Entry #22 - Zak - So Unbelievably Late That No Amends Could Ever Be Made

Ok, so maybe my first reaction when the room I’m in goes black and my eardrums feel like they’re gonna pop is to book it the hell out of there. So sue me. Maybe I’m not the bravest dude ever. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s a fact, and I have to live with it. My cowardice has gotten me into some pretty awkward situations. Like, this one time, I was at a dinner with a friend whose dad is some kind of dot-com big-wig, and the party’s theme was “The Jungle,” so there were all these live animals wandering around amongst the tables, and there was this some parakeet who—

Excuse me.

That’s not the point.

The point is that I high-tailed it right out of that station, banging my shins and jamming my fingers on those filthy cement steps, until I stumbled out at the top. But darkness had followed me aboveground. The screaming throbbed in my ears. From the sidewalk, my eyes strained to make out a building, a person, anything.

But there was nothing. Only dense, opaque, suffocating darkness. I looked for the sun, but it as gone. And then, in the distance, was a pale figure, making its way towards me. It was impossible to tell how far away it was. I squinted, trying to figure out what it was, this fellow traveler through the black.

But then I blinked. The pale figure flicked out of my vision for a second, and when my eyes opened, it was right there, towering over me. It was like a person, sort of, in a ragged, hooded cloak, sitting atop a big horse with eyes that glowed a deep red. Both of them were huge, kind of ethereal and shifting. The rider clutched a massive scythe in one bony hand. All of the sudden, I realized how cold I was.

It looked down at me from its saddle. I couldn’t see its face, but the icy fist around my heart told me that it was looked right at me, right through me. Slowly, painstakingly, it extended a finger towards me. I watched, frozen in place, as the ethereal, shifting, fingertip drew closer. I couldn’t even bring myself to flinch. And then, as if compelled by some new piece of information, it hesitated. The finger withdrew, the horse snorted, and the duo continued along its way.

I blinked again, and when my eyes opened, the darkness was gone, the sun was shining, and the screaming has stopped. But an inch from my nose, I saw what had been screaming. A corpse had its arms clasped behind my neck, and I was staring into its eyes. The scream was frozen there in its eyes, a plead for mercy received too late. I threw it off, bile rising in my throat, and realized that there was more than one corpse. I was ankle-deep in bodies, contorted into a frozen ballet of excruciating pain. My clothes were drenched in blood. The bile rose right on out of my throat, and kept on coming until I was on my knees, spitting, coughing, sobbing, wiping blood off my face.

“Jesus, Chuck,” said Rufus from behind me.

“What happened up here?” Eira demanded.

They ran over to me and helped me to my feet.

“Are you ok, Chuck?” Rufus asked. I tried to say something, even though I didn’t know what to say, but I just ended up vomiting on his shoes.

“Jesus fucking Christ, man,” said Eira. “You look like you just saw death itself or something.”

The only response I could manage was: “I think I might have.”

Amanda - Entry #21 - Late, but Unapologetic

Rufus grabbed my wrist and spun me around to face him. Decomposing Fuck had made a semi-lunge toward me, but had settled back into her seat. Rufus was not so quick to calm down. I could see his pulse thundering at his throat, and his eyes had an almost wild look to them. I tried to twist my wrist around in his grip, using the basic break we were taught in middle school to free myself, but Rufus was having none of it. “Rufus!” I yelled, a bit more high-pitched than I had intended, “You’re hurting me!”

He blinked once, shook his head, and dropped my hand slowly. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking around like he was confused.

I shrugged, scrambling to regain composure. Chuck looked like he was halfway between furious and terrified. “Forget it. Let’s just get back on the train and get the fuck out of here.”

My companions nodded and we left, still clutching our sections of the hat. Rufus kept giving me strange looks, apologizing every time he even slightly bumped me. I wanted to shake him out of it, grab his shoulders and force him to tell me what was going on. I had known Rufus long enough at that point (a few hours that seemed longer) to know that it would do no good. Instead, I kept quiet and went wherever the other two seemed to be headed.

We shuffled onto one of the rear cars of the train just as the doors closed with a hiss. I looked at the other two, wondering if it was okay to talk. Chuck broke the silence for me, asking what had been on my mind. “Are we safe now? Can we let go of this thing?” He moved as if to drop the hat.

I stopped him, forcing him to keep his hand on the hat until I could explain. “What if she,” I made a gesture that encompassed the whole train car, “is still watching? Let’s stay invisible until we get out, then we can plan.”

Heads nodded on both sides. We sat together on a bench, leaning in to keep a hold of the hat. It wasn’t a comfortable position, huddling far too close together in order to stay invisible. Rufus’ semi-transparent cheeks were glowing a more than healthy pink, his hand almost painfully bent in order to avoid my lap. Chuck wasn’t quite so careful, but he, too, seemed very aware of where his body was. I wondered briefly if I’d scared them, then wondered whether it was a good thing if I had. At least I’d be left alone, no off-color jokes about this repopulating humanity business.

The train finally pulled to a halt down beneath Manhattan. I hardly listened to hear the station name before pulling Rufus and Chuck out of the train car by the hat. I inhaled deeply, ready to smell the deep under-New York City air, then immediately regretted my decision.

The train had dropped us off right back where we started, Spring Street Station. The dead and the dying lay in piles around us, some still sizzling from the explosion. I stepped backward, suddenly less eager to put distance between me and my fellow travelers. I bit back a whimper as the first wave of the smell hit me.

“Would it be completely sick to say it smells like fried chicken down here?” Chuck asked in a small voice.

Rufus looked completely horrified with him, but I just shrugged. “It would be tasteless, but it would be accurate.”

I turned to Rufus, who seemed to be off in his own apocalypse again. I snapped two fingers in front of his face, but he merely stared at a small child, wailing in the corner closest to us. Rufus’ hands were moving, as if he was itching to do something. I smoothed a hand over his shoulder, trying not to be offended when he flinched at my touch. “Breathe, Rufus,” I murmured with all the calm I could muster. “There’s nothing you can do for him.”

Then, the wailing stopped. Everything stopped. The station fell completely silent, the only sounds our heavy breathing as the lights went out.

And then the screaming began.

Entry #20 - Zachy

We waited.

And waited.

I chewed my fingernails.

And continued to wait.

A zombie tapped Eira on the shoulder. "Excuse me?" it asked in a voice that gurgled in an unpleasant manner that no voice has any business gurgling in.

Eira turned around. "Can I help you?"

"No need to be rude!" said the zombie, who I now thought might once have been a middle-aged woman. "I only wondered if you might speed this along."

"We can't exactly ... " I said.

"Why not?" asked the zombie, putting its hands on the remains of its hips.

"Well, you see ... " said Chuck.

"Er ... " I offered.

"Because we can't, you decomposing fuck, that's why." Eira turned her back to the zombie.

"Well, I shall be seeing somebody about this," replied Decomposing Fuck, stalking off.

I put a hand on Eira's shoulder. She made a small motion as though she wanted to jerk it away, but didn't move. "You probably shouldn't have said that," I said, trying to adopt a tone I'd have used with my kids if I'd ever had kids. "We don't really have a clue how things work here, you know?"

"I don't care. She was a decomposing fuck."

"That's not the point."

"And she smelled like crap, too."

"What I think he means," said Chuck, "is that what you just said might be the death of us."

She rounded on Chuck. "'Death of us'? Really?"

"What else do you call that?" Chuck replied, pointing at something behind her.

I followed his eyeline. Decomposing Fuck was standing beside the great, horned thing that had been directing these souls in different directions, and said horned thing was looking directly at us, eyes flaring, tail flicking ominously, its hands twisting around something in its arms that looked like a mix between a baseball bat, a barbed wire fence, and a large snapping turtle. It was the sort of thing that had been designed with the sole intention of smashing things into pulp, and had no other purpose in this world, whatsoever. The horned beast carressed it as though it were a beloved family pet.

