The Apocalypse Monologues: Disease

We were in the subway, which was a terrible idea. My mom’s plan was to get us to City Island. She thought it’d be safe there. It wouldn’t be, but we were just looking for direction. We wanted to be told and we wanted to go. The subway platform was heaving, hemorrhaging sweat and fear. The sound was immense. You couldn’t hear the subway trains over pre-panic noise. Imagine: we all feared the touch of strangers and here were three hundred strangers crammed into a space to get onto an even smaller tube that would already have been full of sweaty, fearful strangers screaming to and failing to avoid one another’s touch. The disease spreads through various bodily contact: blood, vomit, spit, semen, shit like that. Sweat. And it spreads rapidly and horrifically. Loss of bodily control. Bleeding out of orifices. And agonizing screams. Howls, really. It’s animalistic. The disease fucks up your throat and nose, so that your vocals change. You don’t sound human, because you’re deforming. The infected seek people. As the disease starts to fuck them all up, they don’t want to be alone. It’s not malice on their part. It’s loneliness. They’ve got no cognitive capabilities. It’s all instinct. And they don’t want to die alone. They want help. So they go to people. And here we all were. A hateful, convulsing mass all doing the wrong thing. No good would come of this. And then the bad came. One of the infected stumbled down the staircase into the platform. There are supposed to be police officers containing the people who are obviously diseased. But, really, the people do a good job of policing the problem themselves. This guy was a mess. Not just from the bleeding out. Not just from the disease, but from the bludgeoning he received from whatever good Samaritans tried to beat him down. They were right behind him. You could hear the howls. The howls of the now-diseased vigilantes silenced the crowd and lit off a panic. But there was nowhere to go. Violence erupted, and the infected rolled their way toward the crowd, pushing against each other, stampeding on each other, climbing over each other. There was a rush to nowhere. The other end of the platform was locked. Dozens of people fell or jumped into the subway tunnels. Falling over each other, crushing one another, third-rail electrocution. Though the sudden noise was alarming, it was no surprise when shots rang out. People had started to conceal handguns. The distance with the gun seemed safer than beating away any of the diseased, unless the wounds sprayed blood on the shooter or anyone unfortunate enough to be close-by. Then a chain reaction would start. The people on the subway platform were shooting to clear a path for themselves, not at the diseased. At fleeing people. And then the subway train arrived. The conductor didn’t plan on breaking. He just planned on speeding by the platform. But the tunnels were full. Of people, healthy and otherwise. The train plowed through, I don’t know, a mass of, what?, a hundred? It sprayed people all over the train, the tunnels, the platform. Just a wave of blood. A mist of infected blood rained down on the riot of fear. It rained massacre. Fuck, the noise. It was like a God damned choir of howls. The infection was spreading. Every heartbeat spread more disease. My mom was screaming. But there was nowhere to go. I yanked the strings on my hoodie, trying futilely to protect my face from any sick. It was useless. My mother turned around toward me and gasped. My sister was on my shoulders, crying. I looked up to try to calm her, and she was painted with a film of gore. Blood was cascading out of her noise and ears, bubbling out of her mouth. She began to screech. Like a monster in chrysalis. She was six-years old. So small. She weighed, I don’t know, fifty pounds. I don’t know. Her body was so small. So small. So light. So light.
I threw her.
I threw her at the infected.
I threw her at the infected and ran.
I ran to the stalled train. Somehow, infected blood got into the train and I could see the process of fear and disease spread. The uninfected were like a steam of gasoline waiting for the fire to catch up to them. I scaled the train and ran down the length of it toward the end. To jump into the tunnels. To get to the surface. To run. To run. To run.

The last few moments of my mother’s life were unimaginable. I saw it. She saw me. She watched me do it. I destroyed Katie. And fled my family. The last thing I remember on my mother’s face was a look of horror as she starred at me, palpable disappointment, shock at betrayal by blood, confused dissonance at who I am versus what I did, before bloody hands dragged her to the ground.
She was screaming my name, before the screams turned to howls.

