From the window, she saw the body.

It was dead, she was pretty sure, judging by the angle of the arm and the splay of the one leg. The blood also was a give-away too but one she preferred not to ponder on for long. Judging by how much blood was already creeping down the pavement, she knew they must’ve died overnight. Why someone would choose a night run was puzzling to her at first. Not that anyone deserved such a demise, because truly no-one did, but she couldn’t help thinking, if someone did, it would be a night-runner.

A hand grabbed her shoulder, and she was unable to keep herself from expelling a startled whimper. She’d been too focused on the body to notice her husband had come to look out the window with her.

He was startled by her utterance and withdrew momentarily before pulling her in closer. She could smell the cigarette on his clothes. Not that he smoked anymore, they couldn’t afford to, but they also couldn’t afford soap. He wasn’t fast enough for soap.

She didn’t mind the smell though, the fume of what once was considered so dangerous, so toxic that it demanded commercials, was oddly comforting. This tangible stick of danger, the worst the world had to offer, was amusing to her. It settled her heart. She’d tried to explain this concept to her husband once, but he hadn’t been able to grasp it.

“You okay, Di?”

“You just startled me, Li, that’s all.”

It was only partly true. Lionel had known her long enough to see through partly.

He didn’t say anything further, but she could feel him studying her face. He was taller than her, allowing him to inspect from afar like the sun of her world. He had always inhabited this space above her. His questioning concern radiated down on her now.

Diamond shrugged, pulling at her husband’s now-thin frame. She could never have done this when they’d first met; before it all happened.

“Over there,” she said, pointing down the alley, “behind the trashcan. I think it was a night-runner.”

“You’d think they’d know by now. I mean, why risk it?” Lionel said.

“Food, maybe?” offered Diamond.

“Still doesn’t explain the night run..” he muttered, leaving the rest in the air.

“I know,” said Diamond, her gaze still fixed on the arm behind the blue trashcan, palm facing upward, stretching but never reaching.

There was a silence between the two. Comfort in silence was inevitable in these days, but not today, with so much looming.

She turned to Lionel, hoping a change of scenery would bring a change of headspace. It did well enough, her looking into her husband’s calm blue eyes and gray-flecked beard. He’d once been a boisterous bear. The first thing she’d loved about him on their first date was his bombastic laugh that rolled deep within him; a contagious laugh that pulled a smile from all surrounding faces.

Now though, he was angled and chiseled, in body and face. No longer a bear, he was a leopard. He was toned and muscled, but a protective wildness still flashed behind his blues.

She worried though, always worried, but she knew it was fair. She could not afford to lose her sun leopard. It was practical and logical, but also a truth she knew in her soul. The two of them together had a thirst to live through any hardship, but she didn’t know how much of this thirst lingered were they to ever be separated. She couldn’t afford to find out.

This seemed to travel between them without a word.

“I have to go today,” said Lionel.

“No,” said Diamond, followed by a hush, “you need to stay here.”

“We need water. We need food.”

Diamond shook her head, trying to ward of the reality of his words.

“We’re going to need diapers and formula.”

He said this as a whisper, as if this might shield her from the impact.

The teeth were still there.

Diamond’s hands instinctively dropped to her stomach, feeling her warm bulge. Lionel did the same.

“We need you here,” said Diamond, her voice cracking slightly.

“I’ve been running at 10 on the treadmill for a month’s now,” Lionel whispered, pulling her head into his chest.

The pulse of his heart against her cheek steadied her just a little.

“Can you make it?”

“I have to.”

Diamond wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe him with all her heart, but she also knew that Virus-451 didn’t care if you needed food, or water, and it certainly didn’t give a shit if you had a baby on the way. It only cared about the race and about speed.

What had started as a pandemic had grown into something far worse over the years. It had started somewhere in the rainforest and had spread and spread and continued to spread. By the time the global consciousness had identified it, it was too late.

Diamond still remembered the initial reports. An airborne virus, its particulates resting in water vapor, that entered the body, boiling the blood of its temporary host until it was back in the air to infect the next living thing in its path.

There may have been a cure, but Diamond was sure that anyone capable of such a cure had died long ago. All that was left were survivalists; those select few who had quarantined and never stopped.

And the runners.

The one thing that was true was that you could outrun the virus. Diamond was no pathologist and since communication with anyone who might help her understand the phenomenon had ceased a long time ago, she’d stopped trying to understand it. Just as gravity kept her earthbound, she knew this to be a fact of nature. If you ran, and didn’t stop running, you could avoid infection. If you stopped, you died.

Here she was, held by the man about to risk his life for her and the baby she carried.

Lionel laced up both his running shoes, his backpack unzipped around his chest. He had a beanie tight upon his head, enhancing his sharpie-like appearance.

“Don’t stop,” she said, pulling him as tighter than she’d ever held anything in her life, “come back for me.”

“For us,” he said, with another kiss of her forehead.

She was crying now and didn’t try to conceal it. Lionel wiped a few tears from her cheek, kissed her, and then opened the apartment door.

They both affirmed their love for each other, and then the door shut, and he was gone.

Diamond raced to the window, her attention so far from the body at the end of the alley. She waited to hear the garage door open. Lionel would be hitting the exit in a full sprint.

She heard the metallic whir and then her husband burst from below, out into the alley. His training was present in his lengthy strides, making it beyond clear that he ran nearly 15 miles a day. Peak shape was an understatement. He was fluid, his long legs leaping across the pavement.

He was meant for this run.

But as he was about to round the corner, his right foot came upon a rock. His powerful stride jarred it lose from the rest of the asphalt and it went scuttling along the alley.

He stumbled, legs desperately clawing to keep balance; to stay afloat.

Diamond turned away as he lurched out of view, behind a black trashcan.

She didn’t know whether Lionel would win the race with Virus-451, but she did know she’d seen enough bodies today.