End of the World Afterparty: Part Seven

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

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

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Everything stayed quiet for a while after that. At first we watched the news, huddled around on the bean bag chairs, sipping beer and shivering for no reason except maybe fear. 

I tried not to look at the vehicles, but I couldn’t seem to look at anything else. When I tried to avoid Jason, I found that was easier. At the moment, he was too distracted telling Alana what creatine was and giving her advice on proper weightlifting technique to torment me, and she was too busy drooling over him to remember that these were things she, judging by her physique, already knew. Not to mention that his advice was terrible anyway, even I knew that.  

When, on my second Corona, I started to feel that heady buzz, I leaned into it. I drank a third beer and then a fourth. Frantic thoughts rose from the depths of my mind—I had to get out of here, what was I doing wasting time like this?—and one by one I let them drift to the surface and pop like bubbles. I wanted to be a woman of action, but somehow it was easier to tell myself that I didn’t have a choice, so it wasn’t my fault, and for the moment I was willing to let myself be lulled by that reasoning. Maybe I really didn’t have a choice. 

Now I’m embarrassed to even think about it, but I drank until everyone agreed that it was time for us to rest, that we should sleep while Mr. President took first watch, because Ian was starting to look a little worse for the wear, listing drunkenly off his bean bag like a half-toppled Easter Island statue. Earlier, he’d tried to hit on Ann several times; after earning only disgusted looks from her, he’d hit the bottle instead. 

Over the course of the entire night, I had not seen Mr. President take a single drink, though he must have, because his cheeks were flushed and his eyes had gone hooded; it was clear even he wasn’t up for the task, but I knew offering again would only make them suspect I was planning something. 

By that point, Jason had passed out, or at least he was as close as you could get without actually going under, slumped by the pool with drool dripping in long strands down his chin. Make sure you get that on camera. For a moment, I let myself consider how easy it would be to push him into the water and frame it as a drunken accident. If Mr. President was my only witness, I was likely to get away with it. It seemed to me that he wanted Jason dead for his own reasons. Once everyone had dropped off to sleep, I could establish a dialogue with Mr. P and insinuate that maybe we had some common ground and together we could look out for our more secret and taboo interests; I doubted I’d need to be more explicit; he would misunderstand me correctly. 

Not that it made me feel especially good about myself, but I did figure that killing Jason and offering him up to Mr. President would open some paths to me that might otherwise stay closed. If Jason didn’t work as a suitable incentive, I wasn’t sure what my other options were. At that point, I wouldn’t have been upset about Jason’s fate at Mr. P’s hands, no matter how awful it was—the more horrifying, the better, in my opinion. I think that was probably the first time in my life I ever encountered real hatred inside myself; it was both awful and exhilarating; I wanted to ride it like a wave, sheltered by my drunken haze from the consequences of my own thoughts. 

Gradually, the rest of the group faded. Beer cans littered the floor in a soup of spilt dregs. By the time everyone woke up, the place would be sticky and gross, and if I was still here at that point, I’d be the one stuck cleaning it up. 

When I was confident that everyone but Mr. President had fallen asleep, I stood and stepped around the crumpled beer cans as carefully as I could. The sunlight streamed in through the high windows, bright and hostile. From the other side of the door, it sounded like the zombies had begun to slow down. Maybe it was the heat and the resulting decomposition. Maybe this specific strain of cordyceps had no staying power. Or maybe they just knew this was a long game, and all they had to do was wait; whether it was hours, days, or years, eventually we’d have to come out. 

“I know what you’re thinking: ‘Why are they trusting you to keep the dead people out?’” Mr. President slurred, when I approached him. The longer I stared at him, the more wasted he seemed. “I know you know what I like.” 

“It’s not as if you’ve tried to hide it.” 

“No, I’ve always been told it’s not good to hide who you are, but they locked me up for a while, you know? ‘Be yourself’, they say, but ‘be yourself’ only means ‘be the kind of person society finds acceptable.’ Damn hypocrites.” He shook his head sadly, grimacing in the sort of Boomer way that assumes of course you’re going to agree with whatever egregious, boneheaded thing they’re saying. 

“Who did? Who locked you up?” I leaned forward slightly to hear him better; he was talking so quietly now. If I was going to keep up this rapport long enough to get what I needed, I had to pretend I was interested and not sick to my stomach. 

