed used by ants and farm and how it was unfair for the bowers to
get shut down. Bits and pieces of a hundred different stories. But what
struck me the most was a group of young women looking distraught. One of
them kept repeating the same thing over and over to a soldier. I'll get
rid of it, she said, It's just it's in there for good.
We had to sign our names on the way in. Dad signed for the
four of us. I barely recognized anyone. They'd set up green military cuts
two by two with a basic foot locker for valuables and personal belongings. Dad
weaved between aisles of cuts, keeping me and Amos close. Mom was looking
for the restroom. When can we go back to the house, Amos asked,
they're checking the pipes. Dad said that can take a while, checking
the pipes for what. I don't know, but whatever it is, they're
making sure we're okay. A stone sunk into my stomach. Maybe what I'd
flushed down the toilet had gotten stuck in the pipes somehow. Maybe that's what
they saw. For the next few hours, we stayed put. They handed
out a couple of basic dairy free meals once every two hours. There were
a couple of soldiers walking down the aisles, making sure everyone looked okay.
But people were far from okay. I saw this one athletic guy shaking like
a leaf, coughing into his hand over and over. It sounded awful,
like his body was trying to push something out. When the patrol made their
rounds, they took him outside. I didn't see him again. Mom was
in the bathroom for a long time, at least an hour. When she
got back, she had this slightly ash and complexion, like she hadn't slept
for days. Dad was worried, but she kept telling him she was okay.
Once it started to get dark. The patrol said they were closing down
for the night. A curfew was in effect. Dad had all kinds of
questions, but didn't want to start arguing with armed soldiers. I could tell
he was holding back corporate lawyer or no personal freedoms, or a big sticking
point to him. I remember this big clock over the scoreboard. If you
managed to filter out the cries and the occasional scream, that clock was the
only thing you could hear, and I could swear that the seconds were getting
longer the more you listen to it. Mom and Dad shared a cut,
well, Amos and I got one each. Amos went out like a light,
but I stayed up long after midnight. I couldn't help it. That
damned clock kept me up. With the lights off. All I saw was
the sharp shadows cast by the crescent moon creeping in through the cloud cover.
As the screams and cries turned to snivels and snores, I was left awake,
staring into the ceiling. I heard someone whispering about megabacteria, something in
the methane, the lactic acid, the gas lines. Nobody knew for sure.
There was one guy who kept muttering about birds, being the source,
claiming it had rained feathers moments before things hid the fan. There was this
one drunk man by the exit who kept talking out loud to himself. They
danced like skinny little worms reaching through the stars, skinny little worms, just
like I'd seen in my brother's science project. I'd been drifting in and out
of sleep for one or two hours when I snapped to attention. I heard
someone running past me and looked up to see Mom's side of the cart empty.
Dad sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Rainie,
he whispered. He noticed me looking his way. You see, when mom
went I shook my head. He got up and took me by the hand.
Let's go look. We went down the aisles hand in hand. It
was eerie watching all these strangers sleeping around us like nothing was going on.
Even the drunk guy by the exit was out called by now. I don't
know if I was imagining things, but I had the mental image of those
skinny little worms appearing. Sometimes when I looked at the sleeping people, I
imagine little shadows scurrying to hide, something crawling out of a nose and ear
and mouth. We walked past this one man who looked sick, who had
a metal bucket next to his cart. I could hear little tapping movements from
the bottom of it, as if something was struggling to reach out. She
might be in the bathroom. Dad said, let's go. Look. There
were two patrol men by the bleachers, smoking and telling stories. They kept
passing a bottle back and forth. Dad kept his head down, making sure
not to look them in the eye. We went through her short hallway and
made it to the bathrooms. The power was still on, but all the
lights are off, making the emergency exit sign the only thing to guide us.
Dad was about to step inside the bathroom when I took on his sleeve.
That's for the ladies, Dad, I said, I'm sure they won't
mind. We stepped through the door. Moonlight was coming in from a frosted
glass window, casting an eerie shadow across the floor. We split up and
started knocking on the stalls. It was quiet. Dad had this worried look
on his face. Maybe you should step outside this, he said, just
for a while, let's check. I said, it'll be quick. Wait,
let's I opened one of the stalls. I barely saw anything in the
moonlight. I couldn't see much more than outlines. I saw a pair of
still hands holding up a bloated belly, with these little dancing worms pushing their
way out of the skin like a goddamn human garlic press. The tapping sound
of a hundred thin parasites looking for a new host. Some were just an
inch long, others were as tall as an arm. One of them poked
the nail on my thumb, but it couldn't latch on. I saw chunks
of hair strewn across the floor, a side effect of late stage infection.
A hand fell over my eyes and I was dragged outside. When I lugged
up, I saw Dad. His entire body language had changed, like he
was in pain. For a few seconds, all he did was stare at
me. Then there was a bang on the door, coming from the inside.
I need to get your brother, he said. I need to get
to your brother, and I need you to get to the car. But
Dad, what here? He handed me the car keys. I'm trusting you
and I need you to hurry. But what about another bang on the door.
Dad straightened his back and pushed it shut. I stepped back, feeling
my pulse rise through my chest. Go he yelled, I'll meet you outside.
Running back out, some of the cloud cover had cleared. Outside.
