by Olivia Myers
He sighed and took another step away from her. “Listen, I know I can be a jerk. But we could be the only two people alive in this entire town. We’re going to have to find a way to get along. I’m willing to try if you are.”
Josh continued to speak. But a light flashed on in a room down the hall, and Emily stopped listening to him. “Josh,” she said in a shaky voice. “I don’t think we’re alone.”
He took her hand and led her to the shadows. “I don’t trust anyone or anything,” he said.
They inched their way down the hall and peeked in the classroom window. Two nurses were engaged in conversation.
“Nurses,” Josh said. “We should go find out if they have news of other survivors.”
Considering they were the only other people that seemed to be alive, hope sparked in Emily’s heart for a moment before common sense and wariness kicked in and reminded her to be careful.
“Maybe we shouldn’t go up to them until we figure out what they’re doing here,” Emily said. She didn’t trust any of the medical professionals since she’d pretty much decided the flu shots or the blood donations were the reason people had died.
“I think we can hear what they are saying from the room next door,” Josh said. “I’ll go listen and see what I can figure out.”
Emily stood alone in the hall for a minute, and then followed him inside. She needed to hear whatever they were saying for herself.
“Maybe we overdid it with the dosage. I was sure there would be a few survivors,” one of the nurses said to the other one.
“There could still be survivors. Everyone is hiding in their homes from what they think is a contagious virus. We need to find a way to get on the local televisions and tell people it is safe to come outside. That’s the only way we’re going to find them.”
So intent on listening to the nurses, Emily tripped into a desk and knocked it against the window. Josh looked at her with wide eyes. Pounding footsteps reached her ears, and then two nurses burst into the room.
It was too late to run, and Emily backed closer to Josh.
“Who are you?” Emily asked. She took another step toward Josh, and he reached for her hand. At least he was freaked out, too.
“We are just school nurses, dear.” One of the nurses took a step toward Emily and Josh. “Maybe you remember Nancy? She was the one who helped with the blood draws last month?”
The nurses advanced, and Josh moved back even further, taking Emily with him.
Suddenly Josh shouted, “Somethings not right. Run!”
Holding onto her, he bolted across the classroom, dragging her with him. One of the nurses held a bucket, and she threw the contents toward Josh and Emily.
Weird, Emily thought, and she tried to duck but was drenched in water. It covered her face and even went into her mouth. She and Josh continued to run. She felt his hand slip out of hers and her body felt strange for a minute. The adrenaline pumped through her veins as the world around her shifted.
The ground rushed at her and for a minute she thought she’d fallen. But strangely, she was still running. The school hallway looked different—wider, taller. She was closer to the ground, and moving quickly. Continuing on the path down the hallway she looked around for Josh. Instead she saw a large dog running beside her. Her feline instincts kicked in and she darted away from him into a classroom.
I don’t have feline instincts.
She darted back into the hall and continued to run with the dog she could only assume was Josh. As she sprinted at his side, she could see their reflections in the shiny locker doors. She saw Josh, as the large dog, and a cat running alongside him. She, Emily, was not in the reflection.
Holy crap. I’m a cat. It was the scariest thing that had ever happened to her, and even though it was so surreal she knew it was really happening. The nurses were still chasing them and she realized she wouldn’t be able to open the cafeteria door at the end of the hall.
The nurses almost caught up to them, but a cool gust of air from around the corner got Emily’s attention. Another door, leading past the cafeteria and out toward the quad. They’d be able to make it. Emily squeezed through first, and then Josh, and they took off running towards the woods. There were no sounds of running behind them, no scary nurses, no one in pursuit.
Emily stopped at a stream. So thirsty. The dog—Josh, it had to be—at her side also stopped. As they lapped the water up they transformed back into their human selves. Without any clothes.
At first Emily just stared into the pond, not sure what to make of the whole changing thing, and then reality hit her.
“Naked!” Emily yelled before darting behind a bush and ducking down so her head was the only thing above the foliage. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. She tried to look away from Josh, not wanting to see him naked.
“Are you serious right now?” Josh questioned. “We just turned into animals and you’re worried about being naked. We have bigger problems right now! How the heck did we do that?” He walked right over to her stark naked, not caring that he was exposed. He was freaking out and she didn’t have any answers for him.
Her face felt as if it was on fire. She had never even seen a naked male body other than what she saw in the textbooks in health class. But that hardly counted. “Uh…”
“Okay, look,” he said. “You stay here. I’ll go find us something to wear. All right?” Josh winked before walking back towards the town. She didn’t want to leave the cover the bushes provided for her – but at the same time, she didn’t want to be left alone.
Sighing, she got up and followed behind him. “Wait for me!”
He turned and smiled when he finally got a good look at her. “You shouldn’t be so timid. You look good for a nerd.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, covering as much skin as she was able to so he couldn’t look at her. She was shy, but his words brought to light something different inside of her, something wild.
