Extinction Level

Someone, somewhere must still be alive.

Luis rested on polished marble steps leading to the state capital building and leaned over to re-tie a shoestring. The sole of his hiking boots gaped like an open mouth. Not surprising, after tramping all over Texas. First, from Houston to College Station; then on to Dallas, and finally due south to Austin.

Luis glanced left and right, searching for a clothing store or a grocery.

Shattered storefront windows showed the capital had been looted in the virus riots, just like every other town he’d been through. To say civilization had crumbled was an understatement. It had imploded.

“Hello!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “Anyone home?”

“Home . . . home . . . home.” His echo died out and silence once again smothered the city.

“Hel-looooooooooooooo, Austin!”

Not a sound, other his own mocking voice.

He uncorked the canteen angled across his chest and offered a toast. “Shame you’re gone, Austin. You were a fun place and they kept you weird.” He took a long, thoughtful drink and recalled a question that had come up in Biology 101.

“Professor,” a student had asked one day, “how low would human population have to go before we’re at extinction level?”

“All it takes to repopulate is one fertile man and one fertile woman,” the professor had replied.

Luis studied the empty avenue marching straight toward the river and thought about that a moment. The virus had destroyed humans, but not animals. It was as if God had decided to start over, only this time he didn’t use water to destroy mankind. An unseen enemy dissolved the body from the inside out, attacking soft tissue first. Eventually it even melted bone.

Luis shook his head, trying to banish bad memories, but they refused to leave.

It had been months since he came out of seclusion. Certain it was only a matter of time before he caught the virus, he had decided to return to the seminary to wait for death. He found the grounds and every building deserted. After two weeks, after all grew quiet and fires started by rioters burned themselves out, he ventured forth through the rubble that had once been Houston. It was amazing how much damage doomed people could do in so short a time. Unable to find a working car or motorcycle, he had set out by bicycle. He was determined to find someone alive. All too soon, he discovered there was too much rubble for any means of transportation other than walking.

Sunlight glinting off the capitol dome pulled Luis from his reverie.

“Austin lies at your feet,” he said out loud. “Pick a place. Any place. Where do you want to live?”

His inner voice tut-tutted. Talking to yourself again.

“Who else am I going to talk to?” He gestured toward the vast emptiness in exasperation. “I don’t see any brilliant conversationalists around. Do you?”

Holding a conversation with yourself is the first sign you’re going mad.

“Just shut up,” Luis said. “Don’t talk to me unless you have something interesting to say.”

You need a place to spend the night.

“Let’s see. The governor’s mansion or a slacker hangout on Sixth. Tough choice.”

It doesn’t really matter. You’re the last guy in the world.

Luis gave a rain-soaked cardboard box a spiteful kick. “Yeah, I know.” He searched the sky for a smear of smoke and strained to hear something, anything, to indicate human life still existed.

Nothing. It had been this way for six months. Silence punctuated by an occasional odd sound. Birds chattered at him in the morning. Coyotes sang to the moon. The wind rattled tree branches.

He’d passed empty dorms on the way to the capital building. That would feel more like home than the governor’s mansion. He hefted his backpack over his shoulder and headed to the University of Texas campus.

If he hadn’t been so dead set on going pre-med at Rice, he’d have attended U.T. In spite of the scholastic scholarship U.T. had dangled in front of him, he had chosen his dad’s alma mater.

Dad. His gut wrenched at the memory of watching him die of the virus. Someone from CDC had named it the Souza Carvalho Virus, after the Brazilian scientist who discovered it, but no one bothered to call it that. All you had to say was, “Virus” and everyone changed the subject. You breathed it in, showed flu-like symptoms, and for the next three days, blood seeped from body orifices until you dissolved.

Not only did Luis not die. He didn’t even sneeze once, although he stayed by his father’s bedside and watched him slip away. Luis understood the mechanics of the airborne virus. He had helped Dad out at a free clinic in the barrio and had more than a smattering of medical knowledge.

It was the why that bothered him. Why had this happened? He had no answer, just a suspicion.

Something crinkled behind him. It sounded like someone wadding paper.

Straightening, he touched his holster. He always kept the snap guard off, never knowing when he might need to make a quick draw.

The wind pushed trash through a puddle and he relaxed.

Get a grip, Luis, his inner voice said.

“I wish I could find just one person alive. Then I wouldn’t have to talk to you.”

At that instant, a long shadow wandered across the road.

Luis froze in amazement to see a girl, an honest-to-goodness girl, step in front of him.

Slack-jawed, she took a deep intake of breath and stared at him with enormous black eyes.

Luis took a step toward her, but halted in sudden horror as she lifted a dangerous-looking pistol and pointed it straight at him.

On instinct, Luis reached for his gun. By the time he touched the leather holster, she had already thumbed back the hammer. “Stop.”

He did. Immediately. Not wishing to make a move that could be misinterpreted, he raised his hands and stammered out, “My hands are up. See? Relax.”

