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"You fucking idiots, it's less dangerous than the flu!"

"But it makes sense to be cautious, it's spreading so quickly and is still an unknown in so many ways. We don't even have a vaccine yet and for that matter, most of our medical supplies are made You-Know-Where, just like everything else. A global pandemic of any kind isn't exactly something we've got enough experience with to predict or dismiss, this is all new territory."

"Hey guys, I miss anything? I've been working on the bunker all day. Got the boxcar into place and just need to cover it up now. Man I'm beat! But the hazmat suit just isn't going to get here in time, they're back-ordered three months on that shit."

"F"

"F"

"F"

"Pro tip: instead of moving into a filthy hole in the ground, try washing your fucking hands. It's the ancient Jewish ritual that protects you from disease. Oh and try using fucking SOAP while you're at it, it's the one weird trick doctors don't want you to know about!"

"The panic and the way it's damaging the economy will do more harm than the disease itself ever could. I'm losing so much work over this. People are so stupid."

"I just don't want to have to get a damn covid19 vaccine every year like we already do with the flu."

"Vaccines don't work, numbnuts. All you need is apple cider vinegar mixed with honey and lemon juice."

"Well this was a fun backread, but I'm getting tested tomorrow," you type. "Hoping it's the real deal, I feel like I'm dying and just dying of the flu is soooo much less prestigious. Besides, quarantine might be a nice vacation."



You stifle a cough, tasting a metallic tang in the back of your throat as the well wishing and messages of support appear on the screen, mixed in with the wisecracking and (you think?) sarcastic suggestions, such as drowning yourself in the city water supply and licking ice cream in the supermarket.

It's still early, but you don't feel like doing a whole lot. With all the apocalypse fever in the air you had been meaning to shop for non perishables, but then you got sick. Maybe you should go out and just do it tonight though. What you have is probably the flu and you'll feel worse before you feel better. Living alone, you'll have to provide your own chicken soup. Then again, just staying home and playing video games appeals to your sense of lethargy, as well as simply going straight to sleep.


???

Vote for what do.

I may accept write in suggestions too, based completely on my whims.

write a thing on cys about a virus spreading around

Eat soup and troll idiots on the internet by spreading misinformation about the virus.

Do this, but also order a one-ton pallet of bone broth on Amazon for home delivery.

Oh, and let's have the CoG choice: are we a girl or a boy or a goy?

Are we allowed to be niggerfaggots or is that still not allowed since 3J downed a gallon of rainbow CoGite smegma juice?

Sure you can! You, specifically.

Well how about that, you already are.

Thanks, you too.

I vote for going to the store! The bunker won't stock itself. We can pick up enough cans of beans for all of the people we might infect as well! The more the merrier!

Voting is open for exactly two more hours. The OP is not exactly an intensive reading experience so this should not be one you all need time to mull over.

Okay, tiebreaker cast by a passing phantom mystery insect, voting closed and looks like we'll be going out.

I also vote for going to the store. But specifically to cough loudly while getting food.

Once it's confirmed that we have corona, we can finally upload those memes where we lick pints of ice cream and put them back on the shelf.

The general feeling of cruddiness intensifies as you get up from the computer and change into a cleaner shirt you find on the floor, but your name is JOE BRICKER and that means you are a real tough guy.

Grabbing your wallet, you go down to the parking lot and slowly insert yourself into your beat up Ford. The thing has got to be twenty years old by now and it's absolutely filthy. But you got it cheap from a group of black guys who lived next door and they used it pretty hard, so really it's remarkable it still works at all. (You still have no idea how they managed to damage that exhaust pipe so badly...) Unfortunately your Ford sucks so much and so often you doubt it will pass its inspection this year without an extra $2000 put into maintenance.

The local store is close enough that you might've tried to walk there under normal circumstances, but winter's lingering presence still makes itself known with intermittent bursts of cold rain, and it hurts to take too deep of a breath.

Besides that, this is apocalypse shopping; you're going to Wally World.

The orange glare of the street lights reflects from oily puddles on the parking lot. With rustles of feathers and their rusty hinged creaking, the grackles, darkly reflective and oily themselves, hop along after shoppers and turn to regard you with quick tilts of the head and greedy eyes. If you were some guy in the Netherlands, you'd probably be really excited to be here right now.

