Apocalypse Wow, Pt. 01

A twist of fate brought Jim and Simone together at the end of the world. In the pages that follow, many years after that First Day, Jim recounts in his own words their struggle for survival as their accidental sanctuary slowly grows from a personal refuge to a beacon of hope for humankind.

Note: This story has been edited from the original post. The changes are minor and relate to style only.

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It's the End of the World as Jim Knows it.

Part 1 - "What do we do?"

***

So, like, I just... talk?

*Sure, just talk.

Fuck. You know I fucking hate this, right?

*I know Jim but... please... If for no other reason, just do it for me?

That's a pretty cheap shot Dani.

*I know that too but... this is too important. Please Jim.

So... where do I start?

*Well... I guess... at the beginning, you know... the First Day? Usually other stuff, you know, from before just comes naturally as you talk, if it's important.

Right... right... Fuck. Do I need to... hold this thing or...?

*No, it's OK. Just talk.

And you'll... you'll stay here... with me?

*I'll be in and out but... yeah, I'll be here.

Is that... really necessary? I mean... don't you know all this already?

*Jim, please. Yes, I know what happened but... Well, this isn't for me, right? Pretend like you're telling someone you've never met before.

Right... right... So, pretend I'm telling someone who doesn't know anything about... you know...?

*That's it. Sometimes people find it helpful to pretend they're telling someone from before the First Day, you know? Someone who has no memory of it, or, well, of anything that's happened since. If you assume the person you're telling knows nothing about it, you're more likely to tell a more complete story.

OK, that makes sense... I think... And... well, what about...?

*All the sex?

Well... yeah, I guess.

*Everything Jim. Sex is a really important part of this project, maybe the most important. If we're gonna do this, we might as well do it the whole way, OK? You're just gonna have to get over your old world awkwardness when it comes to talking about sex.

Yeah, but-

*I don't wanna hear it Jim. No, scratch that. I want to hear every excruciating detail. Sights and sounds. And feels. All of it. Even the sex. Especially the sex. You hear me?

OK... OK... Shit... OK... Well............ I guess my first real memory of the First Day is seeing this really sleek looking sports car pulled up in front of my parents' house as I drove up. The house was set back, I don't know, maybe a mile from the road. It was probably what I was expecting from a big city lawyer to be honest. The car I mean.

So I guess it had been around a month since the accident... my... my parents' accident... but the grief was still bubbling at the surface, you know? I knew it was worse for Danielle, my sister. She'd always been closer to mom and dad than me so I said I'd meet with the lawyers, take care of the wills and all the legal stuff and whatever. I knew she just didn't want to have to think about all that.

And it had been months since I'd been there so driving up to the house, well, I guess the guilt I felt at not having been to see mom and dad for so long before the accident came at me pretty hard too.

So anyway, that's what brought me there... here I guess, to my parents' remote house, miles from anywhere in rural New England, as it was then anyway. It'd been the law firm's idea to meet at the house. They said it could be helpful to have physical access to assets when discussing them or whatever. I guess I was a little pissed off at having to take the day off school but, hey, I generally just did whatever I was told when lawyers were involved, you know?

And they were my parents' lawyers not mine so I had no idea who it was I'd be meeting but I can safely say I definitely wasn't expecting the very attractive women with dark hair in a black pencil skirt and loose white shirt who stepped out of the sports car.

"Hi there," she said, real amiable like, "Simone Fernazza from Wilson Murphy."

"Simone," I said, "good to meet you, I'm... ah... I'm Jim." And no - I hadn't forgotten my own name, it's just that... well... she was really fucking attractive, OK? Gimme a break.

Anyway, we made our way inside, to the kitchen I guess. I offered her coffee and she politely refused. I was kind of glad she did actually, I didn't really know if there even was any coffee in the house.

I remember she said she was sorry for my loss. I guess I'd heard it so often over the previous month the phrase had almost lost all meaning for me, but... I don't know, something about the way she said it felt... different somehow. It gave me pause in a way that it hadn't for a long time I guess.

