Infectious

PART ONE 

It started that Friday morning. Rohan wasn't at the bus stop, and when the bus went past his house, there were emergency vehicles parked up outside. I was worried, he hadn't been feeling well since Roger dared him to lick those test tubes during the museum field trip. I tried telling him there was no knowing what they were used for, but he said he couldn't back down from a dare. Now he was missing school because of it.

I knew something big was up when Rohan wouldn't answer his phone. Even if he didn't respond right away, I'd at least see the blue tick next to the message to prove he'd read it. The entire school day went by and not a single read message or notification from him. I even tried face-timing him and nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. The dial tone ended early, as if he'd declined my call.

So on the way home, I decided to get off the bus early and walk over to his house. All the hubbub from the morning was gone, which was a relief. I ran up to the front door and Rohan's mom answered. Except, she seemed distracted. When I asked to see Rohan, she dismissed me, saying that he'd caught something, and she didn't want it to spread.

But I couldn't take no for an answer, he was my best friend! So I crept around the back of the house, and clamored up the big tree in the yard. This wasn't my first time sneaking in, after all. Lucky for me, he'd even kept his bedroom window open so I didn't have to do my secret knock.

I stumbled through the window in a less than polite fashion and brushed myself off. "Rohan?" I asked aloud. I heard the door to his wardrobe shut and hangers clang together. Amused, I laughed, "Why are you hiding?"

"Go away!" He seethed. He sounded weird, like he had a cold. His voice deeper than usual. "You can't be in here!"

"No way!" I replied. "I gotta know what's wrong. I saw all the vans outside your house this morning, your mom wouldn't let me in, you won't even answer my texts. You promised we'd never keep things from each other."

"I want to tell you, really. But..." He sighed. "This is bigger than you know... I can't bring you into this."

"Fine. Don't tell me. I'll just find out why my best friend is hiding like a baby some other time." I grumbled and stomped toward the window when I had an idea. I waited a few moments before slamming the window down hard. Then I ducked down and hid as best as I could behind the bed and held my breath. Poor, gullible guy. He didn't even wait a minute until he opened his closet door and slunk out with a sigh. We locked eyes almost instantly, and he knew he was busted. But I was the one who screamed out loud, because that man wasn't my friend.

This wasn't Rohan, it couldn't be him. He was double his age for Pete's sake! He had a fluffy beard, and lots of hair across his chest, and he was buff as anything! He leapt across the bed, and clasped a hand over my mouth, putting a finger to his lip, an intense look in his eye. But it was too late. He cursed under his breath as heavy footsteps rushed towards his room. He let go of me, and growled "Get under the bed, now!"

He didn't have to tell me twice! I squeezed between a pile of LEGO boxes and a crate of old clothes just as the door swung open. I couldn't see much, but I could tell it was Rohan's mom "Hon, are you alright?" She asked with urgency. "I heard screaming, is it more growing pains?"

"I'm okay, ma," the man sighed. "I just whacked my shin on the edge of the desk. I'm still getting used to being bigger, you know? It feels like everything's in the wrong place, but it's just me who's wrong..."

She whimpered as he sat on the bed. "It's going to take time to adjust," she said. "But those scientists are doing everything they can to get you back to normal! With any luck, you'll be my little boy again in no time!"

"I hope so..."

She stood there for a moment, as if wanting to reach out and touch him. Comfort him. But she stepped back, and left the room. Her stifled sobs echoed from the hallway.

I heard Rohan groan aloud before saying in a hushed voice, "You can't come out now."

I crawled out from under the bed and sat down on it, facing the wall rather than the man sat on the other side. "So..." I said quietly. "You're actually Rohan..."

"I'm actually Rohan, yeah..." He cleared his throat, and ran a hand across his face with a wince, like he wasn't expecting the beard to be there. "So remember that field trip?"