The door whooshes open, and you squint at the blinding glare of the white florescent lights. Hacking up a blob of bloody phlegm from your irritated throat, you try to expel it into the trash can, but miss and wind up just spitting it onto the freshly mopped floor. Luckily, it's Walmart, so no one notices or cares.

There's a hell of a crowd here tonight, or really more like a mob. You haven't seen shelves stripped this bare since you were in a Florida town with a hurricane on the way. With distaste you notice how many of the people here are coughing or otherwise looking ill. Really? Those self-centered fucks can't just stay home until they're not contagious?

You had intended to get the works: food, drinks, hand sanitizer, medical supplies, flashlights, batteries, and ammo. But it looks everyone else in a thirty mile radius had the same idea, and you'll need to move fast if you expect there to be anything left to buy. Which section do you head for first?

Milk first.

I also vote for milk. It will strengthen us in the coming skeleton war.

Parking lot!

I'd go for medical supplies first.
You can always get water from the tab, fire up some wood or load up your batteries at home. Also there's always disgusting canned food that gets left behind when everybody jumps on the frozen food section.

If we want to go full prepper, buy packs and packs of cigarettes. Everybody knows cigarettes are the new currency in case of total apocalypse.

Oh, I forgot about the ammo. Meh, just OD your crazy redneck neighbour with your shiny medical supplies.

We have $300 to spend altogether. Cigarettes are $7 a pack.

Everyone, what percentage do we want to spend on cigs?

Zero percent on cigarettes. One-hundred percent on milk. Whole milk. None of this skim rubbish.

Another fun thing of medical supplies: people absolutely need them.
For example, by getting your stash of insulin, you have essentially made yourself a god to all the desperate diabetes folk out there. Fun blackmailing times.

I don't understand anything all of you are talking about. No raiding No lots f weaponry and not orgies.. This sounds really BORING way to prepare for the end of the world

I guess if you think a virus that kills less people than the flu will end the world.

But again, everybody gets a vote.

Lots of frozen food and cans and Water sterilization tablets With the frozen food you make a Barbecue orgy for all the family. The rest for the maybe one week of panic until people get in their senses that this epidemic is a joke

Counterpoint: Insulin lasts a year, if refrigerated, and loses potency if it gets too warm. (HOWEVER, not all diabetics may know that. Type II diabetics in particular are notoriously fat and ignorant.)

The basic R insulin is $25 a bottle at Walmart. A case of syringe packs is $12.

Obviously, there might be more than just diabetics out there who have a use for syringes.

Get some good reusable syringes, that's some durabilty right there. ~20 bucks for a good household item that has multiple uses and some standard 70% cleaning alcohol to ensure quality.

Insulin is like cigarettes on crack, too bad it's so expensive over there. I'm guessing you can invest ~50 bucks for a start. There's always an option to resell at a premium in the period where everything is going to shit, but still online. It's a smart, but risky buy. Maybe 50 bucks is even too much.

Cigarettes work on the same principle. It's useless, but people want it. Time is your friend with these. The market won't immediately die, but will want the product more and more as time goes on. You also have a bigger market to work your little enterprise on. Get ~70 bucks of them.

With some standard broad spectrum antibiotics and other medical supplies, this brings us to 50% of our budget.

Next up I'd want some good gallons to store my free tab water in. And water purification tablets to go with them. 30 bucks.

Spend 100 bucks on as many cans of preservable food as possible. Look at mainly calories there, with a slight glance at protein and micronutriental value.

That leaves us 20 bucks to fuck around with as we please. Buy some milk or whatever. I'd want nails and stuff more though, if we don't have it.

That leaves us in a good enough condition to survive the chaos of the first weeks to month and have some good bargaining power after the fall to fuck around and hold barbeque orgies. I don't know, just survive first.

Corona is scary, yo.

As a type one diabetic, I agree. I say we buy medical supplies and spam!! Spam is the official food-sponsor of the apocalypse!

Spam is tasty.

Steal a tv

Everyone in apocalypse movies does that so it must be good survival 

Find an unlocked car and hide in the back. 

What is the play here? Are we going to cough on them, steal their groceries, and run?

I stand behind insulin, that's the entrepenurial spirit that breed Immortan Joes when the world goes under.

Note to self: Do not EVER take any of you apocalypse shopping with me.