She felt a strange pride in being attractive and naked. She also felt something else that had not breached her psyche—desire. Beneath that, though, she was pissed. An angry expression filled her face and a growl rolled past her lips and she was happy it wasn’t a hiss. “Did you just call me a nerd?”
“I did,” he said with a smirk.
How she wanted to call him a dog – but that insult was far too apt now, considering what had happened. She was just grateful that they didn’t have to consider what had happened just yet. Their nudity was more important – to both of them, it seemed.
They made their way to a local clothing store. It didn’t appear to have been looted yet. Josh grabbed a rock and broke the glass. Emily felt skittish at the sudden noise. Wouldn’t it alert people to their presence?
She paused and listened. No one was around. No nurses, nothing. She’d be able to sense it now.
Josh helped Emily step inside so she wouldn’t step on the shards of glass. She was surprised that he wasn’t being lecherous, but she guessed even Josh had moments of being a gentleman, even though she wouldn’t have believed he was capable of it. Even more surprising, Emily was now totally at ease with her nudity.
“I feel bad about stealing clothing,” Emily said softly.
“Are you kidding me? Quit being such a goodie two shoes. Everyone’s dead. We’re the only people here. It’s hardly stealing if there’s no one to steal from. You were the one who had such a big problem with being naked. Just find some clothing.”
He sounded more eager to get clothes than she was. Maybe he was beginning to feel just a little bit too exposed – despite the clear confidence he had.
He was right, she was being crazy. There was hardly a point in being upset about stealing when there was no way to pay for the purchases, and nobody to take the money anyway.
But those nurses. “Wait. We aren’t really alone, though.”
She had trusted Josh when he told her to run from the nurses, but she had no idea why they ran. They hadn’t had time to talk about it.<
br />
“You talking about the nurses? Yeah, they aren’t our friends.” He shook his head mulishly, frowning as he looked at the store around them.
“Did you hear them say something?” Emily spoke softly, not wanting to break the silence that seemed to come from them working together for once.
“It sounded like they were the ones who did this to everyone. Like they know what’s going on. Em, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I think they’re the reason we turned into animals.”
“Everyone can’t be dead, if we’re still alive.” Emily tried to reason with him. “I think somewhere people like us are hiding. Maybe they changed unexpectedly, too.”
She’d turned into a cat. A cat! This was impossible. It still seemed very surreal to her that they’d turned into animals at all.
Emily grabbed Josh and pulled him behind a rack of clothes.
He was nose to nose with her and smiled widely. “If you want to get frisky, all you have to do is ask.”
“No dummy,” she said and pointed out the window. “See those two men in white coats? I think they’re looking for us.”
***
Josh froze, and something like a growl rumbled in his chest. She was so close she could feel how warm he was, and that embarrassed her even more.
“Let’s get some clothes and get out of here. Don’t go near the windows, Josh!” She spoke quietly but insistently, stepping deeper into the shadowed store to look for underwear first of all. Maybe when they were both dressed, they would find it easier to get around…or at least work out what was happening to them.
“Sure, Em. Just hurry up, please? I don’t wanna be waiting for you for too long.” There was a hint of a challenge in his grim voice, and Em knew she needed to hurry up so that he didn’t come looking for her. She’d had more than enough of him looking at her.
He came to her just as she finished grabbing a few spare sets of clothing. She didn’t know when they were next coming back here, or even when they’d be able to change. If it got to a point where they turned into animals again – well, she’d need the change of outfits.
“Come on, Em! They’ll find out we’re here soon enough.”
She nodded. Right now, she didn’t want to find out why it was they turned into animals. She just knew that whatever those nurses had done had turned her into an orphan – and now she only had Josh, of all people, to rely on.
He urged her out of the store, and they clung to the wall, watching for anyone walking by. She’d have found it funny that neither of them had picked dark clothing – were she not terrified now.
“Move, Em! We need to find somewhere safe to hide.” Josh’s voice was so urgent that she jumped, before nodding.
They stole through alleyways and ducked behind cars whenever they saw movement. She never got a chance to see if anyone around was the nurses, or maybe someone else who could be safe and normal. Maybe someone from her old life, before the disease had taken everything. Emily had wanted to jump out and ask for help, but Josh had succeeded in convincing her that it wasn’t the best idea. They didn’t know who was safe and who wasn’t at the moment.
“We need to find somewhere safe to sleep and eat. I don’t just want to keep moving forever,” Emily said while looking around at all the houses. “Let’s just pick one of these houses and find somewhere inside to sleep.”
“I don’t like that idea,” Josh muttered. “I don’t think we should stop moving.”
“It’s not like we have a choice. We’re stuck behind that stupid wall, so we don’t have anywhere else to go, and we need to rest at some point.”
“I was wondering about that wall. Before the TV stopped working, they said it was to keep the virus from spreading.”
Emily nodded. “You think there’s more to it.”
“Yeah. I think it’s to also keep us from getting out and telling people what they did to us. They don’t want us to tell people we can change into animals because of them.”
They stopped in front of a yellow house. Emily sniffed, and Josh looked at her curiously.
