"She Came In Through the Bathroom Window"
She came in through the bathroom window. That's how they got us.
We thought we were doing pretty good up until then, all things considered. We were caught out in the open when it happened, driving down I-35 to visit family in Kansas City. We only made it as far as Des Moines before we hit one of the quarantine barriers. They were such a stupid fucking idea, really. The government knew they couldn't wall off the whole fucking Midwest, so they decided to put in traffic stops. Seriously, traffic stops. As if they bothered using roads.
We managed to get turned around (and that was an ordeal all by itself--one of them clung to the bumper for about a mile) but by that time the highways were getting pretty crowded, and the radio announcers were telling everyone to find someplace safe and hole up until it all blew over. Mal and I, well, we were about six hundred miles south of home and didn't know anybody in Iowa, and the names of the public shelters were just names to us. We didn't know where to go; all we knew was that we needed to get off the road while we still could. We didn't have the right instincts for this. We were both from big cities, Mal from San Diego and me from New York, and to us safety meant bright lights and police. If we'd found some dinky-ass farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, maybe I wouldn't even be writing this right now. Maybe Mallory wouldn't have
Sorry, couldn't finish that sentence. Not yet. She was beautiful, you know that? I mean, really beautiful, not the kind of beautiful that you became after you got infected. She had long chestnut hair that went all the way down to the small of her back and swayed when she moved, and a gorgeous butt that had another sway of its own. It always seemed to move just out of time with her hair, like they were in a syncopated rhythm that always kept me guessing. I fell in love with her during Freshman Orientation, when she led us on a walking tour of campus. If you watched her walk like that for five minutes, you'd have fallen in love with her too, but I was lucky enough that she fell in love back.
We had a good long time together. Nothing can take that away from us, even if the scientists never find a cure and humanity gets overrun and all that's left of Mal and I is a bunch of pictures that nobody ever looks at and this story that nobody knows how to read anymore. We loved good and hard for the time we had each other. That's important. That matters. I keep reminding myself of that, because otherwise I start thinking about how it's all my fault.
Because let's face it, it is. I was driving. I could have gone for one of the farmhouses, but all I could think of was that old black-and-white movie with the people trapped in the farmhouse with the things pounding outside, and even if that didn't happen, I figured we'd probably get shot because everyone was saying on the radio how dangerous it was to go near strangers and I could only imagine what some hick farmer was hearing on Faux News and who knew what he'd do when two good-looking people came to the door?
It still makes me laugh, or it would if I wasn't afraid that I wouldn't be able to stop. The most dangerous virus in the history of civilization, and the most obvious symptom is that you become absolutely gorgeous. Crazy fucking genetic engineering shit, you know? Wouldn't surprise me one damn bit if some big cosmetics company accidentally made it up in their labs.
But anyway, we found a town, not big enough to call it a city but we figured it was better than nothing. We drove around until we found a neighborhood that looked deserted--that happened pretty fast, they said on the radio. (Not "they" they. They don't talk. I don't think they're unintelligent, I think they just don't think the same way we do anymore.) They--"they" they--went through a whole town, spreading from house to house so fast that it was over almost before you knew it had started. One infected became two became four became eight and they spread out and pretty soon, bam! Everyone in town was one of them. Then they started sniffing around for more people to infect. Someone said that they could smell our pheromones from twenty miles away. The look on their face when they catch a scent, it's...terrifying and beautiful, all at the same time. What "awesome" used to mean before the surfers took it away.
We found a house that looked pretty sturdy, we grabbed all that we could carry and we ran inside. After that, we figured it was just a matter of barricading ourselves inside and waiting until somebody found a cure. They talked a lot about cures on the radio a few days ago. Now the broadcasts just pick up moaning and heavy breathing. One time there were squishing noises for about twenty minutes. I think one of them was using the mike as a dildo.
Not that we listened much to the radio right away. We were too busy. Ever actually try to barricade yourself inside a modern house? What am I saying, if you're able to read this you've probably done it. But you know how much work it is. Every picture window, every sliding glass door, every single fucking entrance is a gap in your defenses. And all you have to work with is the furniture. We gave up half the house as indefensible before we even started, focused our attention on bringing the canned food into the bedroom before we forgot about even trying to get to the kitchen anymore. We didn't know how long we had, but we felt like we were on a timer. The house was abandoned, the town was abandoned, but we didn't want to rely on that, you know? Not when it only takes one.
Eventually, we got things set up, though. The two of us managed to move a chest of drawers into the bathroom, slide it up against the outer door good and tight. The bed went up against the door to the master bedroom, and we pulled apart a couch and a couple of chairs, used it to board up the windows. That left us the master bedroom and the bathroom it was connected to. We figured that was as good a setup as we could hope for--a place to sleep, a place to pee, running water, and a food supply that looked like it could last us a week or two. The barricades wouldn't hold off an army or anything, but we were hoping that we wouldn't see one. Unless it was on our side, of course. We were hoping to see one of those pretty badly.
