One Month Before Outbreak

John:

Over a bucket of chicken nuggets Dave and I discussed the laws of Soy Sauce. With our buffet of our own neatly packed sauce resting on the Bronco's dashboard and a twelve pack between my legs we were at optimum philosopher mode. I airplaned into honey mustard as I pondered, "How many people do you think have been in contact with it?"

"Wrom chum macabro," Dave swallowed, "So there's no real way we'd ever know."

"We should have a signal, you know?" I take a bite of barbecue goop encrusted chicken, "Like a code word or something to identify ourselves to other sauce survivors. Like pedophiles."

"What?" Dave asked in that brainfreeze way of his.

"Yeah, you never heard that joke: how can you tell someone's a pedophile? Stare at them hard until they tell you the truth," I nodded.

Dave's eyes looked up slowly as they broke out of the frozen face, "I'm pretty sure I've heard something like that and I'm pretty sure that's not how it goes."

"Whatever," I shrugged, "You get the point. We need a signal."

"I think you've brought enough attention to us with that stupid blog of caboba," Dave motioned to the sauce he had just devoured his nugget with, "Buffalo is a go."

My eyes shot open as I looked to my indirect genius of a friend, "That's it! 'Buffalo is a go!' Incredible."

"I was talking about the sauce," Dave groaned.

I nodded my head, "And don't I know it. Hey, you think Big Jim and Fred Chu would have survived if everything with Shit Load and Vegas didn't happen?"

"What do you mean?" He asked, taking my question very serious since he's been porking Jim's sister and everything.

"Like...do you think the Sauce would have let them live?" I explained as I took a sip of beer.

"Hm. I don't see why not. Cool guy like Fred? He'd do anything," Dave exclaimed, probably thinking of all the opportunities he would've had if he were more like our deceased friend.

His face got that cave man look when he was self-loathing and maybe it was the nuggets or the Bronco's dashboard but he started getting really shiny. I narrowed my eyes, about to tell him to cut it out, when he looked up and flinched.

"What the shit is that?!"

My eyes followed his to the windshield and my mouth fell open. Hovering over the engine was a large glowing orb of light. The thing was unlike anything we had ever seen and we have seen /a lot/ of shit. The first thing I thought of was that shitty orb that took us to that other dimension but this one wasn't big enough for us to go through. Then I thought it looked like that orb Viola kicked ass with in SoulCalibur—all exuding light and mystery while being the size of a medicine ball and totally not harmless. Instead of blue like her's this was pure light, nearly blinding light with no actual color.

For some reason E.T. popped into my mind and I shook my head to answer Dave's question, "I don't know but I think it wants us to take it to our leader."

The thing suddenly whipped away of the parking lot we loitered in. Without another word we were storming after it, condiments flying everywhere. It seemed just like me, Dave was compelled to follow the spectacular glowing thing. Although my friend hated being in supernatural car chases it never failed he would instigate one under the right circumstances. All we needed was the bitching that would come in three, two, one, "This is so fucking stupid! A giant blob appears and our first instinct is what?! Follow it?!"

"Faster Dave! You're losing it!" I shouted. The slight buzz I had made the blob into two so actually I wasn't sure if we were losing it or not.

To our surprise he ignored his own bitching and slammed on the gas peddle. The Bronco squealed like a potbelly pig or an old truck about to fall apart. He shook his head as he repeated, "This is so fucking stupid! I'm done!"

He began to ease his foot off the gas just as the thing zipped into a parking lot, just a little ways away, "Come on! It just made a turn, we have to follow it!"

"No, John! I just got arrested for some freaky shit! I almost went to prison! I'm done with this!"

"Come on! We don't know what it wan-"

"I don't ca-"

"You're gonna mis-"

"I'm not foll-"

"Dave!"

"John!"

"Da-"

"Don't touch th-"

EEEEEER.

BADUMDOOM.

Despite Dave's lofty protest brawn over brain—as always—won. I yanked the wheel away from his grip and toward me, steering the car over the sidewalk and into the parking lot. Before the truck was even in park I was out of the thing and storming toward the double glass doors I watched the glowing orb dive through. I could hear Dave shouting and stomping behind me but I was focused. The thing appeared to us for a reason and like a cat with a laser pointer I had to find the source.