He explained everything that happened. How those test tubes were used in some sort of bacterial experiment that was on the placards we never read. That individually, they were relatively harmless. But combining each one with his saliva had led to some sort of infection. There was a lot of sciency mumbo jumbo that flew over Rohan's head, but whatever he'd ingested had caused his body to jumpstart puberty and physically mature him into a fully grown adult.

"...And now they're working on finding out what had exactly caused it to happen. They were far too excited about it, saying i'm some sort of medical marvel..." He scoffed at the thought. "Then they'll use that to find a way to turn me back to normal, but it's not looking good. It's not like they can just shrink me back down, right? So it looks like I'm stuck as a man..."

I didn't really know what to say or do. I twiddled my thumbs, and reached out to rub his shoulder, but he shifted away from me, unwilling to be touched. So instead, I said in my best optimistic tone, "If they're smart enough to figure out what made you grow up, they've gotta be smart enough to ungrow you, right?"

"I hope so," Rohan said with a sad smile. "But I've got to stay put at home until they do. I can't be spreading it about, you know?"

We both had the same thought as we leapt off the bed in opposite directions. "I shouldn't be here," I said backing up to the window. He nodded at me as I grappled with the window once again. "It's not, like, Covid contagious right? Six feet apart, 15 minutes in confined space, and so on?"

"I don't know, nobody knows until the tests come back! It could be a contagion or it could only affect me. It could be airborne, or spread through contact... Shit, I put my hand over your mouth..." He wiped it across his furry chest with a look of disgust before pointing at the window. "Just get out, and hopefully you're not infected. I'll speak with you when I can!"

I nodded and bid him a hasty farewell, careful not to draw any attention as I scurried back home. The weekend came and went without even a single message between us. But I felt right as rain, so with any luck, I'd managed to avoid the infection...

---------------

"Bull. Shit."

"Excuse me?"

"That fantasy you made up was utter bull, and you know it!" Roger growled with a painful prod to my chest. "A mysterious infection turned Rohan into a grown-ass man and that's why he hasn't been at school!? At least make up something believable! This is worse than when you said your cousin played Captain America."

"Okay, I admit I can exaggerate sometimes... But I always tell the truth! My cousin is a stage performer on a cruise ship. And Rohan's been turned into a man. Why else has he gone AWOL? He can't show his face anywhere because he looks double his actual age. I mean the beard alone..."

"Well my mom saw his mom over the weekend at the mall," piped up little Tommy with his know-it-all whine. "She said he'd had a bad allergic reaction to something, and needed to stay home until they found out what it was."

"She's just covering for him," I sighed. "I actually saw-" I paused to sneeze into my elbow. "I saw him in his bedroom. He looks like a fit-fluencer, he's so swole!"

"Well what about you," Tommy said accusingly. "You've been sneezing a lot since lunch. If he really has this Man Flu, then you're putting all of us at risk. You couldn't be that dumb, right?"

"I'm fine," I deflected. "Someone's got some real strong body spray on, and it's getting up my nose." I sneezed into my sleeve once more, trying to ignore how damp it had gotten since the start of the bus ride. "All I can smell is pine needles and leather."

"Nobody's got anything on. All I'm smelling is your bullshit..."

"Whatever, I don't have anything to prove to you guys," I muttered as the bus slowed to a halt. I grabbed my bag and jumped off the bus, turning to give a middle finger to the duo as they reciprocated through the bus windows. 

They were right about one thing, I wasn't telling the full truth. Because the truth is, Rohan had been in touch with me the whole day this went down. He was being coy about why he wasn't at school, and eventually invited me to see what had happened to him. He told me to avoid the front of the house. He even left the window open for me to sneak in. Because he was ecstatic about his change. He thought it was the best thing to happen to him. He couldn't stop bragging about how his beard felt, how strong he was, what being tall was like.

And me? I was envious, no doubt. I wished it had been me who had the accident. I wished that he could spread the infection to me. But he was adamant that I kept my distance. That part was true. He knew he'd get into big trouble if someone else were to be infected. I said we could pretend I'd been infected before he'd changed, we were always hanging out after all. But even then, I couldn't get a pity cough out of him.