Pharmacy section first. Medicine and disinfectant are the important things that everyone will need. You grab a cart and inch your way through the crowd, stopping for frequent traffic jams. When you reach the pharmacy, you're greeted by a chaotic mess punctuated by stretches of bare white shelving. Items have been rifled through and shoved carelessly on any convenient shelf, when they weren't being ripped open or thrown on the floor.

Abandoning your cart outside an aisle, you manuever past several carts and clusters of people, managing to snag two bottles of rubbing alcohol, and a couple boxes of generic brand cold and flu medicine. In a stroke of luck you realize what you thought was an empty display bin still carries a few red plastic first aid kits, and grab one of the last.

Flu masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, even sanitizing wipes...there aren't ANY of these things left.

A sudden sound of shattering glass makes you look up, and you see a disability scooter has crashed into a display and tipped over. A galaxy sized woman is beached among what appears to be the dozen 40oz jars of mayonnaise.

"Who the HELL would be stocking up on mayo at a time like this?" you mutter to yourself with a shake of your head. Walmart people...

Some of them are smashed and she flails her tiny T-Rex arms as she wails for help. "Careful, I have the diabeeeeetes!" she cries as a few people try to help her sit up without anyone cutting themselves on the broken glass.

Everyone is staring, and it's then you notice a box of wipes in the cart of the woman next to you. While she's not paying attention, you grab them, and steal her pack of tampons too for good measure.

Trying to work your way back to your cart through the jam packed crowd, you feel a sudden sneeze coming on. Your hands are full; you can't cover your mouth. Your only choice is to sneeze left, on a balding man with a beer gut who appears to be in his fifties or so, or to your right, on OH MY GOD, IT'S SOME KIND OF ASIAN! AHHHHH! IF YOU WEREN'T INFECTED BEFORE, YOU CERTAINLY ARE NOW!

Anyway she's about fifty as well with greying hair, a small, wiry build, wears glasses, and it looks like she works here.

I second this smart shoplifting. Free stuff is the best stuff.

Also, there's our first diabetic, let's take her insulin too for good measure.

Vodka and high graduation alcoholic beverages Clothes that you can torn in shreds to make Molotov cocktails Gasoline and. fire stuff that and if there is ammo buying all that. I mean alcohol and clothes cand be used as bandages an all of that. Also a Machete. Machete can be used to chop people and stealing their scooters.

Sneeze left and blame the Asian lady for it, so the man is thrown off our trail. Then onwards to the spam. For Ogre, I'll throw beer into my vote as well.

you're created by a chaotic mess punctuated by stretches of bare white shelving

The story of my birth is an unusual one

A galaxy sized woman is beached among what appears to be the dozen 40oz jars of mayonnaise. 

Also lmao

I vote we attempt to sneeze on as many people as possible. I sneezed ten times in five minutes yesterday so this should be doable for someone with nose powers 

 

 

The story of my birth is an unusual one

I'm sure it is! But, unrelated, the error is fixed now.

Okay that's two votes for the Asian lady from the two people who read the question, good enough.

I'll get through the rest of the shopping section soon.

I have read twice and I don't get what we have to vote. Because you have already stolen the girl and the sneeze has already sneeze.

We are about to sneeze, Mara. We have enough time to turn our head one direction or the other. Not trying to criticize, I hope that helps clarify.

Sincerely If I am the one about to sneeze I don't give A damn thing if any of them got infected. Can I sneeze in all directions to contaminate all of them

Sure, write in answers are accepted.

"Ahh, AAHHH--AHH CHOOO!" You whip your head to the right, letting out a mighty sneeze and showering the tiny Asian grandma in a fine mist of saliva and gross germs.

She gives you a look of mingled shock and disgust, which rapidly turns to anger and she wipes her face clean and removes her glasses. "Sir, what is wrong with you? Did your ignorant pig whore mother not teach you to cover mouth? If I had raised you, you would be doctor!"

"My hands were full!" you protest, but she keeps heaping on the abuse, mostly targeting your intelligence levels and upbringing. "Jesus lady, don't tell me about my GPA, you work at Walmart for fuck's--"

Two large men approach, and one of them is black so that's terrifying. "Is there a problem, Janie?" one of them asks the woman.

