The Remaining Survivors

Reed felt the sweat arc down his brow and drip into his eye. He hadn’t felt the heat before, but the sting of the sweat made him alert to his surroundings. His bed room was now swelteringly warm, and he didn’t know why. It certainly hadn’t been this warm when he had gone in for the night an hour ago.

Reed had meant to go straight to bed, the days travels wearing on him, but he had never turned off the light. Instead, as he sank into the cushiony mattress, his thoughts drifted over to Ruby. She was the perfect girl in Reed’s eyes, and he had spent all day trying to get in with her. Reed couldn’t tell if forcing conversation was working, but she seemed to like his awkward, uncomfortable remarks. After they all split up for the night, Reed thought about going to see her, but he didn’t know what he would say. He didn’t want to blow his chances by being a creep. So instead, he indulged himself in daydreams until he was interrupted by the heat.

Reed flipped himself out of bed and stumbled out of the room. He felt tired and sore from the car trip, his legs aching from the cramped position they had been in. Walking into the living room, Reed checked the thermostat there, which read 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Huh that’s weird,” Reed thought, “Maybe there’s a window open or Something.”

Reed yawned and began making his way through the house looking for the source of the heat. He was minorly annoyed that he had to be the one to do this, wondering if no one else felt the house begin to bake. It didn’t take Reed long to find the sliding door wide open, the hot summer night invading into the kitchen and the rest of the house.

Reed poked his head out and glanced into the shadows. He didn’t see anything.

“Anyone out here?” Reed yelled.

Reed waited a moment, but no reply came. Letting out a sigh, Reed pushed the door shut.

“Who left this door open? Bunch of idiots,” He thought beginning to get irritated, “Somebodies going to get it tomorrow when I found out who left this damn door open. Probably Lane, flipping idiot.”

Reed shook his head and turned to return back to the comfort of his bed. Just this small detour had used what little energy he had left, and he was ready to end the day. Reed was ready to collapse inside a cocoon of sheets and let his mind drift away as he thought of Ruby. Reed almost got there, but as he reached the doorway, someone called out to him.

It was Chris, standing in the balcony, very pale with look of disbelief and confusion on his face.

“Dude, get up here, you need to see this shit,” he said.

“Can’t this wait until tomorrow?” Reed asked, growing more and more annoyed the longer he had to stay awake.

“No, get your ass up here right now,” Chris said.

Reed sighed. He really wanted to tell Chris to fuck off, but something in the Chris’s voice stuck with him. An undertone of fear traveled with every word Chris said, giving Lane the feeling that something was actual wrong. So, Lane dragged himself around to the staircase and upstairs, where Chris practically dragged him to the end of the hall into a movie room.

The blaring noise from the TV there shocked Reed’s brain and **** him a bit more awake.

“What are you watching,” he said confused

“Look at this man, it’s some kind of government message or something, it’s repeating on all channels. Something about some kind of outbreak and not having sex.”

Reed gave Chris a look.

“Just watch it.”

So Reed did. He had to watch it thrice to fully grasp what it was saying, as the first time he started midway through the governor’s speech. Chris said nothing as Reed struggled to take in what was being said. After the message started to play for a fourth time, Chris got up and started pacing.

“What do you think man? Do you think it’s like some kind of AI deepfake hoax? This can’t possible be real, that would be insane, absolutely, positively bat shit insane.”

Reed put his head in his hands.

“Well let’s look at the facts. I’m order for this to be fake, someone would have to use AI to make an incredibly accurate replication of someone, then hijack, what you said every tv channel? Okay every tv channel and loop this message for…. What? A prank? Oh yeah, good job guys you made us think that zombies were attacking but instead of eating us they just were unbelievably horny. I mean do you know how crazy that would be?”

“Crazier than it being true,” Chris asked.

“I….. I don’t know,” Reed replied, “It just seems like a lot of work and planning for ultimately no pay off.”

“So then what? This is happening?” Chris asked, leaning down against the wall, head in his hands.

“Look man I don’t know, have you checked the internet,” Reed asked, “If sex crazed maniacs are really running rampant through the US it’s probably a pretty big headline.”

Chris instantly looked embarrassed. Reed rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone. Chris began giving some excuse about how he had panicked, and Reed assured him it was fine. Reed opened his news app and instantly was bombarded with multiple headlines.

“Strange disease spreads across west coast causing increased sexual drive.”

“CDC issues warning about outbreak of previously unknown virus.”

“Multiple states on West Coast issue states of emergency in response to outbreak of new virus.”

“Virus of unknown origins has appeared in 9 different US states within 24 hours of one another.”

Reed swallowed. This was fine, everything was going to be fine. Reed looked at Chris who seemed to be reading the same ish headlines on his phone.

“We need to get everyone and go,” said Reed.

“Go where?” questioned Chris, who seemed to be regaining his composure after his initial shock. “You heard the news, they’re telling people to say where they are, they’re basically trying to put a quarantine in place. I doubt they’re going to let a van of people potentially carrying whatever this thing is across two state borders.”

“So what do we do then?” Reed asked.

“We need to get everyone up and tell them about what’s going on. Then we need to figure out if it’s safe to stay where we are. If not we need to find a safe shelter to barricade ourselves in. Then we need to go to buy a shit ton of food and water. We need to go into survival mode. Stock up on stuff to make it a while if we need to wait out the storm.”

“Okay, okay, okay, we got this, everything’s going to be fine,” Reed said, his body beginning to shake uncontrollably.

Chris grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him the eyes with a steely expression.

“We are going to be fine, just go get the others, okay? One thing at a time, deal with problems as they show up,” he said, “I’m going to try and look for places we could go if here isn’t safe, so just go wake everyone up and bring them here, okay?”

“Right,” Reed replied, turning to leave the room. He gave Chris one last glance before going to get the others. The first room he could get to was Ruby’s right at the top of the staircase.

“Everything is going to be fine,” Reed thought as he went to open Ruby’s door, “Everything is going to be fine.”