I started running down the aisles, trying to find my way back to Amos.
It was difficult. Everything looked different in the dark. There was this
woman who got out of a cut just a few feet ahead of me.
She carved and this avalanche of worms trickled out of her mouth. They spilled
onto a chest and scattered across the floor. She turned to me, chunks
of hair coming off her scalp. She wheezed at me, her brown eyes
tired from crying. She tried to say something, to call for help,
but all I heard was that inhuman wheezing as little white worms made their way
across a chest. I don't know if I was the one who started it,
but someone did that first scream, that choirer screams as lives came crashing
down. There were so many parasites, so many victims. Some who just
felt funny and tried to sleep it off, waking to a nightmare. Others
had tried keeping their sickness a secret. There were no patterns, no limits.
Everyone was susceptible, young, old, strong, frail. There were
some with parasites coming out of their stomachs, others through the ears, mouth,
and nose. There was this one man who had them in his left
eye. As they reached out to others for help, the parasites spilled from
one person to the next, boring into their skin. I didn't find Amos.
He found me. He kept telling me that a bad man had taken
his comic book and that he ran away looking for dad and help. He
asked a hundred questions at once, but I just grabbed him and ran,
clutching the car keys so hard that my hand cramped. We made our way
to the exit, but there was a rush of people going in and out
like a waterfall. Someone yelled telling people to drop to the floor. Ten
others screamed back, begging for help. Others just screeched like wounded animals,
trying to alert the flock of incoming danger. Amos stuck to the floor and
I followed him. Then the gunshots started. We got out by crawling on
all fours. One of the soldiers tripped over me, accidentally taking me across
the ribs. When we got outside, we stuck to the wall and kept
a low profile. Amos couldn't stop crying, but I just pulled him along.
I could barely hear anything over my ringing ears and pounding pulse as gunshot
after gunshot rang out behind us. We crawled our way through the flower beds,
using the high school was blue sunflowers as cover. Most people were stuck
inside. Some made their way out, filtering back into the military tents outside.
Amos and I made our way back to the car. My fingers barely
worked as I fumbled to open the door. When I finally did, I
could see more people heading our way from down the road. I got out
the car and pushed Amos into the back seat. I followed him, locking
the doors from the inside. We curled into the leg space between the back
seat and front, hugging each other tight as I hushed him. He couldn't
stop crying. He had so many questions piling up that they were overflowing into
a jumbled mess. Questions about Mom, about Dad, about the people outside,
about the bad man who took his comic book. As the gunfire died
down, people started pouring out, but they weren't just people anymore. One
of them noticed our car. One of them spotted us inside, and after
that first one came another and then another in less than half an hour.
There were so many of them they were blocking all the windows. All they
saw was silhouettes, and all I heard were wheezing noises, bodies calling for
help, begging, pressing themselves against the windows to get at us, rattling
coughs over and as something inhuman settled in their throats. I could only see
parts of them as they banged on our windows. There was this one man,
smiling at me, with little worms dancing between the gaps and his yellow
teeth. He pressed himself against the passenger window, meeting my gaze. Bad
man, he groaned, bad man. Help. An eternity passed in the
back of that car, and sometime during that eternity, the noises stopped.
Maybe they moved on, maybe they got shot. I don't know, But
at some point the sun broke through and we were both okay, panicked,
but okay. There were soldiers outside, rounding up people from the gymnasium and
people from the tents. Some were sent back home after sign some documents.
Others were asked to stay near their vehicles until further notice. And me,
well, I refused to open the door for anyone. Amos and I stayed
in there for hours until we could feel the heat baking us. Then the
door opened. My dad had a spare set of keys. Seeing his familiar
face outside the passenger side window was everything I needed to know that in some
way we'd be okay. He'd locked himself in one of the stalls and kept
quiet all night. Looking back at it, he and everyone else were forced
to sign some kind of agreement. We were given a hefty compensation, and
all we could say was that it was killer bacteria coming from one of the
dairy farms, which in a sense was true, but it didn't tell the
whole truth. It took Dad years to build up the courage to tell me
what really happened to Mom. Six years. I think apparently she was pregnant,
but the whole thing had been a bit touch and go. They didn't
want to tell us until they were sure she was just at the point where
her body had started lactating and milk protein just I don't know. I can't
shake the feeling that maybe it was her that I saw in that stall.
Dad took the money and left town. He and so many others, some
moved in, encouraged by the sudden price drop, I guess that's how the
town made it all the way to twenty twenty three. One hundred and seventy
six people died in totally or indirectly. Well. What they don't tell you
is that thousands were permanently scarred. Some of the girls who just ended puberty
had to get sterilized or they might risk another outbreak years down the line.
They did some tests on me as well, but determined I was fine.
Amost too, guys are affected differently. I still have that bacteria in me
in some capacity. While I can eat and drink dairy nowadays, there is
that part of me that just can't bring myself to try the thought of reliving
any part of that day gives me this sickening feeling in the pit of my
stomach. I feel my pulse rising just thinking about it. Seeing that white
liquid fills me with a sense that there is so much moving around in it
that I just can't see. If it hadn't been for what happened that day
in nineteen ninety three, I think Wainley would have been fine. But as
it stands, I'm glad it's finely gone.