After The Apocalypse

by Roseman, Josh

  She blinks a couple of times and then shakes her head. "If that's the way it has to be," she says, "then that's the way it has to be." She stands up; so do I. But when she extends her hand across the desk, it takes me a couple of seconds to realize that I'm supposed to shake it. Which I do. "I'm not going to say it doesn't hurt, but if you can ever come back, I'd be willing to talk to you about finding you a place."

  "I appreciate it," I say. "Um... what do I do now?"

  "Clean out your desk, I guess. I'll get the paperwork started. You should also say your goodbyes." Marcia's voice has gone from compassionate to something a little harder; I think she's feeling betrayed. I don't blame her. "I'll text you when I need you back up here, okay?"

  "Okay."

  I feel like crap as I leave my boss's office and plop back down behind my desk. I'm going to need to find a box for my personal items -- there aren't a lot; I'm not one to decorate my workspace -- but that can wait.

  I have to talk to Jake first.

  It's not until I'm almost ready to go that Jake is out of meetings. I catch him in his office just as he gets back, closing the door behind me and locking it. He grins. "Why, Miss Collins... I had no idea..."

  "Not now, Jake." I pull a chair around the side of the desk so I can sit close to him. "I need to tell you something."

  "Of course." He's instantly serious; we've been friends long enough that he knows I'm not kidding around. He leans forward to take my hands in his. "What is it?"

  I feel tears pricking my eyes. "Oh, damn," I whisper. "Damn it... damn it!"

  "Andi, come on. Talk to me, please?"

  I pull one hand away from him to wipe my eyes. "Jake, I'm quitting. Today."

  He's -- as expected -- flabbergasted. "Why?"

  Oh, how I wish I could tell him. I wish I could just say something like: well, Jake, you know that super-girl who was on CNN yesterday? She's sitting right in front of you, and she always has been. I have my powers back after eleven years without them, and the demons and other evil things I used to fight are coming back too. It was hard enough to make it through high school; I can't possibly hold down a job. So I'm going to quit and focus on saving the world, and I'm sorry if that hurts you in the process.

  Yeah. That would be awesome.

  Not.

  I grab a tissue from the box on Jake's bookshelf and dab at my eyes. "I'm not comfortable talking about it." It's not what I want to say, but I settle for it. "I went to the doctor yesterday, and we talked, and we decided I should leave my job."

  "Andi, what's wrong? Are you all right?" Concern is writ large on his face, and I feel like crap being unable to tell him. "Are you sick or something?"

  "Not sick." My next breath is shuddery. "Jake, I just... I can't. I can't talk about it."

  "This is me we're talking about," he says, and I can hear the tightness in his throat. "Come on, Andi. You're my friend; I can't just let you walk away like that!"

  "Jake... oh, Jake, I don't have a choice."

  "Bullshit." He pushes his chair back, trying to get away from me. "That's bullshit, Andi, and you fucking know it. Everyone has a choice!"

  I just stare at him, eyes full of tears, and after a few seconds he calms down and takes my hand. When he stands, I stand, and when he pulls me into his arms, I don't resist. My hands are on his back, and I can smell the soap he used in the shower this morning. For some reason, my mind decides to go to the wrong place and I flash back on the last time he showed up in one of my private little daydreams, but I kick the mental door closed on that little inappropriate adventure and concentrate on my friend.

  "I'm going to miss you," I say against his shoulder. I know I'm crying on his shirt, and I don't care. "I'm going to miss seeing you every day, and talking to you, and--"

  "And nothing, girl," he says -- sometimes he does that, calls me 'girl', as if he's so much older than I am. I don't know why. But I do know that he's trying to speak past a tight throat; I can hear that much in his voice. "It's not like we can't e-mail, or text, or even see each other outside the office."

  "Yeah, I know, but it's not the same!" I'm reminded of Indira, who used to work with Jake; she left for a new job and we saw her once or twice, but once a year or so had gone by she was nothing but an afterthought. Shame; she was fun to hang out with. "It's not like I can just swing by for a cup of coffee and some dank memes anymore."