I HUNGER FOR GOLDEN PUFFS!

You know that comic book The Fantastic Four? The Thing. Human Torch. Invisible Woman. All that. Remember Galactus? Giant purple space god who eats planets?
…
People in New York have been text messaging photos of a giant purple space god eating our planet. Starting with New York. Apparently he likes the taste of theme bars.

sigh

er, this morning I’m eating a bowl of Golden Puffs (they’re like Golden Crisp, which used to be called Sugar Smacks, but they cost seventy-five cents at Big Lots) and checking Facebook. My friend Kevin’s status reads “Kevin is watching a giant purple space god eating the planet.” And then there’s an accompanying picture of a giant purple space god eating the planet. I open a tab and check Yahoo and, sure enough, there’s lots of to-do about the end of the world. I plug my phone into the charger and there’s a bunch of text messages about the end of the world and mom leaving all sorts of voice mail, telling me I never call her and the world is coming to an end without her having any grandkids and blah blah blah. I open my blinds and the weather is weird. Lots of colorful wind, like currents of energy moving west toward New York. Trees are being uprooted and the ground is fissuring open. It looks like Earth is hurling spears of energy toward New York, but I guess they’re more like broccoli spears than pointy spears. (Hello, end of the world? These are some puns! You are welcome!) You can hear it. Loud, high-pitched screaming, as if air itself could emote. Apparently, these are symptoms of the end of the world. It feels like one of those odd things you learn, but never need to apply again, like, uh, something. Maybe Galactus is also draining me of my cleverness.

Turning on CNN, I see some crazy footage of this giant purple space god with his giant purple space kilt and giant purple two-pronged space helmet and giant planet-eating space machines. Damn. Look at that. There’s something you don’t see every day, or ever again. Thank God the Pentagon has sent the Air Force! I guess the White House needs to put up a good front. I guess. It’s not like they need to impress anyone for the next election. Because there is no next election. Nor is there a tomorrow. Nor is there a Fantastic Four. Apparently, we’re one of those example planets that has to be devoured before the audience meets the planet that stands a fighting chance. I can’t imagine what must be going through the mind of one of the Air Force pilots, to stare into the eye of a hungry god and then launch a missile into it. That is some hardcore military basic training right there. Rather than spend the last day on Earth with his family, that pilot is throwing ice cubes at the Sun.
And then that fleet of aircraft just vaporized.
I guess I just found out what goes through the minds an Air Force pilot starring into the eyes of a hungry god.
Anything that hungry god wants!
HEY-OH!

Ahhh…
I check the blogrolls on Fark. CrooksandLiars believes that the U.S. Air Force strike over New York City is an irresponsible and impeachable offense. National Review blames the coming of Galactus on the homosexual agenda.

I open that expensive bottle of bourbon I’ve been saving since graduation for something awesome. Well, here’s to not ever getting married or having kids! Ideally, I’d like to go out masturbating to Briana Banks, but, well, I doubt I could get an erection at a time like this.

I check MySpace and some teenager in Missouri has posted a bulletin denouncing Galactus as a faggot. U.S.A. #1! Take that, National Review!

The Galactus Wikipedia page is blowing up. Nerds have their comeuppance! Unfortunately, it’s on the last day of life as we know it, so it’s a bittersweet victory.

I bet there’s a whole lot of people on Earth right now thinking they spent their lives worshipping the wrong giant space god.

CNN has a tickertape notice about store lootings and general nonsensical mayhem. Apparently, poor people want to watch the apocalypse on a really nice, big, high def plasma televisions.

The world map on CNN goes insane, with landmasses curling upward toward New York, like he is bending the world toward his mouth. The world is flat again.

I put the bottle to my lips.
And then the TV cable pops out with my innerwebs connection.
And then the power goes down.
And then