AT THE END OF THE WORLD

Bed-Stuy, Do or Die

A BRICK CUT THROUGH THE SMOKY AIR. Hasty, half-flung, so fucking Casey it was almost comical when it smashed into the side of Keith's jaw.

Clunk.

His head snapped, broken left, whiplash, too sharp, a watery gush of blood spitting from his cracked lips. I blinked, and Keith went down, down, down, in slow-motion, clunky limbs and wet sounds, a grotesque, live-action copycat of Nude Descending a Staircase. Funny how I was probably going to die because I wasted a second to remember Duchamp. They don't tell you that art school will get you killed, in one fucked up way or another, right?

"Kira!"

Yep.

Because... it wasn't in slow-motion anymore. It was Fast and Furious, sans Vin Diesel—a split in the crowd behind him, screaming, shuffling, scattering for the door, crushed together in an abrupt panic, but I was paralyzed, trying to understand what the fuck was happening. Keith, a jack-in-the-box, recoiling, springing up to lunge for—

I shoved at his chest blindly. His tattered flannel, twisting between us, coated in a layer of grimy dirt. He stumbled. Casey threw another brick at him, and it plunked against his shoulder, bouncing off.

"Casey!"

"What?" His voice felt far away. "Never fails, Kir."

Okay, in all honesty, somewhere in the back of my brain, I'd already assumed that Casey robbed the East Village Von Hewitt, armed with nothing but a brick.

Oh, and yeah, it did fail. It might've worked on a vegan in a fucking ice cream shop, but Keith was mass, muscle, and toxic masculinity. He faltered, refocused. Bricks don't slow that shit down for long. Because Keith looked through me, and then I blinked, and Keith was on me, and I was watching the sky shift and scream, or I was... yeah, I was screaming.

"Oof—"

Pain lanced from my elbows to my shoulders, sharp, fizzing lightning rods, shocking my system. His damp clothes, stained muddy-bloody. "Let go of me!" He clawed at my arms as I thrashed beneath him, scrabbling to get away. "Stop! Hey, asshole!" Hot, thick strings of breath, nipping across my cheeks, chin, throat, so against COVID restrictions I knew I'd have to get tested. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Keith was... trying to bite me.

Something was wrong. So wrong.

I could feel it.

Clearly, Casey had bailed, leaving me in the consequential throes of trying to ghost a Bumble hookup, a zombified Keith Lasseter. I'd bail, too.

Welp, if it was just me.

"Keith, Keith, Keith!" I screamed, hoping if I screamed loud enough, Keith might stop trying to kill Kira. It would be convenient. "Keith, stop!"

Instead, an even more convenient solution. Clunk. It cracked across the back of his skull, and Keith careened away from me in a slow, well-tempered manner, as if numbly curious about the interruption. If the first two bricks don't kill him, throw another, right? Classic Casey.

But Casey Kelly... launched himself at Keith. It was a rough fumble, reaction upon impact; they went down hard, tumbling off of me, knocking into a picnic table, scattering cigarette butts between a flurry of punches. I scooted back on my ass, further away from them. Keith pinned beneath Casey. His arms flailing, His jaw cracking, smashed into dirt, over and over and over. Flashes. Casey, bloodied knuckles and gritted teeth, bashing a brick into the side of Keith's face. What the... fuck was going on?

I was too dizzy, too high, I thought. It wasn't real. It couldn't be real. Maybe Casey had laced his joint with something stronger. Cocaine. I needed to leave.

We needed to leave.

Casey had killed Keith. Unbothered. Instinctual. Absolute. I'd always known Casey Kelly had killed before, but it had never been said explicitly; it was something to tiptoe around, because frankly, it would fuck everything up. Once your roommate admits to killing somebody, it gets... awkward... in the apartment, to say the least. He wasn't the first person to crash land at Spring that had killed somebody, unfortunately.

I stood on shaky legs as Casey slowed, rubbing at his blotchy knuckles absentmindedly. He leaned back, straddling a deadly still Keith, and ducked for his pockets. Loot. His fingers digging a wallet out, leafing, plucking at cards and cash, before sliding if back where it had been.

"Is he..."

Casey stood quietly, lunging to snag his backpack and sling it over his shoulder. Doubtless. "Mhm. Bed-Stuy, do or die, right, Kir?"

I didn't know what the fuck was going on, but I didn't want to leave without him. Casey was the perfectly fucked up companion for The End of the World, a smooth-talking murderer from New Orleans. Dude, you want him on your side, you know, because if it comes down to it, Casey Kelly isn't scared of shit, and you need that fucking energy to survive, well, anything in New York.

"Case, let's go," I hissed under my breath, jabbing my chin at the empty doorway that had held witnesses only a few minutes—or seconds?—ago. "Before they call the fucking cops! Hello?"

It would be a few hours until I realized that his warrant was the least of our fears.

His arm draped over my shoulder, and I stiffened as Casey drew me back, tucked me into his chest, and nudged me forward, over the threshold and into the dark, narrow hallway that led into Down or Dive. Its matte black painted walls, a grimy sheen of strobe fluorescence, reminiscent of a budget funhouse in an abandoned amusement park. Heavy archways, hanging lower. Warped. High-pitched noises. My eyes burned. It felt too smoky, and too quiet, and too still, footsteps echoing, a bubbling, ticking, dripping, popcorn popping, popping... popping...

Behind us, overhead, a TV, fizzing in and out, flatlining, only to flicker alive, fragments, shards of a report from CNN.

"CNN is... reports from... Brooklyn..."

Casey didn't stop.

I remember because I didn't stop moving; I twisted, lifted my chin, spared a glance, and CNN glitched, flashed, cut out, botched audio and broken visuals, subtitles scrambling across the bottom of the TV. Brooklyn was the first area to report a rash of unusually vicious, yet seemingly unrelated attacks tonight between multiple strangers, it scrolled and sawed off.

"Kira." His voice yanked me back to myself, and I turned away. Something was wrong.

Suddenly, it clicked, another voice, filtered into a fizzy frequency, following us, following us, following us. "CNN reporting... sources say...it may be linked...a new strain of COVID-19..." Softer, as I felt my heart thrashing in my throat, butterflies bred from bile. "...involves animal-like behavior and hunger...believed to be...be highly contagious...advising all New Yorkers—" Casey and I slipped out of Down or Dive. "...stay...in...side..."