  "I know," he says. He squeezes me once more -- probably hard enough that, if I wasn't Alexandra again, it would actually hurt -- and then lets go. I let my arms fall reluctantly away and take a step back. His face is pale, full of the same heartache I know is on my own. "Damn, you'd think we were sleeping together or something." Instantly he blushes. "Sorry. Couldn't help it."

  I flash a smile at him, although tears are still making their way down my cheeks. "You should've asked sometime. I might have said yes." Then, impulsively, I step into him, rising up on my toes, and kiss the corner of his mouth.

  It's been a long time since I've kissed someone I actually care about -- someone without fur and a tail, anyway -- and a warmth spreads through my chest. "'Bye, Jake," I say against his cheek, and then I'm out of his office before I can consider following up on that kiss with a real one.

  Not that he'd do anything about it; he may bitch about his wife to me, but he loves her, and he definitely wouldn't cheat on her. It figures; the only guy at work I was ever really able to connect with, and he was off the market from the moment we met.

  I sigh and walk quickly back to my cube. Time to say goodbye to this place.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  TOUCHED

  +++++

  I planned to take the bus home. I swear I did. After all the goodbyes, all the hand-shaking and hugging, all the offers to help carry my one box of stuff, I had nothing on my mind but catching the 27 and going back to my apartment before heading to Dr. Colibri's office.

  Yeah. That didn't happen.

  Instead, just as I'm walking toward the bus stop, I feel bile rise in my throat and a tingle at the back of my neck. Damn it.

  If anyone sees me flash my way home in less time than it takes to hit the drive-through, it doesn't make the news. I'm in the apartment and moving full-speed before I can think about it, trusting my cleaning job from the weekend to save my feet from obstacles as I speed through the bedroom, swapping my business clothes for jeans, a Blue Sun t-shirt, and comfortable sneakers. I snatch up the mask and glue on the way out of the apartment, ignoring the cats, ignoring everything but the need to find the demon and dispose of it.

  I pause just outside the door to my apartment and process the journey home. It only takes a few seconds to figure out the approximate direction of the thing, and I'm in the air a moment later. About six blocks from the apartment, I drop onto the roof of an office building and quickly glue the mask to my face, and then I'm off again.

  As freeing as it is to fly, as powerful as I feel knowing that I'm about to do what I was trained to do, it's still frustrating how quickly these creatures pop up. I mean, I get almost zero warning, and that hasn't changed since high school. Professor Wedlund got a doctor to file a note with the office saying that I had a stomach disorder and needed blanket permission to use the restroom. Let me just say how embarrassing that story was when it got out -- not that I was ever actually popular, but when I got back to class after some of my longer fights, there were definitely jokes made about how much time I spent on the toilet.

  Looking back, it's kind of funny; but then, I guess it takes being a little more grown-up to appreciate truly juvenile humor.

  Anyway, with the mask on, I'm not afraid of being seen; my hair's a little wild, since I didn't have time to do anything with it before taking off, but that's okay. Just because Batgirl's always got the same style doesn't mean I have to, and hey, does Supergirl ever braid hers? If she can let it fly, so can I. Besides, it's not the hair that I have to worry about; it's the eyes. My actual mask, the one in the Alexandra costume, has these nifty little eye shiel
ds that I can put in place before I take off. The mask I'm wearing now isn't anything like that, and I find myself constantly blinking to try and keep my eyes lubricated. I consider for a moment turning into a sort of backstroke position, but that would just look stupid, and anyway I wouldn't be able to see where I'm going. Plus, it's no worse than my vision is when I'm swimming -- when I can convince myself to put on a bathing suit and go in a pool, in any case; it's rare, but it has happened. I just have to deal with the vision thing and let the tingling in my neck and the ever-increasing desire to leave my breakfast splattered along a stretch of I-20 direct me.

  I manage not to throw up before I arrive at the single-family home just west of Mableton; I do have to spit discreetly into one of the trash cans streetside, but it's the middle of the working day and no one's around. The house looks almost exactly like the ones on either side of it, and the one across from it -- I hum a snatch of "Little Boxes", which is dumb because now the song's stuck in my head. Brilliant, Andrea. Really smart. I sigh at my own stupidity and make my way toward the house.