"Hey, you! You're holding up the line!" it roared, shambling toward us. It sounded an awful lot like Arnold Schwarzeneggar. Had I not been about to be smashed into jelly, I would have pointed this out.

"Fuck off!" shouted Eira, just as I put my hand over her mouth to prevent her from saying just that. She bit me, hard, and I jerked my fingers away. Well, that had been a profoundly stupid move on my part.

The horned beast was feet away, smiling wickledly, baring impossibly-large teeth. "Well, well, live ones? Lucky me, I could do with a palate cleanser." He raised the weapon high above his head. I closed my eyes. At least I was already in the Underworld; it wouldn't be a very long journey. Well, so much for saving the world. The club swished through the air, then -

"Geryon, enough of that!"

I opened an eye.

The small demon thing, the director of Unit Five, was returning with a taller, decidedly more human, figure, whose head was in his hands. Geryon was poised with his club hanging over Eira, Chuck, and I.

"Really, Geryon, you can't just eat any living folk who waltz in, you've got to clear these things with me, first."

"Sorry, sir, won't happen again, sir, and may I say, sir, you look absolutely - "

"Geryon."

"Sorry, sir."

Geryon slouched back to his original position, next to a scowling Decomposing Fuck. The taller figure came forward, and very suddenly, I recognized him - he was fiddling with his black hat, talking absent-mindedly to the small thing, the director of Unit Five. It was the man who'd saved me and driven me to the station.

"This back-up'll kill us, you know, put us out of business. Bloody damned apocalypse, more souls than we know what to do with - "

He paused.

"Rufus?"

"You know him?" asked Chuck

"Yup," I said. "Hey, again."

"This is awkward," said the man.

"Who are you?" asked Eira.

"It's not important."

"Bullshit it's not important."

"I'm not going to argue. Jesus, Rufus, how'd you guys get here?"

"Caught a train," replied Chuck.

"Did you send a train for live ones, master?" said the small thing.

"What? No, that's absurd," said the man. "Go away, Nysrogh" - the small thing called Nysrogh scuttled away - "I didn't send for a train, especially not for you. I sort of wanted you guys to ... you know, stay alive. That's not even the point. You've got to get out of here."

"How exactly are we supposed to do that?" I asked.

"Okay, listen, just take this. No, don't wear it, just keep your hands on it, all of you."

He handed me his black hat, and I felt suddenly ... incorporeal. Does that make sense? No, I suppose not. Eira and Chuck reached out and grasped it, too, and seemed to go slightly, well, see-through. I could still see them, but the man apparently couldn't, because his gaze drifted away from us, though he continued to speak. I had a funny feeling I knew who he might be.

"That's a Hat of Invisibility. Sneak back onto the train - I'll send it to New York to pick up some more passengers, and you can get off before the conductor can catch you again. Then, leave the city. As soon as possible."

"Why?" I asked. "It's my home, I can't just ... leave."

"I dunno," said Chuck, "I mean, I thought it'd be safer till everyone up there in the station started catching fire ... "

"It is the apocalypse, you know," said Eira, darkly.

"You think that was the apocalypse?" said the man, gazing blankly over our heads. "Ha. Hasn't even started yet, this is pre-game warm-up. New York City's been a cesspool of humanity's crap for ages upon ages - don't look at me like that - " Eira and I were glaring at him - "it's had it's moments, but it'll be where the first big strike happens, no doubt."

"First strike?" Chuck asked.

"Yep," the man replied. "in the form of a nuclear missile, probably."

A pause.

"Well, this'll be fun," said Chuck, rolling his eyes.

I gave him an imitation of a stern look. "Come on, let's get back to the train."

We did. As we left, we passed Decomposing Fuck. Eira kicked her in the shin.

Zak - Entry #19 - Late and Apologetic

As if on cue, the orgy of swirling prismatic colors that had been outside the car melted into a dense black. I gradually became aware that we were no longer moving. The doors slid open, allowing the zombie things we’d been sharing the car with out onto the platform.

“This is the final stop. The train will not be leaving the station until each car has been completely vacated,” said the conductor.

We three prophets sort of looked at one another, shrugged, and followed the zombies.

The platform outside was swarming with human forms in various states of disrepair, and they were all headed in the same direction. There was only one sign, with one arrow indicating straight-ahead, and one word: Customs.

The sign and the trains and the platform and the dead on the platform were visible by virtue of some ambient light of uncertain source, but everything beyond that was just this startling black. It’s hard to describe. If darkness ever could be bright, it was that nothingness off the edge of that platform. It was a black that felt present, as if I could have reached out and touched it. But I never would have dared, even if I could have. That dark was probably the single scariest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. I almost want to say it felt like if I disrupted it, it would grow talons and fangs and rend me to shreds on the spot, but that’s not quite right. It was more like that darkness was capable of doing something far worse than slashing or biting or devouring me, something I wouldn’t ever be able to completely understand, but was so scary in the simple fact of its existence that I could feel something clench around my stomach.

I shook my head.

Rufus and Eira were kind of impatiently looking at me. I had to jog a bit to catch up to them.

We moved with the flow of the walking dead around us. They seemed to be somewhat conspicuously ignoring us. And then everyone sort of started to slow down and finally came to a complete halt. And I realized that we were at the back of a line, a massive fucking line.

Should’ve seen this one coming.

Eira looked like she was about ready to just Hulk out and push her way to the front of the line. “Are we expected to wait in this goddamn line?”

“It doesn’t look there’s really another option,” said Rufus, looking around.

It was true. It seemed like we could either stand in line, fight our way against the swarm of zombies to what was probably just more platform, or take our chances with the darkness.

“I vote for staying in the line,” I said.

Eira sighed.

Luckily, the line was pretty quick-moving and before long we could see that there was a bank of tired-looking creatures in little boxes. There was a massive horned beast with a tail directing different small groups to various boxes. When we got to it, it said: “Unit five, please,” in a voice that I thought was eerily like Arnold Schwartenegger, but I chose not to impart this observation on my compatriots. I figured it would be inappropriate.

Unit five was staffed by a ghastly little thing with bat wings, a pot belly, and a barbed tail.

“Cause of death?” it recited.

“Well, it’s kind of complicated,” said Rufus.

“I hope there’s an abridged version.”

“We didn’t die, per se, is the thing,” I chimed in. “We just sort of ended up here.”

The creature stood up on its chair and looked Rufus right in the eye. It tapped him on the forehead.

“Well I’ll be!” it exclaimed. “Why, you aren’t dead at all! Not even close!”

I allowed myself a smile. Probably good news.

“So, uh, where should we go?” asked Eira.

“I certainly can’t let you in here,” it said. “It’s no place for the living, in there.”

“Is… is there an exit?” I asked.

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to talk to my supervisor,” it said, hopping down from its chair.

Amanda - Entry #18

The three of us gave each other “holy shit” looks. The zombies sat, unperturbed, in their section of the train. I was about to tell whoever was hyperventilating to quit it, until I realized it was me. Finding out we were prophets had not magically made the three of us fearless superheroes. Well, Chuck and Rufus were prophets. I was Lifthsrasir, whatever that was. Rufus still wouldn’t tell me, and, if I hadn’t been so terrified, I probably would have been genuinely pissed at him by that point.

I stood up, running my fingers through the ends of my hair. Sitting felt too helpless. I realized I was going to look insane, pacing up and down the car, tugging at my hair, and mumbling to myself, but I had finished caring about appearances. My companions looked on, an adorably confused expression on each of their faces. I almost wanted to reach out and pat them each on the cheek, but there were things to be done. Plans to be made. Underworlds to avoid arriving at.

