Dahmer Flu Read Free Page B

Aimee, somehow, had kept herself shaved and trimmed.
    We headed west, for no real reason other than a direction that wasn’t ‘here’. The RV picked carefully through the quiet highway, avoiding the long-since burned out wreckage from those that hadn’t made it past this point. We had friends down South and had started that way first, but far as we could tell everything that direction was all but gone and nowhere near safe for the living. We stuck to the back roads to God knows where, hoping to find somewhere safe.  Humanity of course, had survived to a degree; we’re good at that, like cockroaches, but we were just barely doing that.  The people that thought that the government was going to protect them were the ones that were surprised with it didn’t, so they began to arm themselves, fortify areas into compounds, grow their food and protect their own. The rules had changed overnight, and there was no such thing as a friendly neighbor.
    Some people just wanted to survive and be left to themselves, while others took advantage of the breakdown in society to form their own for their own reasons. Those who left these compounds had spoken of these places in hushed, frightened tones; that they were ruled, in most cases, by whoever was stronger, or more ruthless, or could keep control- and then only until someone took it from them by force. Especially with women, such places could be worse than out in the wild, with the undead. We avoided those places, too.
    Aimee stirred softly beside me and her eyelids fluttered open. I wondered if she had the same dreams as I did; we didn’t talk about our dreams any more. “Good morning, Sunshine.” I reached across the console, folding her hand in mine.
    “Where are we?” Her eyes were alert, scanning for movement.
    I thought back to the road sign that I had seen a few miles back. “Someplace called ‘Calico’, not far off.”
    “Probably some hick town,” she grinned. It was a running joke between us. Aimee was born and raised in Mills Grove, South Carolina, population 628; single pump gas station, a small general store, combined schoolin’, two funeral homes. She lived there most of her life, and we met there while I was driving through on my way to Fort Meade. She worked the front desk at the bed and breakfast- I stayed longer than I intended, and she ended up coming with me when I left. It worked out pretty well for the both of us.
    I laughed. It was good to laugh. Without warning, a violent barking cough erupted from behind the rear partition. Our bodies tensed, but then all was still
    “He’s getting worse,” Aimee said softly. I nodded grimly. Jacob had developed a cough a few days ago, and his breathing was becoming more labored. Aimee thought it might be croup, and I hoped she was right. I knew that Dahmer Flu was spread through human bites; we’d seen enough of that to know that for sure, but no one could say for certain that it wasn’t airborne, or maybe in the water. Of course, no one knew exactly what it was anyways, so anything was just a guess or rumor.
    The motor-home wove through the metal graveyard, and I worried with each curve and bend that we’d find the undead waiting ahead. More than once, as we drove by a still vehicle, the window would suddenly explode with blood and teeth as something inside grew desperate to break out, but we continued unscathed. If Aimee noticed it, she didn’t react.
    Steadying herself, she rose and crossed over to the small drawer in the kitchen. After a moment, she returned with a small box filled with medicines and band-aids.
    “He’ll need antibiotics,” she continued, angrily settling back into the passenger seat, “This cough syrup isn’t doing shit.” Aimee didn’t swear, except when her children were hurting; then she became someone else entirely. But because we had been avoiding the main roads whenever possible and the large cities entirely, the scavenging had been slim, mostly consisting of canned goods