  Fortunately, I don't have to knock; the door's been kicked in, or sucked in, or whatever this creature does. I hear a whimper of pain and flash through the front hallway. It came from upstairs and I'm there a second later, head cocked, listening for more noises.

  I definitely catch a whimper. And then I hear a high-pitched, horn-like roar, almost exactly like the sound Godzilla makes in those old movies. I zoom down the hallway and into the master bedroom and see what looks like a massive octopus rearing back and away from a woman it's got bound to the bed with four of its tentacles. A fifth is dripping brownish-red goo, and two of the others are--

  "Oh, that's just nasty."

  The woman -- a housewife-type just this side of forty -- sees me and screams.

  "Help!"

  Real original.

  A tentacle spears in my direction; I zip out of the way and get a look at how far its reach goes. The little club-like appendage at the end clunks against the door-frame; I wince and hope that all of its tentacles aren't that long, because ew.

  I also take a second to check the frame where it hit. If the wood had been smoking or burnt, I might have worried, but it looks like this thing is just a standard land-dwelling octopus creature.

  The mental description makes me chuckle -- I've never actually seen anything like this before -- and the chuckle makes the housewife glare at me, mouth open.

  Which is a mistake, because one of the tentacles pulls up from underneath her and jams its way into her mouth.

  I have no words for what I've just seen. None at all. This woman is going to need a shitload -- oh, bad choice of words there -- of therapy.

  At least the octopus-creature is in pieces now; I tore the final tentacle away from its body, wrapped it around the head, and squeezed. It didn't even take all of my strength to crush the thing's head, and once it was dead, I pulled it off the woman and carried it to the bathroom. Then, just to be safe, I stomped on it until there was nothing but pulp.

  I carry a bottle of mouthwash to the bed, where the woman is curled up on her side, sobbing. "Well, these shoes are a total loss." I look down at my shirt -- hopefully, it can be saved; it's hard to find a good Firefly t-shirt, and I really shouldn't have worn one I liked, but I needed something blue and I needed it in a hurry. "Here. This might help." I open the bottle and help the woman into a sitting position; she takes it and swigs, swishing the greenish-blue liquid from side to side. She looks for something to spit it in just as the true horrific realization of what happened sinks in and I know that if I don't get her to the bathroom there's going to be vomit everywhere.

  Thankfully, I'm a superhero. I have her on her knees in front of the toilet well before the mouthwash -- and everything else -- comes up and out. I hold her hair and rub her shoulders and tell her it's going to be all right, and soon enough she's sitting against the vanity, drinking mouthwash and spitting into the toilet and trying not to look into the bathtub.

  I take a towel from the rack and cover the worst of the sticky mess. "Sorry about your floor," I say, standing in the bathroom doorway. "I didn't mean to track octopus yuck all over it."

  "I..." She swallows, makes a face, and spits into the toilet. "I think," she says, her voice hoarse from all the damage done to her throat, "that I can forgive you."

  I offer a sympathetic smile. "I'm Alexandra."

  "So am I," she says. She extends a hand and I take it, helping her to her feet. I think we're both trying to ignore the fact that the demon left her naked from the waist down. It's easier than thinking about what it was doing to her before I killed it. "Alexandra Stevens."

  I nod. "Can you tell me what happened?"

  Alexandra glares up at me -- I suddenly realize that she's maybe five feet tall, and she's cowering a little, too. "A fucking octopus shoved its tentacles in my--"

  "I know about that," I say. Normally I'm loath to interrupt a victim, but I'd seen enough hentai to know where she was going. I feel my brow wrinkle; if I'm speaking in meme, then I must really be shaken up. Not as shaken up as Alexandra -- the other one, of course -- but still. Ick. "I mean, before that. Did it talk to you, or do anything that would help me figure out what it was? Where it came from?"

  She shakes her head. "I was just changing the sheets when I heard a bang from downstairs. My phone was in the kitchen, so I tried to get down the hall to the office, where the house phone is, and that's when I saw it."

