This Is the End

by Eric Pollarine

  I start to panic. It’s so small in here. I haven’t spoken yet. I try to make sound with my mouth but nothing comes out. My eyes are hurting, they go wider. I have to tell myself not to panic. “Don’t panic,” I say, but it’s all internal. And then I ask, “Where the hell is everyone?”

  I want to say something out loud. I need to. Maybe they’ve left me. Maybe they think I’m dead. Didn’t I install a failsafe, a button on the inside? Questions. Questions. Questions.

  My hands try and move around the nearly invisible seam of the door. I start to panic when I don’t feel a lever, latch, handle or button. I have yet to make a sound or move from the waist down. I’m very pale. I feel as if I am going to be sick. I am rebreathing the air I exhale. I will die in here.

  The suction cup breathing mask itches. I’m drooling and my chest hurts. I hit something big and white and bulbous and then I hear the door decompress. The vacuum seal releases; a burst of warmer air floods the inside of the tube’s chamber. The fog on the window gets thicker—too cold in here, too warm outside. I push forward with every ounce of strength that I can possibly muster; my stomach feels so empty and adrenaline floods my body.

  My arms are shaking as I push the door out away from me. It’s heavy but the hinges are in good working order; they glide and then I fall out of the machine, slamming into the floor. The mask pulls up and off of my face, over my head with no resistance. I try and brace for the impact, but I’m too weak after pushing, no use of my legs yet.

  I slam into the floor and it hurts worse than anything I’ve ever felt, worse than it should because pain is new again. I’m on the floor and I gag, too much adrenaline not enough food, no liquids. Need liquids.

  Isn’t this how I got here? I ask myself. My throat still doesn’t make a sound—nothing but the heavy breathing of my lungs. I’m naked, save for the plastic pants they put on me before, and covered in something that feels like Vaseline, water and jelly. Something slick and slimy. Little shattered memories stab my brain: the plastic men, the doctors, Phil and Janet standing watching me. They were smiling.

  I feel it in my chest, nothing. Am I cured? I had cancer. I reach for the floor to pull myself up, try to stand. I feel my feet. I feel blood entering my feet. I’m looking at my arms; they’re so pale. My head begins pounding; my mouth is so dry. I kick out with one leg then another and crawl away from the tube, the machine. My plastic pants are making crinkle-crinkle sounds as I drag myself across the floor. I leave a trail of clear jelly grease slime behind me. There’s a table to my right. I reach up and try to pull. My hands are weak and come crashing back on top of my head. I have no hair. I rub my head; it’s bald. I have no hair.

  I lay down. I curl up into a ball. I begin to shiver. I’m alive, awake and it’s so cold. I’m alive and awake and I’m lying on the floor. Then I hear it—my own voice. It’s small and quiet at first. But it’s mine. I remember it.

  “I’m alive,” I say though my throat hurts. There’s no moisture in my mouth. I say it again and again and again: “I’m alive.”

  I pass out.

  * * *

  The second time I wake up is much smoother; it feels normal, almost natural. I’m still cold and my head still feels like it’s been used as a soccer ball, but my body is more receptive. I’m able to get up without falling over. I’m still not that steady on my feet but I can stand upright. I brace myself on the corner of the table that I tried to crawl to before.

  “Where the fuck is everyone?” I say. I need to use my voice. I need to hear it enough to get used to it again. Everything looks dirty—not filthy, but dusty. I shiver and then start to look around for something that I can put on. There are two lab coats hanging on the wall that appear to be clean. I use the table as a guide and walk myself over to them and put them both on. I’m freezing. I look around for evidence that someone has been here recently to check on me.

  There are some forms outlining procedures to take and levels to check on a metallic clipboard. I scan the piece of paper looking for the last date that someone was here and stop when I come to the last entry. I double-check the date. Then I triple-check it to make sure. I leaf through the rest of the documents and try to find something else that would show me that they stopped using this particular form or maybe even paper in general. Nothing.

  I look back at the date: one year. And the last time anyone checked on me was roughly six months after I was put in the tube.

  “Can’t be,” I say out loud, still trying to recognize every syllable. I scan the room again; nothing looks out of place, but nothing looks touched either. The power is still on or, at least, the lights are. I pull the piece of paper off the metal clipboard and shove it into the pocket of the outermost lab coat and then pull the inner one shut around me.

  “I paid a shit-ton of money to these people and they can’t even do their fucking job right…” Then it hits me. I remember Phil standing with Janet again. They were holding hands, and they were smiling. My brain starts to put two and five together and comes up with I-got-fucked.

  I look around to see if there is anything else in the room. One last time, anything to make me feel like I’m wrong. Then I look over at the machine. The door is still standing wide open; the breathing mask is flopped on the floor just outside. All the monitors are turned off. The power to the machine was cut for some reason. I blink.

  I have to get to my office and find out what the fuck happened. After that, I have some people to find and hurt.

  2.

  The doors swing open and the motion sensors trip; I hear the click and hum of electricity in the bulbs above me. It takes a few minutes for all of them to flicker on, a few panels stay dark and I wonder where everyone is. There isn’t anything to tell me that anyone has been here in quite some time. I look around and, again, like the other room, nothing looks out of place but nothing looks right either. I start walking and the tiled floor under my feet is ice cold.

