Dibs. — Hive

At 18 years old Lizzie was everything that she had hoped to be.

Her body was perfectly trim, with curves in all the right places.

Her blonde hair hung down at just the right angle to frame her blemish free porcelain complexion.

Stepping into the passenger side of the black SUV she called out a word that she used quite often these days.

Dibs!

Source: Pixabay.com

Henry hadn't been driving for long.

The year was 2234 and everything was different than it was supposed to be.

Different than it was supposed to be? How can you know that?

Well I can tell you this much. It's unlikely that 90% of the world should have been eradicated by that terrible stomach virus.

Captain Trips? More like Captain Shits. What a way to go.

Only the smallest children seemed to be unaffected. However, it was soon determined that as they got older these children would eventually die in the same fashion as everyone else. Sitting hunched on the toilet in screaming agony.

As you might imagine, many of the scientists working on the problem had children too. We want to protect our children at any cost. A whole plethora of experimental procedures were in place.

One worked.

It involved ingesting the lining of a still beating human heart.

How could we do such a thing? For our children to survive.

As Henry pulled by the curbside of the local abandoned barbershop Lizzie noticed a shadow hiding quietly inside.

Looking in the pull down mirror, she casually sharpened her incisors with a small cutting stone.

Dibs!

The young man must have been on his own for some time. "It's difficult to be out here on your own in this world." Lizzie thought as she separated the dripping flesh from tender chest bone. She was lucky to have Henry.

She skipped back to the car with a wild grin on her face. Wiping the blood from the side of her mouth, she pressed a tape into the cassette slot. They'd heard this one a million times, but it had been years since any radio stations had existed and you had to make do with what you had.

Henry could feel the hunger overcoming him. His stomach was starting to hurt.

Lizzie was about to suggest that they go back to her house for a little fun in bed, her second favorite activity, when she saw a young child walking through the local playground. Lizzie remembered being that age. She used to sit precariously on a small metal swing while her father pushed her back and forth.

She would laugh and laugh for hours.

A single teardrop fell from her eye as she remembered how disgusted she was at her father's final days. The smells that came from his bathroom were not of this world. She had been so mean to him.

The child reminded her of her own youth and that was one thing she could never get back.

Opening the door to the SUV, she turned to Henry and said with a smile....

Dibs!