I reached my hand down my shirt for my phone, trying to avoid rolling my eyes as the boys’ eyes grew to roughly the size of dinner plates. They shifted in their seats, suddenly uncomfortable in the cramped car. My cell phone was followed quickly by my keys. “Turn out your pockets,” I demanded, hoping I sounded even slightly authoritative. Someone had to take charge here.

My cell phone was joined by two other generic, free-with-contract phones. Both also had wallets with them. Chucks was made of duct tape but was still, somehow, falling apart, while Rufus’ was a more reserved dark leather. Chuck also contributed a pair of dice, a movie ticket stub, and a token from some sort of arcade. I set those aside and picked up the wallets.

Chuck’s wallet seemed sort of scattered. Bills were stuck in at odd angles, crumpled without any semblance of order. Aside from a driver’s license, he carried a Metro Card, a student ID, and a bank card. Receipts with notes and phone numbers scribbled on them were jumbled up with his money.

Rufus’ wallet, on the other hand, was nearly meticulous. Bills were smoothed flat and organized by denomination. He carried the same cards as Chuck, as well as a few credit cards. A picture was tucked into a pocket of an extremely attractive woman. I assumed this was the recently deceased Nellie, and bit down on the jealous comments threatening to escape. I had already developed a bizarrely protective feeling toward my fellow lost travelers. Even if I had been, originally, about to kill them, no one else was going to. I didn’t trust them, but I wasn’t going to let anything happen to the two of them until we got some answers.

As revealing as my quick search was, it did not yield any obviously helpful items. We weren’t going to be able to MacGyver our way out of this sticky situation with a few cell phones, some cash, and dice. I returned everything to its rightful place, Chuck and Rufus studiously averting their eyes as I replaced my phone and keys. Boys.

It was then that I turned to Mr. Smith (who, in my head, would remain Mr. Smith, no matter who he was revealed to be). “Didn’t you say your job was to keep me alive?”

He snorted. “I’ve never been particularly good at following directions.”

Zachy - Entry #17

We picked ourselves up cautiously; I rubbed at my bruised elbow. Outside, the light show had stopped, leaving behind a shadowy stillness. For some reason, I found it way more creepy than the kaleidoscope/aurora borealis/fireworks display-thingy that we'd been traveling through only moments ago. Mr. Smith - or was it Loki? -, who'd been slipping out of my mind every time I looked away from him, had gone hurtling into the wall, and was rubbing his nose. This amused me, before I forgot about him again.

I heard Chuck groan behind me. "Would it be completely stupid of me to ask what just happened?"

"No," said Eira, "but it would be stupid to expect any kind of sane answer."

The conductor's voice rang once more through the train car. "Sorry about that, but we had to make a bit of a pit-stop. We'll be taking on some passengers, and then continuing on our way."

"Passengers?" Chuck asked, just as I shushed him - the train doors were hissing open, and the whispering voices I'd heard from before had come back. We backed toward the far end of the train car, just as a small group of people entered the train. Though I was rather busy staring at them, I'm certain beyond any shadow of a doubt that both Chuck's and Eira's jaws had dropped, just like mine.

The people were not people, per se. Only two of what I quickly counted to be a group of six still had faces; the other four had grinning skulls with varying degrees of flesh still left on them. Their clothes were ripped and torn and, from what I could tell, charred black, some of them still smoking. They chatted companionably, gesturing emphatically with fingers that had become clicking bones, setting themselves down carefully. Two of them were small children, and another was a female - with long, black tresses that had become tangled and knotted, and the rest were probably male. I say probably not because I couldn't distinguish their gender, but because at this point, I don't think I was really sure of anything.

"Hmm, that's curious," said Loki, "just ignore them." I promptly forgot about him again.

Chuck opened his mouth to point out how creepy as fuck these passengers were, and Eira and I quickly gave him identical looks, clearly saying, "Don't even say it. We know."

We didn't talk much as the train began to move again, and the light show outside resumed. The zombie-people talked among themselves, and the adults didn't seem to have noticed us yet. What I assumed was the older child, however, with a grinning skull of a face beneath blond pigtails, pointed at me, jumping up and down. "Look Mummy!" she cried, "Live 'uns, live 'uns!"

"Just ignore them, sweety ... " said the woman-zombie.

"But Mummy!"

"I said just ignore them."

"Fine," the child-zombie said, crossing her arms and sitting down next to her mother. She continued to stare at us.

Chuck tapped his fingers anxiously, and Eira was giving the zombies an icy look. So Chuck was a prophet of Christian theology ... I wondered which of the angels - if, indeed, it were angels - had contacted him, and if we'd be meeting up with any of the horsemen. I hoped it'd be Pestilence. At least, as a doctor, I might have some chance against him ... and we'd figured out that Eira was Norse mythology, too. I was a little envious that her pantheon was something I knew rather well, whereas I'd gotten stuck with someone I'd never heard of. And then, there was that mysterious man, who'd given me no clues as to his identity at all ...

What was it that Loki had said though? (This time, I remembered him for a full ten seconds before he drifted out of my memory.) Lifthsrasir ... essentially, an Eve. She'd be one of the last women alive - I assumed there'd be more, though, because if there was an Lif, and she found him, and they had children, there'd have to be other children from other families involved to continue the line, right? And did that mean me or Chuck was the Lif, in this case? I looked at Chuck ... he wasn't exactly a model, but if he lost a bit of weight, I didn't think any girl would think he was so bad. I mean, clearly, it'd have to be him, right? I was old and already starting to go grey. She was cute, but I couldn't possibly date someone like her - or endanger her life, as I reminded myself of the madman inhabiting my brainspace. Okay, technically speaking, it was up to her (if, I told myself, she was really this person, and if, I again told myself, either Chuck or I was this other person). Not exactly a hard choice, though I didn't imagine I'd be seeing girls choosing between Team Chuck or Team Rufus any time soon -

Of course you won't, my friend, said the all-too-familiar voice of Kalki within my head. They will be dead, after all.

Go away, I thought at him.

I couldn't see him, but I knew, somehow, that he was grinning broadly. Of course, of course, he said in my head. We shall catch up later, when you are not so busy.

Fine, then.

He didn't reply.

The world was really ending. I kept forgetting. Chuck and Eira were still total strangers, and yet they were really all I had left. Nellie, of course, was dead. My parents were most likely dead, or going to be dead very soon, as were most of my good friends, which I didn't have many of in the first place. There was going to be no more society, no more late-night calls at the hospital, no more McDonald's - which was okay, since their food was terrible, but it was always a fascinating place to study people - and no more movie theaters or book stores -

Damn it all.

I looked over at the zombies. The little girl had broken off, and was walking toward us, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that her mother was not looking. I thought her expression looked vaguely curious, but I wouldn't put my money on that. It was hard to tell, without the face.

"Hello," she said, staring at us.

"Er ... hello," I replied, leaning toward her. I'd always been good with kids. "Who are you?"

"Oh, we're the recently departed," she said cheerily.

"Sounds like a really bad band name," muttered Chuck behind me. "Opening tonight - Recently Departed!" Eira snickered, then shushed him.

"Oh," I said, a bit nonplussed. "Well, that's interesting ... "

"Vivian, really! What did I tell you? Get back here!" shouted the zombie-woman from across the train.

"I'm coming, Mummy!"

Vivian frowned and shrugged at us apologetically, then turned around and raced back to her mother, heel bones snapping against the train car's floor like tap shoes. Chuck pulled himself up and began to follow her. Eira grabbed him roughly by the arm.

"What are you doing?"

"I was just going to ask them where we're going. I mean ... they could know." He looked to me for support.

"Maybe," I said, and Eira hesitantly let go.

