Peter Stenson - Fiend

I look back out. I half expect to see the little girl with umbrella socks and flakes of missing face. He’s right. There’s nobody walking around and I want to tell him that it’s probably because people are at work or maybe the Twins are playing, but even as I formulate these objections, I’m countering them—nobody works banker hours on West Seventh, not one pregnant teen is waiting at the bus stop, I can’t hear the motor of a single car—and I realize that something is wrong.

I tell Type to go check it out.

Not going out there.

Then pack this shit up while I do it.

He tells me no. He picks at the constant scab on the left side of his jaw. He whispers something. All I catch is apocalypse .

Just stay here, okay? Pack up those bloody clothes so we can get the fuck gone.

Chase.

Do it.

He nods. I walk outside. At this point, I’m still hoping it’s the drugs, maybe the Albino’s latest batch was cut with a PCP derivative, that we’re spun. I stand on the sidewalk and see not one person on the street. The Groveland Tap is empty. No cars. I walk around to the front of Seventh. I’m starting to shiver because it’s like that dream when you’re walking alone and you finally realize it—your solitary venture through this life—and skyscrapers are covered in vines and the road is buckled open like a whore’s gap and it’s just you and your stupid footsteps, the sound of your rubber soles dragging on aged asphalt.

I’m thinking about a conversation with KK, back when we were sober, in love with second chances and each other’s naked flesh. She’d asked, if I was offered the gift of immortality, would I take it? I’d kissed her German triangle of a nose, said something cheesy about only with you . She’d said, No, that’s not what I mean. Everyone you know will be dead but you. Would you do it? I’d thought about it, KK straddling me, my dick starting to harden, my lips brushing against her self-proclaimed biggest embarrassment, her nose, wondering if my breath was foul. I’d said, Yeah, I would.

I stand there, feeling my sanity stretch to its limits, thinking about KK fucking that scumbag Jared, that stupid fucking prick.

I take another look toward downtown St. Paul. Lights are on in the modest skyscrapers. I hear birds. The sun shines but just a little. There’s a slight wind coming from the Mississippi. Are Tibbs, Type, and myself the only people to survive Armageddon? I laugh. I realize it makes more sense that I’m really sitting on Typewriter’s couch, the glass pipe in my lap, my heart having finally quit.

I walk back to the apartment. Typewriter’s still standing by the window. I tell him I’m going to go see if fat Rebecca can tell me what’s going on. He says he’ll come too and I want to tell him that isn’t smart, but he’s practically crying so I say, Let’s go.

At the top of the landing I knock on her door. I wet my lips and try to do something with my hair. No answer. I knock again.

Everyone’s gone, Typewriter says behind me.

She never leaves. Even gets her groceries delivered, I say.

I press my ear to the door, expecting to hear the shuffling of slippers.

Fuckin’ stinks, Typewriter says.

The mildew in the walls, I say.

I knock one more time. Then I test the handle. It turns. I open the door a foot and call her. I step in and the smell is horrific, like rotting pot roast. I pull my shirt over my mouth and nose. Her apartment looks just like always—a couch and recliner centered on a TV, the kitchen full of take-out Chinese boxes, everything dirty as fuck.

We should go, Typewriter says.

I walk into the main room and feel the TV. It’s cold. She has that thing running twenty-four–seven. I push Power. The screen fills with static that bathes the evening room with white light.

Something crashes in the bedroom.

I stiffen. Typewriter runs for the door and I flash on what the little girl did to the dog and think about whatever is in the next room doing that to me. I see a streak of black. A cat freezes in the doorway, staring at us. It runs back to the bedroom. I follow. I’m cautious, I know whatever I see will be bad, and Typewriter is behind me, which I’m glad about.

The bedroom door is open a slit.

I nod to Typewriter. He nods back. I push open the door. All three hundred pounds of Rebecca is splayed out on her bed. Her slew of cats look over at me, their mouths covered in blood and flesh.

Jesus Christ, I say. I turn back to the hallway.

What? Typewriter says. He looks inside. He says, Fucking shit, man, they’re eating her. The cats are fucking eating her.

I want to cry. To throw up. To go back to Typewriter’s house and have my only concern be trying to find a minute alone to smoke a dime piece.

Let’s get gone, Typewriter says.

I follow him to the door. One of the cats stares at us like we’d just interrupted something sacred. It keeps licking its bloodied whiskers. I’m beginning to grasp the reality of our situation and I just need some sort of confirmation. I need somebody to tell me this is real. That everyone I’ve ever known has died or disappeared somehow. That we did, in fact, crush the skull of some possessed child. That it was okay because we had no choice.

I knock on the door to Svetlana’s, the Russian tenant.

Bro, let’s get ghost, Type says.

She’s got Internet. Just need to see what the fuck is going on.

She’s gonna be dead.

The door is locked. I kick the shit out of it. The wood splinters on the first kick. We go in. It’s the same smell and we both pull our shirts over our faces and I walk over to her computer. An old Soviet flag hangs on the wall. I sit on a ratty brown couch, right next to about seven dildos, a bottle of lube, and a butt plug thicker than a baseball bat.

Typewriter gives a chuckle. He says, Bitch be loving dick, huh?

Did those webcam shows, I say.

He’s holding the black butt plug. He gives it a tentative sniff. I think about telling him to grow up. He’s smiling though. I sit and get the computer going. The shit takes forever to get warmed up.

You ever hit it? Typewriter asks.

I shake my head.

Bullshit, some Russian debutante sitting up here all day fiddling her pussy, and you never hit it?

Windows loads. I don’t tell Typewriter I can’t remember the last time I’d been sober enough to get a hard dick. I click on Internet Explorer. He’s on to the dildos now, holding them up to one another, maybe mentally comparing where he would stack up in the equation.

Finally, the Internet is up and I’m at her home page, 18 to play.com, and I see my face streaming on the screen. I really do look like hell, nothing but scruff and scabs and eyes sunken like the Titanic .

You streaming? Typewriter asks.

Yeah, guess so.

I move the cursor to click to a news site.

Hold on, he says. He sits next to me, giving me a shove. His face streams online. He’s the only fat meth addict ever. His cheeks take up the whole screen.

He says, Is anybody out there? Anyone? Is there any single motherfucker left alive in this world?

Stop, I say.

Type keeps going, overenunciating like he’s talking to a retarded kid, We are in St. Paul, Minnesota. There is nobody left. Maybe some little girl but she was—

Fucking stop, I yell. I push him out of the way. You stupid?

Typewriter balls a fist. Part of me hopes he swings, hopes this can be the logical end to our relationship. He relaxes his hand. He says, There’s got to be somebody out—

A chime comes from the computer. I look at the screen.

BIGHRYBALLS: wtf u do w Russiandoll69?

Another chime.

BIGHRYBALLS: she ok?

Typewriter yells, Hello, hello?

BIGHRYBALLS: don’t tell me she’s gone.