“Doesn’t matter. I’m going to rest my eyes for a moment. It’s, uh, it’s getting kind of hard to keep them open. If anything unusual happens while I’m out, you…probably know what to do.” 

He gave me a sloppy grin, and I felt an overwhelming dread I couldn’t explain, sudden and strong. With this open invitation to do whatever I needed, I should have been relieved, but instead I felt like I was missing something vital. It’s not even that it felt like a trap; it felt worse than a trap. I was standing on the steps in Zombie Farmhouse, watching the undead emerge from the twilight and knowing this time would be no different from any of the others, wondering why I felt compelled to try anyway. There has always been a fatalistic part of me that loves to see itself confirmed, I think. 

As his chin fell forward onto his chest, I swear I could hear his eyelids slide closed with a faint click. Every instinct I had told me to wake the others and warn them—warn them of what?—but I stood there frozen instead, my palms cold and clammy, the voice in the back of my head offering nothing but gibberish. Even if I could shake the others from their drunken stupor, I had no reason to believe they would give my fears any weight, and besides, I couldn’t risk losing this chance. 

For a moment, I stood over Jason’s prone form, considering how much effort it would take to push him in the pool and trying to decide if it was worth the risk. Chances were, he’d wake up when he hit the water, and if he did, all bets were off. But say he didn’t wake up. Say he was out so completely, it didn’t matter what I did. I only had to hold him under long enough to drown him, and the biggest of my problems would be solved. Killing Jason would be doing the world a service, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. 

Several times I felt myself drift forward on instinct, little abortive movements that turned into flinches, and as the runaway train of my heartbeat accelerated, I came to the sinking realization that I didn’t have it in me. When I considered smashing his skull, or tying him up, or laying hands on him in any way, I felt dangerously close to losing my mind with fear. 

I told myself it was because I wasn’t a killer, that this apocalypse hadn’t yet been enough to change my fundamental nature, no matter how much I wanted to rid myself of the Jason problem once and for all. That was all well and good; maybe someone in some other universe would accept that excuse. But the Singh who sat at the wheel during that time was weak and impotent. Two people needed to be killed in that moment, but neither of them died, and this story would have ended a lot differently if I hadn’t stepped back from that ledge when I did. 

Instead I crept over to the tactical vest, which was lying in the corner next to a pair of shin guards, and I slipped everything on, tightening the straps as much as possible, all the while convinced Jason was going to sit bolt upright at any moment and yell, “Got you!” 

The vest was too big for me, and it made moving difficult, but I figured it was better than nothing. Once that was taken care of, I strapped on my sawed-off shotgun and made a quick foray to the gun rack where I picked out a pistol, screwed on a silencer, and grabbed several extra magazines. I turned to leave, then thought better of it, and went back for a pair of knives with brass knuckle handles, just for the hell of it, and a machete as well. 

Again I paused, this time considering what would happen if I opened fire on everyone like some sort of school shooter caught in visions of grandeur no one else could see, spraying a confetti of bullets until the whole place was in shambles. If I used one of the AR-15s, they’d all be perforated before anyone realized what I was doing. As far as I was concerned, no one here was my ally—they were all colluding with Jason in keeping me confined, and if getting out meant I had to kill them, then so be it. Maybe I’d even be able to live with myself. But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t stop seeing them as people. Leaving them to die was one thing, but killing them remained an insurmountable obstacle. I couldn’t have explained the difference to you then, or why it was so compelling in the face of cold logic, and I can’t explain it to you now, either. I just didn’t have what it took. That’s all I know. 

So I crossed to the computer and pulled up the security feed, instead. The zombies were no longer clustered around the door. In fact, most of them had disappeared, and the ones that stayed behind wandered aimlessly, loose-limbed and confused, like dementia patients. 

When I didn’t immediately spot the keys, I started panicking, convinced they were gone, that the zombies in charge of their care were now miles down the road. My knees became overwhelmed by their sudden awareness of gravity. But then I saw a glint of metal in the sunlight, the flash of a keychain, and after that it was easy enough to spot the second one. They were still relatively close—the furthest key-carrier was no more than thirty feet away from the side of the building, but there was no telling how long that would last. 

