I probably only survive because I was home sick that day, as a 16 year-old kid whose worst problem was finding a way to tell Nella Carlos how beautiful her eyes where, I was totally clueless about what was about to happen to our planet. I still wonder, to this day, if it would have been better if I died.

My mother called out to me as I was sleeping in my bedroom. I arose with confusion as to why she was screaming and hollering. She rewinded the DVR and demanded that I come watch the news, "Jason! Jason, come quick, you'll never believe this!" My mother's fire red hair and green eyes didn't match my black hair and brown eyes, when we smiled you could tell I looked like a carbon copy of her.

A disease had broken out in the South, but that's not what had startled my mother. The reporter, like a total jackass was standing outside the hospital, without a mask, where the first infected people where. At first I mocked the man for being so stupid as to stand within earshot of people with an infection nobody knew anything about.

My mother's eyes were glued to the flat screen, "Watch Jason, watch closely." I was starting to get a knot in my stomach. Slowly in the background someone emerged from the hospital building, just someone on the janitorial staff that was limping around as he waltzed out of the hospitals front doors like nothing was wrong. He wasn't wearing a mask either. In fact, he wasn't carrying anything to be disposed of, nor was he holding a mop or broom, but with fast and determined steps, this man walked up behind the reporter and swiftly bit into his neck, wrestled him to the ground and quickly ripped out his juggler veins as though they were pork ribs.

I slowly turned to my mother, who had slowly turned to me, but neither of us spoke. The camera man must have abandoned the camera, because the news cast continued to role. Just as if nothing had happened, the janitor got up from the ground, and walked back inside the hospital, leaving the neckless reporter to die, gurgling, just out of the shot of the camera.

Mom paused the recording and told me something I would never forget, "Honey, whatever happens next, remember, never turn your back on a man that's bigger than you."

I went to give her a hug and she placed her hand under my bangs to feel for my temperature. "You'll go back to school tomorrow, your fever's already broken."

Damn, I thought to myself, at least I had a few days off, but after watching that news footage, I just didn't feel right about things. It was like watching a horror movie.