Daphne Lamb: The Girl's Guide to the Apocalypse

There was no actual work to be done. We sat quietly at our cubicles, staring at clocks as if we waited this thing out so we could get back to doing what we truly loved—entering numbers in Excel spreadsheets. I, on the other hand, felt the heaviness of what was going on in the world, so I took some sheets of printer paper and started a letter to my family. It was harder than I thought. I threw it away and then started a break up letter to Bruce. I wrote and rewrote that a number of times, but could never quite get the right tone or theme for it. I wished for access to the Internet just to have examples, but now I had to face the question of, how does one write a breakup letter?

On one extremely quiet afternoon, Tatiana aimlessly wandered around the cubicles. I saw her head weave in and out, in and out, until she eventually made it to my desk. She paused and looked down at me and put a finger to her lips, then dropped a folded note onto my desk. Before I could look at it, she kept walking.

I unfolded it quickly.

My side of the floor hates your side of the floor. They feel you’re harboring access to the vending machine. An attack is coming.

Below that, she had written a list of pros and cons.

Pros to Rioting. Everyone gets snacks. Communication between involved parties. Something to do besides sitting at desk.

Cons. Someone might get hurt. We might not be able to hang out anymore.

I refolded the note, slightly confused, then stood and looked around for Tatiana. She was nowhere to be found, but I heard someone yell from the other side of the floor. Everyone got onto their feet as the others—now in matching corporate sweatshirts given at last year’s Christmas party—charged our side of the office, holding up whatever they could get their hands on—staplers, binders, coffee mugs, chair parts brandished as weapons.

“Give us your Cheetos!” they chanted as they violently attacked my coworkers.

A shiver went down my spine and I shook at the hollowed out roar of softened office workers. I dove under my desk as the fighting went on. Feet ran past me, and I listened to the sounds of yelling and crying. I looked out in time to see two of my coworkers trying to bravely protect the door to the break room, but be overcome with the force of four people from the accounting department. They rushed in and immediately went to work rocking the vending machine back and forth until it toppled like some abhorred dictator’s statue.

They cheered and victoriously jumped up and down. I got back up to my feet and looked around, thinking the danger was over.

“What the hell is going on here!” someone shouted.

The floor went quiet. My side of the floor huddled down in fearful fetal positions, but the attacking side had mouths full of unhealthy treats, mid-enjoyment of their plunder.

The voice belonged to the company CEO, Robert Peele, who, despite his stained khakis and sweat-stained button-down shirt, still had enough confidence for us to listen to him. Under his arm he carried a thick textbook with the words Secrets to Risk Management written in bold letters across the cover.

“Just because the world is crumbling outside doesn’t mean we all become barbaric hill people!” he said. “Now clean this mess up!”

He spun on his heel and stormed off. At that moment, one of the finance guys got weak in the knees, collapsed to the floor and threw up.

Soon after that my supervisor got sick, then half the office followed suit, which lead Robert to force them off the floor and into the stairwell with specific instructions to go to anywhere else. Sick people were moved to the second and third floor while healthy people moved up to the ninth. Then the fourth floor accounting department got sick. Then the sales communication group. Then floors of people were starting to die out, which was when people got panicky. So we waited out another two days of listening to people fighting death, begging to be allowed on our floor. Who wants to listen to that? We boarded up the stairwell doors with chairs and dry erase boards. Eventually we didn’t hear anything from those fighting to get in and we just assumed that evolution had done its duty. I made up my mind to stay healthy no matter what, and that I wasn’t going anywhere until forcibly removed. The office building we were in had its own generator, a decent amount of food that could be rationed and we were now up on the eleventh floor, high enough of a vantage to see the world crumbling without taking part of it.

After all the death and the fighting over Cheetos and listening to Robert read from his risk management book, our generator eventually gave out and the entire building was without power. No sooner had everything shut down and the stillness of a powerless life sunk in, I really had to use the bathroom. I was going to wait it out for as long as possible, but when my body would allow no more waiting, I removed the bulletin board being used to prevent anyone from entering and ventured into the creepy stairwell where the last working bathroom was located. So I held it there in the dark until I could find a heavy object to prop the door open. On looking around, I found Robert’s risk management book sitting on the table in the break room. I snatched it up and shoved it under the door, then ran for the bathroom.

After five minutes of sweet relief, I came out of the bathroom to a hallway of pure darkness. My stomach tightened as I realized the inevitable. The book was gone, the door was shut and I was locked out of the healthy floor of the building.

“Hello?” I called out. “Anyone?”

Blindly I moved toward the door leading to the office, my arms in front of me like a limp Frankenstein until I hit it. I tried to fight the urge to panic as I banged on it.

“Help!” I called. “Locked out!”

From deep in the hall, I heard moaning from the upper stairwell and I shuddered on the inside. So I kept on banging on the door.

“Anyone? Anyone?”

As I made loud noise, I closed my eyes and did something I hadn’t done since I was seven.

“Dear God,” I whispered. “If you get me out of here, I will do whatever you want. I will work on my people skills, I will do more things for others—”

At that moment, the door swung open. Robert stood in the entry way with a confused look on his face.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked. “You could have gotten locked out and died.”

He stood aside to let me through.

“I had the door propped open,” I said simultaneously exasperated and relieved. I put a hand over my heart, which beat quickly. “I propped it open with a book in the break room.”

His eyes flashed wide. “You’re the one who took my book?” he asked. He withdrew it from under his arm and held it close. “Never touch my book. Someone could have stolen it.”

“It’s a book on risk management,” I said. “No one’s going to want it.”

He gave me a deadpan stare, then walked away, but continued to talk.

“There are golden truths in this book!” he shouted. “Our world hinges on what’s in this book!”

Robert had since given up his top-floor office with its spectacular views of citywide death and destruction and had set up shop in the now vandalized break room. For the most part, he seemed unfazed and rarely bothered looking up from his Blackberry, which didn’t hold any reception.

“Have you been able to reach anyone from the Chicago team on the phone?” he asked without directly looking at me when I walked in to use the cleanish water to rinse out my mug.

“Which phone should I use?” I asked. “The one by my desk that doesn’t work or the one at your desk that doesn’t work?”

He mashed his fingers onto the tiny keys. “Nothing here fucking works,” he said. “Supposed to be the best technology out there.”