"But they're ... you know, zombies," she said awkwardly, like the word didn't feel right on her tongue.

"True," I replied. "But they don't seem like the brain-eating type." I turned to Chuck. "Just be careful, okay?"

"Yeah, sure thing."

He walked over, and began trying to ask the zombies questions. They studiously ignored him, turning their backs as he walked between and around them. Eira and I looked awkwardly back and forth at him and each other, occasionally meeting eyes, at which point we would both very quickly look down. I tried to smooth out my hair, which felt grimy beneath my fingers. I must have looked like shit. Eira looked slightly ruffled, but very pretty, and was I really, actually thinking that when my girlfriend had just been savagely murdered? What was wrong with me?

I kept my eyes focused on Chuck, who walked back to us five minutes later, shaking his head. "No dice."

I smirked at the choice of words, as did Eira.

"Shut up," said Chuck, though he smiled as he said it, and very soon, we were all laughing. The zombies looked at us as though we were mad.

I sighed. "Well, I'm out of ideas."

"Hey, wait!" said Eira, her eyes glinting in a way I rather liked, but would not admit to myself. "Why can't we ask the train-lady thing?"

"I ask that you please refer to me as 'the conductor'," said the intercom-voice, sounding agitated. "Not, the 'train-lady thing'."

I jumped, slamming my knee into one of the poles. Chuck and Eira had both been startled, as well, Chuck having jumped backwards at least two or three feet, and Eira muttering a variety of colorful curse words.

"Oh, we just wanted to know ... " I began, rubbing my kneecap.

"Where the hell are we going?" asked Eira.

"I thought I told you," said the voice, "A place of safety."

"You did," said Eira, "but where exactly is that?"

"Why, the Underworld, of course. The pit-stop was not originally planned, but I figured if we were going that way ... "

"The ... the Underworld?" Eira asked, flustered.

"Yes, indeed. No safer place."

"Wait, why?" asked Eira, a panicky edge to her voice.

"Orders."

"But won't that mean ... that will mean that we're ... " Chuck fumbled for words.

"That we'll be dead?" I finished for him.

"I should imagine so, young man." She sounded snippy. "Rather difficult to endanger your life if you're dead, wouldn't you say?"

"But we'll be dead!" Chuck shouted. The zombies gave him dirty looks.

"Yes," said the intercom-voice. "But the important thing is, you'll be safe." The intercom clicked off.

Eira's eyes had gone as wide as saucers, and Chuck was shaking his head, muttering, "You've got be be shitting me" under his breath. I looked back and forth between them and the zombies at the train's other end. This was bad. This was very, very bad. I turned to Chuck and Eira.

"We need to get off the train."

Zak - Entry #16

Apparently, it was time for show-and-tell. Well, I guess there was more telling than showing going on, but the world around us was the showing bit. We were to play the role the tellers. By the way, the theme of telling pops up later, so hang in there.

I was a bit self-conscious around these two. At that point I was getting a bit anxious about going down in the gospels as “The Chubby Prophet” or “Chuck the Chubster, Prophet.” The sentence And the new world was built up out of the ashes by two attractive and competent people, and one kind of awkward unfit guy kept running through my head. But I finally worked up the courage to stand, because it sounded like the appropriate thing to do.

“So, hi, I’m Chuck, and I’ve been seeing some pretty crazy shit. I guess I’ll start at the beginning. Last night, at least I think it was last night, I’ve sort of lost track of time. Anyways, last night I was playing D&D with a couple of buddies. We were just getting into an encounter with an Ancient Red Dragon, which was actually probably too hard or a thirteenth-level party, and just as I was figuring that out ‘cause they couldn’t get a hit in, my- we, uh, looked outside and the moon was bleeding. Like, it was dripping big fucking drops of red stuff, and the hamlet (I live a bit outside of the hamlet, up on a hill, well, lived, I guess) was on fire and there was some sort of riot going on. It sounded like a warzone had just dropped on top of my town. And then we ran outside because, well, I was still in the habit of avoiding things that seemed dangerous back then.”

I allowed myself a bit of a chuckle.

“But, uh, when we got to the car, there was a guy, I guess that’s what he was, by the car, and he was like all red and on fire and on this red horse. In retrospect, I guess he was a horseman of the apocalypse. Which one is the red one? It’s definitely something I knew once. Like in fifth grade or some shit.”

“I have to say my knowledge of the Norse myths is a lot stronger than the Christian ones,” said Rufus. He had a look of really deep concentration on his face. I looked at Eira. She honestly looked pretty lost.

“Well,” continued Rufus, “what are the four horsemen? There’s four, right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” agreed Eira. She was eying a patch of air next to her very suspiciously.

“I think so too,” I said. “But, actually, can we just bracket that for now so I can finish my story? Sorry.”

I felt a bit pushy saying it, but they seemed cool with it.

“So, he blew up my car, and I’m pretty sure he chopped off my buddy Liam’s arm with that flaming sword of his. So then this voice pops into my head and tells me the horseman can’t touch me at all, but I have to run away or the riot thing in the town is going to kill me, so I ran away and left my buddies there in my driveway.”

I felt like I should probably be crying, but I didn’t need to at all.

“So it turns out that this voice is a sort of like a messenger whose job it is to tell me what’s up. As you guys can probably guess, he told me the world was ending. He was a bit slippery about it, and just sort of ended the conversation in the middle. And then I hitchhiked out here from Brockhaven and got picked up by this guy who was even more cryptic and creepy than the voice in my head. He some really ominous things that sounded like he was going to kill me at some point, and he brought me here. It’s just been really bizarre to be me lately. You guys too, I guess.”

“War!” shouted Rufus.

“What?” Eira and I said in stereo.

“That horseman must’ve been War. The four horsemen are War, Famine, Death and… one other one. I can’t remember. But I’m pretty sure that red is War.”

“Huh,” was really all I could say. He really was quite the well of mythological knowledge.

“Wait!” said Eira, seeming to get excited. “You said it sounded like a warzone got dropped on your town, right? It must have been the horseman.”

“Shit, yeah!” I said. I felt uncool right after I said it.

The general atmosphere of the train car was a stoked one. We were finally unpacking our crazy days. It felt good be working things out with fellow people, as opposed to getting garbled messages from on high.

On a whim, I went for a high-five with Rufus, and he accepted. Then, so as to avoid exclusion, we both high-fived Eira. That was a little awkward.

This story time idea had worked out pretty well. I was pretty sure it had been my idea. I was proud.

“So D&D?” asked Rufus. “I played a bit of it back in undergrad, but I never quite got really into it. My interests shifted, I suppose.”

“Oh man,” I said. “I’m like an encyclopedia of D&D. I go head-to-head with the best! Like, for instance, if you look at a Wyvern-“

It was then that the train stopped, abruptly and completely, and we all went flying across the car.

Amanda - Entry #15

I cleared my throat and looked at Chuck. He blinked back at me. No help for me there, then. I felt like I should be standing in front of a kindergarten class. The subway lurched forward, putting any thoughts of standing out of my mind. “Well, I said my name is Eira.” I paused awkwardly, looking at my shoes, wondering how much I should tell them. The whole I was supposed to kill you both originally but didn’t didn’t seem like it would inspire a lot of confidence, and I wasn’t going to tell them about Robert. That was just too personal.

What was left? “I guess I got contacted, sort of like you. I mean, no one killed my cat or anyone I cared about, but it was made pretty clear what I had to do, and that there would be consequences if I didn’t. It all happened last night for me, really, and I thought it was all a dream this morning, but it wasn’t, because he-” I jerked my head in the direction of Mr. Smith, who had followed us quietly onto the train and was now sitting on a bench at the other end of the car, seemingly asleep, “showed up at my door in a cab and took me hear.”