Pausing by the door, I took one last moment to assess the room; it was impossible to shake the impression that this was too easy, that Jason was setting me up. But no one had moved an inch, each of them huddled amidst crumpled cans and spilled beer, dead to the world. Even Mr. President was snoring now, emitting strange cottony sounds. If I’m being perfectly honest, that’s when I let myself acknowledge that I knew what was happening, that it was something more sinister than sleep apnea or the effects of alcohol. But I chose to ignore the signs because they weren’t going to be my problem once I was gone, and even though I couldn’t bring myself to kill the others in cold blood, I certainly wasn’t going to save them. 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I opened the door as softly as I could and double-checked that the handle wasn’t going to lock behind me. As I slipped outside into the stark sunshine, the smell of rot pressed up close to my face and wound its arms around my body, so heavy and sweet it was palpable. 

Having weighed the pros and cons, I’d opted against wearing the motorcycle helmet to increase my maneuverability and speed, but now I wished I had it, if only to dampen the smell, the sound. Everything was too loud, inexplicably so. I could hear dead leaves crunching under dozens of feet, the dry clicking of jaws opening and closing, the quickening rattle of their breath as they sensed me. All I could think of, for a single, tense moment, was the game Hungry Hungry Hippos, and I almost burst out into hysterical laughter. 

It’s hard to describe for those who’ve not felt it themselves, hard to relay the cold chill that entered my blood as I stood there, knowing these creatures wanted to eat me and that they might succeed, thinking about how being eaten alive might feel. I wondered if my brain would be able to escape inside itself, shielding me from the worst of it, or if agony would be the last thing I experienced, a pain so solid and blinding it would blot out everything that came before, reducing the whole of my existence to the pitiful sounds I made in my final moments. Probably Jason would play the footage for everyone. 

Standing out here among the zombies was vastly different than watching them on the feed, not just because it was more immediate, but because the space was distorted and compressed by the footage. Distances proved longer in reality; they were stretched. I found that the nearest set of keys was further away than it had appeared, although it was getting closer. 

Without wasting another second, I raised the pistol with the silencer on it and fired. I was hoping to avoid using the sawed-off shotgun—if the noise woke the people inside, the rest of my plan would become that much harder—but even with the silencer, it seemed to make an unholy racket, not the simple hissing pop you hear in the movies. As one of the zombies fell with a perfect red mark through its forehead, my hand started shaking so badly I almost dropped the gun. 

I’ll admit now what I couldn’t then. When I’d chased Jason outside, I was riding the wave of my anger, and I’d known on some instinctive level that he wasn’t going to let me die, even if that didn’t mean he was on my side. But now that I was alone, I realized it was impossible to watch my own back against the sheer number of approaching zombies. They formed a storm surge, building, building, threatening to break over me in moments. It was like figuring out, when you’re already hurtling down a steep hill, that you’ve taken the training wheels off too soon. But I knew that if I went back inside, I’d be admitting defeat, and that was the only thing that kept me going. 

There were still several more bodies I would have to drop before the one I was looking for came into range, and I was already making too much of a ruckus, so I pulled out the machete and started swinging. 

It takes a lot more force than you might think to cut through a body, and bone dulls your blade pretty quickly. Every time the machete got stuck, I lost seconds trying to yank it out, and my arms began to tremble with fatigue until I felt like I was moving in slow motion. It was nothing like clearing the field in a video game. After about five zombies, I realized I didn’t have the stamina for it, and threw the blade to the ground so I could hold the gun with both hands. 

But since Jason had unwittingly set up a delivery service for the keys, it didn’t take long before one of them was within spitting distance. He’d chosen a tank of a man, well over six feet tall and equal parts fat and muscle. Pulling the key over his head would have been a challenge on a good day, and this was not a good day. If I got that close, he could sink his teeth into my neck. If he tore out my carotid, my death would be quicker and more painless than some of the alternatives. But I didn’t have to do things like Jason would, throwing caution to the wind in favor of performing for the camera, so instead I put a round in the zombie’s head and waited for it to fall. 

As soon as it was down, I yanked the loop of twine from its neck, shoved the fob in my pocket, and then inched backward to the door. I didn’t want to take my eyes off the approaching zombies, but the ground was covered in dead bodies, and it was hard not to lose my balance. If I went down, I doubted there’d be time to get back up. 

