1/30

You always used to think the apocalypse would happen at night, but of course it doesn’t. It happens right around ten AM, and you’re at work, and work has these big, beautiful glass windows. (You used to love those windows. Now you know that windows are dangerous.) And you were happy; you remember that much. You lived in a cute little apartment with a cute little dog, and you were single, but that was okay, because you knew the guy over in accounts receivable--the cute Sam, not weird-married Sam--he definitely had a crush on you, and you were planning on making some great romance-movie chick-flick move on him during the Christmas party after he had drunk no less than two and no more than five alcoholic drinks, drinks, you might add, which you had planned to buy him while sipping lustily on something sexy but masculine, like an Old Fashioned or a dirty martini. You don’t even like booze--you’d rather drink wine--but that was the plan, and you were excited, and even Microsoft Fucking Excel seemed to be behaving, and then all the fucking sudden there’s this guy staggering toward you through reception--and of course the lazy temp receptionist is somewhere else--maybe he’s homeless and drunk? But no, his leg is broken. And, like an idiot, you leap up, call to him, offer to call an ambulance. His leg creaks under his weight like an old chair when he turns to face you. His mouth is enormous and red and wet--looks like it has been clawed wider than it should be. The skin hangs in red, dripping strips. All you can think about is maraschino cherries, floating in the bottom of a glass. Or red fruit by the foot, hanging from his cheekbones. You laugh. You pick up your heavy ergonomic chair and send it spiralling toward him across the carpet, and then the huge, heavy maglite you keep in your desk comes out, and you bludgeon his head in while he is still tripping on the chair. Halfway through his skull, while he’s still twitching a bit but not truly done for--well, of course it’s going to be, he always came in late and smiled at you on the way in, didn’t he? Poor Sam.