When I first arrived in town after the white plague finally let up, I'd been flattered by Keller's attention.
I didn't know what everyone else already knew, but I found it out fairly quickly.
The first thing that I noticed about him was that he was very young to the uniform and badge. He looked like a kid playing dress up, almost. Even though he was tall and broad-shouldered, it somehow looked too big for him, and he didn't fill it out. Maybe it was his wide-eyed naivete or his awkwardness as he blushed and stammered at me.
What I did know was that he had flirted with me enough to make me blush and smile and feel a little better about being stuck here.
For a while.
For a couple of weeks, until I found out more about him.
I was a sophomore in college when the white plague hit.
It was called something else at first, something more scientific. Influenza strain R7JKS2S. It was a small blip, a minor strain that they filed with letters and numbers to be put away... until it spread to humans.
It spread quickly in humans. 'Virulent' was the word commonly used.
So quickly, a quarter of the world's population was gone before the other half of the world knew the virus existed.
First came the fever, then the vomiting, then the pallor of the skin went white. No matter what race, the skin turned white as paper. When that happened, there was no coming back from it.
Some people got the flu, but not the pallor. They lived. If you turned white, you were dead in less than three hours.
Once it was all said and done and the danger was past for the remaining population, only 24% of humankind was left.
A great many of those people were young; the older population had been all but decimated.
Some of the smaller towns seemed less affected than the huge cities, they still seemed to run like normal. The huge cities were barren and desolate, stinking of death and rot.
The remaining populations were all moved to medium-sized towns and farm towns like the one I was in while 'cleaning crews' went through the large cities one by one to try and clean things up and gather up what could be used, while the world tried to rebuild.
In some densely populated countries, humans had been veritably eradicated.
Others were hardly touched, though they were the countries that had the least contact with the outside and the smallest populations.
Some people were terrified it would finally make its way to the outliers, then it would mutate and sweep back over the world to take out those who'd escaped the first wave.
The scientists said that wouldn't happen. Once you had it, you couldn't get it again. We were safe from it.
Still. Being moved to an unknown place with a bus full of strangers into a town that had hardly been touched had been terrifying. I shared an empty house with two other women who'd survived and gotten a job at a local diner that only served breakfast and lunch.
No one used money anymore, we got town credits. I was paid in them and tipped in vouchers. Vouchers were good at the Sunday farmers market, and credits were good at the stores, as well as at a few other places in town, like the diner. Most everyone here had moved to a barter system for everything, but I had nothing to barter. I hadn't been allowed back to my house when I left the hospital, the city was closed. I had my clothes, the things that had been in my dead parents' and brother's possession, and that was all.
I was assigned a job the day after I arrived and given my schedule.
Keller came in on my very first day in his crisp, clean uniform.
He didn't look like a cop, not at all; he looked like a tall and awkward gamer geek, even if he was adorable. He'd blushed and stammered and smiled at me with wide eyes, and I'd been gratified for the attention in this new place where I felt all alone in the world.
It wasn't until his 5th visit, he came in every day for coffee, whether he was working or not, that I found out more about him.
There was a table of young people, my age and his age, too, and they'd jeer at him and make fun of him. They saw him smiling at me and talking to me, and decided they needed to let me know all about him.
Keller Duncan was the town sheriff's son, and that was why he was wearing the uniform. He was an 'honorary' deputy and wore it all the time, even when he wasn't working. He'd been an outcast in high school, always weird and messing with girls until he had to be warned off. He'd stalked the prom queen until she left the town. They all started calling him 'Killer' when he made threats about shooting up the school, making fun of him because they knew he was too much of a coward to actually do it. After school, he lied to everyone about getting a scholarship and pretended he was in an online e-sports program until someone caught him in the lie. For a few more months, he tried to pretend he was a famous Twitch streamer who never showed his face until he was out with one of his gross friends when the streamer went live unannounced to talk about the flu epidemic in Japan.
They'd made relentless fun of him about that for a few days until the flu had swept over their town too, and they'd lost people.
Keller had lost his best and only friend, the whole household dying. He was still pathetic and weird, but now he had a uniform, badge, and gun, too.
I hadn't thought much about all the stories they told me until someone else mentioned how his father shouldn't have put a gun in his hands, no matter how messed up the world was right now, or how the town had lost both deputies.
After that, I seemed to hear about him all the time.
The first time he got the courage to ask me out, I told him I was busy. The second time, I brushed him off again, then again and again until I finally told him I wasn't interested at all. I didn't want to go out with him ever.
He still hovered and flirted, but then he also started watching me.
I didn't notice at first until Julie, my boss, pointed out that he was parked across the street watching the diner again.
"Again?" I asked, moving to the end of the long counter so I could see out the front window.
Keller was watching the diner, and when he saw me move to the window and look at him, he quickly looked away as if he hadn't been watching.
"He was there all day yesterday and the day before," Julie snorted. "Creepy little fucker."
"You need me to walk you home?" Dale asked me as I moved back down the counter and poured him some coffee.
Dale had recently started dating Anniston, one of my housemates. He was a widower from before the white plague and one of the oldest people in town at 47.
"No thanks," I told him with a tight smile. "Now that we were ordered to stay open evenings for dinner too, I switched shifts."
"I can come back?"
"Julie said she would drop me off," I told him politely. "Thanks, though."
As the evening wore on, Keller's car didn't move.
He came in for dinner, but Julie took his table from my section for me.
After that day, I noticed him out there every single time I worked.
I also noticed him parked across the street and one house down from my house on days I had off.
I rarely left the house at all, I didn't know anyone really, and I was still mourning my losses. I felt like most people had moved on after a few months, but I was having a harder time.