  It’s a funny sensation as the blood comes rushing back to my body. I can feel it move through my veins. I feel the pressure in my arms and legs returning; everything is swelling up inside me, back to normal, I guess. Someone was supposed to be watching me 24 hours a day, every day. But the room I’m in right now, I’ve only been to, conservatively, twice before. Maybe they moved operations up to another floor and have some sort of vid-stream on the room?

  No, if that were the case then someone would have seen me by now. This isn’t right; none of this is right.

  I’m standing here, practically naked and freezing fucking cold and no one is here and Janet and Phil were holding hands. This is a set up. I never should have trusted him.

  I stop in front of the elevator doors, push the button and wait. Nothing. I push the button again, wait a few more seconds and then realize that there isn’t any power to the elevators. The lights are off; the little digital screen that should show you the floor you are on is black and silent. I turn around and look at the room; by law there has to be an entrance to the stairs here somewhere. Why has the power to the elevators been cut? Jesus Christ, I bet they stole my money, closed this fucking place down and then cut all the power to kill me.

  That can’t be right. Why would the rest of the building have power? Why would the lights come on?

  “Solar membranes,” I say to nobody. “The windows, all of them, have solar membranes.”

  It helped sell the feature to other companies; the whole building is running on solar right now. It’s not that there isn’t any power, just not enough. They were originally a backup plan until we could install our own grid. They were never meant to be the sole powersource for the whole damn building, just a reserve for the server banks. I need to see the outside. I need to get to a set of windows.

  The entrance to the stairs is off to the right. The floor is starting to become colder than my feet and it’s making my toes ache. My stomach turns over a few times. I need to eat something soon, something with a little substance or else I’m going to pass out again. My hands are
shaky when I reach the push bar of the security door that leads to the stairwell. It opens with ease and I look up and then down. I’m on the third floor, only three more to go until I can get to my office. Grabbing hold of the handrail, I begin to pull myself up, one foot at a time. The emergency lights are the only lights in the narrow space; big, red exit signs throw just enough light on the floor to make it accessible, and my eyes instantly feel better.

  I make it up one flight and have to sit down on the landing. I haven’t moved in a year. Take that and couple it with the fact that I haven’t had anything but medication, and you get a very weak and tired man. My hand goes to my head and I rub the smoothness. I used to have a pretty good head of hair, but I guess the chemo and the other treatments along with the freezing process pretty much killed that. I can deal with baldness. The skin on my hands and arms shines in the low light; my whole body is pale enough to glow in the dark. After I take a few deep breaths, I pull myself up to the handrail and look into the glass opening of the security door in front of me.

  I can’t remember what we had on the fourth floor; I think it was Research and Development, maybe it was accounting? The lights are all off. The portal is black; I try the handle and it feels like there’s something blocking it when I try to push it open. Standing on my tiptoes, I look down and try to see if there’s something in the way. Why would there be something in the way?

  Fuck it; I need to get to my office. I need to figure this out. But first I need clothes and coffee and food. God, I would kill for a cup of coffee right now. I stop trying to look through the little square window and keep moving. Hand over hand, it feels like I’m climbing Everest. I keep moving until I get past the landing for the fifth floor; the landing just above me reads a big 6, and then I see the door to my floor and smile.

  I put my hand on the handle and push down. It clicks but doesn’t move and for a few seconds I freak out. “Maybe they locked me in the building.” I push forward a little harder and it opens. I smile wider. I missed my office.

  I want a triple espresso. I want my comfortable, expensive, tailored clothing. A shower. Food—God, I’m going to order so much stupid food and I’m not even going to finish it, just throw it away. I want to take a shit. Then I want to find these assholes and do something very bad to them.

  I move into the main portion of my lobby and even before the lights begin to come on, I can see the outline of my couch and Carol’s desk. The small trace of ambient light gleams off the polished doors to my sanctuary. I hear the click of energy flowing into tubes and diodes as the room is flooded with piercingly bright light. I instantly wish they hadn’t turned on.

  It takes a few seconds to figure out what it is I’m looking at. It takes a few seconds for my brain to categorize, to put the picture together: the colors, the smell, the bone-grey and blood-like dirt and shell casings bright as crushed copper roaches. It takes a few seconds for me to figure this all out.

  When I do, I turn around and dry heave on the door.

  3.

  My brain turns around in circles.

  I’m in the landing again.

  I’m rocking back and forth.

  I don’t want to go back in there.

  I don’t like my office anymore.

  This has to be a joke.

  This is a cruel joke that Phil and Janet played on me. Maybe, maybe Robert had them killed; maybe I’ve been framed. I don’t want to go backing there. Sitting here in the dark, the floor is cold and hard on my ass, even with the plastic diaper and lab coats.

  Then I hear it. Something moved behind me. I look at the wall in front of me; the lights are still on in the lobby and I can see someone move past the opening of the window.

  I watch the shadow on the wall in front of me. This is a huge joke. I launch myself up and turn around. There’s nothing there. I look into the window, scan left to right, and still nothing. The lights flicker out making the window a black rectangular hole again. I slip myself down off the tips of my toes to the cold concrete, look down and shake my head.