  "Did it see you right away?"

  She nods. "It didn't say anything; it was up the stairs in a few seconds, and I just ran for it. Right back to the bedroom." Her face twists with disgust and she spits into the toilet again. Then she flushes it -- sounds like she has one of those super-toilets that can handle a whole bucket of golf balls or whatever. It's strange the things I notice in situations like this. "Anyway, it caught me, and... well, you saw the rest."

  "What made it scream?" I ask.

  Something that combines ugliness and satisfaction flashes through Alexandra's eyes. "It went for my mouth. I bit it."

  "Good for you."

  "Yeah, well, look what it did after that," she says, and I see her start to crumble, falling to her knees. I go down with her, pulling her into my arms; she latches on and starts to sob. "Oh, God, it... it..."

  "It'll be all right," I say when it becomes clear she can't get the words out. "We'll call 911, and we'll get you to the hospital."

  She nods, but says nothing. I gather her into my arms and carry her carefully downstairs; there's a blanket on the couch, and I drape it gently over her, tucking her in. "I'll take care of it," I tell her, resting my hand on her cheek. "You're safe now. It's dead; I promise it won't hurt you anymore."

  Alexandra doesn't look reassured, but she puts on a brave face. I feel her watching me as I go into the kitchen and find her phone -- I know mine's right in my pocket, but there's no way I'm calling the police from it. I give them the address and tell them I'm a friend of hers, that I found her being attacked but that we're safe now, and hang up when they start asking too many questions.

  And then I sit with her, holding her hand, stroking her hair, until I hear sirens. "Look," I say, "you can tell them whatever you want. You can tell them I saved you, or you can tell them you don't know what happened. But if I were you, I'd go with the truth; the body of that creature is still in your bathtub." I can see the strain around her eyes when I say that. "I'm sorry," I say, "but it's the truth." I cup her face in my hand. "Please tell the truth. And please, talk to someone. It'll eat you up inside if you don't."

  Alexandra doesn't speak, and that's fine. The sirens are close enough now.

  "I'm sorry," I tell her one last time, and then pull away and walk toward the destroyed front door. The two officers -- both women, and I'm thankful for that; I don't know if Alexandra can handle being around strange men right now -- put their hands on their guns, but I raise mine. "She's in the living room," I say, pitching my voice to carry. "She's going to n
eed help to get through this."

  "Who are you?" one of the officers asks.

  I shrug. "Just someone who helps out."

  "Well, we're going to need to take your--"

  I'm pretty sure she was going to say 'statement', but I don't hear it; I'm already in the air, flying back toward downtown.

  Flying home.

  I need my cats. I need a hug. And I need to never again see an octopus monster performing a sex act on a human being.

  At least I stopped it before it killed her. At least I made sure it would never hurt her again.

  That last bit makes me laugh dryly -- the demon might be dead, but Alexandra's going to have to live with the memory of what it did to her for a long time to come.

  Tears sting my eyes, and I'm reasonably sure it's not just the wind. Not this time.

  I spend a good couple of hours sitting on the couch, staring at the television but not really watching it, holding Willow on my lap and stroking her fur. She purrs through it all, even when she falls asleep, and I appreciate her indulging me.

  Buffy finally appears, sitting on the coffee table, tail wrapped around her paws. She eyes me curiously. "You killed something."

  I nod. "Evil octopus. It was attacking a woman."

  "You smell like dead flesh. And worse." She blinks at me. "You should call your human friend. The one you call 'Professor'. You should tell him."

  "Why? He'll just congratulate me, ask me to describe it, and then tell me to come see him." I sigh. "I don't need that right now."

  "It's not about what you need, dumbass." Ah, there's the Buffy I'm used to. "It's about doing what's right. So do it."

  I glare at her. "I already have a conscience. I don't need another one."

  She turns up her nose and walks away, tail raised, the tip twitching. I don't need to speak cat to know that she just scored a point on me.

  Fuck her.

  Fuck her worse because she's right. I do need to talk to the Professor.

  But I don't do the right thing all the time. I admit that.