Their shirts and nametags identify them as Walmart employees, and so you hurriedly retreat not that she's got reinforcements. The cleaning supplies they carry hopefully means they can't follow you very far; they have a LOT of mayonnaise to clean up in Aisle Three. And that bitch probably has whatever you have no so you really showed her.

While you're trying to cautiously circle back around to your cart while remaining out of sight, you nearly collide with a woman carrying an armload of pharmacy bags. "Hey, careful man, these are all breakable!"

"Oh damn, I'm sorry!" you quickly apologize, not wanting to cause another scene.

"It's fine, just gotta be careful with all this insulin."

"Are you diabetic too?" you ask, thinking of the fat woman with the tipped scooter. This woman looks nothing like her.

"Me? Oh no, I'm just going to hoard this stuff for when society collapses, I'll be able to trade it to some desperate sucker then for twice what I paid for it."

Hey, now that's an idea!

Feeling very clever, you talk the woman into selling you a bottle right now, for $50, and a box of syringes for half that. You wish you could get more, but the pharmacy line is a mile long and you don't want any more trouble with "Janie" and her friends.

This sudden meeting with such an entrepreneurial spirit gets you thinking though, and after you dump your medical supplies in the cart you mentally earmark enough money for a case of cigarettes. They may not be literally life and death, but people will be desperate enough for them.

Wiping a sheen of sweat from your brow, you mentally curse the heat created by the sheer amount of bodies crammed into every aisle. Or maybe you're just getting a bit feverish. Either way, you've worked up a powerful thirst and can think of only one thing you want right now.

That's right: a cold, frosty glass of milk.

They always say you shouldn't go to the supermarket while hungry, and the same must apply for being thirsty, because before you know it you've piled twenty half gallons of milk into your cart. There's even some chocolate and strawberry in there. No regrets.

The responsible thing would be to get some water now too, you suppose. Now that you know people are literally planning for the collapse of society, you start to think of other options like water purification tablets, but you don't think Walmart carries anything like that. You'd probably have to do some research and order them online.

You then have a brief idea of buying empty jugs for some reason instead of full ones, but quickly realize that that would be weird and dumb even if you could find an 'empty gallon jug' section. The water aisle has been pretty destroyed, but the limit the store has set on how much each person can buy means there's still a few cases left. You grab four gallon jugs and a twenty-four case of individual bottles.

Food now! If you're going to buy the cigs, you're down to less than a hundred dollars. You know you have a few canned items at home, but never did take inventory before you left, and at any rate everything in this section is disappearing fast. As rapidly as possible grab ten cans of pinto beans, ten cans of Spaghettios, ten cans of potato soup, and six cans of SPAM, and then dodge a woman with six crying kids in her cart who comes careening around the corner and narrowly avoids crushing your spine.

You can still afford some more canned things, and honestly, you're starting to have second thoughts on whether all the milk you bought was the best idea. There's no way you can drink it all before it spoils, can you?

With that in mind, you duck into the baking aisle and buy an additional forty cans of sweetened and condensed milk.

Spying a box of nails that someone has abandoned here next to the cake mixes, you toss those in the cart too. Never know when nails might come in handy, and these are cheap; unlike the carton of coffin nails you get at the checkout which run you your last $70 for a carton containing ten packs of cigs.

In the end you're left with:

1 first aid kit
1 box of cleansing wipes, which turn out to be of the "feminine" variety.
1 pack of tampons
2 bottles rubbing alcohol
1 box cold and flu medicine

20 half gallons of milk

4 gallons of water
1 case of water

1 bottle insulin
1 case syringes
1 carton cigs

10 beans
10 spaghettios
10 potato soup
6 spam
40 sweetened condensed milk
box of nails

In the general chaos and with how sick you feel it's hard to say if you shopped wisely or not. You hope you don't regret any of this in the morning!

Driving home, you just barely manage to clear space in your fridge for all the milk, when you hear a notifiction for a text.

"got water leaking out the bottom of a toilet, can u fix?"

Damn, looks like they need you at work. You do maintenance part time for a nursing home. They'd have no idea you're sick since you've been on vacation the last month,and really you shouldn't go in right now since you're getting tested for a quick spreading respitory disease with a lot of unknowns involved, but you could always use the extra cash. You're feeling pretty tired though, and definitely a little feverish, now that night has settled in.

Take cold medicine and go in to work?
Or get some sleep and show up bright and early for testing?