I remember this because I was just starting to feel that it might be weird how long I'd been looking at her, thinking about that after she said it when this incredibly fucking bright flash from the window, like nothing I'd ever seen before, made us both look away and cover our eyes.

And then, well, then the house started to shake. I mean, stuff didn't start falling down or anything, but... I'd never experienced anything like it. Houses aren't supposed to shake, you know?

And then, when we were able to look back, we could see this huge mushroom cloud in the distance. I guess it was hard to tell how far but...

Simone just kind of said "Oh my god" or something, almost whispered it. I didn't know what to say.

So I guess we were pretty frantic for a few minutes, as you might expect. Neither of us could get any cell signal - which had never been a problem for me here before - and the Wi-Fi in the house had been disconnected. I turned on the TV to see if we could learn anything about what was going on. I nearly wished I hadn't.

We flicked between a few different news channels but it was hard to make out what was going on. Everything was just so... crazy... wild. We knew for sure that huge explosions, I guess like what we'd seen and... felt, possibly nuclear, had gone off in various places, all over the world. No one could say anything for sure, no one could say why, whether it was war or an attack or... something else. But that wasn't the worst of it.

People, just normal, regular people, were going... crazy, attacking each other randomly in towns and cities... And it was happening everywhere. A few channels had footage but it was hard to understand. It seemed so... unbelievable, you know? Regular looking people just seemed to go... wild. For a while I really thought it might be some, I don't know, like, huge prank or something. There had been so many end of the world movies and zombie TV shows and stuff in the few years before the First Day, I really didn't discount this being some kind of huge publicity stunt.

But I guess we got over that idea pretty quick. We watched for an hour, maybe two, I'm not sure, just... horrified, as the world seemed to fall apart in front of us. And then one after another the channels went off air. We figured the... the madness or whatever was making people kill each other indiscriminately all over the world was finding its way into their studios. In one, the last thing we saw before it cut off was a person burst in front of the camera and just attack the host... ripping her neck open with his teeth... and the screaming... I'd never seen that kind of violence before. We saw blood dripping from his mouth and his eyes were... red. Not bloodshot, I mean they were red. Totally red.

And outside we saw more explosions, more mushroom clouds. They didn't feel so strong, compared to the first one I mean, the house didn't shake as much at least so we figured they were a long way off although they seemed to be happening in every direction. We didn't really need to talk about what they were... what they meant, you know?

And when the last channel went off air, we tried the radio. All we could find was this local station and it was pretty clear from what we heard that... that whatever was happening everywhere else was happening here too. I'd actually met the guy doing the broadcast when I'd been visiting my parents, years before. He worked out of a store front in town. He was kind of a local celebrity actually, my parents had even told me about having him over for dinner a few times. Anyway, the last sound we heard was him... screaming... fucking terrified screaming. We figured it must have been the same as we'd seen on the TV, crazed people breaking into his studio.

And then the emergency broadcast system came on. It didn't give us any information about what was happening, just that there was a national emergency and we should shelter in place.

I remember we looked at each other for a long time after we'd listened to that message the first time.

"What do we do?" Simone said.

Our first instinct was to go home, you know, to where our friends and family were? It'd be a few hours drive for both of us and we had no idea if our homes and our lives in the city would still exist. I mean, you didn't need to be a fucking expert to recognize what the explosions we'd seen had been and some of the footage of the violence... the wild, indiscriminate murder we'd seen on the TV? Some of it had been... well... I guess some of it had been a little bit close to home, literally. But what could we do? My parents' house was literally miles from anywhere.

So we left. Simone went first in that sports car of hers. I noticed her slowing down when we reached a spot just a couple of miles down the road towards town and then I could see her stop and get out. There was a pickup that looked like it had come off the road and hit a tree, I guess she wanted to see if there was anyone hurt. So did too, so I pulled up behind her and I got out. We couldn't see anyone in the truck or near it. But then the... well, I mean obviously at first we thought it was a man, you know? We didn't know what they were back then. But we could see the red eyes and it came half-stumbling, half-running out of the forest, right for Simone. The eyes were totally crimson and blood was dripping from the mouth, just like we'd seen on TV.