I swung open the door and entered but a frightening sight paused my action. It was like I was transported into some alternate Shit Narnia where the ultimate evil reigns: boy bands. There were posters, cardboard cutouts, pictures, action figures, tooth brushes with little prepubescent boys smiling at me. An ominous sign read "Five Below" and the place seemed to go on indefinitely and other than the demon merch they sold candy, lots of it. Everything was pink or orange and I could feel myself turning into a ten-year-old girl the longer I stayed.

"What now, Jack Ass?" Dave hissed, smelling oddly like ranch dipping sauce.

"Obviously this place is evil and that thing sent us here to destroy it. Come on, it's about to get hot in he-"

"Um, excuse me. Can I help you?"

The voice was higher pitched and must've belonged to a twelve year old that got sucked in here. Normally little kids are Dave's thing, when his reluctant hero persona kicks in, but I needed him to fuck shit up with. I turned to the girl and began to say, "Unless you're a glowing ball of light I don't think s-"

I couldn't finish my sentence. I couldn't even finish my thought. The thing that spoke was not an innocent twelve-year-old girl—it wasn't a girl at all! Behind the register where a girl should be was a cylindrical beam of light that went as high as a short 5'2". The light seemed to be yellow but white yet blue and all at the same time no color at all. The only thing I knew was that it was pure, the purest thing I had ever seen.

Before my eyes like a slow sports montage comes the memories of the sex, the drugs, the liquor…the death and even the sadness no one—not even Dave—knows I hold inside of me. But like a Bic to film everything is burning up as soon as they pass over the screen. I want to call my mom, I want to call my dad, I want to call my "girlfriend" and tell her all those things I said were out of habit and I don't even remember her name.

Something flashed before me to take my attention off the beautiful thing. I realized it was the ball that lead us to it and as the ball circled the light it dimmed and suddenly I could see a girl standing in its place. She still glowed—kind of like those gods from Hercules, that Disney movie Amy put on one day—but I could see human features that weren't there before. She appeared to be twenty or at least a mature looking fourteen-year-old. She looked so sweet and I could imagine people talking to her and calling her 'sweetie' and her thinking 'dude, you don't even know me.' Despite the glow I could see she had nice caramel skin, brownie eyes, hair long and dark like dripping fudge, lips like jolly ranchers. She had giant breasts and despite being short was pretty curvaceous. She was a total babe.

"Hello?"

The word snapped me out of my haze and I realized her most striking feature was her "what the fu-" look on her face. The time I spent hypnotized by the light came back and I understood for a whole three minutes I just stared at her open mouthed, even drooling. I shook my head and asked, "Did you know you're glo-"

"Here, I found it," came Dave's unmistakably irritated voice.

I saw that on the counter he had dropped two twix bars, two red bulls, and a lumpy ball that shot laser light around when bouncing and actually looked like what I shouted earlier. The girl, the woman, the light, nodded and began to scan the items. I glared at Dave, thinking we should tell her, but he glared back—probably thinking about an orgy with her and Amy. I opened my mouth to finish my earlier question but she cut me off, "Would you like to make a donation to Alex's Lemonade Stand to help fight against childhood cancer?"

Whoever ran the place must have been evil to teach her that script. She sounded so sincere, so cute, so noncommittal only a hard rat bastard would deny her. Dave looked her right in the eyes and said, "No."

"Oh, come o-"

I naturally took a step closer to the register to lean my hand on the hard counter but as I did a weird sensation filled me. It started like tiny little bubbles landing on my skin but as the seconds passed it grew to the feel of a nice bath with bubbles being added every single second. It felt good, so good I completely ignored what Dave was saying to look at the girl like an idiot again. Was this all because of her? Could Dave feel it? Could Dave feel the peace that felt stronger and stronger the closer I got to her?

"Whatever," was all I could think to say to him as I reached in my pocket and grabbed my wallet. I opened it up and began my search through. Hm. Lint. How did that happen? I looked to Dave, "Can I borrow five dollars?"

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Hey, it's really okay. Honestly, you guys are like the third customer we've had all day. No one cares. It's really no pressure," the girl smiled though she looked pretty pressured into saying that as her brownie eyes darted back and forth between us. Stupid Dave.

"No, it's fine," I smiled, finding it easier to do that with her around.