I realized I had begun to ramble and pressed a hand to my mouth, suddenly overcome. I had been through hell the past 24 hours. Sure, it wasn’t the kind of hell the other two looked like they had been through, but it was enough to shake me. I took a semi-shaky breath, and Chuck leaned across the car to pat my hand with his larger one. I resisted the urge to snatch my hand away, instead turning it over so that my palm was flat against his. This time, it didn’t seem like he was trying to be cool or suave. It felt, at least to me, as if it was meant only as a comforting gesture.

Rufus looked at us awkwardly. He couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me, but he seemed almost ancient. He had said he was a doctor, and I wondered if he had gotten his world-weary from whatever he had seen in the past few days or if it had built up over time. He wiped a hand across his slightly scruffy face, and I reached out, resting two fingers on top of his hand. The three of us sat like that until I coughed and shifted uncomfortably. Chuck and Rufus looked away.

It was Rufus who spoke next. “This is going to seem like an odd question, but, well,” he paused, as if unsure whether or not to continue, then said in a rush, “Kalki made it seem as though he wasn’t the only one out there vying for one certain apocalypse to happen. So, uh,” he faltered again.

“Well, based on the high occurrence of horsemen in my life over the past few days, I’d say Christian apocalypse,” Chuck said, unsure.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “I…I really have no idea,” I admitted. “I was never really formally introduced.” I gave Mr. Smith a pointed look, which he ignored, continuing to pretend to sleep.

“Tell me what you know.” Rufus leaned forward, suddenly more interested.

I tucked my bangs behind my ears, noticing the ends of a few pieces were slightly charred. I sighed. The end of the world meant I wouldn’t be able to get Ricardo, my favorite stylist, to fix that any time soon. “Embarassingly little,” I admitted. “I only have names, and I’m pretty sure they aren’t even real names.”

“Try me,” he challenged. There was a glint in his eyes I hadn’t seen before. I knew the feeling I saw reflected in his features. Sometimes everyone needs to feel needed, needs to know something no one else knows.

“So far, I’ve only met two. They seem to be working together, though probably not willingly. Seems like necessity has forced people from all over together,” I half-joked, glancing at the others. “One calls himself Mr. O, and that one,” I gestured at Mr. Smith again, “calls himself Mr. Smith. Says it’s not his real name, but that he is a smith, sort of.”

Rufus began mumbling to himself while Chuck and I looked on, occasionally sharing slightly worried looks. “O…O…O for what?” he was saying under his breath. “And a smith? What sort of smith? Sort of smith. Can’t be true. Sounds almost like a lie. Smith of lies. Lie smith. Loki the lie smith and O for Odin!” he turned toward me, slightly manic excitement dawning on his face.

The names stirred long-forgotten memories in the back of my mind, stories my grandmother had told me when I was younger. I looked over at Rufus, not sure if I was right. “Norse mythology?”

There was applause from the back of the car. “Good girl, Miss Eira,” the man who I now knew was Loki unfolded himself from his seat. “I must admit I had my doubts about you when Odin claimed you were our very own Lifthsrasir, but you really are a sharp one, aren’t you?”

I whipped my head around to face him. “I’m your what?” Chuck looked as if he was about to say something, but thought better of it.

I heard a sharp intake of breath from Rufus. “Are you sure?” Mr. Smith nodded gravely. Rufus looked at me strangely, a new sort of gravity in his stare. “Then who s going to be…?” he trailed off.

“That remains to be seen.”

I looked between the two of them, getting more annoyed by the second. “Rufus.” I stomped my foot on the ground, then immediately regretted it. I had to be an adult now. Had to, as Robert put it, figure out what I was doing with my life. I could not stamp my feet like a five year old. “Rufus, what’s going on?”

He looked at me again now, his eyes almost sad. “I’m sorry. Eira, you really don’t want to know.”

I was so tired of hearing those words, like I wasn’t a big kid yet. I turned to Chuck. “Well, you seem to be the least insane one in here at this point, which makes me more than a little suspicious. What’s your story?”

Zachy - Entry #14

I looked over my two companions, and my heart sunk a little. They were so young. I had hoped, I guess, that they would be older, wiser people, more in line with what one expects a "prophet" to be. But I was obviously the oldest of us, and though the girl - had she said her name was 'Eira'? - had a tough-as-nails look about her, I recalled that, moments before, within that growling, terrible inferno, she too had pinned herself against the wall, had experienced the same shock and fear that I had. I wondered if these people had dealt with circumstances quite as horrible as mine, though there are very few things worse than watching innocent people burning to death around you. More people I had failed to save. Or even help.

I shrugged, as though to let the thought roll off my shoulders and into the ash below. The boy - Chuck - had mentioned getting to know one another. Eira was looking at him with a look that was almost astonishment, and she was just opening her mouth when I interrupted, "No, I think he's right."

Her 'are you crazy' look shifted to me, and I suddenly felt like a schoolboy who didn't know the answer to the teacher's question. "I don't mind getting more information from you - " she began.

"I agree - " Chuck started in, but she plowed right on.

" - because I don't trust either of you, and for all I know, you're just more of them." She allowed herself a quick glance at the open door of the train. "But not here."

She was right. I glanced at Chuck, who pursed his lips and nodded. "Okay then," I said. "Well ... I'll go first." I waited for one of the others to say 'No, don't risk it, let me instead!', but it didn't happen, and I stepped slowly toward the train.

"Careful, man," Chuck said, "I really don't like it."

"Understatement of the fucking century," replied Eira.

Eira and Chuck watched nervously from the platform as I stepped over the gap, and I had a moment of normality in which I realized that, as the oldest, it might just have become my responsibility to lead this wayward crew. Then, the thought was rudely interrupted.

There was an inherent wrongness to the place. It looked for all the world like an ordinary car, with dingy seats and poles greasy with the handprints of a million commuters, but wherever I turned, shadows seemed to leap out from the corners of my eyes. There was a constant whispering that almost wasn't there, but was just there enough for me to be creeped out. I pivoted very slowly about for nearly a full minute, then relaxed. Nothing had jumped out and killed me, strange as it was. It was all clear.

"Well?" came Eira's voice from behind.

"It's all right," I said. "Come in."

Eira stepped in, with Chuck close behind. I watched as they were both gripped by a sudden wave of anxiety, from which Eira recovered first - she set herself down in the nearest seat, but did not take her eyes off Chuck and I. Chuck let out a breath, "Just as I thought," he said. "Really fucking eerie."

I jumped as the door hissed closed, and the train gave a shudder. "This is the conductor speaking," said a tinny woman's voice over the intercom, "Evidently, we had a minor issue coming in, but everything's been cleared up, now. The boss has ordered me to transport you to a place of safety. We'll be taking a ... well, I suppose you'd call it a shortcut. In the meantime, I suggest, as Chuck mentioned, getting to know one another. Thank you."

The intercom clicked off, and the three of us looked at one another with what I imagined were identical perplexed expressions. I wondered who the boss was ... certainly not Kalki, as my most recent visitor had told me that he hadn't really come back yet, and Kalki hadn't seemed like the sort to want to reveal himself to these people just yet. I didn't know who these two had been visited by, so I assumed it must have been one of them. Neither, however, seemed to show any sign of recognition, though I supposed they could easily be covering up, keeping something secret ... no, thinking like that was bad. I had to trust these people.

"Where were we?" asked Eira, as we began to move.

"You were in the middle of not trusting us," said Chuck.

Eira shrugged. "Give me a reason to. What do I have to go on?"

"I don't even care anymore," I said suddenly. "All the stuff that's happened these last couple of days? It doesn't matter if I can't trust you. I don't even care if one of you pulls a gun and shoots me dead right where I stand. I'll view it as a favor ... "

"The last few days have been complete hell," said Chuck, setting himself down across from Eira, "but you aren't going to survive the end of the world with a pessimistic attitude like that."