Just as I was considering turning around and making a break for it, I felt hands grabbing me from behind. For half a moment I could have sworn I felt teeth clip my ear and bright warm pain that must only have been imaginary, because—spoilers—there was nothing there when I checked later on. Stifling a shriek, I pulled out a knife and stabbed blindly upwards, toward the source of the hot breath on my neck, and when I connected with something soft, I pushed until the blade got stuck. When I couldn’t pull it out, I let go and ripped open the door. 

Only after it was closed behind me did I realize this new and unexpected challenge. Everyone was still asleep—so far so good. But I would need to leave immediately; there was no time to grab food or additional supplies; the events I had set in motion could not be paused for further planning. Even if I hid the key, the moment Jason woke and saw the carnage on the security feed, the Everest of bodies I had left in plain sight for anyone to scale, he would know what had happened, and he would stop me.  

Looking over at him, lying prone by the pool, I thought again of shooting him. The urge was so strong I could feel myself doing it even as I remained rooted in place—I could see it vividly: marching up to him, pressing the muzzle to his temple like a cold kiss. Would I give in to paralysis again, or would I pull the trigger? Telling you I wish I’d shot him would be repeating myself unnecessarily at this point, but I wish I’d shot him. 

Instead I looked at the key in my hand, so coated in gore it was difficult to make out the logo. Dodge. Okay, that worked for me. Something like a sigh escaped my lips. So far, everything was going, if not smoothly, then at least better than I’d expected. Only a few steps remained between me and my escape, and for the first time I felt a horrible, shaky sense of release coming over me like the urge to vomit. I actually thought I was going to make it out of this garage, find my mom, get to safety. 

I hate myself for hoping so hard. I couldn’t help it. 

Mapping the steps I needed to take, I tried to calculate how much time I was working with. The Hellcat was roughly six feet from the garage entrance, and the path was clear. But the adrenaline from my fight with the zombies was already starting to leave my system, and I found it increasingly difficult to remember the rest of the plan. 

Was I supposed to turn the car on first, run to the garage door and open that, then hurry back? No, from the moment that engine roared to life in the stillness, I’d have seconds on the clock. The garage door presented the same problem—I didn’t know where the remote was, so I’d have to press the button on the door itself. The sound of the door was just as likely to wake everyone, and I’d still have to make it back to the car. I found myself stuck in a loop, unable to discern the best option, all the while feeling my window closing. 

The driver’s door was already unlocked, so I pulled it open and tiptoed to the garage doors, my knees buckling. My hands were shaking so badly, I missed the button on my first attempt, and when I did push it, the door began rolling up with an unmistakable squealing sound. If I close my eyes, I can still hear its terrible groan, echoing through the entire space. Probably it had been warped by the efforts of the zombies. 

My fear was a hot poker slicing through my stomach, driving the air from my lungs, but somehow I managed to haul ass back to the Hellcat and lock myself inside. And that’s the moment my luck abandoned me. When I pressed down on the brake and hit the start button, all I got was a message on the dashboard saying “Key Fob Not Detected.” Even when I held the fob directly to the button, the engine wouldn’t start. 

The garage door was almost all the way up now. Distant zombies craned their necks to get a look at the action—already the closer ones were picking up the pace. Fingers numb, I pulled out the start button and tried to stick the end of the fob in to turn the ignition manually, but it wouldn’t fit. Despite the logo, it was clearly the wrong key, and a glance in the direction of the pool told me Jason wasn’t there anymore. 

I got out of the car and stumbled to my knees because my legs were dead sticks attached to my body, my heart rate so high there were white spots in my vision. My only thought was that I had to go outside and get the other key before it was too late. But just as I started to open the back door, a hand reached around me and slammed it shut, and that’s when I gave up.  

Ian was standing at the keypad across the way; I could see him in the corner of my eye. The main bay door was closing now. Next to him, Alana fired at the zombies with questionable accuracy, but so far, by some miracle, none had managed to get inside. 

