"No... I don't think that'll work"

"Why's that?" Stan replied, "is it the incest thing? Because, like, yeah, gross. But dogs and stuff can do that. Eventually, in like, a billion generations, no one'll notice!"

Meredith sighed inwardly. She had spent two solid weeks in this idiot's company getting badgered for sex. She was grateful, for once, that she wasn't a small woman; the only up side was that Stan, with his timid nature and slight physique didn't have a hope if he tried to force things. At five foot eleven and easily one hundred eighty pounds, no one would confuse her for a flowery waif. Unfortunately, no one would call her 'voluptuous' or 'buxom' either. They usually called her 'strong' when being polite, and 'butch' when they weren't.

Fuck 'em, she thought. They can't say shit now they're all dead.

Meredith wasn't sure how or why, but three weeks and two days ago, nearly everyone in Berkley dropped dead. For two days she thought she was the only survivor of whatever calamity had struck. And for three weeks, she wished she was.

All the while she was contemplating the rotting corpse of humanity, Stan continued talking, pressuring, cajoling. She'd had half a mind to do it when she first came across him, looting the pockets of the dead. Any interest in preserving humanity died like the rest of her species when he opened his mouth.

"See," he was still talking, she marveled,* if was radiation or something that might even help, ya know? Like, all those atomics and whatever could, like, fuck up our kids DNA and then it wouldn't even matter. Duuuude! They could have *superpowers!"

Stan looked at her with eyes wide, hands outstretched and waving. Jazz hands, she thought. God, he's doing the jazz hands again. Stan stared, waiting for a reply. fuck it, I'll just drop the L-bomb on him, then.

"Look, Stan, it's not just the dead bodies everywhere, or the lack of medical care, or the complete collapse of civilization. It's not even the fact you're personally repellant." Meredith took a deep breathe. "I'm a lesbian, Stan."

She expected him to laugh, or shrug, or brush it away, like her sexuality was a minor inconvenience to her playing the Eve to his Adam. She never expected him to jump up and run behind a nearby trash can.

"You're a what!?" He shrieked. Meredith sighed again. A grown-ass man, shrieking.

"Lesbian, Stan. I'm a lesbian."

"Oh, sweet Jesus!" Stan muttered breathlessly, fumbling in his shirt pocket for something. Meredith waited patiently, resigned to whatever fool thing he was about to do next. Again, he surprised her, this time by pulling out a crucifix.

"Back, Hellspawn! Back, demon!" he shouted, advancing on her.

Meredith remained seated and impassive.

"Stan," she asked, exasperated, "what the hell are you doing?"

"Begone from here! The power of Christ Compels you!"

"Stan, I'm not a demon, I'm a lesbian."

He fumbled in his pockets some more, pulling out a small paper packet stained with something red. He ripped open the package, throwing something vaguely aromatic at her.

"Stan, I'm not a vampire either, I'm just a lesbian."

"I'll not be ensnared by your evil sorcery!" Stan shouted, fumbling again in his pockets.

Meredith suddenly had an idea.

"You know what Stan, I'm actually starting to see your point of view. We should have sex. I'm starting to get a little hungry, after all. Why don't you come a little closer and we can..."

But Meredith didn't have to finish. Stan had given up fumbling through his pockets at the word 'hungry,' turned, and sprinted away through the streets festooned with bodies.

Well, Meredith thought. I'd never met anyone with an irrational, pathological fear of lesbians before. Thank god he thought I was so scary and ran.