Honestly, I don't remember feeling terrified in that moment. I guess that came later, I mean, for sure that came later. But I remember Simone screaming my name. I remember just instinctively grabbing a length of wood from the back of the pick-up and swinging it for the man, the... whatever, and connecting pretty solidly with its face. It went down, but just got straight back up. Now, I wasn't much of a fighter, but I was pretty sure the force I hit it with should have at least knocked it out... but like I said, we knew shit about them then.

So I hit it again and it went down again, but I could see it was going to get straight back up so I shouted for Simone to get in my car. Mine was behind hers so I figured it'd be easier to get back to the house in mine. And so we ran for it... ran for our lives. We jumped in my car and hightailed it back to the house and then we locked every door and window we could.

I mean, we'd seen... people... like that on TV, heard what we heard on the radio but... coming across it like that? That was really when the terror came. Back at the house. Yeah. I'd never been so fucking terrified in my life.

I mean, fuck. It was the end of the fucking world, you know?

[Garbled section on tape. Unable to transcribe.]

You sure it's OK?

*Yeah, it looks good Jim.

I haven't seen one of these things in a long time, but I don't remember it making that kind of noise.

*It's fine Jim, will you just shut up and keep going.

Well which do you want Dani, shut up or keep going?

*Oh for fuck's s-

Relax will you.

*Just get on with it. Please.

Where was I?

*Two weeks out.

Right, yeah, two weeks. Two weeks. You know I actually remember saying the words out loud to myself on that morning? I remember looking at the calendar in the kitchen of what, at the time, I was still thinking of as my parents' house. Two weeks since the end of the world and still no closer to understanding why or how it happened or whether or not anyone else was still out there. Any one other than Simone and me that is. But, anyway, I guess that day changed everything, or everything changed, I'm not sure which.

Anyway, like I said, I'm in the kitchen and Simone strolls in and says "Morning Jim." She had this really casual manner that I'd come to understand was just her way, even by then. It wasn't what I'd expected from my parents' lawyer to be honest. Although, I guess... well, I guess no body was really anything anymore at that point.

So I said hey and asked her if she slept OK. I still had my back to her but I knew she'd perched herself on a stool at the counter, like she did every morning. With each passing day it took me an extra fraction of a second to turn around and look at her. I guess the fear of giving off some sign that I was attracted to her was starting to be a problem for me, so I took a deep breath and put on my best nonchalant face before turning around.

And I guess I felt like I was getting pretty good at not reacting to how beautiful she looked in the morning. I know it might be a bit weird or whatever and hey, I'm not saying I wouldn't have loved to see her in lingerie, but there was just something so... I don't know... effortless about her beauty in the morning that hit me hard. I mean, here she was, only barely awake, her wavy black hair hanging a little untidily around her head and wearing a robe that used to belong to my sister, and still it was all I could do not to tell her how beautiful I thought she was.........

Still, given the context of our situation, by which I mean the end of the fucking world, this was kind of a nice problem to have. I mean, there were definitely worse people I could have gotten stuck with for the apocalypse, right?

Anyway, "I slept great!" she said. You see what I mean? The world had ended and she was holed up in a strange place with someone she barely knew but still, she was so positive about everything... so enthusiastic. I loved that about her. Even then. So I guess I was smiling when I brought over the pot of coffee I'd brewed on the gas stove in the garage and poured her a cup. It's not that, same as me, she didn't have her more difficult moments. Of course she did.

She said thanks and beamed back at me and then closed her eyes to savor her first sip, like she always did.

"You know," she said, "every morning for the last two weeks I wake up in this house, this house that isn't mine, and just for an instant I have this warm feeling, like I'm on vacation in some beautiful old bed and breakfast somewhere and... then it all comes back to me."

She lowered her head when she finished speaking and I had to resist the urge to go to her and throw my arms around her. Tell her I understood, that everything would be OK, that I'd take care of her.........