I turned until I was facing Jason, my back pressed against the door, the shuffle of the zombies on the other side like a thrumming heartbeat; he pressed in close so there was no room to breathe. “Nice try,” he said. His smile was all teeth; it was impossible to tell whether he was amused or furious; he looked like a shark either way. “Both of the fobs I stuck outside went to my SRT Demon 170. Beautiful car, faster than that classy broad.” He pointed at the Hellcat. “Wrecked it last year though, which you would have known if you watched my videos. Now give me the key.” 

I gave him the key. 

 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Figured you would try something like this,” Jason said, all mock disappointment. After a long moment, he turned to the others and pointed at himself. “Didn’t I say she would? And there you were, Ann, telling me to give her the benefit of the doubt when she couldn’t care less if her escape killed us all. What kind of person does something like that? Hardly human, if you ask me.” 

Several paces away, Ian had his gun aimed at my head as if he expected me to make a break for it, now that the garage door was closed and I was pinned down like a bug in a science museum. “What do you want us to do with her?” 

Jason gave a dismissive wave. “Don’t worry—I’ve got it handled. Look at her, she’s scared to death; I bet you can hear her heart racing from all the way over there. She’s not going to try anything else for the moment.” 

“We can’t trust her—she’s already made that clear,” Ian muttered, lowering the gun with a show of reluctance. He didn’t put it away, though. It was clear from his stance that if Jason didn’t tread carefully, the two of them were going to come to blows over who was in charge, with me stuck in the crossfire. “If she sees another opportunity, she’ll take it.” 

“She is right here,” I said through gritted teeth, trying to keep my voice at a somewhat normal volume, though it was impossible to get rid of the tremor. There were tears drying on my cheeks, with more threatening to come. In another moment I was going to start begging; Jason would love that footage. “She can hear you.” 

“There is no need to get tiffy. You are the one who betrayed all of us.” Alana spat the words at me. “If there is any high ground here, you are not on it.” 

“You are so completely out of your mind, I don’t think you get a say,” I snapped. 

“Now, now,” Jason said, putting a hand on my shoulder as if to hold me back. “This is a democracy, just like America is a democracy. Do you know what that means? It means that everyone votes, and the side with the most votes wins, and the other side gets to cry about it. In this situation, you are what’s called a minority, because we,” he made a circular motion with his finger to include the rest of the group, “are the majority, and we all voted for a rule, which you then broke. In some places, I believe betraying your country is considered treason, and treason is punishable by death. But I am a nice guy; I am a reasonable person. So right now you are just a prisoner, and we have to take away your weapons because criminals aren’t allowed to have guns.” 

“What if the zombies get inside?” It was the only rebuttal I could think of, but I could already tell it lacked the necessary power to persuade. Arguing with Jason while he was orating wasn’t an effective strategy. 

“Then maybe you should have thought of that before you forfeited your rights. Now you’ll just have to pray that we’re all good enough shots, but if it comes down to it, I don’t think saving you is going to be our biggest priority. Not unless you can make that worth it for me.” He added the last part in a low voice meant for the two of us alone, leaning in so close his mouth grazed the corner of my jaw. 

“You’re disgusting,” I muttered, trying to flinch back. There was nowhere to go. 

He chuckled softly and licked his lips. “I don’t think you understand how much trouble you’re in. Considering you were willing to throw us to the wolves, the others would be well within their rights to argue for your execution. Now, me personally, I’m willing to keep you alive. But in situations like this, there has to be give and take, and thus far, all you’ve done is take. Maybe if you were willing to give, this whole problem wouldn’t have come to a head.” He reached out and traced the line of my jaw, and I bit down on my tongue to keep from whimpering in fear as his fingers slid down my neck. Every muscle in my body told me to swing at him, but I knew that was what he wanted. 

And anyway, there were too many armed people around. If I pulled out my gun now, I might be able to kill him, but not without being killed myself. So when, after taking the gun and the knife, he patted me down and pulled the magazines from my pockets, I didn’t resist, even as his hands lingered on my butt. The whole time he was smiling, his eyes drilling into mine, and I promised myself that the next chance I had to kill him, I wouldn’t squander it. 

“Can’t I at least take off the tactical vest?” I asked as he pulled several zip ties from his pocket and held out his hand expectantly. The vest was heavy and hot, and it reeked of zombie blood. I wanted to take a shower and put on clean clothes and squeeze myself into the smallest corner I could find, where no one would be able to reach me. 

