AT THE END OF THE WORLD

20 - 20

HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT.

We should've died. Uh, yeah. Definitely. We should've just... died. I don't disagree, Jason.

Casey and I were fundamentally Bad People. Really.

Still. Here I was, like, a Maserati in 2022 can probably convert itself into a Submarine. Yeah?

No.

I woke up bruising. HOLY SHIT—I woke up, and I screamed. Somebody'd been wracking its radio, gurgle-sizzling updates off ESPN. "A Three-Yard Pass—Tom Brady—Mike Evans—Touchdown!"

While Levi woozed awake and Nick drowsed a panicking murmur, Casey slamming at doors and windows aggressively. I screamed and screamed and screamed and kept on screaming. Water seeping in, soaked Cons. Realizing I was looking up, an open moon roof, a bridge overhead: 9th Street Station.

The G and F.

There were vague impressions of sky, darkly shrouded.

They'd been car bombing... No.

They...

"Help!" I cried as I climbed, hoisting myself up. The Ford upright, bed hailing Jesus. Icy air slapped across my body, hardening a burning sting. Fuck. Like Jaws, only its sister-parody, PiranhaZombie, or somethin'. A Zombie-infested Canal.

My knees crowded, wobbled. I- I stood, swaying. Wind whirling chunks of hair like ghostly cold lacerations pricking your cheeks, Kira.

They kept lunging, shrieking, purling, flailing limbs and choked drowning. Zombies... couldn't swim? New. Okay.

Maserati was sinking. Fast. Everybody heavyweight, shifting, shimmying up—Casey and Nick, Levi struggling somewhere below. So I lurched, landing waist-deep in a shackling blow. The Ford—its jutting bed—had been only inches away; crammed up against a stone wall, passenger window broken on a wrought-iron ladder. Like I was in goddamn GTA, yeah.

Climbing. Coughing.

Heaving myself overboard, shored, asphalt palms: a hand clamped my calf. "Ah!"

"'s me, Kir!"

Jesus, I almost kicked Casey. I would've broken his jaw, Jason. I literally—

"Fuck, Case, you're still alive?"

"Somehow."

He grinned. His jeans were dark; ombré-soaked. Levi and Nick lost in a smoggy haze. So Case and I ran, yeah. Zombies swarming a gaping hole in guardrail, buzzing away. Snapping. It was all in my ears, ringing, mawing, splashing; echoing gunshots running around—

"Inside. Somewhere..." he shouted, whirling around slowly. His voice hoarse and low.

Fingers clawing at my hood, yanking. My knee buckled, and a hand ripped: zipper cutting across my throat like a choker. "Casey!" My whole life skimming by. Flash. Flash. Snap.

Sloosh!

Casey Kelly kicking a Zombie away, curb-stomping, skull-crushing quickness. I was up. My legs ached. My head pulsed. Blurry: Tex-Mex Eats. His silhouette, rippling smoky, slamming through a glass door—"Ah, fuck. Shit. Kira."

Glass grazing my shoulders, slipping in and helping him up. We shifted a broken wooden counter, propped up. Crunch. Crunch. Glass. Everywhere.

His shallow cuts, zig-zagging along exposed skin. His shredded clothing. Casey kept coughing, huffing behind you, Kira.

We went back, a doorway, a... a hallway, I remember. Something was on fire, yeah. Casey coughing, Kira. Smoke. Casey. Zombies. Smoke. Zombies snarling, clobbering clunkily. Wood wouldn't last long, I knew. Something like a six-story walk-up, yeah, sprawling narrowly, elongated, a skylight our only indication of an end. Moonlit. Darkness.

My elbows crashed against a cracked door a level below. It smashed open.

Everything so... suddenly quiet. An empty apartment reeking of weed. Smoke wafting, hazy. There were muffled voices; as I inched closer, a dim living area, a lowboy, ashtray under an open bag of Doritos, half a joint, and a flicker-flash of red-glow—Tom Brady on TV. Then Leonard Fournette, replaying, slow-motion, a 6-yard TD.

"Fucking..."

Casey shoving chairs and shelves and scraping a washer-dryer unit away from a wall, barricading a vibrating door—Thud!

Howling. It wouldn't be long.

"Casey!"

Extra Point. Good. Ryan Succop.

"Fucking..." he echoed breathlessly, sauntering up quietly. Thud! "Tie."

Third Quarter, 20-20.