Bob repeatedly dreamt the same nightmare, seeing ‘them,’ and avoiding ‘them’—he often envisioned himself as the only one left in the world, a lone survivor to natural selection.

  He wore a scarf, hat, and jacket and prepared his dog, Sheila, for a walk outside at the crack of dawn.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Come on, girl, before ‘they’ come out!”

  Bob and Sheila carefully chose solitary paths while looking out for nocturnal predators.

  But his strategy didn’t work, ‘they’ too came out earlier, everywhere—with nowhere to run, nowhere to escape—mingling, coughing, and sneezing.

  “Those maskless morons!” Bob thought to himself angrily.