Schools back in...

Tom set the transmission into drive and took a deep, steadying breath.

The family wagon hadn’t been touched since his mother left with Aunt Julie but their college was a fair bit more distant than the local mall was and he wanted to facilitate a quick get-away if things went pear-shaped.

The girls each fastened their seat-belts in the rear passenger seats behind him, Britney looking as nervous as he felt.

“Are you really sure you can drive?” she questioned anxiously.

“Mum gave me a lesson or two before she left.” He replied uneasily before reaching for the ignition.

The garage door opened automatically and Tom pulled the car slowly out into the driveway then onto the road. His one consolation was that the streets were not very busy anymore. Any XXX-infected didn’t seem to stray too far from their nests, maybe because it was easier to lure men back to them that way. He set a course for school, driving as fast as he felt he could safely manage.

Tom was feeling very over-wrought these days.

The school grounds seemed thankfully quiet as they pulled into the car park, without many students milling about or paying a great amount of attention to their arrival.

Tom let himself relax a little, maybe the schools weren’t hit that badly by the infection after-all. That did make sense if younger women were less susceptible to infection but he fully intended to walk the girls to class and scope out the environs before he would let himself feel at ease.

Putting the car in park and climbing out, he did a quick survey of the buildings and facilities around him.

The place looked a little neglected–the green areas needed tending and the wind had gathered dry autumn leaves up into drifts–but there were groups of students in attendance and that meant there should be teachers somewhere too.

“Hurry up and grab your bags, I’m going to tag along with you just to see what’s what.” He said, keeping an eye out for potential trouble.

“It’s our school, Tom.” Jessica huffed as she shouldered her tote bag and adjusted her uniform tie. “Everything should be more or less as we left it.”

“You say that…” He frowned as he realized what was bothering him. “But where are all the guys?”

At a cursory glance, a casual observer might have mistaken the place for a girl’s college. It took more than a little searching before Tom found three of four male students, looking just as on-edge and skittish as he felt.

The signs were all there in the poor boys; their blood-shot eyes, the way they hunched in on themselves protectively and the constant rubber-necking like savanna meerkats smelling trouble.

“Uuuumm… yeah, that is a bit strange.” Jessica conceded. “You’d think there would be more of them. They’re probably all out fu-”

“Don’t say it.” Tom snapped, he was getting tired of her snark and didn’t appreciate being a lightning rod for all her arcing ire towards men right now.

“Let’s just go already!” Britney called back to them as she ran ahead, excited to find and meet her friends for the first time in weeks.

Tom swallowed a nervous lump in his throat and kept his head on a swivel as he followed her into what was potentially enemy territory.

As far as he could tell the young students were acting as normally as could be expected but there did appear to be a shortage of seniors of either gender.

Tom couldn’t know if they had self-isolated in the same way he had or if they had fallen victim to the XXX virus, either way he felt very uneasy.

Jessica was a freshman and Britney was a highschool senior only one grade below her in the small feeder school that shared the campus. If he was being honest his sisters were probably right on the cusp of being physically at risk. As for him… well he was pretty sure he was fair game for infection, whatever that meant for him.

A voice behind him startled him from his reverie.

“Hey… hey!” A warbling voice cried out urgently from behind him.

Jessica grabbed Brit and pulled her urgently to one side, immediately separating from Tom. He felt a bit annoyed about that as he spun about in alarm but relaxed when he recognized Dr. Turner; one of the science professors hurrying towards him.

“Thank god!” The older man cried as he puffed to a halt in front of Tom. “I thought there were almost no young men left.”

He was a tall wiry man with a shock of white hair and smile lines around his keen eyes. He wasn’t smiling now though.

Dr. Turner had been one of Tom’s favorite teachers in high school, he was over fifty but was passionate about the science he taught. That sort of attitude was infectious and his students generally did well in their studies.

Tom remembered him as being kind and always taking the time to explain his lessons to the students who needed extra help. He had been quite popular as a teacher. Now he looked like he hadn’t slept for days.

“Dr Turner, I’m glad to see you but what’s been happening here?” Tom asked urgently.

“It’s been sheer madness!” Dr. Turner cried, almost throwing himself onto Tom for support. “Almost all of the senior students and nearly all the teaching staff fell to the epidemic in the first two weeks; the school was like a goddamn roman orgy! There are only myself and two other male teachers left.”

Looking wild-eyed Dr. Turner grabbed Tom’s shirt-front in two fists, pulled him close and whispered harshly into his ear…

“Do you know what happens to any men who have sexual intercourse with these… these… vixens?!”