So I have to go on knowing he'd been turned into a man, and that nobody believed me. All the while knowing I probably wouldn't experience the same fate... Well, I would eventually. The long way around. But I wanted it to happen now! Besides, other than that persistent sneezing and a rough headache, I didn't have any symptoms. It could be hayfever for all I knew.

I came home, and dumped my bag on the floor before sulking towards the staircase, ready to drown out all my thoughts and feelings with a few rounds of COD. As I got halfway, I felt my legs cramp up. I gasped at the sudden shooting pains, collapsing to the floor and trying to massage the throbbing away. But it didn't help. The shooting pains continued up through my torso, then sprung through my arms until my entire body felt like it was on fire. I couldn't move, I couldn't speak, I could barely think through the intense spasms. 

It couldn't be... Was I actually infected? Rohan said it was painful, but I thought he was exaggerating... I ground my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut as tears streaked down my cheeks. I cursed at myself for wanting this to happen. I couldn't even watch myself growing. But I could feel it. Oh boy could I feel every muscle, every bone, every organ screaming out in horror as they were forced to expand and grow beyond their limits in a terrifyingly short amount of time. It was taking all of my energy to keep myself from passing out from the pain, energy that was being further expended by my growth spurt.  

And then, all at once, nothing. All I could feel was the cold wooden staircase against my bare back. All of that suffering, and it already felt like a distant, uncomfortable memory. I waited a few moments as I caught my breath and let my heartbeat return to a normal rhythm before I finally opened my eyes. I propped myself up on my elbows and gazed down at my body. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. My legs were super long and meaty with lots of hairs scattered across them. My feet had grown huge, they were even longer than the steps! And my torso, I was awestruck. I had rounded pecs with a healthy dusting of chest hair, and I had abs! Literally a six-pack with a line of fuzzy hair that led down into my incredibly tight underpants. There was no denying it now, I'd definitely caught the Man Flu, and I was hyped beyond belief!

I reached into the tattered scraps of my clothes to find my phone before flipping straight to the front camera. I gasped as I stared at the man reflected back with the rugged, sharp jawline and the scruffy blond beard. "Holy crap, is that really me?" I said, a shiver running down my back at the sound of my voice. It had dropped an octave or two into a baritone with a rich timbre. "Dang, I sound like one of those YouTubers who do deep dives on destroyed theme park rides. Rohan's gonna freak when he hears me, I bet my voice is even deeper than his now!" I chuckled at the thought. 

Rohan was so excited to show off when he turned into a man, it was only fair that I get to brag a little too. I admit he's hairier than me, but that's not a bad thing. I still have a decent amount, and there's still a chance more could grow. That happens, right? At least I think I've got the advantage on him in height and build. Though maybe I should wait before letting him know. He might be annoyed that I grew up too, he really didn't want the infection to spread. But it's not like I've given it to anyone else, right?

I froze up... I'd been sneezing all afternoon. Especially on the bus ride home. Had I been spreading those germs to all the other guys? Rohan had warned me of getting too close. Did I make a mistake entering his room or did I catch it before he turned into a man? But he was the one who didn't tell me anything until I saw him in the flesh! He was so eager to show off, it's almost like he wanted me to join him in adulthood... It doesn't matter whose fault it is, if anyone else were to turn into a man, everyone going to blame me. I literally told them all that I'd visited him! I was so desperate to grow up, I got careless...

Quick as a flash, I ran up to my parent's room and raid my dad's wardrobe for clothes. Then I wrote a hasty letter letting them know where I had gone, and to get in touch with Rohan's parents since they'd know why I had to leave the house without giving them a heads up. Then I grabbed my phone and gave the man himself a call. I couldn't beat around the bush, I had a voice like a foghorn now. With any luck, those scientists had figured something out, or we'd both be in really big trouble...