Moving along.
I didn’t get really scared until the mouthy was almost on top of us. Physical violence wasn’t ever the problem. They’re monsters, but they don’t eat people. And, like I said, they were afraid of the Plague, too.
But this one wasn’t. As she got closer I saw with horror that the mouthy was wearing a little vaccination pin. At first I thought that was just protective covering, but then I realized: why wouldn’t the vaccines work on mouthys, too? And how I could prove it, either way? This wasn’t something you could trust the scientists on. Even the ones that really understood how horrible, how insidious, how patient the Plague was didn’t know of the mouthy menace. If they did know, they’d tell everybody who would listen!
“Six feet!” my would-be recruit snapped, when it looked like the mouthy (and her terrible mouth) would be getting too close. “Some of us don’t want to get sick.”
“Whatever.” I was struck by how good the mouthy’s English was, considering her mouth and teeth. Each word sounded bitten off, still raw and bleeding odd harmonics; but it was comprehensible. “You see this pin? I’m boosted. And the store’s made masks optional.” The mouthy grinned, in a way that made me want to cover the arteries on my neck. “So mind your own business.”