Influenza: Viral Virulence Read Online Free PDF Page B

said, moving even closer to Michael, trying to intimidate him. The crowd suddenly grew quiet around them. Thankfully, the crazy guy’s friends were trying to talk him down and pull him back. But he easily shook his friends off and persisted, trying to torment Michael. “Weasel, just admit that you’re gay!” He lifted his massive hand and stuck a finger into Michael’s face.
    “I’m not gay,” Michael repeated once again. Maybe he needed to record a sound bite and give it to him.
    Scott suddenly appeared from out of nowhere and tried to intervene. He said something to the red-faced hulk in a vain attempt to make peace. Michael couldn’t make out what he was saying to him, but it didn’t work, because after only a few seconds, the big guy swatted Scott away easily with one hand. Scott went stumbling across the floor. That drew even more unwanted attention.
    “Another weasel bites the dust,” the guy said, watching Scott stumble. Then he turned his attention back to Michael. “Just admit that you’re gay, Weasel! And then I won’t beat the snot out of you.”
    Michael knew that this guy could easily squish him like a bug. He was probably 250 pounds of pure muscle and must have spent almost every free minute in the gym. He was trying to force Michael into humiliating himself in front of his friends. Michael recognized a bully when he saw one.
    In a flash, he was suddenly propelled back into high school where he was intimidated by a bully. Being one of the smaller kids in high school, he had more than his fair share of being picked on by jerks just like this one. Those hateful faces appeared before him. He remembered all those days that he tried to make himself invisible, so they wouldn’t see him and make him a target.
    Suddenly a red-hot anger started to burn and rise within him. He wouldn’t put up with this kind of treatment any longer, even if he got hurt. Sticks and stones might break bones, but names will surely hurt you. Bones would heal. Emotional damage took a lot longer.
    All those thugs in high school who had harassed him and made his life miserable coalesced into the raging lunatic who was standing just inches from his face, ready to deck him. But Michael was smarter than this dumb football jock.
    He looked over the behemoth’s shoulder and saw that the owner of the bar had noticed them and was making his way through the crowd to their location. He remembered that his name was Wayne, and it looked like he was carrying a wooden baseball bat. Wayne was a big guy who could easily smash a few heads with or without a bat. He didn’t put up with any garbage going on in his bar. Michael also saw that some of his own friends had gathered around him.
    Lorie’s worried face suddenly appeared beside the bully. She looked at Michael and then at the big guy and asked, “What’s going on here, Ted?”
    Finally, Michael made the connection. Lorie’s date, Theodore, was in fact Ted, who ended up being the nut job standing in front of him with a face that looked like it was going to explode at any minute.
    Michael took his eyes off Lorie and looked back at Ted’s seething face, which was now within inches of his own. It was incredible how red someone could get. He looked rabid. In a few more seconds, he thought foam would start to drip out of the guy’s mouth.
    Michael’s instincts told him that Ted would only accept one of two answers from him. The first, if he admitted he was flirting with Lorie, would be far from the truth. They had only waved at each other from across the bar, and that was it. The other answer he wanted to hear from Michael was also completely untrue, and he would be admitting to something that he was not. The first answer would probably end up with Michael being pummeled by Ted, but it would also degrade Lorie. Saying that he and Lorie were flirting while she was on a date would make her look like a tramp. He could take the beating, but he didn’t want Lorie dragged into this. Her