End of the World Afterparty: Part Eleven

For End of the World Afterparty: Part One, click here. 

For End of the World Afterparty: Part Ten, click here.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“You little shit,” Jason grunted, as he straddled my waist and tugged a zip tie from his back pocket. He seemed to carry around an endless supply of them for this purpose alone. “If we weren’t about to be overrun, I would…” Though he didn’t finish the thought, the truth was plain on his face. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes wild with excitement; he bared his teeth in a terrible grin. This time, when he bound my wrists together, he pulled the zip-tie so tight I could feel it cutting off my circulation. 

As Alana stormed across the room and began hacking at the darkened fingertips probing through the cracks around the door, I could hear the desk creaking under the weight of the bodies. I figured we had minutes at most. 

“Stay put unless you want to get eaten,” Jason snapped before rounding the vehicle. 

It’s not like I was going anywhere. The concrete floor was cold and hard against my back, but my shoulder burned with a terrible fire. Given enough time, I could probably roll myself over and get onto my knees and then my feet, but where exactly would I go after that? How exactly would I defend myself from the oncoming hoard? The thought of relying on Jason for safety made me sick, but one look at Ann’s remains left me even sicker. 

They were a grisly sight, impossible to miss in my periphery. Fractured bones jutting from a mass of torn clothing and pulped flesh. Nothing recognizable. Maybe it was Jason’s fault for kicking down the door, but it was mine for locking him out, or at the very least, for not dragging Ann along like I’d promised myself I would. Had she been in the Wagon with me, she wouldn’t have been there by the door when it went down—she’d be alive right now, even if she was still trapped—it was really that simple. That was a bitter pill to swallow. For the first time I let myself wonder if Ian had been right when he’d said I was selfish; I felt selfish. 

At some point Jason reappeared with several duffel bags in tow and began filling them with MREs and weapons. I guess he figured coming back for a resupply would be a bad idea; I didn’t exactly blame him. Every now and then I saw his feet rushing by, but I didn’t turn my head to follow his path. I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut and pretend that none of this was happening, but I couldn’t drown out the throaty roar of the undead or the wet sound of Alana’s blade severing fingers. 

By the time Jason threw the bulging duffel bags into the back of the Wagon, the propped-up door had seconds left. No matter how many bullets Alana emptied into the widening space, it was clear that the tide had shifted past the point of no return. All I could do was hope that Jason would be able to get the Mercedes working before we all died. 

In reality, it probably took less than a minute for him to plug the starter relay back in, but time seemed to lose all meaning as the door finally gave way. When the pent-up wave of zombies crashed over the desk in a jumble of limbs and teeth, Alana fell back, emptying her magazine into the oncoming hoard. But there were too many of them. From my angle on the floor, I saw the moment she went to reload and came up empty, with zombies mere feet from her. 

At first she stood her ground, knife at ready, but when it became clear the zombies were only going to pig-pile onto her until she went down, she turned and ran. Only she’d waited too long. I saw a flash of movement as a hand snagged her ankle, and I turned away before I could watch the rest. 

Stifling a scream, I used my core muscles to rotate myself onto my side, but after that I had to stop and catch my breath because my vision was going in and out. Jason was taking too long, and I couldn’t count on him to come back for me. Alana was lost—I saw no other possibility. And we were next. If I was going to survive, I had to get under cover. But the more I tried to pull myself upright, the worse my head swam. 

When Jason appeared over me like a cloud blocking out the sun, I thought for a moment that he was a zombie, and I didn’t stop screaming until he deposited me in the passenger seat of the G Wagon and buckled me in. 

Looking back, it’s a little embarrassing—I’d always told myself that in situations like that, I would maintain my composure, that I wouldn’t turn into some useless side character easily replaceable with a potted plant. But I’d had a long day, okay. I hadn’t taken my medication in ages, and the head trauma was catching up with me (let’s not forget that dealing with Jason was its own form of head trauma). If you feel you would do better in my position, then by all means, prove it. I’m waiting…

…

…

That’s what I thought. 

…

…

When Jason leaned out the driver’s side window and yelled for Alana, I forced myself to look at the carnage, convinced that by now she’d be reduced to scraps. But instead she was up and running, sprinting toward us with gore running down her face and zombies hard on her heels. She almost didn’t make it to the G Wagon in time, and I swear the back door took off a few undead fingers when she slammed it behind her, winded and reeking of blood. 