And just like that, the tension broke. He'd said the magic words, mentioned the impending end to everything we'd ever loved, had ever cared for, had mentioned the one thing we all knew and hadn't wanted to admit: that everything was different now. I was already standing, and we had to start somewhere, so just like that, I began to recite everything that had happened thus far. I told them about Kalki's first visit to me, the day I'd killed the man in surgery (they all nodded upon hearing about his strange and sudden appearance, presumably having had similar experiences). I told them about my conviction that it was a hallucination, and how Django had been murdered, and the note that I'd received. I told them about the next day, heading to Nellie's, changing the story so that Kalki on his own was the one who had physically assaulted and, when I was unconscious, killed her, though I knew that I had been under his control. I suppose I didn't want to make them think that I'd end up doing the same to them; it wouldn't exactly help the trust issues.

"Damn," muttered Eira, shaking her head.

Chuck grimaced. "That's messed-up in so many ways."

I nodded. "Tell me about it. Suffice it to say that I understand if you don't trust me yet, but - "

But something else had caught my eye. Eira was staring at something outside the window, and as Chuck and I followed her gaze, I saw what held her attention. Outside the train window, strange colors and shapes were flying by, like a kaleidoscope of whirling, shifting energies. The ride had been so smooth that I'd forgotten during my story that we'd been moving at all.

"That's probably the shortcut the woman was talking about," Chuck said.

"You were right. Fucking eerie," said Eira.

He gave a wry smile.

I cleared my throat to regain their attentions. "So, yeah, anyway ... I can get not trusting me, I mean really, I can. But some reason or another we're all here, so in the meantime - "

"We have to stick together," Chuck finished.

"Yeah," I replied, slightly envious of the fact that he'd been able to say it without sounding cheesy or stupid, as I undoubtedly would have.

I could tell that they were both still nervous about revealing much about themselves, but we were beginning to warm up to one another. Granted, I realized that it would take quite a while before we were all best friends or whatnot, but that we'd all been dragged together by the same sort of circumstances, and had been led to this particular point, seemed to suggest our fates were intermingled in some crazy way.

Whatever my presumably bloodstained future was going to bring, these two were going to be there for the long haul. The thought gave me a bit of comfort.

"Okay," I said. "Who wants to go next?"

Zak - Entry #13

For a second, I thought I was descending into the very depths of Hell itself, complete with screams of agony and a Lake of Fire. Then I thought that I was, in my nervous state, hallucinating the inferno below. Then I realized that the subway station at the bottom of the staircase I was on was on fire. That’s not the strict truth; luckily, there’s not much, other than people, that’s flammable in a metro station. But that seemed to make the people all that much more on fire, from my perspective. And the way these people were acting, you’d think they had never learned how to Stop, Drop, and Roll back in kindergarden. They were just running in random vectors like decapitated chickens. A couple either ran or got pushed off the platform onto the tracks, crackling and convulsing horrifically. I saw one kid hit the floor and start rolling around. He got stepped on a few times, though, and stopped rolling. Screams echoed around the claustrophobic underground cavity, mingling with the roar of fire. It smelled a bit like a barbeque. My immediate instinct was to run. Some deep and animalistic part of me was telling me that if I ran, my problems would go away; if I ran away, I would be able to run to somewhere safe and normal where the world wouldn’t be ending and people wouldn’t be on fire just about everywhere I looked. But I knew that if I ran, the only place to run would be full of people on fire.

It was then that the gravity of the statement “The World Is Ending” actually struck me. It wasn’t just My Life Is Ending, or New York City Is Ending, or even America is Ending. Everyone was going to die, and so far as I could tell I was the eye of the storm. In the flames of the subway, that’s what I saw myself as: the eye of the storm, the guy who’s going to be surrounded by destruction, but never the victim.

It was then I that I saw the other eyes of the storm. We were the three people in the immediate vicinity not burning and running and screaming. They others were still and wore twin looks of horrified awe. They had each plastered themselves up against one of the cement walls that surrounded us. I imagined I looked much the same as them.

One was a girl that looked around my age. She was cute. Blonde. I had always liked blondes. Not like I was terribly picky in the realm of women. My relationship to the fairer sex had been very much “take-what-I-can-get” since middle school. A lock of her hair was on fire. I wanted to tell her from across the subway, but I wasn’t really sure how.

The other was a dude, probably a good couple of years older than me and the girl, who looked like he was either a prizefighter or had gotten in a couple of losing battles with the sidewalk. Based on his build, I guessed the latter.

In manner reminiscent of lemmings, a sudden drive to be on the train tracks seemed to overcome the victims of the flames. The last of them had started dancing in the electric current when the train came out of fucking nowhere. As I watched on, paralyzed, the doors opened. No one was on board. It gave no hints of imminent movement.

I finished walking down the stairs. The really beat-up guy, who had been on the other staircase, mirrored me. The girl walked up to us. We three stood in a vague circle in the middle of the station. It still smelled like barbeque.

It was sort of awkward.

“I’m Rufus,” said the guy, holding his hand out to the girl. I wished I’d thought of that.

“Hi, I’m Chuck,” I said to her. She shook both of our hands.

“My name’s Eira.”

“How’s that spelled?” I asked.

“E-I-R-A.”

“Quite the name,” I said. She seemed kind of unimpressed with my interest in her. I decided to lay off for now.

“So are all on the same page?” she asked.

“I doubt it,” said Rufus.

“Is this a bad time to mention how fucking eery that train is?” I asked.

“Not really. You’re right,” responded Rufus.

“Are we supposed to get on it?” I said.

“Probably,” said Eira.

“So how about it?” Still me asking all the questions.

“I’m actually ready to hold still for a while,” said Rufus. “It doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere.”

Whatever. Good start to the relationship.

“I don’t really like the idea of just standing here, though,” said Eira.

I got the feeling that none of us really wanted to just come out and say that the world was ending and we had some fate to fulfill together so let’s get to it. I sure as hell didn’t want to.

“We could make some attempt at getting to know one another,” I suggested.

Also, I wasn’t sure where we were supposed to go, but I had a feeling that that train did.

Eira shot me a look that said, Are you crazy? You’re talking like that at a time like this?

Amanda - Entry #12

My first thought was Well, shit. I’m single. Better take off Robbie’s band shirt, then. Things got a bit more jumbled after that. There was some righteous indignation over the cutting of my phone line. After that, there was a hell of a lot of woman’s fury directed at Robert. Anger followed. My whole life felt violated. They had been in my apartment. They had come into my apartment and they had fucked with it and they, whoever the ominous they were in my mind, were going to pay for it.

Once all of those emotions had finished confusing me, I was left with fear. Sheer terror washed over my mind in waves. I couldn’t escape this, whatever it was. Mr. O and Mr. Smith were very obviously not human. I was beginning to suspect what they were, but I wasn’t prepared to admit it to myself at the time. Whatever they ended up being, they wanted me involved in their plans, for some reason. I was, in some sick way, instrumental to the events that were to follow.

When I’d managed to work through all of those emotions, I was left with an almost startlingly clear head. It seemed nearly obvious what I needed to do next. I very calmly changed out of the shirt I had been wearing. I put on jeans and a plain black t-shirt. I stuck my ID and money in their usual hiding space. One can of pepper spray went into each pocket. To top it off, I tucked a Swiss army knife in the waistband of my pants, grabbed my keys and phone, and headed out of the building.