"Yeah, I know the feeling," was what I said instead, although I did give her a reassuring pat on the shoulder when I made my way to the fridge. I've always been a pretty tactile person I guess, so this kind of gesture was second nature to me, not something I would ordinarily even notice myself doing but... man, with Simone, even just that casual contact was... it was... something.

"Yeah," she said, "but then I have a sip of your coffee and, you know what? Things ain't so bad anymore!" Always a silver lining with Simone.

The fridge, by the way, was still where we were keeping some of our dwindling food supply despite the fact that their had been no power in the house since the end of the First Day, or anywhere else for that matter, at least as far as we could tell. The house was admittedly pretty isolated but we hadn't seen a single light anywhere as far as the horizon in two weeks. We'd seen a kind of glow right on the horizon in the east, towards the coast for a few days, which we assumed was a huge fire, but nothing that would suggest the power was up and running.

"So how's the supply situation?" she asked.

"Not good," I said. "I think it's time."

We'd seen no signs of life anywhere since the First Day, since the emergency broadcast signal had told us to shelter in place. The power hadn't come back. We'd switched our cell phones off to preserve the batteries but turned them on once a day to check if the signal had returned but it never did. So we stayed and did what the emergency broadcast told us to do.

So like I said, we'd been talking about the issue of the rapidly diminishing supplies for a few days by then and the obvious need to do something about it. Neither of us was especially pleased at the prospect, but at the same time there didn't seem to be any other solution, at least none that we could see. There'd been a surprising amount of dried and canned food in the house, and the gas stove my dad had rigged up in the garage was pretty helpful but... we knew it wouldn't last forever.

And besides, we knew so little about why and how the world seemed to have ended, I guess we wanted answers, you know? And for that we'd have to leave.

So Simone just kind of sighed and said "Shit. I guess we have no choice."

"Right," was all I said in response, and I turned to face her. Her eyes met mine and, totally involuntarily, I actually smiled a little bit. I could see... in her eyes... there was that shared understanding that we were pretty fucked, the fear that I was feeling too, but also just as clear was what I had come to understand was Simone's characteristic determination... fucking steel, you know? I loved that about her too.

So she went upstairs to get ready and I made for the back yard. My car was there, along with the old SUV that had belonged to my parents. Simone's sports car was still abandoned a couple of miles down the road into town where we'd left in on the First Day. We'd already agreed it made most sense to take my parents' car. It was the biggest for packing supplies but it was also the most rugged, in case we encountered something we had to drive away from in a hurry I mean.

Now, if our 'breakfast' routine seemed almost domestic, you know, almost normal, when I thought about that fancy sports car abandoned up that road it made me think of just how incongruous Simone's being here actually was. It might seem a little odd that it hadn't come up and we hadn't discussed it, but Simone was very much a city person. And I mean, to be honest, I kind of was too.

My parents had moved to this house in the middle of nowhere long after I'd moved out of the suburban home I grew up in. So I guess it had never really been my home. And yet, there was a decent chance that neither of us would still be alive had we not happened to arrange to meet here to discuss my parents' will on that particular day at that particular time.

Anyway, I guess I was still musing on the intricacies of fate or whatever when Simone came out to the yard. Obviously, she hadn't planned on being stuck here so she hadn't brought any clothes or supplies with her or anything so it was just lucky that she happened to be a pretty good size match for Danielle.

Now, unlike me, Danielle had moved here with our parents and although she hadn't lived in the house for years by then, a lot of her clothes still took up closet space. And Danielle was a bit of a clothes horse to be honest, always making sure to be wearing whatever was 'in' that 'season', so looking at Simone wearing her old clothes was like looking at someone really cool from ten years ago.

"Ready to rock and roll?" she said.

And no further discussion was necessary. We'd already made a pretty solid plan for what we would do over the previous few days, like I said.

So Old Salickery was the town nearest to us, around eight miles away by pretty rural roads. It wasn't much of a town to be honest, little more than a single street really, but neither of us felt it was a good idea to plan to venture any farther than there on our first try. And given what had happened the last time we tried to leave, we weren't even sure we'd make it that far.