“We’ll have to ram our way out, so buckle up,” Jason said, fastening his seatbelt for probably the first time in his life. “This is going to get bumpy.” 

Behind me, I could hear Alana panting for air, sounding like a wounded animal, and I got an awful, crawling feeling in my belly. It was difficult to piece together the fleeting images I’d witnessed before turning away, but I’d had the vague impression of teeth closing down around her calf, the brief spurt of blood as muscle tore. It could have been nothing more than my imagination filling in the gaps with what it had expected to see, slices of imagery stolen from the montage of zombie movies stored in my memory. 

I didn’t feel right saying something to Jason, even though I knew I should, and anyway, I didn’t have time—I was too busy bracing myself for the end as he threw the Wagon into reverse and slammed his foot down on the accelerator, hand pressed to the back of my headrest while the bay door approached at frightening speed. The impact was jarring and terrible. It seemed to rearrange all the bones in my body as the door folded up around us like an aluminum can. 

Once we’d cleared the opening, he threw the emergency brake and whipped us around in a turn so sharp I saw stars. For a moment the SUV rocked up on two wheels and teetered precariously. Then it slammed back down on all four tires, and he plowed into the zombies piling up in our way as he shouted something about speed bumps and, “Take that, NASCAR.” 

I felt the sudden, overwhelming need to puke, and all I could do was lean forward and put my head between my knees as best as I could until the nausea subsided. Even then, I was convinced if I tried to sit back up I’d pass out. Something about the spray of blood, misting out in all directions as the tires spun the broken bodies into a slurry. Something about the wet slap of flesh, the terrible screams of the zombies as they clung to the doors, still trying to get in even as their legs were shredded. Something about the unsolid feel of the road beneath us, the meaty, unevenness of it. I tried to tell myself it was just like going mudding, but there was no explaining away the snapping of bones. 

“Look around you,” Jason insisted. “Think you can make it on your own out there?” When I didn’t respond, he grabbed a fistful of my hair and dragged my head up. “I want you to appreciate the view,” he sneered. There was so much tension in his face, it was electric. He looked like a bull spotting a matador, eyes white all the way around, that smile widening by the moment. Flecks of spit flew from his mouth when he spoke. “This is out in the middle of nowhere, and look at how many zombies we already have. Think about what things must be like in downtown Leesburg right now. Still want to go find your mom? Still think there’s anywhere safe?” 

Of course I knew he was right. No point in denying it. As I looked out at the gravel road winding through the stretch of woods, I could see numerous zombies darting here and there like startled deer, throwing themselves toward the oncoming vehicle as if they believed it could send them to Valhalla. How they’d made it out this far, I couldn’t say. Maybe it meant all the readily-available meat in the city had been eaten by now and they’d been forced to range wider in hopes of better hunting. Or maybe it was part of their programming to wander, to disperse the fungus as far as possible from the original site of infection to ensure a fuller spread. 

“Next time you think about running away, I want you to remember that the only person able to save you is me, and the price for your safety just isn’t that high,” he said, only half of his attention on the road. Still, he seemed to navigate the twists and turns with ease, as if he knew the drive by rote, as if he could do it with his eyes closed, or in the dark with the headlights off. It seemed like something he would do for fun. Maybe that was how he’d wrecked his Dodge Demon—I couldn’t rule it out. 

“I won’t run,” I said, and I meant it. Because there was no point in running. Not while he was still alive. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

As Jason pulled up to the house and cut the engine, I could hear Alana scrabbling at the back of my seat. Her breathing was deeper now, more guttural, like there was something growing in her throat that she couldn’t quite clear. In the rearview mirror, her eyes had grown wide and terrified, the only part about her that still seemed human. With the trauma to her face, the bruising and the swelling, she already looked the part of a zombie, and I felt the certainty growing in my gut, the rising horror. 

I felt bad that I didn’t feel bad for her, but all I could think was that, once she was gone, there would be no more buffer between me and Jason, no one left to distract him. That was the only reason I wanted her to live. 

“Okay girls, here’s what we’re going to do,” he said, unbuckling his seatbelt and hitting the button on mine. He cut the zip ties from my hands, and I felt the sharp sting of pins and needles as the blood flow returned. “Alana, I threw some loose guns in the back. Grab those. I want everything inside in one go. Don’t plan on being able to come back to the car any time soon.” His eyes narrowed as he turned to face her, finally taking in her state of disrepair. If it clicked for him then, he didn’t say anything. At least she still seemed lucid enough to understand what he was telling her, because she hopped out immediately and began following orders. 