Just go to sleep, cold medicine never really works. Plus we'd be walking amongst a minefield of sneeze-on-able old ladies and you know they have to hire big black orderlies to break up the wheelchair jousting duels.

Get some sleep and show up bright and early for testing. Normally feeling a little sick, I would vote go in but a quick spreading respiratory disease in a nursing home seems like it would cause more problems and hurt others. You can always fix it after being tested if you tested negative. 

Stay up all night playing video games instead of sleeping and skip work, like a normal person.  I'm sick for goodness sake, who do these people think they are?  I've gotta do something relaxing if I ever want to get better.

Get some sleep and show up bright and early for testing. It'll give me time to either get healthy or get to a point where I can fake healthy with a hot shower and a hygiene mask.

Get some sleep and show up bright and early for testing.  Seems like the logical options since I've already stocked up on supplies.  

Stare at the moon and will it to explode

If not valid

I SUPPOSE I'll go to work to spread the love

Bruh

When did all these good citizens infiltrate CYS

I want grabbing cold medicine and some other stuff create a fake remedy. And Con art my neighbors

I vote for the underdog

Go to work without wasting any medicinal supplies. In fact, now that we are fully accepting the end of society, take a risk on top of that.
Use your job as an repairman to snatch some good tools and nails. Pretend you care about not infecting the others and want to prepare your work alone if you are caught.

I vote to get to sleep. 

Break out the essential oils and absorb their essence.

lol

Okay, it seems the majority want to stay home so I'll just close the vote here.

New update will be in tomorrow because for one thing I was not expecting you guys to take the ethical option...

Whoops, glad we caught you off guard!

This is serious though, we have to be cautious. Take the state that I live in as an example. The governor declared a "state of emergency" and three colleges have closed for the semester so far. This action was necessary for public safety. After all, we had two people get sick (0 deaths).

So now it is starting here too huh?

I am just glad Austria did not go full "Draconian law" already. Shops are already starting to get bought clean here and every time you start a radio or TV it is always about Corona.

It's been "starting" for months, but a whole bunch of out of touch people just now noticed.

Having an infectious disease expert break down the situation in front of 200 million viewers and just state deadpan that at least half a million Americans are going to die seems to have finally gotten through to some of the lol bootstraps people in my area. As did the fact that we have cancelled sports.

Anyway, update tonight hopefully assuming I don't just play jackbox with Digit's pet weebs instead.

Well joke is on me now because Austria decided to go full out draconian law on this. I had to start working from my home instead of my office, public meetings are shut down. Just as schools, stores (at least those that are not selling food, or medical supplies, or hygene stuff), universitys, cinemas, casinos, swimming pools, you get the idea. Leaving the house without propper reason, like buying supplies or helping relatives or going to work is forbidden. 

Going to church is no longer possible, because they had to close too. Also, weddings, baptisms and so on stopped entirely. If you have a funeral only the closest relatives are able to come. 

You are not allowed to visit people in hospital or retirement homes. Only exception being small children in hospitals.

Long story short: Life as we were used to has been shut down to bare minimum.

Yeah it seems like all Europe is locking down.

So far here there's been colleges extending spring break and switching to online, and nursing homes going on lockdown. So far only five states have officially shutting down bars and restaurants. But a lot of places are closing down voluntarily, I know most of the churches have in my town, and businesses where it's just impractical to stay open anyway when all your customers are scared to come in.

I keep meaning to continue this thread, but the actual RL situation moved so fast everybody's been dealing with that.

Also, if it's not obvious by now, I won't be continuing this. Real life kind of got ahead of it and I don't think anyone wants to read about sitting at home for a month while sitting at home for a month. Should've used a fictional virus.

Okay, okay, actually I'm just lazy, you got me. You should read Megu's story instead which is a more serious and effortful take on a pandemic, also with zombies.

What I had planned for this story was for everyone currently infected by Covid-19 to be the only ones immune when Covid-20 suddenly came on the scene. Covid-20 being a disease that caused rage virus symptoms in its final stages. Furthermore, some interaction between the two viruses could in rare circumstances give increased speed and strength without compromising brain function. This was the case with our protagonist, who would then have been recruited to help contain the rage victims once the medical community realized how it all worked worked. The choice of who to sneeze on in the supermarket was important because that person was going to become your partner.