Free at Last

Lewis felt a lot better now that he'd released it. Having a symbiotic parasite growing inside of you is not the best feeling in the world.
It hadn't taken Maya long to locate him. She said she hadn't been off the trail of the creature inside him since she'd first encountered it three years ago. It was her job to fight off the invasion that was taking place right under our noses and inside our bodies.
It was a big circle, someone puked on him then he puked on someone else.
But the guy he puked on in the tube wouldn't be releasing the poison to anyone else. Maya had handpicked him while they were waiting for the train. 'See if you can get it on him,' she told him. 'He'll make a good host and will carry the strain to term so I can finally stop all this running around and chasing one person after another.' Then she handed him the ipecac.
They weren't even sure what the thing was. They said that it started out in a lab somewhere. Terrorists with an expensive chemistry set had combined DNA from several animals and viruses, put it in a germ and released it. Nobody, not even Maya or whoever she worked for, knew what the strain actually was. They weren't really sure what they were fighting. It hadn't even been born yet. It was just gestating. They didn't know if it would take over its host or burst out of his chest.
At least that's what they told Lewis. He wasn't sure if he believed everything they said.
Like the part about how all he had to do was vomit on someone else to be cured. That stuff was growing in him for a few days. It changed his skin and nearly crawled out of him. It was hard to believe that the only thing he needed to do to be rid of it was puke.
Vomiting can rid the body of poisons, but when that happens there is still some poison left in the belly. It's like when you sneeze and pass on the flu, you've shared it with someone but you still have it.
For the first time since the subway he lifted his shirt to check the skin. Nothing had changed. He was still infected.