Q Is For…

Quarantine

Sergi, thanks again for letting me use this picture for my post!

“Quinton was the first to isolate the disease and in his studies find that it changed as it jumped from carrier to carrier. It could pass through a family of four, coming home from school with one child, being passed on to his or her brother or sister, then on to the father and mother, manifesting itself differently in each one. They could share some, all, or none of the same symptoms and the remedies could be just as varied. For the father, maybe just a change in diet. One child could be cured with some over-the-counter or prescription drug. A lab could develop something for the sibling and mother that within hours works for one but has no effect on the other. So, after watching this scenario play out in his own household, and with a universal cure being all but impossible, he came up with the next best thing. Quinton would create an infectious vaccine.

The vaccine had to work on just one person and that person had to somehow pass it on to another. Of course the vaccine had to be safe for the elderly, newborns, and those with pre-existing medical conditions. But on his island there was none of that. Well, not unless you consider his failed experiments to be pre-existing medical conditions, in which case this island was actually overrun with that. The volunteers that came with Quinton and his family developed all sorts of mutations during the trials.
One lost her sight, another her sense of taste. The test vaccine chemically castrated two boys, and one man developed amnesia, just to name a few. Out of the thirty-three subjects that Quinton infected with a vaccine, only twenty survived long enough to be tested against the disease. Of those twenty, eleven died. In an effort to prevent the mutated strands from spreading, Quinton and his family destroyed their ships and marooned themselves and the surviving nine.
Over time, as the mutations and disease got passed back and forth between the survivors and the animals on the island something happened. A cure. One day the blind lady was petting a three-legged cat, the next she could see. And she was somehow cured of the disease. From there it spread to the others and eventually back to that cat, who actually grew a replacement leg.

Piecing together his notes it became clear. For the sake of this planet, myself and my crew have to find that island. I don’t know how much longer I have on this tape. But if you’ve found this, it means that either we did it, this rogue group of sailors somehow saved us all, and you’re welcome. Or, it means that we didn’t. In which case, the end is near, and I owe you all an-”
“CAPTAIN! HURRY, WE’VE-” end of recording.

Israel, thank you so much for letting me use your picture for this post!