Sickness In Town

By: Asa Montreaux

Payton lived with his parents like any seventeen year old, though there was one small difference. His girlfriend Bernie was over almost 24/7. She never left. And late in the night, she would behave quietly, thinking maybe she tricked Payton’s parents, though they always knew she was there. And when they had sex in the middle of the night, risking pregnancy, they heard everything. When the two had red eyes in class the next morning, the teachers had already been contacted about how they had not been sleeping much, and they knew all about it. Though the two of them went happily through the day assuming no one knew anything.

Neil knew all about it, and he had heard conversations time and again about their shenanigans. It was getting weird, as people speculated a little too accurately about who was going down on who. But when he saw them that day, he didn’t mention anything about it. And he did not mention the red eyes to either of them as well. 

But to be honest he thought about saying something to Bernie, because there was something particularly wrong today. It wasn’t so much the eyes, but the fact she had lost all colour, and her face was very bloated, and she was cold all the time when it was a little warm in the room. She had some sort of flu. A sickness anyways.

He decided he probably had to bail instead of hanging out with them and doing some theatre club project. He had a bad feeling about it because he saw quite a few people displaying the same sickness in the school. 

Later that night, Neil was asleep in bed, when all of the sudden, he heard a loud noise and awoke suddenly. Someone had ripped the roof off the house and was staring down at him. It was a woman. She jumped from the roof to his floor, and she was baring her teeth as she drooled on the floor. She then sprinted at him like she felt nothing at all. 

It was Bernie. Her face almost solid green in colour now. She looked very sick. 

Neil said to her, “Bernie, what is it?”

But she was not herself, and she was hardly calm. She could not respond, and suddenly she attacked him.

Though the super strength was not as there, and Neil wrestled her off. There seemed nothing he could do, so he threw her over the wall, out onto the roof. Dazed, Bernie got after a minute, and slithered away.

What a strange experience, Neil thought. He knew he wasn’t dreaming. He was sure he was awake. Well he could not go back to sleep. It was too cold with the roof gone. In fact, he better do something about that. He got up to go talk to his parents. 

The next day he spoke to Payton about it. He told him she was very scary. He described what happened.

“…She tore the whole roof off. I have never seen anything like it. I swear it happened. But after that she seemed to lose some of the strength. My guess is she went through like a temporary euphoria.” Neil thought he ought to ask something. “Have you guys been, you know, using anything?”

“No,” Payton said instantly. “We haven’t been using anything at all.”

Neil realized it was time to really try to bring it up with him. I mean there was a really good reason now. 

“Payton, come on. Every one had noticed. The two of you have been up to something. I mean some days you come to school, your eyes are more red than if you just stayed up late? What is it?”

“Well, alright. We had tried some stuff. Just some weed. We hadn’t done anything other than that. I swear. I feel fine. I haven’t seen her to day? Have you?”

“I don’t know. I have not seen her. Anyways I am okay. I hope she is okay too. But if you have any reaction, let me know right away okay?”

“Okay, for sure, dude.”