“Take out your gun, nice and slow, and lay it on the pavement.”

“Hey, look. It was just a gut reaction. I—”

“Now.” She spoke in an amazingly calm voice. “Or I’ll blow your head off.”

“Take it easy. See,” Luis said, pulling his gun out, using only his thumb and index finger. He scrunched down and laid it on the pavement. His heart beat double time as his eyes swept over her.

She was dressed like a cowgirl in boots, jeans, and western-cut shirt. And she looked a little younger than he was, twenty, maybe twenty-one.

Her gun remained pointed straight at his chest. “Move over there,” the girl said, gesturing with her head.

Hands still in the air, Luis took five quick steps to the left.

She kept a wary eye on him as she picked up his gun, unloaded it in one swift motion, and shoved the Glock into her waistband and the cartridge into her jeans pocket. “What’s your name?”

“Luis Salazar. My friends call me Padre.”

“Why?”

“It’s my nickname. I don’t know why. Some friends started calling me that and it stuck.”

Liar! his inner voice said. They called you that because you dropped out of the seminary when you realized you couldn’t do the celibacy thing.

She tilted her head, surveying him from head to toe. “Why are you still alive?”

“I don’t know.” He paused. “No. That’s not completely true. I have a theory. Unprovable, I’m sure.”

A crow cawed from the branches of a nearby live oak.

“Look,” Luis said, “I can’t stand here all day with my hands in the air. May I lower them? They’re getting heavy.”

“One false move—”

“And you’ll blow my head off. My mother did not raise a foolish son.”

“I don’t want any funny business out of you.”

Damn she’s cool, he thought as he brought his hands down slowly. In more ways than one.

“So make yourself useful,” she said. “Start talking.”

“What about?” He hadn’t had a real conversation in months and now that someone had told him to talk, he found himself suddenly tongue-tied.

“Tell me your theory,” she said. “Why do you think we’re still alive?”

Luis felt a bit foolish, but swallowed his reluctance and asked, “When you were a kid, were you ever around someone with tuberculosis?”

“What?” Her gun wavered slightly, the question apparently catching her off guard.

Her reaction intrigued him. “You were, weren’t you?”

“It’s possible,” she said in an amazed voice. “My grandfather coughed a lot before he died.”

“The last time I had a physical, I showed positive for the disease. Not that I have tuberculosis,” he quickly amended. “My father was a physician and he said I somehow managed to pick up a natural immunity to the disease.”

Her brow crinkled in concentration. “If we are immune to tuberculosis, then somewhere along the way we must have acquired an immunity to the virus as well.”

“The two probably triggered each other. Maybe that harmless t.b. germ in our bodies coupled with another germ. That’s what kept us from getting the virus.”

A long silence passed between them as they mulled that over.

“I need my gun back,” Luis said.

“Isn’t going to happen.”

“Look, you can’t send me out in the cold, cruel world unarmed. Just give it back and I’ll head that way.” He pointed south, toward San Antonio. “You’ll never see me again. I give you my word as a gentleman and a scholar.”

One corner of her mouth quirked in a smile.

Damn pretty girl, his inner voice said. And not because you’ve been womanless for so long.

“Have you seen anyone else alive?” Luis asked.

“Yeah. A whole dorm full.”

Luis smiled. Bravado. Pure bravado. She was probably all alone, just like him, and afraid to admit it.

Hands outstretched in a pleading gesture, Luis said, “I’ll play it straight with you if you play it straight with me. I’ve been all over Texas, looking for survivors. So far, you’re the only one. We can either be friends and join forces or go our separate ways. It would be a pity not to help each other. I’m sure there are things I can do for you and vice versa. If nothing else, I can give you pleasant conversation. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of talking to myself.”

Something was different about her face now. He couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but she seemed to be considering his offer. She was probably as starved for conversation as he was.

A long moment went by.

“O.K.,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she motioned to the right with the gun barrel. “Let’s get one thing straight from the start,” she said as they set out with Luis in the lead. “If you turn out to be more trouble than you’re worth—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. One wrong step and I’m dead meat. I’ve got the routine down.”

A chuckle sounded at his back. He glanced over his shoulder and found her lovely face had blossomed into a genuine smile. He turned. “You’re beautiful when you smile.”

“This is purely platonic, buster. I wouldn’t let you touch me even if you were the last guy in the world.”

“I am. Lack of competition increases my odds considerably.”

“Just remember I have your weapon.”

“Do I look like the village idiot?”

“You look like my prisoner.”

“Did you ever study extinction-level theory?” he asked.

“No. I was an Ag major.”

“So you know stuff like how to grow food?”

“Yeah.”

“And you never studied extinction-level theory?”

When there was no answer forthcoming, he glanced back.

Her suddenly narrowed eyes skewered him. “No. Why?”

“Oh, no reason.” He walked on. His hopes for the future soared. One fertile couple. That was all it took.