Virus

One

The night before everything fell to Hell, I was with my boyfriend Hal at an expensive dinner in the Olive Garden on Yakima Ave. It had been our first date, and of course, our last.

"Somebody looks gorgeous," Hal had said, complimenting my silk dress dotted inch to inch with pearl colored sequins.

His suit was nice. Nicer than any other suit I'd seen him wear before. The undershirt was a lighter shade of gray that the jacket, complimenting the black tie, and his diamond green his. Although his black hair faded in perfectly with the other dark colors.

He sat across from me with a plate of half-eaten lasagna, he had abandoned eating his food and ordered Pepsis for us.

I sipped my Pepsi from a straw, whereas, he preferred to tip the cup. We had our differences, yes, but I felt that we would be good for each other.

I was twenty two and he was twenty four. He was my first boyfriend out of college. I'd picked him after I decide to ditch my last boyfriend, Dex, who only wanted me as a sex-toy to show off to his druggie friends.

Hal and I had been dating for three months. Today was out three month anniversary.

I had chosen on fettuccine alfredo. My favorite Italian dish. The only Italian dish I liked in fact. I was more for Chinese or American.

"So Kel, how would you like to come with me to the next Aerosmith concert?"

"Sure," I said even though I despised Aerosmith. I was more a into Bruno Mars and his genre.

"I think, to conclude this awesome third anniversary, we should go home, pop in some Shooter, and snuggle up to a bowl of popcorn," he said enthusiastically.

"Uh-uh-ah, I get to pick the movie. P.S I Love You."

"Fine," he said reluctantly as the waitress passed by to refill our drinks.

The waitress was a short, but stout, Mexican woman with stenciled eyebrows and a tight uniform. I found it weird that a Mexican worked at and Italian restaurant. Wasn't that like an oxymoron?

"Can I get the check please?" Hal asked.

"Yes sir, I'll be right back with it."

The waitress finished filling up my glass and then strode away down the aisle of table toward the kitchen.

Hal glanced up at me from his cup. His eyes smiled while his mouth took in the soda.

"What?" I asked.

He set the cup down and gulped down the drink. "We need some ice cream," he said.

"Why?"

"Because I've been having a craving for cookie dough ice cream all week and today's Friday, what a great way end the week."

I laughed and grabbed my coat off the back of my chair. The waitress was coming our way with the check. "Let's go get some."

The waitress set the check down and Hal slipped a fifty dollar bill into the book. "Keep the change."

With that we stride out into the chilling night air and towards Hal's Ford Explorer parked across the street. The vehicle was red but in the dark it looked brown.

Hal opened the door for me and we slipped into the warm cab. The seats were made of shiny, sleek black leather.

"So, popcorn, ice cream, and some fireball?"

"No, no whiskey. Not tonight," I said as he pulled into a Safeway parking lot ten minutes later.

"Want me to go in or do you want to come in with me?" He asked politely.

"I'll wait in here." I said as I clicked on 107.3.

Hal shook his head with enthusiastic sarcasm and shut the door.

I turned on seat warmer and reclined, taking this brief moment of silence to rest my eyes. Who knew a date could be so exhausting? All my other dates were quick-paced and meaningless. This one was slow, and romantic, and full of heart. I didn't quite know yet what kind I liked better.

I woke to the car shaking with a tremor. The first thing I thought was an earthquake. But then I saw the horror of what was right in front of me.

Safeway was a smoldering pile of ash and rubble and dark, black smoke. All around me sounds of war cut through the peaceful quietness I'd experienced moments earlier. The chop chop chop of helicopter blades and the whistle of jets. Screams of people in the parking lot. The bang bang bang of automatic rifles. And worst of all, the tapping that happens when drops of blood splatter my windshield.

In front of me, a woman holding a screaming baby to her chest, got her head blown of by a volley of bullets.

Some girl in a Safeway uniform used the butt of a shotgun to smash the drivers window in. "Come on, lady! Do you want to live or not?"

I went through a survival class for a extracurricular program in high school, called Adventure Class. They'd taught us to always do everything to survive even in the heat of the moment. So I jumped out of the Explorer and sprinted toward a gray van. The girl with the shotgun ran ahead. She swung the door open and jumped in. The van took off right as I leaped into the open doorway.

Hal laid on the across the third row of seats. A old man an a teenage boy sat in the front seat. The man is driving. He swerved out of the Safeway parking lot.

"What the Hell is going on!" I demanded.

The girl set down her shotgun. "A new virus hit the west coast hard. Probably a new strain of influenza. Anyway, almost no one survived. The government collapsed. And now the dude who lost the last election, you know, Mick Holler, yeah he's bombing the eastern area so he can start his own government."

"You might want to know how we discovered this so quickly?" The man driving asked.

"Actually no but now that you mention it," I replied.

"The government actually collapsed a week ago. The agencies on the east coast, Washington, Oregon, and California. Wanted to make everything seem normal. That's why they cut every news channel and TV in general. But now Mick Holler has arrived. He's already got Arizona and Nevada on his side. And it's not long until he gets Idaho and Washington under his belt as well."

"So," the girl continued, "that means the United States of America is dead. And now we are living in the middle of a massive battlefield."

I gulped. How did the fragile peace of the world shatter in minutes. All it took was one simple nap and everything went to shit.

I looked at Hal, asleep on the backseats, fear engulfed me.