"Shit, John, just let it go!" Dave burst like an asshole.

"Jeez, Dave, not in front of-"

I paused, waiting for her to supply her name.

Her brows furrowed as she answered, "Kiran?"

Adam Sandler must have pointed that remote and paused us right there as we looked at the girl because for a good minute we did not even breathe. We knew what that name meant. It was Hindi. Hindi for 'Beam of Light.' Dave and Me unfroze as he looked to each other with that telepathic facial recognition thing we do that never works but in that second we both understood something. She had to know.

Dave got his squinty constipated look as he got into his serious-yet-not-so-serious professional attitude, "Now...Kiran. When you look at yourself in the mirror...what do you see?"

"What?" Her voice was shaky and I got the Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones feeling like we were talking to an actual illegal alien. Her eyes were getting watery and I could see her giant boobs taking in deep gulps of air as she looked between us. Either she was a terrible liar or she really had no idea what was going on but someone with this kind of power? How could see not know? And why would she lie? It wasn't like she was evil. Dave and Me—especially Dave—know evil and she was not.

"Because when me and my friend, John-"

I interrupted the conversation with a little wave.

"-here look at you we see something pretty specific and we want to know if you see the same thing."

Kiran's face began to get all red and splotchy like someone started sprinkling strawberry Nesquik mix all over her face and her eyes got really dark as she looked to us. The light inside of her started to dim a whole lot until she started looking almost completely human and as she bit her lip and took in a deep breath I was sure she was going to explode into some ethereal being before us until she did something way worse.

She began to cry.

Her face crumbled into an infant expression of sadness and I looked to Dave with disbelief as I shook my head, "Dick."

"Is this what you guys do?" she began to shout, "You just pick on ugly new girls in town? You come in here and gawk at me like some sort of side-show-attraction and then what? Ask me what I see in the mirror so you can make fun of my answer? What is your problem?"

"No! No!" I shouted as I pressed myself against the check-out counter and instead of feeling the beautiful bubble like relaxation felt the cold distance like I had been dropped into the Arctic. I grabbed her hand that remained closest to me and looked into her eyes in desperate search of the light that had just been here, "We're weird and were fucked up but not because you're ugly. You're not ugly! You're a babe! That's why I was staring at you! You're hot! Really! We're just stupid and don't know how to talk to girls because we're idiots. Especially this asshole!"

The more I seemed to call us stupid the brighter she became and the tears stopped—mostly because they were angry embarrassed tears and not actual sad ones—but her expression didn't change and the glow was still very dull. It wasn't until she looked down at me holding her hand that this jolt of brightness sparked throughout her and zapped my hand away that she went back to normal. She cleared her throat quietly as she gave us a defiant and still angry expression, "Yeah, he really is an asshole."

I let out a laugh as I leaned my hand back onto the counter and eagerly returned those peaceful bubbles. I looked her over, watching how the light danced beneath her skin like a laptop left on and blinking for someone to notice it. I liked the way the light made her look and even though she was super short I liked that because it made her have to look up at me like I was some sort of hero and usually I have to get naked or kicked in the head for someone to look at me that way. I liked the way I wanted to lean forward and press my hand against her face—against her very brightly glowing cheeks that sort of looked like she was blushing—but not kiss or anything or even have sex with her although that option was always on the table. I really liked that though she was hot what I really wanted to do was sit quietly next to her on the couch and maybe talk about some things that I never really talked about before. Kissing and cuddling would be nice but sitting in silence sounded really good too.

"So, this is getting really weird and I have work in the morning," Dave interjected awkwardly.

"Hm," I said as I looked over at him, "I forgot you were here."

Dave rolled his eyes and grabbed the bag, "I'm leaving without you."

"Whatever," I waved as I returned my attention to Kiran. "I'm really sorry about him. He's not a people person at all."

"I can tell," she nodded, "Why do you smell like honey mustard?"

I opened my mouth but the Bronco's loud engine cut me off, "I'll tell you later."

She shrugged as if it didn't matter but the light in her cheeks told a different story, "I'm always here so."

The bubbles danced around in my stomach as if they were my own little prize to take away with me and I smirked at the girl, "It's a date."

Dave beeped and I pulled myself away to run to him as I tried to figure out how to make smelling like honey mustard sound totally bad ass.