He turned to me, his face giving nothing away. “Stay close to me while I grab the duffel bags. If you’re thinking about running, just remember that I’m faster, and chasing you down will be the highlight of my day. Understand?” 

I nodded, all too aware of the number of zombies emerging from the tree line. Even knowing I wouldn’t make it far without weapons and transportation—and with a useless shoulder to boot—it went against every instinct to step out of the SUV and wait for Jason to grab the bags before following him up the path to the house. I forced myself to stand there in the narrow entryway while Jason went back for Alana, and it broke something vital in me to stare at that open door and know I was going to let it close me in. Ian’s claim that I was choosing to be trapped felt truer than ever, even though I knew it wasn’t; or maybe reality is more complicated than that. 

Alana had only managed to stumble halfway up the path by the time Jason reached her, zombies closing in at twenty paces, and even when he took the pile of weapons from her and propelled her up the steps, the two of them only made it by the skin of their teeth. Well, Jason’s teeth, since Alana didn’t have hers anymore. 

…

…

You’re right, it’s a bad joke.

…

…

As I was saying, almost before the door was shut and locked, the zombies had started scratching at it, their awful voices rising in chorus. 

“How are you doing, Alana? Are you still with us?” Jason asked, as the door rattled on its hinges. I tried to follow his reasoning in forcing her inside when she was so clearly infected, because all I could think was that he should have left her to die. Cold, I know. I can’t change my instinct in the moment, but I do regret what that says about me. The zombies would still have eaten her alive, which would have been as cruel a fate as what actually happened to her. 

“I’m fine,” she snapped, gasping for breath. Her throat sounded like it was lined with cotton. 

“Good,” he said, slapping her on the butt. “You stay here and babysit Singh while I clear the house. Gotta check for intruders, you know. Think you can manage that? Just make sure she doesn’t run off or do anything stupid. I believe in you.” 

“Of course,” she mumbled, but it would have been more convincing if she hadn’t chosen that exact moment to sink down to her haunches and duck her head, hands on the back of her neck as she gasped for air like a runner after a marathon. 

The rattling in her throat sent chills dancing up and down my spine, and I cast Jason a pleading look, as if I expected to find mercy there. Instead, he grabbed my good shoulder and leaned in so close his lips brushed my ear, whispering, “I will deal with it when I get back. This won’t take long.” Then he pulled out his gun, checked the clip, and took off into the dark confines of the house. 

I eyed Alana warily as I considered my options. Already maybe ten minutes had passed since she’d been bitten, but that number did nothing to help me determine how much time she had left. All I had to go on was Mr. President’s infection: he’d likely consumed the cordyceps, rather than receiving it directly into his bloodstream, and on top of that it was possible the strain interacted with people’s bodies differently to begin with. From the confused reports on TV, it seemed the initial cases took less than an hour to develop, but looking at Alana, I would have bet money she didn’t have half that long. 

She broke the silence first, her voice low and gravelly, her head still ducked down below her shoulders. “It was supposed to be just me and Jason against the apocalypse. We could have had a good thing going. I don’t know why he had to bring you into it; you only ruin things.” 

I didn’t bother reminding her that I had been there first, because it would have sounded like I was trying to fight over him, and anyway it didn’t matter. When she finally looked up at me, I could see gray filaments creeping into the whites of her eyes; it was like watching mold grow in a time-lapse. “I guess this means you’ve won,” she said. 

There was a bitter twist to her mouth as she stood and tilted her leg to show the back of her calf where her pants had been torn and saturated with blood. There were no obvious teeth marks, just a missing chunk of flesh, the edges already covered with gray fuzz, like rotting fruit. “I told you I was going to turn,” she whispered. 

“Help me get out of here,” I pleaded, knowing already that there would be no appealing to her better nature, and yet hoping anyway. Under other circumstances, I would have tried to console her even after everything she’d done to me. But all I could think was that I probably had minutes before this last, bare sliver of a chance was lost forever. “Please, give me one of the guns. I don’t want to be trapped with Jason. Don’t let him do this to me.” There was no missing the raw desperation in my voice. 

She stepped between me and the pile of weapons, her face closing in on itself. “Don’t pretend you haven’t been trying to take him from me this entire time, flirting with him right in front of me. Everyone wants to be with Jason. You’re no exception. Stop acting like you wouldn’t die for the chance to sleep with him, when you came here for the same exact reason as me.” 

