It wasn’t partial to only men or women but was an equal opportunity serial killer. She’d seen children with the sickness, too. So far, they didn’t seem to contract the mutated version. Usually, the RF1 virus took them down, though, and quickly. The mortality rate among children was even higher. She wondered if all children would eventually be wiped out from it.

The roof had leaked last night as water streamed down through the holes and missing pieces of slate roofing. It was puddling in some places on the hardwood floor of the second-floor hallway. They had fixed it yesterday but must’ve missed something. They couldn’t stay here forever. This was temporary. All places were temporary now. They’d already moved quite a bit. She wished they knew somewhere safe, somewhere permanent. She knew Ohio had terrible winters with lots of snow and ice and blizzards, too. They wouldn’t make it more than a week into that kind of weather.

She looked around the room at the group of people with whom she was surviving. A few coughed. Were they infected or just sick from the cold air? Would they infect the rest of them?