Chapter Text
Everything was falling apart, but the cat laying next you purred on like none of it mattered. At the beginning of the night, you had felt somewhat like you had a plan. The concept of letting strangers into your house, of trying to survive in what was beginning to feel like an apocalypse -- all of it had been overwhelming, but you’d managed things alright. Then, it all came crashing down.
The first night, three people had shown up at your door. You’d let the Bar Guy in, despite your reservations about his abrasiveness, and had been pleasantly surprised to discover he was actually a decent man. You’d almost come to think of him as a friend in the past few days, which was saying a lot. Outside of your neighbor (God knew what had happened to him), you couldn’t even recall the last person you’d actually considered a friend.
Then, there had been the Cashier Girl. Her constant anxiety and terror had been a negative force in the house, but you’d felt something like pity for her. After hearing the beginning of her story, you’d felt endeared to her, and while her nerves got to you, she mostly kept to herself.
The third had been where everything had started to unravel, though you hadn’t known it at the time. “How lucky we are to witness humanity's final judgement with our own eyes!” Should have been your first warning, but your neighbor’s warning to let guests in had stuck in your mind. The Sun Guy was rowdy and constantly screaming and whispering to himself. He’d locked himself in your bathroom and made a show of his annoyance every time you kicked him out to shower or piss. At the time, it hadn’t seemed dangerous. His ravings were just the mutterings of a madman, and so long as you didn’t pay him any mind, nothing would come of them -- or so you thought.
The next night, a man had appeared at your door with his wife. His knuckles had been bruised dark, like he’d been fighting someone, and you could catch the occasional glimpse of purple blooming under his wife’s shirt when she’d move too quickly. You’d wanted to kick him out, to shove your shotgun in his face and tell him to go somewhere else, but thoughts of what would happen to his wife kept you from following through with it. You’d let them into your house and they’d made themselves at home in your kitchen.
The same night, there’d been a woman knocking incessantly at your door. Blonde, and sour-faced, with thick streaks of blue eyeshadow across her eyelids. She’d proudly proclaimed that her husband was a FEMA agent (you hadn’t even been told what FEMA was yet), and bragged about her former position as a border patrol agent. Like the Husband, she’d left an uneasy feeling in your gut, but you’d let her in anyway. You supposed it was better to let someone in and test them, than to send a potential human out to their death in the wasteland your neighborhood was becoming.
On the fourth night of your nocturnal quarantine, you’d found out what FEMA really was. A man clad in yellow protective gear had interrogated you and matched your ID to the owner of the house he had listed on his clipboard. He’d let himself into your house and escorted the Bar Guy and the Cashier to the porch. You’d tried to argue for their safety, but they’d been marched off to a FEMA truck before you could even finish loading your shotgun.
The Neighbor’s Daughter had appeared not too long after, tears streaming down her round cheeks and welling up in her big eyes. She was terrified, and for as scared as you were, you knew you had some human duty to protect a child. Her father had called you, after all, when things first went crazy. He’d begged you to keep an eye on her if something happened to him. At the time, it had felt like an overexaggeration. Now, the memory left a sour taste in your mouth. You’d ushered the girl into the house and made her some tea, but she hadn’t taken a sip, just stared at the floor and hiccuped through her sobs.
The Cat Lady’s knocking had interrupted your attempts at comforting the little girl. It was clear from the moment you looked through your peephole that she was a visitor. Her wide, perfect smile, her red, twitching eyes, and her disjointed speech -- all of it matched the signs you’d heard about on the news. You’d let her in, if only because that mysterious bald man who’d predicted she’d come seemed to know more than anyone else.
At least the cat she’d brought with her was a small comfort. It was a fussy, moody thing, but it brought you rare moments of peace when it rubbed its furry head against your leg while you waited in your chair at the door, or meowed for food each time you opened the fridge.
Before FEMA had arrived, you hadn’t felt outnumbered in your own house. The Cashier had been strange sometimes, but she had also been kind, and seemed somewhat harmless, and the Bar Guy had been a friendly face despite his tough talk.
With them gone, the dynamic was shifting quickly. Already, as you waited at the door for more guests, your gun in hand, you could hear whispering from the bathroom. The Sun Guy’s raving was apparently much more moving to the Husband and the Border Patrol Agent. The Husband would nod along as he spoke, like his words were gospel, and you could see the small glares the Border Patrol Agent would shoot at you whenever you passed her in the hall.
As the sun began to rise, and everyone was preparing for bed, you tucked the girl into the makeshift cot you’d set up for her in the kitchen. “When can I go home?” Her voice cracked at the end of her sentence, her tiny fists balled in the blankets.
“Maybe later.” You mumbled, turning off the light. You thought of her house outside your window, empty with dark windows. “It’s being renovated.” You weren’t sure if it was kinder to lie or tell the truth, but the night had been tedious and painful enough already. The painful reality you were both living in now could wait for tomorrow.
The girl smiled and babbled about a new room and seeing her father again and you nodded along, trying your best to look like you believed your own lie. Finally, she fell asleep, curled up on her side, and you left the room. You were just going to tune into the radio and then get some sleep, but a voice in the study caught your attention. You’d expected the others to be asleep, but you could hear the Border Patrol Agent’s shrill voice and she wasn’t the type to talk to herself as much as the others. You crept closer and pressed your ear to the door.
“I know! I… and have you seen… teeth? Perfectly white…” You could only make out a bit of what she was saying, but her words made your blood run cold. You knew she was talking about you. Checking guests for signs had been your responsibility and your privilege as the house’s owner, but it seemed your guests had been paying closer attention than you’d thought. You ran your tongue over your teeth absent-mindedly as you listened.
“Just saying-” That was the Sun Guy’s voice, you were sure of it. He had a recognizable tempo to his words that made everything sound strangely like a pastor. “If something happened to… would we… the house?”
You felt yourself turn pale at the realization that they were planning to kill you. It was true, you begrudgingly realized, that if they killed you, they could take your shelter, your food, your gun. Even if you had your weapon, a four on one fight was far from fair. Would it be so bad? You wondered for a moment. Life was pretty terrible at the moment, and you’d never been particularly attached to your life. Thoughts of what might happen to the girl if you weren’t here to look after her floated to the surface of your mind and you felt your jaw tense. I need to stay alive, at least for her. But how the hell am I going to manage a group of guests as violent and finger-pointing as these ones?
The cat blinked awake from its position on the floor and trotted over to you, rubbing its head against your leg and purring. You reached down to pet it, smoothing its ears back and scratching the soft fur of its neck.
“Tomorrow… I’ll do it.” The Husband had the loudest voice of all of them. You swore under your breath and rose back to your full height, reaching for your gun. I’ll figure out a plan, you told yourself.
You slept with your door locked and your gun on the other side of the bed like a lover.