“My wife’s sick!”
“My kid’s sick, asshole!”
Derek sighed and started unloading bottles onto the shelf again.
The store buzzed with nervous noise.
Carts rattling.
Voices raised.
Babies crying.
It felt less like shopping and more like people trying to outrun something they couldn’t see.
Two customers stopped near Derek’s cart. They looked like they hadn’t slept.
“Did y’all go to the game Friday?” one of them asked.
“Yeah,” the other replied. “The whole place stayed after to watch that meteor shower.”
Derek glanced up.
The meteor shower was the talk of the entire town. He watched it himself from his driveway, seeing bright streaks of fire tearing across the sky. People cheered from the stadium bleachers. Someone said it was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen.
The guy continued talking.
“My brother swears that’s what made everyone sick.”
His friend snorted. “Yeah, right. Meteors giving people the flu?”
“I’m serious. My neighbor was at the game, and he’s been sick ever since.”
Derek shook his head and kept stocking. “Flu season,” he muttered.
But as he pushed his cart farther down the aisle, he began to notice something strange.
A large majority of the customers looked sick.
Sweating.
Pale.
Feverish.
One man leaned heavily against a shelf like he might fall over.
A woman in the vitamin aisle coughed so hard she had to grab her cart to stay upright.
Derek slowed. “That’s not good,” he said quietly.
A loud crash echoed from the front of the store. Someone had knocked over a display of canned vegetables.
The store manager hurried over, trying to calm people down. “Everyone just take what you need?—”
A man stumbled into Derek’s aisle. He looked like he had the flu from hell. Sweat poured down his face, and his hands shook.
He took two steps.