A cab was waiting at the door of my apartment complex. The back door of the car opened as I stepped onto the sidewalk. Slightly apprehensive, but also relieved, I slid into the back seat. “Spring Stree-”

“Yes, Miss Eira, Spring Street. I’ll take you right up to the metro station.” The cool voice gave me goosebumps as quickly the second time I heard it as it had the first. I turned to my door to open it and throw myself out of the cab and the locks slammed down. I tried desperately to open them, but the door handle disappeared, simply fading into the wall of the car as if it had never existed.

“Let me out, you creep!”

“Now, now. That is no way to treat a chauffeur, Miss Eira. I will be perfectly happy to let you out when we arrive at our destination.” Mr. Smith spoke without inflection. His monotone was eerily polite and threatening all at once. I contemplated the pepper spray in my pocket but decided it would be a bad idea to spray it at the man while he was driving a car. With a deep sigh, I settled myself into the seat to wait out the ride.

We arrived at the station at exactly 2:07. Mr. Smith got out, opened my door for me, then tapped the car with a finger. It disappeared, leaving a small black box behind. Mr. Smith gathered it in one gloved hand and tucked it into his pocket. After pausing for a moment to rearrange his coat, he led the way down into the station. I followed, feeling almost numb.

“You will wait here for the others,” he said, walking toward a bench in the corner and leaning against the wall to the left of it.

“I’ll do no such thing. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“I would say suit yourself, but I have been charged with the thrilling task of keeping you from getting yourself killed. Everyone on that side of the platform is going to die. I suggest you come over here.” He spoke in his signature monologue, as if the thought of the death of the few dozen people gathered on the platform had no effect on him. It probably didn’t.

“Why…how…what…how can you just say something like that? Why aren’t we evacuating, if you know something is going to happen?”

“Everyone in this miserable place is going to die soon enough. So, thirty or so will arrive early for the main event. It saves them some of the pain of eternal winter and hellfire, does it not? I prefer to see it as a mercy.”

“Everyone is going to die?” I looked at him. His eyes were closed and he was speaking without disturbing the rest of the muscles of his face.

“Yes. It is the end of the world, after all.” I flinched. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen some of the signs, but I had still held out some sort of foolish hope.

“Even me?”

“That, Miss Eira, remains to be seen. I can promise you that, if you cooperate with me, you will survive a lot longer than you will if you prove…uncooperative. Other than that, it depends on the…results.”

As we were talking, one of the subway system’s many panhandlers was working his way closer to us. I had to give this one credit; he at least had talent. He was juggling knives, staying a respectful distance away from the two of us while still plainly pushing his nearly empty hat closer to us with his foot.

I ignored him. It was ingrained in my mind like a commandment: Thou shalt not feed the panhandlers. It was best to just pretend they weren’t there. Mr. Smith, though, did not seem to have the same outlook. His eyes popped open. He shot the man a withering look, and, when the man didn’t seem to understand, made a motion with his hand. One of the knives seemed to slip out of the juggler’s hands and fly straight through his neck. The panhandler crumpled to the floor in a heap. As usual, no one around us saw or heard anything. They just walked obliviously by. I was beginning to come to the conclusion that people only saw what they wanted to see. It was like if anything happened that was beyond their understanding, it must not have happened.

I was painfully aware of the fact that Mr. Smith had just killed a man, but I was determined not to let him know that anything he did was getting to me. I took a deep breath and turned back to him. I opened my mouth, ready to make small talk, closed it, opened it again. “So, is your name really Mr. Smith?”

He snorted as if amused by my cute little human intellect. “Of course not. But I am a smith of sorts, I guess you could say.” I looked at him expectantly, but he said no more, just leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes again. Without visibly reacting, he simply stated, “Here they come.”

I looked around. Two very ragged looking men were descending separate staircases that led to the platform Mr. Smith and I were on. One of them looked slightly sooty, and it seemed the other hadn’t showered in days. I took a deep breath, blowing wisps of light blonde hair out of my face. “Those are the people Mr. O wants me to kill?”

“Change of plans. They may be useful, at least for a little longer, especially because,” he paused for a moment, his eyes opening. He leaned forward, looked down the tunnel, and continued, “Here it comes.”

It was all I could do to press myself against a wall as a ball of fire came roaring out of the tunnel.

Zachy - Entry #11

I was alive.

My body shook, my muscles ached, my head burst with fresh agony. But I was alive.

I pushed myself up; shards of glass forced themselves deeper into my palms. I wiped my eyes and looked around. Clearly, I had fallen into a car; I had crashed into its roof, which had caved in and torn. I was now lying in the remains of the tattered back seat. The street around me was barren. I half-expected a tumbleweed to drift on by ...

"She's gone," said a voice nearby, with a slight accent I couldn't quite place.

I threw myself at the figure emerging from the darkness, unthinking, wanting only to kill. It wasn't the pleasurable lust to murder that had fueled the stranger, the freak that had taken over my body and tried to hurt my Nellie. It was vengeance, and quite a few days worth of stress that was now pouring from my veins, throbbing in my temples, a spear of palpable hate for everything that my life had become, thrusting itself at the poor bastard who'd spoken.

I rolled through the air, hitting nothing but the asphalt. My knees buckled. I twisted my head around, searching for the voice's origin. Humiliation had calmed me somewhat, and I when I asked, "Where are you?" only a minimal amount of venom dripped from my voice.

"If I show myself," said the voice, a bit warily, "will you please not attack me?"

"No promises."

"Very well," it replied. And quite suddenly, there was a man standing in front of me, holding a fedora in his hand as though he had just removed it. It was not my murderous stalker, the strange mustached man. The man was tall, and obviously well-built beneath his coat. His hair was ruffled, rather like mine, but a deep black, and his face was pale and there was something below his hawkish nose that was less than a beard, but quite a few hours past five o'clock shadow.

He offered me a hand, and I grasped it suspiciously. It was cold, I noticed, as he pulled me to my feet. He looked at me and offered me a smile, but he looked quite troubled.

"Come with me," he said, "I have a ride for you."

I followed him as he walked down the empty road, looking around as though this were a place he had once inhabited and now sorely missed. Occasionally he would look back at me, always with that same, somewhat troubled smile. I was in a bit of a fog, not really thinking of anything. Eventually, we reached a corner, where a small, grey Prius was parked. I cannot quite explain why I was not surprised when he rapped it with his knuckle, and the engine roared to life. He gestured toward the driver's side door, and I obliged, opening the door and setting myself inside. My companion walked around the front of the car and climbed into the front passenger seat.

"We have a lot to talk about," he said. He tapped the dashboard and said, "Spring Street Station". The car began to move forward of its own volition, and I watched with some astonishment as the steering wheel rotated right, pulling the car around the corner and down the street.

"Who are you?" I asked, the question bubbling up to my lips without my having thought of it.

He put a hand through his hair. "I don't have any connection to the man who's been torturing you, if that makes you feel better. We're from different ... families, I guess would be the best way of putting it."

"But what's your name?"

"It's not really safe for me to say. I'm sorry."

"Not your fault." I looked away.

"Kalki is vicious. He killed her as barbarically as he could. But ... it's okay. She's okay, where she is now, you know," he smiled again, and this time, it was not tainted by any anxiety. There was a twinkling in his eyes, and I knew, right then, that I could trust this man.

It was comforting to know that she was in a better place, or at least, comforting to know that this man thought she was. Still, the knowledge that she was definitely gone, that Nellie had somehow or another been killed stopped my breath. I let out a choked sob, and sat there in the driver's seat of a car that was driving on its own, obeying the speed limit far better than I usually did, amusingly enough. My companion turned his hat about in his hands, chewing his lip and looking out of the wind shield as I tried to get myself together.

"So ... " I began, wiping tears from my eyes. "that crazy bastard's name is what again?"

"Kalki. And though I hate to say it, he's decided to use your mind as a ... nest, of sorts, until he can come back in full."