“I’m trying to figure out if the place is empty,” she explained. “Maybe no one died here. Otherwise, we’re going to have to deal with the smell or get the body out of the house.”
“I’m not moving a dead body for you, Em. You want to sleep in a house, you can deal with the smell.”
“I wasn’t asking you to move the dead body. I can figure out how to deal with it on my own! Just because you are the guy and the jock, doesn’t mean I need you to do my heavy lifting.”
He laughed and rolled his eyes. “You’re going to move a dead body by yourself? Do you even know how much a dead body weighs?”
“Yes, I moved and buried my parents in our backyard.”
His expression sobered at that. “I’m sorry, Em.”
“Yeah, we’re all sorry.” She tried the door and sighed. “It’s locked.”
She could tell Josh felt like a jerk. Maybe now he understood why she found him repulsive. He tended to say the first thing that popped into his head. She wasn’t like that. She considered her words carefully, making sure not to offend people.
“I’m sorry Em. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Emily exhaled. “It’s all right. I’m just tired, depressed, and I turned into a cat today. We’ll probably both say things we shouldn’t. And I’m sure you’re handling this much better than I am.”
Josh said, “Not really. I’m just using unwitty sarcasm to piss off the only person who could probably save my ass. Now if you please, move over. I can take care of that lock.”
For the first time in months, she saw Josh as a normal guy—not a jock, not an asshole. She smiled a girly grin as he ran around the back of the house. He came back with some nails and pins. “Sniffed them out on the ground,” he said with an embarrassed smile.
He used them to quickly pick the lock. She found herself wondering how he could smell so good right now, and how she could possibly notice such a thing when everything around them was so scary and chaotic.
“You’re probably going to want me to teach you how to pick locks,” he said. “Chances are pretty good most of these places are locked up. If we go busting a window, they’ll know to check inside to see if people are in there.”
Emily stopped, turned, and smiled at him. “That’s what we need to do!”
“Huh?”
“We should bust windows at a few of the other houses. To distract them. Make them check those houses. Why would they think to check one that is locked up, as long as we’re careful not to draw attention to it?”
He cocked his head and smiled. Emily was proud of herself, because it was a brilliant idea.
“Sounds good,” he said, “but nothing right next to this house. We don’t want them getting super close. You do a few, I do a few, and we meet back here. All right?”
The two went in different directions and made sure they put a little space between the houses they break into and the house they were going to try staying in. Josh decided it might be a good idea to ransack a couple of the houses and told Emily to do the same thing. She came back and found him with a wheelbarrow he’d filled with food, blankets, candles, lighters, and water.
“I think it’s only a matter of time before they cut off the electricity to flush us out. We’ll need all of these things.”
“You’re right, I just trashed the houses. I didn’t get things.”
“It’s okay—you can use my things.” He winked at her and Emily looked at everything he had. They would have to be very careful and only use the candles in extreme circumstances and not go near any windows. Cooking would also be tricky—they didn’t want to attract their pursuers with scents of food or smoke.
While Emily looked at the things Josh had brought in, he explored the house. She picked up one item after another, thinking of how they could be used.
Suddenly, strong arms grabbed her from behind. Emily screamed. A huge dog—Josh—leaped out from the shadows. Josh lun
ged at Emily and her attacker, snarling.
There was another man in the house, as well, in a white coat just like Emily’s attacker. He held an electric pole and jabbed it against Josh as he lunged again. Josh fell back, twitching and growling.
“Josh!” Emily screamed.
The arms tightened around her and her attacker pulled her from the house. Emily bit and kicked and tried gouging the man’s arms with her fingernails, but he wouldn’t let her go. He dragged her to a van parked in front of the house—unfortunately, she hadn’t even heard it approach. Josh must have, which would have given him time to shift into his dog form.
The van’s floor was cold against her back. They held her down and she kicked until they pinned her legs as well. One of the nurses from the school came forward with a large needle. Emily screamed and tried to kick harder, but there was a sting in her neck, and then there was blackness.
***
Emily was groggy when she woke, but she managed to sit up. Mumbled voices and whispers were the first things that resonated with her. With her head in her hands, she rose and stood, pacing back and forth. Her cell wasn’t large, maybe fifteen feet by ten feet. One end had bars instead of a wall. Emily peered through the bars to a long, brightly-lit hallway. People in lab coats carried clipboards, taking notes.
Eventually, a man with a goatee approached her cell and handed her a bowl of water through a slot at the bottom of the door. “You need to drink.”
She stared at the bowl and smacked it to the floor. The contents splashed around her feet.
“A bowl?” she shrieked. “I’m not an animal! I’m a human. Give me a damn water bottle like a human.”
Instead of being upset, Goatee laughed at her. “You haven’t changed yet? You don’t know?”
Emily turned her head to the side and gave him a confused expression. How did he know about the animal thing?
She surveyed hallway from her cell. The whole corridor was much more intricate than she’d initially realized. There were computers and other cells with more survivors. Some of them were sleeping, and others had groggy expressions on their faces. They must have been sedated.
