The flu had been out for two months by the time they quarantined the neighborhood.

The grey man in the grey van put tape across the road and barricaded it against anyone trying to run. Running is the worst. They always get people when they try to run.

My sister was the first in the family to come down with it. She was fine one day, then the next she had completely changed. She got up early that morning and started acting strange. I heard her in the kitchen rummaging through the jars, the noise waking me grumpily from my half sleep.

“What are you doing?” I said, sleepily from the kitchen door.

“Eating,” she said. “I’ve decided to get better.” She swallowed down a concoction of what looked like brown mush.

“What’s that?” I asked, nervously.

“I made it,” she said, wolfing down another mouthful. “It's a kind of porridge.” She smiled through the brown slop in her mouth. Her eyes glazed over as she looked past me through the window. “After this I’m going to run,” she said.

I backed out of the kitchen as fast as I could, my hand over my mouth trying not to breathe the air. “Not you,” I said. “Not my own sister!” I ran to my room and locked my door.

Five minutes later I heard my father shuffle down the corridor, woken by the noise in the kitchen.

I opened my door. “Dad! Stop! Jeanine has it!”

“What?” he said.

“Jeanine has the flu!”

Dad stopped in his tracks, his face going white. “Oh no!” he whispered. “We'd better call the authorities.”

That was how our street got cordoned off. They took us all individually and checked us for symptoms. The flu was big news and they didn’t want to take any chances. They had caught my sister while she was running and had medicated her, keeping her in bed and putting a TV monitor in her room to keep her from trying any self harm. Unfortunately, they were too late.

They found her the next morning. She had tied her belt to one of the overhead water pipes and they found her hanging there.

She had done 23 chin ups by the time they found her. Truly, a flu that causes you to start exercising was the worst type of disease you could get.