“No, I think I’m going to let you keep it on, let you sit with it. I want this to be a learning experience for you. Maybe you need to be humbled a little.” His tone was so patronizing—from the look on his face, he was enjoying this far more than anything else that had come before. “Now, stop wasting my time and put your hands out, wrists together.” 

“Please, just let me take the Hellcat and go.” I pitched my voice low in hopes the others wouldn’t hear me, but there was no way to hide the fact that I was crying again. “You’re not thinking this through. You gain nothing by keeping me here, and I’m too much trouble for you. If you let me leave, that’s one less thing for you to worry about.” 

“Let me explain to you how this is going to work,” he said, and there was something else in his tone now that sent chills through my blood. His head jerked, halfway between a twitch and a nod; it made me think of the zombies and their unnatural movements. “You’re going to let me zip-tie your hands together, and then I’m going to sit you down in the corner so you can think about what you’ve done, and maybe in a bit I’ll decide to give you a second chance, but with extra supervision. That’s me going easy on you. I don’t think you want me to go hard. If I have to take you down by force, you’re not going to like how it ends. I will, though. I will be happy either way. So what’s it going to be?” 

For a moment I let my eyes drift shut, and I studied the backs of my lids like I expected to find an answer to my problems there, some divine solution. Could I fight my way out? No, I’d be kidding myself if I thought I had a chance. I had no special skills like Alana, no experience with hand-to-hand combat beyond the one fist fight I’d both started and lost in kindergarten. My muscles were slow and easily-tired on a good day, my abilities limited by the pain that was my constant companion. Even without the others to back him up, I couldn’t picture a scenario where I bested Jason, not empty-handed. 

My mind was a child’s birthday balloon, floating up into the clear blue sky; that was one kind of escape, at least. Because on some level, I’d resigned myself to the fact that this was the beginning of the end, that everything after this would be awful and inescapable. It was impossible to reconcile the future I now faced with the life I’d been living so recently; when I tried to prepare myself for the worst, my body rejected it like an organ transplant gone wrong. My brain threatened to come apart at the seams. 

I felt a little ashamed by my next thought, which was that with Alana around, he might be distracted enough to leave me alone if I faded into the background and caused no trouble. It didn’t feel very women-supporting-women of me. But in my own small sense, I was beginning to understand why people in prison camps might commit war crimes to stay alive, why in abusive homes, it’s every man for himself.  

“Are you paying attention, Singh?” Jason’s voice came to me as if from some great distance. I thought about letting his words slip by me like water, unattended, unmarked. But I could feel the frisson of excitement in the tense line of his muscles as he pressed closer, anticipating a fight, and I knew the best way for me to buy myself time would be to let him zip-tie me, as counterintuitive as that felt. Pretending I had other options was dangerous. 

With some effort, I forced my eyes open and brought my wrists together in front of him. “What a good little submissive,” he said, locking the first zip tie in place before moving on to the second one. I’d seen Youtube tutorials on how to break free from zip ties and duct tape, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to replicate the process should the need arise. I tried to run through the several steps in my memory, but fear scrambled them; I was too worried my thoughts would show on my face. 

When he grabbed my arm and hauled me toward the far corner, by the door to the room where he and Alana had been not too long ago, I tried to avoid looking at the others, but their expressions burned themselves into the backs of my eyelids nonetheless. Disgust, betrayal, confusion. Disdain. Even telling myself I didn’t care about them or what they thought, I felt shame and embarrassment turning my cheeks red. I’d never considered what dealing with the fallout of my plan might entail, how I’d be forced to see myself in an unflattering light. Maybe, a part of me whispered, I really did deserve this. 

He lowered me to the ground and stood over me for a moment, seeming like he wanted to say something else but wasn’t quite sure of the wording. It wasn’t uncertainty that I saw playing out on his face, but calculation. He had the look of a crocodile, lurking just below the surface of the water. 

“I’ll bring you food later. If you need the bathroom, give me a shout. I’m not a monster.” He crouched down, leaning in close. “And if you decide you want to be a little more grateful, you know where to find me. You might end up liking it.” 

I was still caught between anger and fear by the time he joined the others around the TV, where they’d begun to play Mario Kart with the volume turned all the way up. None of them could drive for shit. 

 

Copyright © 2025 by Elizabeth Brooks