"Why?"

"Why?" He'd repeated it with a tone of incredulity, and he stared at me, eyes wide. "Isn't it obvious? The world's ending."

The news did not shock me, did not hit me like a cinder block in the center of the forehead as I would expect it to. It flowed through me like medicine, clicked in my brain like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle that suddenly reveals the entire image.

"All that panic. All the weird things happening everywhere ... " I pursed my lips and shook my head.

"Yes. The gods are starting. They've been competing for centuries now, arguing over who should do the honors of wiping the slate clean. And the date came, and they still hadn't decided, so now you've got this sheer, bloody chaos. It wasn't supposed to be like this, you know." He shook his head ruefully. "The pantheons were told we could choose one person each, and we were given permission to ... convey a message. People we thought were exceptional in some way, you know, who might, with a bit of guidance, survive the ordeal and live on to become the ... uh ... well, the 'progenitors' of a new age -"

"So Kalki chose me," I interrupted.

"No, actually. You were my choice. My brothers and sisters were so busy screaming at each other that they didn't notice me writing down your name. I got in a speck of trouble for that. I'm sort of the black sheep of the family ... It didn't matter, though. Kalki stole your name. He took you for his own. "

"But you're part of all this?"

"Only in a small way. Like I said, it wasn't supposed to be like this. But that's not the point. We're nearly there, so will you listen for just a moment?"

"I suppose."

"You are, in just a little bit, going to meet two of the many so-called prophets out there now. They've very little knowledge about all this hub-bub, much less than you do, but they are the ones Kalki has been referring to - some of them, at least. Notwithstanding their part in his plans, their companionship is invaluable. I only ask that you do not mention me to them, all right?"

"Okay."

"Good. However, what I really must tell you is this. Kalki is a dangerous lunatic. He will take you over again, and he'll use your for whatever crazed plans he's got. I don't even know the full extent of them. For your safety, you can't fight with him. Listen to everything he says, and follows his instructions. Go where he says to. Don't resist. Can you do that?"

"I guess. Not like I have a choice," I said, after a long, long moment of wondering if life would ever be okay again. I rubbed at my temple, and let out a long breath that I seemed to have been holding for quite a while. "But what if he makes me kill?"

"It's likely to happen," said my companion in solemn tones, but the twinkle in his eye seemed to suddenly flash, and he reached into his coat pocket, as though struck by a sudden idea. There was the tinkling of coins hitting against one another, and he held out a small black bag, made of silk, I figured. "This might help. For every man he slays, place of these under the tongue, and I can promise you that their deaths won't have been in vain. So you don't have to be afraid, okay? I chose you, and I'm going to watch over you. Make sure you're okay."

"Will this be over soon?" Again, the words had fallen from my tongue before I'd had the chance to decide if I should keep them locked inside my head or not. My companion seemed to be trying to contemplate the best possible answer, as the car slowed and pulled up to the curb.

He gave a wry smile, and replied, "Unfortunately, Dr. Allen, this is just the beginning."

I took the bag from him and nodded. He got out of the car, walked around, and opened my door for me. "There are fresh clothes, some toiletries, some canned goods, yada, yada, yada - stuff like that - in the trunk," he said, as he shook my hand gently. "I think maybe, before you meet the others, you should wash up in one of the restrooms ... just a thought." He grinned.

I thanked him, and then removed said items from the trunk of his car as he sat down in the driver's seat. I stepped back, away from the man who had explained this mess to me, who had given me some means of protection, who had not only told me that he was going to watch over me and ensure that I was okay, but who had deliberately chosen me for reasons I couldn't even fathom. He waved merrily, and began to drive off, but then suddenly reversed and looked out the window.

"I'm sorry about Nellie," he said. "Good luck."

He tapped the dashboard again, and said, "Home." The car disappeared, dispersing like a drop of ink in a glass of water, into the shadowy recesses of this empty part of the city. As I walked away from the curb, headed for my meeting with the prophets, I realized that, although I'd thanked him for the items I now carried awkwardly in the crook of my elbow, I had not thanked him for creating some amount of order out of his grand madness, and for giving me what seemed to be the key weapon in my personal battle against Kalki - a little bit of sanity.

Zak - Entry #10

Finally, someone pulled over. It was an old red Toyota pickup truck with rust around the wheel casings. It wasn’t one of those ass-kicker pickups that looked like they could joust with a minotaur and win. It looked more like the little brother of one of those trucks. I dropped my thumb and jogged up to where it had stopped.

I yanked the passenger-side open and climbed in. The interior smelled of beer, decaying food, and (vaguely) manure. My driver was, I guessed, probably not much over twenty-five, but, as a result of a lifetime of work, looked more like fifty. He had a few days of brown growth across his face and neck. A ragged and dirty John Deere cap sat on his head. A fly crawled across the bill of the cap.

He looked me up and down.

“What’s your dest’?” he asked in what it took a little while to identify as a thick New England accent.

“Uhm, I’m trying to get to the city, I guess,” I responded.

“Alright. Lucky f’r you I’m goin’ righ’ through there.”

“Oh, great.”

“What’s your business in th’ city?”

“Oh, I’m, uh, meeting a friend.”

“You go’n’ see a play?”

“Excuse me?”

“Go’n’ see one o’ them Broadway plays?”

“Oh, uh, maybe? I’m not really the one making the plans. I think my friend has some, though.”

“Yu’. I never did one o’ them play ‘fore. Always wan’ed to, though.”

I really had no way to respond to that, so I just stayed quiet and nodded vaguely.

“Qui’ the show las’ nigh’.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You see th’ moon las’ nigh’?”

I’d sort of forgotten that I wasn’t the only one seeing strange things.

“Oh, um, yeah. Pretty wild, huh?”

“Been a long time since I saw sunthing like tha’.”

“You’ve… you’ve seen that happen before?”

“Mmm. ‘Sbeen a couple thousan’ years at leas’.”

“A, a couple thousand years, did you say?”

“At leas’.”

“How, how is that possible?”

“Well, you di’n’ think jus’ anyone was gonna pick ya up, didjuh?”

I was getting royally freaked out.

“Hey, could you just pull over right here and drop me off? I think I saw my friend.”

“I though’ you was goin’ t’ the city.”

“Uh, no. My plans changed?”

“Nah, I don’ think so.”

“Are you gonna kill me?”

“No’ righ’ now.”

“Before we get to the city?”

“Can’.”

“You can’t?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Orders.”

“Orders? From who?”

“Downstairs.”

There didn’t seem to be an appropriate response.

“I go’ a message f’r ya.”

“Who from?”

“Downstairs. Now shut y’r yap. Y’re a par’ of sunthin’ a lot bigger’n you. You go’ y’r role, jus’ like the rest o’ us. Y’ jus’ gotta hear this: Where y’re goin’, there’s go’n’ be some people gonna try’n’ hurt ya. Bu’ they go’ their parts t’play too. Don’ worry ‘bout them. They don’ concern ya righ’ now. Jus’ ride it out. There’s folks in high places lookin’ out f’r ya. We all jus’ wan’ ya t’know it’ll be a-ok.”

“…”

“Oh yeah, an’ also, even when things aren’ goin’ y’r way, or it seems like it, we’re all on the same side.”

The truck glided to a gentle stop. We were, miraculously, in a parking spot in Manhatten. I had no recollection of ever even entering the city. It was as if it had simply materialized around us. We were next to the entrance to a subway station.

“What…? How…? Where are we?” I asked.

“We’re at y’r stop, Chuck.”

I opened the door and stepped onto the sidewalk.

“Where, uh, where should I go?” I said, turning back, but I was talking to an empty parking space.

“Thanks for the lift…”

On a hunch, I descended into the metro station.