No, Janelle decided as she rubbed her temples, bitch wasn’t strong enough. He was a cocksucker, that’s what he was. The city was half deserted, and hardly anybody was left in the whole damn Fin, but he wanted her here right at the crack of dawn. Didn’t he know that she had a life outside of this friggin’ job?

Apparently not. He met her at the employee entrance, all looming angles and aggressive cologne. Yes. Yes, Mr. Ullman. Of course she would give today everything she had. Oh, yes, you cocksucker.

It’s your own fault, a voice said inside her throbbing head. The voice belonged to her roommate, Brandi. Now Brandi, she was a bitch; that was for sure. Yes. Brandi was a bitch, and Mr. Ullman was a cocksucker. That declaration felt right, but it didn’t ease Janelle’s hangover.

She sat by herself behind the desk in the grand lobby for ten minutes, and quickly realized that if she didn’t make it to the restroom, there was going to be a mess that she didn’t want to explain. Instead of using the more convenient restroom on the first floor, she decided it was imperative that she reach the employees-only bathroom downstairs. She hated going number two at work, and would avoid it if at all possible, but this morning was an emergency. She knew that very few employees would be around at this time of the day, and she could probably slip in and get out before anybody came in and smelled what she’d left.

Janelle massaged her temple and squeezed the bridge of her nose with her left hand while her right clutched the stairway railing. She eased her way downstairs, down the concrete steps to the employees-only restroom. Why the hell had she decided to wear her highest heels this morning? Any other day, she could practically run a marathon in any of her shoes, but right now, the tequila and tacos from last night at Taco Loco were threatening to erupt, and Janelle, quite frankly, wasn’t sure which orifice they might spew from. The way she felt, the contents of her entire intestinal tract might just squirt from her goddamn ears.

You knew you had to be at work at six, so quit’cher bitchin’, Brandi’s voice sang in her aching head. Brandi, that tanned bitch, didn’t have to be at work today. Brandi worked at some chic travel agency, fawning over rich pricks and gushing about Caribbean vacations all damn day, but her boss had told her to stay home until this mess with the rat flu was straightened out. So she was home, curled up in her bed in their apartment in Lincoln Park.

And to top it off, Janelle’s period had hit with a vengeance last night. She’d slapped the shit out of her alarm clock only to find her eight-hundred-thread-count sheets spotted with blood. She couldn’t win. She’d dragged the sheets and comforter off the bed, praying she hadn’t stained the mattress, and dumped the mess in a corner of her room. Somehow, she’d managed to find her way into the shower, where she’d watched the sad remnants of last night’s chicken and lettuce collect on the silver holes of the drain after she vomited. Twice.

Still. She’d made it to work, even with only half the buses running. So fuck everybody. Who cared if she could barely walk. She’d punched in, dammit. And just like she had thought, there was nothing happening at work. Nobody was checking out, and there sure as hell wasn’t anybody checking in. Not at six in the fucking morning anyway. And the thing of it was, nobody else was at work either. That was the worst part. She’d been the only one dumb enough, the only one desperate enough, to actually come in to work.

Last night, you would have thought that the whole rat-flu thing would have scared everybody off, but God, she’d never seen Rush Street so crowded. The bars, the clubs, everything was full. There was this vibe in the air. Janelle couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but it was as if the thought of danger had amplified the desire to escape into music and alcohol and lust. Everybody was going crazy, even the bartenders. She hadn’t bought one drink all night. She couldn’t move two steps in any direction without bumping into cute guys. She still couldn’t quite figure out how she and Brandi had ended up back at their place by themselves. Maybe it was for the best. She did have to work the next day after all.

Once downstairs, she was in luck. The women’s restroom was empty. It wasn’t nearly as extravagant as the guest restroom just off the lobby, but here, she knew she probably wasn’t in any danger of being disturbed. She stumbled past the sink to the two stalls, locking the handicapped door behind her. She wriggled her pencil skirt down to her knees and sank gratefully onto the toilet.

She set her phone on the toilet roll dispenser and pulled out her tampon. Just as she had thought, it was soaked. The sight and smell of the blood threatened to make her gorge rise, and that was the last thing she needed, to puke all over her panties and skirt, which were sketchy enough anyway, while she sat on the friggin’ toilet.

She gritted her teeth as her body evacuated what felt like white-hot lava into the bowl while she pinched the tampon string. She couldn’t dispose of it because some idiot, most likely a cock-sucking man who had no idea what he was doing, had installed the receptacle out of reach of anybody sitting on the toilet. Beads of sweat popped out on her forehead and she tried to only breathe through her mouth.

The thought of the used tampon dangling from her hand made her stomach roll uneasily yet again, and in a moment of rage, she simply threw the damn tampon at the uncomfortable box on the wall. The tampon bounced off, leaving a streak of clotted red viscera, and dropped to the floor.

If she made it through the day without staining her clothes, she promised herself a long hot bath tonight, to hell with the period, and a glass of red wine. And if Brandi wanted in the bathroom, well then, too damn bad.

Janelle started to see how this was all Brandi’s fault anyway. Sure, Brandi would blame her, but who had been dragging whom to the bar for all those flaming shots with those DePaul frat boys? The more she thought about it, the more she thought Brandi needed to be suffering right along with her.

She fumbled for her phone and knocked it off the toilet paper dispenser. It bounced on the tiled floor and came to rest out of sight, behind and under her. “Really? Really?” she said under her breath, eyes on the ceiling as her fingers swept across the tiles, searching.

Something heavy, with matted, wet fur brushed against the back of her hand.

Janelle shrieked and jerked her hand back.

The thing hissed at her and scrabbled across the floor, darting through her stall, before disappearing around the corner to the sink.

The awful sensation of being chained to the toilet seat as seemingly everything inside of her, including all of her internal organs, slid into the bowl finally passed, and she cautiously bent over, peering under the stall wall. The bathroom was empty.

She sat back, worried that the fear might make her vomit. She tried to control her breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Relax. It was just a rat.

She gave a hitching exhale, like she was sliding down an icy road and flinched every time she bounced over crack. Just a rat. It was gone, under the door. She wasn’t happy to see a rat in the restroom on the best of days, but now, with all that flu stuff in the news, it made her want to cry.

She sniffed, looking at the ceiling again, determined not to smudge her mascara. She looked bad enough as it was. She bent down again, this time looking at the phone. It sat by itself. No more rats. Staring at the phone, she could think of one person that deserved to share her misery. It was the least she could do.

Brandi’s groggy voice said, “Oh, you bitch.”

“Oh, don’t ‘oh bitch’ me, you bitch,” Janelle said. “You won’t believe me. I just saw a rat. I’m dying in here, and there’s a damn rat running on the floor.”