“I really didn’t. I’d prefer to get bitten,” I said flatly, even though I didn’t know if that last part was true. This wasn’t a game of Would You Rather; both outcomes were equally horrible; I would lose myself either way. 

She just laughed. “Looks like fate mixed up our requests. But I’m not going to let you hurt him, sorry.” And then she started to cry—slimy, gray tears oozing down her face. “If anyone can save me, he can. I just have to hold on until he gets back. He’s so smart, he’ll figure something out.” 

Despite the warning bells in my brain, I tried to dart past her, reasoning that she might be slower now, weaker, and more confused. I had to get my hands on a gun before Jason came back—that was all that mattered. But she caught my bad arm and wrestled me to the ground without missing a beat, and I felt myself hovering just over my body as the pain coursed through me like electricity. Details came to me in snatches. My face, pressed to the gritty floor, the rough corner of the throw rug digging into my cheekbone. The sound of Jason’s approaching footsteps. Alana’s voice like the droning of flies as she reported what had happened. The harsh crackle of his laughter, wildfire sucking all the oxygen from the air. 

At last she released me. Though the pain crashed over me in waves, gradually the intensity began to relent, and I found a little more space between each new onslaught to catch my breath. I still wasn’t entirely sure what was happening above me. They were embracing, Jason whispering something to her that could have been “Good girl, Alana,” and then later, words that sounded like, “You poor thing, what are we going to do about you?” 

Eventually they fell silent, and I forced my eyes open to find him standing over me, that same triumphant smile on his face. When he saw me looking at him, he knelt down and grabbed my bad arm. “We should probably put that back into joint before you hurt it worse and end up needing surgery,” he murmured, seeming to relish the words. And then without warning, he twisted my arm sharply, and I heard the sound of the bone sliding into place, a sick, popping noise. It was still ringing in my ears as my vision began to fade. 

I only know what happened to Alana next because he filmed it. 

The footage begins with the two of them walking through a door. The camera focuses on their clasped hands before panning to show the entirety of the back porch, a screened-in affair set high enough off the ground that the zombies had no chance of clawing their way inside. If you wanted to, you could sit out there on one of the rocking chairs with a cup of tea, and you could watch those suckers trying and failing to scale the steep embankment on that side of the house, sliding down until they caught up against the trees, only to scramble back up and fall again, wash, rinse, repeat. Better than cable television. A nice, quiet evening. 

But Jason was less concerned with that specific view. He had an entirely different tableau in mind. And I’ll warn you that the footage is disgusting, pornographic in a way that speaks to the deep sickness festering inside his psyche. Part of me wanted to omit this bit, even though I promised myself I would do the whole story justice. In the end I’m only including it to leave you without excuse—if you watch this and come away still defending him, or if you would have done the same in his shoes, then you are a terrible person, that’s all there is to it. I don’t care if you think I’m a bitch for saying that. 

Once they’re out on the porch, he sets the camera down on a nearby chair so it’s recording them in profile, and you can hear his heavy breathing, his obvious excitement. The fact that he’s filming this in the first place should tell you all you need to know. 

“What are we doing out here?” Alana asks, as he pushes a strand of hair out of her face. Her eyes are wide and unfocused, and she’s staring up at him like he’s her last hope. Probably she had minutes left by that point. He could have just released her into the wild once she’d turned, let her live out the rest of her life as a zombie, or else he could have put a bullet in her brain while she was looking the other way, something fast and merciful. He didn’t have to enjoy it the way he did; men like him will sexualize anything, even a dying woman. 

“I want you to get on your knees for me,” he says, pushing down on her shoulders as if he means to force her to the ground, but she goes willingly as he adds, “we’re going to try something new.” 

I can’t for the life of me figure out if she was aware of the camera at that point, if any part of her understood what was happening—she seemed so far gone. You can see her staring up at him with those big, helpless, sheep eyes as if she still thought he could save her. Watching this made me feel so dirty, so wrong, as if bearing witness alone was enough to turn parts of me rancid and unsalvageable. 

When she reaches for his belt, he catches her hands, and says, “No, this,” and he pulls out the gun. “I want you to put it in your mouth. Do it for me, baby.” 

“But this is weird,” she pleads. “And I don’t feel well.” 

“I don’t want to get sick, doll,” he murmurs, tousling her hair. “It’ll be just like the real thing. If you do, we can go back inside, and I’ll find some medicine for you. Then you can screw me later, for real.” 

When she finally complies, he puts his hand on the back of her head and forces it closer, staring down at her with that skin-crawling smile as she starts to cry again. “Okay, that’s good, good girl,” he says, and then he pulls the trigger. 