  Maybe I’m losing it. I haven’t had anything to eat yet; I feel shaky enough as it is and the dry heaving didn’t help much. I’m just seeing things. Then I hear something faint from the other side of the door, like breathing but it’s quiet. I bend down and put my ear to the door. I can’t hear much but there’s definitely something making noise on the other side of the door.

  I bet this is part of the joke. I bet they’re all standing around waiting for me to open the door again.

  “We totally got you,” they’ll say and I’ll feel like an asshole and everyone will laugh and then I’ll fire them all. They’ll all laugh again and so will I, because I’m not joking. Then it will get very silent. I will continue to laugh.

  More noise is coming from the other side of the door; I hear something that sounds like shuffling or scratching, like someone’s dragging something across the floor. There’s no way they are locking me in the fucking stairwell. Something hits the door with such force that I stumble back. I look at the door. It happens again. I look into the window.

  The lights turn on and I nearly fall down the stairs. The door bursts open and I move backwards. The silhouette of the man standing on the landing doesn’t look right. I try to figure it out; looking from left to right, he’s missing an arm, his right arm. His face is grey and he’s missing an arm.

  “This isn’t fucking funny,” I scream at him.

  He says nothing. He comes at me. He’s dragging his left leg; he’s missing his left foot.

  “Cut the fucking shit,” I yell at him but he doesn’t stop. I’m ready though. I’ve had enough of this. He stumbles after taking another step with his stump and comes crashing down the stairs missing me completely and slams into the landing below. I grab the door before it has a chance to close and pull it shut behind me.

  “Fuck you, asshole. I hope you’re seriously hurt. And don’t expect me to pay any of the fucking medical.” I begin to say something further but realize that, as I’m looking at the man in the suit lying on the landing below, he’s getting up.

  He’s crooked. Men aren’t supposed to be crooked like that. I pull the door closed. This isn’t right. He makes his way back up the steps; one at a time, he pulls himself up towards the door, then the window. My grip goes tighter on the handle, pulling it impossibly close to me. I start looking for the lock.

  The door slams again but this time the sound is accompanied by shattering glass; I pull my head up to look but don’t realize that his arm is through the window until it’s too late. He grabs my throat. He lets out a moan. Hot, fetid breath hits me in the face. My stomach bottoms out again and I want to retch.

  I can’t breath. He’s grabbing me; I have to let go of the door. His hands are so cold, digging into my neck. I can’t scream.

  I smash the door into him. His grip breaks and pulls away from my throat, leaving burning finger marks along the sides of my neck. He falls back down the steps and I hear him smack into the landing again. Pulling the door back closed, I look around. There’s a gun lying on the couch next to man that doesn’t have a top to his head anymore. A Bible is on the floor.

  I run to the couch and grab the gun. I have fired a gun five times in my life which was the sum total amount of times I had to go to a firing range so that I could carry the pistol in my car. I wouldn’t say I’m the best, but I know how one works.

  From behind me I hear the door open. I turn around, the man is there. He’s wearing what looks like the remains of a suit and what’s left of him is big, muscular. He looks like he could have been on my security detail. His face is tattered and ragged. I can’t make out his features to know for sure. He’s moving towards me, pulling his dead appendages behind him. His clubfoot makes him unsteady; his left arm is pealed back and covered in shattered glass and scars. There’s no blood.

  I pull the gun up on him and check quickly to make sure the safety is off and pull the trigger.

  Click.

  I look d
own at the gun then back up to him; he’s still coming, drool or fluids of some kind drip out of the corner of his jaw. I would say mouth, but that’s not really a way to describe it.

  I pull the trigger again and again there’s another click.

  Fuck.

  He lunges at me. He hits me. We roll.

  He tries to bite my face; I shove my hands into his neck to push him back and it feels like I’m grabbing at sausages. His neck collapses and I feel spine. Black, sticky fluid begins to run down my arms, covering them to my elbows. The smell is nearly unbearable. My throat and abdomen are gagging in tandem, sending waves of heaves up my body like water. The man clicks his teeth at me, clacks his jaws open and closed. I squeeze harder until I take hold of what I know has to be his spinal column. I turn and pull and then I hear a very uncomfortable thick crack.

  His eyes roll back into his head and he slumps down on top of me. I push him off. I roll away. I’m covered in black to my shoulders.

  I scramble away, looking for something to wipe my arms off with. I see Carol’s legs sticking out from behind her desk. I look when I know I shouldn’t. She’s wearing a skirt and from her feet to her stomach she looks pristine; from her stomach up there is an empty hole. She doesn’t have a face anymore because she doesn’t have a head. I pull at her skirt and it comes off; I wipe my hands off and throw the skirt back on top of her.

  Leaning against the door to my office, scanning the room, I can feel my body start to shake. The adrenaline dump is making the room spin. I brace my body with the corner of her desk and pull myself to the door controls.

  “Come on, come on, fucking work,” I say to the finger scanner as I lay my index finger on the little glass. I can see the laser inside is still working, see the little crisscross of red light on my finger tip.