Mickey, Please Come Outside

Part 1: Still Breathing, Still Screaming

Look outside your windows now, or think of those presently nearest to you. If you look with even the slightest lens of skepticism to discern their intentions, you might find that the undead have already surrounded you.  They're probably closer than you think.  

***

Mickey woke up to the sound of screaming. Screaming was almost the only sound he heard outside these past couple of days. This was the fourth time today that Mickey had heard someone screaming, no doubt as they were being torn apart and eaten alive.

It wasn't like the movies. In the movies people would scream in scripted cinematic scenes of terror, but compared to the screams of someone dying in the real world the movies failed to capture what the screaming was truly like. In real life people screamed for a while, sometimes even a few minutes before their flame of life was finally extinguished. In reality they would beg God, call out to friends who wouldn't come, and they made the most horrible noises of pain Mickey had ever heard. Walking over to his window, Mickey looked out across his college campus. After the screaming had stopped the campus was quiet, as it normally was in the early hours of a Friday morning. 

Mickey could see Lewis Hall from outside his window.  Lewis Hall was the residence hall which mirrored his own, a sister hall they called it.  However, Carroll Hall - Mickey's own residence hall, had virtually nothing in common with Lewis Hall, besides the fact that they were architecturally identical. Lewis Hall was full of troublemakers; it housed the athletes, the freshman whose lives revolved around a few Greek letters, and the students who were more likely to pass a blunt than they were to pass a test.  

Carroll Hall was the opposite, and Mickey was grateful this was the case.  He almost had the unfortunate luck of residing in Lewis Hall. He would have, if he and his parents hadn't demanded that the University allow him to reside in a single room. Lewis Hall was devoid of single rooms, and so Mickey was allowed to exist in isolation within Carroll Hall. 

There was at least one good person who lived in Lewis Hall that Mickey knew. It was his girlfriend, Suzie.  Amongst all of the other troublemakers, Suzie was a genuine outlier.  At least so it seemed.  

Mickey had loved her for who she was, and he thought that she felt the same way, at least until recently.  It was shortly before all of the world-ending events that Suzie had started to change.  She had wanted Mickey to be more like her; well, more like everyone.  That's  what she had told him.  She said that she didn't like the way he was, and that he needed to change.  

Suzie had said that he needed to change for them, and that fitting in at college was important.  She reminded him that they weren't in high school anymore, and that this was the time when they would be making their lifelong friends.  She told Mickey he should be different.  She said it didn't matter if they smoke, drank, or partied.  Everyone does it.  Still, part of Mickey knew the truth, even if he had buried it deep down inside him.  Mickey knew who he was, and that he couldn't be the kind of person Suzie wanted him to be.  

Mickey liked books, he liked to study, and he cared about where his life was going.  Suzie said she liked dating a smart guy, but she emphasized that she couldn't be with a weird guy.  It was time for Mickey to stop being a mouse (the nickname was one she had come up with), and to just be normal.  Amongst all his inner turmoil, Mickey knew that if he changed it wouldn't be for them like she had said, he would be changing for her.             

Mickey had chosen a single room for his first year in college because he was far too introverted to live with a stranger. The thought of sleeping within five feet of someone he didn't know, the thought of changing in front of someone he didn't know, hell - even the thought of sharing a refrigerator with someone he didn't know was simply too overwhelming.

It was Mickey's introversion that may have saved his life. Should he have had a roommate, Mickey thought it was possible that such an individual could have jeopardized his own survival. When the announcement came across campus a few days ago, demanding that all students report to the Student Union to get face masks and prepare for the campus wide evacuation, Mickey didn't go. There would have been how many people at the Student Union? Thousands? Ten of thousands? It would have certainly been an anxiety inducing crowd.

The virus that had caused all of this commotion might have been airborne.  That was something the news had discussed for a long time, even before the virus made its way to the United States. It was hard to say though, it seemed like no one was living long enough to figure anything out. Mickey doubted it was airborne though.  He never went and obtained a face mask like he was ordered to, and he was still breathing. 

Someone screamed again in the distance, and Mickey attempted to locate the source as he stared out his dormitory window. It sounded like it was coming from the nearest parking lot, but it was difficult to tell. All Mickey could see was a blockade of cars, with the closest vehicle towards Lewis Hall being an ambulance with its back doors open. The emergency vehicle was stationary, whoever it was coming for never obtained salvation, but perhaps the vehicle was still waiting for someone. Maybe it was waiting for Mickey.

Mickey turned away from the window after thinking this unsettling thought, and jumped when his phone vibrated aggressively on his desk. In utter disbelief, he looked at the notification.  

It was from Suzie.  

Apparently he wasn't alone on campus after all.