Her body falls away from the gun, limp and boneless, half her brain sprayed across the screened-in space behind her like clumps of old oatmeal. For a while he just stands there, seemingly locked in a moment of ecstasy, eyes trained on the ceiling like he’s challenging God to smite him. Eventually he returns to himself, slips the gun back into his waistband, and prods her body with his toe as if he thinks there’s a chance she survived. “Gross,” he whispers, and then he leans into the camera so his face consumes the entire shot. “Okay, Singh,” he says. 

I don’t know what future he envisioned where I would be watching this footage. Maybe it just felt poetic for him in the moment; maybe it just seemed to fit the narrative running through his head, because he was always performing for himself. Or maybe, for half a second, he could no longer tell the difference and thought I was actually standing there to witness the whole thing. 

“It’s just you and me now,” he said. 

INTERLUDE THREE

There are some parts of this story I hate telling more than others. In the beginning, when the situation felt too comical, too ridiculous to be true, I could lean into the dark, awful humor of it and pretend to myself that was its entirety. 

An egotistical Youtuber. His motley crew of followers, each of them too absurd to be real. And me, the singular sane person, thrown into the mix against her will. 

It’s funny. You’re allowed to laugh. 

But this—

This is where I may have misled you a little. Humor is my coping mechanism, but maybe it gave you the impression this was meant to be a lighthearted story, so when things got dark, maybe you got mad at me. Are you mad at me for what he did? Are you mad at me for telling you? Oh, please don’t be mad at me. 

…

…

That was a joke, too. 

Here’s a hard pill for you to swallow, so open wide. Jason wanted to fucking rape me, and I bet some of you are more upset about the fact that I said fuck than you are about what he put me through. Actually, I think about that way more than I should, how my parents would berate me for swearing, always getting angry at the wrong things so they didn’t have to stare actual evil in the face and call it by name. 

If you are angry at me for telling this story, you have the ability to walk away from it. 

I didn’t. 

And if you are sitting here asking why it’s such a big deal, parroting nonsense Ian would say just to cover your ignorance or perversion, I hope every time you take a bite of food, there’s lint in it. Or, like, several spiders. 

…

…

For the record, giving you Jason’s lines, remembering it all—I feel like I’m showering in rancid sewer water. If I could scrub this entire sequence of events from my mind, I would. But since I can’t, I’d like to do the next best thing, which is to expose Jason, because even if the end of the world means it doesn’t matter whether his legacy gets ruined or not, at least I’ll know that someone, somewhere, might hear the truth. 

And I guess my therapist would tell me spilling all this word vomit for your entertainment is a way of drawing the poison, removing the stinger, insert related metaphor here. That is, if I had a therapist…

I don’t know. So far, I’m not sure it’s helped. I just get angry all over again, angry at him of course, angry at myself for not being superhuman, angry at everyone else for not doing something about it. There’s a lot of blame to shift around. 

Part of me believes he doesn’t deserve to be commemorated in any sense, even like this, that he should be left to die along with the internet. But then I remember that other countries exist aside from America, places where cordyceps may never reach, where somewhere this video might even now be playing on computer screens in darkened rooms for audiences unknown to me. And I remember that this is my story. I’m the main character. Jason may have thought he was God’s gift to the world, but God sent him with a gift receipt. 

I remember hearing about this couple on a true crime podcast. When a serial killer broke into their home one night and violently attacked them, they managed to kill the guy. And years later, when asked about their trauma, they said they didn’t know if they would have been able to live with the memories if they hadn’t killed him, if instead, he’d walked away, or traveled through the justice system and out the other side of a too-short sentence, existing always as a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. Killing the person who preys on you is probably the greatest form of catharsis you could ever hope to achieve. 

All that to say, I kind of wish Jason had come back as a zombie, just so I could have had the satisfaction of killing him a second time, but I guess it’s not good to be greedy. What I did to him was probably bad enough. 

Oh, and while we’re on the subject, Eun-Mi isn’t my real name, either. No one gets the privilege of knowing that. No one deserves it. I swapped it with another pseudonym, and if you go back and watch the footage, you’ll see that every time Jason said my real name, I scrubbed it out; you can’t even read his lips. My name died with him. Who I was died with him. And the person who emerged from the ashes is someone still alien to me, a stranger who only wears my face. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s time to step back into the muck. 

 

Copyright © 2025 by Elizabeth Brooks